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 -
Reason and intellect. I prefer people to tell the truth, I also prefer people to be alive. The murderer at the door scenario covers this perfectly. Sometimes one of those is more important than the other. Entirely depends on the scenario in question. I prefer people to be able to act freely, I also prefer people not to murder other people. Therefore some level of balance needs to be there given that some people do want to and will murder others if they are not prevented. They cannot have full freedom, otherwise they undermine others rights to life. So we try to cobble together some kind of set of rules that acknowledges that.
It is not a perfect process by any means, and of course it is open to bias just like anything else. But rigid adherence to principles is simply not how we are built. There are vanishingly few Kantians in the world as far as I can tell, and I think that is simply because it does not work. In some circumstances lying is the more moral thing, in some circumstances it is not. Applying your principles to the circumstances and working through what that means is part of being human. Perhaps you might decide that telling the truth to the murderer at the door is best and I decide to lie. That doesn't mean I necessarily think lying is good, just like doing the opposite doesn't mean you think murder is good.
That's why we have multiple competing schools of moral and ethical thought, because the world is complicated and deciding what is the right thing to do is not necessarily straight forward. Principles can clash, and you have to have some way of deciding which is most important, in scenarios where it is impossible to fulfill them all.
Now of course we are also very good at rationalizing our choices to ourselves and to other people, so it is very difficult to know if people are legitimately trading off their principles and beliefs to try and get the best possible outcome that meets as many of their principles as possible, but that is part of the deal, until we invent mind reading, we are alienated from each others thoughts. We cannot truly know each other, only the outward faces we wear.
But it would only be a whim, if I had no principles at all, and wasn't trying to at least reason through how to satisfy them as best I can in any given situation.
I suppose the question is, if you were in a position where your principles clash, how do you deal with that? If fulfilling one of your deeply held principles means breaking another and vice versa, how do you decide?
More options
Context Copy link