site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If no one wanted that land in Africa and Latin America why should the Jews?

Your schtick of acting like Israel is the only country in history to ever do naked conquest as opposed to simply being the most recent one is getting stale. At least when the bleeding heart progs do it, their historical and ethical myopia is consistent. When you combine trying to paint Israel as evil for the actions of Israel and trying to paint Israel as evil because Jews have been uniquely evil for 2000 years it's just incoherent.

Your schtick of acting like Israel is the only country in history to ever do naked conquest as opposed to simply being the most recent one is getting stale.

Israel’s only real crime was getting founded just a couple of years after that type of thing became unfashionable.

They're a country out of time. It can't go on.

People are saying this about the Jews for three thousands years at least. Yet the Jews are still around.

Because having a jewish ethnostate built in a densely populated area close to Europe is a bad idea and something that will lead to constant headache for the rest of us. Israel in the middle east has been 80 years of trouble and is set up to be another 80 years of trouble. AIPAC and the Zionist lobby has pushed for a multitude of disastrous wars both for the region and for Europe as well as for American tax payers. Israel is a permanent welfare queen due to its placement.

Israel was not placed there for some rational reason but because of a belief in that the land could be bought for mutilated baby penises. Either Israel can learn to coexist with its neighbours in peace or it should relocate.

  • -10