site banner
ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   35547 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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.

33
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I never see naked adversarial outgroup bashing amongst our cohort and first and foremost this is a court of ideas. You're welcome to present anything and if you can defend your findings with evidence then it doesn't matter what colour tribe your ideas come from. The reason it appears to be left bashing is because mainstream leftist discourse is easily picked apart. I'm not 100% certain but I imagine there's a leftist version of the motte out there with equally as rigourous standards for their stances. Moreover, most of us are surely grey tribe in here with no cultural affiliation with true red tribe at all. I know Scott wrote this 8 years ago now but it still seems at least relevant-ish:

The Red Tribe is most classically typified by conservative political beliefs, strong evangelical religious beliefs, creationism, opposing gay marriage, owning guns, eating steak, drinking Coca-Cola, driving SUVs, watching lots of TV, enjoying American football, getting conspicuously upset about terrorists and commies, marrying early, divorcing early, shouting “USA IS NUMBER ONE!!!”, and listening to country music.

The Blue Tribe is most classically typified by liberal political beliefs, vague agnosticism, supporting gay rights, thinking guns are barbaric, eating arugula, drinking fancy bottled water, driving Priuses, reading lots of books, being highly educated, mocking American football, feeling vaguely like they should like soccer but never really being able to get into it, getting conspicuously upset about sexists and bigots, marrying later, constantly pointing out how much more civilized European countries are than America, and listening to “everything except country”.

You can replace some of the talking points (i.e. swap out "opposing gay marriage" with "opposing transitioning children" and "supporting gay rights" with "supporting trans rights") but the crux of it still stands. I'd wager 9/10 mottizens fit far more firmly into the blue tribe culturally even if some of their ideas lean red.

Besides which, where else is there for cultural leftists to explore and discover blasphemous, forbidden thoughts? Certainly not reddit, not for a long time.

So, Scott's original post that you quoted included "Catholic" vs. "Protestant" in the respective lists...with Catholic as Red, and Protestant as Blue.... This was edited out not long afterwards, possibly due to some well-deserved mockery.

(For anyone else unfamiliar with American Christianity, Catholic/Protestant maps very poorly to the Red/Blue divide, but if you had to force the association, it would be the opposite of what Scott said.)

I would actually be interested in a mottewide survey to evaluate how the red/blue split here is- I'll wager that although we probably don't have very many plumbers driving leased F-250's, we are probably more red tribe than you think.

We're probably mostly grey tribe, aren't we?

Probably more grey tribe than blue or red, but I don't know if we'd have a clear majority for any of the five I've heard described(the three from SSC plus black[self explanatory] and violet[conservative, religious, well educated]), even if you exclude the non US posters.

deleted

I'm not 100% certain but I imagine there's a leftist version of the motte out there with equally as rigourous standards for their stances.

That would probably be TheSchism, which has much less commenting but if OP can conduct themselves in a reasonable, civilised manner, would be a good place to discuss things with adversaries.

Getting banned off everywhere does invite "maybe it's not them, it's you" consideration, though.

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