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 -
I think like anti-racist trainings done by HR for adults, these things might well be counterproductive. It firstly associates this group of people with essentially “struggle sessions” often humiliating, but definitely something that they are forced to do and don’t want. Secondly it creates these divisions where a class of people are essentially otherized in an attempt at inclusion. You might not have thought about gay people as different from other people, but then the teacher hangs up flags and spends hours talking about how gays are different from other people, and to the shock of absolutely no one, the kids now see the gay or trans kid as a weird alien species of human not like them. Or in the case of HR programs, you don’t start our thinking of minority coworkers as weird, you don’t say “there’s a black person in accounting” or something. Then you are forced to Notice, Affirm, and Celebrate the diversity of your workplace and told how different these black people are, and then you can’t help but see them differently.
I haven't looked deeply into it, but my impression of research is that the anti-racist HR trainings are neutral to slightly counterproductive if you're judging by race relations. The real need for HR training comes from discrimination lawsuits. In that way they are productive so long they cover an employer's ass.
I think you may be typical minding here and it's driving you towards Democrats are the real racist.
You don't think of minority coworkers as weird, but you do notice minority coworkers. HR is correct that people are hard wired to notice the minority black lady in HR. That noticing leaves space for meaning and association. Mundane HR training attempts to provide a mild positive association via 'diversity'. Anti-racist programming goes further in the celebration of diversity, then adds a less benign negative association for white people, objectivity, being on time, etc.
A liberal I will learn her name, meet her, then judge how annoying of an HR lady she is is a common mode of operation. It's how most middle-class Americans I interact with engage. I prefer it, I want to keep it, but it's not natural.
As
we'veI've seen, the programming works. You really can cram coding into minds and get NYT editorials printed. You can really make Ford, Goldman Sachs, and POTUS bend the knee to deploy the new program. Force demands resistance so, yeah, there's resistance and counter-culture among the contrarians, vagabonds, individualists, and independent minded. Caveat is that the kids seem to be rejecting it now, because the kids think Dad is lame. Round and round.In an unusual win for equality, it's more that the kids think Mom is lame.
More options
Context Copy link
I don’t know for sure how typically im skewing this, but it used to be the norm that you’d be taught to get to know tge person as an individual without regard to race. That was the color blind 1990s and 2000s. And I’d say that seems to have featured much better race relations in most cases. Certainly there were still problems, but you didn’t have any real animus between groups en mass. Now you don’t have to go very deep to find open racism, sexism, or homophobia that would not have been said aloud in the 1970s. You wouldn’t have talked openly about Jews manipulating American government, or immigrants eating pets, or black men being criminals in the Frank manner people do today. If you got in a delorean and went back to 1975 and casually mentioned that during the VP debate, JD Vance talked about immigrants eating cats, it would seem weird.
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/12/nyregion/500-rally-to-support-controversial-cuny-professor.html
The past is a different place that even people who used to live there forget about.
And of course there's a loooooot about the gays. Half the rap we listened to as kids was about curbstomping faggots, in retrospect presumably by guys who were still a little sore from Diddy's parties
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Seems logical but not how it played out IRL. LGBT identification has risen in younger generations.
LGBT identification has risen among younger people, but so has social conservatism. This is seen in stats for young voters but there’s also no shortage of anecdotes floating around the internet of teachers complaining about their students seeming more openly right-wing in recent years (in fairness this also coincides neatly with the sharp rise in ideological progressivism among teachers).
I think the aggressive LGBT promotion toward children has a radicalizing effect, in both directions. Without such programs most kids, especially below a certain age, would simply not think about gay people (much less trans people) at all, unless they had personal experience, i.e. a gay relative or family friend. With the programs, they are forced to think about the issue, and some are attracted while others are repelled.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link