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Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
I object to the term 'rape culture' or 'culture of violence' or 'racism culture' because it means that the bad things in peculiar to that the culture, or especially pervasive in that culture. There are murders in Iceland. Does Iceland have a 'culture of murder'? I'd suggest not. I'd suggest it has murders.
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I think you've basically demonstrated my point in post #797 here. One objection to the term is that it's not descriptive, but I think for me that's actually superceded by the fact that it de-rails conversations onto this totally unproductive path.
I mean, I'm downright positive that this exact kind of hyperbole is pretty much the
only reason that Milo Yiannopoulos has 150,000 twitter followers.
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It doesn't do us any good to pretend that the appeal of a cheeseburger and fries is entirely fabricated by McDonalds, and so compelling to change how they advertise is the way to get rid of obesity (though it may help).
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Interestingly, it might actually be accurate to suggest that we have an obesity culture...
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The problem is there is a strong and influential school of thought on the left that rejects biological influences on behaviour, and subscribes to the myth of the blank slate. They believe we can make people into whatever we want. And when you start from a flawed premise about the nature or a problem, you've off to a bad start in addressing the problem. This isn't an obscure academic debate either - it has tremendous influence on public attitudes and policies.
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I agree; you see it all over with people suggesting that evolutionary biology is inherently wrong because it creates cognitive dissonance, or suggesting that Steven Pinker is some sort of Hitleresque demon. But I don't think that this debate, obscure or not, is taking place in this thread right now, and you're tilting at windmills a bit in this case.