site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27961 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What would be wrong in your view with stripping American citizenship from millions of people?

Considering we didn't strip American citizenship for the literal traitors of the civil war I would say one reason is that we just set a very very high bar for this already. In fact people to this day continue to openly support the traitors and we don't suppress them.

That doesn't really answer the question as I asked it but answers a different question entirely

I gave you a reason, we have a preexisting insanely high bar for stripping citizenship. What reasons do you have to tear down chesterston fence and break the precedent?

chesterton's fence refers to a fence we don't know why was put up somewhere and has existed as a tradition for a long time

we do know when and why the pre-existing fence was constructed; in order to cement recent large-scale immigration of commies and other leftists in the aftermath of WW2

it's not some long-held tradition from the days of yore constructed for mysterious purposes

The main denaturalizations US history are pretty much entirely of three categories.

  1. War criminals
  2. Nazis
  3. People who committed fraud during naturalization.

I think we can all agree that "Being puerto rican and singing at the super bowl in Spanish" is not anywhere close to that. That would be a huge fence tear down with an unconvincing argument of "but he triggered me"

huh? most Confederate soldiers were initially disenfranchised and prohibited from holding public office during a period known as "Reconstruction" where the Union occupied the rebelling states (also, universal male suffrage was still a recent phenomenon)

in history, the US regularly stripped citizenship for naturalized citizens as a matter of course for certain behaviors, e.g., anarchist and commie silliness

it's only until very recently (like post 1960) we decided our costco-membership-style citizenship was sacrosanct and could be removed only in the most extreme circumstances

In fact people to this day continue to openly support the traitors and we don't suppress them.

you mean our greatx4 or x5 grandfathers? the civil war has a different taste to it when you're actually American because you likely have ancestors who were those traitors and at least fought in the civil war

When I look up my family names on the Civil War Registry, there are hundreds of people related to me on both sides of the war (including people in my direct lineage whose graves I've visited). How about you?

And yes, we do lots of things to suppress and socially ostracize people who "openly support the traitors" from making it very difficult to get bank accounts for their organizations to getting them fired from their jobs. If you doubt that, throw some stars and bars on your car and let me know how that works out for you.

We should bring back bloodletting too. Nothing like a good leech to help balance the humors.

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