site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29898 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Margaret Atwood and The Handmaid's Tale was not "unknown" to Western women until the TV series. It's been a very well known book since it was first published.

Well, I'm not a Westerner, so I'm not really qualified to comment on that. The OP claims "it's a popular book in hardcore womens' studies programs, but not too well-known elsewhere". The "hardcore" part is maybe unwarranted if I want to be completely fair, but otherwise I find the assessment correct. Maybe I should make the nuanced argument that it was relatively well-known among suburban middle-class Blue Tribe women / wine moms / soccer moms and generally women that are exposed to feminist doctrine.

that line about how women "don’t give a flying fuck about books or literary concepts unless they see them on a screen" is doubly true of men. Seriously, it is a statistical fact that women read and buy more books than men. (Yes, the majority of books bought are romances, but even in other genres, except perhaps SF and non-fiction, women are bigger readers than men.)

Well, I guess you're right, but that probably has a lot to do with recent cultural trends of SF, YA, fan fiction and similar literary genres being increasingly captured by feminists.

It's weird seeing this poster take the old radfem line that all sex in a patriarchy is rape and women only pretend to love their men, and switch it around to say this is essentially true but it's because all women lust to be owned by an alpha.

I'd say he argues that it's essentially true because feminist doctrine has become wholly normalized among Blue Tribe middle-class suburban women.

No, The Handmaid's Tale used to be famous mostly for being a work of dystopian fiction. Its feminist themes were quite obvious, but it wasn't just wine moms and women's studies majors reading it. I know a lot of other SF fans who did, for example.

Margaret Atwood has been a big literary name for years. She's written a lot of other well known books (and used to be known for writing sci-fi dystopias while sort of disdainfully avoiding the "science fiction" label).

I don't think you accurately capture the argument about why incels and manosphere activists believe the same thing radical feminists do (essentially, that the sexes hate each other and we can't really be happy with each other without reordering society in some way - both sides essentially arguing "the opposite sex must be put under our boot").

Fair points, although I wonder just how large the overlap is between "women who read SF" and "current/future feminists".

Most women who read SF are probably feminists, but I don't think most feminists are SF fans. Indeed, SF used to be more of a male genre (and much of the culture war in SF fandom is over women "taking over" science fiction and shifting it more towards YA-ish fantasy/romances).

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