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 would say dishonest, violent, radical, unconstitutional, and illegal rather than ungentlemanly.
It is the South withdrawing her consent to the Union, and each of her Free and Independent Sovereign States deciding to discard one Union and to form another. And the reason was not because of slavery, but because of federalism and the threat to that status as Free and Independent Sovereign States. Sure enough, after the Civil War, nobody really considered any of the states either free or independent or sovereign, so I'd say they had the right outlook, correctly predicted what their opponents wanted, and correctly resisted it when it became obvious that conflict could not be avoided.
Well, you can say that, but given that the South literally wanted it to be a capital crime to advocate for abolitionism, I do not believe that they really had much regard for Constitutionality. As for "violence," there was a contemporaneous cartoon about that.
I understand you want "Should states have the right to secede?" to be completely orthogonal to "Should states have the right to maintain slavery?" but every objection to federalism and "sovereignty" was about slavery. In the abstract, sure, there are many interesting arguments to be had about whether the Constitution itself was a betrayal of the original Articles of Confederation. But while I used to buy "states rights" as a legitimate (if misguided) defense for the South, once you start reading history, you realize that the only states rights they really cared enough about to secede over were slavery. Note that one of their core objections was that Northern states would not enforce laws like the Fugitive Slave Act within Northern territories.
Which is why they didn't agree to the Constitution until they had assurances that it was under their control. I view that they are right in that assessment, you seem to think that they should have just rolled over and quit.
If Massachusetts didn't want to return fugitive slaves, they shouldn't have agreed to the Constitution that requires that of them.
Making Abolition punishable by death is just as unconstitutional as refusing to return fugitive slaves, by the words of the one and only constitution. Only one side was able to impose their unconstitutional vision on the other.
I am not making an argument about whether or not they were morally or legally in the right. What I am disputing is that they didn't secede over slavery. They did. You're free to argue that they should have been allowed to secede, and you're free to argue that slavery should have remained legal, but that isn't the argument here. I'm just refuting the "states rights, it wasn't about slavery" claim.
This is not true. The whole point of the series of (ultimately failed) compromises that led to the Civil War was that both sides were forced to agree to laws they didn't really want to obey, and both sides frequently played fast and loose with those agreements.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link