site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   29432 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 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.

we can be reasonably confident that the modern 2nd amendment movement centred around a politically-active NRA loosely aligned with movement conservatism was founded by people who thought that gun culture was good because it enabled Jim Crow, not in spite of it.

The NRA was created by Union officials who thought pro-Union forces needed better training. You are describing a Michael Moore-style history which is the opposite of actual history.

The NRA went from being a primarily-sporting group of the type you mention to being a primarily-political one as a result of the Cincinnati revolt. This isn't Michael Moore history - "The NRA leadership was useless until a grassroots takeover put real 2nd amendment supporters into place" is the story gun rights activists tell themselves. The NRA was not a white supremacist organisation either before or after the change, but the new leadership was dominated by Southern conservatives, and the vast majority of Southern conservatives in the 1970's were white supremacists by modern standards. "Jim Crow is protected by states' rights under the Constitution", "Civil Rights law is an unconstitutional expansion of federal power", and "Reconstruction was an abuse of power by carpetbaggers and scallywags" were all standard Southern conservative positions at the time, and "Jim Crow is good actually" was still within the Overton window.

The NRA went from being a primarily-sporting group of the type you mention to being a primarily-political one as a result of the Cincinnati revolt.

Yes. And the 1977 Cincinnati revolt was a result of the Gun Control Act of 1968. Which itself was AFTER the end of Jim Crow.

I presume that if you had evidence that the actual leaders of the NRA following said revolt were supporters of Jim Crow, you'd have posted it.

I presume that if you had evidence that the actual leaders of the NRA following said revolt were supporters of Jim Crow, you'd have posted it.

The fact that they were Southern conservatives is Bayesian evidence that were supporters of Jim Crow, given that the vast majority of Southern conservatives born before the civil rights era were supporters of Jim Crow. The racist murder that Harlon Carter was convicted of was of a Hispanic, so it is definitely possible that he wasn't shockingly racist against blacks, just unlikely.

In any case the claim I was trying to make was the slightly weaker claim that the leaders of the Cincinnati revolt were people who accepted the moral assumptions of the Dunning School of history (which would have been taught as uncontroversial fact in the high schools and colleges they attended) and would therefore have seen the 1st Klan as an example of righteous-but-doomed resistance to tyranny and the Redemption-era white militias as a good example of successful resistance. The set of people who thought that the 1st Klan were the goodies in Birth of a Nation (which was not small - the movie enjoyed mainstream success) is much larger than the set of people who were actively working to bring back Jim Crow in 1977. The Sons of Confederate Veterans gave Nathan Bedford Forrest a posthumous honour in 1977, so "the 1st Klan were the goodies" was still comfortably within the Overton window at the time.

I am happy to admit that I have no evidence whatsoever that Neal Knox was a segregationist apart from the fact that it was normal for white Texans who attended segregated Christian colleges in the 1950's to be segregationists.

  • -10

The fact that they were Southern conservatives is Bayesian evidence that were supporters of Jim Crow, given that the vast majority of Southern conservatives born before the civil rights era were supporters of Jim Crow.

OK, so you don't actually have evidence that the particular people involved supported Jim Crow. You just want to use the word "Bayesian" to justify your stereotyping. Your intimation that Carter and Knox were supporters of the Klan (any Klan) is, I presume, similarly supported, and comes down to "they were Texans".

The racist murder that Harlon Carter was convicted of was of a Hispanic, so it is definitely possible that he wasn't shockingly racist against blacks, just unlikely.

He wasn't convicted of having racist motivations in the killing, and his conviction was overturned on the grounds that the jury was not adequately instructed on the law of self-defense.

And the NRAs turn to politics began with the Gun Control Act of 1968 (which the NRA did not object to, resulting ultimately in the replacement of NRA leadership). Rather later than the abolition of Jim Crow. Earlier gun control laws were often intended to disarm blacks.

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