site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 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.

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement is responsible for awarding grant money to NGOs that resettle refugees in cities around the country.

acf.hhs.gov/orr

I looked up a random state using that link. It shows some NGO called IRC - International Rescue Committee. So I asked them to tell me who they are:

https://www.rescue.org/who-we-are

Says one “David Miliband” is their president. Who is that? What is his background? So I asked Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Miliband

Early life and family

Born in London, Miliband is the elder son of immigrant parents, Belgian-born Marxist sociologist Ralph Miliband and Polish-born Marion Kozak, both from Polish Jewish families.[1][7][8] The latter was a teacher before she became a homemaker. He was given the middle name of "Wright" after the American sociologist C. Wright Mills, a friend of his father.[9] He has said "I am the child of Jewish immigrants and that is a very important part of my identity."[7] Both his Polish Jewish paternal grandparents lived in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw. His paternal grandfather, Samuel, a trained leather worker, served in the Red Army in the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921 before moving to Belgium.

Oh.

Surely the more important point about David Miliband is that he was supposed to be the Leader of the Opposition in the UK after Labour lost the 2010 general election, but lost the leadership election to his more left-wing brother Ed and left for American in a huff.

The most important thing about International Rescue is that it is a secretive organisation based on Tracey Island which built a number of Elon-Musk-esque flying machines. The original agent on terra firma was Lady Penelope, but in this day and age a politician is needed rather than an aristocrat.