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 -
There's a rapidly congealing hagiography surrounding Charlie Kirk in the wake of his shooting. Before his assassination, I was only vaguely aware of him as just another political commentator like Destiny, Bannon, Yiannopoulos, Fuentes, etc. I don't recall anyone trying to lionize him as one of the greats or anything like that. Of course, the political calculus changed the instant the bullet entered his body. Cynically, if Kirk looks better and more virtuous, then the more effectively he can be treated as a martyr, and, if need be, used as a cudgel against the left. And of course, it's best to strike while the iron is hot and the outpouring of support is at its greatest. Right-wing rhetoric once again bears a striking resemblance to the woke left of old, with the main retort being some version of "how DARE you!?!" I've seen plenty of conservatives assert that any criticism of Kirk at this moment is tantamount to saying "He deserved to get shot. Also, I 100% support political violence against people who disagree with me". This is flatly nonsense, as it's obviously valid to decry political violence while simultaneously believing Kirk was just a mundane political operative like any other.
In case you're wondering how far the hagiography is going, I'll provide some examples. Yesterday, Trump called him a "martyr for truth" and promised to award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor that can be bestowed. Congresswoman Luna compared Kirk to previous political martyrs, tweeting a photo that placed him between MLK and Jesus while circulating a letter calling for a statue of Kirk to be erected in the US Capitol. Congresswoman Mace introduced a resolution for Kirk to lie in honor in the Capital Rotunda, and there's a decent chance he'll get a state funeral or a close equivalent. Others have angrily noted how Kirk's Wikipedia page doesn't have identical wording to MLK's assassination -- "assassination by gunshot" vs "gunshot wound" -- as if Kirk's death "was a hunting accident".(?)
I dug into some of the things Kirk has said, and I've found him to be little more than a cynical apparatchik that rapidly changed his views to align with the dominant Republican zeitgeist on several occasions.
@DaseindustriesLtd puts it like this:
And yeah, after doing a bit of research, that's basically what I've found as well.
One of the most steelmanned takes comes from, of all places, Ezra Klein in the NYT. He writes that Kirk was "practicing politics the right way" by being willing to "talk to the other side". This is a ludicrously hagiographic way of saying "he was a political commentator that did not actively advocate for violence". I suppose that, sadly, that last part is becoming an increasingly high bar these days.
In terms of the flip-flopping, there are several examples. Michael Tracey goes into some of them.
First, the Epstein stuff:
Second, in foreign affairs:
Beyond these two bits, I've found a few more.
Third, on TikTok:
At first he was in favor of banning TikTok, saying "It's way past time to ban TikTok. It is a cancer on America." But then, after talking with some investors Trump changed his tune saying "I will never ban TikTok if re-elected, and Kirk dutifully followed. Shortly before Trump's inauguration Kirk ran a story saying TikTok was encouraging gen Z to become more conservative, and thus that Trump should "save TikTok".
Fourth, on Ron DeSantis:
DeSantis had a good burst of publicity in 2021 and 2022, and so Kirk started singing his praises as "the future of conservatism". That changed when Trump entered the primary in 2024. Soon it became clear that Trump was the frontrunner, and so Kirk changed his tune and started saying that DeSantis should drop out "for the heroes of our nation."
Fifth, on mail-in ballots:
At first, Kirk parroted the Trump line mail-in ballots were fake and easily manipulated and so everyone should vote in-person. By 2024, Turning Point Action rolled out “Chase the Vote” and a “Commit 100” early-vote/ballot-chasing machine mirroring the Trump/RNC pivot to embrace early and absentee voting (“Bank Your Vote,” later “Swamp the Vote USA”).
Finally, on political violence (and this is especially relevant given the context in which he died):
Kirk mostly gave anodyne anti-violence answers when questioned, but that didn't stop him from amplifying conspiracy theories when the shoe was on the other foot. When Paul Pelosi was attacked with a hammer, Kirk smiled, laughed, and suggested a "patriot" go bail out the person who perpetrated it so they could "ask questions". This was almost certainly in reference to the notion that Paul Pelosi was attacked by a gay prostitute, and that the whole episode was little more than a lover's quarrel.
Changing your mind is not a crime, but I start to wonder about political figures who conveniently do so exactly when public opinion shifts. Kirk was almost slavishly loyal to Trump when Trump was the avatar of the conservative movement, but was more than willing to toot DeSantis' horn when it seemed like he might be the next big thing -- despite that DeSantis was always going to have to compete against Trump in a zero-sum race for the nomination.
There's probably more I've missed, but at this point it feels like beating a dead horse.
I mean, give Kirk some credit for absolutely practicing what he preached. Guy was married, two kids, clearly devoted Christian, didn't even use foul language which a lot of the right indulges in. When South Park started ribbing him, he leaned into the joke! He was not one to play victim.
And of course he put himself out there, he was the guy sitting down and talking directly to people, face to face, not 'hiding' behind a camera, only talking through the screen.
Maybe calling him "The Conservative Mr. Rogers" is a bit much. BUT. This is an example of the sort of role model that males might actually find appealing and would pull them away from, e.g. the Andrew Tates of the world.
And one thing I learned in the wake of this is that Kirk was WAY more popular, including among young people, than I anticipated. Despite his flip-flopping on Tiktok, he had 9 million followers on the platform.. Turning Point USA was and is a LARGE Org, well funded. And, as we can now see, pretty well-liked among normies.
And no, being 'better' than Andrew Tate doesn't qualify you for sainthood, but... I will actually make the claim he was at least a step or two above ANY left-leaning commentator you could name.
I looked around and realized that the left doesn't have a real Charlie Kirk equivalent. There is no lefty figure who actively seeks out havens of conservative thought to openly challenge their consensuses, to their face.
I mean, you have Sacha Baron Cohen, he goes into right-leaning spaces... but he's doing it explicitly to mock and parodize them, not to have dialogue.
You have your Jon Stewarts and John Olivers that use their platform to preach without permitting response or critique to them, just endless lecturing and jokes.
Your Hasan Pikers who interact with a self-selected audience in chat, and rarely allow a single contradicting thought to penetrate the bubble.
Your AOCs, your Bernie Sanders', and Mamdanis who WILL go out in Public, and love to do photo ops and heap criticism on the right from the heights of their podium... but once again will not enter any arena where they don't have a clear popularity or numerical advantage.
No, Charlie Kirk wasn't just unique on the right, he was something that ONLY appears on the right.
I don't know of any lefties who ever put themselves in "the lion's den" and attempted to make the case for their ideals directly to their ideological opponents.
What's that say about the state of the left's intellectual honesty? I dunno. I never credited them with much. The lefties who found their way into this space, (Anyone remember Darwin?) they haven't fared well when pressed on their ideas without the ability to falsify a popular consensus.
I think Charlie Kirk is a better man, more deserving of national honor on his popularity alone, and certainly a more consistent and principled man (even if one of said principles was 'don't openly contradict Trump') than literally any lefty you could name. In a time where so, so many public figures are getting outed as sex pests, pervs, frauds, and generally slimy people, I actually think Charlie Kirk was precisely what he presented himself as.
If we want to start pulling people down, we know that there's ample material with which we could smear, e.g. Martin Luther King Jr. But that wouldn't erase their positive accomplishments.
And more directly to the point, he's probably the least deserving of being killed for his speech than most of the righty commentators I can think of, who are often more vicious in their rhetoric.
Well, you listed some examples of people who you don't think meet the criteria, i think probably the most comparable person on the left is Destiny. For all his moral shortcomings, both alleged and photographed, the guy does essentially the exact kind of events Kirk was doing.
I'm not fully aware of the dem college campus debatelord universe but i do imagine there are more examples if i was to look into it. IIRC there was a whole traveling circus of these types who got into an internal struggle session the week they were supposed to start a collegiate tour earlier this year (which, yes this is funny but it also shows that there are more personalities in this space than i am familiar with)
You can say a lot of things about the dire state of the broader left wing's willingness to engage in debate, but there are a number of people of varying levels of success and organizational prowess either doing or trying to do what Kirk did, so i think you are putting too much emphasis on how uniquely brave his actions were.
RIP though, he didn't deserve to die for his beliefs, and certainly not by public execution.
At one point, it seemed like Destiny was making good faith effort to engage in discussion with the other side. He went into debates with people on the right like Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Actual Justice Warrior, etc. Talking with high profile right-leaning individuals is in a sense more courageous than talking to random students. I haven't seen Destiny go viral for debating random students. Does he even do live open mic events? I've only seen him in on like discord calls.
