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 -
Not that I've noticed. Most of the time it seems they wield power in order to influence the the majority opinion. Even that isn't a must, they're happy to wield power and just censor their opponents if they can get away with it.
Forget about the the trans stuff then, this is much closer to the core topic of this thread. I don't believe this is how power works at all. I completely disagree with this. We've been taught this democratic model of power to give us the impression our opinions matter, and that we're participating in these big decisions. This wasn't done to teach us how the system actually works, it was done to pacify us. The WEF panel I discussed isn't talking about what arguments to best use in order to convince people in Singapore or Ghana that homosexuality is ok (it's actually quite remarkable how little time they spend on that no that I think about it. There's one part when the lady from the US talks how they won by switching the conversation from talking definitions of marriage to a 'love is love' approach). They talk about winning through influence in courts, corporations, media, and education, and using Quiet Diplomacy when public opposition starts to become overwhelming. The closest strategy to "getting more people to agree" is leveraging youth organizations, and that isn't persuasion as much as it's indoctrination.
But this is an argument the Catholics open with. They don't deny it to your face, and only later, when they're sure they're among themselves say "that isn't great, but it's rare". If they did, it would be completely valid to claim they're in favor of defending pedophiles. And even knowing there might be a "that isn't great, but it's rare" said when I'm not there to hear it, the implication of it being said only when I'm not around is that there's also "it's not great, but it's better than agreeing with a rightoid".
More options
Context Copy link