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.

The left’s monopoly over theater kids is possibly because leftist positions are the default for emotional young people who don’t know much about issues and don’t know how to do any deeper calculations. I predict any preteen without exposure to complex thinking would see homeless people and say “give them a home”, see the cost of education and say “make it free”, see a police officer doing something bad and say “no more police”, etc. Whether or not these leftist positions are true, by and large the positions happen to be the intuitive inclination of children. Women paid less on average -> pay them more. Black people were enslaved -> give compensation. Animals in pain when butchered -> vegetarian phase. Gay people can be in love -> marriage. Poor people -> pay them more. Someone has a lot -> he should share.

And so if if turns out that art kids have a highly developed emotional sensitivity (I believe this is true), but have spent fewer points in Information Acquisition and Complex Thought (perhaps this is true), then this explains why the Left would have a monopoly over theater kids. Notably, something like “I want homeless people to have home” is not just intuitive but emotionally potent, so it allows the subscriber to theatrically express their deeply-felt moral intuition about something important.

The populist’s monopoly over theater kids is possibly because populist positions are the default for emotional young people who don’t know much about issues and don’t know how to do any deeper calculations other than "listen to friends".

Yes, it makes intuitive sense that this would be the case (one of the left's primary Newspeak goals is, of course, making sure that "populism" doesn't make sense if paired with "leftist" for this exact reason- this is just as true when the right comes to power, but the word they use is "degeneracy"- to imply traditionalism even when it legitimately doesn't make sense isn't degenerate even though, on its face, it is).

by and large the positions happen to be the intuitive inclination of children

Yes, and the reason functioning societies don't take that seriously is that badly-calibrated intuition tends to be both fickle, wrong, and inherently vulnerable to Sarah McLachlan music concern trolling. Said societies tend to stop being functional ones if you give them the ability to summon guns (example: Karen calls CPS on kids playing outside).

Intuition of this type is also generally limited to reaction and can't really create anything on its own, so the effects of "just pick the popular thing" tend to be amplified in that group because they just haven't developed that ability (to be liberal/have a sober second thought). Interestingly, the reaction to this reaction is traditionalism (which is kind of but not quite like conservatism), and you can see how it forms in the sibling comment to yours.