site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 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.

2
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Just like it doesn't matter which one was the better or worse person overall,

For purposes of a potential trial against Ross, I agree. For purposes of the overall culture war, I'm not so sure.

You can bet that the anti-ICE crowd will use every piece of evidence they can find to make Good look like a good person. In fact, the blog post you link to has a picture of Good at the top which makes her look feminine and somewhat attractive. On the day of the shooting, she looked much more like a stereotypical angry aggressive lesbian.

If one side is going to marshal all the evidence they can find for purposes of the Court of Public Opinion, the other side can hardly be blamed for doing the same thing.

On the day of the shooting, she looked much more like a stereotypical angry aggressive lesbian.

At this point, I have to ask if we watched the same video. Good's partner was the one loudly berating and mocking the ICE agents, while Good herself was, for the most part, sitting in her car and smirking. She was being obnoxious, but I can't say I saw anything "aggressive" in her demeanour, prior to her pressing the accelerator.

As to "looking" like a lesbian: she was dressed appropriately for the Minnesota climate.