site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 27, 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.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Try to get their American cousins to not launch a 20 year long pogrom against the demographics that most strongly supported Israel

Why would we assume that Ezra Klein class of Jews give a fuck what the mostly right wing current rulers of Israel do?

Especially without some inciting event.

If right wing white Gentiles can't prevent their own progressive brothers from championing that alleged ethnic cleansing why should we assume that progressive Jews could be talked down?

But, if I would raise a criticism myself, maybe Netanyahu's treatment of Obama and his lining up behind his American opponents, was slightly unwise.

We can argue that most of the outcome is baked in because of immigration but the absolute last thing you want as a foreign nation is to be seen as an ally to one side of America's culture war. It's a demented game with no clear rules but always two sides and it's insane to play it for real stakes.

Taking the invite from Republicans and rejecting any attempt by Obama to slow down on settlements didn't play well on the left, especially since Netanyahu seems to have the hardiness of a cockroach.

If right wing whites can't prevent their own progressive brothers from championing that alleged ethnic cleansing why should we assume that progressive Jews could be talked down?

I think the Israelis could have tard-wrangled them if they made a serious effort. But like all the rest of us, they didn’t realize the significance of the SJW threat and how fast the ideology would metastasize.

Additionally part of the problem was that Israel spent years presenting an overly white-washed version of themselves, so people didn’t realize how awful Israel was going to look through the lens of decolonialist ideology.