site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   36582 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 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.

20
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

People attempting to carve reality at the joints, using the idea that race is both genetic and cultural and pretending it’s just genetic.

As someone who identifies as American, only belatedly and reluctantly as white, and not at all as White, I am grateful for this peek inside the racial mind in its attempt to steelman and convince. To quote Ayn Rand in her essay on racism:

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas—or of inherited knowledge—which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.

Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.

I have a working theory that the reason that rootless cosmopolitans, late-stage capitalists', and various other flavors of socially atomized WERIDo seem to gravitate toward racialism, (be it of the CRT or HBD variety) is that they lack a sense of culture. They compare a McDonalds in Tokyo to a McDonalds in Manhattan and conclude that the differences between the US and Japan are superficial because they lack any wider frame of reference. They judge on skin color because skin color is easy to see/measure. It's the old streetlight fallacy.

They compare a McDonalds in Tokyo to a McDonalds in Manhattan and conclude that the differences between the US and Japan are superficial because they lack any wider frame of reference. They judge on skin color because skin color is easy to see/measure. It's the old streetlight fallacy.

This doesn't make sense. A racialist would interpret far deeper meaning to the differences between a McDonalds in Tokyo and a McDonalds in Manhattan than a liberal would.

Yes, that is what I said.

The reason that socially-atomized young progressive urbanites such as yourself gravitate towards racialism (be it of the CRT, HBD, or WN variety) is that race is visible, and being socially atomized they have no real sense of culture. They ascribe outsize importance to superficial details like race because, true cultural differences (IE a city without a McDonalds) is completely beyond their ken.

To clarify, the entire rest of the world places profound emphasis on racial differences, both implicitly and explicitly. You are one of the very few who can claim to not place strong emphasis on racial differences and treat them as superficial. You can let that be your legacy and cling to it until the bitter end, if you want.

Incorrect

The vast majority of the world places the primary emphasis on language/culture first with genealogy a distant second but you mistake it it for race because you can't see the cultural issues that underpin it. As other users have noted both Nazi Germany and Apartheid-era South Africa considered Japanese to be "white" which is nonsensical from a genetic stand point but makes perfect sense in a culture first model.

This is almost certainly true. In my experience, they compare their WEIRD acquaintances with WEIRD-mindcolonized non-Westerners and conclude that because everyone cares about Ukraine and climate change and reads and agrees with the NYT, regardless of nationality or race, we must all be the same on the inside. Next time you talk to someone who has "lived in China" or "worked in Tokyo for 5 years" consider that they may have never left their foreigner bubble or, even if they have, they spent time around non-Westerners who were Western-educated and, importantly, were the kind of people who preferred to hang around with Western foreigners.

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