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 -
What are these foundations? Why are there three versus six? I'm not familiar with this terminology.
As the others said, moral foundations - care/harm, liberty/oppression, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation.
Everyone cares about the first three, but WEIRD (white/educated/industrialised/rich/democratic, and especially autistic) people care much less about the last three (while caring more about care/harm), which generates liberalism (and is why liberals frequently fail ideological Turing tests for conservatism, because it's harder to hypothetically add things to a moral compass than to remove them).
As @fishtwanger said, Haidt's book laying these out is dated because it predates SJ. My best working theory of SJ is that it's what happens if you try to cram 90s liberalism down the throats of people who are six-foundation-inclined; they will take superficial features of it, connect them to the missing foundations, and produce a bizarro-world morality that has all six foundations but lacks coherence and is divisive rather than unifying.
As I said above, this is a bulverism; it's an explanation for "why would people believe this crazy thing despite its craziness" rather than "what is the thesis of this thing and is it true". I don't like bulverism, and I don't like thinking of people as, well, morons susceptible to memetic effects. But it's the most sense I've managed to make of SJ.
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, moral foundations theory. It's not the most grounded theory, because the foundations were largely eyeballed from initial data and then expanded based on feedback and discussion, instead of being chosen by some sort of factor analysis. And if someone does enough research on this to put it on solid ground, "three" and "six" are probably not what the result will be. But they're good enough for a shorthand.
The original book is interesting. It's dated, because it came out shortly before SJ hit, and it didn't anticipate SJ at all. But it's prophetic, because its thesis explains exactly why SJ is the way it is. And then there's the last section, which isn't talked about much, but which strikes directly at the heart of the rationalist project. It suggests that our capacity for rational thought is actually a capacity for rationalization and rhetoric, evolved to help us form strong coalitions with other humans, to help in intergroup competition. And that it's entirely incidental that this also happens to allow us to think rationally about the world, although it might be inevitable (as long as the simplest model is also correct). Which has some implications about LLMs, too.
More options
Context Copy link
I'm pretty sure this is referencing moral foundations theory.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link