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German police chief Dirk Peglow has stated on national television that his advice to women who want to avoid violence is to avoid relationships with men. This has naturally caused some controversy, and although it will likely be forgotten soon, I do think it shines a spotlight on some topics worth discussing.
First, this is clearly not meant to be taken literally. In the broader context, the comment is based on the fact that reports of sexual assaults have increased over the past year in Germany, and he simply meant to highlight the fact that most assaults are not perpetrated by strangers but people you know. Still, the way he chose to frame it matters. Public perception would have probably been much different if the man had specifically highlighted men with Arabic backgrounds as being dangerous, even though a similar argument of "just educating people on statistics" would still have been accurate. He could have also chosen to to warn women against certain behaviors. "If your man is violent, get out before it escalates" is a complete sentence with a clear call to action that fits neatly into a soundbite. If the goal was to help women, this advice would also be much more actionable than the ridiculous "don't date men at all", making it more likely to actually help people. Alternatively, he could have chosen to not be alarmist at all. "German streets are quite safe, and crime overall is down" would have emphasized that women are unlikely to be assaulted by strangers in public, and would have helped to spread some confidence in the population.
The field of medicine is very aware that undue anxiety presents a risk to personal health. Doctors are generally quite conservative when it comes to recommending blood tests or other diagnostic procedures to seemingly healthy patients. This is because false positives and the associated stress can lead the patient down an expensive and anxiety ridden path of uncertainty and increasingly invasive medical procedures that can significantly affect quality of life and mental health. The risk of overdiagnosis is great enough, that even if you were a billionaire with ample money to spare, a good doctor would still recommend against screening for illnesses when you show no significant symptoms. When you are a public official though, care for the mental health of your citizens apparently goes out the window. Making inflammatory statements that cause anxiety among women, shame among men, and divide the population are apparently fine as long as they result in viral video clips and conform to feminist dogma.
So I wonder: Why did he phrase it like this? Telling women to blanket avoid men is a borderline impossible ask. If he really wanted to help women, he should have spoken of specific character traits (violence or addiction for example) that they should stay away from. Is he part of some invisible cabal, attempting to lower German fertility rate and weaken the nation?
Maybe he just doesn't care about the repercussions his words may have on the German people. Politics seems to often select for people that care very little about their constituents, and are mostly just there to climb the social hierarchy whatever it takes, so maybe this message was a way for him to fit in with his peers. If so, this is potentially quite worrying. The incentive structure should ideally reward public officials who have the best interests of the citizens at heart, and punish those who use their position as a means to a selfish end. If this is not the case, the we could see some truly horrible politicians in the future.
Or maybe the man is actually a devout feminist. A true believer who legitimately thinks that "Men are dangerous" is an important message that must be spread in order to turn society into a better place. It just seems insane to me that an adult man would believe this. Surely he must see that his warning implicates himself and his friends as dangers to women as well. Do men like that even exist?
Some women will indeed need this advice because they are absolutely stupid when it comes to men. Latest 'divorce diaries' story in national newspaper had me going "what the hell": women marries guy despite red flags because she's getting older (into her thirties) and absolutely desperate to have a child. It does not work out. She has a miscarriage and can't get pregnant again, but stays even when he does things like tell her "I could kill you now".
She only eventually leaves when she finally does fear for her life.
I don't blame men in particular, but with women this nuts out there, the safest advice is "stay away from men" for both men and women, because a man who gets stuck in a relationship with a crazy woman isn't doing any better.
Did this woman need that advice? She would have ignored it and probably would be right to do so, given her values.
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Something something society-wide "Women are Wonderful" effect.
Also something something sex-havers (NOT incels) are statistically the biggest threats to women.
Sometimes I watch true crime documentaries with my girlfriend, and what always stands out in the rape or rape+murder situations is that many of them, even among stranger assaults, don't consist of a random guy grabbing a woman off the street and dragging her into a street corner. They often consist of date rape, or something like a group of guys and girls are hanging out after a party with some booze and one of the guys stays with one of the girls and then drags her into the figurative alley.
