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 -
Much worse. He is constantly allowing Harris to set him up for typical leftist or moderate establishment framings of things like foreign policy and racism and he has little ability to get out of those traps other than by raising his voice, thus looking defensive, and repeating the same talking points about how the Democrats are destroying the country and so on - which I happen to agree with to some extent, but I don't think repeating it and rambling about it plays well to the electorate. He failed to figure out some kind of judo or direct assault to get out of some very typical leftist traps, such as accusations of racism, in a way that would make him look good. He has allowed Kamala to look like the calmer one of the two. He brought up abortion for absolutely no reason before Kamala even did. He is shitting the bed so hard that even a bunch of people on /r/conservative are criticizing his performance. Which is unfortunate for me because, while I hate both sides, on the whole I would prefer Trump to win because I live in a Democrat-run city and I can see close-up the consequences of Democrat policies.
To be fair, the deck is stacked against him if for no other reason than that leftist attitudes are more prevalent in the public mind than right-wing ones, and the moderator might be a bit unfair. But he did not do a good job of preparing for this debate.
That's a ridiculous standard though. In that setting, those are superweapons. There is no judo counter and no defense, the only thing you can do is absorb the hit and press forward.
Well to be honest, I can't think of any great ones off the top of my head. But surely there must be some out there, and Trump has people funded by millions of dollars working to help him with these things. At the very least, maybe he could point out that Kamala was picked for Vice President for racist reasons. On the other hand, to explain to normies why that is a bad thing would probably take some calmness and sustained intellectual ability at explanation that Trump might simply not be capable of.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link