site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I've rarely seen HBD ever deployed, even on the internet, in any context except for as a defense against unhinged allegations of racism.

Even here, my experience has been much closer to that of @TheDag's.

One of the things that makes you feel that way is that we are often talking about racial differences in outcomes within America, to which HBD is very much "the hammer" because most left wing talking points regarding America are, in fact, nails. And because the left dominates the American media environment, their is a consistent supply of new "nails" being floated out to discuss.

because most left wing talking points regarding America are, in fact, nails.

Color me skeptical, I feel like the simpler and likely more accurate explanation is that deconstructionists gonna deconstruct.

I don't think I can name a single race based issue that has come up in the last 5 years where "systemic racism" outperformed "genetics" in explanatory power...

That would be because "systemic racism" is a lie that's been sold to you by woke Marxist intellectuals. It doesn't exist.

I'm not talking about "systemic racism" I'm talking about obvious cultural and individual confounders like whether or not a kid had an adult in thier life that was actually willing to put the time in to teach them.

Systemic racism is the main player in some 95% + of real world racial differences discussion. Team culture has been pretty thoroughly routed by team systemic racism because most of its adherents other than Thomas Sowell could not advance arguments that even purported to line up with reality/ were too meek to state them strongly enough to make a difference.

Systemic racism is the main player in some 95% + of real world racial differences discussion.

Which is to say that 95% of that discussion is a lie.