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 -
Depends on what you mean by that. If you mean there is very little actual race-hate, absolutely. But soldiers are some of the most inveterate users of racial slurs in a ball-busting way. So if your metric is "used a racial slur", then the military is hilariously racist. If we mean some deep-seated bigotry against other races, it's a rounding error.
One outlier I've observed is the attitudes of service members towards the populations of hostile nations they are occupying. The only person that I've heard IRL unironically discussing the merits of genocide, was an active duty service member pondering whether it might be morally correct to glass the middle east, due to the pervasiveness of human rights abuses he had witnessed while stationed there.
I suppose this is technically Jingoism rather than racism, but it definitely bled into his domestic views eg. immigration from Arabic countries.
That's not bigotry, that's just reality. It's one thing to hear stories, it's another to watch what goes on with your own eyes. I'd put it to you that anyone who had to do that job would come out hating whoever he thought were the people responsible. Part of this is just the dynamics of war, we have to dehumanize the opposition a bit to do our jobs. But the other is just that the middle east is so incredibly fucked up. And it's not one or two people, it's everyone. That's why some of us are a bit leery of bringing over people who have been socialized to beat women and rape anything that can be held down.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link