site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28171 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 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.

11
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Liberals calling out conservatives for their hypocrisy about promiscuity, homosexuality and so on is as old as time, what's your point?

"Look at this self-identified Mormon conservative trying to sleep with his interns against the core tenets of his church" is a story, sure.

And liberals being explicitly pro-promiscuity and pro-homosexuality is even older so who's the real hypocrite here?

"Look at this self-identified Mormon conservative trying to sleep with his interns against the core tenets of his church"

Well, actually...

It could be argued that any righteous Mormon man (and what could be more righteous than rescuing children from sex slavery) has the right, nay, the obligation, to share his righteousness with as many celestial wives and spirit children as possible.

Take that page with a heap of salt. Much of it is outright falsehood, and much of the remainder more misleading than not.

For example, there's a whole section about how women can't be exalted except through men, and are thus otherwise denied salvation. This is false on two levels:

  1. Salvation is different from exaltation. People are saved with no regard to marital status, making the second half of the claim an outright lie.

  2. Men also cannot be exalted without women, making the first half misleading enough that it is essentially a lie. The implication is that righteousness flows forth from men to women, when the reality is just that marriage to a member of the opposite gender is a commandment for everyone. It would be just as accurate to claim the exact reverse, that righteousness flows from women to men.

A quick google suggests that is not the case any more:

Today Church members honor and respect the sacrifices made by those who practiced polygamy in the early days of the Church. However, the practice is outlawed in the Church, and no person can practice plural marriage and remain a member.

The standard doctrine of the Church is monogamy, as it always has been, as indicated in the Book of Mormon (Jacob chapter 2): “Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none. … For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.”

In other words, the standard of the Lord’s people is monogamy unless the Lord reveals otherwise. Latter-day Saints believe the season the Church practiced polygamy was one of these exceptions.

These sorts of public-facing nonbinding documents are often missing important context which committed members understand. Everybody knows that the banning of polygamy was a reaction to political circumstances (Utah wanted to become a state, and congress was reluctant to condone polygamy), not a reaction to divine revelation about the nature of the eternal law. If a man's celestial wife dies, and he remarries in the temple, he now has two celestial wives for eternity. I couldn't find anything definitive, but it seems like there are certain circumstances where a man may be sealed to multiple living women at the same time, even if they aren't civilly "married".

"The living man, after being granted clearance, can then be sealed to a second living woman in the temple. He is legally married to only one woman, but on the records of the church, he is then sealed to two (or more) living women. Any children from either sealing are “born in the covenant” with him, and are sealed to him.

It dawned on us that despite my husband’s explicit wishes and request, he would continue to be sealed to his first, living wife. If he wanted to be sealed to me, his actual legal wife, I would have to agree to be part of a polygamous family for eternity."

These sorts of public-facing nonbinding documents are often missing important context which committed members understand. Everybody knows that the banning of polygamy was a reaction to political circumstances (Utah wanted to become a state, and congress was reluctant to condone polygamy), not a reaction to divine revelation about the nature of the eternal law.

I mean this is explicitly what the revelation itself was about, according to public-facing documents. The subtext was not hidden, nor is it even accurate to call it "subtext"--the commandment was rescinded explicitly due to political circumstances.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/polygamy-latter-day-saints-and-the-practice-of-plural-marriage#:~:text=The%20practice%20began%20during%20the,been%20for%20over%20120%20years.

Later, describing the reasons for the Manifesto, President Woodruff told Church members, "The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice. If we had not stopped it, you would have had no use for ... any of the men in this temple ... for all (temple sacraments) would be stopped throughout the land. ... Confusion would reign ... and many men would be made prisoners. This trouble would have come upon the whole Church, and we should have been compelled to stop the practice."

If you read the actual declaration it is even more clear that it's a change made explicitly for political purposes. It doesn't even mention any revelation.

Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.

Right. It still leads into conflict with the bit of text from the book of mormon against it and whether or not his existing wife would consent to the polygamy, but I'll concede the point. It is certainly clear the only reason the church walked back the act of sealing men to multiple wives was because of pressure from the country. If the leaders felt the country and rest of the world became more amenable to it, a new revelation would come out reinstituting the policy.

Was he proposing marriage before sex?

For all we know he may have been. Others in this thread have noted the lack of any actual touching. Maybe he did just want to share a bed together in the temporal realm. It's not any weirder than soaking.

EDIT: To be clear, I still think the default hypothesis is that he was trying to get his dick wet, but I don't want to completely discount bizarre-sounding Mormon explainations.

Soaking is a myth. Members of the LDS church find both that, and the behavior Ballard's been accused of, bizarre and sinful.

Liberals calling out conservatives for their hypocrisy about promiscuity, homosexuality and so on is as old as time, what's your point?

"Look at this self-identified Mormon conservative trying to sleep with his interns against the core tenets of his church" is a story, sure.

This. See that Biden scandal is not about "look at this degenerate druggie pervert", but "look how so called servants of the people abuse their position for personal enrichment".

A servant of the people abusing his position is bad in a non-partisan way independent of any hypocrisy. To make that analogy work, you'd need a weird situation where Democrats care about political corruption, Republicans do not, and the Republicans are criticizing Biden only for the hypocrisy in being corrupt, not for being corrupt per se.

Being a hypocrite about adultery also doesn't seem serious enough that you should try to prevent someone from making money from a movie. Notice that the headline calls it "sexual misconduct", not "hypocrisy", because on some level Vice understands this. "They're just after him for being a hypocrite" is the motte to their bailey.

"No enemies to the left" is more succinct.

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