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 think a good example of this is “Leave the World Behind”, the Obama-produced Netflix movie. The social dynamics are engineered in order to reduce the positive valence and social status of whites. This is accomplished through the following:
The nice, wealthy home where the white family and black family stay is owned by the black family. The white family is in disbelief, and the black guy brags to them about his board seat at the metropolitan opera. So immediately the white family is coded poorer and racist, and the black family coded socially superior. What’s interesting is that the viewer learns to associate Mahershala Ali’s phenotype with the highest social class. If I tried to pull that off with Chet Hanks, you would laugh at me, but the viewer learns to ignore his own learned and often accurate intuition about phenotypes because he is black, which affects a total increase in social status and positive valence for blacks.
The white husband is coded as a naive, easygoing guy; the black homeowner as wise, deliberate. The white husband’s wife flirts with the black homeowner. As an interesting aside, the first Netflix CEO and cofounder Marc Randolph is related to both Freud and Edward Bernays, the latter of which was an expert at changing the behavior of the masses through subtle psychological manipulation in imagery.
There is a curmudgeonly white conspiracy theorist who withholds giving medicine to a child in need. Because of course. Although he does change his mind in the movie, the overall sense is that he’s a bad person.
Something else interesting in the movie is that — in this Obama-produced, star-studded title — the enemy is a joint Iranian/Chinese invasion that starts by hacking the American grid.
More options
Context Copy link