I think there's a feminist point to be made there that there is a group of men that believes such a situation entitles them to some sex afterward. But where I disagree with the feminist point is that I think this often goes along with innate personality traits or psychopathy, and there's no amount of education or re-education that can be done to fully eliminate their existence. Louis CK has a joke where he goes:
I'd say the same is true of people who are psychopathic, and genuinely do see women (and men, and children, and animals, and everything) as inanimate objects to be used as they wish. There's another one born every minute. I think the reason some of the incel stuff sets of warning alarms is that there is some "women have instrumental value to me, redistribute the pussy-objects" language in there, especially in the extreme spaces. But the interesting difference is that these are often "someone else should give me a woman"-type complaints, which is... a pretty pathetic point of view, and not the worldview inhabited by most rapists, who are proud of their ability to coerce and overpower women on their own and often don't even see what they're doing as rape.
But the typical incel is a lonely, sad, and yeah often times angry and frustrated guy, but the very elements that cause his inceldom like shyness and seclusion are also traits that 'protect' him from attacking people. In an 'honor among thieves' sense, in the original meaning where Plato indicates that you have to have some level of real skill and mastery to pull off a heist (i.e. the Oceans films), there are often skills and traits possessed by many rapists, but not by the average incel, that would enable them to date and have consensual sex with a woman, though they choose not to. This is actually borne out by research on repeat offenders, who make up the vast majority of sexual assaults, and who are often skilled, socially competent, strategic, and careful. To me, this makes the crimes of rapists more evil -- they have the capacities built into them to do good, but choose evil.
And obviously when we talk about domestic violence, you have to be in a domicile with a woman to commit domestic violence against her. That's pretty non-incel.
I think society can do a lot to give resources and aid to victims, to prevent what crime can be prevented, and to try and catch these kinds of men early and get them the hell away from society and from women. My girlfriend's point, by the way, is that it's a horrific injustice for men who commit crimes like this to then be sentenced to something like 10 years in prison, of which he might serve 3 because of parole, and then he's out on the street again and rapes someone else. And it's often liberal and progressive groups who argue in favor of systems like parole, and in general for viewing the criminal justice system as a greater threat to safety and liberty than violent criminals.
But also alcohol is awful, and we should be screaming at young people not to go get drunk at parties, because alcohol impairs judgment for everyone who partakes and people can make decisions they never would sober, which can place even relatively normal people in a position to become involved in violence. In more ways than just sexual violence; see the persistence of the barfight as a concept, or the drunk uncles who always seem to get on the Florida news for doing something awful at EPCOT, or, say, the women's movement against alcohol because of the long, long history of daddy coming home drunk as a skunk and beating his wife and his children.
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Besides all that, I've read many times that lesbian relationships have much higher rates of domestic violence, so...?
I don't know if I'm right, but my hunch is that even if that is true, men nonetheless have a higher rate of causing serious damage because they are much stronger than women.
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There’s no way. Testosterone is a helluva drug.
The BJS has this survey, which shows ~2x rates for various crimes, but doesn’t separate lesbian from gay. It’s still a weird result. There’s definitely a higher reporting rate, but I’m not sure what causes that, either. More trust in the police? An urban bias?
If you download the NCVS stats yourself or otherwise figure out how to filter it, let me know!
It's probably mostly reporting bias -- women hit their partners all the time in relationships, but when that partner is a man it's:
a)no big deal because she hits like a girl
b) kind of embarrassing to report that your girlfriend is abusing you
In a lesbian relationship, neither partner is used to receiving any kind of violence, and both are socially predisposed to treat any kind of violence (done by someone other than themselves!) as a relationship red line -- so that cops/statisticians are much more likely to hear about it.
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I’ve heard about this as well but when I looked at the research, it’s nothing very conclusive and the most famous study didn’t differentiate between lesbians who experienced violence from male only and male and female perpetrators.
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This is an angle explored by thetinmen I honestly just take it for granted at this point that the other side of the coin gets completely ignored. Maybe public discourse is just fucked.
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I suggest we unpack this wider issue from a culture war perspective.
