site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Huh. I knew he was a old-forum poster, but I'd forgot/never noticed he was an alt of unitofcaring. Why did unitofcaring have to change personas again?

I don't know of any previous account names for TAP except Ben__Garrison. Haven't done any serious use time analysis, but would be pretty surprised if TAP was TUOC just from the writing style.

I use the Vox crowd because TAP regularly linked the Yglesias/Hanania/deBoer set here, and if any of them were supposedly central examples of the sort of moderation and introspection TAP claims exists, Yglesias and KelseyTUOC would be it. And they're not, clearly. No one is.

(Also, if I start complaining about the ways Hanania or deBoer are two-faced liars, we're going to be here all week. I'm working on an effortpost trying to draw a thread between the ATF v. SSA en banc and the Maine District 90 stuff, and I find that a lot more interesting and meaningful than 'guy compares his debate opponents to people shitting on a plate', whether that's in the literal sense for TAP or the figurative sense for Hanania).

I think KelseyTUOC just made her name less psuedoanon when she joined Vox.

Well, I might have misunderstood the association. Still, and regardless, please keep posting the counter-arguments against 'the Democrat law would totally have reformed immigration, and Republican opposition to it is proof of bad faith' in the future. I find your take more convincing, but couldn't recreate it myself from memory, and I doubt they are going to stop invoking the argument in the future.

Though I hope your boilerplate response doesn't get any wags of the fingers from mods, since I'd appreciate you to keep posting longer than not.