site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 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.

Or everyone can live peacefully in India. Even many serious Hindutva activists want people of other religions to live their lives peacefully, and are ok with them openly practicing their religion. The kind of extremist opinions you see are a minority.

Yep, there's no Hindu extremism in India. It's mostly anti Hindu and anti upper caste. Democracy smh.

It's mostly anti Hindu

In what sense are Hindus oppressed or campaigned against in India?

I'd refer my posting history. For starters

  • India is a secular nation, the only nation to house Hindus.
  • There are religious subsidies, Muslims get a Haj subsidy whilst Hindu places of worship are mostly run by government, in some places, they have started elected priests of different castes out of spite. Temple rituals being fucked with is a major red flag.
  • Muslim areas are no go zones by default as any act of violence by Hindus, upper castes rather is enough to get the state to fuck you up forever. Bengal and Assam are heading for Muslim majority by 2040 due to the porous border that the country does nothing about.
  • Literally every single religious group gets explicit minority rights besides one, guess what that group is. This also means that Hindus cannot have exclusively Hindu places the same way others can.
  • Hindu festivals are not safe either. The supreme court bans the explicit use of firecrackers during Diwali, even though the crackers are an integral part of the religion, not the same as having them in during American independence day. There are religious connotations.
  • The waqf act is a good thing to read for the uninitiated to get an idea about preferential treatment. You can't even have a scheme like CAA that helps minorities from our low born neighbors. The protests agaisnt that were huge.
  • Every scripture is holy and beyond criticism except the for Hindu ones. Quran burnings result in mass scale violence 10/10 times whilst there are no consequences for doing the same against Hindu one. People burn the manu smriti, call Ram and Krishna names and even write books that win prizes like one literally named cuckold. This was written by a Marathi and won a national prize.
  • Allowing people to blast Islamic prayer despite it being illegal, something I've spoken about before.

Some things from the top of my head, there are plenty of much worse things besides these. Upper caste males are seen as the root of all evil who exist to pay nearly all taxes, make up nearly all of the military, nearly all of the achievements of the place, both past and present.

Many of these also vaguely comport to similar benefits non-Han have vis a vis the Han Chinese in the PRC, yet I think most of us would hesitate to label the PRC as being anti-Han.

(This is despite probably more worthy historical reasons to call the PRC “anti-Han”, actually, starting with the targeting of the Four Olds during the cultural revolution.)

You do a lot of equivocation between social attitudes and government policy and discrimination against Hindus and discrimination against Brahmins, and it's not really clear to me which one you think is going on and which one each bullet is supposed to support.

India is a secular nation,

True perhaps in a technical sense, but when the PM is inaugurating Hindu temples (and I'm not aware of him inaugurating mosques), I'm not sure it's really relevant.

the only nation to house Hindus.

Not only is India not the only nation with Hindus, it's not even the only Hindu majority nation.

There are religious subsidies, Muslims get a Haj subsidy whilst Hindu places of worship are mostly run by government,

The state-run religion is not usually considered to be oppressed. Also, can you explain how a "secular nation" can operate Hindu temples?

in some places, they have started elected priests of different castes out of spite. Temple rituals being fucked with is a major red flag.

This doesn't indicate discrimination against Hindus at all.

Muslim areas are no go zones by default as any act of violence by Hindus, upper castes rather is enough to get the state to fuck you up forever... Every scripture is holy and beyond criticism except the for Hindu ones. Quran burnings result in mass scale violence 10/10 times whilst there are no consequences for doing the same against Hindu one. People burn the manu smriti, call Ram and Krishna names and even write books that win prizes like one literally named cuckold. This was written by a Marathi and won a national prize.

The existence of a heckler's veto does not imply that the majority is being discriminated against. You can't have a Mohammed drawing competition in the US without people coming to kill you either, but it's ridiculous to claim that the US discriminates in favor of Muslims.

Bengal and Assam are heading for Muslim majority by 2040 due to the porous border that the country does nothing about.

This is not evidence of discrimination against Hindus.

Literally every single religious group gets explicit minority rights besides one, guess what that group is.

Which rights do Hindus lack?

This also means that Hindus cannot have exclusively Hindu places the same way others can.

Which places in India are exclusively, for example, Christian?

Hindu festivals are not safe either. The supreme court bans the explicit use of firecrackers during Diwali, even though the crackers are an integral part of the religion, not the same as having them in during American independence day. There are religious connotations.

As far as I can tell the ban is only in places with terrible air quality? I don't see that as discrimination against Hindus. Do other religions get to perform celebrations that pollute the air to a similar extent?

The waqf act is a good thing to read for the uninitiated to get an idea about preferential treatment.

What in particular do you find objectionable about it? I don't find it particularly likely that a bill sponsored and signed into law by the BJP is anti-Hindu.

You can't even have a scheme like CAA that helps minorities from our low born neighbors. The protests agaisnt that were huge.

How is a bill that was basically supposed to help everyone but Muslims evidence of discrimination against Hindus? That such a bill was even proposed is primary facie evidence that India discriminates against Muslims.

Some things from the top of my head, there are plenty of much worse things besides these.

I would really prefer that you list the things that you think are the worst so that we can get to the bottom of this rather than a bunch of things that aren't really convincing and then go "but this isn't even my final form."

I also want to know this, because I haven't seen any. Maybe he is just referring to practices that motivate Hindutva activists like conversion, "love jihad", etc. and opposition to religious laws, and mixing of government and religion as part of secularism?

Love jihad is an exercise in weakness. The campaigning agaisnt it is weak though there's a kernel of truth in it, the premise is mostly flawed and the messaging only makes Hindus look worse

Conversions are a very real issue. Forcing poor people to accept Jesus as their lord and savior by offering them grains and threatening social exclusion should get you belted publicly.

I am not a hindutva guy, I am a reactionary which means I can actually be a Hindu. Hindutva comes from Maharashtra of the 1900s where people wanted a caste less Hindu state. Marathas are shudras or OBCs who out if rage agaisnt their more competent Brahmin counterparts, started funding explicitly anti Brahmin activists which influenced Hindutva as RSS and the Bjp, which are both sister organizations unofficially, come out of Maharashtra.

Unfortunately, non Hindutva alternatives are even worse. Nehru and his family set the nation back in ways there's no coming back from, ever. Up until a few years ago, prime minister of the nation wouldn't visit temples as that was agaisnt the secular fabric of the nation.

Don't forget people balstng Islamic prayers daily in Al localities with zero consequences, a way to tell others to fuck off and stay in their lane.