site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32319 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I agree that it was sneaky to get on to your father about this, and that if they have a problem they should go directly to you.

But this neat little snippet:

don’t bring up ...the church’s ...rampant pedophilia

Too many people online reach for this as an all-purpose defence and smug way of going "nothing like this on our side, it's all on the religious nutjob right side!"

Yeah. We in the Church have been forced to acknowledge this and deal with it. Hysterically going "it's the priests who are raping kids!!!" when credible allegations of grooming and bad behaviour are shown on the nice progressive side isn't going to save you. If you are so much better than we are, what are you doing about the problem in your community? And if it's "doesn't concern me, I don't do it, I don't know anyone who does" then you're no better (or worse) than the average Catholic who never knew anyone engaging in the same thing.

What? They way they approached it was from the angle of the father’s responsibility. Their gripe wasn’t with @yofuckreddit, it was with his father for failing to be the spiritual leader of his family. And whether either of them likes it, they’re related now. This guy took it as his responsibility to work with someone (presumably of his own generation) to help get someone of the younger generation in line rather than overstepping his bounds and going directly to @yofuckreddit.

Too many people online reach for this as an all-purpose defence and smug way of going "nothing like this on our side, it's all on the religious nutjob right side!"

I agree with this! But I also think the Catholic church's celibacy requirement means there is and always will be a problem greater than the general population.

At best, a significant amount of the clergy is closeted gay men. At worst, the male proclivity to favor younger partners (which we see represented in the gay community) manifests itself in inappropriate behavior with children in the church.

Finally, it's much harder to fix grooming and bad behavior in general society (because the nice progressive side is everywhere). The Catholic Church has a problem it can at least start to remedy. They'd have the added bonus of fixing their seminary recruitment problem at the same time.

there is and always will be a problem greater than the general population.

This isn’t true, as gets mentioned downthread- the RCC’s sex abuse crisis was proportionately smaller than the sex abuse crisis in the BSA or public school systems. Statistically RCC priests are mentally healthier and less likely to commit sex abuse than Protestant clergy.

You are correct that clerical homosexuality is a major elephant in the living room for abuse cases, being that the median abuse victim was a teenaged boy. But it is not true to claim that catholic priests are some unique issue therein.

The church has made genuine progress in addressing child sexual abuse, but it remains a problem and lots of that progress is being undone because the faction in control of the Vatican right now has too few qualified personnel to let them face even minor consequences for negligence or complicity. In any case the biggest child sex abuse crisis, proportionately, was the public school system and priests had a more or less statistically average rate of committing that particular crime.

but it remains a problem

No it doesn't. Others have covered the fact that public schools are worse, but I'll add that sex abuse also happens to be adjacent to the "but muh mass shooting child abuse, if it saves just one life we are justified in banning our outgroup".

Hence, one should expect that the statistically inevitable sex abuse should be over-prosecuted/overreacted to in the less popular/out groups, like the Church and the Scouts, and under-prosecuted/underreacted to in the more popular/in groups, like LGBT advocacy groups and Virginia school districts.

It's worth noting, of course, that 60 years ago the two groups were on opposite sides- immunity from outrage comes and goes as political power waxes and wanes.

but it remains a problem

The delta between abuse within the Catholic Church and in public schools is well documented, and supports the (in my opinion obvious[1]) conclusion that your children are less likely to be abused in a Catholic school than in a secular one.

[1]: It seems like the obvious answer that a Catholic organization, which treats the family, and especially children, as the most important part of society and worthy of the most protection, would be a safe place for children. The (false) idea that Catholic priests are somehow more likely than anybody else to abuse children (in reality they are less likely) only had staying power as a meme because of how counterintuitive it seemed. "Man bites dog" and all that.

The (false) idea that Catholic priests are somehow more likely than anybody else to abuse children (in reality they are less likely)

According your link, Catholic priests are less likely than school teachers to abuse children ... and both are orders of magnitude more likely than anybody else. Compare its stated 10K abuse allegations from 100K priests (4,392/4%) to its remaining 310K abuse allegations from 260M non-priest adults in the US and the former is about a factor of 100 higher ... but then consider that, to have the stated 5% abuser rate, the 4M teachers in the US must have 200K abusers among them, and at even 2 incidents per abuser teacher (still less than the stated rate among abuser priests) that wouldn't leave any allegations left for non-priest non-teachers.

Maybe this makes sense, at least after accounting for rounding errors, in a Willie Sutton "Why do you rob banks?" "Because that's where the money is." sense? But I have to wonder if these numbers are just inconsistent because some of them are incorrect, or at best inconsistently defined.

but it remains a problem

The problem was blown out of proportion to an absurd extent. If you're bothered by what's going on in the Catholic church, you should be livid at what's going on in public schools.

I never claimed it was a bigger problem than what goes on in public schools or the BSA or whoever else.

The problem was blown out of proportion to an absurd extent.

Numerically, maybe. A bigger problem is that the offending priests were moved rather than removed. The corruption went pretty high in an organization meant to be better than that.

When someone says "rampant" I tend to think of the issue is indeed numeric in nature.

That's true. I do think "rampant" also has an emotional meaning though of just "much more frequent than it should be."

Do the public schools have a similar history of using institutional power and processes to protect chronic abusers, conceal abuse, and lean on victims to keep silent?

Yes.

This response made me laugh so hard (in agreement).

Might we share the joke?

There's not really a joke per se, but I found the directness and bluntness of the response to your (kinda gotcha) question amusing, and felt a bit like stating the obvious.

Yes, of course public school have used their institutional power to cover up scandals that occur within their institutions.

Eh, it as a genuine question. I hate the public school system and am entirely ready to believe accusations against them; I would like some evidence to base the belief on, though. I can totally believe that covering up molestation is something they'd do, but I've seen actual evidence of it for the Catholic Church, and I haven't seen any of the same scope for the public schools.

More comments

Sort of?

Look, I'm not defending the Church here, I just think the focus this issue gets is ridiculously disproportionate.

The question was genuine, I have no idea what the correct answer is in the case of the schools, but it seems like a relevant question. Thanks for the info!

What is hilarious is when you get told it as a prot, like there wasn't millions of people killed to put to bed the idea that I had to pay fealty to Rome.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats