site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   32242 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Superman was created by Jews, so it's not surprising if there are elements of Jewishness to him. I don't really see much that is specifically Jewish about him, though. For example, the notion of "really powerful being who is orphaned in a foreign culture and has to discover the powers he has by virtue of his birth" has as many examples in European cultures as it does in Semitic cultures. Kal-El does sound Hebrew, but that's a minor thing. What kinds of Jewish-coded characteristics do you have in mind?

The names of mythological heroes are quite important in understanding their esoteric meaning. Kal-El doesn't just sound Hebrew, El is one of the names used to describe the Jewish God in the Hebrew Bible. Jerry Siegel gives his superhero the "Kryptonian" name Kal-El meaning "Voice of God" in Hebrew. In contrast, Lex Luthor has a German surname.

The mythological impetus for Superman was to help guide a new 20th century morality for America. Superman was a moral leader, explained well by Rolling Stone magazine:

To our ears, fighting for “truth, justice, and the American Way” may sound like old-fashioned patriotism. But in the 1940s, it was controversial.

In fact, looking back on those early days, Superman was very woke. He was known as the “Champion of the Oppressed.” At a time when Republicans opposed President Roosevelt’s liberal programs and opposed entering World War II, Superman supported — in comic books and on a wildly successful radio program — the New Deal, open immigration, and entering the war against Hitler. Some episodes of the radio show lampooned the KKK.

Indeed, in 1940, Nazi propaganda accused Superman of being a Jewish conspiracy to poison the minds of American youth.

Of course, after Pearl Harbor, American sentiment changed, and Superman became a national hero, not only fighting Nazis in the comic books but with his image emblazoned on tanks and planes. At first, however, he was a progressive — even a radical.

And of course, Superman was also an immigrant. As Schwartz puts it in his book, “he is the ethnic guy with the Hebraic name Kal-El who came to America, changed his mannerisms and appearance. He tucks his tallit [Jewish prayer shawl, but Schwartz means Superman’s costume] down into his suit, and he goes around the world like a gentile. So it’s sort of like the ultimate assimilation/assertion fantasy, the ability to decide which part of you should interact with society at any given moment. What is more American than being an ethnic immigrant, and bringing the gifts and uniqueness of your cultural heritage to the greater benefit of the American society?”

The principal writer of the Superman comic book series from 1971 through 1986, Elliot Maggin, affirms that interpretation as well:

The unwarranted assumption in the explanations above is that Kryptonians are not Jews. I dissent from that notion. While they are not direct descendents of the Judeans of the Middle East from whom the term "Jewish" comes, I always ascribed effectively Jewish doctrine and ritual to the Kryptonian tradition. In fact, the Kryptonian tradition is congruent with and certainly predates the Judean, so they have at least as much claim to the tradition as any of us.

I give all my characters religions, so I've thought this through - really. The kents are Methodist (as is Clark), Lois is Catholic, Perry is Baptist, Jimmy is Lutheran (no surprise there) and Bruce Wayne and Batman are both Episcopalian (even less of a surprise there). And Superman (like the Siegels, the Shusters, the Weisingers, the Schwartzes, the Maggins and the Luthors) is Jewish.

This is so self-evident that it may as well be canon.

Superman as a Jewish-coded hero leading humanity against Aryan-coded villains expresses as some of the earliest, viral anti-racism in American popular culture.

In contrast to Superman, Lex Luthor is a villain with a German surname "whose hatred of Superman is more due to a xenophobic dislike of an alien being held in higher regard than himself." As Eisenberg said "Luthor is a classic bigot: He feels [Superman] is not like us, he doesn’t belong here.”

It's much more than simply a name, Superman is a figment of a Jewish self-conception of Jewish dual identity and role as moral leaders in Gentile society. That is the esoteric motivation for these mythological heroes.

Zach Snyder sort of inverted things with Henry Cavill as Superman and Eisenberg as Luthor, with Snyder's Luthor expressing widely noted Jewish traits. We like to complain about fictional characters being race-swapped as being "woke", and that's true, but at the same time it's always been a feature of mythology portrayed over time. Of the original meaning of the characters though there's little doubt.

Rolling Stone also recognizes James Gunn casting a Jewish actor to play Superman as significant for those reasons:

David Corenswet may be the first Jewish actor to play Superman, but the Man of Steel himself is as Jewish as matzo ball soup.

As you may or may not know, Superman debuted in 1938, the creation of two American Jewish teenagers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. But that authorship is just the beginning. In fact, the entire Superman myth is an American-Jewish fantasy, lifted from numerous Jewish legends and fulfilling the dream of revenge against Hitler.

Come and learn, people.

First there’s the name. The -El surnames of Superman’s Kryptonian family is a Hebrew appellation for God...

More deeply, though, as Roy Schwartz detailed in his rather awfully-titled book Is Superman Circumcised? The Complete Jewish History of the World’s Greatest Hero, Superman’s origin story is a lot like that of the Biblical Moses: sent away by his parents in a desperate attempt to escape certain death, he is raised among humans, but learns that he is not one of them at all, but has a greater destiny in store. His mini-spaceship is even like the little ark that carried Moses down the River Nile...

But not only cool. As is well known, Nietzsche’s theories of the superman were co-opted by the Nazis, who depicted themselves as inherently superior, the “master race.” Siegel and Schuster’s reclaiming of the term “superman” is itself an act of revenge — as is, of course, Superman’s primary occupation in those early years: namely, kicking the crap out of Nazis. Which is all he did, all the time. He mocked them, beat them, blew them up. He was a Jewish revenge fantasy writ large, and colored in red, yellow, and blue...

As the decades went on, Superman’s Jewishness was a kind of on-again, off-again affair. In the 1970s, lead writer Elliot Maggin incorporated elements of the Bible, Jewish history, and even Kabbalah into Superman’s own story and described his Jewishness as “canon.” There’s a Passover Seder in Superman #400 (1984), Superman defends the Warsaw Ghetto in a time-travel plot from a 1998 issue, and there are references to Jewish angels and magical lore. And in the film Superman II (1980), an old lady exclaims, after Supe rescues a boy from Niagara Falls, “What a nice man! Of course he’s Jewish!” ...

So, sure, it’s exciting to have an actual MOT (“Member of the Tribe”) in the Superman role, not to mention with Lois Lane played by Rachel Brosnahan, who is not Jewish by birth or religion but who is an honorary Jew for her years on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. While one day, it would be great to have a non-white actor in the role, it’s nice to have a Jewish actor play a role that owes so much to the American Jewish experience. I can only hope that his new Superman brings back the courageous, progressive decency of the original one. We need that now more than ever.

...does it count that he's a journalist?

A little bit, but I doubt it's very significant. Granted, I don't know much about the comics, but from what little exposure I have to Superman, I've never seen any reason to think that the way Superman behaves as a journalist is particularly Jewish. If an Irish-American guy wrote a story about a space alien who comes to Boston and becomes a cop, I wouldn't view the cop as particularly Irish-coded unless he did, well, Irish-y things as a cop. But like I said, I don't know much about the comics, so I could be missing something.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats