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 -
Whatever about the Enlightenment, what made me laugh (I don't see it so much these days, if it's still going around) is the notion that what Islam needs is the Reformation.
Dude, (1) have you any idea what the Reformation was all about and (2) Islam had its Reformation, just like the European one: go back to the bare word of the holy books, no intermediaries, strip away all the accretion of worldly ideas, pull down the images and luxurious living. The Taliban who blew up the Buddhas were Reformers in the same vein as those who smashed the statues in churches all across Europe.
This pop-culture notion of the Reformation being all about 'freedom of conscience' and 'the church can't tell me what to do' is one that comes very long after the aftermath of the Wars of Religion and the fissiparous nature of Protestantism, particularly in America, where denominations split and split again over disputes as to interpretation of the Scriptures and godly living, so that eventually through exhaustion, Western societies were "we won't have a state church, and where we do, it will be subordinate to the civil government and not the other way round". Calvin tussled with the civil authorities as to who would have authority in Geneva and won in his lifetime, but after his death the civil authorities gradually pulled back power into their own hands.
It also had its own Enlightenment. The Golden Age of Islam and the whole Abbasid Caliphate was very loosey goosey with its Islam, with a focus on education, science, and (often Greek) philosophy for a few centuries until everything got buttoned up during the Middle Ages and especially after Al Ghazali. There's a reason that, of what wasn't from the Greeks, a lot of the recovery of mathematics and philosophy in the European Renaissance was recovery of texts from the Islamic world (which was simultaneously becoming less interested in these things).
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah, Protestantism may have contributed to the growth of liberalism, but in itself it was not a very liberal movement. You can see that by looking at Martin Luther's calls to suppress peasant rebellions, or at the nature of the Puritans' society.
That damned nonconformist John Locke was a real anti-liberal, you know.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is something that's always struck me about calls for reform. Consider something like Quranism, the idea that Muslims should reject the sunnah and hadith, and this long tradition of interpretation and jurisprudence, and return to the purity of the Qur'an. As you can see, the wiki article on it is written mostly from a Western perspective and is very sympathetic to the idea, seeing it as more open and tolerant than the alternative.
It's just - did we forget the Protestant Reformation entirely?
Throwing out all tradition and interpretation and bypassing all the mediating institutions of a tradition is something that was attempted in Europe. The result was well over a century of bloody, fratricidal war and a multitude of new sects, many of which were more fanatical and violent than the order they originally criticised. Throwing out interpretation in favour of acting according to the original, pure divine revelation is a recipe for fanaticism, not tolerance!
(For what it's worth I say this as a Protestant; I don't mean that the Reformation was 'wrong', whatever specific claim you might attach to that. But the Reformation certainly had a price.)
Yes. The post modernists told us that the past didn't matter and "the intelligentsia" believed them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'm not sure if you mean me, but I know the Reformation was not about "freedom of conscience." I refer to the Enlightenment because that is generally regarded as the period in which the church lost much of its grip on state power. (Yes, I know it's more complicated than that, yes, I know "the Enlightenment" is a term like "Dark Ages" and the "Middle Ages" that doesn't neatly define a time period or movement.) The point is that Islam has never had any real subordination to civil authority. Muslim countries controlled by secular authorities generally need to use pretty brutal suppression methods and still give lip service to being Islamic.
Of course the Reformation is something different. Islam has had several (arguable) equivalents. Certainly it's had many schisms, the Shia/Sunni one being only the most notable.
No, I didn't. But it was a popular view in media articles a few years back, and I got dizzy from simultaneously shaking my head and rolling my eyes. Part of that is down to the lingering anti-Catholicism which swallowed the view of "heroic Reformers standing up against a dictatorial Church" and imagined that carried over to modern Christianity, where now the "dictatorial Church" wasn't the Pope any more but the Evangelicals, and the liberalised mainline Protestant denominations were the 'heroic Reformers'. "Hey, this lady clergyperson from one of the Seven Sisters denominations is wearing a rainbow stole and marching for abortion rights, now that's what the Reformation was all about and that's why Islam needs one!"
Yeah, I would love to see the faces of Luther, Calvin, etc. when looking at that example 😁
No you wouldn't. Cruelty helps no one.
Why would it be cruel? The denominations that went liberal have Good Biblical Justifications for their decisions (mainly "Jesus is all about love") and the Reformers based their demands on "the unmodified word of Scripture (as we interpret it)". They certainly never envisaged the day of lesbian lady clergypersons marching for abortion, but that's what you get when "every man has a pope in his own belly", as they found out quite soon. That's not what the Reformation was about, but it's what the modern view of the Reformation thinks it was about.
Isn't it Catholics who are usually accused of cannibalism (based on transsubstantiation)?
Generally! But y'know, if you're going to do the "sacrifice a god" thing, you should commit fully to it!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link