site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 4, 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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

can you point to some examples of art the Nazis considered "degenerate" that was obviously intended for and effectively executed on glorification of the Nazi state, but which was rejected due to the identity or chosen style of the maker

For identity, the closest thing I can find to an example is the famous one. Photography of a Nazi delegation to the League of Nations isn't intended to glorify the Nazi state, but it at least recognized them as newsworthy, and it seemed to be viewed positively enough by Goebbels before he learned the photographer was Jewish, then not so positively afterward. I would be surprised to find an example of exactly what you're looking for, but not because I'd expect the Nazis to have made "oh he's one of the good ones" exceptions for pro-Nazi art, just because they were clear enough about most of their bigotry that I wouldn't expect to see their targets making pro-Nazi art in the first place.

For "chosen style", you might be able to find something pro-Nazi, but expressionist, from before the Nazis came down clearly against non-realist art styles? Emil Nolde was apparently an anti-semite since WWI, and a Nazi supporter since the 1920s, but that didn't stop them from seizing a thousand of his paintings in the late 30s. His 1910 "Wise and Foolish Virgins" ended up in the "Degenerate Art" exhibition, and while one might imagine Nazis just recoiling from Jesus' parables like vampires from the cross, as best as I can tell their objection to Nolde was solely to the expressionist style. I can't actually find references to pro-Nazi paintings of his, though, just letters.