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 -
Short list of some modern ones: Noah berlatsky, Sophie Lewis, jacob breslow, Katie Cruz, Allyn Walker, Randy Wicker, etc.
I've ragged on the pedophiles there more than the family abolitionists, but mostly because there's so many of the latter in academia that it's impossible to keep track: it's basically the default position now. Didn't include obvious examples like Vaush and "Ana Valens" because that would of course be called nutpucking or whatever.
Also despite their irl relevance in destroying communities, I didn't include any of the revcom Antifa lumpenprole "spiteful mutant" demographic, because most don't have any coherent policy statements.
The general theme is "after the revolution we can destroy the last of existing society and rebuild it to satisfy our fetishes." They make up a big chunk of the low level propagandists in communist revolutions for the usual party loyalty reasons, but inevitably get purged once the state has to deal with the consequences (in the Soviet case, an unmanageable number of orphans from post-war free-love couplings)
The west is in an usual situation where these types get to run a permanent social revolution because the real one never happens, and the damage they do is (currently) being absorbed by the surplus produced by capitalism.
For example, you are all paying every gay men tens of thousands of dollars a year to take AIDs prevention drugs, and that's why your "health insurance" is so high. Whereas Cuba's public health system doesn't do that because there is no surplus.
Thanks for this explanation.
Incidentally, have you actually been modded on reddit for accusing pedophiles from a century ago? Or I suppose modern youtubers on the infamous recent tack of "I thought they were very short sexy goblins".
So leftist pedo history doesn't repeat but it often rhymes?
The usual pattern is "that's a crazy conspiracy theory, all good leftists want to throw pedos into a woodchipper!", and then they get very angry when you show them evidence that the official John Hopkins position is now "destigmatize and accept this oppressed queer sexuality"
Bit too early for them to do "that's not happening and it's good that it is," so the programming defaults to the basic abuse routine. Same reaction as you used to get posting proof they genital surgery on kids was happening when the official position hadn't updated to "it's rare and also why do you care"
It's how you know you've hit a nerve of the blob.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Hm, I think you point at something correct, but I'd like to precisify it a bit more? It seems to me that there are at least three rough factions in this general area, which I'm going to name the Free Lovers, the Paedophiles, and the Family Abolitionists. There's overlap between all three camps, to a degree that should probably concern every non-paedophile here, but it makes sense to distinguish between them, to me.
The Free Lovers are straightforward enough - more sex, fewer rules, inhibition and repression are the enemies, marriage and monogamy are at best not for everyone and at worst inherently oppressive, patriarchal institutions. I don't think they're as large a force today as they were historically, but we can see their descendants around parts of the LGBT movement. Any time people start talking about sexual freedom or relational authenticity, they're likely drawing from this well. The core idea is that one's innate sexual desires are good and should be liberated, and ideologies that impose limits or controls on one's sexual behaviour are inherently oppressive. Normally the Free Lovers still accept some minimal limits around consent or harm, but when they don't, you get...
The Paedophiles, whose primary goal is, well, something I'm a little too delicate to discuss openly. Uncharitably they're just people with twisted fetishes who want to use children for their own satisfaction. Charitably, they have a high view of the agency and responsibility of children and think that children can meaningfully make sexual choices, and frequently other choices as well. For the most part this group are pariahs today, but again they had more influence historically (cf. that French petition in the 70s), and I think you can sometimes see some of their ideas transposed into non-sexual realms - think of e.g. David Runciman advocating lowering the voting age to six years old. (Disclaimer: I have no reason to think that Runciman himself has any inclination towards paedophilia or child abuse. He is merely an example of a 'serious' thinker with a high view of children's agency and moral responsibility.)
The Family Abolitionists believe that the family is an inherently damaging, controlling institution and want to abolish it in favour of some sort of shared or communal approach to child-rearing. The overlap with the Free Lovers' criticism of marriage is clear enough, as is a strategic alliance with the Paedophiles, for whom removing children for parents' protection, or sharing access to children, is desirable. Sophie Lewis is a good example. I don't think I'd agree that this is anything like 'the default position' now, but it's trendy and it sounds progressive, so nobody argues against it, but it's so obviously revolting or enraging to normal people that it has zero chance of happening outside the odd hippie commune. It's ideally placed to be an intellectual fad - it sounds radical, embracing it shows how edgy you are, but it will never happen and thus you will never be on the hook for anything.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link