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 -
If you remove "secretive" and replace "embedded in" with "which is", and also replace "plotting" with "acts as" - why it is obviously false? Especially if we assume their own agenda is to grab as much power as they possibly could and never let it go and never allow any restriction and reduction of their size and their influence? It's not obvious to me at all that this is false. It certainly looks consistent with the empirical data.
Well, yes, if you change the statement so that it's asserting something else entirely, it is no longer obviously false. That's straightforward enough.
But it's not "something else entirely". The only change is that a) it's not secretive and b) there's no explicit plotting as designated activity, otherwise the claim is the same, the result is the same. And I would claim most "conspiracy theorists" would agree with me that this is an acceptable description of what they claim is true about the deep state. If you ask any of them "if we assume all you say about deep state is true, except for the secret plotting part - there's actually no any documents called "plot" and all the actions are taken in the open - would you say it confirms what you thought or overthrows it completely?" - I think nearly every one would say "confirms".
if you take
then for me I do not need to look far, and noone is denying that Russia, North Korea or Iran exists (feel free to replace with USA, Israel, Ukraine and France or other applicable set like Sudan, Brazil and Ethiopia).
The interesting part of conspiracy theories is positing extra actors which are relevant, organised and secret.
If you are looking for "my country leadership is acting against me" or "world is not union of happy cooperating countries" you get far less disputed vision of reality. If you go for "jewry of world in secret tries to harm me" or "all capitalists secretly cooperate in perfect union" then I am expecting a really good evidence, not youtube video or some tired screed like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
To assume that groups like "all Jews" or "all capitalists" have a lot of common interests and their intersection is substantial and brings them to concerted action is quite contrary to observed evidence. Jews are notoriously disagreeing on pretty much everything - thus the saying "two Jews - three opinions", including such things as if Israel existing is a good thing (there are Jews that think it isn't, as we unfortunately just recently confirmed) and a myriad other lesser issues. Same for capitalists - judging by the donations and public expressions, there is a capitalist behind pretty much every ideological stance (including, mind-bogglingly, one that declares capitalists should be shot and their wealth should be taken away). In this situation believing in such concerted action requires going against a lot of evidence and experience.
However, if we take the government bureaucracy, evidence suggests they frequently act in concert, these actions are frequently not in the interest of those who they nominally serve, and these actions are frequently aimed at increasing their power and almost never aimed at the reverse. In this situation, believing that they are "deep state" requires dismissing no evidence and embracing all of it. There's the difference.
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