site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

NAACP CEO Derrick Johnson blasted the ruling, saying in a statement, “Today the Supreme Court has bowed to the personally held beliefs of an extremist minority.”

Heh.


Opinion here. Big emphasis on Grutter, and on its three criteria for working around the equal protection clause. I think this is really important!

  • Clarification on "permitting judicial review." This directly calls out a bunch of the existing fig leaves for AA, as they don't line up with other applications of strict scrutiny.

  • Affirms that booting Asians is, in fact, stereotyping. Duh.

  • Points out the lack of a measurable end date.

Presumably, when Harvard and UNC roll up a new admissions process, the resulting court case will be far more tractable. The defense looked terrible, and half of their arguments were categorically thrown out. Multiply that by the number of programs across the country which are getting overturned, and this is a real win.

There are also some direct shots at the progressive zeitgeist, mostly about how poorly it fits the prediction made in the 90s and 00s. This...is not a good look when being accused of partisanship. But I think it is the smart choice. 90s-era race-blindness is a much better position for the right than the more fringe opinions.

Speaking of which--NBC is really underselling Sotomayor's dissent. They framed it as railing about progress, but neglected to mention her best argument.

In fact, this Court has recognized as compelling plenty of interests that are equally or more amorphous, including the “intangible” interest in preserving “public confidence in judicial integrity,”

She goes on to list several other examples of random bullshit that the court said was compelling. Their decision is creating additional complexity in a system which wasn't actually causing splits of authority. While I'm sympathetic, I think the rest of the court's reasoning holds up.