site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   25450 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 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.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It's marginal because she's trying to walk a tightrope of depicting this behavior of picking up needy unstable women for sex and then dumping them and maybe spreading rumors about it as not-quite-assault-but-definitely-predatory-and-damaging-to-them.

So she's depicting the men who end up in this situation as, not quite criminals, but some type of perpetrator who is getting retribution for misdeeds.

Of course, if you're the type of person who believes that men in those situations have done nothing morally wrong, then from that perspective this would be straight-up victim blaming.

And similarly, if you believe that women who dress skimpy or flirt or drink too much are doing something morally wrong, then you could apply the logic she's talking about here to say a lot of statements are not victim blaming, which she would think are.

This is definitely a case where she's proposing a standard for what type of condemnations of people who had something bad happen to them are or are not ok, which would lead different people with different perspectives on the situation to disagree about what is or isn't justified to say after the fact.

That is definitely shaky ground for feminism, since it creates more grey area to justify statements they would consider victim blaming.

She is trying to use this to claw back moral ground for her side by implying 'false accusations are ussually made against bad actors anyway, so they're not as bad as the other side says'.

But I think this ploy is pretty bad and almost certainly loses more ground than it gains, both by leaving the door open to justify victim blaming against women and by proposing what will look like a blatant double standard to anyone who disagrees with their perspective.

Hopefully this meme will not catch on with other feminists, we'll have to see.

Note, if anyone cares about my own position: I generally feel that blame is non-transferable, one person getting more blame in a situation doesn't mean the other gets less, teh two calculations are entirely independent from each other.

Hopefully this meme will not catch on with other feminists, we'll have to see.

Whether other feminists emulate her is one thing. The question is why is no one protesting such formulations in The New York Times? How come she is not "cancelled"?

... because the people who would do that do not have the perspective that these men are non-predatory, and therefore don't consider them victims, same as her.

I would expect that lots of people like the people talking about it in this thread are complaining in the same way that 'cancellations' normally happen, there just aren't enough of them, or not enough in influential enough positions, to actually have much impact.

There are a lot of legal ways to be an asshole.

Is that a problem with the law or morality?

I wouldn't have it any other way.

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