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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026

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Going to jump in with what I want to see discussed:

Police and political leaders in Northern Ireland call for calm after Belfast knife attack.

What we know is that a MENA immigrant has attacked a native in the street, gouged out his eyes, and was attempting to behead him when stopped by passers-by.

Details beyond that seem shaky. I've seen the attacker described as Somali, though Sudanese is more consistent. I've seen the victim described as a man in his 40s, though 15-year old boy is also popular. And I've seen that the victim's life was saved, but also that he's perished in the hospital.

What's certain is that the major concern of the people in charge is, of course, that this is liable to upset the native population.

Perhaps that's more understandable than usual because of where it happened. Belfast! A storied town. Across twitter I see various historically-enemy paramilitary sympathizers calling to set aside their differences and unite against the common enemy; that it doesn't matter who controls Northern Ireland unless there's any such place left to save.

Last I heard, all major transport routes into and out of the city have been shut down, businesses are forced to close at 17:30, and curfews have been established. The place seems to be gearing up for major rioting.

Is it just me or have the straws been landing more heavily, lately, on the camel's back?

And, provided that the historically-armed underground belligerent factions of the area haven't withered into insignificance; provided that they do get serious about uniting and using force; might they serve as a template, or at least an inspiration, for other places?

I believe Kulak once predicted that the flashpoint for organized European resistance would happen in Northern Ireland.

I responded to FtttG here before realizing why there was so little action in that thread.

Tl;dr

  1. Fuck this guy. I hope he gets whatever punishment the law deems fit for a violent psychopath.
  2. It’s good that public figures are calling for calm. That is the most important part of their jobs.
  3. I realize that saying 2. automatically places me in the Leftist Shill category, and I don’t like that the discourse is so poisoned.
  4. Twitter delenda est.

Seriously, social media is probably the worst way to learn about public opinion. Unfortunately, most of the public which is opining probably got the idea through social media.

across twitter I see various historically-enemy paramilitary sympathizers calling to set aside their differences and unite against the common enemy

This is still pretty silly. If the IRA is plotting a cooperative pogrom, they’re not doing it on Twitter.

Is it just me or have the straws been landing more heavily, lately…

Just you. Belfast has a smaller total population than LA’s black population. In the 90s. I’m not expecting to see anything remotely on the scale of the ‘92 riots.

Kulak once predicted that the flashpoint for organized European resistance

Kulak predicts a lot of things. I don’t know that he’s been right yet. I’d take the other side of this bet.

Just you. Belfast has a smaller total population than LA’s black population. In the 90s. I’m not expecting to see anything remotely on the scale of the ‘92 riots.

I don't think that's what @TitaniumButterfly meant. I think by "straws breaking the camel's back" he was referring to acts of shocking, indiscriminate violence committed by supposed refugees and asylum seekers, not to riots which ensue in response.

I’m saying that if the LA riots didn’t represent a breaking point, the Belfast riots won’t, either. There’s not gonna be a kulak-approved Helter Skelter.

I am completely tired of this shit. Europe needs to take its lands back. I’m tired of it in America. If you were ever curious how pogroms happen then this is it, but I have a feeling in the past it was for far smaller infractions. A minority group then probably would have been smart enough to handle this guy first.

It feels to me like this is getting close to Catholic Just War theory. Your government won’t deal with this which would then devolve power down to the common man.

As someone who losts his home and some wealth to white flight I understand the anger.

Pogroms happen when the hated group is unable or unwilling to defend itself and the authorities are at least willing to look the other way. Neither condition holds here.

I don’t believe both conditions hold here. I do think the authorities some reason support immigration.

Which means the only real way to end immigration right now would be restarting The Troubles to force political change.

Europeans democratically vote for politicians who pursue pro-immigration policies. The immigration is, roughly speaking, the expression of Europeans' collective preference. One can make an argument that "they vote against immigration but get immigration anyway" - however, the reality is that if people consistently voted against immigration as one of their absolute upper-echelon top priorities, they would get politicians who actually stop immigration. This is because then it would become clear to politicians that being for immigration or running against immigration and then doing nothing about it means the end of a viable political career. I think that allowing mass unfiltered immigration of people from violent and backwards cultures is a very bad idea for Europe, but Europeans, as a group, do not vote like they see it as being critically important.

I believe that to fundamentally fix Europe's approach to immigration you would have to either change voters' minds or end democracy. I would much prefer the former, since in my view ending democracy to fix immigration would be replacing one major problem with another major problem.

It seems to me that representative democracy is quite capable of producing outcomes that the populace does not actually want.

The city of Minneapolis held a referendum on whether to abolish its police force. The referendum lost, unequivocally. Not even remotely a possibility of passing.

The same populace that voted overwhelmingly against a referendum to abolish the Minneapolis Police Department, elected a city council that is overwhelmingly in favor of abolishing the Minneapolis Police Department. This same populace also voted, in the same election, to reduce the powers of that city council and vest those powers in the office of the mayor, whose position on police abolition could be described as "are you fucking serious?", instead.

Despite anti-policing sentiment clearly not being a position that can win democratically, the city is nevertheless governed by an anti-police city council, and is still recovering from anti-policing riots that dealt over half a billion dollars in damages to homes and businesses.

I have no trouble believing that Europe could elect politicians who proceed to pass policies that would never win as referendums, or that devastating riots could emerge from a minority sentiment.

Yes, but mass immigration has been a problem for at least a decade now in Europe. By this point, European populations have had plenty of time to hold politicians' feet to the fire electorally and ensure that they actually curb immigration.

Manipulation of procedural outcomes is quite powerful, but it is not infinitely powerful. Because its power is based on exception, it is utterly dependent on the basic reality exception deviates from. Manipulators of procedural outcomes defect against those cooperating with the construction and maintenance of procedure; without sturdy norms to defect against, they would have no leverage with which to generate and wield meaningful power.

People want results. The problem with setting up a system specifically tailored to deny them the results they desire is that no matter how many convolutions you generate between what they want and what you're giving them, sooner or later they figure out that you are, in fact, part of the system, and thus one of the variables subject to modification in pursuit of a better future.

Democracy, like Free Speech, is a spook.

Europeans democratically vote for politicians who pursue pro-immigration policies.

When the EU was up for a vote, it lost many times across many countries. They kept having votes until it won.

Why did it ever eventually win?

Why is the moon full?

UK did vote for Brexxit and got immigration anyway. There is also a huge chunk of the populace that is now foreign born. A hecklers veto type thing would still seem to be possible as in the native Brit’s become ungovernable. I would guess 30% of Europe or close to it are very anti-immigration.

As to No immigration or Democracy I will gladly side with No Immigration. Dictatorship just isn’t that bad and it’s mostly American propaganda that makes you fear it.

however, the reality is that if people consistently voted against immigration as one of their absolute upper-echelon top priorities, they would get politicians who actually stop immigration.

"If you voted harder, you'd get $thing" does not support the argument for "$opppsite_of_thing is the expression of collective preference".

Also, it's not a "reality". A politician promising to deliver you something as the absolute top priority can still do the opposite, as they often do.

In a morbid coincidence, this happened the same week that the trial for Riad Bouchaker began in Dublin. Bouchaker, you'll recall, was an Algerian man who stabbed a female schoolteacher and two of her pupils in Parnell Square, prompting a riot which brought the city centre to a standstill for one night. Bouchaker inflicted injuries on at least one of the pupils which were described as life-altering.

A MENA man, entirely without provocation, stabs a native citizen in a large Irish city and inflicts injuries serious enough to permanently change the course of their life. He's apprehended. The same week his trial begins, a different MENA man, entirely without provocation, stabs a native citizen in a large Irish city and inflicts injuries serious enough to permanently change the course of their life. He's apprehended. The same week his trial begins...

one count of the production of a knife.

Do you need a loicense to sharpen metal in Ireland or is this "production" in the sense of "brandishing"?

I think the latter.

MENA

Somali, Sudanese

Nitpick, that's not MENA, that's black African.

I believe Kulak once predicted that the flashpoint for organized European resistance would happen in Northern Ireland.

So sad this happened but it's a natural consequence of the white man's listening deficiency and their immigration policy. White people will do nothing, as always. There are men in the right wing that should probably be running white civilization who post on X from the Bahamas instead because white people insist on cultural communism instead where the lowest, dumbest, most immature whites get a vote equal to classicist philosophers and race scientists. This obviously naturally leads to the immigration policy we see, and it won't stop until the deep rot in the white race is addressed. But that will require being eaten up by the immigrants first, most likely. Unless AI simply ends history.

There are men in the right wing that should probably be running white civilization who post on X from the Bahamas instead because white people insist on cultural communism instead where the lowest, dumbest, most immature whites get a vote equal to classicist philosophers and race scientists.

Antiracism is probably positively correlated with IQ, and lower class people are likely less antiracist in part because they're less likely to go to college.

I think there's a nonlinear effect, and well-educated, manly 140+ IQ people will all be scientific racists, while 120 IQ striver urban midwits will be anti-racist. The latter rule in the name of the rabble, and you are seeing the consequence of that.

I thought the Sudanese were primarily Arab?

The secession @ToaKraka is talking about was directly about the ethnic makeup. The Sudanese government, controlled from the north, was orienting itself explicitly towards being an Arab-dominated Muslim state, and the southern Sudanese, who are largely black, were not happy with this. The south seceeded with the implicit support of the US; Salva Kiir, the country's first president, took a liking to George W., and wears a stetson everywhere because W. gave him one as a gift.

After the secession the militant government descended immediately into civil war and ethnic cleansing; South Sudan is not a great place to live.

Sudan-Sudan, the northern country, is 70% Sudanese Arab and is dominated by Arab culture. South Sudan is overwhelmingly black, but split between different ethnic groups, the largest of which is the Dinka.

"Sudanese" as an ethnic marker refers generally to Sudanese Arabs, who identify as Arab and are descendents of Arab traders and local African tribes.

Thanks for the rundown. Curious which part of the country this guy was from. From the video I saw he looked black, rather than Arab.

No, look up photos of Sudanese people.

There's no need to be so hostile, Wikipedia reports that the country is 70% Arab.

I wasn't being hostile. Your same article says 40% Arab if you include both Sudan states, which I am guessing is an overestimate. Somalian or Sudanese indicates he was black regardless.

In the parallel universe of Sudan, Arabs and black people look exactly the same

According to Wikipedia, the country was majority-black (as suggested by the name) historically, but became majority-Arab in 2011 when South Sudan seceded and took a lot of blacks with it.

It would be interesting if the provos and loyalists decide to put aside their differences in recognition of their common enemy (globohomo and third-world immigration imposed upon them from on high)

and then history repeats itself when Downing St sends in the troops to put down the insurrection, only this time they're shooting Protestants and Catholics.

at that point what does 'loaylist' mean?

I studied history in secondary school and had an entire module about the Troubles. My teacher was himself a Northern Irish Protestant, and he noted to us the curious fact that, even though Unionists consider themselves British and want Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK, most of them tend to have a visceral hatred of English people. Admittedly, Northern Irish Protestants are disproportionately of Scottish descent, and even Scots who are opposed to Scottish independence tend not to be too keen on English people.

I don't necessarily see any conflict between "there are too many of the wrong sort of immigrant in this country and I'm willing to fight against the British military in order to get that point across, but I still think Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK." No different, really, from American militiamen who are willing to fight against the federal government (because they think it's been usurped from within) but nonetheless consider themselves fiercely patriotic Americans.

most of them tend to have a visceral hatred of English people.

I just don't think that's true. I am an Ulster Scots Northern Irishman and we have many English relatives. Half my extended family moved to England and married English people. Maybe a very mild dislike of Southern posh English people but we get on very well with Northerners.

I've never even met a Protestant Ulsterman who mentioned hating the English. Certainly not a visceral hatred.

The real (Norn) Irony here is that many Northern Irish Catholics call my people immigrants/colonizers/invaders and condemn us for the violent actions of say Lenny Murphy and the like (or Britain in general) while leaning left and thus being more lenient towards the more recent Sudanese immigrant. While my people who are in fact themselves literal violent invaders/colonizers are harsher to the Sudanese, but don't see the same logic also applies to us. If this Sudanese murderer means we should treat Sudanese people differently then Lenny Murphy and the like indicate that Catholics are in fact correct to want us gone/out of power as well. You either have collective guilt/treatment or you don't. Nothing here is driven by logic or rationality.

It's an Ulster-Scots kettle calling the Sudanese pot black (so to speak). While likewise the Catholics are more tolerant of this chap and similar immigrants than of my type and similar immigrants. It's topsy-turvy, all built around tribal lines.

Still this chap is likely to get knifed in prison or have boiling sugar water thrown over him by a wee fella from Antrim sooner or later.

I'll take your word for it. I only know a handful of people from up north, and it wouldn't surprise me if my secondary school teacher's perspective was unrepresentative or inaccurate. He was a bit of an oddball.

The real (Norn) Irony

Nice.

The fun little wrinkle here is that Irish Nationalism, like Palestinian Nationalism, is a left-wing ideology. Conceivably we could see a similar progression to what happened in Palestine, where the historical champions of the nationalist cause lose legitimacy and are replaced by a more explicitly religious right-wing resistance front.

As I understand it, the loyalist paramilitaries have turned into something like truly outlaw biker gangs in the USA- they aren't particularly religious or nationalist anymore, despite the exclusionary membership rules, and more exist to skirt the edges to society, dabble in organized crime, etc- and that the non-actual-hard-communist branches of the IRA are now more or less totally defunct, the 'real IRA' and continuity IRA are tiny fringe groups mostly made up of true believers in the hardcore versions of extreme lefty ideologies.