site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Back when the internet was younger--but old enough to load png files in seconds--the edgy memes going around my Uni were the various adventures of Smurfette, mostly of the pornographic sort. In one, Smurfette is getting it on with Papa Smurf; in another, she's banging all her fellow Smurfs.

High art it was not. But it was definitely more than porn--that is, the art had a point besides causing sexual arousal. The shock of seeing a childhood character (and I did see Smurfs on TV) going triple-X adds to the humor, but the reason these memes featured Smurfette and not, say, Strawberry Shortcake is because Smurfette was such an obviously sexualised character in the first place, yet aimed at children. The porno memes took the corporate-stated premise of the Smurfette and instantiated the subtext that any adult can see was there all along.

For added amusement, Smurfette is La Schtroumpfette in the original French, which sounds like someone bowdlerised "strumpet" by translating it into French, then German, then back to French. But this appears to be pure co-incidence - Google translate can't find a French translation of "strumpet" that looks anything like "Schtroumpfette".