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 -
Wise To The World
Ohio Capital Journal reports:
In Ohio, school districts may choose to allow students to earn up to two high school credits, during non-'core' education school hours, subject to a number of limitations such as on funding (solely private) and parental consent (written).
Why are they popular? My impression from what I've been able to gather of their curricula -- admittedly, the full contents of which they play pretty close to the chest -- is more Lutheran Sunday School than anything Hellfire Baptist. I'm not hugely tied into the
fundiereligious parents, but what contacts I do have, these programs are seen as offering a good compromise. Unlike homeschooling, the student is still getting core curricula and socialization with the general public (uh, for better or worse). Unlike the school's non-core programs, there's some integration with religious processes. Why not just do those things outside of school hours? The growth of after-school extracurriculars and increased reliance on those successes for college acceptance or scholarships have made 'traditional' afternoon or weekends religious programs harder and harder to maintain, while the reduced presence of religious programs elsewhere has made transportation overhead more costly.What were the big arguments against these policies? Parents Against LifeWise has a more varied set of issues on their web page, for those who want a (very) deep dive. At least from my read, the vast majority of concerns are hypotheticals and/or trivialities, but perhaps a more critical eye will pick up something I've missed. OCJ offers:
Which... seems more to cut to the quick, here. Opponents are not driven by the terror of a slightly disrupted school schedule, or a flyer mentioning a religious organization being printed on a school printer. They're appalled that broad-scale religious organizations exist in the public square, and have defenders. And a purple town in a purple-leaning-red state agreed.
Well, is this just a one-off? Each school board covers a relatively small area, so it's not that weird if some random people did something kinda meh.
There's some !!fun!! legal discussion about how this sort of policy change based on a fig leaf of organizational difficulty on top of overt disquiet with religious belief -- there's a certain comparison to the animus in Cleburne that I don't think either side of this debate would find particularly complimentary. But in practice school boards outside of Florida have pretty free reign to pick and choose supported programs, and courts can and will treat that fig leaf as if it were substantial when they want.
There's a bill in the state house requiring schools to permit released time programs, but it's unlikely to go anywhere and poorly written enough that it has no enforcement mechanism against school boards that defy it or find 'secular' cause to ignore it. And, again, courts can and will treat that fig leaf as if it were substantial when they want.
What sorta solutions might come up, instead?
ProPublica [bleh] reports:
The Ohio One-Time Strategic Community Investment Fund, a widely available fund of the type that Trinity Lutheran expressly prohibits governments from blocking out religious organizations. You might make one of many arguments that this is a graft (why is the dayton airshow getting state grants?). Opponents might argue that puts an increasing wide and variety of education funding outside of the domain of electoral control (uh, admittedly with a little bit of hypocrisy).
What did you think "teacher's unions are unambiguously and emphatically against the Republican Party" meant? Vibes? Papers?
I Told You Those Stories, So I Could Tell This One
[way more]
Come for the Gender Unicorn; stay for the hilarious claim that Donald Trump would simultaneously call all undocumented immigrants animals but not use the word 'illegal immigrant'. Okay, that's trite, and there are some distinctions, here. Lifewise operated in school hours with solely private funding; the New Haven Social Justice Academy program operated during the summer with at least some of public funding. Lifewise is a religious organization, the Social Justice Academy is... well some of these programs get a little on the nose with the extent that they're replacements for religion, but afaict the New Haven Program here avoids direct reference to the topic except to call George Floyd an
austerereligiousscholarmentor.There's a lot of snark to be made, here, but there's also a more serious point.
A complete rando talking about Lifewise offers :
The DailyWire's piece quotes a
complete rando"Director of Outreach" from an aligned political group :These programs all say a lot about fragmentation. I'm writing about them -- I'm reading about them -- because people want each and every one from the other team removed. Deleted. Unalived in minecraft lava, if you will. The possibility that someone might take the wrong choice, or defend the possibility of taking the wrong choice, is enough.
Happy Halloween, everyone!
A "Westerville resident" said this? Just like a guy on the street?
"Hey, we're with this organization, do you have any thoughts on Westerville City Schools' policy that allows LifeWise to educate Christian children during school release time?"
"Oh, let me think about that for a moment. Westerville City Schools preaches diversity, equity and inclusion. But diversity, equity, and inclusion does not call for every human being to be a Christian..."
Clearly this was a public-relations type statement, it's incredibly disingenuous to attribute it to "random resident" as though this is just what some guy who lives in the community thinks.
But as an aside, I really don't know where the "Christian Nationalist" slur came from, particularly how it's been applied to just about anything Christian. I know there were some idiot influencers a few years ago talking about something like that, like requiring a religious test for public office or something, but c'mon people, this is not representative of the mainstream of Christianity in the US, even in the most Christian parts, which are Baptists who come from a long tradition of church-state separators. I guess the idea is something like, "These people are Christians, they're also nationalists, so huh! They're Christian nationalists!" But I don't understand the idea that mainstream Christians are fascists or something. They're not. It's your chill grandpa who reads bible stories to the grandkids, or your cousin who has a 'homestead'. Brownshirts these people are not.
I think it's a successor to dominionist, a stance held by an extremely small number of protestant theologians in ultra-fundamentalist churches that thought the law code spelled out in the bible, judicially, for ancient Israel was binding today, but in practice mostly used as a slur for anyone who didn't jump in whatever progressive bandwagon rolled out. The idea that 'American' is a thing with defining characteristics- any of them- pushes leftist berserk buttons like nothing else, the twitter democrats dominate their messaging, and so add it together.
Baptists don't like an establishment of religion because of the 'establishment' thing- it's too much of an institutional church. Requiring a religious test is a part of baptist history; in America before the supreme court banned them baptists often supported laws which required elected officials to be protestant. Today I suspect a 'Christian nationalist' law would ban Muslims/Hindus/atheists from office and require assent to the divinity of Jesus and maybe some Christian moral ideas.
More options
Context Copy link
“Fundamentalism” was the term of choice for the 90s and 00s until W. was out of play. By the time Romney ran, it was a joke. For the new generation, who were at least familiar with the old, cringe atheists, a new term was required.
Well, it does have a history. White supremacists, blood ‘n soilers, people were happy to claim it. Which is, of course, why the oldest source on the Wikipedia page for “Christian nationalism” dates to 2016.
More options
Context Copy link
I think he's a public education/special education careerist with a public outreach focus, though I've not been able to track it down much further than that (who names a company EDU_?).
I'm now even more confused. He graduated from Liberty with a History/Theology degree? I'd expect someone with that background to sound much more like me than like whatever it is he sounds like. Graduating from Liberty with a degree in Theology and then down the line saying that not every human should be a Christian? Harvard Divinity I could understand, but Liberty?
Perhaps we're just looking at another one of those Christian-moralist-to-progressive-moralist conversions, like the VeggieTales guy. I certainly know some goody-two-shoes Southern Baptists who probably sounded like me 15 years ago but nowadays sound like progressive twitter. Maybe he started to see the limitations of his Liberty degree and swung the other way to try and challenge the low prestige.
It's too bad, I guess.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The evolution of "non-religious" religions like Wokism is in desperate need of better legal analysis. However the Supreme Court hasn't even managed to actually define religion for Constitutional purposes, so I don't see how anyone could convince it to recognize the problem that First Amendment selection pressure has created in the ideological memeplex. Everything that "separation of church and state" was supposed to protect us from, it no longer protects us from, because the church meme has largely evolved into identity politics. "This isn't a religion, this is just what it means to be a good person" is the anti-ideologic-resistant super-meme that resulted from excessive use of the Establishment Clause.
There has been some movement around if "Creativity" , a white separatist/nationalist movement, can be classed as a religion. Which generated a few tests that haven't made it to SCOTUS.
More options
Context Copy link
I seriously wonder if the bitter lessons of ca. 1800 to ca. 2200 will end up being around the power of nominally-materialist ideologies to mimic religious warfare and wreck society, just as the bitter lesson of ca. 1500 to ca. 1800 was the power of religious wars to wreck society. Perhaps we'll find our own treaty of Westphalia to resolve the bitter ideological conflicts of Communism v Capitalism, Fascism v Liberalism, Conservatism v Progressivism, Globalism v Nationalism... or maybe this just all ends in us nuking ourselves out of existence. I hope not.
I’m less optimistic of this as long as the legitimacy of the regime rests upon people voting for “good things” there’s no way to reverse course here. You cannot allow people who disagree with you free access to the cultural memeplex as it might mean losing the election and thus power. If I’m a Globalist, the idea of Nationalism isn’t just a different opinion, it’s an infection in the body politic and must be cured. After all, the Nationalists not only get to vote, but can infect other people with Nationalism. Or the same with communist vs capitalist ideas. If the people are infected with “bad ideas” they can spread and eventually the plebs end up going full capitalist.
Legitimacy leads to power, and power is the end goal of any movement. And the big secret of the Westphalia treaty was that it removed the church leadership from the state. Kings were no longer Kings because the One True Church anointed him with holy oil. So it no longer mattered which church anyone went to. The government didn’t care because it no longer mattered. The legitimacy of the government didn’t rest on all the people supporting the church that anointed him.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I am opposed to the government funding the practice of religion on the basis of separation of church and state. This seems to obviously violate that. Am I missing anything here?
You're missing that this has been continuously violated for decades. The state will gladly fund and evangelize for belief systems based on essentially religious principles ("equity," "egalitarianism," "blank slate," etc) as long as the belief system can disguise itself as "secular" and "basic human decency." This isn't punish violation of "separation of church and state," it's punishing heresy. An extracurricular about LGBT identity (theology/catechesis) or civil rights history (church history) would face no such scrutiny.
More options
Context Copy link
The government's not funding any of this. It was allowing outside groups to offer electives and chose to ban a bible class from the list.
More options
Context Copy link
Seperation of church and state was never about protecting the state from religion, but protecting religion from the state. The former is a contemporary reimagining of the meaning of the seperation to suit political ends. Similarly, it was freedom of religion, not freedom from religion as has entered the popular lexicon.
As if the state ever needs protecting in this manner! Even if the state (or the people managing the state) does implicitly profess a religion, even a secular one, the principle of seperation of church and state means that the state couldn't impose its views on the genuine and legitimate free expression of religion on the people. Which is arguably is exactly what's happening in this situation.
More options
Context Copy link
The free exercise of religion is thwarted when the state mandates that you cannot exercise religion in public school, because the exercise of religion necessitates regular practice and study, and this necessity conflicts with the time schedule and obligations of secular education. 8am to 3pm every day of the workweek, with extra-curriculars extending that to 5pm, effectively abolishes religion if religion is not included in the classroom. A good solution is to allow the taxes of religious people to go towards their own religious education which is to take place in public or private school. The “separation of church and state” is a succinct phrase which helps explain why the free exercise of religion can’t be prohibited, but it shouldn’t be misunderstood to mean that the state prohibits religious activity in state facilities — if anything it means that it must allow all kinds of religious activity in state facilities. This includes religious activity in schools.
This argument would be stronger if school was monopolizing students time. From my understanding, the school is not. Plenty of kids have enough free time to learn an instrument, play a sport, get really good in some video game, become an expert of some nerdy lore like warhammer, baseball or LotR, etc. I am sure that there are religions who mandate that their followers study their scripture for at least five hours a day, but if you feel you need to accommodate these in public schools, then the next thing you will be someone saying that their religion requires them to loudly yell 'Blessed be His Noodly Appendages' every five minutes.
Do you generally propose a system where the general taxes of people in some special interest groups are used for the goals of these groups? So the religious taxpayers get to fund religious education, while the taxes paid by of fans of adult entertainment go to fund state-run strip clubs?
Ideally, taxes are there for universal expenses. Almost all citizens use roads. Almost all citizens benefit from not being invaded. I will grant you that a lot of the sinks modern states pour taxes into are not that clear-cut public goods: public education, aircraft carriers (for the US) and welfare, preservation of the environment, cultural events and a zillion other things can be debated at length.
But the key point is that taxes go to what society has decided are collective needs. If you are proposing taxing religious people more so that their extra taxes can fund religious education (and the same for the admirers of scantly clad females and strip clubs), then I am ok with it. Of course, the easier system would be that the state does not collect these voluntary taxes, and people get to spend their money after taxes however they want.
What you’ve listed are leisure activities. Video games, fantasies, sports, and playing an instrument are for leisure. (Unless a student is exceptional, they have just one hour a week of a violin teacher or something which may constitute non-leisure education, I suppose). The fact that students do not typically learn from books/teachers in an organized setting away from their school system strongly indicates that school has a monopoly on non-leisure learning. What we can call “book learning”. But book learning is an essential part of religious indoctrination, which means it is an essential part of the exercise of religion. A human is simply not able to absorb “book learning” after ~6 hours of secular education with 1-2 hours of at-home work. To me this means that we have thwarted the free exercise of religion. We have overburdened the right.
One hour is more reasonable, but adding an hour of book-learning on top of the modern school curriculum is an unreasonable burden. I think up to two hours is acceptable.
Category error. Religion is not mere special interest or mere hobby. Religion is a special protected activity for a reason: it encompasses urgent, existential and totalizing moral concerns. It’s its own category of human activity. And the believer necessarily believes that the education in his religion is urgent and essential.
Your theory of taxation is not an enshrined right. But freedom of religion is such a right. It’s both more logical and more just for the tax revenue from a religious group to go toward that group’s religious education — not with extra money, because that overburdens their right to religious exercise. If they are paying for 18 “credits” of high school, then allow them to substitute 8 of these credits for up to “8” religious credits. This way the school is not funding religious education except with the funds of those who desire to practice their right to pursue religious education.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That's an interesting and complex question.
The big problem is that as the government funding -- and other government capabilities -- take over larger and larger portions of the economy, that line becomes more and more complicated to hold. It's long been policy that "separation of church and state" (technically, the establishment clause: socas is just Jefferson's take) doesn't prohibit the government from paving a road or cleaning up a sidewalk just because a church might use it. Otherwise, you're discriminating against religious organizations as compared to everyone else. When government-granted services and opportunities were not omnipresent, that was not especially hard to handle, because no one (... except... ) cares about a road being paved.
In the modern era, everything from roof repairs to STEM programs to YMCAs to battered women's shelters to horses-for-healing to opera houses to, yes, schools, get cash money. And that's just the Ohio One Time Strategic Community Investment Fund! In the whole-scale situation, the government gets involved everywhere from permitting to insurance to background checks and so on.
To say these things can't draw on government funds is not to avoid government entanglement; it's to provide massive additional constraints specific only to religious projects.
More options
Context Copy link
all well and good, as long as we recognize the official state religion as such and express the same degree of concern wrt it, as OP suggests
More options
Context Copy link
I am in principle, but if we’re funding and teaching leftist civic religion then my religion ought to at least get to be a privately funded alternative.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There’s definitely an escalating trend of this- and a pattern where hypotheticals and value judgements from progressive groups get trotted out as objective arguments- and it’s not limited to the schools. Fighting about planned parenthood funding and prolife pregnancy centers is a perennial battle. The Trevor project is mostly public funds.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link