site banner
PaperclipPerfector  13d ago (text post)   30516 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Show me the moral/ethical/virtue system that says "Sex with 100 strangers in an hour" is permissible. Aside from moral relativism, out and out hedonism, or nihilism, it doesn't exist.

To the extent that it's a moral system in addition to a political one, it's called liberalism.

Why would liberals have to allow this? Locke, for example, absolutely thought the government could punish sexual immorality. I'm not familiar enough with his work to know whether there's any inconsistencies there, but it seems like, as a matter of fact, most liberal societies thought banning that sort of thing was fine.

They wouldn't have to. In another comment I wrote:

My one-sentence gloss of liberalism is "do whatever you want as long you aren't infringing on anyone else's rights", which quickly spirals into endless debates about distributed effects and externalities and "but how does this affect you personally" and so on.

It's perfectly consistent of Locke to think "what some other person believes about the ontological character of the communion wafer does not affect you personally, so let them do as they please; but the normalisation of sodomy, adultery and promiscuity absolutely do have distributed negative effects on society, and so should be forbidden and socially stigmatised". Whereas a more modern liberal generally takes the attitude of "people are entitled to their own opinions" and "what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is none of the government's business, and by extension none of society's business".

I don't have a good answer as to which interpretation of liberalism is better or more conducive to human flourishing. "As long as you aren't infringing on anyone else's rights" permits a lot of degrees of freedom to permit certain things and forbid others.

You know what, fair. Thank you.

I'll pivot and, then, say that liberalism is a fantastic moral and political system for speedrunning towards the destruction of human integrity and the destruction of individual dignity. If such a path leads to such desolation, of what use is the path?

Liberalism has been around a few centuries and hasn't led to desolation yet. I'd rather not get off the path or take doommongering too seriously.

Wouldn't the counter-argument be that, prior to the invention of liberalism, Europe was constantly tearing itself apart in holy wars? I doubt many of the people whose lives were constantly being disrupted as a result felt terribly dignified about the whole matter.

I'm not saying that "I'd rather be dead than compromise my integrity and dignity" is an incoherent or obviously ridiculous statement - there really are certain principles I hold which I would rather die than violate, or certain experiences which I find the idea of going through so humiliating that I would rather die than experience them. But I would like to be reassured that whatever you're proposing as an alternative to liberalism wouldn't immediately lead to hundreds of years of civil war and the immediate cessation of all meaningful human progress and economic development.

Wouldn't the counter-argument be that, prior to the invention of liberalism, Europe was constantly tearing itself apart in holy wars?

Other than the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), what other "holy wars" do you have in mind, such that "Europe was constantly tearing itself apart"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion

So, the smaller post-Reformation conflicts leading up to the Thirty Years War?

What about the many, many centuries before the Reformation? Europe wasn't exactly "tearing itself apart in holy wars" then, now was it? It still looks to me like Europe has spent a minority of the last couple millennia in "holy wars" — certainly not enough time to deserve the term "constantly."

Well, obviously there were no holy wars (in the sense of intra-Christian wars) prior to the Reformation. Why would you start a holy war with someone who believes in the same creed you do? It's tautological.

Then Europe wasn't constantly "tearing itself apart in holy wars," but only doing so part of the time.

There's also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade

I'm sure we both have better things to do then get into pedantic debates like this.

judeo-roman wars, islamic conquests and ongoing jihad, ridda wars, shia-sunni wars, crusades in the levant, fourth crusade against constantinople, albigensian crusade, northern crusades, hussite wars.

Before the catholic-protestant wars, the best one for folamh3’s argument is the islam-christianity war, as a constant, religiously motivated conflict which never really ended and kept eastern europe and the mediterranean bloody for a thousand years.

So out and out hedonism it is.

Ironically I do think that there are systems of ethics that have a coherent claim to not just allow this behavior but make it virtuous. But nobody actually cares about weird sex positive pagans anymore.

I don't think liberalism is interchangeable with hedonism. My one-sentence gloss of hedonism is "do whatever you find pleasurable", which quickly spirals into libertine degeneracy. My one-sentence gloss of liberalism is "do whatever you want as long you aren't infringing on anyone else's rights", which quickly spirals into endless debates about distributed effects and externalities and "but how does this affect you personally" and so on. But to a first approximation, I fail to see how this adult woman having sex with a hundred consenting adult men directly infringes on anyone else's rights.

do whatever you want as long you aren't infringing on anyone else's rights

Bounded or not by pragmatic guidelines, the ultimate goal is indeed to realize whim and desire with no examination as to whether that is proper.

What OP surely means by a "moral system" is such an examination. Ethics of any kind.

If the answer to "what is to be done" is "realize desire", then it is hedonism.

Indeed the only reason for the limitation you point to is that in violating someone's rights you are preventing them from realizing their desire also. What are we then to believe if not that this is just hedonism, if of a pragmatic nature.

I fail to see how this adult woman having sex with a hundred consenting adult men directly infringes on anyone else's rights

It does not, but that's the contention: that there is more to ethics than consent.

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