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 having a bit of trouble following this.
I did, in fact, read Leviathan and participate in a discussion group about it, but don't remember all that much about it. It seems obviously true that it's better to live in a society with basically functional norms and consequences around interactions between individuals, groups, and governments than not. And that there are a lot of examples of what that "not" looks like, and they can get really bad.
Present day America certainly is inculturating a social norm that some people might act extremely unpleasant in public, and everyone else needs to politely ignore that unless they are actively harming someone (or maybe not then depending on the kind of harm). Public schools actively cultivate this dynamic from the earliest years with the way they integrate the very least integratabtle special education children, by letting them scream and bite in the name of "inclusion" (though there are limits on the amount of biting and scratching that is tolerable, since they don't want to lose staff constantly), rather than letting them have quiet, privacy and space, whether or not they would prefer that (the screaming, biting ones certainly do look like they might prefer it), and no matter the cost. There's certainly an argument to be made that this is bad.
On the other hand, violent schizophrenics attacking people on the subways is obviously not the default. Warring clans might be the default. Subways are not the default. Millions of strangers all peacefully taking public transportation to their cubicles every day, ignoring the one crazy person screaming threats is absolutely the opposite of a default way of managing society. It is a wonder of civilization. The default, given the possibility of a hundred million people cooperating and a few defectors, might then be to hang or exile the defectors. But we are generally so secure (And in general we are! That's precisely why almost everyone just ignores the screaming crazy person, because it so rarely escalates to violence) that we're tending toward complacency which, yeah, is probably a mistake.
Can things break down surprisingly quickly and violently? Yes. Liberals probably know that? Apart from actual wars, they do know about things like gang violence in cities, even very wealthy cities, even with tons of various expensive "programs." Just, maybe they will say that it isn't done right, or isn't enough, rather than saying that the neighborhood has degenerated into a state of nature and needs to be civilized by force. But the liberals have a bit of a point, in that when the US government tries to civilize by force, it has often done a terrible job of it.
I spent some time living with a Albanian family in Kosovo. They had been shelled during the war, then mostly rebuilt, though a co-worker mentioned several times that he was concerned that they used to have a lot more cows, herds of cows they would lead through the fields, and now they only had a few, and he interpreted that as poverty and dysfunction. I have never had any cows, and they do seem like a very tough culture, optimized for toughness and not getting swallowed up by the surrounding civilizations, no matter how many sons had to go serve as janissaries through the years. But America can and does swallow them and everyone else up anyway, because that's what we're optimized for. Conservative Americans seem to think this is a fair trade, since we're all much better off materially in America. I'm unsure what the conservative Albanians think, other than that they like and are attached to their cows, flia, clothing, fields, and everything else.
That was unusually rambling, because, again, I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. Perhaps my own social milieu is too much of a mix of conservatives, liberals, people underwriting Dreamer loans, people who have had to change jobs because their workplace suddenly started operating entirely in Spanish with the thermostat at 90 degrees, people who have read Hobbs, and people who milk goats to notice?
Did Neely actually violently attack anyone? From the wiki article it sounds like he was just screaming at people and disturbing the peace. Perhaps he deserved to get roughed up for that, but getting killed seems a bit of a reach.
I think so, but mostly wonder why this was the main concrete example from the OP, since in a Hobbesian state of nature the worrying crazy person would have died of any number of things long before that point. I feel like it might be just throwing me off, but am not sure, since I don’t really understand what he’s getting at.
More options
Context Copy link
Shortening the description of what happened like this IMO really does a disservice to understanding the incident. At no point did anybody, Penny included, set out to kill Neely. No weapons that were not appropriate to the situation were deployed. No physical techniques that were not reasonable considering what was happening were used. He was merely physically restrained for a brief period to make him stop doing whatever it exactly was that he was doing. This was highly likely to have been reasonable and appropriate. That he died from it is an unintended consequence, most likely due to him being in comprehensively terrible health.
The class of people that Neely represents has wildly different health than anything most regular people can conceive of. Which touches back to the giant hole concept that HlynkaCG was talking about. These people start out severely mentally ill, the type that would likely be institutionalized for life in another era. They do lots of illegal drugs, not checked at all for purity or cleanliness. Possibly including injected with dirty needles. They probably sleep on the streets somewhere most of the time. Constantly in and out of jail and hospitals. You can bet they never follow up on any health or legal suggestions offered in those places. Eating whatever comes to hand, no thought to it being clean or healthy.
I know there are legal doctrines covering this sort of thing, which I'm not meaning to debate right now. But morally speaking, exactly what responsibility do we have to this sort of person? If you're both so crazy that you're antagonizing and scaring people on a train, and also so unhealthy and fragile that a brief period of mild restraint is at risk of killing you, then what exactly do we do with you? I have a hard time feeling like society has any responsibility towards such a person.
It sounds like the chokehold lasted for some time after Neely passed out, though it’s unclear exactly how long, so I wouldn’t say Neely was obviously uncharacteristically fragile. But fair enough, it was not the greatest loss to society, as callous as that may be to say.
More options
Context Copy link
He was choked. estimates vary between 6-15 minutes which could easily be fatal if his airway was constricted.
