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 -
It seems like most of the posters here couldn't imagine themselves being into astrology or anything adjacent. I on the other hand went through a brief period in college where I was obsessed with MBTI, so I have a bit of an insider's perspective. But it's admittedly very difficult to articulate why I find MBTI (and perhaps even astrology, to some extent) appealing. I simply know that I do.
It's easy to think of a lot of explanations that have negative connotations. It provides (illusory) order in a fundamentally chaotic world, it appeals to self-centered people with the promise of unveiling hidden truths about oneself, it's a form of Sartrean bad faith that keeps us from having to confront the yawning abyss of our freedom. But I don't feel like any of these explanations actually strike at the core of what's going on. I don't think an affinity for astrology/MBTI/whatever is a bad thing - merely a different style of cognition, one might say. The most positive gloss I think I can put on it is that it's correlated with being the type of person who structures their experience in terms of narratives. You have a story that has a place for not only yourself, but other people as well. You evaluate things in terms of their narrative weight; you see people as more than arbitrary collections of traits and properties. People don't have a birth date and a death date - they have an origin and a telos. This sort of cognitive profile doesn't necessarily have to lead one to being interested in astrology specifically, of course. But I think that's the personality type (heh) we're dealing with.
And this sort of narratological personality is certainly not exclusive to women. Carl Jung, of course - his work was the inspiration for MBTI for a reason (even though the actual content of MBTI bears little resemblance to anything he wrote). Nietzsche's work too is replete with this kind of typological thinking.
In Japan people might be vaguely interested if you mention star signs, but they'll really bite if you start talking about blood type.
Reminds me of a funny personal story:
When I was prepping for a factory visit in Japan, my Japanese colleague who was doing the paperwork asked for everyone's blood type. I was surprised that BigName Corp were so superstitious, and said so.
She gave me a look and said, "They need to know what blood to give you if you have an industrial accident."
One can over-egg the cultural differences.
More options
Context Copy link
I've brought up the blood type thing several times in the last couple of years. Everyone, without fail, scoffs at how ridiculous it is (as well they should), including self-identified true believers in astrology who take it extremely seriously and buy all the books and read the charts and so on.
I mean, obviously the idea that your personality is determined by your blood type is preposterous, but it's not obviously more preposterous than the idea that it's determined by the time of day at which you were born (not even conceived).
The blood type stuff doesn’t actually strike me as absurd at all. Blood type is hereditary, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if blood type had some sort of non-zero correlation with personality. Now, I’m aware that no correlation has been established with any rigor. I’m just saying it’s not at all absurd to believe that there would be such a correlation, given that there’s at least a material/genetic factor that could be identified as causative.
Surely this would imply that about half the population of the earth had essentially the same personality.
Only if it were the sole determiner of personality, which I don't think is what @Hoffmeister25 is suggesting.
More options
Context Copy link
No; just a shared tendency toward certain traits, however minor in the face of other factors.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link