site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32404 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Well this is all very fair, and thank you for your engagement too.

I do not agree (and, to be clear, do not assert you believe) that any new doctrinal information emerged between 1947 and 1979 that would have given them doctrinal cause to reassess; rather, I think their social conditions changed such as to provide strong cultural motive to reassess, and they altered the doctrine as a result.

I tend to agree, but I think there's at least a possibility that new information emerged. The leaders of the time strike me as somewhat ignorant of church history.

When someone's framework contains the belief that virtually every leader in the church was in apostasy on those questions for more than a century, I don't find "...and they continue to be in apostasy on " to be a serious stretch.

That's totally fair. For what it's worth, I don't either, but I generally think people should continue with prophetic counsel in the meantime. This is difficult to reconcile with things like activism, which seem somewhat likely to have influenced the church's policy change.

The language against interracial marriage during that time was every bit as clear as language against gay relationships is today.

In one sense, sure. Brigham Young even stated things like "God's punishment for interracial marriage is and always will be death." I don't think the doctrinal support was at the same level though, and I think if homosexuality had been the prominent topic of the time then Young would have said as bad or worse things about that. But who knows, the guy really seemed to care a lot about race. Still, we already have an example in the past of the priesthood being restricted to not just a certain race, but a small subset of them. I don't think his actions were doctrinally justified but they weren't super out of left field the way that I think an endorsement of monogamous, committed homosexuality would be.

That is: setting aside the words of recent prophets (which can be done! As the Lowry Nelson letter indicates, unanimous written consent of the first presidency at any given time is not sufficient to determine doctrine), the LDS church relies strictly on the Bible for its doctrine on homosexuality.

Sure, but to me that's like saying "set aside one foot and you only have the other to walk on." The only time you should really be choosing between them is when one conflicts with the other. The Lowry Nelson letter, for instance, conflicted with not only a scriptural basis but also with what we now know to be established fact in both Smith and Young's times. Additionally, I think you're giving it a little too much emphasis since the letter itself doesn't claim to be doctrine but rather to interpret doctrine.

If reasonable terms could be arranged, I would take a bet at around 25% odds that the institutional LDS church will come out and say that homosexual behavior within the bounds of committed monogamous partnerships is not a sin within our lifetimes, whether via an overt institutional shift or via a schism. I think it's more likely than not that the shift does not occur, but that 1% is much too low.

I have heard rumors that the reason church policy changed to allow civil marriage + immediate temple sealings was so that we could easily pivot to doing ONLY sealings in the temple. The worry is that we'll be forced to conduct gay temple sealings. No idea whether that rumor is true (i.e. accurately describes the motive behind the change) or is just conspiracy theorists looking for people who agree with them. Like I said, I think the odds of a schism are much higher than the odds of this happening, so if we include schisms then really I'm just betting on the odds of a church schism within the next 50 years or so.

Anyways, how about something like the following:

  1. I will give you a VTI share if the bet resolves in your favor. Otherwise, you'll give me 1/10th of a VTI share. We have a gentleman's agreement not to really worry about payment if one of us is in poverty or dealing with cancer bills or something, though the winner is still free to crow about it on TheMotte or whatever survives of our community at that point.

  2. If the church undergoes a major schism, each side of the schism with at least one former apostle and 10% of the other side's members, it resolves as invalid unless either side would resolve in the same direction. In other words if there's a schism and it's possible that either side of the schism could be the "true" church, and the two sides disagree on this issue, I don't think either of us win.

  3. If one or more of a, b, or c happen before 2050, the bet resolves in your favor. Otherwise it resolves in mine.

a) The church creates another document like the Family Proclamation meaningfully changing something inside the Family Proclamation, such as the claim that gender is eternal or that marriage is meant to be between husband and wife. Restarting polygamy or endorsing adoption won't count here.

b) The church updates policy to allow non-heterosexual couples to be sealed in the temple, and it's not immediately obvious they were forced to do so. This still resolves positively if they're just sealed for time and not eternity.

c) The church updates policy (and the policy stands for at least 1 year) and says that practicing homosexuals in married monogamous relationships can get temple recommends.

Alternatively I'd be fine with us both agreeing that we WOULD agree to this bet, just so that we don't have to remember to resolve it in 30 years. I think there's a small but tangible mental cost to just leaving these things stewing in the background, needing to be remembered, and the stocks managed (or at least not sold). I was an active stock trader in the past, and probably will be again, so even just having a single stock sitting around for decades in my account is a bit of a cognitive burden. I'd probably create a new account just to store it so I wouldn't have to think about it.

Sounds like a reasonable bet; I'm happy to take it. To reduce mental cost, I'd be happy to run it on a sort of "honor system"—if one of us happens to still remember it in 2050, they can prod the other and claim their due? The current value of a VTI share looks to be $200; at the time of resolution; I'm happy to go with your preference between an inflation-adjusted equivalent amount of cash or stocks so you don't have to think about it. I'll note that I do think 2050 is a bit on the early side of where I'd predict anything happening—my "25% chance" was positing sometime probably around 2060-70 (treating now as the equivalent to 1940 or so)—but it's a good compromise in terms of keeping it even theoretically resolvable, so I'm happy to stick with it.

That sounds great to me, I'd be happy to go with 2060 too. 2070 does seem a bit late since we'll both be in at least our 70's by then haha. The point of picking a VTI share was to not lose money to inflation, but since we're going with the honor system anyways (not locking money up in some betting site or anything) I'm happy to just say inflation-adjusted $200 vs $20. If I do end up losing then I consider it a pretty cheap idiot tax.

Well, I'm probably about as likely to remember in 2060 as in 2050, so 2060 it is! See you in 40 years, haha.

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