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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
If Chuck Schumer's resolution passes it would be the first time in US Senate history of such a condemnation of a private citizen for political views.
The foremost appeal is the force of truth. If you watch Nick's monologue, his criticisms are true. They are rational arguments, and they are anti-fragile in the sense the backlash they provoke strengthens their currency. It's not just due to the housing market, job market, anti-white Culture. It's due to the very real cultural criticism of Jews that Nick gives which nobody else has been willing to say. Jews themselves incessantly criticize White culture and identity through all mediums and institutions they control. And then they become apoplectic when a White man fires back with truthful criticism of Jewish identity and culture.
One thing I have never seen from any of the Jews weighing in on the Tuckercaust is an acknowledgement of the arguments Fuentes is making. They grasp for some other explanation for Fuentes' popularity, but they never restate the arguments Nick makes in that monologue for example and engage them. They simply pathologize the individuals who are being influenced by these arguments. It's why Shapiro would never debate Fuentes. If Fuentes laid out his argument as clearly as he does in this monologue, what would Shapiro even say?
The only path forward would be for Jews to acknowledge the truth of Fuentes' arguments and make genuine efforts to reconcile. They are incapable of that, which is why cancellation and pathologizing the "anti-semites" is their only reaction to this Cultural Criticism going mainstream and it's not going to work.
My guy, can you tell me what it is about the Jews?
I've never been able to figure this out. Take the mask off a bit and tell me why them.
You had me nodding along and then it is abruptly about Jews and I check out.
Yes Jews are in the pile that is causing these problems but they are a rounding error in comparison with say, HR dog moms, or X actual ethnic/racial demographic that supports the spoils system instead.
Did a Jew bully you in school, get your dad fired, close your favorite restaurant?
I don't know where this stuff comes from and I earnestly want to.
White anti-black racism has a straight line from perceived degradation of communities to the feeling, accurate or not.
I don't know where anti-semitism comes from.
To steelman: due to observations of Jewish behaviour, the anti-Semites have rationally concluded that the Jews are attempting (in a disorganised, prospiracy way) to destroy the White race, and displace it low-IQ Third Worlders who would lack the collective human capital to organise against a Jewish elite and Holocaust them.
Given this, it makes sense for a White identarian to prioritise attacking Jews instead of Black people, because without Jews there wouldn't have been mass immigration, the civil rights act, etc anyways.
Having said that, I don't think this is true. I propose a much simpler (albeit uncharitable) explanation: jealousy.
The Jews have better life outcomes than Whites. Both on average, and at the extremes, where they disproportionately occupy positions of power and prestige in the Western world. They also have a higher measured IQ than Whites, and like... I think that's just it (no need for overcomplicated theories about Jewish group evolutionary strategies inferred from Talmud quotations, etc)
Jews do better because they are (on a group-level) smarter, and people don't like feeling inferior. So they become jealous. And They make up complicated stories and theories about why they dislike X that are more flattering to their ego (And ditto for standard Black/Third World "theories" about White overachievement)
Also, I know you don't really care about the JQ either way (nor do I), but it clearly does mean a lot to anti-Semites on the forum. I think this whole pattern of discourse: where an anti-Semite, respectfully and in good-faith, states their opinions and then gets met with Bulverism ("Did a Jew bully you in school?" - seriously?), childish mockery even by actual mods ("Joo posting"), and condescending psychologisations that don't address the object-level argument at all - which has become normal, to be totally against the spirit of the Motte.
The problem is your steelman -- even if you drop the "rationally" -- is rusty and backwards. The anti-Semites start with the Jew-hate for basically irrational reasons, and then come up with rationalizations. That's why the bulverism and mockery; the rational arguments are just window-dressing and the anti-Semites are unreachable by any means.
I believe that this is true for a minority of cases - I'm sure a lot of people on here have seen absolute losers latch on to the jews as the reason why their life sucks, a reason that they can't do anything about and have no power over which thus gives them permission to not do anything about the actual problems in their life. These people exist, they have always existed and if the jews themselves never even existed they would find some other group to blame (maybe Majestic12, the Illuminati, the Freemasons or The Man).
But that just isn't the case for the majority of what I see called antisemitism today. Hell, I'm considered an antisemite - not because I have a terrible life that I blame on the jews, but because I actually sincerely oppose the actions of the state of Israel. I am a left-winger and think that it is wrong to murder children because they were born the wrong ethnicity, even if that ethnicity is Palestinian. Because I think that's directly comparable to the behavior of the nazi regime, this marks me as an anti-semite despite the fact that I'm not a loser (like all other posters on anonymous imageboards, I am tall, good-looking, wealthy, well-endowed, in great shape, have lots of sex, etc). I've actually changed my beliefs because of some of the arguments and discussions I've had on the motte to boot, so I'm fairly certain I am actually amenable to rational arguments.
And I'm not alone. Greta Thunberg qualifies as an antisemite now too for the same reasons, and she then went on to get sexually assaulted while in Israeli captivity - good luck making the case that she's an antisemite because she just has an irrational hatred of jews when The Jewish State detained and assaulted her for trying to deliver food to starving children. Similarly, the most recent case from my home country was this story - https://michaelwest.com.au/antisemitism-st-vincents-heartless-treatment-of-cardiologist-who-asked-a-question/ A cardiologist who has saved countless lives, developed heart transplant surgical techniques and visits an indigenous community to provide healthcare on a regular basis is now prevented from performing his literally life-saving work because of the zionist lobby's efforts to defend the genocide they're undertaking in Palestine. To use an example from the US, Ms Rachel's "antisemitism" very clearly comes from her love of children and opposition to the people currently creating vast numbers of child amputees (and child corpses) rather than some kind of personal failing on her part.
