site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I don't think it's an "irrational bias" to say that hurting someone emotionally is wrong. What about hurting someone physically? Can you logically prove that it's wrong to hurt someone physically, or is that also just an irrational bias?

I think it's fine to turn emotions into a moneyed exchange. Normal people do it all the time with therapists, and maybe with all service jobs like bartenders, salesmen, etc. But those people know what they're getting in for, it doesn't get sprung on them by surprise from someone with power over them. It would also be wrong to trauma dump all of your psychological problems on some poor retail cashier.

Can you logically prove that it's wrong to hurt someone physically, or is that also just an irrational bias?

Tragically, we can not, which caused the death or around 200 000 000 people in the previous century. Much of what is good and moral cannot be arrived at through reason.

I don't have anything against sentimentalism, or even against irrational biases. I'm only suspicious of people who hide such natural tendencies in the cloak of logic and reason so that they may not be checked by tradition.

It is all well and good that disgusting sexual practices remain obscure and shameful, actually. But any proper application of this principle is completely incompatible with society as it is, and the strategic application of this principle to some has only been a font of power.

The irony of course being that many of the people using this mechanism do so under the auspices of the very philosophers that tried to denounce it.