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 -
The funniest thing in the world, whenever stuff like this hits, is to parse and put in plain language the assumptions that this ad makes, and by extension, the assumptions that this ad is asking you to make on its behalf.
-Assumption A: Of course black men can work in finance and make six figures.
-Assumption B: Ladies will consider you a mate if you work in finance and make six figures.
-Assumption C: Ladies will consider you a mate if you are tall.
-Assumption D: Ladies will consider you a mate if you work out.
-Assumption E: The disqualifier for a potential mate is that they don't (have a plan to) vote.
-Assumption F: The disqualifier for a potential mate is that they don't share the women's politics.
If you swallow all of this as one whole, poisonous package, the message that the Kamala campaign is sending is thus: broke, short, unhealthy and politically apathetic or unaligned males will not have sex with willing partners.
What are we to take away from this - that Kamala's campaign has a strong interest in eugenics? Or that they're re-enacting, as someone pointed out, the World War 1 white feather campaign? Do they expect black men to respond to this messaging? If this is how they're targeting black men, who is advising them? And if the world is crawling with "incels" like many of their politically aligned ilk believe it to be, what message do they expect these broke, short, and unhealthy politically unaligned men (let's be fair and include broke, short, and unhealthy politically unaligned women and they/thems) to take away from this if they want sex?
There is a further, meta-level set of assumptions that go along with this, if the ad is in fact targeting women. What is a woman going to take away from this ad, if she is already in a relationship with someone who is broke, short, or unhealthy, and doesn't share her politics? Are they counting on women who aren't already in relationships to add an additional qualifier just in case the Republican Evil is hereditary?
More options
Context Copy link