site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023

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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The traditional philosophical inquiry is to simply ask whether what you're proposing actually satisfies what we mean when we use words like "morality" or "normativity". I don't think they do. Was slavery, owning other people as property, free to rape and do all sorts of other things to them, wrong? One usually wants to say, "Yes," and then must answer the question, "Why?" If we are restricted to saying, "Well, there could totally be other societies with different vibes where slavery is totally okay," it seems to not be very satisfying (besides still having to answer questions like, "How would we even determine the answer to such a question? Are we just looking at the state of affairs in the ruling class? Are we somehow constructing a measure that incorporates the opinions of the slaves? How would this project even work?"). Repeat with all sorts of slavery-adjacent things, torture, pedophilia, etc. If you want to say any of those things are wrong, rather than simply say that you personally feel like they give you bad vibes (due to whatever personal inclinations or formative experiences you might have had, which could easily be radically different in what others might describe as morally-abhorrent societies), then you need to at least attempt to answer, "Why?"

You seem to want to say these things are wrong in some objective sense, I don’t. The way you’re arguing this supports my view. You want to say some things are wrong, so you feel the need for an intellectual framework for saying so. Constructing an intellectual edifice so you feel justified in saying what you already believe is just the vibes approach with unnecessary casuistry.

I think we're in agreement. You don't think that one can say that slavery, torture, pedophilia, etc. is wrong with any normative effect.1 Most other people disagree, which is why they then go on to explain why they think that one can indeed say that these things are wrong, in a normative sense, rather than simply resting on their personal vibes.

1 - This leaves you in the unfortunate position that when you want to say that a pedophile shouldn't be allowed to diddle kids, you can pretty much only say, "I don't like it," without any rejoinder available to their response of, "So what? I do."

Yes, I’d just add that when other people try to give non-vibes reasoning, I see it as vibes with extra steps.