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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Let's talk about the attack in New York.
Six Arrested After Explosive Devices Tossed Near Mamdani’s Home (Bloomberg)
6 arrested after homemade explosive devices at Gracie Mansion protest send people running for cover (New York Post)
This certainly seems concerning... wait... it looks like I got the news wrong. Let's check in with the newspaper of record:
Smoking Jars of Metal and Fuses Thrown at Protest Near Mayor’s House
This was no bomb. It was just a smoking jar of metal and fuses. A stunning and brave counterprotestor who just happened to have a smoking jar of metal and fuses took took the righteous and antiracist action of standing up to nazism by throwing that smoking jar of metal and fuses right into the middle of a crowd. This totally clears things up.
Wait... no.. it looks like that's not quite right. It was a bomb.
I thought the news media couldn't get worse than "firey but mostly peaceful protests." But somehow they've managed to reach a new low. At least with the "mostly peaceful" protests it's technically true. I'm sure >51% of the protests that day were peaceful and a minority set the place ablaze. But this is a clear cut case where a terrorist literally threw a bomb into a crowd, and the NYT rushes to blame the victims for causing unrest and smear them as "vile white supremacists"
Good news, the brave truth tellers at NBC New York ran with the headline: "Multiple arrests made after "suspicious devices" found outside Gracie Mansion, home of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, during anti-Islam rally and counterprotest." (https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/suspicious-devices-outside-nyc-mayors-gracie-mansion/6473590/?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_NYBrand) Wow, very sinister of these Anti-Islam ralliers and/or counterprotestors to leave suspicious devices at the Mayor's house. Shame you have to click the link to find out which side actually threw the devices and what made them suspicious! (They were bombs)
And bold new mayor Mamdani said the following in his statement: (https://x.com/NYCMayor/status/2030704552765263946)
Wow, quite disturbing that an unspecified party at a protest used violence. Wonder who though. Given the last party mentioned were the evil white supremacists, I suppose it must have been them!
I really don't know what's more sinister: if there's a slack channel somewhere where lefty journalists and Mamdani staffers are actively coordinating deniably falsely reversing victim and offender on this story, or if all overeducated leftists now learn how to lie and get away with it so well in Journalism School that they did this all independently and naturally with no coordinating required.
I tend to go with this choice, at least in this incident. If you were a Leftist journalist and you wanted to spin this story, there's really only one obvious way to do it: (1) emphasize that there was an anti-Islam protest at Mamdani's facility; and (2) be vague about who threw the bomb and who were the targets of the bomb.
That being said, I'm pretty confident that at a minimum, informal coordination takes place regularly -- before reporting and/or making statements, these Leftists likely check to see (and are influenced by) what other Leftist sources are saying.
And I do think that actual behind-the-scenes collusion takes place pretty regularly, at least collusion-lite. Surely there are WhatsApp groups and such for progressive journalists; it must happen now and then that a member of the group posts something like "I'm thinking about reporting on topic X from angle Y. Thoughts?"
It was ever thus. Before Social Media was a Thing, there was the JournoList email group, which itself a successor to the townhouse email group. I'm sure if you were to search for certain Narratives, you'd be able to find supercuts of various co-ordinated "kill shot" messages being disseminated by various talking heads going back to the earliest days of Youtube, and quite probably before.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link