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 -
As already explained in the post, Starmer is not a lawcel dispassionately following the letter of the law, because it's possible to find areas of international law he's happy to ignore.
There are multiple possible explanations here. Regarding the Chagos Islands, the ICJ made a direct ruling requiring the UK to take a specific action. Locking up people for free speech might go against the spirit of some international law or other but unless he was specifically ordered not to I could imagine him feeling less constrained by that. It also wouldn't surprise me if he personally feels the jurisdiction of international law is solely that covering disputes between nation states, and not domestic affairs. He might also feel that as PM, he's in a sense above the law as it relates to domestic issues, but that international law as decided by various global bodies exists on a higher level that the UK must be subservient to. Someone showing authoritarian tendencies when they have power but being a stickler for rules imposed on them by what they feel to be higher bodies isn't displaying a particularly unusual personality type.
More options
Context Copy link
Nearly all of us are hypocrites one way or another. It'd be very human and understandable for Starmer to consider himself a staunch defender of and believer in the International Order and Liberal Democracy while maintaining a position at odds with that. All it takes is one tiny brain worm and his mind works it out for him. Plus, he is a politician. A major one! Has he been questioned on this inconsistency?
Brits seem set on hate speech laws as amenable to their society or even righteous. If it's dissonance it is a form he shares with a a significant number of his constituents. A politician expressing ideas he thinks his population is fond of isn't a mystery, even if it is at odds with what he says his values are.
Enjoyed the post!
I would say the traditional British sense of ‘free speech’ is pretty similar to the Motte’s: modding for tone rather than content. People should be able to have intelligent conversations about sensitive subjects without fear of censorship or retribution. But that doesn’t mean that every place is appropriate for those conversations and it doesn’t mean that you aren’t bound by conventional standards of politeness in the way you have those conversations.
I was always raised to believe in standards like “no politics or religion at the dinner table”. Thus the strong libel laws and the laws against Gross Offence and so on. Ideally they’re meant to protect you from berks who want to ruin free speech for everyone.
Like the Motte, it held up pretty well for the most part but falters when any faction gets strong enough, especially the “wokeness is human decency” crowd. And like the Motte, the way those rules are enforced is unavoidably tinged to some extent by the dominant mood amongst the public and the modders.
Though my American sensibilities lean more toward tolerance for all but the most immediately threatening or dangerous speech, I understand the British impulse. In a truly civilized society, it would be reasonable to restrict the most annoying, uncouth, rude, harassing, cruel, generally ungentlemanly behavior, legally speaking. But the laws Britain has (even its jury trial system, as that recent case of the footballer acquitted of anti-white racism by a jury shows) are unfit for the situation in which it now finds itself.
They are a remnant of a bygone age, a time of that unspoken concept of ‘fair play’, of what is and isn’t ‘cricket’, of unspoken honor, that simply no longer exists. Like the newspaper sellers who would leave their carts and simply expect their customers to drop the purchase price in a collection box (and expect nobody else to steal it) who Lee Kuan Yew saw as the very height of civilization, they were designed not only for a high trust society but for a very particular high trust society at that.
The American system, in its own way, after 200 years of the Anglo inhabitants being replaced by various outsiders, is more hardened against that kind of thing. It expects greed, selfishness, dishonorable behavior. Sometimes it even revels in it.
Yes. When I was younger, it always seemed to me that “Americans expect very little, and get it”. Now I watch the British impulse towards fair play drive us to suicide - conservative friends and family who, even now, expect gentlemanly behaviour in combat with people who have no honour.
In fairness, it was the Marxists more than the foreigners who broke the system, taking gleeful pleasure in the bewilderment of their elders. With the advent of Thatcher that was mostly pushed down again. I think the British model can work, we just need to replace the mods. Trump has shown it’s possible.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The end run around the “tone” thing is what makes it useless in a state — the way to prevent criticism is to be offended easily. Islam has weaponized the concept as any negative statement about Islam is blasphemy and therefore rude. Any criticism of certain parts of woke are offensive just because those things have been defined as sexist, racist, X-phobic. And thus you can rudely defy it (and risk arrest) or simply remain silent and let them win.
Not exactly. What was offensive and what was not was determined by tradition, and not by the feelings of the people in question.
As an example, I could pretend to be offended by your post and call it a dismissal of British cultural values or whatever, but the mods wouldn't mod your for offending me. If anything, they would mod me. The culture here (rightly!) doesn't consider your post offensive.
The Motte attempts to provide a venue for 'free speech' (the free exchange of ideas) in a way that requires restricting free speech (your ability to boo-outgroup, recruit for a cause, etc.). It's impossible to do that without having some requirement for what speech should be restricted (the rules in the header) and people who interpret them (the mods). If the mods go woke, we as users can't stop them. It's the same in the UK - the relevant systems were taken over by the woke and now we can't do anything about it. You could say 'no modding' or you could say 'new mods'.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The UN and EU / ECHR don’t prevent hate speech laws; in fact all have officially endorsed them and numerous challenges to hate speech laws from across Europe have failed at the ECHR with rulings that explicitly upheld national laws restricting speech as entirely acceptable.
The failure of the UN and ECHR to enforce hate speech laws does not mean those laws aren't on the book. Starmer could be the one to start enforcing them in the UK, if he wished, but instead he seems very selective about what parts of international law he wants enforced.
No, the point is that the international legal framework, such as it is, encourages Euro-style hate speech laws.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link