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 -
If it is similar to the George Floyd situation, then why would I say that? In the death of George Floyd, the cops acted - and this is the most charitable interpretation - incompetently. I do not want cops to advertently or inadvertently kill people who are doing nothing more dangerous than trying to use counterfeit money, weakly resisting arrest, and being on drugs.
The fact that afterward, a bunch of activists misrepresented the facts about overall police performance around black people and tried to turn this issue into a race war against white supremacy or whatever is a separate matter. I was clear about it then and I am clear about it now - yes there absolutely are huge problems in America's criminal justice system. I support police reform. But I do not support hysterical activists who twist reality in support of their ideological narratives and go crusading against some sort of hated white enemy.
Why do you care? How does it affect your life or the lives of anyone you care about? Do you have any relatives or loved ones who are even remotely likely to end up dying in a similar matter? Is the extremely rare death of the occasional junkie ex-con seriously worth devoting any significant political capital toward preventing? Wouldn’t you rather live in a country where an event like this is at best a local news story that gets handled in a routine manner within the local court system?
I believe that you are willingly complicit in the exact problem I’m highlighting. In my opinion, by far the most important problems with America’s “criminal justice system” is that criminals are not punished nearly severely enough, and that in almost any genuinely functional criminal justice system George Floyd would not have had the opportunity to die under Derek Chauvin’s knee, because he would have either 1. been executed or imprisoned for life after the first time he broke into a woman’s home and held her at gunpoint, or 2. forcibly institutionalized for being a chronic abuser of fentanyl and amphetamines, subject to conditional release only after a demonstrated long-term ability to desist from the use of those substances.
That is the kind of hard-heartedness I’m talking about. Not “yes, I agree that this country needs a major overhaul of its criminal justice system to protect the George Floyds of the world, I just don’t think those overhauls should extend to as many aspects of society as Antifa thinks they should.” No, we’re going to need much stronger stuff than anything you’ve offered.
What about caring for the maintenance and running of a complicated machine like the court system or the police system? Am I not to care that parts of this system seem to be defective in certain area of my country, a country I care a lot about? Should I just ignore that these core institutions are producing false positives at a rate higher than acceptable?
I imagine the answer is no.
But I also imagine that you could argue that the existence of people like Floyd outside of prison is the sign of the system being broken. With that, I agree wholeheartedly, but I must push back against the idea of not caring about the health of fundamental institutions. And arguably, a court and police that's in better shape would have more appropriately handled the such a case as Floyd's by, most likely, isolating him from society. But the same system killing even a man like Floyd by mistake is even more cause for alarm than letting one like him walk about freely.
More options
Context Copy link
You could just as well ask this about most of the things that people typically discuss here. Most of the topics that you bring up here, I suspect, also do not really affect your life or the lives of those you care about that much.
I do not want to go into too many personal details but in short - no it is not likely. However, I have certainly known or at least known-through-friends people who were treated by the criminal justice system in a way that I disagree with. One was jailed briefly for criticizing incompetent cops to their face. Another was imprisoned for years for drug transportation, and in my view almost all laws against recreational drugs should not exist.
In any case, I can sympathize with people who are hurt by the criminal justice system even if I personally do not know them.
Your attitudes towards recreational drug use are totally alien to me. I have no idea why anyone would have your attitudes and I have never seen a good argument in favor of them that did not boil down to being pro-authoritarianism/pro-social engineering. And I am not pro-authoritarianism, although I am also not some kind of unrealistic libertarian. I think that obviously some authority is necessary for society to function, but I prefer to limit it and the idea of using state power for social engineering - which the war on drugs basically is - is distasteful to me just as it would be if, say, a communist state did it. Again, obviously some degree of state-imposed social engineering is necessary for a society to function but I prefer to limit it and certainly the idea of using force to prevent people from consuming mind-altering substances seems absurd to me, as absurd as say would be the idea of using force to prevent people from wearing certain styles of clothing or the idea of using force to prevent people from consensually having sex with certain other people.
It is hard for me to understand the mindset of pro-authoritarians. It is almost like trying to understand some different species.
Hard-heartedness cannot be imposed without authoritarianism.
Does this mean that we should let violent people run wild without trying to stop them? No, not at all. I am not anti-police. I am for competent police who do a better job of using the minimum of force than the current police do. If that means we need to fund the criminal justice system more so that they can hire a higher quality of person, I am for it.
Should George Floyd have been executed for breaking into a woman's home and holding her at gunpoint? In my view, no. I am absolutely against capital punishment if for no other reason than that it occasionally kills innocent people. Should he have been imprisoned for life? That is a different matter, and I think that "yes" is certainly a reasonable position to have on that question. There are decent arguments pro and against. People do change sometimes and lifetime incarceration is a very harsh sentence to impose. On the other hand, it is clear to me that letting people who have a track record of gun violence back on the streets is not fair to their possible future victims. So I am not sure about this issue.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link