site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   37132 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I disagree. Egregious violations of public trust should not be glossed over or hidden for political reasons. That's the essence of corruption. A "moment of weakness" is an understatement here.

I am not advocating some bizarre defunding or excoriation of law enforcement as a social institution. I am suggesting that to condone wanton abuse of life-and-death power and reckless escalation is irresponsibly dangerous, immoral, and corrupt. Thus my desire that there is more to the story.

How would you suggest "standing by" the officer(s) here if what we see is an accurate depiction of events? Would any behavior by a police officer cause you to question his/her judgment or censure/punish/fire/prosecute?

I disagree. Egregious violations of public trust should not be glossed over or hidden for political reasons.

No one said this should be done. No one said this should be 'condoned', no one said anything about what you advocate.

By the same token I can accuse you of a similar thing. Hyperbolizing an event like this in an effort to throw a bunch of gasoline on an ACAB fire and then say you back the boys in blue. Which seems counter intuitive to me, but you do you.

You can stand by officers in cases like these by letting due process run its course, or by recognizing these cases as statistical outliers, or by recognizing that policing a third world population with a first world police force simply doesn't work. Not by swirling around in a media fueled frenzy. If your takeaway from any of the previous media fueled ACAB frenzies was that policing got improved or things got better in some way I'm not sure what planet you are coming from.

You and I are talking (typing) at cross-purposes. And for my part I'm not "accusing" you of anything, except possible pointless hostility. Maybe not even that. You're looking at this as a political strategist. I'm simply making a comment in due process and justice (though again, I don't yet know what that should be as I just clicked in and still haven't watched the full video and do not necessarily think my armchair opinion should be the last word anyway. I've made that caveat.). I agree that releasing this footage was shittily political.

You and I are talking (typing) at cross-purposes. And for my part I'm not "accusing" you of anything, except possible pointless hostility.

You wrote: "I disagree. Egregious violations of public trust should not be glossed over or hidden for political reasons." Insinuating I believe or said something to the tune that glossing over violations of public trust is preferable or in some way good. I did not say anything of the sort. I would in fact argue that it's near impossible for the public to determine whether something was a violation or not in a media landscape as toxic as the one we have.

How do you want me to reply to such behavior on your part? You do this again here:

I agree that releasing this footage was shittily political.

I never said anything about releasing the footage or not. Like, what are you doing?

But enough of that. You replied to a comment of mine that was very expressly about the political angle of this. You take a personal stance. My point would be that your personal stance is counterproductive to your stated support of the police. Your personal feelings towards a specific incident are irrelevant. The broader context is shaped by a political media machine that is propping up specific cases at specific times for their own gain.

If you don't realize that political reality I don't know what to tell you. Why bother stating your political stance of generally favoring the police if you don't care enough to stand against a force that very recently dealt some very serious blows to policing in the US off the back of exactly this type of situation?

I'm done. I'm not going to argue.

But that we are spending this amount of time taking about it is a problem. Bad case of the Chinese robber fallacy.

Honestly that’s a bad question. I don’t think the court of public opinion is the place to try these kinds of issues. Most people don’t have the background to even begin to assess whether or not it’s a “good shoot” or not. So allowing the institution to be dragged before the court of public opinion to score political points is not going to do good, and in fact erodes the credibility and legitimacy of that institution. There’s no gain to be made for police to be judged by Monday Quarterbacks who have no understanding of the work involved and can sit around in air conditioned homes and offices playing the videos and debating what the officers who had mere seconds to decide on their actions and carry them out in a situation full of unknowns.

I think review boards are a better bet. They would know what the risks are, what the procedures are, and any other factors influencing the event. They could actually talk to the officers and dispatch and get a much firmer grasp of the entire situation. The best civilians can do is “they shouldn’t have done that” based on movies, tv shows, and political commentary.

Sure, and I didn't say public opinion was the proper forum Certainly the footage being released was a devious political maneuver. Transparently. I'm not suggesting otherwise.

But I think that’s exactly how to defend the institution. The issue isn’t the shooting and the debate about the shooting, the issue is an attempt to discredit the institution by dragging an incident to the public square completely without context and using it to heavily imply that cops make a sport of this kind of thing. I think defending the institution requires making exactly that point. We, as the general public, have no background for understanding this. Even the participants are unknown. This woman might have a long history of attacking people. This might be a neighborhood full of drug users and dealers. There might have been things happening before the recording started.

I gurss guess I'm not being clear. I'm happy to defend the institution. And I've already suggested there's hopefully a story here that we cannot glean from just viewing the bodycam. I'm suggesting that this appears to be a needless killing and if it is, that should be acknowledged unflinchingly.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats