site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   42089 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 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.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What stood out to me the most in that article was that it was, "Republicans Pounce". The style guide is dumb, but that's sort of baked in at this point. It's almost mechanical, like if someone changed their spellchecker. Whereas making the affirmative choice to headline with "Republicans Pounce" requires more in-the-moment intent.

I mean, I can see the logic, from their perspective. They think Trump is Hitler 2.0 and that he and his supporters are drooling at the thought of an excuse to massacre all the blacks. I read the article (or at least, what I can see of it before the paywall) as saying "OH SHIT, Reichstag Fire Decree incoming", which if true would legitimately be much-bigger news than a murder.

The issue is that the premises they're working from are highly-exaggerated, making it quite unlikely that there actually will be a Reichstag Fire Decree (or Nuremberg Laws, etc.).

I see the logic, but it also still doesn't make sense to me. "Republicans pounce" is a well-trodden meme at this point, and using such phrasing signals partisanship that discredits themselves and whatever article is under the headline. Anyone who's been paying attention to US politics and journalism - which should include literally every American journalist writing about Republicans - should be fully aware of this. As such, if I were a cynical partisan Democrat journalist editing a headline, I would make sure to avoid any phrase that has any similarities with this meme, knowing that any such similarities would make my mission of manipulating people into buying into my framing and narrative less likely to succeed.

Now, some might say that these journalists are in echo chambers that prevent them from recognizing how they discredit themselves. Seems reasonable, but this also doesn't escape the same problem as above: everyone knows that everyone is susceptible to echo chambers that are invisible to them. And, again, US journalists who cover US politics should be more aware of this than the typical person. As such, a US journalist should at the very least be highly suspicious that they live in an echo chamber, which means that they're less capable of analyzing and reporting the news credibly to the populace in general, which means they're less capable of manipulating them. Or informing them properly, if you're an honest, good-faith operator. As such, a selfish, cynical, partisan journalist would (and certainly a non-cynical, non-partisan one would) try to gain perspectives from outside their echo chambers, thus allowing them to understand how damning anything similar to "Republicans pounce" is to their credibility.

And yet we see the line - sometimes verbatim - trotted out regularly. It appears as the mirror image of the "Democrats are the real racists" (DRRR) meme, which the left has already developed antibodies for, and as such, just serves to discredit the speaker for playing into their hand.

I'm reminded of the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog far too often these days.

The issue is that the premises they're working from are highly-exaggerated, making it quite unlikely that there actually will be a Reichstag Fire Decree (or Nuremberg Laws, etc.).

The steelman is not that they're worried about Hitler, it's that they're worried about another Willie Horton situation. Which, from the left-wing view, was a opportunistic racial attack that not only cost Democrats the election but actively led to destructive tough-on-crime policies instead of left-wing policies that would have helped remove the causes of crime.

To many African-American people, the scars from that campaign attack remain fresh. Whatever Mr. Bush’s intentions, they said, the campaign encouraged more race-based politics and put Democrats on the defensive, forcing them to prove themselves on crime at the expense of a generation of African-American men and women who were locked up under tougher sentencing laws championed by President Bill Clinton, among others.

The logic is not really that different from not wanting to cover terrorists or shooters on the grounds that it inflames the public and makes them want cures worse than the disease.

We don't really need to bring in the Nazis. There's a perfectly American fear here.

I'll cop to not having read this when I posted (it was behind the paywall), but now it's loading without the paywall for some reason, so...

Today, Mr. Trump’s critics fear that he will use the death of Ms. Zarutska to justify sending federal troops into American cities, as he has already done in Washington, despite statistics showing a downturn in violent crime nationwide.

“Trump’s MAGA allies are trying to use the tragic murder of a service worker in Charlotte, North Carolina, to justify its illegal occupation of U.S. cities,” the Rev. Dr. William Barber, the state’s most prominent African American civil rights leader, wrote in a text message.

[...]

In North Carolina, as in other Southern states, newspapers in the Jim Crow era often egregiously exaggerated stories about Black criminality. Among other things, such stories served as a precursor to a white supremacist uprising in Wilmington, N.C., in 1898, in which at least 60 Black men were killed.

As I said to @ControlsFreak, I wasn't trying to steelman, but fleshman - i.e. model what they were actually thinking. It would seem that my model had some predictive power, although they did say other stuff too.

I think the slightly easier steelman would be riffing off your phrase "much-bigger news than a murder". That is, one might think that this is "just a murder". Murders happen all the time. They're often not Paper of Record material. So the steelman view could be something like, "This wouldn't be Paper of Record news if it wasn't for Republicans Pouncing to try to make it news."

Of course, this still exposes some significant premises. One could have taken a similar view for several other cases that became cause celebres mostly due to the left "pouncing". It takes more time and effort to work through some reasoning for why any given incident is "legitimately" newsworthy versus primarily being pushed for political concerns. Nevertheless, the most basic observation that is difficult to explain away is that I can't really remember any incident being reported with the opposite valence. That is, I don't think there are stories presented in the form, "This wouldn't really be news if it wasn't for the fact that the left is 'pouncing'." Their concerns just are; they're inherently just and true; there is no intermediate agent actively choosing to pump up the situation for political purposes.

But all these sorts of observations require realizing the possibility and then having sufficient time/exposure to realize what's happening, which is more sophisticated than most observers are likely to be.

Whether a story is a "pounce" comes down to whether the story actually instantiates a larger problem. That's the rub, isn't it? The left and right don't agree which problems are a big deal, or even which ones are real.

I can't really remember any incident being reported with the opposite valence. That is, I don't think there are stories presented in the form, "This wouldn't really be news if it wasn't for the fact that the left is 'pouncing'."

Oh, I do this all the time. My reaction to every police anti-black brutality story of the last decade has been to think of those perfidious Chinese cardiologists. To wit, okay, maybe the cop went too far in this or that story. Maybe. But the problem you (progressive journalist) are implying to be pervasive is actually a freak event. Yes you can supply a lot of anecdotes, but that's only because we're a massive country. And your talking about that freak event is causing riots and lax policing leading to preventable deaths, so actually, your complaining is the problem here.

I suppose this is also what Blueskyers mean when they mock Republicans for being afraid of riding buses or what not. "The problem you (NY Post journalist) are implying to be pervasive is actually a freak event." And they think Republicans talking about this freak event is leading to racism, which is a Real Problem.

I was never trying to steelman. I was trying to fleshman - to give my best guess at what they were thinking. I won't deny that Republicans Pounce has been a thing for a while, but I do actually suspect that a chunk of the NYT are in full-blown "the sky is falling" mode. See e.g. Ezra Klein's piece in the NYT a few days ago, although I'm also drawing from my more general experience with SJers in the past few years.

Further evidence that this is an actual phenomenon are examples like Cracker Barrel and Budd Light vs favored left-wing cancellations, where you see Republicans, right-wing extremists etc lashing out like babies vs "people are saying," unnamed groups (probably just ordinary decent human beings) leading the backlash

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