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.

My understanding is that DHT is critical for the development of many traits that are strongly associated with men, including baldness, body hair, and penis and testicles. If you want to claim that having a penis and functioning testicles are not essential parts of maleness you may certainly try, but I would find it very unconvincing. There is a reason we call it a "manhood"!

5αR2D is an intersex condition. People with it have some parts of maleness but not others. They do have functioning (though often not sperm-producing) testes, which produce the testosterone which (partially) masculinizes them.

Note that people with CAIS also have functional (but not sperm-producing) testes. But in their case, the testosterone does not masculinize them. Neither chromosomes nor testosterone tell you everything.

Male pattern baldness, BTW, isn't at all essential.

If this theory is true, there is a penis and there are testicles, the testicles are certainly functional in producing testosterone, they might even produce sperm.

I'm not really sure your point here?

Khelif isn't as manly as most men, but still manlier than plenty of men I've met.

I don't get what you're not getting. There's a pretty good case for not letting Khelif compete, since she has highly elevated testosterone levels, leaving aside this stupidity about how "manly" she is or whether "I have a penis, you just can't see it" is actually a convincing argument.

The argument is that Khelif is a male with a DSD; XY chromosome and male testosterone levels. Due to the DSD, he was raised as a girl, but this should not imply he ought to compete in competitions reserved for women.

The presence or lack of an external male sex organ is relevant to his DSD but not his competitive classification.

That's the argument you should engage with.