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 -
Huh. For some reason I thought Cummings was the architect of the original approach, and that the draconian lockdowns marked the beginning of the end for Cummings. But maybe that was based on my impression of his comments to media when he broke lockdown to be near relatives when his wife got sick.
Oh, that piece he did 'apologising' was so bad. He clearly had nothing but contempt for the whole idea, and his 'excuse' that he had to travel halfway across the country with his family, while his wife was sick with Covid, was that they needed the grandparents to look after the kids while she was sick.
What, you can't manage to look after your kids yourself, Dominic? Or hire nannies/au pairs/agency staff to do so?
This at a time when ordinary people can't leave their houses, can't visit their sick grannies, are told that if they do anything at all they will be responsible for spreading a deadly plague - and then this guy breaks rules with gay abandon because hey, rules are for the little people.
Correct, rules are for little people. The modern rejection of this idea has lead to the "little people" suffering the most...
In a sense, sure. The benefit of rules is most easily and obviously observable with "little people", people with less margin to burn. "Big" people can flaunt rules longer and harder without suffering obvious consequences.
Only, can you actually get "little people" to follow rules that "big people" won't abide by? I think the evidence pretty clearly shows that you cannot. "Rules are for the little people", in the colloquial sense, results in everyone worse off.
Humans are a monkey see, monkey do animal. Big people, especially those in positions where they are likely to be seen frequently by little people, need to have a sense of noblesse oblige and make sure they follow the rules so that the little people can imitate them. Indeed I think this loss of noblesse oblige in the west is directly hurting the little people right now.
It's basically a form of charity from the people at the top towards those at the bottom if you ask me (instead of giving them money the people at the top are are giving them direction). Big people should be strongly encouraged to follow the rules just like how little people are, but not for the same reasons, and when they don't follow the rules the charge against them should not be "you broke the rules" but rather "you set a bad example for everyone else" and if anything the punishment for this should be more severe than the punishment for "merely" breaking the rules.
What isn't good is pretending big people and little people are the same, which is what the West is doing at the moment in its mass collective delusion.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Ironically your continued presence, and it's deleterious effect on the Sub would seem to support this claim.
@ZorbaTHut, @TracingWoodgrains, Et Al. Perhaps you'd like to offer a rebuttal?
Inasmuch as I have a rebuttal, it's that I would strongly prefer not being pinged into old feuds you choose to dredge up out of context, particularly given that you've also indicated my continued presence here is undesirable. Leave me out of your fights, please.
More options
Context Copy link
I wrote a whole thing about debate forums which value free expression and what I think would be deleterious to them, but I hit some link just above my keyboard and lost it all. So I will just say that I don't care if you are right, you should delete this post.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The media has an awful habit of memory-holing or reversing positions taken by various figures in March 2020. It's even harder to decipher the exact manuevering that took place because the published minutes don't match public statements. According to Sunak, SAGE minutes are manipulated to suppress disagreement, which is plausible because, taken literally, nobody supported lockdowns until after they were in place.
Cummings wanted to replicate China's lockdowns, it seems. This is likely more from a sheer contrarian streak than any rational reason, as the pre-2020 consensus was lockdowns being somewhere between bad and unthinkable - so unthinkable nobody even considered to call them bad because nobody was ever suggesting them. Perhaps also a bit of mysticism about East Asian healthcare.
More options
Context Copy link
The trip to Barnard Castle made Dominic Cummings a national laughing stock, but that was survivable as long as he retained the support of Johnson. It was falling out with Carrie that did for Cummings in the end.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link