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 -
What I mean is that the noisy left sound like they support open borders, and that it sure looks to the average man-in-the-street (certainly in the UK, the US, and most of Western Europe, though not as far as I can see in Australia, or Canada before Trudeau fucked things up) as though the current immigration policy is de facto open borders through deliberately ineffective enforcement.
The median voter does not support open borders, either de facto or de jure, and so the immigration debate when both sides are talking to the median voter is about trying to credibly claim not to support the status quo. The actual substance of a sane immigration policy is less relevant. Telling people that you want to kick out their immigrant friends/colleagues generally goes down like a lead balloon with people who are close to the median voter on the left/right axis.
I don't think the median voter understands immigration numbers. If you focus-group the question of which legal immigrants we should kick out, the answer you get in the UK is basically "violent Muslims" and not much else. Dominic Cummings says that moving to an Australian/Canadian points system (which would not mean a large drop in overall numbers) is hugely popular in the UK. There are definitely people who don't like using European immigrants for seasonal agricultural labour, but they are closer to the typical Tory/Reform switcher than to the median voter. (Before mass immigration, Ireland was poor enough that the Irish did a lot of migrant work in the UK, and they don't really count as foreign.)
More options
Context Copy link