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 -
This is a liberal-traditionalist space; you won't find many progressives around here to defend them against that charge. The last one that put serious effort into doing so has, as far as I know, left the forum- sure, his argument wasn't as solid as it needed to be, but this is something progressives seem to take really personally and I've yet to charitably understand the life outlook that demands that.
Because (from a liberal perspective) they're failing the [Turing] tests that should clearly predict [sexual] incentives on purpose?
If the Left is trying to advance pedophilia, they're clearly doing an absolutely terrible job of it, considering the average age of virginity loss and general age of consent has done nothing but rise (making these ages gender-neutral is not really a liberalization of the law) and the newer generations are more sensitive to this, perhaps as a reaction to constantly having gross sex stuff they hate forced into them every waking hour. Considering the cultural power they have to change these things, this failure is out of character.
They aren't following the gay rights playbook of "fix the perception that X is a complete and utter rejection of social norms so that the average Joe thinks you're sufficiently like him that he no longer sees fit to stop you"; instead preferring only to ride the wave of gunboat diplomacy that is the trans rights movement (which, in fairness, doesn't exactly follow that playbook either).
It should be extremely telling that there's basically zero "groomer literature" that features a relationship the average boy or man would ever be interested in (given all the pairings are gay men, gay boys, or gay men with gay boys; if a woman is ever featured it's lesbians- my evidence is that the spiciest stuff the Right can dig up only includes [young-ish] boys, because if it were [young] girls they'd trumpet that instead). One would assume that if the movement was purposefully pro-sex-with-kids thing their literature would feature a lot more girls or straight women for what should be obvious reasons, but since that's not the case that claim is obviously false.
Now sure, that's still damning with faint praise given that we already know the Left is perfectly fine portraying boys like that (and will not hesitate to call them bigots for complaining about/resisting the same kind of unwanted sexual attention from men that women have been trying to banish for decades now), but I think the trads doth complain too much; their brand of Junior Anti-Sex League has the same end result, they just doesn't like the concessions the progressives leave for man-on-man (or the bullying potential progressives leverage from the narcissism of this small difference, as viewed from a liberal perspective).
More options
Context Copy link