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 -
I think his Spain example is anarchist Catalonia, which started out commie-controlled and later got beat up by the nationalists. There was rape and pillage of nuns but it doesn’t seem connected to the free love thing.
Well, they got beat up by the other Republicans first. The whole split between "we must deepen the revolution by rooting out and destroying all social norms" vs "hey we need the gun factories to work, you can lynch the manager's family later"
I mean, eventually they revised history to blame the purges on the Soviet handlers targeting trotskyist deviationists or whatever, but before Stalin fell out of Western intellectual favor in the 50s the anarchists were denounced as traitors even by their friends. Which is why Orwell couldn't get Homage published by the UK communist press.
(Was it Hemingway whose anarchist buddies got executed by the Republic, and he wrote some excuse of the "can't help breaking a few eggs" sort?)
None of this should imply any sort of sympathy towards either the anarchists or republicans: it was just two groups of monsters devouring each other. If it hadn't been for the need to fight Franco, the leftist government would have happily kept allowing the anarchists to torture and murder every class enemy of the new regime, from nuns to families.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link