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 -
There's nothing inherently "activist" about critical theory, but the activism its theories enable are particularly destructive and quasi-nihilistic, so it gets a particularly bum rap.
Critical theory is inherently activist. It's really quite explicit if you read the critical theorists, including Horkheimer himself. There is no distinction between theory and praxis. The whole point of critical theory is explicitly to ruthlessly criticise society for failing to live up to some hypothetical, unspecified utopia, and force people to think in this way. This will essentially raise the 'critical consciousness' of people in society (though many of the theorists don't phrase it in this specific way) which will result in a dismantling of society i.e. a revolution. Critical theory was invented specifically by Horkheimer as a tool to bring a revolution and creation a Neo-Marxist utopia, whatever the hell that's meant to look like.
This article has quite a blatant and succinct description of critical theory and its aim.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02691728.2013.782588
"Critical theory rejects as naïve the premise that natural science is a force only for the good, and strongly opposes the positivist separation of fact and value. This opposition leads to a rejection of the positivist conception of science as a mere mirror image of reality, as broken down into elementary observational facts, captured in “protocol sentences” and finally summarised in inductive generalisations expressing regularities in the phenomena. Instead, critical theory advocates a “dialectical” notion of truth, of reality and of social science, with roots in Hegelian metaphysics as mediated by Marx. According to this conception, some of the ostensible “facts” that would be recorded in a purely positivist (i.e. traditional) social science would not be ultimately real but would be mere reifications, anachronistic and repressive aspects of social reality that would call for elimination through political praxis rather than for scientific recording."
"The aim of critical theory is hence not faithful description and inductive generalisation of data, but to be part of, or guide for, a praxis that will serve to eliminate the repressive aspects of social reality. Hence, the truth test is not observational verification, but evidence of the power to inspire successful practice."
Critical theory is not only indistinguishable from praxis (being a framework meant to inspire activism), it also basically endorses lying as long as it results in things which are conceptualised as good under the worldview. Truth has nothing to do with what can be provably verified, truth is anything which will inspire people to become activists for their hypothetical utopia. Rather than basing their goals on facts, the goals come first and said goals subsequently dictate what's true and what's not.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link