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 -
Yes, this is the point. The archetypical male tyrant rules with an iron fist and emphasizes his own power. He is a major douchebag and his rule is only stable through the excessive application of force to make the opposition cower in fear.
The archetypical female tyrant rules through deception and manipulation. She rules by pitting everyone against everyone else, and then playing the "neutral" arbiter who just wants everyone to get along, you know? She sets up a moralist framework that just-so happens to benefit her (ideally with some mystical source of knowledge that only she has access to), and that is vague enough so that she can switch positions whenever it suits her. She avoids formal positions of power and rules by committee, and so on. The Oppressor/Opressed framework is basically tailor-made for this purpose. The same guy can be an oppressed black body if he is on your side, or a toxic male oppressor if he isn't.
Of course, both of these are a bit too extreme to be practical, real life stable systems seem to mostly coalesce into a small elite group of men wielding the highest explicit/formal power backed up by a moralist framework that is primarily enforced through a much larger group of women, with both of these groups worst tendencies being kept in check by the other. Without that enforced moralist framework societies tend to devolve into chaos and warlordism, while societies without the men tend to simply get conquered by foreign men. But the locus of power can move between these two groups, and currently almost nobody is disputing that women are more powerful than they've ever been - the main discussion is on whether we've not gone far enough on one side or that the pendulum has swung in the other direction on the other side.
More options
Context Copy link