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 -
I think it's probably that people just have fewer friends and social interactions now. Therapy has jumped in to fill the gap that socialising, communal worship, hobbies and sports have left. Combine that with safetyism and I can see how we'd end up with a situation where a young person feels lonely or like his life lacks meaning and will end up talking to a state sanctioned professional, when what he really needs is to hang out with his friends more.
More now than when? I agree with you on some level (what you say seems undoubtedly true at least in terms of real-world interactions as opposed to say, MMPORPG or whatever) but as someone who was a kid in the 70s and teen in the 80s there was a lot of therapy talk even then. Maybe just in Hollywood? Because I have some pathology where I remember things, I recall clearly the lines from the 1989 film Sex, Lies and Videotape:
The talk therapy boom, at least in the US, arguably seems to have started from the mid 20th century (when "shellshock"morphed into PTSD) and has just ballooned since then. I'll be the first to say I'm out of touch with current US norms, but I certainly remember the ethos of "Talk it out" even from childhood.
More options
Context Copy link
I was joking couple of months ago that when guys need therapy they need to do with their best friend two hours of hiking, two hours of lifting, two porterhouse steaks and two bottles of bourbon.
More options
Context Copy link
Also there's a narrative that everyone is broken or suffering from trauma in some form and thus EVERYONE needs 'healing' to manage their lives. And people who deny needing healing are the most broken of all! So they work from the assumption that anyone who hasn't gone to therapy must be broken, and thus therapy will help fix things... even if that person had a perfectly normal, healthy upbringing.
I say this as somebody who used Therapy to get over a bad breakup. It helped me work through some things, get my emotions out, process my own role in the events and my own personal failings and then... get back to real life quicker. Its a tool! If it works, you should eventually be able to stop using it.
But end of the day it led me to conclude that I'm doing almost everything 'right' and have an accurate world model and generally a normal response to life events... and its EVERYONE ELSE who needs to get their shit together.
This Eliezer Yudkowsky tweet lives in my head rent free.
I think a lot of people use the need for therapy or the fact that they're in therapy as an excuse to not address actual life circumstances that are holding them back.
And by the same token, if their therapist isn't pushing them to address or change their life circumstances, they're probably just there to collect a check and make the person feel like they're doing something constructive.
I don't know if LLM therapists will suggest actual proactive steps to improve life circumstances.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link