site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If ICE stopped being masked goons who look like they came straight out of a bad YA dystopia movie,

Your terms are acceptable. This can be accomplished by arresting and punishing those on the left that are attempting to dox the ICE agents and use intimidation, violence and other tactics (even stochastically) against the agents and their families to demoralise them from their work. Once the doxxers are significantly deterred to the point the criminal behaviour is drastically reduced, and the doxing threat against ICE agents for doing their jobs is removed, then ICE agents can go maskless again.

and became normal accountable government officials who behave kindly and civilly

If this is not code for 'become ineffectual' and actually means that you wish them to hold the above demeanor as they effectively do their jobs then this is also acceptable. Effectively doing their jobs however includes an appropriate use of force against those they are arresting and also those attempting to disrupt law enforcement activities.

I agree with most of this, yes.

As I said elsewhere in the thread, I am leery of the "other tactics (even stochastically)" bit, which I think can too easily be used as a bludgeon against free speech expressing what the bludgeon-wielding side deems to be wrongthink. If it is appropriate for non-violent pro-life activists to refer to abortion doctors as murderers - and it must be appropriate, because that is their legitimate moral belief and freedom of speech means nothing if they cannot express it - then it must remain appropriate for non-violent pro-immigration extremists to refer to ICE agents as Nazis.

But that's only one part of your post, and really a whole other conversation from the core issue here.

It's not just the literal words, it's the surrounding context. If pro-lifers started talking about punching murderers, and calling people murderers, then calling people murderers would contribute to stochastic terrorism a lot more.

Also, calling them Nazis specifically is not a "legitimate moral belief" anyway. Pro-lifers think abortionists are literally murderers. Nobody thinks ICE agents are literally members of the Nazi party, and probably not even that they want to kill millions of people.

Nobody thinks people have to literally be members of the defunct German political party NSDAP to be called Nazis, not any more than you have to specifically commit an unlawful killing to be called a murderer.

Nobody thinks people have to literally be members of the defunct German political party NSDAP to be called Nazis

I would also accept members of other contemporary Nazi parties, or a member of Rockwell's American Nazi Party.

I'll trade you "only calling people cultural Marxists/communists/bioleninists if they are actual members of Socialist parties".

I'd make the trade, if this means people that had a che shirt or hammer and sickle poster in college are treated the same as if they'd had a swastika poster- that is, completely excluded from polite society.

Counter-offer: You concede that most Communists were, even at their worst, less evil than the Nazis, and I will acknowledge that some Communists were as evil as the Nazis (e. g. the Khmer Rouge).

I'm not discussing actual communist regimes; I'm discussing American social mores downstream. The reality of who across the sea was worse is strangely uncorrelated.