site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 15, 2024

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.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Are you using these with any sort if rigor or is it just evil = globohomo,libs, person who I disagree with,etc etc

Well this is all subjective interpretation, but the point is the same. If your top priority is X, you should vote for a fool gunning for X and perhaps Y, and Z that they have little chance of disturbing too greatly rather than a very competent person running for opposite-of-X.

I think the actual choice is usually a pick between different variations of politicians who claim they want X-lite, and offer proposals that match X-lite, but then immediately compromise or do the opposite of X-lite once in power.

Ah yes only bad people ever suffer during the power vacuum of government system collapse.

People always suffer. Government system collapse can be a good thing if the government system has become too overbearing. This is not a new thing in North-American history.

'Haven't you considered that you too would suffer if the King's rule was upended?' said the Loyalist.

It's funny the way you talk about voters, malcontents, etc. It sounds like you think that a lot of people should not have political rights.

Why can't they vote RIGHT says the respectable, educated, democracy-enjoyer.

NOT THE DEMAGOG, you're only supposed to vote for the candidate that MY global media corporation tells you to!