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 -
Traditional morality has no prohibition on marrying a single mother, and indeed encourages it. Mohammed himself (at least according to the Sunnis) married first a woman who had had children by two previous husbands, and married several other widows with many children between them. Remarriage was historically much more common because of widowhood; it's likely that fewer men have a wife with prior children today than at any previous time in history.
Even if we say that the single mother was not widowed and merely divorced, Muhammad and ancient Christians and Jews also married divorced women, and again this was religiously satisfactory in most cases and (in Islam especially) considered an auspicious act for one's chances in the afterlife. Indeed in Judaism, the only man who must marry a virgin is the singular High Priest, and even then only if he marries once in office, rather than before it.
Even if we go one step further and say that our single mother is neither widow nor divorcee but actual whore in the biblical sense, it is unclear how bad this is. Prostitutes being forgiven, even exalted, feature heavily in the New Testament and the Quran and Hadiths. Except for the prohibition for Kohanim, and a line in the Quran about how a 'fornicator' must marry a 'fornicatress' (which if anything is a limit on male promiscuity, but is widely interpreted by scholars as not applying literally for some reason). The only additional Christian prohibition I'm aware of is that if she was married and was divorced for something that was not adultery, she would not be able to remarry.
Possibly, but then only a very small percentage of even the native population would be considered 'conservative'. Since there are only two major parties in FPTP systems, the only information we have is about whether some population tends to vote for the more or less leftist one.
More options
Context Copy link