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 -
At the risk of sounding flippant, the answer is a flat "No". This is one of those problems that some of the greatest minds in human history have been pondering for millennia and have yet to produce anything in the way actionable advice. If there was an easy answer you'd better believe that politicians, preachers, and the military industrial complex would be all over that shit.
Less flippantly, there's a popular line amongst ex-SF guys that is alternately attributed to Antoine de St Exupery or Edward Gibbon that goes "courage is a cheap thing, it's mostly a matter of being stupid and/or pissed off". I'm not sure how much I agree with that sentiment but anecdotally there is certainly an element of truth to it. After all, "brave" is what you call a soldier or mercenary when you can't think of anything nicer to say about him. Concurrently, proper heroism seems to be the product of "grit" combined some other je ne sais quoi. Call it the rage, the glimmer, the martyr's spark, the eye of the tiger, whatever. Some people have it, some don't, but you know it when you see it. The former is fairly straight forward (if painful) to test for, the latter, well that's the hard part.
While Zelensky showed some indications of grit early on, I don't think anyone who didn't know him intimately could have predicted that he would "step up" when the time came but when he did step up it was plain as day.
More options
Context Copy link