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 places that are most well designed to further spontaneous interaction with relatively normal and stable people like Boston or NYC are some of the most exorbitantly expensive places in the whole country. So clearly there is much more demand for that sort of lifestyle than there is supply of housing to accommodate it, which suggests that’s a luxury too.
Community and making new friends. Or are you supposed to just be done with that once you have a wife and kids?
In America, this is what churches are for (not so much Catholic churches, which haven't adapted as thoroughly to the situation).
It is true that as America has become less religious, the social organizations have not kept up, and so there's a void that can't quite be filled by meetups. But that's also true in dense cities.
Catholic churches have plenty of opportunities for making friends, assuming one is either an established adult or a teen(their young/emerging adult ministries/groups are near uniformly terrible, and this is probably fallout from the broken dating market because the organizers do not want to be responsible for such things). They are, however, opt-in, not parts of the default experience. Almost every parish has a knights of Columbus council and a men's group, a woman's... something(could be called a bible study, could be called a spirituality group, who knows), and multiple clubs nominally dedicated to charitable activities but realistically mostly for socializing. They simply are not default parts of the experience for a weekly attendee and must be specifically sought out.
Fair enough, I had pretty superficial interactions, and didn't try all that hard.
A family member and also a good friend went to Catholic school for years and grew up Catholic, and also reported not having anything social to do, to the point of going to Evangelic youth group/LDS family events. It's likely this varies a lot by region/predominant culture.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link