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 -
New data from Pew on the Israel-Palestinian topic
Negative views of Israel have increased, but in a unique way according to demographics. 50% of Republican-leaning Americans under 50yo have a negative view, up from 35% in 2022. For the Dem-leaning in this age bracket, there’s been only a 3% shift toward negative views. For 50yo+ Republicans, negative views have increased by just 3% to sit at 23%; but for Dems in this age bracket, there’s been a 13% increase to 66%. Most of the shift in the public’s dislike of Israel has occurred among younger Republicans and older Democrats. This is interesting data, because there’s been an idea circulating that the shift in public perception of Israel is driven by younger minority progressives. And while that’s a big part, the data really tells us that Americans have changed their view in recent years in ways unaccounted for by demographic change, but which can be explained by the war. Because in just three years, from 2022 to 2025, we’re seeing huge shifts in regards to views on Israel while demographics have only changed slightly.
I think this shift is clear when looking at the media young people consume. Theo Von inconspicuously doing an “early life check” on the Sackler family in his interview with JD Vance; Shane Gillis on KillTony a few days ago; the popular youth streamer “iShowSpeed” refusing to talk to people if they mention they are Israeli. Pro-Israel Americans need a feasible game plan for dealing with this shift which doesn’t fall victim to the Streisand Effect. The current strategy of deporting foreign national students is bad, because the negative publicity far outweighs the tiny changes on university campuses. Zone of Interest came out in 2023, and our media reported on October 7th crimes well enough, yet these clearly didn’t move the needle on public favorability. There doesn’t appear to be any youth figure who can shift perceptions.
This is just a new round of elderly Dems imitating the radicalism of younger demos without really understanding it, as we saw with BLM. Most of the political (and entertainment) media boomer dems consume is designed to sanewash radical ideas into their existing worldview, using the "spectrum of allies" concept to activate and exploit them without requiring total ideological commitment.
The left is incredibly good at doing this, like with "abolish the police." They recruited grandmas who wanted attention, and kept them in their own separate unit with a command structure and propaganda line tuned specifically for using them as passive interference for militant units. They didn't have to be chanting "fry piggy fry" for them to be useful to the movement, they just had to be pushed one step to the left..
Coordinating this stuff is masterful work. The left can have a Quaker widows' group at protests with "Israel should be nicer!" banners, actively working alongside revcom Molotov throwers with "death to amerikkka glory to the martyrs" banners, and the people involved are so cleanly ideologically managed by their organizers that they don't even notice any contradictions in the different units' party lines.
A lot has been made of demands for "ideological purity" on the left, but imo this completely misses the mark. There is no "universal leftist consensus," and different groups are quite explicitly given different and conflicting party lines. What matters is following the line of your particular unit, because the purpose of ideology to the leftist isn't being true, but being useful for social control. That's the fundamental lesson of the critical theorists, if you actually read them, and why all their papers are about things like "overcoming student resistance to Change Narratives to nurture activism in the classroom."
I talk to quite a few "Daily Kos grandmas," and they're fascinating to listen to. They have no memory of what they used to believe or interest in what they may come to believe, only a sort of endless present of affirmation and social discipline crafted to maximize their donations to radical groups.
They don't actually "believe" in making Israel judenfrei from the river to the sea, just like they didn't actually believe in abolishing the police in 2020. But the echo chamber keeps them in that familiar permanent superposition on the topic, where they're actively pressured to avoid thinking beyond vague and shifting party lines.
One of the schism mods wrote something about being part of a Quaker team at some leftist protest that was a really interesting read, I'll see if I can find it. IIRC it was the "death to terfs" contingent that made her notice something was off.
This was an entertaining polemic, but you know, I could say the same thing about most broad political alliances, including those on the right. Now and then some Republicans will notice the cracks between atheist libertarians who want to legalize weed and don't have a problem with gay marriage but really hate taxes and foreigners, traditional American family values patriots, Jewish neocons who are pro-Israel and American empire, and the evangelical contingent who mostly want to ban abortion. But all will rally (somewhat uneasily) under the banner of a Reagan or (now) a Trump, and some will forget that five minutes ago family values and the Constitution were very important to them, and they'll all pretend they don't know the Andrew Tates and Repeal the 19th weirdos, let alone the ethnats. I know this is your conviction, that lefties are uniquely programmed and NPCed and just take marching orders from Leftism Central, but this is actually how all political machines work. The vast majority of all movements are divided into a tiny handful of True Believers, an even tinier handful of actual movers and shakers, and the vast herd who just sort of gets caught up in whatever tugs hardest on their sentiments.
I'll once again bang my "Read American history" drum. Machine politics in the 19th century were really something else (and yet also, extremely familiar). The Whigs (a coalition that really had nothing in common beyond hating Andrew Jackson, and eventually fell apart because you can only keep slaveowners and abolitionists together in one party for so long) are an illustrative lesson in political movements that incoherent if you stop to think about them for five minutes and yet persisted long enough to elect several presidents.
Your story about "Daily Kos grandmas" who literally don't remember what they used to believe in is of course nonsense (just like all those Never Trumpers who are now MAGAs do, in fact, remember what they used to believe in). People remember, they just rationalize it or else they develop coping mechanisms for the cognitive dissonance.
I'm not sure this is the case. The one that sticks out to me the most is the initial response to COVID. So many people don't remember the early days where believing in COVID was racist and bad. They just swapped back and if you try and remind them now you'll get a lot of "holy shit I forgot about that" or "no way!!!!!!"
A lot of people literally don’t believe they ever took Covid as a crisis.
More options
Context Copy link
Hmm. I only vaguely remember something like that. I didn't pay much attention to American media at the time.
Is it possible that that energy got transferred to "lab leak is racist" in the shitlib subconscious somehow?
I mean I'm sure not everyone did this but my cohort of family and professional contacts which is typically smart, educated, but not particularly politically informed or calibrated do this a lot in general and VERY STRONGLY not his particular topic.
Huh? Rephrase please?
calibrated do this a lot in general and VERY STRONGLY not (on t)his particular topic.
aka covid broke people's brains + me making typos
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Probably some people have forgotten when COVID was a racist conspiracy theory, just like some people have forgotten when they thought the vaccines were awesome and avoiding unnecessary public contact seemed reasonable. In general, though, I don't believe people actually download new updates and wipe the old ones. To the degree that some people are that, shall we say, malleable, I very much do not believe it's a left or right thing. Some people blow with the wind.
Oh yeah for sure, not saying one side has a monopoly on this. The leftist-doublethink seems to magnify though. "No not literally defund the police" "wait yes literally" "no that's ridiculous."
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Hug an asian, plus the whole song and dance about how wanting to restrict travel to/from China durring the lunar new-year (feb-mar 2020) is totally proof of how racist and out-of-touch Trump and his supporters are.
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