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 -
We're in the long term, and this didn't happen. The strategy was to capture so many institutions that they can support each other's reputation. The media, the universities, the bureaucracy, the "scientific community", etc. It worked. There's no check against ground truth because that's too hard to do and too easy for the institutions to explain away.
I think they are starting to suffer. but I doubt you are satisfied with how much suffering and how fast it is happening.
A bunch of people did not trust the results of a major election in 2020. I'd say that is largely a trust issue brought about by the fact that many important institutions are clearly captured.
State legislatures have started banning DEI at universities. Next step is for them to give up entirely and start just cutting funding to them.
Many social sciences have reputations in the gutter because they spent too many years ideology focused rather than rigor focused. Psych, Sociology, etc.
Climate science is not trusted.
News orgs are hated.
The next step is actually to put political appointees in charge of everything at public universities and revoke tenure from everybody.
More options
Context Copy link
And the captured institutions settled that argument decisively with the argumentum ad baculum.
We won't get there. The academic bureaucracy will resist by calling DEI something else and lying, while Federal bureaucracy works on correcting the problem by requiring DEI for Federal funding.
People still believe their results. And they've been nonsense for even longer than they've been ideologically captured!
Climate science is absolutely trusted. There are dissidents, but pushing decarbonization and that sort of thing is still a win for the Democrats because people trust climate science.
Hated, yes. Utterly trusted, also yes. COVID proved that. And they're still considered (by normies) to be ideologically neutral even given their blatant editorializing in news stories.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link