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 -
I meant that anti-gay-rights activism has been censored in recent decades.
And I believe that this was a major factor in turning homosexuality from being seen as an unusual kink that should be tolerated based on "live and let live" ideals, to a legitimate, wholesome lifestyle which is deserving of widespread support and state-backing.
The homosexual advocates didn't come up with some devilishly clever new argument. Through the use of slogans ("love is love", "love is a human right", etc) and shaming, in the space of about a decade - we went from center-right politicians voting against homosexual marriage, to any opposition towards homosexuality pushed outside the Overton window (indeed - even a conservative can only protest the excesses of the movement like Drag Queen Story Hours, they have to make it clear that there's nothing inherently wrong with the lifestyle)
I'm claiming that the holocaust wasn't the result of censorship. Instead it was due to pre-existing anti-semetic attitudes and that Germany was going through a tough time (Treaty of Versailles, the Depression, etc)
There are lots of good examples where censorship has lead to otherwise unpopular agendas gaining power (just look at contemporary issues like BLM, trans rights, gay rights, etc) - which is why I claim it is an effective tool (there was just too much societal ruin prior to the holocaust)
Due to a higher IQ than Whites, Jews naturally tend towards being overrepresented in politics, and being wealthier than average, with the Weimar republic being a special case. Further, they are more liberal than Whites, which likely increased the extent of their impact on various forms of "degeneracy" brought about by the Weimar republic.
So if you have a problem with the Weimar republic, and are against sexual liberalism, then you would be drawn to anti-semitism (unless any criticism of Jews were made socially unacceptable and associated with schizophrenic losers)
However I believe that anti-semitism (whether based on genuine problems or not) played a very small role in the rise of Hitler. The biggest cause was obviously just the bad economic situation of Germany, which lead people to feel resentful and desperate, and seek out an extreme solution, blowing their grievances way out of proportion.
For the most part, certainly in contemporary Western society which is the context for most discussions about censorship, there isn't any such desperation. People might have problems with policy X, but if you just make it inconvenient to voice opposition to it, they'll eventually give you your way.
It's been pretty well accomplished in modern Western society. The only people/organisations which I can think of that are anti-semitic would be completely irrelevant fringe figures from White/Black Supremacist movements (indeed, even in the case of actual White supremacists, there seems to be disagreement on this issue - with Jared Taylor considering them as Whites)
And this has been accomplished by making criticism of Jews completely forbidden. Indeed, whilst they are far from alone in the long list of groups which you're not supposed to criticise, we go even further in the case of Jews - you can't even mention the fact that you're not allowed to criticise them (as that would be affirming the anti-semitic trope that Jews control popular culture)
Yes, the process has started - that doesn't mean it can't be stopped.
There is a massive gulf between some greentexts and forum posts by aryanpepe1488 on Storm Front, and an idea entering the public conscious to be discussed in polite conversation amongst normies.
It hasn't. I can go read anti gay rights activism right now and this hasn't changed at all, nor is it being particularly censored. I can go read an opinion piece arguing about how gay marriage is bad without any issues. The entire movement started during a time in which PRO gay rights activism was fought against.
I'm not going to deal with the rest of your post because it transforms into a wild tangent where I would have to argue about the rise of Nazi germany and whether Jews deserved the holocaust or not and I, being perfectly honest, have absolutely zero desire to spend time doing so. I just cannot give enough of a shit to relitigate this boring topic AGAIN because you think the tactics deployed to prevent the rise of Hitler were super effective and actually worked.
The fact that you can still find places where these arguments are made, if you deliberately seek them out, does not mean they're not being censored.
They are made frequently on free-to-air television stations and in major newspapers. There's less of these arguments present now, but that's more due to shifts in demand for news content than censorship. If you can publish a newspaper column advocating for a given view then that's a fair sign that it isn't being censored in my opinion.
I disagree. If your arguments are being deprioritzed from search engines, and throttled on social media, you're being censored.
I don't necessarily disagree, but I think that there's a useful distinction between "this speech is banned and you cannot speak it nor seek it out" and "this gets you downvoted a lot on social media". There's very clearly something happening that's suppressing the distribution of speech in the latter category, but I don't know if censorship is the right word for it.
Sure, the distinction is worth making, but if you control search engines and social media, throttling and delisting might easily turn out to be more effective.
Down votes have nothing to do with my argument, so I have no idea why you bring them up.
Agreed, but at the same time I think this needs a new word or term.
That's one of the mechanisms by which content gets deprioritised. Some of this "censorship" happens totally organically, because there are a bunch of extremely online hall monitors who obsessively downvote things they don't like.
I disagree. A central authority (or even ostensibly decentralized ones like Reddit power mods) making the decision to make content harder to find still fits neatly under "censorship".
But it's explicitly not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about social media companies deprioritizing content regardless of and/or because of it's popularity.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link