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's not that STEM is the best. It's that there are sciences with a tight feedback loop with reality, and those without. In the former, which is most of natural sciences, it's hard too go off the deep end, in the latter, which is most humanities, it's extremely easy. There are a few special cases such as math - math has a tight feedback loop with some very basic parts of reality through its assumption - proof - conclusion structure - but you can still go some crazy places with weird, hard-or-impossible-to-prove assumption. This makes clear statements and fair marks in the humanities almost impossible, so the researchers and teachers err on the side of kindness.
In particular, this makes the humanities appeal to a certain kind of person, mostly activists, who don't actually care much about reality but care a lot about forcing their worldview on the rest of society. Also, classes in the humanities are easier on the account of literally everyone I know who has ever taken them, including full humanities majors, some even flat-out told me they're taking humanities specifically bc it's easier. It's also an objective fact of universities that there is a pecking order of difficulty where people who fail one degree always move down, but never up, when trying again even if the NC (numerus clausus, the required marks to get started) of the upper fields is technically lower. As an example, at my medicine-focused university, "applied math in life science" is among the top despite having literally no NC at all, one of the next is "molecular life sciences", one of the next is "nutritional sciences", the next are all the "care sciences" (midwifery etc.). As in this example, humanities are almost always lower than the STEM fields in this order.
There are also many great, smart & careful students & scientists in the humanities, since they still are very valuable and interesting fields to study but tbh at this point I think they're probably in the minority, and definitely not in charge.
More options
Context Copy link