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 -
Of course it's political. We have a party that had been calling all the opponents "Nazis", "enemies of democracy", "worse than Hitler", and thousand more variants, and it had led to a number of murders and attempted murders already (anybody remembers James Hodgkinson?). It's not like it's some kind of random occurrence, a meteor strike out of the blue, a random victim of senseless violence outburst. It's a predictable result of a coordinated and deliberate campaign of hate. Yes, not literally everybody on the left participates in this campaign - but all observable leftist spaces are ripe with it, there are hundreds of examples, and there is no meaningful pushback on it. We know how hard the left can push to drive out an unpopular opinion. This obviously is not one of those opinions. No prominent leftist figure - except for Sen. Fetterman, who is an exception in many cases concerning the left nowdays - had done anything more than rote "oh noes, we don't endorse violence, please keep on keeping on" kind of condemnation. And many of those who is doing rote condemnations now had been participating in the hate campaign days or weeks before. People on the lower rungs of the ladder don't even bother with that - the leftist press if basically "well, he spoke things we didn't like, what do you expect would happen?!" and the masses on social media are like "good job, let's have a celebratory drink, who's next?" Yes, not literally everybody, but enough to see where the dominating vector is pointing to.
So yes, this is a political thing and it's totally appropriate to discuss it as a political thing. It's a political murder.
More options
Context Copy link