site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

How do you say where one color ends and another begins if there's a smooth transition between them, how do you draw precise boundaries two races or two languages?

You can't / it's really hard. But this is why my post began with the intent to avoid a semantic argument which eventually gets where it starts; nowhere.

How do you come up with precise criteria ...

In this context, I would say the line of demarcation is "was this content produced with the intent to serve a market demand of consumers using the previous demand signals of those very consumers to design it (the content)?" If yes, then Porn.

I put "art" as a meta-concept closely related to "truth." Anything that earnestly tries to reveal the truth of something could be called art (but could also be called something else - "analysis", "philosophy" what have you. I'm just saying "art" is one possible label). But something that is designed, constructed, and broadcast solely to cater to the consumerist preferences of a group of people fails this test. To give an example; I love sports and love the emblems of certain sports teams. I think the crossed "NY" of the Yankees is almost like the Coke logo in terms of human universal recognition. Yet, I wouldn't quite call it art. Another post in the thread discussed Warhol and Campbell's soup. Although I think it was self-indulgent and eye-rollingly "hip," I can at least contemplate the argument that it was an attempt to reveal some truth about mid 20th century consumerism.

I don't even trust myself to be able to make the distinction

Combined with the intro sentence of that same paragraph, it appears you are close to saying "I don't trust anyone to make a distinction besides those who call themselves pro-porn and art experts?" Perhaps that's not charitable, but that's how I'm reading it. Regardless, I've set forth to you my explicit criteria (above). Also saying something like "I don't trust myself on x, but I can also spot other folks who can't be trusted" seems to be a little bit of a double-reverse. I can't quite put a finger on it, but I think this is rhetorical sleight of hand.

Although we must of necessity classify various works as superior and inferior, such judgements are always in the last instance provisional; it is impossible to guarantee that you have exhausted all the possibilities inherent in any given work, and all judgements may be overturned by new evidence or future developments and recontextualizations.

Yes, the future may change how we look at the past and we cannot predict the future. I don't know what point this proves other than to retreat to a milquetoast "who's to say?" Nevertheless, I do actually think it is, has, and always will be easy to designate something as porn / filth (though I don't believe we should ban it). Take James Joyce's infamous letters to his wife (or maybe mistress, I can't remember). Even when you're one of the greatest writers in 100 years, when you talk about fucking the farts out of you "shitting like a pig" girlfriend, you're getting fuckin' gross, dude. Ditto for Lord Byron and his frat house "So, I was banging this one chick, right?" poems.

I would also say that I believe that a certain wellspring of unrestrained sexual energy is necessary to counterbalance the encroaching technocratic, hyper-rational global order.

The technocrats pretend to believe in that so that they can trick normies into hypersexual practices that obliterate communities. This is exactly the objective and outcome of feminism - It says young women should "express themselves" and "have fun" .... so that they then end up bitter, unmarried, childless, and neurotic at 35. It ruins souls and beauty.

What's needed is a fundamental respect for the human body across all of its dimensions, including the sexual. That's the whole point. That's what everyone anti-porn is arguing. Pornography is not only demonstrably extrinsically bad because, as the Irish study says, it turns people generally and broadly unhappy, it is intrinsically bad because its production constitutes a fundamental disrespect for human beauty and authentic sexuality or what would may be called eros. This is a little too meta to be a serious demarcation criteria, but that's what I would submit for the porn/art distinct even outside of the modern internet hyperscale context.

It is bewildering to me that so much explicit sexual content in society is broadcast out to people of all ages, without their informed consent, and then mass reaction to it is sort of a squirm-and-look-away at best. This is bad for everyone involved and everyone watching.

the left - they are deeply mistrustful of sexuality

Couldn't agree more.

Well not with that attitude it won't.

I laughed.

Also saying something like "I don't trust myself on x, but I can also spot other folks who can't be trusted" seems to be a little bit of a double-reverse. I can't quite put a finger on it, but I think this is rhetorical sleight of hand.

Let me put it this way: I have no interest in classifying works as either "mass market products" or "genuine Art". This is of no use to me (and indeed it can be actively harmful).

Even when you're one of the greatest writers in 100 years, when you talk about fucking the farts out of you "shitting like a pig" girlfriend, you're getting fuckin' gross, dude.

His letters are obviously beautiful.

The technocrats pretend to believe in that so that they can trick normies into hypersexual practices that obliterate communities.

I hear this idea a lot that the globalists want to push porn because it destroys people, but as far as I can tell this is contradicted by most of the available evidence. Most major corporations and websites are not very friendly to porn at all:

  • Patreon's ToS outright bans porn involving real people (and they will shut down fiction/drawings too if they think it's too "extreme")
  • Apple app store obviously bans porn
  • Major payment processors like Paypal do not want to be associated with porn
  • Steam's guidelines have a bit of leeway but generally they don't publish porn, it's common for localizers of Japanese adult games to put a gimped version of the game on Steam and then have a separate patch you download to restore the cut content

I mean yeah porn isn't literally illegal and is always just one click away for anyone with internet access, but, the same can be said for a lot of politically incorrect stuff.

I would contend Steam, there are actually a number of games that are outright uncensored (with no need for a patch) and/or contain explicit content in their store page materials.