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 -
Good! Progressives are correct to demand precision! Categories should be deconstructed as a sanity check, to make sure they’re actually coherent. I am instinctively a splitter rather than a lumper - I want to understand fine-grained distinctions.
My contention here is that “racist” is an overloaded category. It’s combining too many disparate phenomena, and adding an unjustified layer of pathologization on top. We need to throw the word out entirely. It was never useful or valid as anything other than a tool in the anti-white progressive tool kit.
You have combined at least three disparate phenomena:
Belief that some races are “inherently inferior” to others. This is describing an internal, epistemological phenomenon.
Wanting to effect or enforce separate social/professional/political spheres for different racial groups. This is an active, practical policy decision. It might be motivated by the internal beliefs featured at in Phenomenon #1, but certainly doesn’t have to be. (Do you think the only reason some individuals might establish or join a Jewish Student Union is that they believe non-Jews are inferior to Jews?)
Failing to update one’s assessment of an individual based on receiving new and specific information. I’m imagining a situation like this:
Now, leave aside that there are still perfectly legitimate reasons for me to prefer my daughter to date someone who is culturally similar to our family, has similar customs, isn’t going to introduce in-laws into our family dynamic who have very different cultural norms than ours, etc. I agree with you that failing to update priors when confronted with trustworthy new evidence is indeed an epistemic failure! I don’t know if it’s a moral failure, although certainly I’d have a lot of sympathy for DeShawn in this scenario. (You do everything right, defy every negative stereotype, and still get treated like a nigger?) I just don’t see any necessary connection between this phenomenon and the other two.
I'm a fan of sanity checks as well, but you must have noticed by now that there is no category that you cannot split out of existence, just by asking "why?" enough times.
In general discourse? Without a doubt. I'd like to imagine that I'm not really overloading it - when we went by the examples I gave, I think I was applying the same principle, anyway.
I guess that's going to depend on your moral framework. I'm not really here to change your mind on that.
In case of Jewish people the question is intertwined with it also being a group with a distinct culture and religion. I agree it's awfully convenient for them that they were so insular over so many years, that there's nearly 100% correlation with their ethnic group.
Sounds quite a bit like "defy every negative stereotype, and still get treated like a nigger", or am I missing something?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link