site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   31531 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I agree with you for the moment, but let's ironman this.

Thuggery loses when there are still neutrals (who might join the other side) and when things haven't just slid into complete civil war. If the lines are drawn, and battle's joined, then there is about to be a lot less of a public, and he who's better at thuggery is he who gets to decide which half of the public is sending postal votes from Hell.

There are a significant fraction in the USA, on both sides, who think this can no longer be salvaged, that "now we're all sons of bitches" and what's left is just to kill the other tribe before they can kill you. Some of those people post on this forum! I'm not one of them in the strict sense... but, well, much of that's not due to being an optimist, but just an equal-opportunity pessimist who thinks the point's likely to be made moot by the Blue Tribe dying in nuclear fire or everyone dying in AI apocalypse. "They are already on a course for self-destruction; they do not need help from us. We need to redress our wounds, help our people, rebuild our cities..."

The PR implications for the Democratic Party are not relevant if the Democratic Party is dead or crippled beyond repair three years from now. In boring times, things like that are unthinkable and the assumption that they won't happen is invisible. It's becoming visible, and thinkable. I'm not saying send me to Bayes' Hell if it doesn't happen, and I'm certainly not encouraging thuggery, but the people who are are trying to play a wholly-different game than "win free and fair elections by being better than the other guy".

I'd probably want to nuance it a bit - I'm not sure that it's a significant fraction of the USA, but it is definitely a significant fraction of politically engaged Americans who believe, basically, that coexistence has failed and that they are in a desperate war to the death with an opposing faction that wants only to wipe them out entirely. This fraction exists on both sides. As far as I can tell the majority of actual Democrat or Republican voters do not feel this way, and most are at least somewhat checked-out, but both major parties have minority factions that consider the other party to be a purely malevolent force that must be fought against at any cost. We can see evidence of the Republican/right-wing version of this group just up-thread from here; and there is plenty of evidence of the Democrat/left-wing version of it elsewhere on the internet. These more extreme groups tend to be disproportionately influential in media and in politics itself, since they are more highly-motivated to be involved in politics.

I suppose my soapbox here is:

  1. Both these groups are factually in error, and their portrayal of the malevolent other side is mostly delusional.

  2. Neither of these groups will achieve their goals. The Democratic party will not be destroyed or crippled within three years; likewise the people's glorious revolution against the oligarchs is not just around the corner.

  3. Nonetheless both of these groups are actively engaged in making America worse. Neither have practical solutions to problems facing America; and even if they did, neither of them are able to take power or implement any solutions. What they do contribute to is low-level violence and unrest that occasionally boils over and results in tragedies, like the ICE incident we are currently discussing.

So, a pox on all relevant houses, really.

Anyway, I agree that the people I'm describing are trying to play a different game to the one I think they ought to be playing. I can't criticise them for being bad players of a game they're not trying to play. I can, rather, criticise them for attempting to play a game that they should not. So that's worth precisifying. They're not pursuing a good strategy badly. They're pursuing a bad strategy.

I think I agree with all of that except part of #2 (civil war in the USA is non-negligible, and nuclear war is highly significant; both of those are still definitely worse than the present situation even for the "winner", though) and maybe your assessment of the amount of these people (we might be using "significant" to mean different things; I think it's probably single-digit percent of Americans that are on Team Thug although a lot less have the initiative/courage to actually go out and do thuggery).

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