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 -
So, there was a recent movie that came out on Paramount plus called Honor Society. It's about a girl in high school who is obsessed with academic success to the point where she is plotting to derail the academic careers of her competition. She manipulates several people into getting academically distracted and then her real competition is a schlubby nerd that she decides to distract/derail by getting him to fall in love with her because he only cares about schoolwork, has no friends and is ugly. So, basic plot so far (apart from the ugly). She actually falls for him instead, who could see it coming. But she basically gives away the special recommendation letter they were all struggling to get to him because he's apparently poor.
But it's all revealed to be a lie. He was manipulating her in the same way. I'm not sure how effective this would be since he's the "ugly one" from the Stranger Things cast but okay. So, he pretended to be poor and fall for her so he could get that recommendation by getting her to give it to him.
Of course, that climactic reveal is shown to not matter once she stops moping for the allotted five minutes because she blackmails the guy writing the recommendation to give it to a more deserving minority because that counselor tried to proposition her earlier. Everyone forgives her because even though she reveals what she did she did it in a nice way by distracting them with love or a hobby they liked or something. Everyone lives happily ever after. Except the schlubby nerd boy who had no real emotions except wanting to personally succeed and has to stew in his failure and friendlessness at the end. It could basically be lifted out of any high school romcom from the past thirty years except there is no lesson for the villain, there's no redemption, there's nothing.
So, no, I don't think the movie was trying to make a point but I do think it's reflective of the times. The secret villain is a friendless, rich, and ugly nerd. And there is no path for redemption. They don't have the moment where it's revealed he cared back or at all. There's not even a moment of consideration by the main character that it was possible that he could have cared at all but was hiding it. They don't show him to have a tragic backstory or even being generally a bad person overall. He was just this weird schlubby benignly evil "genius" that was capable of manipulating literally everyone around them into doing what he wanted through means that after the fact seem inexplicable.
More options
Context Copy link