site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I mean, it's a vibes based world. And it's impossible to avoid the vibes, as a normal white married male or female with kids, that all the institutions of this country now hate you. No matter where you traverse, you'll have you own bundle of malicious slights that didn't used to be there. Whether it's because you were extirpated from media, hobbies and fandoms you used to consider yourself a part of. Or because your kid's school district is teaching them nightmarishly evil things that seek to actively undermine every moral lesson you'd want your kids to learn. Or maybe it's just the relentless parade of celebrating everyone else's identity... except yours. Maybe it's how casually and nonchalantly every talking head on every radio station, news channel, or local newpaper blames nearly every social problem on you via privilege discourse. Maybe it's the way literally every single story you grew up with and learned moral lessons from has been purposely inverted. Not only do your ancestral tales not even feature your people, but they teach precisely the opposite morality.

Did turbo autist on 4chan really stop an invasion of Syria? No, I doubt it. I think that had more to do with Trump's reticence to start any new wars. Maybe he really does have good instinct. Although if I recall correctly, he did bomb/missile the shit out of Syria in a token response to the most likely faked gas attack. Even so, while that author probably has a different set of personal anecdotes to justify his vibes, it's impossible to avoid the vibes.

It’s really not a vibes-based world. It’s a team-based one where the teams are perfectly capable of mining the relevant Facts and Logic for their position. That this author chooses not to do so, and leans into the vibes, is not particularly encouraging.

I don't view this as disproving anything. The existence of popular counter programming means little. Sure it might have stellar ratings. But as a proportion of content it's scant. It's also relentless maligned, lawfared, keeps shit canning it's most effective programming, and takes on more and more appearance of just being controlled opposition. It's either fake, or legally prohibited from living it's values. Which does a lot to undermine those values.

In my opinion, the existence of Fox News does no more to disprove my point than the existence of pirate radio in other oppressive regimes, no matter how many people desperately tune in to hear their values reflected and not feel alone and crazy. That some small counter programming exists doesn't change the fact that demoralization propaganda is being piped at you from literally every institutional organ of society 24/7. The small light in the darkness doesn't remove the vibes from the massive shroud of darkness hovering over every aspect of your life.