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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Free men are not guaranteed food and shelter.
Worse for who? At cost to whom?
Your personal welfare is immaterial if it's creating people with nothing to lose. And I'm not saying this because I enjoy that this is the case, but because it's the plain truth.
Empires have a natural tendency to do this which is why they're precarious affairs that always seem to create feudal societies in their wake once the source of the advantage that saw them rise dries up.
This is what is happening to our society. You may not live to see the most dramatic of consequences, you may even be able to shelter yourself from much of it, but you are living the consequences all the same.
Really? That is supposed to be benefit over modern citizen?
For start, slaves were not guaranteed food and shelter.
And maybe technically free men are not having such guarantees nowadays, but in practise they have them.
In functional modern societies free men get better food and shelter than slaves in past, even utterly useless ones and criminals. Maybe being slave in some societies was better than being beggar in modern Somalia and Syria but only for some of slave-owning societies.
Minimally competent free men get vastly better food and shelter.
Of all things, social support is not thing that was better for slaves than typical people nowadays. You even initially excluded "that are not commodified material comfort" from supposed benefits.
For anyone not preferring to risk dying from starvation or from raving bandits or being brutally oppressed by local lord.
For whom "post-industrial and back to virility and violence" would be better?
This was broadly understood for thousands of years to be the one advantage of servitude and the one disadvantage of freedom. People with no duties to others are offered no protection.
Free men.
Are you aware about food production nowadays and how it compared to past? And how starvation used to be far more common?
You even claim that benefit of slavery is that you were more likely to eat.
Who you count here? Noble elite class? Rampaging neovikings? Starving peasantry?
Yes I am indeed aware of the industrial revolution.
Anyone who is capable of violence and not beholden to a master usually has a lot to gain in feudal transitions.
Think of Li Zongren and his men, and all his and their peers.
Of course this is also risky, but that's the nature of such times.
whole point of feudal societal setup is that basically everyone has feudal lord above them and they are beholden to someone (and in some cases have people beholden to them)
so I guess you argue that whoever ends being king would benefit? That is likely true, but it is remarkably small group of people, and given that others are going to lose, I have no idea who would prefer such setup
You overestimate the rigidity of allegiances in such a setup because like many you confuse absolutism with feudalism.
It's true that eventually things do concentrate among a defined set of winners as empire sets in again but it can take decades or centuries to materialize.
And it is infinitely better to be a professional soldier in a feudal system than a NCO in an imperial army in terms of prestige, personal power, etc.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link