site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31722 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 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.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Gdanning, I appreciate your attempts to explain it to me, but I remain unconvinced that "The mainstream of constructvism has important insights in many fields". If I need to understand the history of the philosophy of international relations in order to see the important insights of Constructivism, then I'm comfortable dismissing its insights as "not actually important in the grand scheme of things",

Thanks, but I confess I don’t understand why you think a better understanding of international relations, of all things, is "not actually important in the grand scheme of things." I have a hard time thinking of something that is clearly more important in the grand scheme of things. Equally important, perhaps, but not clearly more important.

I have lost all faith that the soft sciences, including the philosophy of international relations, actually lead to a better understanding of the world. "Not actually important in the grand scheme of things" because I do not believe that learning the philosophy of international relations would enable anyone (including people actively involved in international relations) to make better decisions or better predict the future. For what it's worth, I do have some ground-level experience with international relations: I was assigned to a US military base in a foreign country. I was fairly senior, and the OIC of my particular area. I dealt plenty with the US State Department, the host national government, and the large government-owned corporation that provided us some services. What mattered was people skills and common sense. Having read the above wikipedia pages, I can say that nobody ever talked about any aspects of those theories, or behaved in any way differently than could be predicted by people skills and common sense.

When there's a claim from academics (which you have relayed to me in this conversation; please don't misinterpret this as an attack on you!) that we would be unable to distinguish our response between British and North Korean nuclear weapons without Constructivism, I think the appropriate response is "Fuck you".

I can say that nobody ever talked about any aspects of those theories Why would you, at that level? IR seeks to explain why that foreign country was willing to host a US base in the first place, not how people on the ground should use their people skills and common sense to interact with their counterparts.

When there's a claim from academics (which you have relayed to me in this conversation; please don't misinterpret this as an attack on you!) that we would be unable to distinguish our response between British and North Korean nuclear weapons without Constructivism, I think the appropriate response is "Fuck you".

Again, you are misinterpreting the point. The point is not that "we would be unable to distinguish our response between British and North Korean nuclear weapons without Constructivism." It is that pre-Constructivist theories were not able to explain why the responses are different. More importantly, this is a very simply example; the broader point is that a theory that can explain that could have potential to explain other, less obvious phenomena.

BTW, look at foreign relations between Israel and various majority Muslim countries. For most of them, Iran poses a far greater threat than does Israel. Yet, few have alliances with Israel, despite it being in their security interests to do so. Why not? Well, Constructivists would probably argue that, for many of those countries (or really, the elites therein), part of their identity as good Muslims requires them to stand up for the Palestinians. That focus on how norms and identities shape state interests is one of the ways that Constructivism is valuable.

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