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 -
Yesterday, but that's only because it's early in the morning and my wife is still asleep. I suppose it's not exactly Covid-19 I'm thinking about, because I don't care about the virus outside of it being somewhat interesting what its origins are. My state legislature has proposed a rule to prevent public health agencies from closing places of worship in the event of an emergency, and my complain about this is that I don't think we need to single out religious institutions - this power needs to be explicitly removed from public health agencies across the board. Before Covid, I would have said that such a power isn't likely to be used outside of a genuine emergency and that the experts are smart enough and competent enough to be judicious; after Covid, I'd say that they've demonstrated that they're incompetent and will abuse this power for inscrutable reasons. They can't be trusted, so the risk-benefit of allowing them vast powers to ban various forms of commerce and gathering can't be trusted.
I also think about what was done from a perspective of the lasting damage that was done to the pricing of goods, services, and housing. I also still see paranoid neurotics walking around with masks on and occasionally even people driving alone with masks on. I despise these people, but I also see them as victims of regime misinformation.
So, yeah, I still think it and I think it's pretty weird that other people were able to just mentally let it go and act like it was pretty scary, but we got through it together and it's all good now.
More options
Context Copy link