site banner
ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   45539 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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.

106
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

We're now one month away from the opening of the new Supreme Court term, and hopefully the summer break has allowed tensions around the last term to cool down somewhat.

The test of that, I think, will be a lightning rod of a case coming up early in the term, regarding affirmative action. But actually, it's two cases, Harvard, the one everyone talks about, and UNC, both on Halloween. I haven't paid as much attention to the UNC case, but I finally bothered to read some of the amicus briefs yesterday and one stood out because it comes at the issue in a way that's less talked about than the issue with Harvard's diversity "tips" or low personality scores for Asian students.

The brief is filed on behalf of a handful of former US Dept. of Ed. officials who served under Betsy DeVos in the previous administration. The brief recounts the history of some of the changes made during the Obama administration:

Before Amici’s tenure in OCR, the Obama Administration actively encouraged schools to adopt race-conscious policies, providing schools with suggestions and guidelines regarding race-conscious scholarships, student retention, mentoring, andelsewise. In 2018, OCR withdrew most of the Obama-era guidance on these topics, and in 2020 and 2021,issued other guidance and information on the limited ability for schools to use race under Title VI. Now, since January 2021, the Biden Administration has already undone much of that work, which offered information regarding the limited lawful use of race in admissions, grading, discipline, and other arenas. In short, existing case law on the issue of diversity has given rise to widely divergent views of the permissible scope of the use of race, and subjects students and schools to legal “whiplash” on this topic. In the meantime, many schools continue to expand their use of race-conscious policies, sometimes under the guise of “diversity” and “equity” as an all-purpose exception to Title VI.

So the Obama Administration makes a bunch of changes in 2011, then the Trump administration rescinds those in 2018 and issues entirely different guidance. The brief describes some of the complaints they dealt with and how they responded. No, you can't reopen schools following the pandemic to only black and brown kids in order to reduce in-person class size and leave white kids at home. No, you can't have segregated dorms, etc. Then the Biden admin - on Day 1 - rescinds all the Trump-era guidance. So a major argument they're making is that this goes beyond affirmative action in admissions - or at least that it should. They're inviting the court to say in what ways race can and cannot be used in a whole host of other circumstances relating to education as well. They're also saying that when every few years the guidance changes when the party in power changes, and the Department sometimes winds up giving diametrically opposite guidance, clearly such wildly different interpretations mean there needs to be some clarification from the Court on when the use of race is and is not permissible.

The actual question before the Court is narrower, but I can see where this argument about the instability might have an audience among at least some of the justices.

I guess the question is, given the very large reaction to Dobbs, if the Court were inclined to overturn Grutter, will that scare them off? Or is there a chance they actually go farther and weigh in on the culture war around the use of race in non-admissions related education policy? If the Court were to demand a more race-neutral approach to education does that take some of the heat out of the culture war, the way Obergefell did in re: gay marriage, or does it trigger more anger, more calls for court packing, etc?

I work at a very left wing college - you get inundated with messages supporting exclusively democratic positions. I agree with some, disagree with others, but overall abhor the general tone from my employer, as anyone should.

I'm wondering what the message will be if AA is overturned. They will need to comment AND change practices, which is very different from low-hanging fruit of virtue signaling (aside - I have to refrain from using the term "low-hanging fruit" at this institution).

I think their justification for race-based admission and discrimination against certain groups will be heavily weighted with critical theory - the "disadvantaging whites & Asians is equitable" approach.

At the end of the day, potential ending of AA opens a huge breach in the DEI. Will they circumvent it? Will there be 'sanctuary colleges' where admissions is allowed to be race-based?

My guess is yes, this will heat the culture war. We will be shown unequal outcome statistics, and hear discussion about the 'racism' of this Supreme Court decision, and resulting 'inequity' that comes from the boost in technical 'equality'. I do not believe I am being uncharitable in this description.

(aside - I have to refrain from using the term "low-hanging fruit" at this institution).

What's wrong with low-hanging fruit? I did a quick google, and found something that seems to indicate some people may associate it with lynching, but I couldn't find anything indicating exactly what the relationship is.

If I tell one student they have stumbled upon "low hanging fruit" when they have a decent response, but I do not say the same to another student, I have created an inequality in speech, a possible microaggression. If they are different races - which race should I be using "picking fruit off tree" metaphors, and which ones would that be offensive towards? I cannot remember where this was presented to me, maybe just a twitter hot take.

This is what microaggressions are purported to be from what I understand. They can be very flexible, which I think we all know..

There's no association. There's the Billie Holliday song "Strange Fruit", which IS about lynching. And of course it contains the word "hanging". But that's all there is. There's a whole lot of woke-forbidden phrases which really have nothing to do with whatever the supposed problem with them, but it doesn't matter because the objection is not really about whatever offense is claimed; it's language policing for its own sake.

Oh, wow. Now that you say that, I realize that the sites I Googled did sort of imply the reason the phrase was problematic was just because it contains the word "hanging". That logic is so stupid that I couldn't put two and two together, couldn't understand how stupid the link actually was. My God.

If we start banning words that in entirely different contexts could have something to do with something that is racist, that's a new level of banning, and I don't even know what would be left that we could say. Slave owners were known to eat food. Therefore we should refrain from mentioning food because we can't imagine what some people might feel upon hearing it mentioned.

Seems likely that if the conservative majority on the Supreme Court survives long enough to decide this case, and if they strike down affirmative action, it will almost certainly be effectively resisted by the universities. As with gun regulation, if SCOTUS leaves even the slightest loophole, they will fit their entire DEI/AA structure into the loophole, and there will have to be another multi-year court battle to decide that. If, miracle of miracles, Chief Justice Roberts actually reiterates his "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." and uses absolute language with no loopholes, the colleges will rig their measures -- drop objective ones, make up new "objective" ones which are skewed to favored minorities, and use subjective ones. And then there will be more multi-year court battles, after which the cycle repeats. As long as they cannot actually be punished for doing this, they will.

I'm not so sure there's no way to enforce - couldn't non-compliance end up in lawsuits? I agree, but there will be SOME ability to prevent it after a decision against AA.

Sure, lawsuits. There's always lawsuits. But if they win the lawsuit they go on as usual, and if they lose the lawsuit they change their language a bit and STILL go on as usual. Until they can actually be forced to stop (e.g. by a court-appointed supervisor over their day-to-day operations) or the persons making the decisions can be personally punished, they can go on spending public (and student, which amounts to the same thing given the college financing situation) money to defend against these lawsuits.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats