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 -
Sorry, I did a bad job of explaining what I meant there. I wasn't using fatigue as a justification for lack of interest. What I meant was that this execution, combined with a bunch of other shit Obama did on the foreign policy front, let to a fatigue with the administration among more progressive voters, particularly younger ones. Obama was elected largely on the promise that he'd back away from the aggressive war on terror policies of the Bush administration. In the '08 GOP primaries you had people like McCain and Fred Thompson who were doubling down on this position. Then Obama comes in and while he was eventually able to get out of Iraq, he doubled down on Afghanistan without making any progress, invaded Libya, wasn't able to close Gitmo, drew lines in the sand in Syria, oversaw an NSA domestic spyiung program, and was now droning US citizens. He was able to make up some of this ground by moving to the left on social issues later in his second term; this ended up being good for him personally, but it wasn't enough to save Hillary Clinton, whom millennials didn't like to begin with and was largely seen as the architect of some of these adventures. The fatigue that I'm referring to is the fatigue with the entire Democratic establishment that led to Bernie Sanders almost giving Hillary Clinton a run for her money in 2016, a fatigue that was largely the result of the Obama administration's more conservative views on civil liberties.
More options
Context Copy link