site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   15050 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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Gentlemen of The Motte! We have often been led into discussion about What Is Wrong With Women Today? arising out of topics from directly dealing with the current crisis of male loneliness, female pickiness, and TFR decline to discussion of recent election results, leading to the happy dreams of an economic crash that will finally put women in their proper place:

Women might finally, F-I-N-A-L-L-Y be required to either suffer from economic destitution or make some concessions to men to obtain the support of a good one.

Well, you may be heartened and warmed to know that this is not a new problem, nor are the proposed solutions new either! Back in the November 1904-April 1905 issue of Popular Science Monthly, a learned gentleman (both a BA and an MD, so qualified to speak for both the arts and the sciences) diagnosed the ills of the day due to the pernicious habit of educating women, and shewed forth the path of ruin that society would continue to tread if matters were not taken in hand.

Alas, the gentleman of a bygone day was proven lamentably correct, but you can take solace from knowing you are not alone, and that women have been ever thus. I myself was introduced to this gem via a Tumblr post and I humbly link it here, while extracting some plums for the delectation of the superior sex. Though I am too agéd and raddled with the ill-effects of promoting independent mindedness in the feeble brain of a female via excess of schooling, mayhap it may save some younger woman from the travails of pride and neglecting her womanly destiny! (While the scholarly concern of the paper also touches lightly and briefly on the adverse effects of extending higher education to the common class of men as well, I am assured the audience of The Motte are of a finer fabric and thus well deserving of the benefits of this, and so at no danger of ill-effect):

HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN AND RACE SUICIDE
BY A. LAPTHORN SMITH, B.A., M.D.
MONTREAL.

'You can not have too much of a good thing' they say, and the very highest possible degree of education for women is none too good or too great for them. But to those who look beyond the present and only a little way into the future a great danger is gradually arising, a danger which will go on increasing until it brings about a revolution the signs of which are already beginning to be seen and which will effectually put an end to the evil which is to form the subject of this paper. The author will limit himself principally to a discussion of the harm resulting from too high an education of women, because on that part of the subject he has had exceptional opportunities for observation and for drawing accurate conclusions; but, incidentally, he will take the liberty of questioning the advisability of affording higher education freely to the people at large, of the male, as well as of the female sex.

Brace yourselves for some hard biological facts which only a medical man can speak on with assurance: higher education renders women insane! Yes, due to the strain it puts upon the delicate female brain, the added stresses of maternity leave what reason a woman may possess overturned!

...He will endeavor to show, as he believes to be the case, that the higher education of women is surely extinguishing her race, both directly by its effects on her organization, and, indirectly, by rendering early marriage impossible for the average man.

First of all, is education being carried on at present to such a degree as to at all affect the bodily or physical health of women? This is a very important question, because the duties of wifehood, and still more of motherhood, do not require an extraordinary development of the brain, but they must absolutely have a strong development of the body. Not only does wifehood and motherhood not require an extraordinary development of the brain, but the latter is a decided barrier against the proper performance of these duties. Any family physician could give innumerable cases out of his experience of failures of marriage, directly due to too great a cultivation of the female intellect, which results in the scorning to perform those duties which are cheerfully performed, and even desired, by the uneducated wife. The duties of motherhood are direct rivals of brain work, for they both require for their performance an exclusive and plentiful supply of phosphates. These are obtained from the food in greater or less quantity, but rarely, if ever, in sufficient quantity to supply an active and highly educated intellect, and, at the same time, the wants of the growing child. The latter before birth must extract from its mother's blood all the chemical salts necessary for the formation of its bony skeleton and for other tissues; and in this rivalry between the offspring and the intellect how often has not the family physician seen the brain lose in the struggle. The mother's reason totters and falls, in some cases to such an extent as to require her removal to an insane asylum; while in others, she only regains her reason after the prolonged administration of phosphates, to make up for the loss entailed by the growth of the child. Sometimes, however, it is the child which suffers, and it is born defectively nourished or rickety, and, owing to the poor quality of the mother's milk, it obtains a precarious existence from artificial foods, which at the best are a poor substitute for nature's nourishment. The highly educated woman seems to know that she will make a poor mother, for she marries rarely and late and, when she does, the number of children its very small.

You see? It is more advantageous for women to be lightly educated to a basic level but remain somewhat ignorant and indeed be slightly dumb (but strong as ox) in order to better fulfil their wifely and motherly duties. Science has proven it! And who can gainsay what Science has said?

