site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Ontological status: If you rape your enemies, they win.

You're not describing a double standard insofar as you can observe this exact same behavior from JIDF posters. Where mass rape on Oct.7 definitely happened and is super important, but these rapes did not, or don't really matter. It's just the standard.

So maybe we are looking at some motivated reasoning that can afflict us all. Rather than a specific trait of the woke left. And perhaps you're not dunking on a strawman, but what are you dunking on, and to what end? The motivated reasoning of one side irks you, but not the other?

So no, the woke left don't have to acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization that committed acts of unspeakable cruelty on Oct.7 anymore than the JIDF has to acknowledge that Israel is a a genocidal nazi state that commits acts of unspeakable cruelty in their prisons. You hold no leverage to make that claim. You are just asserting a one sided rhetorical frame on woke leftists. They would be right to recognize what you are doing, call you a genocidal zionist and continue on inside their bubble where Israel is bad and Palestine is good.

Rape denialism is inexcusable coming from anyone, but particularly hypocritical coming from individuals whose catchphrase was "believe women" for the better part of a decade.

And my point would be that it's not particularly hypocritical when those individuals are just playing the same game everyone else is. Including Israel, that is not really concerned with whatever amount of dead or raped Palestinians they leave in their wake. I mean, I don't think the worst part of that is the hypocrisy but whatever.