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 -
The idea it seems like lots of progressives have is that the conservative catholic Supreme Court justices(or at least some of them) must obviously not believe in conservative Catholicism because they’re obviously well qualified, intelligent, competent people, just like the thinker of this thought, who after all doesn’t understand how anyone could believe in those ideas. So therefore Roberts(trying to control the rowdier more hardline conservatives to his right) and kavanaugh(vengeance) have some other motive for professing conservative catholic beliefs and generally ruling in accordance with them, and if you can appeal to their inner, true beliefs hard enough they’ll start acting like the good liberals they are deep down.
Now this thought process is clearly wrong, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the sort of thing that would stop anyone from having it. Trump, notably, seemed to have the same belief in reverse around the 2020 elections- it’s not a purely partisan thing.
I mean I think we largely agree I think quite honestly that since the vast majority of the types of people bringing suits to SCOTUS are more or less agnostic consequentialists and generally hanging around other people like themselves that they lack any perspective that being a conservative Catholic means something to that Catholic. And therefore they can’t fathom religion being a reason and assume it must be an excuse for whatever they really want.
Think about it from the point of view of visiting a tribe with a taboo against wearing blue. You probably have never thought twice about the color of your clothing (and given how common the color is, I’m assuming that you’re probably wearing blue now). So you walk up to a member of this tribe wearing blue, a color that in their culture is reserved only for the gods. They’re obviously going to not want to be around you, because from their point of view you’re using something reserved for the gods — it’s blasphemy to them. But you can’t wrap your head around it being about the color of your clothing. It must be xenophobia or racism or something. It couldn’t possibly be that they take this blue thing seriously.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link