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 -
My working, internal definition of woke is "the popularised form of Cultural Marxism, particularly its contemporary related and descendent theories and ideologies, including Intersectional Feminism, Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory."
Key features of woke include:
A key part of my definition that I emphasise is the fact it's a "popularised" form. That is to say, it is the less consistent and coherent form of a political ideology, adopted by the general population, rather than the form adopted by academics, political activists, political philosophers or others who might hold specific and more consistent form of those beliefs. In fact, I would say this is actually part of the tactic that makes woke subversive - the decoupling of the name of the popularised form of a political ideology from the name of its academic or philosophical origins. This is unusual and serves to obfuscate the philosophical origins of woke (quite successfully, I might add).
For example, there is both the popular and academic understanding of 'liberal' or 'conservative'. The average 'liberal' may very well not have the exact same beliefs as either John Locke or John Rawls, but we can recognise and it's generally understood as all belonging to the same philosophical traditions. When someone asks you to describe who are liberals, you can clearly point to and name all these things. No one would seriously suggest liberalism doesn't exist in the public because the average (social) liberal doesn't believe the exact same things as John Rawls. But this is exactly what when people who are defending wokeism by saying others can't define or point to people who are woke. Because woke is strictly a popular form and not pure, academic form which people can name and describe.
More options
Context Copy link