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.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It seems like this begs the question of how Jews survived in Jerusalem for a thousand years under successive Muslim regimes (Ottomans, Mamluks, Ayyubids, etc) with minimal issue yet in 1947 Arabs suddenly decided to try to fight a much better equipped foe. Perhaps the Arabs weren't driven to violence by the prospect of living alongside Jews who had been there for thousands of years but by the prospect of being politically dominated by, forcibly removed from their homes by or outright slaughtered by a would-be Jewish state or terrorist paramilitary groups like the Irgun.
It's not like there weren't other options. A minority faction of Zionists from Ihud wanted a single binational state and cooperation with the Arabs but their proposals were rejected. What would have saved even more lives than the 1947 war would have been if such a war had been avoided entirely.
There's "people calling you names" unpopular and then there's "people trying to wipe you out" unpopular. The latter has never had any purchase whatsoever in the United States and even the former has typically been highly stigmatized. Endangering a favorable position within the most powerful empire in human history so that you can have a country where you can look forward to getting your house levelled by missiles or getting kidnapped by terrorists just doesn't seem very rational, particularly from the perspective of an American Jew.
More options
Context Copy link