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 -
Become? It's already a right-wing boogeyman depending on the skin color distribution of the average perpetrator in England- bonus points for actually being the motte definition of, and what most people mean when they say, "pedophilia" (exclusively 'old man, young girl').
I'm not as convinced; I think this is also a bit Blue-on-Blue (or rather, Blue-on-Redder-Blue) given [for the former] who the traffickers tend to be (favored skin colors tend to be guilty of it more often due to vanishingly few white men in the places the women come from) and [for the latter] that it's a righteous cause that both the people whose moral foundation is "man bad -> man wants prostitution -> prostitution bad" and the people whose moral foundation is "prostitution bad" get a lot of policy mileage out of.
I think it hurts the ability to actually talk about grooming issues and pedophilia simply because as these become right-coded, it becomes harder and harder to take a position against those things without seeming right leaning yourself. And especially in activist and nonprofits, you don’t want to be seen as right wing.
Which is something that I can understand broadly, but not when it comes to "yeah, we all agree that raping young children is bad". Who the fuck cares if the most raving right-winger who celebrates Hitler's birthday every year is standing beside you when kicking in the door of a place where small children are being raped? That's being too pure.
Hitler's birthday being what it is, it's ironically a somewhat blue-coded holiday in the US...
https://twitter.com/stone_toss/status/1649056653369659393
More options
Context Copy link
I had to look that up since I had no idea when Adolf was born, and yes I did recognise that reference 😁
Telling stoners ‘yes, happy hitler’s birthday to you to, are you collecting signatures on a card for his Argentine nursing home?’ Is the best part of the month of April.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link