But read on! The dreadful custom of late marriage has both rendered women incapable of performing their natural functions, and imperilled not alone the health but the souls of men:

...But even supposing that the highly educated woman were able and willing to bear and rear her children like any other woman, she has one drawback from having a fairly large family, and that is the lateness at which she marries, the average being between twenty-six and twenty-seven years. Now, as a woman of that age should marry a man between ten and fifteen years older than herself, for a woman of twenty-seven is as old as a man of forty for the purpose of marriage, both she and her husband are too old to begin the raising of an ordinary sized family. Men and women of that age are old maids and old bachelors. They have been living their own lives during their best years; they have become set in their ways, they must have their own pleasures; in a word, they have become selfish. And, after having had one or at the most two children, the woman objects to having any more, and this is the beginning of the end of marital happiness.

...At a recent meeting of a well-known society of specialists for obstetrics and diseases of women, one of the fellows with the largest practise in the largest city on this continent stated that it was physically impossible for the majority of his patients to have a natural labor, because their power to feel pain was so great, while their muscular power was so little. On these two questions the whole profession is agreed, but I am bound to say that there is a difference of opinion as to the reason. Several of the most distinguished fellows of the above society claim that the generally prevalent breakdown of women is due to their inordinate pursuit of pleasure during the ten years which elapse between their leaving school and their marriage. This includes late hours, turning night into day, insufficient sleep, improper diet, improper clothing and want of exercise. The writer claims that most of the generally admitted poor health of women is due to over education, which first deprives them of sunlight and fresh air for the greater part of their time; second, takes every drop of blood away to the brain from the growing organs of generation; third, develops their nervous system at the expense of all their other systems, muscular, digestive, generative, etc.; fourth, leads them to live an abnormal single life until the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven instead of being married at eighteen, which is the latest that nature meant them to remain single; fifth, raises their requirements so high that they can not marry a young man in good health.

If your daughter refuses to wed straight out of high school (should you even permit her to attend such an institution), then it is her fault and none other if Roistering Ralph, a slip of a youth of thirty, engages in drinking, smoking, gambling, and patronising ladies of the evening. He, poor chap, cannot help himself; it is the duty of young ladies to lead, guide, and control the menfolk.

...We all want to be happy, and to that end we all want to be good ; and, I have already said, we want our children, especially our boys, to be good and happy. But those who know anything about virtue in the male know that the marriage of our young men under twenty-five, to a woman with a sound body about eighteen years of age, is almost, if not the only, means of preserving the virtue of the rising generation of men. People, and even mothers, speak lightly of their daughters at twenty-six or twenty-seven marrying men who have sown their wild oats; but one must reap what he sows and do they realize what an awful misfortune such a harvest has brought to the character of the man, and will almost surely bring to the health of the innocent woman? If one has any doubts on this subject they would soon be set right by the testimony of any physician who has made a specialty of attending men, or who has devoted his practise especially to women.

Over-education makes women picky, fastidious, fussy, and renders them unable to appreciate a good, decent man:

...Another way in which the higher education is making people unhappy is in the cultivation of the powers of analysis and criticism. When the power of analysis is applied to one's own self it is especially unfortunate, for then it becomes introspection, a faculty which is carried so far with some women that their whole life is spent in looking into themselves, caring nothing for the trials or troubles of those about them. This produces an intense form of egotism and selfishness. These people are exceedingly unhappy, very often suffering from what is wrongly called 'nervous prostration,' but which should rather be called ' nervous prosperity.' When the wonderful power of criticizing is applied to others it takes the form of fault-finding. Such a woman must have many victims ; will she make them happy?

Even if these harpies deign to wed, they then impose impossible demands upon their husbands in order to maintain luxurious and idle lifestyles:

...There is another aspect of the question, which is not often discussed, but which has an important bearing upon it. The very essence of cultivation of intellect to its highest point consists in raising the standard of one's requirements. A contented mind makes a man happy. Does a high education make one's mind contented, or does it make it discontented with the present, and ever struggle towards a higher ideal in the future? Is the woman who is versed in art and literature contented with a simple home, or must she be surrounded with objects of art and more or less costly books; and, if so, is she satisfied with her lot when she marries an average man, who is able to provide for her all the necessaries of life, but is not possessed of sufficient wealth to provide those things which would be useless luxuries to a woman of ordinary education, but which are necessities for her? Not only must the highly educated woman have an artistic home, large enough to hold her artistic and literary collections, and roomy enough in which to entertain her artistic friends, but she must have a certain number of expensive and highly trained assistants, to keep these large collections in proper order. In plain language, she must have servants to clean them and move them about without destroying them. Can such a woman, anxious and worried over the care of several thousands or hundreds of objects of art, devote the same care to the bearing and bringing up of her family as the woman whose ordinary education has made her feel no need of possessing such objects, but who, on the contrary, is content with a home and furniture which she herself is oftentimes alone capable of taking care of?

