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 -
No, they don't. Saving souls doesn't work that way. Further, I defy you to show me an example of a Christian doing this, and our society accepting and enabling it as official policy, and then attacking anyone who objects. I do not believe for a single moment that you or any of the other progressive posters here would ever accept a public school teacher organizing secret bible studies for their students during their working hours, explaining to the kids that they will go to hell unless they repent and are baptized and become Christians, and that they should lie to their parents about all this, and justifying their actions as saving children from hell. Were such a thing ever done, the response would be immediate firing and quite possibly prosecution. If actual, serious harm befell children roped into such a scheme, the response would be apocalyptic.
And even I as a Christian accept that they are, in fact, grooming the child.
I can show that my definition is commonly used for a wide variety of end-goals, including explicitly ideological ones, not merely for enabling pedophilia. I have described how the specifics of the act itself is innately and deeply objectionable, regardless of motives. The Progressive insistence that "grooming" is only used for sexual abuse is entirely specious, and it has reached its current level of fixation because Progressives would find it very convinient were it were true, have a sufficient megaphone to drown out objections, and have little compunction about lying early and often. I am not compelled to play along with the charade here, and so I decline to do so.
Cult leaders can genuinely believe that their cult is in their followers best interests. We still call it grooming. Emotional and physical (as distinct from sexual, but them as well) abusers can genuinely believe that their abuse is in their victims' best interests. We still call it grooming. That the groomer's moral compass no longer functions does not make what they're doing not grooming. It doesn't stop being grooming if you think it's a really, really good idea: forming secret relationships with the vulnerable, secretly inculcating dependency, insulating the victim from others who care about and have a responsibility to them, these actions are part of a well-known and well-studied pattern, and they are unacceptable in all cases. The act is done with intention, and the act itself is nefarious.
To the extent that this is made official policy through official channels, with all the legal procedures followed, the problem simply kicks up a step. The school system exists to serve parents. If the school system decides to treat the parents as adversaries, it should be promptly destroyed and all participants punished to the maximum extent of the law. To the extent that the law cannot accomplish this, then the law has failed, and it is time for more stringent measures.
It should not be legal for school employees to lie to parents about their children. To the extent that this is not actually legal, I would imagine it would be because no one ever dreamed that such a law would be necessary. Obviously we underestimated the nature of Blues, and should remember this lesson in the future as we work to patch up the walls of civilization.
Indeed. To the extent that they are not my own, they are my family's, and beyond that my Tribe's. They are not the school's, and they are in no way yours.
We created the school system on the assumption that we shared a common understanding of the values to be indoctrinated and engineered. Clearly that was a terrible mistake, and it must be corrected immediately. Since indoctrination and engineering are a core part of the mission, and since the idea of strict neutrality in our purportedly shared institutions is clearly a pipe dream, either it must be my tribe's values being inculcated, or the indoctrination machine must be destroyed. Blues cannot be trusted with control of shared institutions; those institutions must be either captured or destroyed. Certainly it is not reasonable for my tribe to finance with our taxes an institution that treats us as an enemy to be defeated.
No, it isn't. The School exists to serve the parents. It has no interests beyond those of the parents. To the extent that parents' interests cannot be reconciled, the school should limit itself to those interests all parents, or at least the vast majority of parents, have in common. If this requirement cannot be satisfied, if the school cannot be prevented from picking favorites in deeply contested controversies, it should not exist.
If the school thinks the parents are doing something illegal, it should call the cops. If the parents are not doing something illegal, the school has no valid role beyond assisting in their parenting, according to their values. The school has no valid perspective, no room for values of its own, no principles, no point of view.
And again, if I am wrong, then the school's perspective, values, principles and point of view should obviously be mine, not yours.
And again, if I am wrong, then the school's perspective, values, principles and point of view should obviously be mine, not yours.
Absolutely! You'll notice I am not arguing that you shouldn't be voting for, or otherwise trying to influence what is taught, and why I point out you absolutely should use "groomer" because it does have rhetorical traction, even if i don't think its really accurate. Were I still a political consultant and working fir the Republican party, I would be hammering that hard in many places (while downplaying abortion probably). That's entirely normal! I am talking about the tactics here which can be used in service to whatever ideology. Indeed I think one of the reasons the US has a fracture in culture is because it hasn't been effectively mandating the same thing in every school in every state. Your whole set up is basically designed to not create a single shared culture/tribe, because Texas gets to mandate different things to New England or Oregon and vice versa. Your ideas about only teaching what all parents agree on would be even worse in that regard. You need cohesion.
I will disagree that schools are for parents though. They are for the whole of society. Thats the whole point. What I want from a selfish parents point of view is for my kids to get the most attention, to get the most resources, to go to the best schools regardless of anything else.
Society is the answer to a distributed coordination problem, that if we all attempt to horde the most resources, to ensure our values are the ones taught, that means you cannot have a cohesive polity. Its a hedge against our (entirely understandable!) selfishness.
And the deal is we are on average better off with the coordination even if some individuals and blocs do not get their preferences met. Instead our selfishness is channeled into a struggle for the control of the culture and institutions.
Your preferences are currently losing. But they won't always be. It's the nature of movements to push too far and then lose support. Thats how the more conservative bloc lost control to the current more progressive one in the first place. But they too will push too far and lose support, quite possibly over the very issue we are discussing.
The answer is not to flip the board (so to speak), it's to realise these mechanisms evolved for a reason and that in the long run we are all better off on average. My kids are adults now, and they were educated in many ways with values I think are incorrect. And that's ok! I still got my chance to put forward my values as well. They were still better off with a stable system, even if it wasn't my preference of stable system.
Biden has historically low ratings and it is quite possible (perhaps even likely at this point), you'll have a Republican president, probably Trump. If they back off some of the abortion stuff you have a good shot at holding the Presidency, Senate, House and Supreme Court all at once.
At State level places like Texas and Florida are pushing back against what you dislike in education, alobgside with electoral success. The feedback mechanisms exist to change the things you dislike and there is evidence, they are being used AND support for your positions (or at least some of them) is growing.
If you burn down the things doing what you dislike rather than fighting to control them, then your kids grow up in flames. I think you are absolutely entitled to fight for what you want (figuratively speaking) but if you aim to burn down everything, you harm everyone. To the extent your opponents are trying to do the same, they are also wrong. But mostly they are and have been trying to control the culture and institutions not destroy them. And that is business as normal.
Sorry, I've not addressed all your points, I've focussed on those I find most interesting, which has moved us away from the groomer thing. Though I'm not sure there is much more there to learn about our respective positions there in any case!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link