site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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.

40
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I also agree with them that men are by default degenerates that need tons of rigorous external tempering to get right.

No, only the right incentives. The trouble is that these incentives mostly come from and in the form of women, who resent this role. So now we have a massive problem.

Like, yes, if you want to control men en masse by force and without using women and the access to them as incentive, you're going to need a lot of external pressure, and what even so, what you create won't really be a man, per se, but a stunted bonsai man robbed of most of his potential and drive who most women won't be attracted to and who therefore will never reproduce.

And that access to porn is a bad idea, I've personally seen what crippling porn addiction can do to a man.

You realise that this kind of porn addiction, as well as simping and other parasocial relationships with women, real or fictional, is just a bad solution to a different problem, right? Basically all of this comes circling around to women as gatekeepers of sex demanding unrealistic things, contradictory things, or outright lying about their preferences in a mate for social points.

Contra to the feminists, I think it's female entitlement we need to be looking at. "Ramona Flowers ruined a whole generation of women." Plus princess mentality, etc.