Do you have a source for this? There's video of him still breathing after he was released. I'm not aware of any witnesses or video that reliably puts the chokehold time at 6-15 minutes. Exactly who made that "estimate" and based on what?
Considering the normal timing of NYC subways, usually 1 to 2 minutes between stops, it would be extremely strange for someone to be in a chokehold for "6-15 minutes".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That's part of the problem: oh, he's just screaming and threatening, ignore it. We can't have him arrested and taken off the train, that would be intolerable racist prejudice. We can't deal with these kinds of disturbances as they used to be dealt with in the past, so just accept the new consensus of Bike Cuck(a dreadful term, but the best example of the mindset). Only losers take the bus, or the subway, anyway so it's not like anyone important is inconvenienced by mentally ill people roaming around with the possibility of becoming violent. Really, you should be cycling or walking everywhere instead of using public transport, reduce your carbon footprint! It's your fault for being in a confined space you can't get out of, with a crazy person who might decide they want to rip your face off because they don't like the colour of your jacket!
No, that doesn't warrant being killed. But neither does it warrant the ordinary people on the subway being subjected to this 'disturbing the peace' as the new normal, either.
I’m not sure what your point is. It seems we agree that the legal system is too lax on shitty mentally ill people, and we also agree that this doesn’t justify vigilante violence going too far?
Taking these two statements together results in "The legal system will allow mentally ill people to menace others, and they may do nothing but stand there and take it". If the legal system doesn't deal with these menaces, and doesn't allow others to deal with it, it is in all practical effect putting the full force of the state behind the menace.
The more the king is perceived as a tyrant instead of a font of justice, the less the 95 IQ masses cooperate voluntarily, and the less voluntary cooperation the weaker the social contract is. The sovereign doesn’t have a panoptic iron hand because of his telepathic powers; he rules because men obey him.
Yes, he rules because men obey him. But obviously only some men will obey him voluntarily. As long as he has enough of those, the rest don't matter. He can choose to enforce an order where thieves and violent people are kept down and the other people are left to go about their business in peace. Or he can choose to enforce an order where the thieves and violent people are given significant leeway and the others are left in fear of them on the one hand and the sovereign on the other. Either way works, as long as his cops and soldiers are willing to stick with him.
The second way, arguably, works even better -- unlike the thieves and violent people, the ordinary people will stay on the side of the sovereign even when the sovereign works against them, because they believe in such things as the sovereign's legitimacy. Tell a thug that he's forbidden from violently defending himself from threats because he might get it wrong and his attacker's life is worth at least as much as his, and he'll laugh and maybe stab you. Tell an ordinary citizen that and (we know, because it has already happened, and in fact the previous incarnation of this board schismed over exactly this) he'll consider it and quite likely accept it. Of course the cops, being cut from a similar sort of cloth (if a somewhat finer weave) as the thugs, won't accept it... but they get an exemption.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Respectfully, I assure you that it is. At the very least i contest that it's "obviously not".
I don’t understand what you mean.
In a state of nature, the unproductive, unpleasant crazy person would have long since starved, frozen, been driven into the wilderness, or perhaps been killed by others. I meant the enabling behavior of everyone else other than the crazy homeless person (enabled by surrounding civilizational resources) and the man confronting him (possibly representative of a state of nature).
You're absolutely correct and as I observed below this is one of those odd paradoxes of living in a prosperous liberal society. The failure in this case is ultimately one of imagination. That you don't typically see the underlying mechanisms of society does not mean that they are not real or present.
As I argue in my response to @guesswho, the fact that many people can go their entire lives without ever having to get blood on their hands represents the strength and prosperity of our society, but that doesn't mean the dirty work isn't getting done. Or that failure to do it will not have negative consequences.
Edit: "Represents" not "Respects"
Yes, that makes sense.
I would expect many liberals to know this. My democrat relative who lives on the Chicago South Side and served in Vietnam certainly knows this, but maybe you're using "liberal" as something more like progressive or woke? I suppose there are some regular liberals who really believe the propaganda.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I’m pretty sure that in a state of nature, some kind of primitive clan based society, Neely would not have lived long enough to threaten random people on the subway.
There is an interesting paradox one observes in "less civilized" societies like East Africa where life is simultaneously much more dangerous and yet in some ways cleaner and safer.
While on one hand you need to be on constant guard against armed bandits, wild animal attacks, and random freak accidents resulting from a complete lack of anything resembling OSHA standards, or even basic traffic laws. On the other hand, you don't see a lot of the sort of low level "random" crime you see in parts of the US because the true degenerates generally don't live long enough to become a problem.
More options
Context Copy link
What subway?
More options
Context Copy link
Correct. Neely survived as long as he did because he had the full backing of the sovereign. Why Hlynka thinks this is a point in favor of Hobbes, I do not understand.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think you're arguing at cross-purposes. His claim is that the "on the subways" part of that is not the default, because in the state of nature subways don't exist. You can presumably claim that the current paradigm if continued is going to lead to the subways not existing anymore - the Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return! - but you do want to actually spell that out, not just say "no ur rong".
What I took @HlynkaCG to mean was that, even though subways aren't the state of nature, the underlying mentality of the schizophrenic who attacks people on the subway is the state of nature. The subway isn't the relevant part, but rather the crazy guy lashing out.
Precisely
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link