site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   16297 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

This serves as evidence that if the Haitians do eat an occasional pet, it’s pretty uncommon.

This sounds like the slow pace from "this doesn't happen" to "it doesn't matter of it does" on the glorious way to "it's a good thing that it does". If it really doesn't matter because it's so rare, people could stop freaking out over Trump/Vance dropping these claims. Would it kill progressives to say "Bro, they literally got off the plane after dodging cannibal gangs. Give them some time to adapt"? Oh yeah, we can't acknowledge any friction coming from immigration, because one day people might start asking if the trade-off is worth it.

If it really doesn't matter because it's so rare, people could stop freaking out over Trump/Vance dropping these claims.

This makes zero sense. If it doesn't matter, then I don't want Trump dropping claims like it matters. He'd be misrepresenting truth. Lying, as the saying goes.

This makes zero sense.

Same to you, bro. If you lie about something that doesn't matter to me, it's not going to matter to me. I can't wrap my head around getting worked up about it.

Do you really not care about the impact of mass media lies on the society around you, or are you unaware of it?

I think it's more that I tend to care about the things they lie about.

When you say it doesn't matter, do you mean:

  • the few cases of animal eating are blown out of proportion
  • even if Trump blows this out of proportion it won't lead to consequences
  • you don't care about the consequences to the migrants and adjacent people?

The first one. And my issue here is that instead of saying that, we started off from "it doesn't happen". Likewise, if progressives wanted to say any of the latter two, they should literally say that, instead of pivoting to them, after their initial claim becomes less defensible.

There are very few things that don't happen at all. "Even if you could find a few singular cases, there is no significance to them" colloquially means "it doesn't happen" in my book.

This was in response to Vance and Trump going on about "they're eating cats" like it's a daily ubiquitous occurence. I'm fine with the reply being "no, it doesn't happen". Not in Present Simple.

It's not about it being a daily ubiquitous occurence. It's that something extremely rare and shocking goes from "never seen it before in my entire life" to "not unheard of in my part of town", even when it's practiced by an overwhelming minority of people. It was the same problem Europe had with Syrian refugees, and the following wave of terrorist attacks and sexual assaults. It was a very small minority doing them, but it was still a social problem.

More comments

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats