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 -
Sure, but the idea is that one particularly shocking event can be a useful springboard to discuss the wider policy issues that contributed not just to that incident but to many others like it. This happens across all sorts of issues.
The basic setup of the debate is that the liberal right side is saying "liberty and somewhat-greater protection against tail risks outweigh some small amount of mass shootings" and the nanny left is saying "any amount of mass shootings outweighs any amount of liberty, and tail risks are negligible in the modern world".
You can probably tell what side I'm on there, but both sides do have points.
The "springboard" is really more of a lever; the nanny left knows that the liberal right's argument looks even more insensitive than usual immediately following a highly-salient mass shooting, so it increases the salience of mass shootings* and it makes sure to discuss policy in the immediate aftermath. This is an effective demagogic tactic, but ideally the purpose of theMotte is to try to rise above demagoguery.
*NB: there are some people on the liberal right who say that the nanny left deliberately increases the number of mass shootings. I think that's an overstatement and an Ideological Turing Test failure. I think that making mass shootings a salient thing and making them seem commonplace does probably increase their prevalence, but that this is not really an intended thing on the nanny left's part.
If this is demagogic then so is literally all of politics and I would hope gun control advocates don't put their gun down first, if you'll pardon the pun.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link