site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 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.

14
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I’m talking about

Now with the crime wave affecting everyone people have no choice but to take rehabilitative justice seriously.

And

But if you have gangs selling drugs in your kid's school and a crack den next door, you'll have to care about and fix the problem, right? Right?

I don’t object to OP’s argument about skin in the game. I think assessing the cost-benefit of a policy (such as busing, soft-on-crime, or general segregation) is a legitimate discussion to have. The unreasonable bit is asserting that progressives are doing this as 5D chess. That they aren’t removing the thing because the thing is bad, but because it will make other people actually fix it. That’s convoluted and uncharitable.

As @anti_dan pointed out, place enough value on fairness, and you’ll come up with something like the soft-on-crime DAs. If you’re enough of a utopian, maybe you really do think the problems will go away when you remove a discriminatory pressure. These are more realistic explanations!

Your hypothesis is stupid. It’s needlessly complicated, and paints your enemies as both naive and devious.

I don’t object to OP’s argument about skin in the game.

I'm confused. I think I misunderstood your tone.

As @anti_dan pointed out, place enough value on fairness, and you’ll come up with something like the soft-on-crime DAs... If you’re enough of a utopian, maybe you really do think the problems will go away when you remove a discriminatory pressure.

Right, this is my point. A lot of people have utopian ideas but ignore the unintended consequences of those ideas. This gets galling when the people calling the shots (with those ideals) don't live in the area and don't have to deal with the consequences. Screaming racism because they don't want to deal with that criticism is disgusting.

If you OK a homeless encampment in the park, you don't get to ignore the girl who gets raped.

Aye. No objections to that.

Argument from side effects is legitimate. Claiming that opponents overlooked something, undervalued something, and so on—perfectly fine. Asserting that they were actually choosing policies because they wanted to force the majority to reckon with a problem? Now he’s starting to get uncharitable, not to mention convoluted.