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 -
Yeah I agree with this. I see these banned books week posters at my library. My ten seconds of thinking reaction is: good old librarians, defending free speech.
Then I think about it for a few minutes and wonder how books actually could be banned, and that that looks like, Also what happens if they don't take any particular stand on banning books, like marking it as BANNED in the online catalog, but instead reduce copies in stock to zero.
My local library doesn't stock The Bell Curve by Murray. That's odd. It's a best seller in psychology that sold more than a million copies. It never even shows up in the online catalog, period. You would never know it existed.
Did the librarians deliberately disappear it? Do they say "look even though we have a five story building downtown in a blue town in a blue state that allocates significant revenue to this library we have limited funds and cannot stock every book"? How would I even begin to contest this.
I assume the ideal librarian chooses books to stock based on some standard like popularity but also public good value but I realize it's probably much more arbitrary than this. And a lot more inscrutable for outsiders.
I note they do have eight copies of Gender Queer, 4 currently loaned out.
They did deliberately disappear it. It was probably initially disappeared on the basis of being pseudoscience, although I’ve seen Chariots of the Gods in libraries before (strange!)
Then it was probably disappeared on the basis of being racist, although I’ve seen The Wretched of the Earth and The Autobiography of Malcolm X in libraries before (strange again!)
Now it’s probably being disappeared on the basis of causing harm or some similar euphemism treadmill, if you could even get the librarian in question to really think through the situation. The fact that Gender Queer appears to be causing no small amount of psychological distress to at least some people, somewhere, is irrelevant to the librarian (yet stranger still!)
The answer to your bolded question, and the thrust of my argument, is that the whole entire debate is ground that one side has prepared and conditioned such that the other side can never win.
You shouldn’t fight on conditioned ground, that is, by engaging in debate with the librarian. You should just seek to harden your heart, gain control of the commons, fire the librarian and restock the library according to the tastes of you and your people, whoever they may be.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link