In the context of the mating market and sexual politics, we often see advice getting handed out to women, especially young single women, usually by men and women that are at least ambiguous towards feminist theories, pieces of advice that are rather similar and claim to help women form happy romantic relationships:
Avoid dangerous and violent men
Don’t fall for bad boys
Don’t go clubbing in skimpy clothes late at night while getting drunk
Don’t hook up men who were not vetted by people that you trust from your social circle
Preferably avoid one-night stands completely
Dress modestly during the day and act ladylike
Smile a lot and be pleasant instead of being a standoffish cunt
Present yourself as available and show indicators of interest if you’re looking for a man
Give clear signals to men whom you’re willing to accept
And so on.
You might notice that such advice is usually met with sneering and disdain by feminist or feminist-adjacent, Blue Tribe (in other words, mainstream) middle-class single women. The simple reason is that the message that is actually coming across to them when they hear this stuff is roughly this:
Withdraw yourself from the sexual competition for the attention of the top men. Don’t even try. Don’t copy the antics of your feminist sassy riot grrrl girlfriends. In fact, don’t interact with them socially. Settle for an average boring chopped man instead and service him sexually instead. Do the sort of things with him that he likes watching on porn sites. Put up with all his icky antics. Give a chance to that icky programmer dude that keeps stalking you at the office. When rejecting a man, do it gracefully even if he’s icky as fuck.
All this stuff is just extremely revolting and nauseating to a modern woman. And I think this police chief guy knows it. This is the explanation.
But the advice he did give was "avoid relationships entirely". Surely this is worse in every way you highlight. You can go to the club, have casual sex, and dress in skimpy clothing while also avoiding relationships with men that are violent or addicts. You cannot do these things and not have relationships with men at all.
Sure you can. The obvious zinger is that you can have relationships with women instead (though as mentioned elsewhere in the thread this is, of course, no guarantee of an abuse-free relationship). But also, you can dress skimpily and go clubbing for you own enjoyment with no intention of pursuing sexual or romantic relationships of any kind. For one thing, there are certainly people who enjoy dancing and getting hammered in a crowd - going to the club is, in fact, meant to be an enjoyable experience in itself, not some cumbersome prerequisite protocol for finding a mate.
(As for the skimpy clothing, setting aside the possibility that they just feel more comfortable with more skin showing - and we cannot underestimate that; naturist camps are attractive to non-swingers! - there are also people who enjoy feeling like a center of attention in a crowd, but don't particularly want that diffuse attention to translate into one-on-one flirtation.)
Naturally doing all those things increases one's odds of being sexually assaulted by strangers. But Peglow's whole point was that this effect is less than you'd think, and the bigger abuse risks are in established relationships. So the takeaway can actually be "what you've been told is backwards: you're more likely to be abused if you go steady with a boy than if you party without settling down". It's a bold point but a perfectly coherent one, and it's certainly not isomorphic to conservative sexual mores.
I think this is a folk etymology. Dances are rituals for finding mates are one of the oldest human institutions, to the point that they aren't even peculiar to humans.
I'm not claiming that dancing doesn't or shouldn't act as a mating ritual. I'm saying that dancing is supposed to be fun in and of itself, to the extent that some people do it for its own sake - not a chore you need to slog through to get to the good bit. (Compare: sex, procreation.)
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What else is he supposed to say in the political environment he's in? You mentioned that he made this comment on the issue of rising rates of sexual assault on women. Obviously he was expected to at least say something.
I did suggest some other ways of phrasing it, and outlined why I think the way he said it does more harm than good. If you are correct that women will twist your words from "Avoid dangerous and violent men" to "be a good domestic housewife and serve your man that you don't really like" then I honestly don't know what to say. At that point you are literally making up words and putting them in my mouth.
I think that he should either give actual advice that can help women (traits to stay away from) or at least avoid causing undue worry through his phrasing. "Call the police when you are in trouble" would have also been useless, but it would have sufficed as a politically neutral and non-inflammatory response.
I think there is a real risk that "avoid dangerous and violent men" will be twisted to "if a woman is a victim of domestic violence, it's her fault because she made a bad choice." Feminists LOVE to scream about victim-blaming.
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I'm guessing you're familiar with the phenomenon that were the so-called Slut Walks and what started them? This police chief is probably aware and wanted to avoid the same fate.
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The answer is simple. It's not about making women safe, it's about dragging men as a political class. There's never much trouble finding a member of a group to be the public face of opposing it. Mearsheimer, Candace Owens, Milo etc.
