site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13356 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.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Borgia vs The Borgias

In a real historical piece, if they tried to make everything slavishly right any show would be unwatchable, because there would be too much that the audience couldn’t understand. The audience would be constantly distracted by details like un-filmably dark building interiors, ugly missing teeth, infants being given broken-winged songbirds as disposable toys to play with, crush, and throw away, and Marie Antoinette relieving herself on the floor at Versailles. Despite its hundreds of bathrooms, one of Versailles’ marks of luxury was that the staff removed human feces from the hallways regularly, sometimes as often as twice a day, and always more than once a week.

...

Even costuming accuracy can be a communications problem, since modern viewers have certain associations that are hard to unlearn. Want to costume a princess to feel sweet and feminine? The modern eye demands pink or light blue, though the historian knows pale colors coded poverty. Want to costume a woman to communicate the fact that she’s a sexy seductress? The audience needs the bodice and sleeves to expose the bits of her modern audiences associate with sexy, regardless of which bits would plausibly have been exposed at the time. I recently had to costume some Vikings, and was lent a pair of extremely nice period Viking pants which had bold white and orange stripes about two inches wide. I know enough to realize how perfect they were, and that both the expense of the dye and the purity of the white would mark them as the pants of an important man, but that if someone walked on stage in them the whole audience would think: “Why is that Viking wearing clown pants?” Which do you want, to communicate with the audience, or to be accurate? I choose A.

(The article then goes on to suggest "historicity" vs "historical accuracy": aka just pick your battles and try to maintain a history-like vibe)

It's pretty funny that the most pilloried Word of God from JK Rowling (well, maybe barring the declaration that Dumbledore is gay) is probably a result of her knowing the above fact about Versailles and just adding it to her world.

If the audience doesn't reward you for this and it actively harms their SOD, why do it?

Despite its hundreds of bathrooms, one of Versailles’ marks of luxury was that the staff removed human feces from the hallways regularly, sometimes as often as twice a day, and always more than once a week.

I was surprised and apparently what this really means is 'they used chamber pots' not 'people were relieving themselves in the halls openly'.

Marie Antoinette relieving herself on the floor at Versailles

So far as I can tell, it was mostly propagandists later on who said that, or it was a metaphor.

I was surprised and apparently what this really means is 'they used chamber pots' not 'people were relieving themselves in the halls openly'.

Not being able to argue for the status, the powers that be set out to slander our past. Almost every widely held negative belief that I heard about it, turned out to be inaccurate in the way you described.

Pink was for boys and blue was for girls as recently as the victorians.

It's fairly easy to find references in Google Books both ways in the first half of the 20th century, though the only non-fictional contemporary one with an opinion I find asserts that blue is for boys and pink is for girls. This is post-Victorian (and American, besides).

I find nothing from the Victorian era, the only thing I find before the 20th century is this 1833 work, which also asserts that "pink is for girls".

I am reminded of fanfiction. You can write an alternate universe where things happen that didn't happen in the source material. You can also make a mistake and write fanon--things that people think are true about the work, but really aren't.

Every so often someone writes a common piece of fanon, gets called on it, and claims that that's okay because they are writing an alternate universe. Or even admits the fanon and says "well, I choose to make an alternate universe where this fanon is true".

I reckon that most people having rotten/missing teeth was mostly a 19th Century and 20th Century phenomenon, driven by the new availability of cheap sugar. Medieval people consumed little to no sugar, so their teeth were generally healthy.

Little sugar but much bread, and likely the bread was filled with substantial grit from threshing and milling.

They could grind them down or chip them. I somehow managed with a much more forgiving diet.

Yes, interesting little factoid (if it is a fact) I learned recently: Elizabeth I had bad teeth precisely because sugar was now the luxury, available, new, sweetening and cooking ingredient. Of course cooks went mad showing off what they could do with sugar, and of course everyone who could afford it loved to use it.

I get the point about clown pants, but going to the other extreme and having all your characters in black (fake) leather is equally bad. And that just exacerbates the problem, because if every show and movie has "communicating with the audience, dress them according to our values and tastes" costuming, that shapes the expectations of viewers, so you'll never get "in fact, bright colours and dyes meant high status" correct costumes.

There was this romantic potboiler/disaster movie from 2014 called Pompeii. Overall deeply mediocre. But one small detail that I really liked was that they made the soldiers uniforms a half-step between accurate Roman armor and modern black tactical body armor that you would see a SWAT team or special forces wearing. Not particularly period appropriate but it made the solders unusually imposing for a period piece, because your brain is subconsciously reading them like a modern military unit.

In my opinion, the old dramas from the 1950s and 60s did the best job of balancing historically accurate settings with modern expectations.

Yes, it's a coordination problem.

But the issue is that there's no benefit to solving said problem. Why would Ridley Scott make his movie slightly worse to correct the impression that the Vikings dressed like goths?

Especially since the misconception may last precisely because it is of no great importance to anyone. People can find counterarguments to all sorts of sacred truths today...when they care.

Why would Ridley Scott make his movie slightly worse to correct the impression that the Vikings dressed like goths?

Because that leads to Christopher Nolan dressing Bronze Age Greeks like they're the Batman.

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