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 -
Are you claiming that any space that claims to operate on a neutral principle of free speech is fundamentally duplicitous because it's just going to end up coalescing around a consensus viewpoint anyway?
I don't think it's always duplicitous, but I think anybody who seriously thinks the reason why this place is more right-leaning is some belief that in a free and open debate with nobody limiting it, the right-leaning argument wins is kind of lying to themselves, when in reality, the way the right wins these supposedly open spaces is saying enough things that trigger basically the fight or flight part of people's minds.
I'm a nearing middle-aged white guy, so the silly to frankly, terrible things said in this forum brush off my back, but a lot of the current left are basically and I say this in descriptive way, The Other - single women, minorities, immigrants, non-straight people, etc. So yeah, I can see why many people if in a community where what they think is open racism/sexism/bigotry against them is accepted, they say bye, and leave that community. Some people will hang around and still fight, but the reality is, most black people in 1960's America didn't have to argue about whether they deserved to use the same bathrooms as white people, and likely would've left any group arguing that. Obviously, not zero, but most people aren't argumentative weirdos like we are.
So yeah, the general tilt of any community will eventually become more of that, one way or the other. Also, in many cases (this isn't true here), there's a silent majority that's not as extreme, but also are effected by the community. YT comments section are kind of a perfect example - in a lot of cases, they're utterly rancid, no matter the topic, even when a creator doesn't want that. Because somebody whose basic belief about a YT video is, "that was all right," isn't going to post.
Could it be that the (current) left is generally self-selected as a group of people that could be said to have 'thin-skin'?
If a single woman has some strength of character and she hears some kind of offensive speech, she's not going to immediately demand censorship by the government. Then that woman can go on and listen and research more right-wing arguments once past the shock of 'somebody disagrees with my teacher, the talking heads on TV, journalists, etc'. And she can become right-wing.
If she doesn't have character, then she can stay within the safe confines of the media-approved opinions, and she'll cowardly switch opinions every few months when the newest update of progressive beliefs comes in.
It's a fragile coalition as well, for example your Other includes TERFs and transpeople, or LGBT and muslims, or open borders supporters and Ukrainian nationalists...
More options
Context Copy link
You aren't wrong that it's understandable why The Other, as you put it, mostly wouldn't want to participate here. But what solution do you propose? I think it's appropriate for boardgaming and RPG forums to have rules saying "no Holocaust deniers" or "You cannot say black people have low IQs," because even if there is some intelligent debate to be had there, it's so contentious and inflammatory that it would eclipse what everyone is ostensibly there for. The failure mode in those places is that the consensus opinion settles on not only "No Holocaust denial" but also "No opinions at all that would upset a leftist social justice activist."
And it's not that leftists are particularly censorious compared to rightists. It's just that almost all the hobby and public discourse spaces are dominated by leftists. Righties who are so fond of pointing out that leftists ban all wrongthink are kidding themselves if they think their side ever was, or would be, more tolerant of "free speech" by the other side. (Some are even open about this, and merely bemoan the fact that they happen to be - currently - on the losing side.)
So here, we allow all the disreputable and shady and inflammatory opinions that are too toxic for other places, and the inevitable side effect of that is that people who find those views too toxic are not going to stick around and engage with them.
Either you have actual free speech (which means putting up with ideologues full of hate for their outgroup, who will drive everyone in their outgroup off) or you don't, in which case you have a forum that basically allows only one point of view and will polarize against any form of ideological diversity.
Once you've reached "no Holocaust deniers" you've already set your feet on the slippery slope known as "viewpoint discrimination". The last conceivable step is "no politics except directly related to <hobby>", and that (and the previous one of "no politics at all") both depend on moderators not willing to agree with or fall for the whole "Your views are politics and mine are just common decency" thing.
Here's the thing about slippery slopes: they exist, but every rule is a "slippery slope" of some kind. Maybe you think a hobby forum shouldn't draw the line at Holocaust denial. Fine, let the Holocaust deniers have free reign (and drive off almost everyone else). How about white supremacists talking about how we should send all the niggers back to Africa? Would that be okay? If not, then whoops, there you are practicing "viewpoint discrimination" again.
Even here, we don't allow people to actually call other people niggers. And we've gotten complaints about that.
Yes, that's on the slippery slope too. We know this because we've seen it. This always reaches at least as far as "your viewpoint implies something which could be harmful to me and mine, thus amounts to an attack on me, and therefore should be banned" covering a wide variety of ordinary right-wing viewpoints.
Yes, it is on the slippery slope. My point is that you can't decide you will never put any restrictions in place that are on a "slippery slope" or you cannot have restrictions at all. Do you want a place with zero restrictions? We've talked about this many times before. We know what those places look like.
Everything else is just negotiating where the line will be.
I've already said where there's a chance to make a stand.
Okay, I genuinely don't understand what your point is or where you think the stand should be made, then. If you are not arguing that every public forum should allow Holocaust denial and nigger-posting, then what?
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
More options
Context Copy link
I don't think anyone in this thread has suggested that. That's certainly not what I was saying here.
This explanation assumes that leftist constituencies have a unique monopoly on being emotionally/materially invested in political issues, which is simply not true.
It's easy to find examples of anti-white/anti-male rhetoric in leftist spaces (I really did try my best to join the discussion on radfem blogs in the early '10s where most commenters thought that men were uniquely and irredeemably violent, that they were the cause of all social problems, that women should live apart from them and reduce the male population as much as possible, but I usually didn't last long before getting banned). Or just pick any hot button issue, unrestricted immigration from Central/South America, trans surgeries for kids, AA/DEI programs that explicitly take job offers and college admissions spots from whites and give them to non-whites... these are not abstract intellectual exercises, people perceive these things as very real and direct threats to their way of life. If rightists are still willing to entertain leftist viewpoints on these issues, then that does in fact indicate a higher baseline propensity among rightists to listen to and engage with opposing viewpoints. Blacks/women/immigrants are not the only ones who have ever felt "vulnerable".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link