site banner
PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   33366 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Agreed. The right is ideologizing themselves into thinking THIS thing right here is so massively offensive. They were making the case of tolerating so much more back in the late 2010s.

  • -12

They were making the case of tolerating so much more back in the late 2010s.

Find me an example where a TV host was canceled because they went on air and gratuitously insulted someone grieving their friend being assassinated, and the right saying the cancellation was unjustified.

I'm actually curious now to wonder what the societal winds were like when JFK was assassinated. Does anyone know what the political reaction was like on the other side and the media's response to it?

I had a history teacher who voted for the other guy and remembered the day JFK was assassinated. His response was this “Yeah, I voted for Nixon (i.e. the other guy), but when I heard a president of the United State was murdered, it was shocking. It was in no way, shape, or form OK to kill someone over politics.”

The way the left has been straight up dancing on Charlie Kirk’s grave would had been unthinkable back in 1963.

The Manson murders were in 1969, and were rather infamously celebrated by portions of the far left at the time.

I think this monstrous impulse has always been there, but Twitter/social media generally tears away the walls that protect people from their neighbors’ sociopathic moments.

The Manson murders were in 1969, and were rather infamously celebrated by portions of the far left at the time.

...I have never heard of this, assuming that by "portions of the far left at the time" you mean any appreciable number of people and not the Lizardman constant.

The entirety of the far left in the US is smaller than the lizardman constant when compared to the entire populace, so it’s hard to say. Honestly, it may have been limited to just some of the extreme radicals and nutters, but it wasn’t nonexistent.

Bernadine Dohrn of the Weatherman Underground (now a law professor with some influence on Barack Obama when he was starting his career) praised the murders. There were groups of supporters at the trial who shaved their heads and drew X on their foreheads as signs of support.

Okay, that's actually a pretty valuable data point as I had in fact heard of her and was aware of her significance.

She was pretty much the definition of fringe at the time though? The amount of people undertaking an active terrorist campaign against The Man (tm) was surely << than the lizardmen, even in the seventies?

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