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 -
They did not solve the problem of rule without consent, they just changed a relatively benign despot for an insanely paranoid and delusional pack of murderers, and then a competent but bloodthirsty tyrant that plunged the whole continent into war. They made everything worse, and got millions of people killed for zero benefit.
In any case, the idea that you make things better by killing the bad people is exactly the problem I'm pointing out here. Killing people should never be a terminal goal, which is yet another of the mistakes an entire branch of Enlightenment ideology repeatedly makes.
The confusion already exists. People claim that the Enlightenment is defined by a commitment to individual liberties, and then claim that the French Revolution was a central example of an Enlightenment project. These two claims are contradictory. My position is that you cannot claim A = !A. I feel like that's a pretty solid position.
Then you and your enemies are ignoring the evidence in front of you, because those two revolutions were very, very different in character from each other. You are being sloppy in your definitions, and I object to that. If we are going to claim that a category is important, that category should be rigorously defined. If that category is an ideological movement, we should be able to define what features determine whether an item is included or excluded from the set, and we should be weighing the historical results of that ideology more heavily than theorizing or public statements of intent. I am willing to accept whatever definition you prefer, provided that definition is then scrutinized properly and rigorously applied. If you want to define the Enlightenment as "only good things and never bad things", I'm fine with that, as long as you do so explicitly, so I can point out that such a definition is useless for analysis of the real world.
No. I'm asking you and everyone else to give your definition of what we all agree was a pivotal ideology, and then sort two very distinct historical examples according to that definition. This should not be hard to, and it is not unreasonable to insist that it should be done. This is what definitions are for.
Then make that your definition, and let's see where the evidence goes. If you want to claim that the Enlightenment is defined by opposition to traditional forms of religion, government and social structure, I'm fine with that. It still leaves America and Britain as distant outliers given that they kept their traditional religion and social structures and even much of their government, and it still leaves the basic problem that the more Enlightened a revolution was, the worse the results it delivered.
Or perhaps I'm not getting the definition right. Feel free to correct me in detail. Make your case!
Me and others have quoted the dictionary at you already. That definition is perfectly serviceable. But you try to create meaning for its own sake, untethered to the minds of other men. Your definition of the enlightenment clashes with
the dictionary
present supporters of the enlightenment
present opponents of the enlightenment
historical supporters and opponents of the enlightenment
american revolutionaries , and their opponents
everyone
I think you’re stretching the limits of acceptable word games, dude. If you want to keep arguing against this ‘bad enlightenment’ , you should call it something else, like ‘rousseauianism ‘, or ‘Cult of Reason’ , some less well-known expression that is not already imbued with a different meaning to the one you want to assign to it.
Plus you’re trying to define a mammal by comparing a cat to a dog, saying this one’s paws are more mammal-like than the other’s and so on. Futile exercise, you need a mollusk or a reptile.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link