site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I disagree with your assessment that the concern is some strict Sharia oppressive regime will rise up on women in response

I also don't think that something like that will show up, but I think that whatever does actually show up will be substantially closer to those more traditional and patriarchal systems than what we have today. Those ideas are floating around in the noosphere, and there's a decent chance that bits and pieces of them will be looted and reused in the construction of the masculinity that is to come.

Islam is often an unfair wipping boy for "bad" sexual relations but that's a topic for another time

Hey, to be perfectly honest I'm not really using Islam as a whipping boy - Islam may go too far in a few places for me, but I can see the appeal. It certainly works better at encouraging family formation than the modern west does.

I think you've just uncritically bought into the feminist framing.

I don't think so, but I can absolutely see how my post would have given you that impression, so my bad. That said, I do believe that feminism is going to become so hated that a lot of people will uncritically cast themselves as the patriarch/sexist that they have been told exists over and over again - i.e. that a lot of people will actually just uncritically buy the feminist framing and pick the side of the bad guys.

As for your third paragraph I largely agree - I just think that what you're describing is happening alongside what I've been describing rather than instead of it.