site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 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.

9
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

This is, in my mind, one of the great unsung tragedies of the rise of the trans movement.

'Real women' being hurt by the trans movement is not an unsung tragedy. It's the fife and drums of transphobia everywhere. Especially when it's coming from women.

Sports in general and the Olympics in particular have always had a large gray area when it comes to innate physical differences between competitors. Doesn't matter if its male/female or, thick or thin, tall or short. Instead of going into these differences in more detail the Olympics decide to live in muddy waters, which allows for incidents such as these.

In a broader context I find it hard to sympathize with anyone even remotely attaching themselves to this nonsense. People want things to 'stay the same' and not change whilst society around them is in the process of ditching whatever quaint conservatism they still hold on to. Whatever purity or sanctity is imagined to live within the Olympics is long gone or in the process of being removed. I mean, who knew the Swedes had such a knack for the long jump?

To an extent I agree with you. If seeing women getting hurt activates some almonds and folks want the display to stop, that's fine. But to pretend this is about sports or the sanctity of categories or whatever is just inane at this point.

I’d be fine with the idea of pure sports if these world class competitions were honest. But these are not honest contests in any measure. Drugs are fairly common, countries that basically pay living expenses (but not directly paying athletes) are common, and now that trans is becoming a thing we have potentially fake female athletes competing with natal women. I’ve yet to see anyone care that much. The sponsors get lots of money, the committee gets paid, various governments get to rally their people around their flag and patriotic pride. I just wish it we’re honest that these are basically professional sports. You can still do everything else and keep your pride. I’m not even against the stuff we consider cheating if we’re honest that this isn’t pure sports. Of course I feel the same way about D1 NCAA. Everybody knows that the NCAA D1 major sports are de facto professional minor leagues for those sports and were for the most part okay with Jermaine the running back getting a degree in football and free foood, housing and cars for a few years.

I just wish it we’re honest that these are basically professional sports.

I don't get it. Did someone tell you otherwise? The Olympics has been professionalized for something like fifty years.

Sports in general and the Olympics in particular have always had a large gray area when it comes to innate physical differences between competitors.

Fun fact: that argument works just as well for having trans people compete with men as it does for having them compete with women.

People want things to 'stay the same' and not change whilst society around them is in the process of ditching whatever quaint conservatism they still hold on to. Whatever purity or sanctity is imagined to live within the Olympics is long gone or in the process of being removed.

One thing missing here is an actual argument for doing things your way. Changing things for the sake of change doesn't strike me as particularly reasonable.

I mean, who knew the Swedes had such a knack for the long jump?

Not sure who you think you're owning with this one.

You're being antagonistic and argumentative to the point that you don't even understand what is being written. My guess is you saw the word 'transphobia' and your head went spinning.

One thing missing here is an actual argument for doing things your way.

What is "my way"? I don't particularly like the changes to western society, but I can observe that they have been and are happening. I can therefor also recognize that pretending that some 'sacred' bubble called 'the Olympics' can exist unaffected is dumb. Especially when most of the people who want the bubble to remain also cheer for the change in society.

Not sure who you think you're owning with this one.

The people who cooked shit in a pot and now don't want to eat it.

  • -11

You've been doing this thing for a while where you try to cloak your contempt and disgust for Current Thing and other users with a sort of dry observational tone that requires one to be familiar with you and read between the lines. You've mostly been getting away with this because Not Speaking Clearly is against the rules but often slides because it's somewhat subjective. But being directly antagonistic and insulting to other posters is much less ambiguous.

Your record is terrible and your most recent ban was not very long ago. You are banned for two weeks, and given that multiple moderators are leaving notes like "Escalate if he keeps this up," you are looking at a permaban in your future if you can't control yourself.

The people who cooked shit in a pot and now don't want to eat it.

This is still too edgy and cool for me to understand. Why not just write in a clear way?

I can simplify it. The Olympics and some sort of spirit of them have already been violated by globalism and modern immigration.

Every country wins, largely, by importing the ethnicity that is best at a certain sport, slapping a nationality flag on their ass, and calling it a day. Running isn't a competition between those with extensive national heritage; it's just Kenyans all the way down.

So if we've already eliminated the spirit of national competition, why not gender?

Even with a cursory watch of the Olympics, this seems ridiculous on its face. Most athletes still look very much like natives.

Picking a random Euro country, here are France's current gold medalists:

Their best performer, Leon Marchand, is as French as you can get.

How on earth is this the point at which you give up on a 100+ years institution that glorifies all of individual excellence, team work, and national pride.

I think a lot of the wehraboos are still salty about '36.

None of the track-and-field events - sprinting, marathon, long jump, etc. - have given out medals yet. Neither has basketball. Those are the sports that people are talking about when they point to the Summer Olympics specifically having lost a lot of its national specificity; that’s where you’re going to see a lot of people of obviously African ancestry competing under various non-African national flags.

Your point is valuable, though. Those of us on the racialist right often overstate the pervasiveness of the phenomenon we’re pointing to. There are, in fact, still a great many successful Olympians with deep ethnic roots in the respective countries they’re representing. We’re nowhere near the point where you turn on the Olympics and everyone is African, which is the impression one would get if one only follows Olympic commentary on right-wing Twitter.

Hear hear!