site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Israel does not have racial policies.

This is false, see the Nation-State Bill, as well as the conscription laws. I already referred to both, so you should have been aware.

You completely invented this, out of nothing, and you pretend this is "obvious".

Surely you must be aware that my interpretations of these laws are hardly unique, so claiming that I invented them out of nothing, truly puts you beyond all ability to reason with. If you were to merely argue that one interpretation was wrong, there would be room for debate, but you are simply in full denial if you refuse to admit the obvious truth that my interpretation is a common one that you can even find on the most mainstream of sites like Wikipedia.

No, much more diverse actually. Which you would have known if you knew anything about Israel beyond a bunch of fourth-party packaged woke slogans, but you don't, do you?

I never addressed which country is more diverse and it matters nothing to my argument, or yours. I think that hurling personal insults that make any form of sense works better than what you just did.

They do [have civil marriage]. Ask me how I know? That's how I got married.

Did you get a civil marriage within Israel or did you get married outside of Israel and then got your marriage legalized? Because the latter is the common escape route, but is not an actual civil marriage performed by Israel.

Or did you get a 'couplehood union,' which is not a marriage?

Again, you didn't even try.

I did read up on the law before responding. So you are telling falsehoods based on false assumptions. Why don't you stick to the facts, rather than make stuff up?

Syria is at war with Israel, and repeatedly refused to sign a peace treaty. When you start a war and lose it, that's what happens.

This is false. I know, because I live in a country that 'won' a war and then had to give back the land that was gained. The idea that you can always just take land if you have the ability to do so, is not supported by international law or historic precedent.

Also, the idea that it's justified and no big deal when you go to war just because a peace treaty hasn't been signed is just trying to win a debate on a technicality, but is strongly at odds with reality. Do you think that if North Korea would attack the South, Western nations would shrug their shoulders since the countries are technically still at war?

"Tired" is not as strong an argument as you may think it is.

It is tired when the claim of double standards is never applied consistently or logically.

Israel has been and continues to be attacked by Arabs - from Hamas to Iran to Husites to Hezbollah to others. All those people eventually find out the dear and grave costs of such actions.

And vice versa as well. Again, you are so biased that you fail to apply your arguments to both sides.

If the inequality consists of having less chance to be murdered by other Arabs, then I don't see it as a huge problem, and neither see the Israeli Arabs.

I think that this inequality increases the abuse of Arabs by the IDF, by removing people from the IDF whose innate racism (that we all have to some extent) cannot be as easily be used to justify abuse as non-Arabs.

Nobody "drew them together" to Gaza and they resist all efforts to relocate them anywhere

They are being driven together right now and there are Israeli laws that restrict their ability to migrate to Israel, in cases where Jews would be permitted to immigrate (a racial policy!).

But I guess that what you mean is that they resist effort to ethnically cleanse them.

And their population grows by 2% every year, which is faster than Israeli population (1.5% a year). That's some shitty cleansing.

I never claimed that Israel was (effective at) ethnically cleansing the Palestinians in the past. You keep making stuff up that I never said.

I say they do not exist, what existed in Gaza was completely autonomous self-rule by Gazans

So Gazans had autonomy over the sea exit and could freely get on a boat and travel away, with no interference by Israel, and boats from other nations could freely travel to Gaza with no interference?

And the only thing that was asked from them is to please stop trying to murder us.

Resistance against an oppressor is legitimate. Of course, violence against civilians is not, but you've already demonstrated that you have no concern for that, given that you refuse to condemn Israeli violence against civilians.

And it is a lie that the only thing that was asked of them was not to murder Israelis. What was asked was to accept permanent oppression. Of course you can live in your alternative reality where Palestinians resist because they just want to drink Jewish blood, not because of a desire for freedom, but I think that it is telling that you never argue that Israeli's would accept it peacefully if they would have to live like you think is suitable for the Palestinians. Because of course they wouldn't, as they already demonstrated when they chose terrorism in the early days before the actual founding of Israel, even though they had it far better than the Palestinians already.

Not "all", but 80 to 90 percent. Look up any poll on support of Hamas.

The idea that people who support an organisation are 100% in agreement with the goals of that organisation is the kind of strawmanning that seems out of place here. It is commonly used in politics to accuse supporters of a politician or cause of being guilty or whatever they supposedly support. However, what they supposedly support differs per accuser, which makes it clear that it is just a straw man and not true. It being untrue completely undermines your reasoning.

Secondly, your figures seem to be wrong: https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/997

Ultimately, I don't care much for the current hateful feelings among Palestinians or Israelis, because if you actually want peace, you cannot take these as a given anyway, but have to change them. The only alternative is ethnic cleansing or worse. But it is not realistic to suggest a peace based on Israel's boot forever stomping on the Palestinians face.