site banner
ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   35664 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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.

26
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Couple of scattered thoughts on this:

  1. I have no opposition to public schools in principle, graduated from one myself without too much apparent damage. What I do have strong opposition to is this notion that an educator understands what a kid needs better than that kid's own parents and that we should just surrender the education of our children to the state without question or opposition. There are shitty parents to be sure but there are also shitty teachers in probably about the same proportion.

  2. When topline education funding takes a hit, I predict there will be no firing of excessive administrative personnel like diversity experts or secretaries or superfluous academic committees. The budge hits will be directly to education funding proper, textbooks and materials and the like, so the entrenched education interests can point to a shortage of textbooks and say "See what your ESA is doing to our precious children!?"

When topline education funding takes a hit, I predict there will be no firing of excessive administrative personnel like diversity experts or secretaries or superfluous academic committees. The budge hits will be directly to education funding proper, textbooks and materials and the like, so the entrenched education interests can point to a shortage of textbooks and say "See what your ESA is doing to our precious children!?"

This reminds me of the other thing I saw about Arizona education over the summer. I guess a couple years ago there was a bunch of organized protesting demanding a raise in teacher salaries, and the governor and legislature allocated money to give teachers a 20% raise over the next few years. But the public school districts did not pass that money on to teachers as promised, leading to another round of demands for increases in "teacher pay":

The Arizona Auditor General released a report earlier this year showing the average teacher salary increased by 16.5% or around $8,000, less than the promise of 20% by 2020. That report shows that while most districts increased pay, only 43% of districts statewide actually met the 20% goal since there was no requirement that districts spend the money on teacher salaries.

(I do wonder how widespread salary increases of 10%+ contributed to Arizona's inflation...) Meanwhile, Arizona district superintendents are pulling down $200,000 annual salaries, plus stuff like this:

She was joined by dozens of other educators who had gathered before heading into the first Buckeye Elementary School District meeting since the Arizona auditor general’s finding that the district paid its superintendent $1.7 million in retirement credits and unused leave and then failed to note it in public employment records.

The amount of money being poured into "public education" systems in the United States is absolutely gob-smacking. I don't know who first said that "think of the children" is the root password to all government systems, but it certainly seems to be true. It will be interesting to see how things change as more parent groups catch wise to the scam. Something else I saw on social media somewhere, was that the biggest mistake Democrats made during COVID was turning "parents of school-aged children" into a special interest voting bloc opposed to Democrat policies.

Meanwhile, Arizona district superintendents are pulling down $200,000 annual salaries

Hm, I think Superintendent Chalmers could afford much more than a 1979 Honda Accord these days.

But why would he ever want to?

This strategy of cutting the most visible and useful parts of the budget first to argue the whole is necessary, is called the Mount Rushmore Syndrome.

The most successful counterstrategy I know is to signal boost (and even fabricate) cases of largesse that is not being cut:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loony_left

This was sufficiently successful that, when the generally nonpartisan Yes, Minister TV series had an episode with Thames Marsh local council, who had cut all civil defence but kept open the "gay bereavement centre" (and a small bunker for the council leader) this was something that the audience could recognise and accept easily. It also meant that, even as the UK Labour party moved somewhat to the right between the 1983 and 1987 elections, they were still associated with radical socialism and social progressivism, due to their association with "loony left" local councils.

That article is fascinating. The "Baa Baa White Sheep" section is a several pages long explanation of how the whole thing was fabricated, with quotes and citations, how it was some private initiative, and how the council said that they support it but actually they said that it's none of their business, and how actually some reporter couldn't find any worker that confirmed the ban, and so on and so forth.

And then it ends with a single sentence: "In 2000, the BBC reported the withdrawal of guidance to nursery schools by Birmingham City Council that "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" should not be taught."

The way Wikipedia manages to lie its head off while still sticking to reputable sources is fascinating.

Yes, it's a good example of misleading by selective elaboration.

A contemporaneous American documentary on the loony left:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=COt65HZCJaA

The "Why is this English school only serving English food?" part is particularly amusing. And I also feel sympathetic: I would feel bad if my child was only eating English food, but for the psychological welfare of the child, not for reasons of objecting to an English school serving only it in England.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats