site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26396 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 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.

There is not always a long arc of morality.

It depends how you define "morality" and "winning" in the long terms. Many causes marched towards to victory, and few of these victories looked as the founders of movement would imagine triumph.

If, for example, first century Christian fell asleep for 1000 years and woke up in 11th century, what would he think? He would be dismayed that Jesus hadn't returned yet, and he would be even more revolted by this barbarian world that reveres Jesus by worshipping golden idols and sheds rivers of blood in his name.

He would see history of this thousand years as complete triumph of satan and possibly started to question his whole faith.

The same with more modern examples. What would communist from 1926 think about world of 2026? He would see it as maximally degenerate and depraved world where capitalism won in the most decisive way possible and stomped the workers of the world to the dirt.

If, for example, first century Christian fell asleep for 1000 years and woke up in 11th century, what would he think?

What would communist from 1926 think about world of 2026?

A fascinating difference in standards between the to worldviews you're using here. If you asked for a description of "capitalism stomping the workers of the world to the dirt", would a 1926 communist describe a world where hunger essentially isn't a concern, the common man having access to healthcare that was beyond the reach of emperors at the time, yada, yada, yada? Don't get me wrong, I have lots of problems with modern capitalism, but the idea that early Christians would find be revolted by 11th century, but OG, materialism-obsessed, communists would think anything other than that they must have died and gone to heaven upon seeing the modern world, is a bit rich.

It's interesting to read Sidney and Beatrice Webb's 1936 Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? because it shows you how the USSR was supposed to work. According to the Webbs, the true-believers were working toward a future where every peasant, factory janitor and Chukchi tribesman would have a standard of living equivalent to a Western European university professor.

Edited to add: it goes into elaborate detail on the economic planning process, and I think it might even have worked - if it was overseen at every level, down to the individual factory, kolkhoz and shop, by an all-seeing, all-knowing AI, devoid of human frailties like corruption, favoritism, laziness, ego and urge for revenge, and this AI had some way to compel humans to follow its directives!

Hmm, there's a speculative fiction story in there somewhere . . . too bad I've got no writing talent.

The main problem of Soviet propaganda was it claimed the utopia was already achieved, lie as brazen as completely unnecessary.

See Ayn Rand skewering Soviet propaganda movies (made in capitalist Hollywood to support capitalist US state war effort)

She was right, the propaganda was so over the top it was counterproductive.

When, for example, farmer from Kansas saw on silver screen Soviet peasants living in mansions, eating luxuriously and visiting grand opera house, would he think "We should help our gallant allies, whatever the cost!" or "If Russia is so rich country, why they do not send aid to us?"

would a 1926 communist describe a world where hunger essentially isn't a concern, the common man having access to healthcare that was beyond the reach of emperors at the time, yada, yada, yada?

Were those 1926 communists true believers in fixing the plight of the common worker or were those causes instrumental memes to get the masses on his side. Because if they were anything like the modern champagne socialists they wouldn't be. They pay lip service to the workers of the world even as they hate everything about them.

world where hunger essentially isn't a concern, the common man having access to healthcare that was beyond the reach of emperors

After 100 years of scientific and technological progress, the workers are not starving any more, how great!

You mistake communism for trade unionism.

Communism was never about higher pay and longer lunch breaks for proletarians, and it was ever less about wokeness and LGBTQ+. It was about building new world, world free of all oppression and exploitation, world where man in brother to man, not wolf. This is what communists believed in, this is what they were dying and killing for.

(to quote famous post-Soviet "We tried the best, happened as usual")

Here is one very rare piece of history - interview with last pre-WW2 German Jewish communist (the ultimate devil for many ppl out there). The hypothetical man IRL.

“A Communist Doesn’t Whine — He Shows His Teeth”

Theodor Bergmann, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 101, was the last of his kind. Born to a middle-class Jewish family in Berlin in 1916, he gravitated to Germany’s explicitly socialist workers’ movement as a young boy and remained what he called a “critical Communist” for the rest of his life. Known among friends and comrades as “Young Theo,” he was, as Mario Kessler wrote, “the last participant and eyewitness to the German labor movement of the Weimar era.”

Most of the interview is about the vanished world of interwar Europe, but here is how he feels about modernity.

TL;DR: He does not think 62 different brands of toilet paper in every supermarket equal paradise on earth.

Everything in our society today is swindle and betrayal. Even the words are lies. “Social market economy,” “people’s shares,” “capital formation in workers’ hands” — everything is a lie today, there are no true words left. The “social market economy” is gone, now we have the “new social market economy.” Everything is a lie!

An expression of a defeat, an expression of our inability to create our own media and make ourselves self-sufficient, and an expression of our weakness. The Left back then had self-confidence — we don’t have that today. We have a deep depression. There are only a few who would write in the newspaper, “I’m a Communist”. What’s happening in America now — that this old man says, “I’m a socialist!” — is unthinkable [in Germany], but it must happen.

After 100 years of scientific and technological progress, the workers are not starving any more, how great!

Something that the commies were struggling with despite the same technological progress...

Communism was never about higher pay and longer lunch breaks for proletarians, and it was ever less about wokeness and LGBTQ+. It was about building new world, world free of all oppression and exploitation

I know communism includes some crazy utopians thinking the oceans will turn to lemonade, but I thought it also had some hard-headed people mostly preoccupied with the material conditions of the working class.

Also totalitarian states running on command economies are not what I'd call "free of all oppression and exploitation".

Most of the interview is about the vanished world of interwar Europe, but here is how he feels about modernity.

Yeah, and if an early Christian managed to live 10 centuries I'm pretty sure he'd say how fucking awesome it is that we converted all the heathens. Most of what he's saying sounds pretty copey.

Most of what he's saying sounds pretty copey.

After everything that happened, most of what he says sounds superhumanly calm and level headed, looking to the future instead of past grudges.

Loren Balhorn: When you met people, didn’t you often ask yourself if they had been Nazis?

Theodor Bergmann: I knew that about some people. Professor Röhm, he was the rector for the anniversary in 1968, 150 years of Hohenheim. He said to me: “Mr Bergmann, I was foolish. My wife was smarter. I was foolish, but I’m not a Nazi anymore.” I can understand that: “I learned.”

Loren Balhorn: You can accept that? That was enough for you?

Theodor Bergmann: That was enough for me, yes. I can’t say “you’re guilty forever”. The people didn’t know any better. He’s from a small village, the village was full of Nazis. “But my wife was smarter,” he said. I accept that.

I don’t believe in collective guilt! There were Nazis and there were others. I have nothing to do with the Nazis, but I’m in solidarity with the others. We’re trying to do something better.

I know communism includes some crazy utopians thinking the oceans will turn to lemonade,

Charles Fourier wasn’t technically a communist, he was a different, unrelated branch of utopian socialist.

Communism as a technical term refers to the end state of history predicted by Marx. This end state doesn’t happen to exist, ofc, but there is a reason that the Soviet Union did not claim to be a communist regime. Thé Leninist idea was a departure from orthodox Marxism(which held that this end state will just happen after a series of events that were falsified in the Victorian era- more of a prophecy than a policy plan) in that it held socialism could be directed into a communist society- this of course didn't happen, because communist societies are, it bears repeating, not real, but still, thé idea was to reach a wild eyed utopian project even if for the time being quite a number of concessions need to be made to practicality.

Charles Fourier wasn’t technically a communist, he was a different, unrelated branch of utopian socialist.

Context for Fourier's visions: This sort of utopia was not delusionary dream, it was extrapolation of cutting edge science of the time - agricultural science.

This time - late 1700's - early 1800's - was time of British Agricultural revolution time when plant and animal breeding was for the first time done in systematic, scientific way with astonishing results.

It was not unreasonable to ask: "If in mere 50 years, science can double size of swine and sheep's wool yield, what could be done in 500 or 1000 years?"

No surprise that utopian visions of the far future, genre common of the time, were of biopunk genre. Future where carriages are drawn by lions at breakneck speed, ships pulled by whales, menial human labor is replaced by trained animals, eagles tamed and bred so big they can carry riders.

Well, this future hadn't arrived, dirty grease and coal dust covered mechanics had other plans.

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