As it turned out, it was not done in good faith and it was just an attempt to get more people over to his side.It seems Destiny is no longer interested in maintaining decorum with members from the opposite side. Destiny literally mocked the firefighter killed at Trump's rally. Kirk didn't mock anyone dying on the other side. I don't think Destiny has made any attempt to reach out to the right in a long while.EDIT: See @eee solid criticism's below on my take on Destiny. I have crossed out my previous statement and updated with clearer statement.
He has literally done events at college campuses with a Change My Mind table in the style of Stephen Crowder at least twice. I wouldn't say it makes up most of his content though.
I find your accusations of bad fatih puzzling. He likes debating things. He agrees to debate people and then debates them. How exactly is he acting in bad faith? Does he edit his videos dishonestly to misrepresent his debates? The whole purpose of a debate is to convince people that you are correct. You seem to be saying that because he does debate for the purpose of convincing people that he is correct is an example of him acting in bad faith. That does not make any sense. If you want to say he is acting in bad faith you need to show something like him representing that he has some goal or purpose, and then acting in ways in contradiction of that. Not that he acts in some way other than you personally approve of.
That is fair. Let me clarify. If you try to paint yourself as someone extending an olive branch to the other side and try to get them to see your side via debate, only to change your tune and start celebrating the death of regular civilians just because they are on the other side of the political side of the isle, you're no longer trying to convince people via discussion. Evidence for him extending out the olive branch is him going around the right wing circuit engaging in debates without him talking shit about the people he is reaching out to during the 2022-2023 time period.
Destiny's attitude towards regular people on the right has completely shifted since. On numerous occasions he's celebrated or made fun of the deaths of regular ordinary citizens (the fireman at Trump's rally that got killed, the children that died in the texas flooding, and now Charlie Kirk to name a few examples). The only reason I can think of that he would do this is because this is rage baiting and that gets him more attention, which is how he makes money. The way I see it he wasn't able to increase his viewer count from people on the right to the level he wanted otherwise he wouldn't have changed his tune. It would be one thing if he were to talk shit about the people he debated, it's another to start insulting the population you were once trying to reach out to.
As for bad faith tactics in debating, I'm going to point to one example that soured my impression of him. https://www.themotte.org/post/752/smallscale-question-sunday-for-november-5/158604?context=8#context
To summarize, Destiny's debate opponent made a claim, then Destiny proceeded scroll through his phone trying to prove the opponent wrong, while the opponent is still talking. He pretty much picks the first statistic he can find that can prove he is right, but he does so by lying about the order initially to make it seem like the opponent was right, oh wait, just kidding it's the other way around. This is poor manner in a debate. Behavior aside, I also looked into the data and I walked away with more questions than answers, I certainly would not be comfortable using that particular stat unless my goal is to just win an argument in a debate at the moment
To quote myself
You can see I was far more amiable to Destiny when I made that post. I gave the guy a chance. Watched his debates. Lurked on his subreddit for a while. Sorry, but I don't want to listen to a guy that wishes the worst on those on the other side of the political spectrum, and he's a guy that primarily focuses on trying to win an argument, not seeking the truth. In essence, he's a guy that maximizes heat and minimizes light.
Are Crowder, Shapiro, and even Kirk trying to change people's minds via debate at their events on college campuses? No, they are there to rile up lefty college students that have never in their life actually had their beliefs challenged and completely fail to defend them to clip farm. I think Destiny approached it more honestly and wanted more real engagement than they normally do, but I see this as very weak evidence of Destiny's persona and ethos.
If you had evidence of Destiny saying like we live in times that are too polarized and people should be more civil and settle things through calm debate and then tweeted like Destiny tweets you might have a point. However, I have not seen him talk like that and he established himself primarily from internet bloodsports debatebro culture. He's a pig that loves playing the mud. I've never seen him say you shouldn't play in the mud. You are right, he does ragebait a lot on twitter. What I'm not seeing is him making a big stink about how everyone needs to get along and sing kumbaya and then acting like he does on twitter. If someone presented themselves like Peter Boghosian--someone at least outwardly trying to have real conversations and have people question and validate their beliefs--and they acted like Destiny you would have a point. But Destiny doesn't present himself like that.
If you want to paint Destiny like you are it wouldn't even be hard, but you haven't even attempted to do it! He was a pretty niche figure and most mainstream people would not want to give him the light of day. The places he does get debates are places like Minds Fest and Better Discourse.
