site banner
PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   30940 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think I respond to this the same way I responded to the original affair - it is possible, after heavily editing a text so that it's saying something different, and deliberately lying to a small journal, to get a journal to publish something silly and then yell "gotcha!"

But what does that prove other than that people are sometimes gullible, or that if you're a bad actor you can eventually find a mark or two?

Just as the original "feminist Mein Kampf" communicated nothing of significance about feminism, this new "Christian nationalist Communist Manifesto" spoof communicates nothing significant about Christian nationalism.

Congratulations, James. You can trick people if you lie. So what?

I can agree it communicated nothing about feminism, I don't know if I can agree that it communicated nothing about academia. The entire reddit-tier cry of "muh peer review" rests on peer review being a good filter. Journals checking for plagiarism is supposed to be basic scrutiny, they even have automated tools for that now (I think one of them was used to illustrate the differences between the original Communist Manifesto and what got published in AmRef). Journals are also supposed to maintain some pretense of neutrality, and publish based on the quality of the argument, and the affair conclusively proved you can get garbage published as long as it flatters the ideology of the editors. This is in stark contrast to AmRef which is an openly ideological website.

Also compare the reactions to each hoax. Here people are saying "congratulations, you got 'em, but with the changes you made, what got published is a sound argument for AmRefs worldview", some are even saying Marx may have had a point here and there. By contrast in the Grievance Studies affair the hoax papers first got published or approved for publishing, some even won awards, then they got retracted when the hoax came out, and then people started arguing how this is a nothingburger and how there's nothing in these papers that should have tripped any wires. That reaction is incoherent, if the papers made a sound argument, they should not be retracted.

At the very least the original affair shows that academia shouldn't be taken seriously.

Sure, I'm willing to grant that. It's not a conclusion I'm inclined to quibble. Peer review is much less reliable than most people think it is, and a great many papers that are peer-reviewed and published are garbage.

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