site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think a large chunk of it is that people on the Left of you are just more inherently sympathetic than the other way.

...Suffice to say, that is not an intuition I share. A considerable number of current leftists are isomorphic to Nazis.

Just wanted to say that I still think about that post sometimes.

Fair but I just think of normie friends I know who have takes on say Palestine that essentially start and stop at 'I've heard of dead Palestinian babies, this is bad' and then don't have any sort of solution beyond Israel is mean and should stop. Whilst I think this is misguided, it's hard to be mad at them for it. Likewise for racial issues where due to the media 'racism is mean and is the worst thing' which is dumb but it's hard to get really violently mad over it.

Whilst I think this is misguided, it's hard to be mad at them for it.

Why? If you made the same argument about dead Israeli babies, would they not be mad at you for it?

The reason the left's ideas are considered more sympathetic is not inherent; it's due to a decades long full court press in education and the media. A result of the Long March Through The Institutions. If instead of a media that focused on the plight of the poor and minority and homeless, we had a media that focused on the plight of white working-class-and-above victims of crime, small store owners struggling between shoplifting on one hand and taxes on the other, all while hoping they wouldn't get stabbed, the sorts of actual violence that produced "white flight" in some neighborhoods, the "inherent sympathies" would lie elsewhere.

I'm thinking of terms of like normie middle-left randoms. Their views might be more 'bedtime abolishment' than anything but it's hard to hate a Toddler for wanting to abolish bedtime.