site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24122 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Are “all the sorority girls” reliable GOP voters?

I bet a big chunk of sorority girls are overrepresented as GOP voters, give or take 5 years, compared to the rest of their demographic. A majority of sorority girls are in traditional Panhellenic greek culture, not the Not That Kind of Sorority I'm sure you find at NYU or USC. I wouldn't discount greek life as one of the few institutional signals young women get exposed to that it's okay or even socially beneficial to enjoy traditional things.

Say you go to public school in Austin, TX your whole life. Your family might be culturally conservative or even Christian churchgoers, but rushing at Texas A&M might be the first time your peers value things like tradition and encourage you to invest in institutional values. You learn about the importance of doing the things the way they've been done. Exposing young women to a traditional institution is probably an important avenue for conservatives to reach status conscious, conformist women. I don't think that should be underestimated, although planning an electoral future on SEC rush TikToks probably goes too far.

Having interacted with actual sorority girls in the last decade, even in my flyover midwest state school, yeah no. I wouldn't call them dyed in the wool progressives but thinking they are reliable GOP votes is equally fantastical. Obviously we didn't do a lot of political talking but my recollection is that most of them had normie feminist politics, with a splash of family oriented-ness and occasionally some cultural christianity

most of them had normie feminist politics

Right, but that's just default preferences of college aged women.

family oriented-ness occasionally some cultural christianity

A major Republican coup given the political moment. They are more likely to get married and more likely to have children. I wouldn't expect them to care about politics much even when they decide to vote X years out of school, but statistically speaking that's a Republican pipeline. A pipeline confounded by things like also being more likely to be attractive, but it's my intuition versus your anecdata.

I mean maybe if Republicans gave up on Abortion, Gay Rights/Marriage/LGB, and Donald Trump, then yeah. But I wouldn't hold my breath. And if you think marriage and children is a conservative pipeline, then I have a bridge to sell you in the Sahara. I know more Prog-Commies with kids or trying for kids than I know conservative men with kids. Turns out that conservative male politics outside of a religious community makes you unmarriageable to most normie women.

default preferences of college aged women

Square this fact with the Republican modal beliefs on women and tell me how they converge in the slightest.

And if you think marriage and children is a conservative pipeline

There is a gulf in voting preference between unmarried women and married women. Unmarried women are almost +50 D, married women are majority R. Looking at the stats from Pew it appears that getting married and having kids transforms a significant portion of women into Republicans. I get the opposite could be happening in that those women who already leaned R seek out marriage and children. But the first possible causal claim is defensible. Not some "selling you a bridge" obviously wrong idea.

Gay rights won and the problem with winning is you give people permission to move on. Abortion is dying for much the same reason. There's a way to go, but it doesn't seem as relevant as weapon for firing up the base as it was 10 years ago. The LGB(T) rights were unfortunately (genuinely, I consider it unfortunate) hitched to an engine that burned out and ultimately damaged the image of the people its advocates claimed to represent. People tired of it.

I know more Prog-Commies with kids or trying for kids than I know conservative men with kids. Turns out that conservative male politics outside of a religious community makes you unmarriageable to most normie women.

I don't think there are that many prog-commies in traditional sorority life. Maybe I'm wrong. I know a lot more progressives with kids than conservatives, too. Unless we expand the definition of conservative to not-progressive, in which case I know about the same, but this says more about my social circle than anything else. I live in a place where there's a lot more progressives than conservatives.

For marriage, I offer you this gallup article or this chart you can find inside it. As for children, you can go look up of TFR and partisanship how you'd prefer, but I think this article is takes a good at look at both:

In the United States, counties that supported Donald Trump for president in 2024 had significantly higher birth rates than counties that supported Kamala Harris, as a previous IFS study showed. The higher Trump’s margin of victory, the higher the birth rate. The 20% of counties where Trump had the highest margin had a total birth rate (TFR) of 1.76 (above the national average of 1.63 in 2024). The higher Harris’s margin of victory, the lower the birth rate. The top 20% of counties that voted for Harris had a TFR of 1.37.

My first claim was weak. I wrote, "sorority girls are overrepresented as GOP voters, give or take 5 years, compared to the rest of their demographic." It wouldn't take much to validate my weak claim, so let's see if there's some evidence for it.

Beyond the social benefits of Greek life, there are political benefits as well, and survey data from Real Clear Education reveals that Greek organizations are far more ideologically conservative than students in college generally, who are fairly left-of-center. The Real Clear data on Greek students reveals that 31 percent of men are liberal to some degree while 49 percent are conservative, and 20 percent are moderate.

Compared to men nationally – as informed by data collected by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) two years later – 49 percent of men on campus are liberal, 20 percent are moderate, and 31 percent are conservative. Conservative men do exist, and they concentrate in fraternities.

Sororities are more liberal: 56 percent of sorority women are liberal to some degree, but a quarter (24 percent) are conservative and a fifth (20 percent) are moderate. The national picture of women on campus is more skewed as 66 percent of college women are liberal to some degree, while another 16 percent are moderate and just 18 percent are conservative.

Young women in sororities, who identify as much more liberal than men identify as conservative, are more likely to vote GOP sometime in the future compared to women at your local prog-commie drum circle. They are in proximity to indicators that correlate with being more likely to vote GOP. Whether sororities are Republican voter generators, or one last bastion on campus for slightly more conservative men and women to congregate in socially desirable clubs I leave up to you. I'd call it important either way, for as long as the undergrad experience exists. Again, status conscious, conformist women in clubs with peers are more likely to be a little more conservative, more likely to get married, more likely to have kids-- these things matter. Today, the liberal young lady reigns supreme, but when the dust has settled and the white, liberal TFR comes to pay it'll be children of other women filling houses of debauchery. At a time where conservative cachet among the demographic is at an all time low, it might matter now more than ever. It doesn't mean Charlie Kirk is popular in a a given greek house.

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