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 largely agree with some of what you've written, but not all of it. But it's interesting! In a way, it feels good to read, as it's rare to see somebody sharing what they actually think and feel without excessive self-censorship. But I don't think you've found the truth. Some of what you say get the symptoms right, but the causes are really elusive.
Let me start out by warning you that you care too much. Of course, we need people who care, as nihilism is a danger, but those on the left who are the most insane and the least logical tend to care too much. Once you start a moral war against something, you're almost always on a bad path. All the social movements causing these problems are ran by people with strong moral convictions, and it has come to the point where I instinctively avoid moralizers (I still have high standards for taste, though). I don't think it's a coincidence that you're angry about sexual abuse of children, as it's one of the worse things that people can think of. But all political discussions degrade into accusing eachother of the few things which carry the highest social stigma (which at the moment is pedophilia, nazism and racism). Is this not the same fear of immorality and social judgement which makes people act absolutely crazy in the first place?
You hear one side of the news, and they repeatedly confirm the same thing. But "your enemies" are repeatedly told another another side of the story, even if it's one fabricated by the media. Even if the media turns out to be wrong in the end, only we are getting the updated information, other people have already moved on to other things, and the memory of who was wrong in the past (because the media told them) remains unchanged. All sides feel like they're on a streak in which they were right right every time. "Once again the criminal was migrant!" "Once again there was racist intent!" "Once again the early life section confirms they are jewish!" "Last-state capitalism claims another victim!"
All of these issues are much bigger than just migration. Some will tell you that the western world was subverted. Some will tell you that people are becoming "cucks" because Testosterone levels are decreasing. Some will tell you that the marxists are to blame for this, others will tell you it's the media, others will tell you that it's a rich elite, others will tell you that it's the result of an ideology which first too over western education. Others will tell you that good times create weak men, others will inform you that technology must result in weaking freedoms. Others will tell you that capitalism is to blame, others will tell you that materialism and the death of god is to blame. Others will tell you that it's due to increased social competition and that we're forced into the rat race. Others will blame Moloch, game theory and social dilemmas as they warn you not to hate the player but rather hate the game. Some speculate that ideologies have replaced religion, others that propaganda and marketing research has reached incredible levels and that we're creating superstimuli that humans cannot possibly resist. Finally, some say that weighting hurt feelings higher than problem-solving will be our doom.
Is this not a stat which goes something like "1 in 3 girls experience sexual harassment"? The threshold for that is very low now compared to the past. The rapes are the worst instances of this problem, it's not that 1 in 3 girls are literally raped.. Unless you count even grouping or a slap on the ass as rape. EDIT: Rotherham seems like a particularly bad case, and you might not have exaggerated here, my bad.
Somehow, the population has largely been spiritually defeated. We all think something like "We all ought to do something", but nobody wants to go first. But it won't make a difference even if a single person does something extreme, I think. As for those with convictions - do they fare much better? I see more conviction pushing for immigration than against it. I think it's because naivety, idealism and conviction correlate with one another.
I never bought into any of these things. I don't even see why you would, as the rational world is at odds with the natural world. Academia leans left, "rationality" is deeply materialistic, "tolerance" never made sense as a concept and these so-called intellectuals cannot even interpret Karl Popper correctly, much less think further than him (which is not even hard). Charity movements disgusts me, and not only because charities waste 90% of their money and exist as a guilt tax, not because they're not motivated by actual goodwill (thought they rarely are), and not even because they simply result in a kind of reverse eugenics which makes the problem that it's meant to solve even worse, but because doing math with qualia in a superficial manner is in terrible taste. In the first place, "suffering is bad" is a terribly stupid assumption which misses the problem. And people from all these spaces tend to think like Elon Musk does, and arrive at the conclusion that we need to mass-import indians. Western intellectualism disappoints me, I can barely respect the one-in-a-million. Not only do they not strike me as intelligent, they all seem to have a "number go up" mentality which conflicts with healthy living and subjective experience.
And it is like you said "The entire project of this space is wrong". It's not a question of intelligence, but of character.
They wouldn't succeed without massive support, though. What makes people watch the destruction of their culture in real time and go "Maybe I'm just over-reacting"? What makes somebody more afraid of being racist than of being murdered? Even if those who caused these effects were evil, the average person can't be said to be evil, and for every evil person behind the scenes, there's at least 99 normies cheering for them.
By the way, "sexual depravity" seem to correlate with intelligence. A lot of good things and bad things correlate, which is why "good" and "evil" aren't easy to cut in two. Intelligence also correlates with openness, which is why intellectual conversations easily enter areas that regular people find repulsive. But the feelings of disgust and the ability to think about things which repulse you are valuable.
Finally, the evil you can define still does not manifest clearly. You can fight against immigration, but that's a vague idea. You likely don't have concrete individuals to point your anger at. I think most people face this problem, they're angry but they only have vague targets to point the anger at. Speaking of anger, are you perhaps projecting your own frustration with yourself? You're angry at yourself for being unable to stop the problem, so you point this anger at us? Not that I blame you for this. (By the way, please don't do anything stupid)
Nobody really does. And you seem concerned not about falsehood but about the destruction of something you deem good. Society as a whole pretends to be partial while fighting for their own values. These two can co-exist, but only when people believe that their values will win on an even playing-field.
Finally, The Motte likely isn't allowed to value truth the highest, since they would get shut down if they got too much negative media attention. And without moderation of things like politeness, many users would simply leave, and we're not many people to begin with.
I think honestly we’ve made real convictions dirty words, often hiding behind rhetoric about nuance and tolerance and so on. A healthy culture has absolute convictions about itself and its place in the world. It doesn’t mince words in an attempt to curry favor with other people. It forthrightly declares that its ways are good, true, and right lives up to them and enforces them on others. Healthy Britain remade much( of the globe in a more western image — banning evil practices and forcing good practices, spreading her language and religion and folkways. They banned child prostitution in much of the globe and ending burning women on funeral pyres in India.
And this is exactly the rot, head down. We can’t talk about the reality of things happening in the world, or causes that we all intuitively understand but that are too impolite to say aloud. And therefore, no action can actually be taken. We can’t say that thug culture needs to be ended, or that Islam enjoins jihad and subjugation of infidels. We can’t say that maybe we shouldn’t be taking in millions with values inimical to our own values and pretending that they’ll assimilate.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link