site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26958 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Still, and maybe this is just nitpicking, I think there is a difference between thinking he was a bad person (who the world is better off without) and celebrating his death. In your own account, you say they call him out for his right-wing positions, but these "impliciations" are dicier and usually requires some level of psychologisation of your interlocutor.

You are a bad person and the world would be better off if you were shot.

When you read that statement, does it feel like a calm acknowledgement of detached utilitarian calculus?

Or does it feel like a threat?

When I first read it (before I processed you were posing it as a hypothetical) it felt like a threat.

In this specific hypothetical, I personally (where to draw the line is a gray area) think the statement does count as a threat. "You are a bad person and the world would be better off from your absence" would be okay, but explicitly talking about killing, and a specific mode of execution on top of that, seems to cross the line into "directly inciting violence"

But in general, feeling viscerally attacked shouldn't be sufficient to make something a "threat". Often, harsh criticism can make a target feel threatened or even unsafe, since it indirectly encourages violence against the focus of the criticism (if X is bad, maybe we ought to do something about X?)

I don't think that statement counts as a threat, even meant seriously, in a legally actionable sort of way. I do think it colors in the difference between "thinking ill of someone" and "celebrating a death". And I think when you're at the point of quibbling over how much approval of the assassination of a debate bro counts as "celebrating" then it is past time for you to have the "Are we the baddies" conversation.

Neither. It feels like (paraphrasing their view), "I am not going to harm someone but nor would I mourn one fewer asshole in the world." A threat means you are motivated to cause something to happen, this is either apathy for or emotional relief/positivity that one negative thing in your life has gone away. It's like the difference between being happy to find money laying on the street and stealing money.

The point is that there are implications to statements that go beyond their basic dictionary definition meaning. The fact that someone is choosing to explicitly say that carries weight, and informs the interpretation. You can make reasonable inferences about the character and beliefs of the person who chooses to go around saying that to aquaintences the day after a shocking murder.

Imagine a white man who, the day after the MLK assassination, went around loudly saying to all the neightbors "Well, sometimes things happen to people who won't stop running their mouths." Do you think that would be just some irrelevant banality that no black neighbors should use to further their understanding of the man in question?

I am not arguing that "celebrating" a man's death (though I would argue that a portion of those accused weren't celebrating, some were apathetic and some were objecting to his being made a martyr) is good. I am arguing that the word "threat" has implications that don't fit. A threat is a claim or insinuation that you are willing to perform a violent action, and looking past the "punch Nazi" larping they aren't. As per my analogy, it's like finding money on the street. You didn't cause someone to lose their money so you have nothing to feel guilty over, but you are happy that something happened that benefited you. That first part, that "I didn't cause it," is how they justify it to themselves. "Shit happens, but this time it happened to a bad person so it works out I guess."

You're just objectively wrong. The person I said that to flatly said it felt threatening before they realized I was making a point.

Again, would you say that black people in the Jim Crow south were being unfair and irrational for feeling "threatened" by speech that fell short of being a specific, immediate, actionable threat from a specific person who was about to actually do it? Please be specific. Ignoring the question again will be considered an adverse answer.

First of all, that's not what "objectively" means because this was a subjective question.

Insinuations of violence are very wording, context, and tone specific, which tends to make for bad analogies and also bad over text. If someone said those exact words while making direct eye contact and aggressive body language, sure. Someone says those exact words in response to, "How do you feel about MLK being shot?" Throw in a shrug and an eye roll and it's being dismissive. Said by a man who looks like if a woman punched him he'd run for his life, it looks the opposite of threatening.

Having had it said to me by a communist in my social group IRL, I didn't feel exactly threatened in the moment but it certainly contributed to making my politics far less forgiving than they used to be.

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