site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 13, 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.

Broad swathes of 'antisemitism' on the left can differentiate between opposing Jews and opposing Israel. You and others running cover for antisemitism on the right ignore the significant presence of slogans and groups like 'Jews for Palestine' at all the rallies on college campuses. The largest protests against the Israeli war in Gaza in my region were led by Jewish men in kippahs with megaphones blocking traffic.

They are fools running cover for the most relevant group of anti-Semites in the modern world (a large subgroup of Muslims, fronted by the Palestinians). Though that gives you the relevant stonetoss tug-of-war -- one one side, a Jewish guy in a kippah and a bearded muslim with a watermelon logo. On the other, a Jewish guy in a spodik and a guy with an undercut and a swastika.

They are fools running cover for the most relevant group of anti-Semites in the modern world (a large subgroup of Muslims, fronted by the Palestinians).

Or they genuinely believed the lies about 'Never Again' that they were sold by their leaders.

A line, of course, which largely has been historically understood to be the justification for muscular jewish/israeli military capacity and an unapologetically hair-trigger attitude towards percieved slights.

If they thought "never again" meant nothing bad would happen to anyone ever, they were mistaken. "Never again" was popularized by Meir Kahane, who was a bit of a radical and didn't like Palestinians much. That is to say, he was a terrorist who supported the ethnic cleansing of both Israel and the occupied territories, in favor of Jews. There's no doubt that "Never again" meant "you don't do that shit to Jews", specifically.

Anyway, if you think "Never again" means something, you should probably avoid siding with "From the River to the Sea" people, and those fools have not.

Guys just let the muslims cleanse this area of jews itll be the last time thryll get it out of their system and then the middle east will be a multicultural paradise of saturday morning cartoon rainbow tree huggers guys just listen to me guys