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 -
A couple of thoughts on some of your thoughts-
It looks like the difference is kind of small, and also there might be some kind of liberalism by half measures effect. It might be random sampling bias(although the sample size should be big enough), or it could be a selection effect on what kind of very liberal people become parents- if that's less of a default, it's reasonable to think it might be less suitable parents that drop off first, and it certainly seems borne out by data that very liberal people are less likely to have kids than liberals.
I know red states tend to have higher divorce rates than blue states, but does the divorce rate actually propagate on ideology or is that a typical "democrats in red states are pretty uniquely dysfunctional" effect, like what drives crime and (some of the)welfare use?
They claim they controlled for that. It looks like this was a study only of intact nuclear families, though- which at least among AADOS is not the default, so there's a selection effect there. So I would like to see a broader study, but I think all it would return would be "kids do best in an intact two-parent household" which isn't a revelation to anyone.
I do think paradox of choice explains a lot, and I'd also go further- for any given norm, 99% of deviations from it are probably destructive/stupid. Most norms are norms for a reason.
More options
Context Copy link