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 -
Sure, but there's a difference between "being physically close would convey homosexuality, and I don't want to convey homosexuality" with "homosexuality would convey faggotry, and I don't want to convey faggotry".
It may indeed be the case that some people simply do not like homosexuality- that much is true- but there are far more for whom faggotry/bottom-bitchery is the real problem. Since the 1980s (and to a point, earlier) homosexuality and faggotry have been synonymous, partially due to tokenism and artificial elevation, and partially because some of them really are that way (and being the expendable gender yet channeling every single negative female stereotype you can think of is just... not generally a recipe for success among the average man).
"Look at how oppressed these faggots are!!1!" is very much an active attempt to shit on every man who doesn't do that, much like "look at how oppressed these eunuchs are!11!" is on every ex-man or ex-woman who's keeping it on the down-low. When you start mining the commons for offense, this hollowing out is the result.
The barbell-shaped distribution strikes again; you get hypernormalization on the "nope, definitely no hint of teh gayness here" side or the "I'm going to stick my desire to suck 5000 dicks tonight right in your face, hope you like paying for my AIDS drugs" side. Sure, at least you can be in the missing middle of the barbell (gay marriage was the right call), but that requires threading a needle that we were better off not needing to thread in the first place.
More options
Context Copy link