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 -
Building off of my other comment here, homosexuality could be viewed through the same lens.
Only in this case X represents masculine virtue, and the "mistake" is in the other direction.
When a young boy observes his dad do something requiring great strength and is in awe (say, efficiently chopping down a tree with an axe), the result is that he wants to become strong like that when he grows up. He's likely to start imitating his dad, swinging axes or whatever his dad did to build/use his strength. Eventually, he becomes strong himself and chops down trees simply when they need to be chopped down, taking his physical strength for granted because it has just become part of who he is. Or he doesn't become strong, and is simply aware of what he's missing out by not being stronger.
When a woman is similarly awed by a man's strength, she's less likely to imitate his strength building behaviors and her fantasies are of a different kind. When you take the same expression of awe and way of relating and put it on a normal straight woman, it's no longer "I want to become more like him" -- it's a crush. She's attracted to him, as a way to have some of his strength as her own.
This seems to make some predictions too. If homosexuality is about noticing masculine virtue and fetishizing it rather then working to integrate, embody, and get bored with masculine virtue, then one might predict that it would lead to overemphasis of the appearance of the traits themselves rather than the end use. It would predict that working construction jobs and watching football "aren't very gay", and that bodybuilding -- even in nominally straight bodybuilders -- is "kinda gay". And that seems to fit, as shown by the bodybuilding communities frequent need to say "no homo".
It would also predict that homosexuality is correlated with narcissism, which appears to bear out (p<.001). The implication that "I can't embody masculine virtue and move on with my life" seems to predict lower self esteem too, which also appears to be true (p<.001), but I have to admit that I didn't think of that connection until seeing the result.
More options
Context Copy link