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 -
It's actually rather difficult for me to interpret anything written before the 20th century. I read A Christmas Carol for the first time recently after becoming familiar with the story through its various adaptations, and while it was written less than 200 years ago, I still feel like there's stuff I missed. I do see your point, though, and I appreciate all of the advice in this post. God bless The Motte, or whatever the secular equivalent is.
I don't think there's the "right" reading for the text anyway. Reading is always a sum of what the author puts into it and what the reader takes from it (same of course with listening, viewing art, etc. I just use reading for simplicity). Great works of history survived because the readers over time were able to relate to them - even if they may not have taken exactly the same thing as the author intended. But that is not possible anyway - the only person who can 100% get what the author meant is the author, and even that is not sure (as people change). Of course you would miss some parts. Do you think you don't miss some parts in the modern works too? You surely do. Same would happen with older works. You can fill it in by getting educated on history, culture, circumstances, etc. - but you should not feel discouraged because you won't ever get it all. Nobody gets it all. But I think the process of getting it is by itself great. You can read Dickens once as a clean slate, and then read some history and critique and approach it again and see different parts and then maybe get back to it in 10 years, as a different person, and have different experience. Or maybe you'd hate it and would rather read something else - that's OK too, the thing is there are so many options!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link