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.

Have to agree with /u/Testing123 here. Hbomberguy's evidence that Man In Cave was plagiarized from a single article was fairly convincing

Cool, but why is everybody and their dog calling the guy a Nazi?

From what I understand, IH has multiple videos covering 4Chan drama/stories, but he was never highly critical of 4Chan, which would have been evidence against him being a Nazi. He also unironically likes Tucker Carlson and has stated on his subreddit that his politics aren't exactly welcome online, though that obviously covers anyone to the right of Stalin in some circles. Lastly, there are comments which don't appear to be ironic anti-Semitism on his channel from others, which HBomberguy accused him of having because he "cultivated that audience".

It's ultimately a lazy smear, but the actual critique of him plagiarizing stands apart from that, nor was the jab at his audience more than a throw-away line in HBomberguy's video.

It's ultimately a lazy smear, but the actual critique of him plagiarizing stands apart from that

That's nice, the accusation of plagiarism is fair game. I don't really care since, from what I understand, he worked it out with the author of the plagiarized article, but knock yourself out. But trying to smear someone through n-th degree guilt by association is garbage, and in itself a valid thing to criticize.

I didn't say you couldn't criticize it, I read your message as asking why anyone was calling him a Nazi. I was just explaining that, that's all.

Sorry for being unclear. My point was that "look at what they did to Internet Historian and Wendigoon just today" referred to slandering them as Nazis, not accusations of plagiarism.

Because it's easier to kick a guy when he's down? Enough of Internet Historian's fans are sufficiently distasteful of his plagiarism, and his clumsy attempts to cover it up that they're not willing to go to bat to defend his edgy humor and imputed political stances. That leaves a clear path for those who always hated him to mount their attacks.

It's just a bit odd to fixate on the plagiarism, when talking about "what they did to Internet Historian", and you know he's being slandered as a Nazi.