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 -
While Livy might have attributed it thus, this doesn't really reflect the reality on the ground.
The obvious criticism is that Romulus is almost certainly a myth. The legend of the founding of Rome as well as early events like the Rape of the Sabine women might have shreds of truth but are largely made up.
By the time that we have historical records, Romans were very reluctant to grant citizenship to others. When Drusus proposed enfranchising Rome's Latin allies in 91 BC, he was accused to trying to make those new citizens his clients. Drusus was assassinated shortly thereafter, leading to the Social War of Rome against its Italian allies which lasted 4 years and saw 50,000 military deaths on each side. Only then were some wealthy citizens among the erstwhile "Allies" granted Roman citizenship although there was much consternation on how they would affect voting.
It would take another 300 years before all free inhabitants of the Roman Empire were made citizens. This happened in 212 AD under the reign of the notorious tyrant Caracalla who did so only to increase tax revenues.
At this point, of course, Rome was already in decline. The next 250 years would see Rome have increasing reliance on outsiders to fill its military ranks until those outsiders finally did away with the Western Roman empire entirely.
I for one am extremely skeptical of any "diversity is our strength" arguments about ancient Rome.
They've found post-holes of about the right age in the spot where late-Republican Romans claimed Romulus' hut was preserved.
In kind of the same way China went through its Doubting Antiquity phase in the early 20th century, it's fashionable to assume myths and mythical history are just made up in the West, but it may be we go through something like the Chinese did where, whoops, turns out the Shang really did exist and here's the archeological evidence with writing and who knows when the Xia turn up in the archeological record but we shouldn't be surprised if they do.
More options
Context Copy link
I'm not making an argument about Rome's actual founding - we don't know what happened in 753 with any reliability, and archaeological evidence suggests the city already existed at that point anyway. I think Livy is most interesting as a window into what Livy thought and how he conceived of Rome's greatness, rather than historical causation. Livy's narration of the history of Rome tells us about Livy's values and about what could be safely expressed in elite Roman society in his day.
I bring it up, then, mainly as a single point against the equally-imaginary idea of some sort of ethnically pure Rome free of outside influence. As far as I'm aware, the Romans themselves knew that their city was not the result of a pure bloodline stretching back into the distant past, but rather was a hybrid of many influences.
This doesn't seem like an argument that diversity is our strength - if nothing else, if we all adapted Livian or Romulan policies for a modern nation, we'd do a lot of very un-progressive things. But the hybrid character of Rome does seem evident to me.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link