Here is how Minds Fest 2023 was billed:
Here's someone describing Better Discourse:
Both of these basically sound like they espouse the kind of ideals that you are ascribing to Destiny and he's actually spoke at both of them. Did Destiny try to keep a high quality of discourse and decorum at either? Not really. He acted basically the same as he always does. Hell, basically heckled and disrupted a panel he wasn't even on. I'm sure if you want to you can find parts in these talks where he is behaving badly but I don't care to watch them again.
That he could not behave himself and he did not really try would be easy to spin as duplicitous or engaging is bad faith. Personally, I think the organizers invited him knowing exactly how he behaves and expected him to act that way given they invited him back the the next two years.
If you want to make this argument, make it! Instead you are just gesturing wildly at the form of an argument without ever producing one.
Thank you for the solid feedback. I guess I should've made a stronger argument.
The reason I didn't make a more substantial argument is because it's been two years since I last watched Destiny, and I didn't want to spend hours looking through past debates and effort posting about Destiny to justify a minor point I made. I still don't feel like it. If I felt like it and I had the goal of trying to convince people something about Destiny I would've made a top level post with the appropriate amount of effort and evidence.
But I'll acknowledge you have brought up some valid points, and perhaps I was too charitable in assuming Destiny's motive around 2022/2023 when he was engaging in debates with popular figures from the other side, which caused me to react more negatively to his subsequent behavior within the last year than I would've if I hadn't had that charitable impression of him. I'll adjust my parent comment with an edit.
Kirk founded an organization with the purpose of advocating for conservative politics amongst a younger generation, and you don't accomplish that without changing young people's minds about politics. Even if I were to grant you that they are there to primarily clip farm, that does not constitute evidence that they are not trying to change people's minds via debate at their events.
I disagree that Destiny approached it more honestly on the grounds of his attitude towards the people he is engaging in. Nothing Kirk has said comes remotely close to the inflammatory description of the regular people of the other side that Destiny has. If there has been, then it would've already been used as ammunition in the current campaign to bring down his image. I don't know about Crowder or Shapiro, but I doubt there's anything to the same degree either. Why do you think Destiny approached it more honestly and wanted more engagement than Crowder, Shapiro, or Kirk?
I appreciate your honesty. FWIW I do agree that Destiny does not optimize for truth. I just don't think he's ever said he optimizes for truth and while I would not go quite as far as saying he tries to maximize heat he does certainly enjoy it and is deliberately very spicy on twitter. He is terminally online and streams like 80% of his life and has an entire website devoted to describing the positions and values he holds. Given that, I do not think it is fair to say he ascribes to some ideal and then does not live up to it (or even attempt to) without some actual evidence that has that ideal.
If anything rather than trying to bridge the gap between right and left in politics he was trying to bridge the gap between left and far left. These seem to be nearly mutually exclusive to each other. He a podcast called Bridges with notsoerudite that I personally never watched, but it got burned to the ground by him being a gooner. He was also working with some political group with Brianna Wu that I don't remember the name of that was basically trying to get him, Hasan, Vausch and other left-wing adjacent influencers to work together to get Democrats elected rather than constantly fighting with each other. This also blew up but before the sextape things even came to light.
I will also admit that I am not about to go watch hours of Destiny, Kirk, Crowder, or Shapiro content to provide specific citations to things. I have way better things to go than that, but I do want to do my best to respond to your questions. I never watched much of Shapiro/Kirk/Crowder so I could easily be misrepresenting them. I would say I am more familiar with Destiny's content but did not follow him closely and I haven't re-watched the Destiny college visits since they came out.
My impression of the first set is they are intentional provocative to make the students look emotional and they are the ones with facts and logic. They churn through students without letting one student have much back and forth and then put out 10-20 minute long videos featuring 2-3 students with who knows what cut out. It mostly consists of trying to railroad them into gotchas or emotional outbursts.
Destiny, on the other hand, approached the content in a completely different light. He had like 4 students he talked to for 30 minutes-an hour each. The videos had their full conversations without editing things out. When the students did not express themselves well or maybe could not cite a fact well before he responded he would try somewhat steelman them first. He even had follow-up conversations with some of the students after the fact. It seemed more like coaching someone or a friendly game where you are trying to introduce someone to a game rather than slaughter them.
I also see Destiny's twitter ragebait as something nearly completely separate from this. That he acts like people on twitter act while on twitter and acts more reasonably in other places seems expected. He probably does it to a more extreme degree than most people, but people acting differently in different social situations is not as all unexpected. Him being an edgelord on twitter probably does make some people more hostile and less willing to talk to him, but I don't think he cares.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link