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 -
This is your second big top-level post where you disagree intensely with Freddie de Boer. I still don't understand why you read him if you disagree with him so intensely as to write these long posts, full of links.
It strikes me that he's a worse version of Scott, less self-awareness and modesty, a harsher and more strident tone. I took a look through his substack and saw nothing that stood out that much, whether I agreed or disagreed with him. Some of it is rather disturbing, the anti-tech not-quite-terror-manifesto you pointed out earlier. Where is the good FdB that you'd wholeheartedly endorse, where are the posts where he raises some really new and interesting thought?
As promised, here are a handful of posts by Freddie that I particularly enjoyed (some are paywalled), in no particular order:
More options
Context Copy link
I'm in a similar boat as OP, and I've enjoyed his writing on education and his piece on "Wokeness", i think he's got a really good handle on cancel culture stuff, and his perspectives on media have been enjoyable even when I don't agree
More options
Context Copy link
As it happens I've unsubscribed from his Substack, but I'm still paid up until May. I promise not to post another top-level post about something he's written for awhile.
There was much in his anti-tech manifesto that I agreed with, it just made me concerned for his state of mind. The two recent trans posts seemed disappointingly shoddily argued to me. Part of the reason my response contains so many links to previous things he's written is my way of saying "you're doing the exact same thing you complained about here, here and here - you're better than this". If you like, I'll dig out some links to some of his bangers for you tomorrow.
Too bad, I was looking forward to a post about his most recent one: lengthy throat-clearing about those creepy guys who go on about age of consent and evpsych and how you totally shouldn't fuck teenagers... followed by a rant about Gen Z freaking out about age gap relationships and why it's natural for men to wind up with younger women.
Made me wonder if someone called him a groomer.
The biggest lesson I can draw from it is that everyone should strive to be like Robert De Niro, still able to do the deed at 78.
Your comment intrigued me enough that I went to skim DeBoer's post to see what the fuss is about, figuring that people are mad because he's fucking a girl who just turned 18 or something. Imagine my surprise when I find out that his girlfriend is 45 years old. I have truly seen people get upset about everything imaginable now. There's absolutely nothing wrong, or remotely groomer-y, about a man of any age who is with a 45-year-old. She's thoroughly an adult who can make her own decisions.
More options
Context Copy link
Between him and Al Pacino, the cast of Heat are jump-starting American fertility rates. Japan and Korea should just offer working holiday visas to a bunch of dudes called Sal and Paulie and they'll be back on track in no time.
His girlfriend is named Alfalfa?!
Ex, I believe.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'm reading it at the moment and so far I find nothing to disagree with in it. It's refreshing to get back to the rigorously analytical Freddie I know and love, rather than this defensive, evasive, why-do-you-care-it's-none-of-our-business posture he's been adopting for awhile.
I also do not disagree with his argument in itself. I just found it very ironic that he spent so much time making it clear that he totally isn't one of those evpsych bros who wants to fuck younger women, they're gross... before making what was basically a long, disclaimer-padded evpsych argument about how it's natural that men are going to fuck younger women. Of course he emphasizes repeatedly how unfair and sexist it is, but hey, nature, bro.
That's fair.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Probably this one:
Freddie tries to eat its cake and have it, too. Both "internet creepers" and "a horde of screaming zealots" agree on the motivation of older men preferentially dating legal teens, and he insists both are wrong. He even says himself that "the male preference for younger women comes in dominant majorities", that this preference is a spectrum with a convenient peak in mid-20s, but some way the right slope is perfectly normal and the left slope is creepy.
If someone preferentially dates 18-year-olds because he's attracted to their bodies, it is more likely that the peak of his attraction curve is somewhere to the left of 18. It's simple statistics. If someone dates 18-year-olds because they are much more easily impressed by him having a job, disposable income, a car and ability to buy alcohol with impunity than women of his age, he's a creepy loser.
He plays the same game in his achievement gaps post. Yes, IQ is heritable, yes, IQ is an important indicator of achievement, and thus different IQ inherited from their parents explains gaps in achievement between individuals. Ergo, achievement gaps between groups that exhibit many other different heritable traits can be explained by... other reasons, no, not inherent differences in their IQ, never!
DeBoer's ultimate conclusions about age gaps are generally fine and sensible, though.
I was really disappointed that he didn't draw the world's most obvious parallel: female slut shaming is union workers getting angry at scabs. Given how leftist and worker-oriented Freddie claims to be, the parallel just strikes me as too simple to miss.
Women shame young women who get talked into a bad deal because when young women get talked into a bad deal it undermines the negotiating power of other women. In the same way that if scabs are willing to work unlimited overtime, it makes it hard for an honest worker to ask for an honest wage.
I don't think this is as obvious to someone within Freddie's (presumed) social circles as you might think. The idea that the dating market could even be thought of as a market of any sort, much less one with parallels to the employment market, would be, at most, a joke. And the idea that slut shaming could have any cause other than or with more complexity than some sort of brainwashing performed by the patriarchy - "internalized misogyny" is an often used term - would be nearly unthinkable.
At least, that's my speculation based on my own experience with my social circle of East Coast college educated liberals, which is what I think mostly describes Freddie's social circle too. Freddie's rather unorthodox in those circles, but even then, I think it'd be expecting too much that he'd perceive this kind of parallel as anything close to "obvious." There's just too much social conditioning that automatically shut down such thoughts that overcoming them would be extraordinary, rather than expected.
It just feels so right to me, I don't see how others don't see it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Fair point, it's a little bit weaselly, but nothing compared to the 50-foot-tall ferret of his arguments about trans stuff.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'd be surprised if that was the case, considering that his girlfriend is actually older than him, but who knows?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If you told me they were written under duress, I'd believe you.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link