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 -
I regret getting snippy as well, there is something about being critiqued for not reaching mile stones you desperately wanted to reach earlier but were prevented for reasons that at least from a first person perspective don't appear as if they were within your control. Perhaps this is a source of @FarNearEverywhere's consternation as well.
I think we are broadly in agreement about the general shape of the problem, the culture simultaneously makes having kids before settling into a career swimming against the grain and at the same time has pushed that "settled into your career" date back further and further. There is a pervasive meme about getting knocked up young and it upsetting the compounding interests of your life, it's presented like eating the seed corn of your potential, this is present in tons of media and we're bombarded with sentiments like 'you should enjoy your youth and not be in a hurry to settle down'. I'm not sure where this meme comes from but it seems at least complementary to a set of clearly feminist derived memes pushing the importance of women having careers and grabbing and 'equitable' amount of power, as if raising the next generation is not a seat of immense cultural power. These memes vilify the past where men and women struggled mightily together to support families as some kind of trap women were caught in and women seem to have taken the lesson as avoiding getting caught.
At the same time their compliment mgtow/pua memes that also distort the picture and make supporting a wife seem like a bad deal to men. I think this is also wrong but would at least point to the total lack of institutional support of these memes while acknowledging that the likes of Tate are more widely followed than I'd like. It's all so toxic and I think it says bad things about western society that it sets the sexes against each other instead of leveraging or differences for the greater good.
But, and I understand this undermines the centrist framing I just established, but it really does seem like the balls is in the court of women. If a woman decides she wants to get married early and start a family the option is available to her in a way that it simply isn't for nearly all men. Men are certainly not perfect in making this as attractive of an option as they theoretically could, but I'd hazard it's at least as attractive as it's ever been. I can't just ignore that it is pretty obviously that case that if we want enough babies to continue our civilization then women need to make different choices than the ones they are largely making. Nothing men can reasonably expected to do can get around that fact.
More options
Context Copy link