site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33279 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

As always:

My rules fairly > Your rules fairly > Your rules unfairly

Unfortunately, this probably mirrors the thoughts of a majority of progressives decrying the cancellations of, and status attacks on, insufficiently "patriotic" people in the aftermath of 9/11. There are very, very few principled libertarians.

As far as I know one guy got fired, for saying that people working in the World Trade Center were little nazis who deserved it. And technically he didn't get fired for that, the public attention just forced the university to acknowledge that he was a plagiarist who got promoted to full professor without any qualifications.

The appeal to an imaginary era of right wing censorship is so strange, when the only example anyone can come up with is that people stopped buying Dixie Chicks albums.

To be perfectly clear, I think calling the victims of a major tragedy little Nazis who deserved it would be a firing offense for a professor today, with the possible exception of that tragedy being a GOP convention blowing up, but it seems like a lot of the woke ridiculousness was prefigured by things like freedom fries.

Yeah, I'm definitely not saying things didn't get weird after 9/11 (and in some ways both are typical of American National Hysterias) but professors weren't getting fired for refusing to swear loyalty oaths to The Homeland. The scale and level of coercion were so completely different that it's hard to see the comparison being made in good faith, until you realize some of the people doing it were 3 years old at the time and are working off a mythical version of events we actually remember.

I mean as a principled libertarian I'm not opposed to such tactics in all cases, like Hobbes points out, the state of war is a binary switch and once one's natural rights have been intruded upon, all means to restore them are permissible. As misapplied as it can be, defending yourself is a legitimate justification for terrible things so long as they don't stray into pointless cruelty.

I think there are much worse things than "cancellation" that are entirely morally permissible to do to people who have in fact silenced others.

But here I'm merely pointing to the Nash equilibrium conservatives find themselves in. Which also explains the examples you give and the potency of Bin Laden's successful tactics to provoke retaliation. Complaining that these are unprincipled is just ignoring the nature of power, which always comes before principle in practice.

"people who have in fact silenced others..."

By this do you mean specific people or people who belong to a group you don't like? The difference is constantly being elided or not indicated.

Specific people of course, I don't believe in groups, only in associations of individuals.

Though of course if you're going to have voluntary membership of an organization whose stated purpose is solely to destroy and undermine natural rights, wear its uniforms and do its bidding, I think it's reasonable to assume you are personally guilty. Not that I'm saying it applies in this case.

As always, this just resolves to ’I want to think of myself as anti-cancel-culture but I also want to cancel people’.

Why are you treating this person like an ordinary average normie? They were vp of marketing. A vp of marketing who tried to do something controversial to bring in a new customer base, but their map of the region was off, and so they scuttled their ship. Scuttled it so bad apparently anheuser are restructuring their whole marketing department 'to bring them closer to the brand', aka because it's far too obvious how much they all despise bud's customer base. It was a high risk high reward gambit, and you are ignoring the risk so you can claim right wingers are unprincipled cancel culturers.

Frankly, while this might sound bad formulated like this, it can also be a perfectly coherent position under certain circumstances.

I want to think of myself as anti-killing, but I also want to kill murderers.

Which is consistent. Just like being anti-murder and still believing in a right to lethal self defense. Or having a strong preference for civilization not to end in nuclear hellfire, and yet maintaining a stockpile of warheads and a willingness to press the button, for the sake of MAD.

You think he'd want to cancel people if there was no preexisting cancel culture?

Why not? It's not like consumer boycotts, getting people fired etc. are tactics that haven't been used by whatever political sides long before we started to call them "cancelling".

Consumer boycotts aren't cancel culture. Because for some mysterious reason, when the right had a lot more cultural and political power, left wing figures remained distinctly uncancelled. Whenever asked for an example people reach for the Dixie Chicks, which is wrong for obvious reasons, or have to go all the way back to the Hayes Code or McCarthyism which, unlike modern cancel culture, are recognized as an overreach.

Hold on. I'm not attacking people in the 50's for criticizing McCarthyism, I'm attacking people now for not criticizing Cancel Culture, especially when they did criticize McCarthyism.

"Why are all these Jews in 1935 scared of Adolf Hitler? He kills himself and Germany bans Nazism!"

Isn't that closer to what you are doing here:

They weren't seen as an overreach in their time. Maybe someday cancel culture will be

?

obvious reasons

That's a really weak argument. A cancellation attempt doesn't have to wipe someone from the face of the earth for it to have an effect. Otherwise no one is ever cancelled.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/23/can-things-be-both-popular-and-silenced/

That's a really weak argument.

No it's not. Nybbler is pointing out no one made a cancellation attempt. James Damore lost his job, and even though he could find a new one, he was still cancelled. Louis CK's film got dropped by distributors, and even though he's a popular comedian filling up venues, he was still cancelled. Please show me how anyone even attempted to cancel The Dixie Chicks. Did anyone try to get their record label to drop them? Did they try to get a venue to boot them out, even after tickets were sold? Anything?

Dixie Chicks isn't cancel culture anyway. They were "cancelled" for things they said in public as part of their public performance in the job they were being "cancelled" for.

The same can be said of, e.g., many cancelled academics.

No, because of the other factor that they were "cancelled" by their own customers (or people who would otherwise be their customers).

If students refused to attend lectures by a professor because of their content, and weren't substantially assisted by outside forces (including other staff, Twitter mobs, etc.), I'd agree that wasn't cancellation.

You can't actually make anyone pay attention to fine distinctions though, particularly when the other side has a megaphone, which is why the whole "Cancel culture is just us doing what conservatives have been doing to us all along" thing works every time.

Alternatively, those fine distinctions amount to conceptual gerrymandering and aren't compelling to anyone who isn't already in agreement.

Yeah, he's clearly wrong. The distinction isn't "fine". It's gaping and massive, as proven by the fact that cancellers never apply the progressive standards to non-progressives or vice-versa.

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