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 -
In my experience, when you Notice you don't un-Notice just because you see something cringe from a nazi loser.
I don't think that's true, I think this forum is mostly committed to an HBD interpretation as IQ explaining disparate outcomes and elite composition without Noticing an underlying ethnic conflict between Jews and gentiles. @2rafa for example will rely on HBD and IQ to explain elite composition, but then when it comes to explaining the actual cultural and political output of that elite, then that is fully explained by 18th century liberalism without regard to the identity, or HBD-characteristics, of that elite.
But it's getting harder and harder for 2rafa to rely on 18th century liberalism to explain the behavior of Zionists in American political and cultural life.
It is indeed likely that personality traits are also inherited and that their distribution varies by population. But this process and the differences specifically are vastly less understood than population IQ differences, especially beyond things like time preference that can be measured relatively empirically.
And it’s unlikely that hypothetical Ashkenazi Jewish characteristics or preferences are responsible for liberalism, sexual modernity, LGBT cultural movements and so on, when that population lived (and a substantial proportion still live) in a very traditional and conservative culture in both the diaspora and homeland for centuries.
The alternate explanation, that liberal Christian and post-Christian modernity was excellent and heading in a highly encouraging and very nice and trad direction until a few million Jews successfully and single-handedly conned two thirds of a billion whites into embracing degenerate progressivism, opening the borders to mass immigration, and giving all their tax money to Israel is vastly more believable, of course.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link