site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

and you don't have to be a genius to see that a small fragile male like that is going to absolutely get his shit ruined if he serves his sentence in a man's prison surrounded by violent, sexually frustrated men.

  1. Why did "small" sneak its way in here? Is this an established thing with people who suffer from GD?
  2. This argument always runs into the "what about the twinks?" question. What about a feminine gay man? They should risk rape unless they get marked as a GD haver?
  3. Why are whatever solutions we use to prevent rape for all men not good enough? And, if not, why shouldn't they be improved for all men instead of letting some men secede?
  4. I don't actually know that we can know that these men "wouldn't hurt a fly". We separate men from women precisely because we can't know or we'd use this screening method to have mixed-but-peaceful prisons. Mental illness doesn't make men harmless, especially to women who are weaker and less aggressive. There's an argument that they could be less violent than the median male inmate and yet still be violent enough to change female prisons negatively for female inmates.

I agree, you're right that policy is based on tradeoffs not ranking holy victims who get all that they want. My argument would be that sex segregated prisons (like sex segregated sports) are that compromise and the new versions don't actually cause significant improvements for the problems they cause.

I don't see how we've even put aside the "absurdities of gender ideology" because at least three of the questions above seem to be responding to a view that depends, in some sense, on gender ideology. I do not see why transwomen should be treated as fundamentally different from other men with issues and women specifically should pay the price of fixing said issues unless gender ideology has some substance and truth to it and they are, in some sense, women. It feels like the ratchet gets turned by people who believe the absurdity and attempts to helpfix their problematic policy still grandfather in their assumptions despite us recognizing the absurdity.

I also just don't think it's politically viable. The very argument - vulnerable men can get raped and women should give up some of the public good of a prison that excludes males - that drives the argument will lead to people suggesting that maybe less men should be raped and standards will drop.

All excellent points which I hadn't fully considered at the time of writing.

The entire question of what to do with trans people in prison feels mostly like minority religious groups trying to help imprisoned co-religionists practice in prison. Kosher food, that kind of thing.

The entire small, vulnerable thing seems strange as a reason to be placed in women's prison. If a segregated unit for wusses is necessary, it can be created. But it isn't the women's prison.

Ironically, kosher food in prison is mostly served to non-Jewish inmates.

Of course you'd then run into the question "if you can create a unit for wusses, thus tacitly admitting there is unsanctioned violence in prison, then a) why is it there? b) why are you isolating only some prisoners?".