site banner
ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   31616 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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.

16
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

And Karl Marx was an bourgeois wannabe who lived on handouts from his parents and Engels and never worked a day of real labour in his life. And neither was he able to fully articulate what the ideal communist state would look like.

Just because their personal lives don't perfectly reflect their stated ideological preferences doesn't mean their preferences aren't real or don't resonate with a lot of people.

Karl Marx had the advantage of positioning his potential society as an inherent outcome of impersonal forces. He believed it would be a good society, but the inherent virtue of the average prole had nothing to do with it. To Marx - and to Marxists I've known - his own personal virtue or even his own personal dedication to labouring had nothing to do with the truth-value of his ideology because Marxism (qua Marx, not, uh, the new kind) doesn't demand personal virtue as a prerequisite to its outcomes.

Modern conservatives often do, which is why the "homophobic Republican politician fucks men" headline is so particularly juicy.

I think there's a difficulty to preaching "we should do X" and then not doing X, whether it's conservatives living in what they should consider sin or socialists in mansions. It's why I find it difficult to take either ideology seriously much of the time.

Marx may have advocated a proletarian revolution and "dictatorship" but he didn't believe that a working class existence in a capitalist state was particularly desirable. It seems consistent with his ideology that he would want to avoid it.

You say this as if it were an argument in support of the, you know, those ideological preferences.

No, I'm saying that simply pointing out that people aren't the perfect paragons of the ideology they support isn't actually a rebuttal of that ideology or their arguments. It's the textbook definition of ad hominem.

Perhaps it is exactly because these 'New Right' live in a modern liberal society and have modern liberal lives they can articulate their dissatifaction with it. Someone like Meloni would probably agree that raising a child as a single mother is not ideal despite being one herself, and probably supports (and does to my knowledge) support traditional social institutions that would make it less common.

Why do you think that ad hominem is necessarily a fallacy?

Suppose you meet a guy at a party who explains in detail why modern plumbing sucks and how to improve on it vastly. You're intrigued and ask how his elegant mutations and cunning annihilations worked out in practice--only to discover that not only he never tried them ever, but also never did any plumbing at all, modern or otherwise. Is it wrong to disregard his special plan for your toilet with extreme prejudice? I don't think so, because there are vastly more completely deranged plans than actually good ones, one can't end up with a good one without actually trying them in the real world, a lot, and it's not worth your time to debunk a theory that was never put into practice.

Similarly, OK, we can accept it when someone says "it sucks" about a situation they are not themselves necessarily in, or in but having never experienced something different. Marx complaining about labor conditions, a single mother complaining about single motherhood, yeah sure. But when they start proposing their fixes that they have no experience living with whatsoever, then it's entirely valid to ad hominem them.

I think what 2rafa was saying was most popular rightists don’t have a vision for the future of the world. Whether or not people without vision are hypocritical or can change the world it is a shame no public figure seems to have a beautiful vision for everyone’s future.

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