site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   30017 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I don't know if Jesse Singal has changed his tune, but this always enrages me. There is a political party that is pro child mutilation and sterilization. The entire rest of the world is against this practice, even countries that once upon a time were more open minded about it. The pro child mutilation and sterilization party keeps doubling down, and the Jesse Singal's of the world point to the "Lets not mutilate and sterilize children" party as "politicizing" or "weaponizing" the issue. Because his side can only do good things, and if his side is doing bad things he can't possibly ignore, he must somehow blame them on the other bad side which can only do bad things. Even when they are championing the side of the issue he believes is correct.

I get there is a significant contingent of "Vote Blue No Matter Who" NPCs, but it's astounding to me to witness someone who breaks from the "It's not happening and if it were it would be a good thing" programming, sees the bad things, writes articles endlessly about the bad things, and then still turns around and choses to die on the hill of the party of the bad things.

There is a political party that is pro child mutilation

No major politician or political party supports this, unless you're talking about religious stuff like Jewish circumcision.

Unlike the other parties, which are all pure as snow?

Funnily enough, Jesse posted this just an hour and a half ago:

I haven’t become a conservative since [I was 23 years old]; I’ve just become more skeptical, and much, much more aware of the fact that conservatives have no monopoly on groupthink, intolerance, and other forms of bias. I also no longer think that you can just flip a “Liberal Policies” switch and it will fix things, at least not in real life. Just look at cities like San Francisco, which are run entirely by liberals and leftists and beset by serious problems stemming from or exacerbated by the governance decisions these supposed “good guys” have made.

It's all well and good to make mouth sounds about how your team isn't all good, and the other team isn't all bad. It's another that when pressed on any specific issue, you start doing summersaults about how the only reason you side does bad things is because the bad side is riling them up with their "heated rhetoric". Push come to shove, on any specific issue, I've never seen him admit his side bears the moral culpability for any specific wrong. Nor provide a path forward where his side should just admit they are wrong and stop doing the thing he admits is wrong. His only "answer" to the mass sterilization and mutilation of children, last I saw, was that Republicans needed to stop making an issue out of it first so that his side (the side that's been pushing it in the face of all reason, evidence or morality) could break from the trance and backtrack without any political consequences.

Because that's likely to ever happen.

I also can't read the entire article because it's paywalled. Maybe he gets there.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats