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 -
Ping for signal always interests me. For what it's worth, the following is simply an attempt to communicate a subjective perspective, not a claim to insight into facts or reality of any kind. I've long been fascinated by how far apart perspectives can get, and this is an unusually stark example.
You think it should be obvious that progressives care about fidelity in marriage, so if Reds act as if they don't believe that progressives care about fidelity in marriage, that must be an uncharitable cheap shot. You're pinging for signal, appealing to what should be a point of common ground between all of us. For evidence, if any were actually needed, you point to people not liking cheating. I think you're right that if a Vice reporter's friends get cheated on, they'll think that was a super shitty thing to do, and the cheater is an asshole. That seems like a probable outcome to me.
The thing is, I straight-up don't think Progressives generally care about fidelity in marriage, in any way I recognize as "caring about marriage". The reason I think a Vice reporter objects to cheating is because they are loyal to their friend, and take their side. I think if a Vice reporter's friend cheats on their spouse and lists off the reasons they did it, emotional distance, growing apart, "one time mistake" or whatever, and the reporter isn't particularly friends with the spouse, they probably side with the cheater.
Of course, this entirely hypothetical, and probably neither of us know any Vice reporters, so all we're really describing here is our models of other people. The more interesting thing is, where do those models come from? Well, probably a million little interactions... but I can list at least a few points that have updated me significantly in the direction of "Progressives do not value marriage in a way I recognize".
When I was a kid, one of the first big political events I followed was Clinton's impeachment. The pro-Clinton message was that him cheating on his wife was "a private matter" of no interest to the public. The message was that infidelity was irrelevant from a public perspective, and anyone who thought otherwise was a Christian nutjob.
Back when I still hung out on SSC, Scott had an anecdote about a situation with one of his patients; IIRC the story was that a gay couple was having relationship issues, and had come to him for counseling. One of the guys was upset that the other was running around behind his back, flirting and cheating on him, and Scott laid out his general counseling strategy. If my recall is to be trusted, it was something along the lines of helping him get over his feelings of jealousy so they could properly enjoy an open relationship, and in passing Scott mentioned that of course the jealousy was just getting in the way, because no one really expects or values monogamy/fidelity. The offhand comment shocked the hell out of me and several other commenters, and there was a back-and-forth about it that confirmed that we had not misunderstood him, this was really what he thought. It blew my mind at the time, and fundamentally changed how I looked at Scott, his writings and the community generally.
Not too long after we made the jump to Reddit, the topic du jour was Mike Pence and the Pence Rule (formerly the Graham Rule): Don't be alone with a woman who is not your wife, ever, for any reason. Pence was being pilloried in the press for strictly following this backwards, sexist, discriminatory rule, and a fair number of our progressive regulars joined in. They argued at some length that following the Pence rule should be seen as illegal, because it discriminates against female employees, who suffer reduced networking opportunities with the boss relative to their male peers. All appeals to the importance of men in positions of power taking positive steps to protect themselves and their marriages from the opportunity for scandal were summarily dismissed, often with the argument that if a man couldn't keep it in his pants, he shouldn't be in the position at all. That debate and the arguments it presented me with were one of the first times I began to simply despise the people I was talking with here. It left quite the impression; it's easy to dismiss some obscenity in the media, but to have support for it argued at length by people you know and have heretofore respected changes things significantly.
This one's much weaker than the above, being merely a passing conversation, but it's more recent so whatever. The last one happened a few months ago, in one of the threads on dating and relationships that ripple through here at regular intervals. Someone brought up a guy they knew, an academic who was sleeping with two of his grad students. Both women knew about each other, but each thought they were the one he'd ultimately pick, so both were fine with it. One of them was married, to an apparently-high-value guy, but was cheating on him with this physically-unimpressive academic. The story conveyed a general attitude of "look at this guy, winning at life!" In the replies, the people who pointed out that this was a trash disaster for everyone involved were all the most conservative religious Reds here.
...That's three strong impressions and one much weaker one, relayed because they made enough of an impression on me that I remember the details. Other examples hit me basically all the time, from all over the spectrum of media and common conversation. People talking about their and their partners' "lists" of the celebrities they're each allowed to cheat with, the general discourse surrounding Ashley Madison, or celebrity scandals, holding up the sexual revolution and its consequences as an obvious improvement, divorce as a general solution to relationship issues, all conversations about relationships, dating and marriage generally, the ubiquity of positive portrayals of cheating in movies, books and music, and so on, and on, and on. The impression that I have received is that Blue culture holds the concept of marriage as I understand it in complete contempt.
Flip it around. Suppose we're having a debate here about, say, inner-city crime rates and gun control, and a progressive here says that the Gun Culture doesn't actually care about the issue of racism. Suppose I respond "I'm not dense enough to think the Gun Owners of America don't actually care about racism. For what it's worth, I don't think you are either." suppose I then go on to claim that racism is a serious issue for all Americans, and of course Red Tribers care just as deeply about it as Blue Tribers. Maybe I even go so far as to imply that to pretend otherwise would be deeply uncharitable.
Would that argument persuade you?
That was so wild. Here's the article. Somehow I recall Scott coming down much harder on Adam's side, which is strange. Besides that, it was just fascinating to watch marriage get redefined in real time.
Scott then says,
Just so wild to me that people think this way. Sounds like he and others have decided to take marriage, separate it out into what they believe to be its component parts, and then only pick the ones they like while abandoning the others. Maybe, they think, you can keep the positive commitment of marriage, without the stifling confines of sexual exclusivity.
There are just so many problems with this approach.
People are not robots. We find it easier to self-police when there are hard rules in place set a safe distance away from truly dangerous behavior. Break a rule once, and it becomes much easier to break that rule again, or break it harder. It's much easier and safer to simply never try meth than to only try it once, even assuming that single try definitely won't get you addicted. The rule "I will never try meth" is so, so much easier to mentally enforce than something like "I will only take meth on Mondays in July". It's very easy to modify the latter rule whenever you'd like until you are taking meth every day. "I will never sleep with anyone besides my spouse" is an easy rule to defend, while "I'll only sleep with others at the fetish club" can so, so easily become "OK our relationship started at the fetish club" and then from there it can burgeon into a full second relationship. This kind of rule-breaking is guaranteed given human nature.
People are not robots. We are all affected by society and culture. Marriage has ideas and values fundamentally associated with it, and if you decide you can pick and choose which of those to honor, that decision is final. If you write into a contract the clause "the terms of this contract can be changed by any party at any time" then of course the contract doesn't mean as much as it would without that clause. There's a reason these gay men have decided to get "married" rather than "committed" and it's because they see something good in heterosexual marriages and want to emulate it. They are not geniuses, though, and cannot arbitrarily reinvent an ancient institution to fit their own needs, no matter how well they think they understand themselves.
People are not robots. Sex generally does (and should) lead to feelings of romantic commitment, and vice versa. People frame casual sex as "physical but not romantic", but I think in truth good physical relationships always lead to romantic attachment and feelings of intimacy, and being promiscuous is not so much preventing those feelings from forming as it is denying and dismissing them once they have formed. In other words, you are working hard to cheapen romance itself, in your own mind, by regularly making a deliberate effort to deny its meaning.
People are not robots. We are weak, and sexual exclusivity is protective. Most marriages go through hard periods, which is when commitment is tested. Sure, Adam is committed now, but if he continues to sleep with randos at the club while his relationship with his husband suffers, I can't imagine his commitment will be helped by the arrangement.
I could go on, but I think that's enough of an unprovoked diatribe for now.
Now, I don't actually think Adam and Steve are real people. Scott includes a note at the end:
which I think strongly implies that the couple was actually hetero, but that he was worried this would make the correct answer rather obvious (don't let the guy cheat on his wife).
Could have been a woman wanting to cheat on her husband - less likely, but still possible. The interesting bit there is that by implication ("one side or another") Scott's saying that that would make the answer obviously "controlling husband should loosen up", whereas e.g. most of the future members of theMotte would have started worrying about the potential for cuckoldry.
Good point, and again just so crazy.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That probably comes from this comment:
HAHA yeah that might have been it. There's a kernel of truth there, exaggerated way out of proportion. What a crazy perspective.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link