site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Perhaps my literacy level is not as high as yours, so you will need to help me as exactly where you see a desire to "maximize the amount of discomfort and pain" or "harm your mind", or a claim that "buildings must literally impose psychic harm and pain on the people who view and use the building".

How do you understand the words "harmony" and "disharmony"?

Also, when he says "And I’m not convinced that that is something I should have to live with all my life, just because the majority of people feel comfortable with it." how does that not straightforwardly say he wants to make people uncomfortable?

I primarily understand harmony and disharmony in terms of cleaving to notions of geometric proportionality, e.g. as formalised by Palladio. You could probably extend that to congruity in style and materials, both internally and in context. Personally, I can see deviations from this as well-executed or ill-considered, but it'd be an exceptional case I'd consider to be psychically harmful.

In the second case, he's saying he wouldn't like it if the entirety of his aesthetic experience was like Mantovani, who he regards as popular, but a bit vapid, saccharine, and unchallenging. I'd agree that some buildings, such as his Berlin memorial, succeed by being more challenging and this is appropriate for it's purpose. Conversely, most people wouldn't style their own house en brut, but it still appeals to some people.

But here you're softening the original statement to make it sound plausible. If he really wanted to "maximize the amount of discomfort and pain" his buildings have an unambitious amount of rusty syringes and razored door handles.

I primarily understand harmony and disharmony in terms of cleaving to notions of geometric proportionality, e.g. as formalised by Palladio. You could probably extend that to congruity in style and materials, both internally and in context. Personally, I can see deviations from this as well-executed or ill-considered, but it'd be an exceptional case I'd consider to be psychically harmful.

I feel like something is being left out by such a technical definition. You can define harmony in music in terms of mathematics too, but I don't think it's wise to completely leave out of the defintion, the effect being constantly bombarded by disharmonious chords would have on a person. And I'm pretty sure Eismann is aware of that, given all the talk of "comfort".

In the second case, he's saying he wouldn't like it if the entirety of his aesthetic experience was like Mantovani, who he regards as popular, but a bit vapid, saccharine, and unchallenging.

What is supposed to be the difference between "challenging" and "deliberately causing discomfort" in your opinion.

But here you're softening the original statement to make it sound plausible.

No, you're doing the opposite. For example OP was explicitly talking about "psychic" discomfort and pain, and you deliberately left that out to make him look ridiculous.

Also, an architect will be limited by building safety codes, and the threat of having his license taken away and/or going to prison, which will prevent him from fully leaning into his sadism.