site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 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.

Lower tier males isnt necessarily what we're talking about here though, a genetically excellent 12 year old could absolutely be put down by a group of older but genetically deficient guys. Being able to cope with the aftermath of avoiding terrible martial engagements is probably an advantageous trait to have for anyone who isn't part of an overwhelmingly forceful collective, whether male or female.

I did just watch a movie called The Northman about a badass little viking child that escapes a raid on his village, and thats probably coloring my current thought process on the matter. I dont know how common of a plotline that is in reality.

I did just watch a movie called The Northman

The Northman was ahistorical subversive GARBAGE. I got 15 minutes into that film and it was looking pretty based and redpilled and then ^^^Anya Taylor-Joy^^^ showed up. So now we have to take a historically accurate film set in Scandinavia in the Eighth Century AD on Earth and cram an ayylmao actress into it in the name of “diversity”

—inb4 some onions boy is like “weeell ACKSHUALLY there were ayylmao minority populations living in Scandinavia back then, look at this article from ^^^Barbra Xorlon-Stygggaszzzt^^^ from the history department at ^^^the University of New Mexico, Roswell^^^”

I don’t care. One blurry UFO in one Viking woodcut doesn’t mean we have to take work away from human actresses and give it to ayys. This is human erasure.

I presume you're familiar with the argument about representation, and sure the casting may not be historically accurate, but it's important for human-alien hybrids to see figures like them in popular culture. If Anne Boleyn can be black but have a white daughter, then a 10th century Rus princess can be played by a hybrid.

Assumption should be any and all media products set in past are ahistorical garbage. Modern casting choices are secondary. When they get casting right, and these days they may get look of the props right, they still get it wrong how the weapons and armor works, how society works, how interpersonal relationships worked. Occasionally such things may no be entirely incorrect when the producers got good source material and scriptwriters did not warp it beyond recognition.

Drawing inference about historical past from regular entertainment products is failure. It's like trying to understand cold war era intelligence work watching Goldfinger, and your biggest complain about inaccuracy concerns the gadgets in Bond's Aston Martin. Yes, the car is not real, but it is not the only not-real thing in the movie.

Can't say anything about the Northman, but the only TV series about the Viking Age that I have heard any positive feedback from archeology/historians is Vinland Saga, and that is faint praise as it obviously suffered from overabundance of shonen conventions. (But it was the first anime I saw that had nearly intellectual treatment of Christianity, usually Japanese authors warp the Western religion to unrecognizable goth aesthetic that is present for visuals only.)

It's a copypasta.

This seeeeeeems like a tongue in cheek pantomime of anti woke media preferences, but ahem.

If you think The Northman is pozzed then i literally dont know what you want out of movies. That actresses eyes arent quite far apart enough to make her diverse.

This seeeeeeems like a tongue in cheek pantomime of anti woke media preferences, but ahem.

It won’t seem so “tongue in cheek” when the Martian Tripods are marching on Whitehall, treading down all of Western Civilization under the pitiless gaze their vile heat rays.

That actresses eyes arent quite far apart enough to make her diverse.

I have over four hundred photographs of this particular specimen (for research purposes), and I assure you, her eyes are very far apart.

Anya Taylor-Joy's character in The Northman was a slave taken from raids on other lands. The raid the protagonist is taking part in when he finds out about his uncle and then runs off to take revenge is a raid on Garðaríki, i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gar%C3%B0ar%C3%ADki

Not Scandinavia.

Also her character is meant to be Olga of Kiev: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_of_Kiev

So Olga was just another Russian single mom? Because that's how she ends up at the end of the movie.

Basically, but instead of being single because she decided to date a ghetto thug who left her the moment he found out she was pregnant, she became single because the father had to have a buck naked swordfight on top of a volcano against his uncle to avenge his father's murder and secure Olga and their children against future possible reprisals from his uncle.

This sounds like the hillbilly Oresteia.

Something we can all relate to

What “other lands” could possibly explain casting Anya? Mars? Proxima Centauri? I don’t buy it. It’s clearly woke pro extraterrestrial propaganda. They take special glee in ayy-washing films set in ancient Europe. It’s the same reason they cast her The VVitch.