site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I agree with Scott that persecuting people won't teach them anything useful. I recommend a leaf from Ozy's book: separate them from their children, raise the kids in your own culture, use violence only when necessary to eliminate expressions of their culture that might contaminate the succeeding generations.

It's a long-term project, but historical precedent says it can be effective if you're organized and consistent about it.

Is Ozy really that bad? Can you link me to the blog post?

In many ways it's worse: the meaning of that document rather changes connotations when you find out Ozy's significant other 'contributed' a bunch of e-mails with Scott just after the NYTimes article, all of which Scott had asked him to keep in confidence, and one of Ozy's first examples of compassionate, integrated feminism argued that all that open-minded tolerance from Excluded only applied to "perspectives/experiences of marginalized groups", ie her side specifically to bash Scott.

Maybe Ozy has all the strength of principles about not prosecuting people, but without the ability to present anyone who won't on their side, it's little more than standing on laurels and calling on an army to do the dirty work.

I don’t exactly remember the timeline, but was this after their relationship ended? Can we separate this cleanly from Ozy’s partner simply being a jerk to a flame’s ex-boyfriend?

Come to think of it, this is a good reason to avoid polyamory. Limit your exposure. Works for the clap, too.

They've not made the timeline too clear, but yeah. You could even use the same excuse for Frantz themself.

But I think that's an exception that swallows the rule. A lot of cancel culture involves people with petty disagreements getting blown out into public spaces; dismissing a cancellation because it's driven by a flame's drama turns quickly into throwing out major cases.

I wasn't excusing it or disagreeing with you. In fact my point was to emphasize how petty and personal these incidents end up being, and how little they often have to do with the serious issues theoretically presented rather than interpersonal drama.

It's very old drama, and one of the several things that moved me from "grew up in fandom and thinks freedom of expression is very important" to "many progressives successfully dedicated themselves to changing my mind."

I'll have to go look for the link.

Edit: here it is.

I do not understand what you wrote.

"one of the several things that moved me from "grew up in fandom and thinks freedom of expression is very important" to "many progressives successfully dedicated themselves to changing my mind.""

This is confusingly written to me

I think what Tinted meant is that, like me and others, they grew up with online fandom (think forums and early social media), steeped in the tits-n'-beer-liberalism milieu, and then watched with horror as GamerGate transpired and revealed just how many people operated on Conflict Theory.

More books, less online. Some anime fandom around the edges. And I was never much of a gamer, unless you count Myst. But none of that mattered. You have the principle.

It's one of the foundational texts of the culture-war canon, in my view.

Back when this was written, Ozy was well-known as a reasonable, thoughtful pro-SJ blogger, someone who could put some real weight behind "okay, maybe some of these people are crazy, but there's a point here worth considering". I don't read it as proof that they're an especially terrible person. All they do in that essay is play out the necessary implications of liberal Progressivism. The values conflict is in fact real, and there is not in fact anything that can really stop it within a population.

I don't think that Ozy is making a good point in this essay. I don't think that "progressives" and "conservatives" are moral mutants to each other. Mostly my counter-argument would follow similar lines to Scott's essay:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/18/fundamental-value-differences-are-not-that-fundamental/

Also I think that "progressive" and "conservative" are silly, mostly illusory categories. It's more complicated than that, but I do basically think it's a mistake to treat them like elves and dwarves or whatever.

I'd say that we're witnessing in real time how effective this strategy can be if those before/after college videos are any indication.

got a link? I have no idea which videos you're referring to.

https://tiktok.com/@truth24hr/video/7215886406835572010

This is just an example, and there's absolutely no indication that these captions are real. Also, the poster is obviously a warrior, so make of it what you will.