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 -
I don't think this is a good thing. I don't want societies to put their own citizens to death.
Yes. This was my intent. To offer an explanation of belief for the OP.
Because I believe human life is one of the few things that is intrinsically beyond the State to decide on. Again, as my original post said, I 100% support the State's ability to put you in a box forever and never let you out. What is the meaningful distinction between that and death from the perspective of the State or the aggrieved? Or, to flip it around, what is the marginal utility / justification / satisfaction found in execution versus life imprisonment? If a prisoner is alive, there exists some chance that they may develop sincere feelings of remorse and regret. It'll never be enough to justify their release, but I believe a State ought to give its citizens every last chance to be human. If, as some will argue, some of these prisoners are just beyond-the-pale insane and unpredictably dangerous, I'd offer that raises a much more difficult argument; should the State be in the business of exterminating those we deem mentally incapable? You can see how quickly it gets to eugenics.
Are you raising the utilitarian perspective because that's the grounds for your opposition to a state putting people to death? If so, I'm not sure it works out very well.
This one's pretty easy, it's incredibly expensive to house an unproductive prisoner for 50+ years and incredibly inexpensive to e.g. build a gallows.
But I only address the utilitarian argument because you raised it, my belief is in no way utilitarian and is simply founded on the principle of retributive justice that a murderer should die for justice to be done.
That's cool. I think we're just going to hard disagree on this one.
A society gets to decide if human life is sacred or it isn't. Our current society says "no, not sacred" at the beginning of life and well through to the end. My belief is the opposite - human life is sacred and should never be treated otherwise within the society[1]. There isn't much beyond this strict categorization. That's why, in my original post, I cited hoffmeister as having an argument I disagreed with, but still respect.
I look at justification of beliefs to be a problem of recursion. "I believe x based on y ... I believe y based on z ..." At the end of the day, a lot of belief (and justification for it) boils down to what you place your value in and how various value-having things rank relative to one another. I put human life at the tippy top. Perhaps you don't, or your relative ranking is weaker. Either way, it's fine as long as your own argument is cohesive, which I believe it to be. But you won't be able to reason me out of my belief unless you reason me out of my value rankings. If you have an argument for why human life ought not be my number one value, I'll hear and consider it.
[^1]: When you have issues outside or between societies you're talking about war or something extra-judicial that by its very definition cannot be handled by the same codes and laws as within a society. Let's just leave this as is for now and not try to get into just war theory.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link