site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 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.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Is it that a significant fraction of WPATH and people pushing advocating for trans folks are pedophilic groomers who get off on child mutilation?

This is Kiwi Farms line, that is now official conservative line on which the "groomer" campaign is based.

https://kiwifarms.net/threads/eunuch-community.13954/page-4

It's truly fucking insane. This small fetish community started during the infancy of the internet, was completely blatant in pursuing their fucked up ideals, and now its leaders are influencing academia, the media, health, and governments into playing along with their bullshit. A tiny amount of coom-brained lunatics who get off to castrating children, and the whole fucking planet, are somehow forcing the entire forsaken world into bowing to their sick fantasies. And they just get away with it.

Is this really all what is it all about? Is small group of people dedicated to one bizarre fetish really the greatest secret manipulators and masterminds in history?

David Cole from Takimag (someone known as Jewish Holocaust denier is not someone expected to be too woke) strongly disagrees.

https://www.takimag.com/article/doom-and-groomer/

The key point here is that the indoctrinators are spreading a belief system. They’re mentally scrambling kids on gender. But the goal is not to physically rape them. To reduce this complex dynamic down to “sexual grooming” is misleading, because what’s going on has way more in common with the Khmer Rouge than it does with Albert Fish.

...

Last week I described the educators who labor quietly and single-mindedly to further the tranny agenda as “worker bees.” They’re successful because like all worker bees, they’re banal. Yes, we all love to mock those “libs of TikTok” videos of freakish tattooed teachers with pierced septums. But they’re the minority. Think of every pro-CRT, pro-tranny school-board member you’ve seen. They’re ordinary people you wouldn’t notice at the grocery store.

They’re invisible, doing their work out-of-sight. They’re predominantly women, and they’re not trying to have sex with kids. They’re working with quiet, fanatical dedication to remake how children see gender and themselves, in service of an ideology, not their own personal sexual desires.

Of course, they are talking about different people, leaders and common soldiers.

Still, why this particular fetish was normalized?

Follow the money. There is no profit out there. Look, for example, at furry fandom - even the most dedicated fans could not spend more than low four figures on fursuit, and exit is easy - just put your fursuit in wardrobe and let it here.

Transgenderism is for life, and it is unprecedented money maker for big pharma and big medicine.

If people were rationally following their interest, we would see them support T cause, and we do.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/billionaire-family-pushing-synthetic-sex-identities-ssi-pritzkers

https://archive.ph/XH5v5

These are the three sources of movement that changed the world.

Transgenderism is for life, and it is unprecedented money maker for big pharma and big medicine.

This is a little hard to believe, because the "for life" parts (i.e., hormones) are generic medications and they're dirt cheap.