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 -
It's neither. No-one except the most radical ever espoused universal peace and kindness and love. Even Jesus, the lamb, drove the moneychangers out of the temple with scourges, and "came not to bring peace, but a sword." The question where the parties differ is who gets the peace-and-love, and who is consigned to the war-and-death. And as for hierarchy, that's sort of an orthogonal third quality that can come with either peace (as in leveller/quaker/anarchist dreams) or violence (the cossack/cowboy/yeoman tradition)
Huh? This is a universal belief today. It's mocked in the 'duude hippie universal love' sense - but 'fundamentally, we should be kind and good to everyone' is, like, a moral tenet most agree on. If I asked random people around me IRL if that's a good thing, they'd say "yes". The more conservative might add "but that's very difficult, and we can't go too far", and the more leftist might say "except for the NAZIS" (who are, of course, bad for breaking that premise, tolerate intolerance, w/e), but most agree on it in a significant sense. It relates to everything from antiracism to global development aid to christianity to why those hippies thought 'whoa love everyone' when they took acid (indigenous acid-doers have visions of their idiosyncratic practices when they do psychedelics), to one's day-to-day life where the economy, school, welfare, are justified by 'benefitting everyone'.
Peace and love to ISIS? To Putin? To Boko Haram? To "January Sixthers"? To Transphobes? To Pedophiles? To Conversion Therapists?
You don't have to scratch the surface too hard to find people who even baked-out old hippies don't extend "universal peace kindness and love" to. The question is, where do you draw the line?
Universal in an approximate sense, sure, but it's present
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link