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 -
Well you already stated a claim, and it would be helpful to specify what you exactly meant subjectively when you said "everyone is pressuring witnesses". Do you mean that the witnesses are being pressured to lie or withhold their testimony? Or maybe they're being pressured to tell the truth, but maybe that's bad? Avoiding specificity about what you exactly mean by "pressuring" makes it likely that your point would be obfuscated through vagueness.
I think I was pretty clear in saying that we have no external reference by which to distinguish between pressuring them to lie or tell the truth.
Surely, you understand this possibility in the abstract. Consider a run-of-the-mill police interrogation, trying to garner a confession (either to one's own culpability or as a witness to someone else's). I'm confident that you are completely aware of the bog standard concern that this behavior could be interpreted both as pressure to tell the truth and to lie.
Consider Michael Cohen's plea agreement on a campaign finance charge that called Trump a co-conspirator. One could easily believe that it was a totally bullshit charge that is simply not sustainable under Supreme Court precedent if it were vigorously contested. Others could disagree, perhaps even thinking that this sort of vigorous application of campaign finance laws are necessary for our democracy. Such folks would then disagree on whether pressuring him to plead in that way was for the purpose of being a totally bullshit way to try to get headlines about Trump being a co-conspirator without having to actually make those claims fly in a court of law when contested... or simply pressuring him to plead to his obvious criminal conduct with the biggest criminal in the world.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link