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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Interesting guy, I respect a man who goes full auth just because. In general I’ve always disliked freedom of speech. At best it’s a useful tool for dissidents and political opposition to the current prevailing ideology, given I dislike much of that ideology. But that’s not really a principle, that’s merely strategic. If my ideology was in power, I would have no qualms with suppressing the free speech of my political opponents. If the right finally did score a major victory in a large western country (I count not merely winning an election but deep root-and-branch institutional reform) it would likely be necessary to suppress leftist speech to avoid returning to the same desperate original predicament.
At best it's a useful tool for dissidents? Come on, this is an extremely weak take.
The best version of free speech is that the best ideas, and people, can float to the top. Even if you believe in the orthodoxy, if the reigning elite are smart and not tyrants they can use free speech to suss out their own weaknesses, and address them proactively.
Free speech allows for information to flow from the bottom to the top of a hierarchy in a quick and healthy way, letting society pivot and be nimble.
On top of this, it lets people in a society feel they are being heard, and have something to do besides just be ruled over with an iron fist. This means they're more productive, more fulfilled, and can help with social cohesion if people are able to coordinate over the identity of being a citizen.
I'm now curious about what @coffee_enjoyer would say about this as well?
The best case for freedom of speech is that “ideas / types of social organizations float to the top”, but the worst case is that large swathes of the population get manipulated by bad values and lifestyles. We need some way to ensure that only the class of people for whom freedom of speech is genuinely useful are able to practice it. Some ways to do this: (1) restrict freedom of speech to men between the ages of 23-35 who have passed a feasible course on logic, psychology, and sociology either in a written or verbal test; (2) a social practice of electing benevolent censors who filter information for the rest of population, who have passed a more arduous course and are also selected by personality and honesty; (3) require new ideas to be judged in a dispassionate way first, written and read like a PhD thesis; (4) never throw out ideas deemed bad, but sort them and archive them away, so that they can be accessed by reasonable people but not unreasonable people.
If you have a social organization (whether political or communal) which manages to elect “censors” who are genuinely honest, intelligent, and wise, who are humble enough to elect people even greater than themselves, then you have an eternal upwards spiral of prosociality. That can be applied to people, ideas, media, everything. It is the number one most important social technology and is a requirement for human advancement.
So, as examples
(1) astrology would never enter the minds of young people, because they would never read it and be mislead by it — it has literally mislead millions of people who waste time on it, and millions more for centuries in the past.
(2) no song about drugs would ever enter ears of the youth.
(3) loot boxes and gambling would be banned forever.
(4) non-prosocial video games would be relegated to the infirm.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I support free speech not because all speech is good (much of it is bad or even harmful), but because there is no ubermensch that I trust to decide which ideas I'm allowed to hear.
It's worse than oligarchy, isn't it? "You're not smart enough to vote" is both more honest and less insulting than "your vote is super important, let me just make sure you don't do it wrong..."
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Why? What threat would they conceivably pose?
It literally worked once, clearly the meme is persuasive, why wouldn’t it work again?
Are you referring to the October Revolution?
I’m talking about the entire history of enlightenment liberal ideas spreading throughout the educated classes.
So you think the reason that happened was due to freedom of speech in itself? I find that a rather simplistic view.
Say rather that free speech is a necessary precondition. The hippies and revolutionaries of the 60s, and before them the socialists and the communists of the 20s, demanded free speech to spread their memes. Then, being less foolish than the conservatives they supplanted, they started shutting it down to prevent right wingers from formenting discontent in the same way.
Necessary but not sufficient. Multiple other social and cultural conditions are necessary as well. Also, my impression is that such leftist attempts at suppression stem from their enemies' observed ability to rally large masses of average people on their side. It's not generally something they're capable of themselves, so attempting to constrain them when the shoe is on the other foot seems unnecessary.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link