site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32274 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 know that the “culture war” thread has long since morphed into the “general thread for society and current events”, but I think there should be some sort of restriction on what topics are allowed in top level posts. Otherwise there’s not much point in maintaining a separate thread.

This doesn’t even have a tenuous connection to the CW and would have been better off as its own separate thread.

Just to clarify, these kinds of posts are fine in the culture war thread. We have not created any explicit rule against these types of posts, and we have never enforced anything against them.

A minor history lesson:

The original culture war threads were just discussion threads where culture war topics were allowed rather than completely banned.

A bunch of rules have arisen over time to handle how culture war topics are handled and presented, but at no point were non-culture war topics banned, it's just that they defacto did not show up in the culture war threads because those topics were allowed to happen elsewhere in the community.

Basically the culture war thread was set up as fence to keep culture war topics in rather than to keep other topics out.

While this is a little harsh, I agree that this would be better as a thread on its own to discuss it in more depth. Maybe it could be moved to be a separate thread, as there's a lot to get into and it needs the room for comments distinct from the rest of the Culture War stuff?

I’d like to see an Insight Porn Tuesdays thread, where we explain interesting and illuminating things. This is the kind of thing which would be perfect for it. They could be tangential or even “logistical” to the culture war (Vivek R. (R) is a monotheist Hindu, which makes this timely).

If he had just added two sentences at the end about how white liberals tend to find Hinduism attractive for x and y reason it would be fine. He even mentioned that in the beginning.

The CW angle is clear in my mind, I think it just needs a tad extra exposition at the end. That being said it’s already far higher quality and more interesting than most of the other posts in the last month.

The CW thread has long had posts that have little connection to the "culture war" but are nonetheless interesting. I think it's fine. The distinction between the CW thread and toplevel posts comes from /r/ssc, where culture war posts were quarantined (iirc), but after all the splits the main thing we care about is the CW thread so there's no need to enforce any separation.

I don't disagree that this isn't really culture war, but I want OP to know that even it is decided that this isn't the right place for this post, I found his post interesting and educational and look forward to reading more, whether in this thread or elsewhere.

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