site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   23408 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Sometimes I sincerely wonder if our education system was deliberately sabotaged. If some ancient soviet program to promote teaching precisely the wrong way took on a life of it's own in academia. The failures of modern pedagogy are stark and baffling, and no matter how bad it gets, somehow the pedagogues find a way to make it even worse. There hasn't been a single policy promoted by pedagogues I can think of in the last 40 years that has actually improved education. The singular exception seems to be the "Mississippi Miracle", which the expert class seems absolutely committed to explaining away as a fluke or trickery. Also cell phone bans seem to have helped, but those mostly only seem to occur due to a groundswell of popular support.

put the anticommunist brew away, the bad guy in this story is american christians, who created a system modeled after prussian military schools because those created very obedient soldiers. while implementing the public school system they made sure it fit their clearly stated goals of having a population that will be dutiful to christ, and which is smart enough to generally improve society but not smart enough to complain about factory working.

its actually quite funny to read their reports on how teachers were seen by themselves/everyone else in the 1800s, because its very exactly the same way now

As parent of a child who will start school in a couple years, this started to worry me. Any good resources from mottizens to learn about what traps to look out for when checking out schools?

Truthfully I've written off public school. I moved to a deep red county, and even still the schools (teachers and students by proxy) are agitating to rename shit, raise awareness, and the other typical red flags that indicate they've forgotten "Your mission is teaching, stay in your lane." Local public libraries that schools take kids to in Trump +40 localities have chosen as their hill to die on keeping LGBTQ pornographic material available to children.

I know "brainwashes kids to be fake and gay" is technically a separate issue on paper from "teaches kids to read and do math wrong because fuck you". But IMHO, having taken my look around, teachers either adhere to all the old ways, or none of them. It's common core math, whole word learning and the gender unicorn on tablets, or it's phonics, times tables, repetition, God made man and woman, and no screens.

Had to do tours of a couple private schools, spoke to their teachers and administrators. Wife came out hard with her first question being "You don't do any woke LGBTQ shit do you?" Turned out the direct approach was in the fact the best approach, and so far so good.

Well, that's true on its face. The long march is real. Also I'm pretty sure Common Core math was designed to tank the performance of the smarter students down to the level of those who barely pass. Same with "Whole language" learning instead of phonics.

Not sure about Common Core math, but Whole Language learning would have the opposite effect -- phonics is the system which works for almost everyone, whereas whole-language learning requires more cognitive ability. And the smarter kids would have likely been taught the "cheat code" of phonics before even getting into school.

Whole language as it is taught is more about manipulating how children "feel" about specific words than their meaning, it's also marxist poison through and through. Also "Critical Literacy", check this video out if you have the time, I can't really explain it better than she does already. [link]

If some ancient soviet program to promote teaching precisely the wrong way took on a life of it's own in academia.

It’s a Prussian conspiracy. The vile Hun could not beat America on the battlefield in any of their three attempts (1776, 1918, 1945) so they turned their autistic minds to devious conspiracy.

Prussia was on Washington's side in the first one of those; the British allies were Hessian.

Damned Prussians, they ruined Germany!

AP testing technically dates back to the 50s, but I don’t believe it really took off until the 90s. They certainly have their own problems.

I’m actually having a hard time naming any pedagogy newer than the 1950s. There’s the common core math, which sucks. Different learning types (kinesthetic, visual…) were introduced in ‘83; they’re still popular, maybe even useful.

Best I could find was immersion learning for languages, which spread through schools some time after 1971.

Sometimes I sincerely wonder if our education system was deliberately sabotaged. If some ancient soviet program to promote teaching precisely the wrong way took on a life of it's own in academia.

Conquest's 3rd law: The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.

There is also the Iowahawk restatement.

It may just be the quality of people who attend and staff education schools. In other countries, admission is highly competitive; in the US, it's close to "we'll take anyone we can get." Smart people in the US have better jobs available than teaching, while it's probably one of the better careers available in other countries. And so we get some of the duller crayons in the box becoming teachers, doing research, and deciding education policy. And, since math and statistics is hard, you get much more emphasis on autoethnography and social theory than empirical research.

‘Those who can’t, teach’- except that American schools actually do very well. Once adjusted for race American schools are the best in the world.

They engage in lots of very expensive boondoggles, yes, and could improve pedagogy, but that’s just normal waste in an institution that is immune from criticism and oversight.

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