In short, better a content, submissive, stupid woman as wife even if she is inferior to you in social class:

There is no doubt that women can do everything that men can do, and a great deal more; but the knowledge of their ability brings with it an aggressive, self-assertive, independent character, which renders it impossible to love, honor and obey the men of their social circles who are the brothers of their schoolmates, and who in the effort to become rich enough to afford the luxury of a highly educated wife have to begin young at business or in the factory, and for whom it is impossible to ever place themselves on an intellectual equality with the women whom they should marry. These men are, as a rule, refused by the brilliant college graduate, and are either shipwrecked for life and for eternity by remaining single, or are only saved by marrying a woman who is their social inferior, but who, by reason of her contented mind, in the end makes them a much better helpmate than the fault-finding intellectual woman who is looking for an impossible ideal.

Women, do your duty to avert the perils of race suicide! Men, be stalwart as fathers to guide your daughters in the way they should go!

.... It is well known that were it not for the enormous immigration pouring into America day by day and week by week, the population of this continent would have died out ere now. And it is generally admitted that the original American people have almost died out. Even the foreigners who are so quickly assimilated soon learn the practise of race-suicide, although never to the appalling extent of the native-born Americans. As far as my experience goes, the crime is most prevalent among the highly educated classes, while it is almost unknown among those with an ordinary education.

The least convincing kind of "fighting retreat unto death" Feminian sandstones apologia is when a righteous zealot shows us an antediluvian man predicting the coming Feminist future where he gets 9 hits and a miss, but writing about the whole thing in fakey middle english so the reader hopefully think's he's a tosser anyway.

Right just lemme take a note here.

Say you are looking forward to women being forced into destitution: a-okay to say.

Quote historical real actual content of the same kind: how dare you be sarcastic!

Interesting view of life you got there, mod.

Say you are looking forward to women being forced into destitution: a-okay to say.

If you are making a serious point and not just sarcastically mocking women, yes. People have in fact been modded in the past when their incel-posting was basically just "bitches be crazy." On the other hand, people have been allowed to post all sorts of outside-the-Overton-window stuff without being modded if they are able to do so while following our discourse norms.

You know this. You know what the Motte is all about. You are not some naïf wandering in here and shocked to discover we have Holocaust deniers and white nationalists and yes, unironic anti-female emancipationists. Why do you pretend you don't understand how things work here?

You know I have modded people for being obnoxious and sarcastic while venting their spleen about how much contempt they hold women in. You've also seen me just today arguing with the incel-posters, as a non-mod, so your "interesting view of life" crack is petty and disingenuous. What view of life is it you are accusing me of holding, exactly? What exactly are you pleading for? A rule that people aren't allow to say hurtful things about women (but everyone else is fair game)?

Quote historical real actual content of the same kind: how dare you be sarcastic!

Look up at the top of the page. There's a rule that's been there forever:

Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

Now, if you want to argue that we don't always mod every single instance of sarcasm or mockery, and indeed that I have a sarcastic bone or two in my body, you're not wrong! But your post was just a long screed of pure unfiltered sarcasm and mockery. If you had really wanted to make that same point seriously, you could have. "Hey, look, your ideas are not new and they look pretty silly when phrased in early 20th century terms, don't they?" That would have been fine. But no, you were clearly upset at all the he-man woman-haters going on about how women and their ladybrains don't belong in the workforce, and so you worked up this (admittedly effortful, and even kind of funny) little polemic to mock them with.

And my warning was barely a slap on the wrist! A "okay, hah hah, now please don't do this." But like all the humorless scolds who think everything is funny when they do it and nothing is funny when it's done to them, here you are once more taking grave offense like I personally singled you out with my biased woman-hating agenda. You could take the rap and move on, but no, you obviously wanted more attention, so here it is. That's my explanation of why you got modded while the people posting things that outraged you did not. That's my "view of life." Happy to straighten that out for you.

