site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

How do you teach them to actually understand the difference?

The same way it was managed before the revolution: you tell people the truth that men and women differ , and then you impose social costs on the males who can't behave appropriately . No focus on sympathetically explaining this, no "uplifting as Simone Biles demands even as she calls for transmen to be exiled to their own league. That implies ambivalence and people can sniff it out.

Start with unbelieving denial - of course you're not a woman, don't be ridiculous. Then mockery, contempt, maybe informal punishment from their fellow men when they step out of line by doing things like demanding to enter female washrooms (when administrations turn a blind eye men can rectify even the most stubborn)

I'm not convinced that most people are legitimately as clueless as they claim, I think many are just entitled and coddled (hand-wringing about how to get them to see this is,imo, part of the same coddling instinct). Jessica Yaniv knows what he's doing, he's outright malicious imo. Artemis at the very least knows that he makes women feel uncomfortable. He just knows he can get away with it.

But the lawyers are in charge of things now and you live in an age of "zero tolerance" for bullying. These sorts of men are harder to convince because they know they have the option of filing a lawsuit or complaining to some administrator or finding some advocacy group. That's most of it. It's not a matter of rational debate or education if one side can win by tattling to the teacher. It's just about power.