site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 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.

15
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'll have you know that Hitler explicitly hated Viking larpers.

"The characteristic thing about these people [modern-day followers of the early Germanic religion] is that they rave about the old Germanic heroism, about dim prehistory, stone axes, spear and shield, but in reality are the greatest cowards that can be imagined. For the same people who brandish scholarly imitations of old German tin swords, and wear a dressed bearskin with bull's horns over their heads, preach for the present nothing but struggle with spiritual weapons, and run away as fast as they can from every Communist blackjack.

It seems to me that nothing would be more foolish than to re-establish the worship of Wotan. Our old mythology ceased to be viable when Christianity implanted itself. Nothing dies unless it is moribund.

Nothing dies unless it is moribund, I agree with that. Christianity is finished, there are new ideas that inspire greater fervor.

Nothing dies unless it is moribund, I agree with that. Christianity is finished, there are new ideas that inspire greater fervor.

Christianity is alive and thriving with greater fervor than ever before.

Together, worldwide Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity numbers over 644 million adherents.[15] While the movement originally attracted mostly lower classes in the global South, there is a new appeal to middle classes.[16][17][18] Middle-class congregations tend to have fewer members.[19][20][21] Pentecostalism is believed to be the fastest-growing religious movement in the world.[22]

Note that it is Christianity explicitly devoid of intellectual content and rational thought.

True, I saw a graph of church attendance in the UK and all the traditional churches were shrinking year on year, all but one of the evangelicals were growing. But this was in the context of the Anglican church of Uganda splitting from the English church over some compromise they were doing with gay rights: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/church-of-england-crack-up/

The key thing is getting tangible results. Christianity is not pulling in its own direction, it's getting pulled in other directions. The strongest, richest and most important parts of the world aren't getting more Christian, they're getting less Christian.

Christianity is alive and thriving with greater fervor than ever before.

None of what you quoted claims that. "There are X adherents" where X is a large sounding number doesn't imply growth at all. And "Pentecostalism is believed to be the fastest-growing religious movement in the world" neither says that Christianity is growing, nor does it even say that Pentecostalism is growing fast. ("Fastest growth rate" doesn't imply "fast growth rate".)

Be very careful not to interpret Wikipedia articles as saying more than what they literally claim, because writers phrase them to imply things that they don't have evidence for while being literally truthful. (Wikipedia is similar to the media in this way.)