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.

Having rewatched the whole scene:

you'd have to have a pretty warped view of the plot to think that the Munchkins were signaling their support of random vigilante killings

Glinda says that Dorothy is the Munchkins' "national heroine" before Dorothy gets around to explaining that she didn't mean to drop a house on the WWotE, and then there are the lines "we thank you very sweetly for doing it so neatly; you've killed her so completely that we thank you very sweetly". So yes, they were, in fact, signalling their support of assassinating* the WWotE. The WWotE is one of the few circumstances in which that is (presumably) Fine Actually because she was a witch tyrant. I think this is just a complete non-example of the point you were trying to make, which doesn't in and of itself mean the point is wrong but does make it not especially useful to bring up.

I do think I'd be mostly behind the "don't celebrate deaths unless you'd have supported bringing them about" principle of etiquette. The case you mention is really a non-central case born out of highly non-consequential edicts, and even then it's considered pretty gauche to publically celebrate.

*I'm not using the term "vigilante" because we don't generally consider killing monarchs to be "vigilantism"; the monarch is the state, not a criminal, so killing her is war or rebellion (and, of course, assassination).