That's kind of a huge point of this place. We can discuss things that are forbidden elsewhere as long as we do so with clarity. Avoiding sarcasm is literally in the rules. I may break that rule but I'm not surprised if I get modded for it.

I agree with the mod. I think the main issue is that you're not putting forth any arguments here. You are not explaining why this speaker is wrong and women being educated is correct. You are not explaining the parallels between this speaker and the modern people you disagree with. You're quoting things someone else said and then providing a mocking tl;dr after each paragraph. And it's not even about the modern people you disagree with here.

If you honestly and sincerely believed that women should not be educated and provided a detailed and good-faith argument towards that, it would be okay. If you honestly and sincerely believed that women should be educated and provided a detailed and good-faith debunking of someone relevant to today, that would be okay. If you honestly and sincerely believe that women should not be forced into destitution and want to argue that point straightforwardly, then that's okay. If you want to throw a sarcastic quip or two in the midst of your genuine argument that's probably fine though not encouraged.

But you don't actually have an argument here. More than half the post is quotes and not even your own words, which is also discouraged. You're just mocking people from a hundred years ago and assuming the audience already agrees with you that they are bad and also that the modern people are just as bad.

Interesting view of life you got there, mod.

I agree with the mod

Why is everyone calling me a mod? I'm not a moderator of this website nor a member of a midcentury British youth subculture!

Some people strive for modship. Others have it thrust upon them, and find to their surprise that they wear it well.

Oh huh, it looks like your post is right below the mod's post, and /u/HereAndGone accidentally clicked reply to yours instead of the mod's without noticing (I didn't notice either, since it seems like he's meant to reply to the mod from his comment).

Dear sir, if you genuinely believe women end up in lunatic asylums after getting pregnant because their over-developed brains have leeched the phosphates from their systems, I look forward to your opinions on reducing the superfluity of yellow bile in the choleric.

I don't genuinely believe that. Which is why I didn't make an argument in favor of it. I think you're missing the point here. The problem is not that we disagree with you on the object level about women's rights, the issue is that we disagree with your style of argument (or lack thereof).

The literally biochemical explanation may not be technically true but the general idea seems accurate and is backed up by plenty of Science™️

Well science has adduced that women do experience basic emotions more strongly than men do. My own observation here is that some vocal individuals evidently have a lot of hangups with women even if I think they’re right on some things. But the most misogynistic people I’ve ever met in my entire life have been other women. Especially when you get them arguing on behalf of the men close to them; especially their sons. But women get shit on all the time for things they’re not allowed to say but men will happily say on their own behalf. Hypocritical if you ask me.

Have you considered the health benefits of being leeched? I can assure you that Breaker’s House of Leeches sells only the finest leeches to temper your humours.

Buy one, get one, no returns.

People always use this as a smackdown of antiquated and barbaric views on medicine but.....leeches did sometimes help. There are medical problems with some people having too high blood iron, which bloodletting does legitimately treat. Modern doctors will draw blood using needles and fancy modern equipment that didn't used to exist, and they actually know the underlying causes and how to properly diagnose these conditions rather than guessing. But ancient doctors had to guess and notice patterns to cure anything at all.

Some conditions get better if you lose blood -> put a leech on people whose symptoms seem similar to those ones and hope it works

is not the most profound logical chain, but it's not the kind of insane quackery that people treat it as whenever they talk about doctors and leeches.

No argument there, the ancients always impress me.

notice patterns

I don’t think I’ve ever really brought it up here, but one of the things about past humans up until maybe the 1930s or so, is that they had nothing but time with which to notice patterns.

Most entertainment activities and almost all of the work ones involved interacting with other humans on a constant basis. Most of them required you to go outside to do them, and mingle amongst other humans. Even if they don’t require it, like spinning, spinning by yourself is extremely boring and it’s more fun to go outside and talk to other people. They had a lot of time to notice patterns and behavioral trends in their fellow humans.

And once we got around to the Greeks, they started writing down their notes for us.

The fact that they had so much time just spent hanging around each other inclines me to trust their observations of human nature very highly.

I would caveat that by noting that people are prone to biases, and prior to the scientific method this was especially rampant. So a lot of this is overgeneralized. Going back to the leech example: while some cases of leech use were appropriate, a lot were just applied pointlessly to unrelated conditions. If you define man as a "featherless biped", logically a cripple who's lost a leg is no longer a man, while a plucked chicken is.

I would generally trust ancient wisdom that includes caveats like "most" or "usually", I would not trust them if they try to say "all" or "always".

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