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 -
Some what shocked there has not been a top level post about the Annunciation School Shooting yet given the obvious culture war angles and parallels to the Covenant School shooting of a few years back (religious school, trans shooter - though FtM vs MtF).
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/annunciation-catholic-school-minneapolis-shooting-08-27-25
I had missed that the Covenant shooter was determined to have not acted out due to any real culture war stuff, but just due to your generic mass shooter mental illness + desire to be remembered cocktail.
I would guess that throwing in the Culture War angle makes it a lot more likely that the shooter's name and face get passed around, though in this case seems like he was just crazy more so than any particular niche of the political compass.
Presumably gun control will be in the news again a bit.
https://archive.is/JFfGt
The New York Times seems to have gone out of their way to have affirmed the shooter’s pronouns with the title “Suspect Knew Her Target” and calling the suspect Ms. throughout.
I feel like an odd component of the culture war on trans issues is a tacit agreement (Chris Chan, etc) that respecting someone’s gender identity goes out the window once they have done something bad. I’ve seen this in some left-wing spaces, which kinda shows that people are aware that they’re making an active choice to use pronouns - to be nice to the person using them. It seems like the New York Times position is that pronouns are sacrosanct, obviously.
I just imagine how good the writers room felt about themselves doing this - they probably feel like they’re fighting for civil rights in the 60s or throwing bricks or something in the face of public discontent with trans issues.
Pronouns being, much like many/most things to do with trans/gender ideology, sacrosanct, is pretty mainstream in my experience in progressive/"woke" culture in America. I didn't pay much attention to it, but the few times I ran into it on Twitter and such, it was common to see people being berated for not using Chris Chan's preferred pronouns, and in general it tends to pop up whenever there's some news of some trans person doing something most people agree is wrong. I also recall seeing a scene from some CW Batman show where a cop berates another cop for misgendering the suspect they're interrogating and kicks him out of the interrogation room, followed by him telling the suspect something like how they might be on different sides, but that doesn't mean he has to be an asshole to him, or something.
Of course, opinions tend to vary, as always, but one of the core tenets of this ideology is the relationship between someone's position on the progressive stack (i.e. oppression Olympics or the oppression totem pole) and the truth of their words or justice of their actions. As a result, in practice, the most extreme views espoused by some individual at the highest point on the totem pole with the least scruples about exercising social and physical acts for enforcement set the agenda. Straight men/lesbian women not discriminating against transwomen in dating/sex or including transwomen as full, undifferentiated members of women's sports teams and their lockers are other fairly extreme positions that seem not that commonly held when talking to individuals in private, but in practice, there's rarely more than some non-committal mumbling and foot-dragging when the extreme true believers demand all of society submit to these things, resulting in everyone having to behave in public as if they agree with those things.
More options
Context Copy link
The union has a veto over the style guide that no doubt mandates specific pronouns (or at least a big say in it), and I highly doubt the style guide has carve-outs for sufficiently evil criminals.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link