site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   20234 thread views

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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Cops in most places (almost certainly including Uvalde) get shitloads of "additional respect". Uvalde ain't Minneapolis or San Francisco or Portland or Seattle.

It may be afforded some additional respect at a low level, but it isn't really afforded prestige, maybe that's a better word for what I'm driving at. If you came from a wealthy, elite family and attended Phillips Exeter or something, would "cop" be considered a valid and respectable career path your family would be proud of? Not really. Tech, finance, doctor, lawyer, academia, those would be considered prestige jobs that would be acceptable for a son of the elite. So while police officers get some ground-level respect at the local diner, it's not really a high prestige. Nobody with a son at an elite private school is saying "I hope he grows up to become a police officer!" And basically the same goes for the military, of course it wasn't always this way but it is now.

Upper class cops are FBI agents.

It honestly depends. You are talking about rank and file. But most elites wouldn’t be embraced about having a military son who is an officer that goes up the ranks (eg colonel is still very prestigious). But a sergeant? That’s low class.

Most would probably see a local cop as kind of low status. But an FBI agent that moves up the ranks? That’s prestigious.

Aside from the fact that ‘military officer’ is perhaps the single most acceptable career for elite young men, most people are not and never will be elites. Cops get some additional respect, and that’s all they need.

Military can still be high status but it’s far more narrow today. In WW1 from what I’ve read the British elite took a lot of military deaths. If you go into Special Ops - Seal Teams/Delta it has a lot of respect. Lesser Green Beret. Some of this is fitness bro respect. I guess this is dated now but the Pritzkers and the governors brother is a colonel (also a tranny now). It’s more narrow now but there are some paths with military prestige.

If you're a cop, you can beat up people in tech, doctors, lawyers, academia, judges, and well, pretty much anyone else with impunity. Maybe not politicians. You may not have the prestige of a top doctor, but you have deference from the legal system and respect from the community. This is certainly more than enough to support being required to actually do your job when it involves the sort of things that would actually justify that respect.

What? From article

“Raffaele says he was struck when he came upon officers wrestling with a man wielding a pipe.“

So you can hit a judge if you’re a policeman if the said judge jumps into a fight when a dude is beating you with a pipe. But to be clear you can’t as a policeman just pick a judge and beat the shit out him.

Speaking as a German, I have a relative who became a cop and I am totally fine with that. It is an important job and we need qualified and well-adjusted people for it. I would be much more reluctant to admit to admit having a relative working in marketing or yellow press journalism, actually. (Of course, Germany might have a different police culture than the US. While I did have unfortunate interactions with police, on the whole my experience is that they are generally friendly and competent.)

American cops are also generally friendly and competent. They’re rarely particularly bright or outside the box thinkers, but the cops killing people makes headlines because it’s so rare(and most of those killings are justifiable and well within the range of normal police behavior in Western Europe). Our police are genuinely less likely to randomly beat the shit out of people than euro cops, though.

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