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 -
I'm not super anti-porn, but I am in favor of these policy changes. Let me give an illustrative analogy:
I use marijuana. Weirdly, while my nickname in middle and high school was Weed-Man because I had long hair and wore a vintage green m65 all the time, I started using it after getting married. I think thc is great, it is fun, it lacks the hangover of alcohol, and it allows me to shut down the neuroticism of my brain and unironically enjoy things in a way I otherwise fail to do. As a Frasurbane adult, I take edibles with my wife and go to a nice dinner and La Boheme and I think that is a just-fine thing to do. I'm against the criminalization of Marijuana, because I use it and think it can be good, and because criminalizing it is ineffective (as a nerdy high schooler I had no idea where to get alcohol beyond the limited ability to steal it, while I had five phone numbers in my phone that could have gotten me weed despite not even smoking), and because people shouldn't be punished for using drugs on basically libertarian grounds.
On the other hand, I recently spent months writing letters to the editor, bothering my local police department, and attending local meetings to foment action against a local gas station that was advertising, with big banners, Delta-8 ThC products. This gas station is directly on the main road to the high school I attended, I stopped there frequently after early-spring track practice for hot chocolate. I spent hours playing the gadfly, until they agreed to stop selling.
I have no inherent objection to Delta-8 products, I've used them before, but the idea of them being sold unregulated and without ID to kids, to high schoolers on their way home, is capital-B Bad. I am mildly negative on teenagers using weed at all (my wife and I joke that we think weed is for marriage, and there is evidence it can trigger schizo stuff), but more than that I don't think it's a good idea for them to get it easily. If there was a sketchy head shop downtown, out of the way, in a place teenagers know they shouldn't go, that would sell Delta-8 and other semi-legal drugs (Kratom, Salvia, etc) I would object less. It's the idea of a kid just buying it on the way home from track practice, probably taking the gummy immediately to avoid possible detection at home, that scares me. They bought it with no ID check, no effort to hide it, right next to the TicTacs and the Arizona Green Tea, it can't be anything bad right? It's harmless, I bet it won't even work, I'll take two of them and drive home. If it were anything serious, they surely wouldn't be allowed to sell it like this!
In the same way, this policy will not prevent all kids from watching any porn. No policy will achieve that. But a well outlined and enforced policy will increase the barriers to watching porn, and make it seem less normalized and easy. Kids going to sketchier sites and finding porn less easily is a positive outcome. They will likely consume less porn, and will be aware from the circumstances that it is something kinda bad, kinda dirty, kinda socially disapproved. They will have that judgment in the back of their head, keeping it at arm's length, from the context in which they view it. That extra effort will serve to express viscerally to the kid that this stuff is kinda maybe bad and dangerous.
I don't at the end of the day disapprove of porn that strongly. I've stopped using it myself years ago, but I used it enough in my teen years that I can hardly claim purity, and if I like myself (which I do) I can hardly claim it negatively impacted me. What I do disapprove of is the normalization of pornography, the integration of pornography into our culture. I resent that I can't go on any decent sports subreddit or forum without being constantly subjected to weird pornographic metaphors. I hate that pornography has eaten sex, especially kinky sex, that good sex is taken to be a simulation of pornography, there is always an imaginary camera in the room, an audience. I hate that people consider watching porn normal, even if it is. Jesus Christ people learn to have a shameful dirty secret.
I understand exactly what you mean and I think it gets to the heart of a lot of modern knots we're in related to wanting to both not be mean/shame certain behaviors but also having effective sign posts for "this is pretty bad actually and you should dabble in moderation if at all". In this category are obesity(A couple pounds is not a big deal but dozens to hundreds is a catastrophe), porn, alcohol, drugs, gaming, vanity and even internet arguments. One must balance their indulgences.
More options
Context Copy link
A kid can go into a store and buy a knife. Most kids understand that knives are dangerous. The vast majority of kids don't abuse knives. Why can't it be the same with recreational drugs?
When I was younger I often used to feel like I had to perform to some imaginary standard while having sex, but this wasn't because of porn, it was because I was wound up too tight to actually let go and enjoy the fun of sex and because I cared too much about what I imagined the person I was having sex with was thinking about me. If anything, I think that porn has helped me to become more comfortable with my sexuality.
I don't think that there is anything shameful whatsoever about watching porn.
The intent of recreational drugs is to "use it on yourself."
The intent of a knife is never to "use it on yourself" except for exceedingly rare medical emergency situations or incidents of self-harm that are universally recognized as bad.
Bully for you.
Would you be alright with a stranger watching porn next to you on an airline flight? Or in a library? Or around children?
More options
Context Copy link
The consequences of modal child drug abuse are both far subtler and far more harmful than the modal child knife abuse along many different axes. The positives of knive availability to children outweigh the negatives. The negatives of drug availability to children outweigh the positives.
More options
Context Copy link
Except where they can't:
While intended to prevent kids from buying switchblades or the like, what this tended to cash out to at my local outdoors stores was that no minors were allowed to buy pocket knives without a parent present.
Now, in the boy scouts we all collected pocket knives, the weirder and more aggressive and more "intended to cause serious bodily harm" the better. But there was friction, we were aware that the item was taken seriously because we had to use workarounds of one type or another to get them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link