site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Their neighborhood is depicted as exurban/far suburban, their clothing(particularly the hats) is distinctly white, semirural, and working class, and the way the very special episodes on diversity are framed is clearly white and southern/lower midwestern.

A black coded southern bear family would probably be black bears to begin with, with a few other aesthetic distinctions(eg clothing), but you'd also probably be looking at more emphasis on sport and probably older-behaving cubs, without getting into obvious stereotypes.

I admit, I am unfamiliar with the particular style of hats from 1962 so I'll have to take your word for it. What kind of hats did black exurban working class people wear? Or were there no exurban black people in the midwest?

Also, is it impossible to have anthropomorphic children's characters that are simply not coded as anything? Is it impossible for Baby Shark to simply have no attributable human ethnicity? Would the Berenstain bears no longer be white if they were nude and hatless?

Further question, is Babar white or black? He was born in Africa but raised in France and adopts thoroughly western behaviour and dress, and maintains them even when he returns to Africa to rule the elephants (or maybe all animals, it's been a while since I read it.)

Well, biologists group pachyderm species into the broad categories of "African elephant" and "Asian elephant." Given that, Babar being white seems just silly