People who learn about and see this stuff get legitimately upset - and the idea that this heart surgeon is "unreachable by any means" doesn't even rise to the level of a joke. Israel has engaged in a campaign of mass murder and openly bribes western politicians to ensure that our tax dollars continue to support what they're doing despite the opposition of the majority of the population. These are real, serious reasons for people to oppose Israel, and Israel goes out of its way to make sure that criticism of their state is classified as antisemitism. I think that this is extremely dangerous, because when you tell people that opposing the murder and mutilation of innocent children is antisemitism you don't stop people from getting upset about what happened to Hind Rajab. Rather, you make people believe that the social proscriptions against antisemitism are an evil that needs to be removed - and while I think that removing those proscriptions are going to cause big problems in the future, I can't bring myself to argue against the idea that a cardiologist should be able to save lives even if he engages in political speech that zionists don't like.
There's nothing antisemitic per se about opposing the actions of the Israeli government. Israel is not the Jewish people nor are the Jewish people Israel, regardless of what Netanyahu or anti-semites would like you to think. But a lot of the accusations against Israel are A Rape on Campus-level incredible, and that includes claims that Greta Thunberg was sexually assaulted by the Israelis. Not because they're such saints, but because they're not utter idiots. I don't know about that particular cardiologist, but I do know doctors have been involved in creating and perpetuating Hamas hoaxes, including the "starving child" who actually was born with a genetic disease, and the bogus X-rays purporting to show infants executed by IDF soldiers. As with A Rape on Campus, you start to wonder why people are believing obvious nonsense. And in both cases, the most likely answer is hatred of the target.
This is actually extremely credible - have you heard of the Sde Taiman rape protests? Sexual abuse and humiliation is a well-attested and confirmed feature of Israeli incarceration, to the point that when prison guards are arrested for rape there are pro-rapist protests held to ensure they can continue to rape prisoners. Government ministers referred to the rapists as "our best heroes" and led efforts to ensure they were set free. The statistics we have regarding sexual abuse of foreign women in Israel are pretty nasty too - https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/israel-a-new-report-reveals-100-of-thai-agricultural-workers-were-sexually-assaulted/
I don't feel like it is stretching the bounds of credibility to say that a country which sexually abused 100% of their female foreign agricultural workers and had protests to protect their ability to rape prisoners would have sexually abused a female prisoner. For the record, I don't think they rape because they're idiots, but because they believe they are immune from consequences (and for many of them, that's been true so far).
You don't need to say it twice - your comment has absolutely nothing to do with the case at hand and no relation to the story itself. This doesn't even reach the level of a counterargument, and even if I simply accept your claims it doesn't refute my point at all. I can understand not wanting to read, but next time please just say that instead of pretending to engage with the argument.
...what exactly makes starving children more morally acceptable if they were born with a genetic disease? The actual starving isn't in question at all, and it has been an explicit Israeli policy going back decades. We can even go back to 2006 when an advisor to the Israeli PM spoke about how they were planning on putting the Gazans on a "diet" by reducing the food they allow in.
You can say it all you want, it ain't. Even if the Israelis were the ogres you claim, it wouldn't be credible that they'd mistreat someone as visible and with friends as powerful as Greta Thunberg.
I found the original report this claim supposedly comes from. It has few statistics and says basically nothing at all (it doesn't even make that claim).
The child wasn't starving; its appearance was due to the disease. And yes, the actual starving is in question.
She has come out and directly, unequivocally claimed that they mistreated her - and nothing happened. Who exactly is this mysterious power that will punish Israel for sexually assaulting an autistic girl who is widely mocked and insulted by the conservatives who are already firmly committed zionists? I don't understand why you think they'd be afraid of mistreating her when she has made the exact same claims she would have made if they actually did assault her and there have been no consequences whatsoever beyond me mocking antisemitic rightwingers who made sexualised jokes about her by saying their behavior is spiritually Israeli.
Have you seen the photos? Do you really want to claim that cerebral palsy is responsible for the appearance of Yazan's corpse? Here's a photo of someone in the west who has cerebral palsy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RJ_Mitte#/media/File:RJ_Mitte_by_Gage_Skidmore_3.jpg and here's the photo of Yazan's corpse after he died of starvation https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/db/Death_of_Yazan_al-Kafarneh.jpg
Are you really going to tell me that the same condition which RJ Mitte has is responsible for the conditions seen in Yazan's corpse? If you've got an expert who can explain how cerebral palsy lead to that, I'm all ears. I've known people with cerebral palsy in real life, and I have never seen them looking like that.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/29/nx-s1-5483520/gaza-famine-hunger
This was from July 29 - how exactly do you have 20 000 children with acute malnutition and a surge in hunger-related deaths among children without a famine? If there's no starvation and famine, why were Palestinians so desperate to go to aid distribution sites run by the GHF who gunned them down for trying? Why is every major international body warning about the famine in Gaza? Even when I take a dispassionate look at the evidence, I can't see how you can possibly claim that the starvation is even in question let alone fictional. It was official Israeli policy for decades!
Edited because I accidentally deleted a paragraph in my post and didn't realise it:
This isn't the report that the claim comes from - it cites the report that the claim comes from, but the link is now broken. When I checked it at the time the link was functional, but that was quite some time ago and I don't have any archives. Nobody at the time of publication made this objection anywhere, and the rest of the report is really nasty as well - this objection doesn't really damage the point at all even if we just assume that the number wasn't 100%.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link