site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 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.

2
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The right to asylum is not something you can suspend at will. I mean, if you are in the middle of a zombie virus apocalypse, a case might be made, but Poland is very much not on the brink of collapse.

I thought that we are beyond this point already. At least since COVID, everybody knows that rights, including human rights can be suspended at will, sometimes based on unilateral decision of governing bodies for what constitutes a crisis. We now hype everything ranging from climate change through mental health or obesity or anything else as crisis, this is the feature and not a bug. It was actually one of my direct examples to many people during COVID - what prevents government to declare some arbitrary crisis and act with heavy hand?

Also this is nothing new, human rights were undermined constantly. Look at declaration of human rights and let's use Article 5

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Waterboarding is widely deemed as torture and yet it was used by CIA in their War on Terror and to my knowledge nobody was punished for it.

Another one is of course article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

This one is dead, governments routinely spy on peoples electronic correspondence and ignore their privacy. And it seems that nobody gives a shit.

Of course Article 14 is also very sketchy:

Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

This is my favorite one when I am talking with progressives who are supposedly staunch defenders of human rights. It is interesting to watch how many people are then using legalese to weasel out of this one.

Asylum is part of Article 14:

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Again, many people may bog this down into legal battles of who is asylum seeker, if Belarus is not safe country for many such people trying to cross Polish borders etc. Call me cynical, but I do not see how this should be some barrier nobody will cross.