site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Wouldn't the Lockean Liberal view be something more like: mankind is created in the image and likeness of God. Yes, man is sinful, and fallen, but as a result of being made in the image of God, mankind is endowed with dignity which it is sinful to violate.

The set of principles surrounding this inviolable dignity, we call "rights" and it is the duty of us as individuals and as a society to set up governments which do not violate these rights.

This is a secular view of rights which is actually not in line with at least traditional teaching of Catholic Church. Yes, you are created in image of God and you have dignity, however you diminish your dignity every time you even sin yourself. You are not entitled to absolute dignity, e.g. you do not have absolute entitlement to get free food whenever you are hungry and thus turn this situation on its head by blaming the society for its inability to feed you. Even in Catholic church where they sometimes strategically adopt the language of rights, they are curtailed by additional concepts such as subsidiarity where the duty starts with yourself. Which then conflicts with the basic definition of rights as entitlement without duty - you are the first to have duty to for instance feed yourself. That is the main difference between catholic social teaching and modern rights-based system.

In fact you can get to completely different conclusions. For instance if somebody who is able bodied and just lazy turns to get food from soup kitchen, it is that person who is committing the sin of sloth diminishing his own dignity. On top, he also steals from patrimony of the poor.

The liberal/libertarian simply believes that the best way to set up society is to let everyone pursue the proper management and development of their God-given talents by protecting a handful of core principles: life, liberty and property (or the pursuit of happiness.)

Absolutely not. The fundamental basis of libertarian view of right is that of self-ownership, the Catholic teaching is all about your life belonging to God. In libertarian view state cannot impose duties on you by virtue of self-ownership, exactly opposite is the case from Catholic teachings. And there are no few flaring points, we are talking about things like euthanasia, prostitution, drug sales and many other things.

As for liberal or secular view of rights, we talked about it before. And again, it is complete subversion of social teaching of the Church where individual is entitled to ever expanding set of rights and if not provided, it is society to blame for absence. Again, it is entitlement absent duty.

I am talking about Lockean liberalism, which was not "secular", even if its teachings differ from the Catholic church's.

Surely, "free speech" or "right to property" implies that at least some actors in society have positive duties to act a particular way? Otherwise, how does a Lockean Liberal defend these rights in practice?

Absolutely not. The fundamental basis of libertarian view of right is that of self-ownership,

There is more than one construction of libertarianism. I tend to fall more in the consequentialist/utilitarian foundation for libertarianism, though I do have a lot of sympathy for the side that starts with freedom as their starting point.