site banner
PaperclipPerfector  24d ago (text post)   29189 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm also stuck in this world, where politicians taking media from military cemeteries for political ads has both long been tolerated

The link you provide shows an image from a video, and when you watch the video it has in a tiny font a disclaimer that the use of DoD images does not inply any endorsement.

From what I understand, Bthe law prohibits use of private photogs for campaign activities on the cemetary grounds.

So it seems that there is a minute, and trivial difference.

I wonder why Trump didn't just use the DoD footage from all the times he visited Arlington as president?

EDIT: if you'd like a more recent and undisclaimered example, this was from 2021.

From what I understand, the law prohibits use of private photogs for campaign activities on the cemetary grounds.

Which would be fascinating, given the official Army response was not that the photographers were specifically the problem, but that regulations "clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds". And no one at the Army is pointing to the specific rule either way directly.

Some other groups have pointed to CFR 32-553.32, but that doesn't care at all about photographers, and depends on a ludicrously vague definition of 'partisan political activity' (here, largely devolving into "but Trump"), and the regulation allows nothing more than the ANC's Executive Director to ban someone, which can't be delegated. Worse, the Trump campaign claims to have gotten explicit permission from Arlington beforehand, albeit. The closest I can find for an actual statutory, rather than regulatory, prohibition is one on demonstrations separate from ceremonies, which doesn't apply here. Others point to the Hatch Act, but that applies more to use of video and imagery taken during a political career -- the Hatch Act excludes the President and VP, but doesn't allow everyone working under their orders a Get Out of Hatch Jail Free Card.

((Uh, overlooking the bit where the Hatch Act is also basically unenforced.))

I wonder why Trump didn't just use the DoD footage from all the times he visited Arlington as president?

No small part of the point of this particular circus is to highlight the Abbey Gate families, and implicitly that the Biden-Harris administration has generally not met with or supported them. Since Abbey Gate happened in August 2021, that would be after Trump left the Presidency.

“No using cemetery grounds for political campaign purposes” doesn’t seem like “a ludicrously vague definition of 'partisan political activity'” to me.

Also, are there prior instances of political campaigning in that same spot that were ignored? If not, is it not reasonable for Arlington cemetery staff to enforce cemetery-specific norms and rules regardless of what laws have been explicitly passed?

The 2021 example linked above was specifically Biden in the same section of Arlington. And I can give more.

Ah I missed that edit. Thanks, that is exactly what I was looking for.

Although I don’t see how your latest link in this comment is an example of Democrat hypocrisy.

But the letters of the law and regulations don't matter. They can always fall back to "norms", and if you point to Democrats doing the same thing, they can always find or fabricate a distinguisher. What matters is control of the press, which the Democrats have, so this is spun as "Trump campaign violates rules by using Arlington National Cemetery for a photo-op and brutalizes totally innocent non-partisan employee who tries to stop them". And that's the pravda.

I am not able to find the source I saw last night saying that the private photog was an issue in the law, but for what it's worth Trump's campaign made it a point that their photog was allowed in.

"The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony," Cheung said in the statement.

I doubt very much this issue actually gathers any steam. But if it'd did, I'm guessing a lot of the juice would be around the permission Trump's campaign has claimed to have gotten.

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