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 -
"Adolescence"
As I was giving my brother a lift on Saturday, he asked me if I watched anything new recently. He told me that there's a new netflix series that everybody's talking about, about a murder in a high school, and that in typical netflix fashion there's been a race shift. However since the character in question is a murderer, the shift has been in a direction opposite from the often memed one.
Later that day, my wife told me that everybody's talking about a new series, and it's about a teenage boy getting radicalized by the far right. I acknowledged nearing about it, and she gently mocked me, saying that she can hear from the tone of my voice that I instinctively recoil at the premise.
Yesterday, I saw my high school geography teacher, now the headmaster of said high school, recommending the show on facebook. This was my final cue that it in fact reached some critical mass of normie recognition. I started reading up on it, saw that it was an UK production, and that gave context to the tidbits that I heard while jumping channels in the car on the weekend, with people on the (Polish) radio talking about violence against women in England.
I won't paste the whole synopsis from Wikipedia, but the tl;dr is that it's about a 13 year old who gets radicalized by The Manosphere, asks out a classmate who had her topless photos revenge-posted about someone else earlier (thinking that she'd be easy), she rebuffs him, later insinuates that he's an incel, the boy get cyberbullied, eventually he finds a kindred radical, and stabs the girl. The plot proper is in the aftermath of this, with various authorities questioning the 13-year old Jamie, and parents wondering how it all went wrong. In the end, Jamie decides to plead guilty.
I tried to find something about the inspiration for the series, to corroborate my brother's info, and it turns out it was inspired by three cases of stabbing. The only one named by showrunners is the case of Brianna Ghey, a 16 year old transgirl stabbed by two 15 year olds, white girl and white boy. Possible speculation about the other two cases include Ava White (12 year old stabbed by a 14 year old "not named for legal reasons" 🤔) and Elliane Andam (15, black girl stabbed by 17 year old Hassan Sentamu). The filming started in July 2024, so Axel Rudakubana's spree couldn't have been an inspiration.
So, my first, second, etc. thoughts on all of this were unbecoming of this forum.
My nth thought can be summed as: the absolute audacity of them.
Yes, knife crime, and other violent crime, and crime in general is on the rise in the UK youth. But the unacknowledged elephant in the room is that the current UK teens are a dramatically different cohort from teens. The optimistic take would be that the "adults in the room" are recognizing the problem, and are laundering it as a white issue to make it more palatable for left-lib sensibilities. But I don't believe it. This is another in the long list of wild swerves trying to address anything but the root of the problem. Knife bans! Pointless knives, as suggested by Idris Elba! Illegal memes! Starmer would rather release hundreds of actual violent criminals to have more place in prisons for the "white supremacists".
Cf. "stop asian hate", where assaults perpetrated by other demographics were also presented as if it were the whites' fault. We get the usual kvetching about radicalization, Andrew Tate (ignoring the fact that he fake-converted to Islam, which suggests that his core viewer demographic probably isn't white British nor white American) and whatnot. Are white boys in the UK actually radicalizing? I don't know, probably not, the first pass suggests that in every place that isn't South Korea the boys/young men stay roughly where they were politically, while the world shifts from under them. But if they are, that's a reasonable reaction to the world that tries to scapegoat them for things outside of their control and treats them only with suspicion.
(Yes, I am aware that the perps ih Ghey's case were in fact white. But even there, the girl perp was probably the main instigator of the murder, a far cry from the fictionalized version.)
P.S. (From the synopsis: "Katie used this form of encoded language to accuse Jamie of being an incel". At age 13? I sure hope he was.)
The Manosphere hasn't been a thing for quite sometime. It's like referring to Suffragettes rather than Feminists. Once it became clear that the term had outlived it's usefulness, individuals splintered into a decentralized ether of male self interest and self development.
Adolescence is just another focus for the usual groups to assign blame for anything and everything to white
boysmen. Red pill knowledge is framed as something that causes murder, hate and involuntary celibacy. If only boys behaved more like.. well, girls, then we wouldn't have this problem. Lets force boys in schools to watch this series so they can feel even more demonized. I'm sure that this won't have the complete opposite effect of that which the Karens would wish.I'd better stop here. I've been noticing misandry against men in Western culture for quite sometime, but now it looks like boys are targets too, which makes me a bit upset.
I'd add that the Manosphere was clearly able to exist as long as it did due to a very peculiar cultural milieu where Blue Tribe feminists were ramping up the culture war, but the Trump phenomenon, the alt-right, the meme wars, Gamergate etc. did not yet exist.
More options
Context Copy link
How would you describe Andrew Tate? What subculture is he a part of?
Andrew Tate was able to make a name for himself precisely because he obviously took detailed arguments that were posted on Manosphere sites that have been defunct for many years, repackaged them and dumbed them down, and presented as his own in short videos and whatnot. His followers believe him because they don't know any better, because again, those sites are no longer accessible. He's exploiting the death of the Manosphere.
More options
Context Copy link
Some kind of fractured derivative of the Red Pill. Not that he would identify as that (which is kind of my point). Do you think Tate would go 'I'm part of the manosphere'?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Arguably the primary targets are boys just becoming men. From an example published a few days ago:
(after similar anecdotes about 9 other prestige outlets)
The chief editor of the New Yorker is still a white American man, mind you. He replaced a woman in 1998 (back when that was still more unremarkable than Problematic) and he's probably still safe there today. If you try to take away an old man's job then you're certain to engender conflict with a powerful man. If you take young men's jobs before their careers really get started, the young men tend to just go away and find a different career. It might take a decade before people even start to notice.
I'd even just stop it here. Feminists like other critical theorists have done their own march through the educational institutions. I haven't really seen any pushback in Western public school systems and when I do it ends up as a cautionary tale..
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
In addition to @DiscourseMagnus' reply, consider the following: What is an attack on men if not an attack on boys? For what else should boys aspire and expect to be?
Well now they have the option of becoming women.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Always have been.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link