site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 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.

So, tepidly in support of @Conservautism, but mostly in curiosity about rules and norms, where should we expect the line to be with regard to posting on the same subject? We have some great running series of posts, like the San Francisco housing issues, that I think pretty much no one objects to. On the flip side, we've had some posters in the past that were just incredibly annoying with their repetitive shit-stirring. Is the line less about whether someone is bringing up the same thing repeatedly and more about how annoying they are when doing it? Personally, I think reasonable updates and questions on a weekly basis for a topic of interest that really is interesting to the local audience would be basically fine, but I'm curious where you think the line should be.

"Don't be egregiously obnoxious" is kind of the guiding principle. Sorry there isn't anything more specific. If a bunch of people here found some behavior annoying we'd ask the poster to knock it off. Which has happened with some users that keep posting about Jewish people and the holocaust.

If people find a weekly update on a topic interesting and it generates discussion, then not only is it ok, it could be an AAQC, or turn into a weekly staple. The Transnational Thursdays thread was originally just some posts in the main culture war thread. People liked it a lot, and now its got its own thread.

I absolutely do not want the rules to get in the way of good discussion or good posting. Myself and the other mods will never try to follow the rules over a cliff.

We have some great running series of posts, like the San Francisco housing issues, that I think pretty much no one objects to.

Ah, but why do we not object? I would argue that we find it less bothersome because it's not an overwhelming topic here - you don't get people constantly talking about the failure to build and NIMBYs. It's also a less charged topic, economics generally tends to be.

In contrast, the OP's post touches on several topics far more incendiary, in the sense that you'll get a lot more people offering their own diagnoses of the issue, but often agreeing with the underlying premise. You can also find at least half a dozen posts by the week's end that make a similar sort of point of "progressives stupid/evil".

I don't have any concrete proposals, but one thing I would encourage people to keep in mind before they make a top-level comment is just how much insight they think they're adding to the overall conversation(s), doubly so if it's about race, gender, and sex. If you're a newcomer, lurk more.