This is not a public service announcement to reduce female risk of victimization, this is a political blood libel aimed at shoring up the paranoia of the sort of bigots who think all men are racist patriarchal scum (but not the good Mr. Peglow).
Right, but using "men" as your outgroup is ridiculous, no? Like, we are talking about literally half the population here, including the speaker himself.
I understand that there is political power in uniting behind a common course, and that there is utility in naming a smaller but still decently big group (immigrants, jews, roma, etc.) that you can blame for all your problems. But the fact that it is possible to just blame "men" is wild. Even wilder that so many men men go along with it. The same "bigots who think all men are racist patriarchal scum" will absolutely turn on him the moment it becomes politically opportune to do so.
From what perspective? On an individual basis this police chief gets net positive brownie points for bashing men as a group. Feminists and their Leftist allies eat it up, most men don't care, and then men who do care aren't organized enough to do anything about it.
From a broader perspective, it's probably not the best idea politically. To illustrate, in the last election cycle, the Democrats desperately needed to court male voters, but from an institutional perspective it was difficult if not impossible. All they could come up with was tone-deaf, insulting ads. Being perceived as the political party that hates men (and hates white people) is a huge albatross around the neck of the Democrats, one which causes them a lot of problems notwithstanding the gerrymandering, the importation of millions of third-worlders, the election shenanigans, etc.
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Isn't it just as wild to blame white people in a country where they have a majority or plurality? Yet the enemy does it all the time.
Is this not just the success recipe of Christianity? The modal pastor constantly thunders against fornicators (presumably a good majority of their audience, per the strict definition) and sinners (everyone in their audience).
It turns out "you and I, we are both bad, but I am superior to you because I at least acknowledge it" is actually an appealing meme. Perhaps it allows those who have lingering feelings that they are bad recover a sense of self-worth without having to repress those feelings, or perhaps being able to tell someone else "you are bad" feels so good that it's worth acknowledging the "I am bad" for.
This is not my experience. Most preach directly on the issue less than people assume (for good or ill), and when they do I usually wouldn't describe it as thundering – precisely because they know that's not what folks in their congregations usually need.
The closest I have seen to this are some youth pastors. When you are teaching a consistent age group, there is always a new cohort of kids that needs to be firmly reminded to keep its pants on. And that message is usually pretty empathetic, because they know how hard it is.
I guess this could be described as thundering sometimes, as the law side of law and gospel. And "whiteness" is often described as something that can be repented of. So the analogy sort of works here. But without Jesus to bear anyone's sins, it's more of a racial Pelagianism.
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Christianity provides a path to redemption. "men bad" rhetoric does not. Putting down other men does not make me a better person in the eyes of the feminist,as it is me being a man that is the problem.
Sure it does, be a good male ally, don’t take up space, defer to women, acknowledge your privilege, pay for your sins, accept any abuse hurtled at you as remuneration for your sin.
Its all very Christian in nature.
None of that actually gives you an honorable place in the feminist or progressive movement, just more derision. What you actually need to do is score wins for the tribe in the public arena, then they'll let you do the creepiest sexist shit you can think of, and will even sweep it under the rug for you.
It's actually as anti-Christian as anything can be.
It’s a path to redemption not a path to place of honor. Unless you would claim that Christianity honors equality all sinners who have joined in following Christ. But considering the hierarchical nature of most churches I think thats a lot to swallow
Also, creepy megachurch pastors? Pedo Priests? Allowing people in power to abuse that power is classic human dynamics. Cast not the first stone unless ye are free from sin.
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I'll observe that the history of Christendom has no shortage of examples of both types of this behavior here: it's not like rank hypocrisy is a modern invention.
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Well yes. I think the western countries in generally lack a national identity that the citizens can get behind. This only works due to a lack of identification with the group that these people are criticizing. Still, I would have expected some general immune response when a decent person is being lumped in with criminals and racist. "How dare you group me with those people!" seems much more reasonable than "You are correct, let me apologize for the actions of people I never even met."
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There isn't a veto on beliefs for being ridiculous or self defeating. The people who venerated Mangos during the cultural revolution are just like you and me. And Germans aren't exactly unfamiliar with silly radicalism turned mad.
The fact that these beliefs are insane is scary precisely because that doesn't mean people won't act on the insanity.
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