site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30068 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What matters to me is how things are right now and the manifestly evident failure of the massive society-wide attempt - AKA the “Civil Rights Movement” that you seem to love so much, which was actually just a Trojan Horse for race communism - to bring blacks up to our level. If blacks are going to make it, they’re just going to have to make it on their own. Non-blacks simply cannot be held responsible for making that happen anymore.

Hah, I just used it as an example of how change can happen without political violence. Of course there were some pretty serious race riots, but to me that's very different than violence specifically against political figures. I find the latter far worse, even though it may be more fair in some sense.

I mean I don't think we're that far off in terms of how we view this situation. The Civil Rights Movement was a great and understandable idea at the time. I think that most clear-thinking folks at this moment have realized the problem is much more complicated than we thought at first, and we need to go back to the chalkboard and rethink some of our basic assumptions around racial equity.

That being said, I'm optimistic there are gentler, more cultural solutions as opposed to just creating racial ethnostates. We've seen where that path leads, and it's not a good one.

The Civil Rights Movement was a great and understandable idea at the time. I think that most clear-thinking folks at this moment have realized the problem is much more complicated than we thought at first, and we need to go back to the chalkboard and rethink some of our basic assumptions around racial equity.

Did you intend this to be read literally? If so, I think it's straightforwardly false? More than 50% of intelligent and capable people in politics, and also not in politics, believe strongly in racial equality in exactly the ways you're saying aren't correct. Most of the remainder thinks the problem is culture, welfare, affirmative action, etc. And of those who believe there's a genetic component to racial iq gaps, the ratio of clear-thinking to not is about the same as the general population (see the replies to any popular twitter post about it).

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