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 -
Americans had slavery, and institutionally confessed to it during the civil rights era, which gave bien-pensants a huge opportunity for performative guilt, righteous feeling, and financial grift. Canadian bien-pensants never had a similar stick to wield. Even residential school, which absolutely sucked, could not compare with the horrors of slavery. How are you supposed to condemn your political enemies in the 2020s if you can’t prove their historical analogues were racist? Then George Floyd happened, and turbocharged every aspect of the situation, including Canadian atrocity-envy. So when they found these “graves,” people jumped on it hard and in about 3 days the narrative was permanently burned into the minds of everyone in the respectable classes. After about a week, news websites started quietly walking back the story -no retractions, mind you, just stealth edits, but the damage was done.
I don’t think indigenous communities themselves set out to scam anyone, but, speaking generally, they are plagued with widespread dysfunction and are grievously (and even understandably) addicted to copium, and so are prone to scamming themselves. There is always a hunger strike, or 500km awareness walk, or traditional hunting camp for kids going on. While these absorb enormous effort, they never change anything, which eventually leads to the conclusion that all the effort is in fact a defence against change, a way of telling yourself change is impossible because you’ve tried lots of solutions. The grave story is the best copium of all: “They were literally murdering our children to exterminate us; who could recover from that?”
For these two reasons, the grave thing is likely to stick around for a long time.
More options
Context Copy link