site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33252 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It was only less than 150 years ago that the modernisers in the ranks of the Qing elite were arguing that China was too frivolous and insufficiently receptive to Western efficiencies. Indeed, as the Self-strengthening movement wore on some of its greatest advocates complained that most of the Chinese bureaucracy were more or less uninterested in modernising the military at all.

Not to disagree with the overall point, but often the decisions made sense in context, at least in terms of securing power for an individual or tribe. Modernisation would have ceded massive amounts of power to the Han Chinese, something that the Qing were running pretty low on after the Taiping. Resistance to modernisation, iirc, was often as much fear as it was traditionalism.

Anyway, to add onto this.

I think the best way to put it is that (mainland) Chinese are ruthlessly value-optimizing.

I think this is understandable when you think about it. China has gone through a period of dynastic collapse, warlordism and anarchy, international war, civil war, and massive civil unrest pretty much one immediately after another, after which there was a blistering pace of market liberalisation under and after Deng Xiaoping.

In fact I would put the direct causative element of this cutthroat-ness to be the latest liberalisation under/after Deng, which is definitely something of an adaptation of Western capitalism, even if you can argue that it’s not directly a Western import. The Chinese had a lot to catch up to in the 1980s.

Not to disagree with the overall point, but often the decisions made sense in context, at least in terms of securing power for an individual or tribe. Modernisation would have ceded massive amounts of power to the Han Chinese, something that the Qing were running pretty low on after the Taiping. Resistance to modernisation, iirc, was often as much fear as it was traditionalism.

Perhaps, but worth noting that post-Sino-Japanese war the Guangxu emperor was generally rather reformist, and presumably many of the opponents of the reformers in the civil service were Han.

Yes (and Guangxu was a reformist even before the first sino-japanese war), but Cixi who blocked him had the bulk of the Manchu aristocracy behind her (not to mention the conservative neo-Confucians), and Cixi won. Nor was Cixi necessarily opposed to reform - she didn’t depose Guangxu until 1898, after all - but only that which threatened Manchu power. There were definitely both social and institutional factors to the ineffectiveness of reform in the late Qing era, and the Han themselves were often traditionalist, I don’t mean to downplay that. I just meant that oftentimes being conservative was a pragmatic choice for many elites at the time to try to maintain their grip on whatever power they had.

I tend to think that it was less important at this point, though. By 1898 much/most of the power was held in Han hands, simply because after the Taiping rebellion (a rebellion where the death toll of which would only be surpassed by WW2, and with the Taiping + other rebellions controlling key industrial areas like the Yangtze delta for years) the central government apparatus had bled much power to its Han officials to combat it, many of which were warlords but in name.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats