site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If you want to know why Dems will never get the working white class vote this is it

What? Yeah, I'm sure non-binding anti-Semitism plans are absolutely top salience issues for Bud from Scranton.

A lot of antisemitism as defined is very close to just telling facts. Jews really do have a disproportionate amount of power in key institutions.

This misses the point. No-one denies that Jews are over-represented in important areas, what is anti-semitic is suggesting that this is either the product of some nefarious process or that it will have deleterious consequences because of some imagined Jewish agenda. One can criticise Soros individually, even if I think the criticisms are mostly dumb, but bringing up his Jewishness in a negative light certainly implies anti-Semitism.

The above point that if you replace Jew with white and you basically have crt and all the anti-white woke ideology of the left. Buds not that dumb be realizes he’s being point at the bottom of identity politics.

On the second point perhaps if the document is read that tightly. I’ve seen plenty of people make antisemitism accusations for even mentioning Soros/DA. Same thing for Jewish over representation. But like I said in what you quoted “this comes pretty close to just telling facts” - let’s say this was law and I go to jail if I violate it. If I’m talking about Soros/DA manipulation then one wrong word or one judge who thinks I’m dog whistling/implying something puts me in jail. It’s very very close to the line of banning facts.