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 -
If you want to argue it's all lies, then do so. You are arguing that the 200 graves are lies. Those 200 graves are not "all". they are ~1% of the enormity of the Residential Schools System, for which the church bears serious responsibility, and you have at no point indicated that you dispute the other 99%.
Either Dispute the evils of the Residential Schools, or admit that the Church fucked up.
So it's not about dead bodies, you're engaging in good old-fashioned The Church Is Bad.
Are you protesting the Residential School System in Australia as well? Or the US native reservations? Because the Catholic Church wasn't involved with those.
My own view on this is that the other churches are let off the hook because they've fallen in line with the Zeitgeist and do what they're told around sexual matters, from divorce to LGBT rights. The Catholic Church is the remaining large Western church which officially teaches "no" on the social liberalism, so it's the number one target for white progressives who don't care about the little Indians but do care about "how dare they say that fornication is a sin?"
More options
Context Copy link
I got this in the volunteer-mod queue, and I rated it Neutral. I think your post is bad, but it's bad in a "downvote" sense rather than a "ban" sense i.e. I think you're advocating something that's bad and destructive to society, but I don't think the way in which you're advocating it is especially destructive to this community.
The thing you appear to be advocating is some kind of epistemic hell in which lies are okay if they have the correct political results, and truth-telling is bad if it undermines those results. I think that this burns the commons; it cannot be universalised because common knowledge that the media are lying political liars would zero out the ability of the media to affect politics while also removing the capability to inform the populace of important true things.
More options
Context Copy link
Go figure that despite the apparent mountains of evidence of the Church's sadism and neglect, with confirmed body piles and graves attesting to it, the one story that became international news, drew commentary from the highest levels of Canadian politics, and prompted the very public lowering of national flags in solemn condemnation, might just be a load of bullshit.
Funny that. Is there nothing of interest to mine from this phenomenon? Are you comfortable with that kind of behavioral algorithm being rared to let rip when it comes to a target you have more sympathy for?
This is my same problem with the discourse over policing of minorities in the US. With all the potential cases that could be used as a solid starting point for discussion, why do most of the examples end up looking false, more complicated than their initial appearances indicate, or are fucky in some other way? Meanwhile, videos of black officers joyously beating a kid to death runs the news for about a week and I doubt anybody remembers his name since.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link