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.

https://twitter.com/legotrillermoth/status/1731734318287052993

It's not about "plagiarism," it's about making lists of people they want to hurt and then finding ways to hurt them.

There's always going to be people online who care less about principles than scoring a point against the other team. Even so, I think it is a strange way to defend someone, by saying, "You're only pointing out this bad thing they did because it gave you a chance to own a member of the out group." Essentially, it's the same playbook from the other side: the bad things people on your team do don't matter, because they weaken your team's position.

The only time your principles matter is when you're applying them against members of your in group, otherwise it goes without saying that you'll happily see your enemies torn down for their violations.

I think it's okay to say, "I'm not happy with Internet Historian for plagiarizing his Man In Cave video, but this one smoking gun of plagiarism is not enough for me to discount his larger body of original, properly cited work, which I still enjoy and will continue to support."

It’s fair game. You shouldn't close ranks over bad actors out of partisanship. What you gain in fanaticism, you lose in credibility. If the NYT published an article with credible evidence that Trump was The Serial Killer of Times Square, should you ignore it because it’s partly politically motivated? And as vorpa says, hbomber's main target is a gay queer theory popularizer(although hbomber still dings him for misogyny and insufficient wokeness, like everyone else).

If the past twenty times Joe Biden was a serial killer the Times never mentioned it, yes, I should ignore it, because in the hypothetical world where the Times did this, serial killing just wouldn't be such a serious thing. Of course, this won't happen in the real world precisely because serial killing isn't that way.

This is one person expressing this viewpoint, and no one was coming after IH until it was clear that he had plagiarized the Mental Floss article.

It is absolutely not one person, it's the entire breadtube ecosystem this morning. Pretending it's just one person (and they deserved it anyway!) is a bad attempt at damage control.

How is it the entire breadtube ecosystem? Even in the responses to this person, there are people disagreeing with them.

If you're gonna present this as "breadtube/the left is out to get IH", you need stronger evidence than this.

I was going to link you to the new thread, but noticed you've already seen it and have now switched your position to "and he deserves it."
This was entirely predictable, because it's about making lists of people they want to hurt and then finding ways to hurt them... And relying on their fellow travelers to make excuses for it.

The only thing predictable is how you leapt to idea that I was doing the "it's not happening, but if it is, he deserves it" meme. This is behavior that must be downloadable from somewhere, it's so rote and repetitive. No one can criticize a person you like in good faith, can they? No, they must be part of a left-wing conspiracy.

More to the point, that thread isn't proof of your claim. You didn't argue that they thought he was a Nazi, you argued that they were, in concert, coming after him before the plagiarism accusation.

No one can criticize a person you like in good faith, can they?

Sure they can. As long as it was plausible that your primary objection was about plagiarism, you had several people taking your side, and calling others to not dismiss accusations based on tribalism. But now you did literally do the "it's not happening, but if it is, he deserves it" thing.

Nope. I explicitly asked for evidence that the left or breadtube at large was trying to take down IH. One thread on Reddit isn't proof of that.

An active thread where people are coordinating to slander a guy is not evidence of people coordinnating to slander a guy?

More comments

I don't actually like Internet Historian. I've only watched his Fyre Festival video and didn't really enjoy the lolinternetmeme format that came across as a tamer, animated Encyclopedia Dramatica article.
(Edit: that was a lie, remembered the "He Will Not Divide Us" video was also from him)

But I do know how leftist groups coordinate to take scalps, and could see it coming from a mile away. Can you even acknowledge this?

I acknowledge that leftists do bad things. It is the height of absurdity to believe that this fact somehow absolves the need for proof that the leftists were responsible in this case.