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.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I responded to FtttG here before realizing why there was so little action in that thread.
Tl;dr
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.
This is still pretty silly. If the IRA is plotting a cooperative pogrom, they’re not doing it on Twitter.
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 predicts a lot of things. I don’t know that he’s been right yet. I’d take the other side of this bet.
With respect, I think you are falling into the centrist trap. Twitter isn't radicalising people. All the horrible murders are radicalising people. Twitter is merely declining to censor them afterwards.
Again, it's not about the discourse, it's about the horrible murders. I don't think you're a leftist shill but I think you are okay, fundamentally, with this kind of thing happening. That doesn't mean that you wouldn't fix it if you could snap your fingers and magically prevent all horrible murders, but ultimately you seem to prefer all the horrible murders to any of the things that would prevent the horrible murders.
If "calling for calm" means "calmly discussing how we are going to begin repatriating these people" then that's fair enough, but otherwise "it's good that politicians are calling for calm" does absolutely translate to "I want you to sit down and do nothing". That's not a discourse thing. That's a basic divergence of political preferences.
Well, horrible murders of whites are radicalizing other whites. I don't care about horrible cartel killings, and I presume you don't either (well, I suppose (royal)you and I might "care" in the way you accuse netstack of "caring" about the Belfast murder).
"These people" might mean criminal and illegal migrants, the recent crop of migrants in general, all Sudanese, or even all nons. I can absolutely understand why a non-white person, or anyone who cares about non-whites and is familiar with the dissident right's rhetoric, might prefer to weather the current storm rather than concede the field and risk the chance of the DR going the distance with the Overton Window. After all, what comes after reclaiming your lands if not seizing theirs in kind?
Why would you assume it's about race? There have been minorities in Britain for centuries. There have not been not been horrible and prolific murders and rapes in Britain like this. Nobody cared about minorities when they acted British and identified as British and cared about British people and their values.
I don't care much about horrible cartel killings in practice (though I do in a theoretical sense) because they're not happening around me. But if a cartel murdered the family next door to me, I would care very very much. And I would not care whatsoever what race the victims were, I would care about the proximity and the threat to me and my friends and family. And I would advocate radical anti-cartel policies that did whatever they needed to and broke whatever they had to in order to get me safe.
People are selfish much more than they're inherently racist. If people feel like they need to deport or ostracize everyone of a certain race because that is the only or the most effective way to protect themselves then they'll suck it up and accept being racist. The key to actually helping sympathetic and non-murderous minorities is to clearly and unambiguously differentiate them from the murderous one. If you have a sane and careful immigration policy which tests the temperament, reputation, and civic-mindedness of potential immigrants and only lets in ones that want to integrate into their new home and actually make it their home, then those immigrants will not stand out from the native population. They might visually be distinguishable, but nobody will care because their behavior and safety won't meaningfully differ from white people. If you let in one million sane and civilized immigrants and one million looters, scammers, and murderers of the same race then people will become racist to protect themselves from the 50% chance that any minority they meet might be a looter/scammer/murderer.
This can easily be seen by the fact that racism is targeted specifically towards minorities with high crime rates and not others. Nobody really goes around trying to harass or deport the Japanese minorities. This is not a coincidence. Fix the crime and the racism goes away for free.
Why does something have to come after? Most people just want their homes and their friends and family to be safe. Even if the most radical of the right might be true racists who want to conquer the world in the name of Whiteness, as soon as the majority of sane people feel safe the radical right who try to push for wars of conquest will lose their support and things will return to normal.
Ah yes, they've been here from the start.
Until 1948, Britain's non-European population was effectively zero. Sure, you can find isolated individual's like Henry VIII's trumpeter or whatever, but to jump from that to claiming 'there have been minorities in Britain for centuries' is just motte and baileying.
Otherwise you're right. People are very good at telling good immigrants from bad ones. The state, unfortunately, is not.
The amount of times people use historical anecdotes along the lines of 'A person of moderate Arabic complexion rocked up in court one day, the entire country came to look upon this oddity as they had never ever seen the like of it in many many years and it was the talk of the town for the next 20 years' as proof of dark people being in Northern Europe is kinda hilarious.
My dad is about the color of Tom Jones (and of Isles ancestry for atleast the last 2-300 years) and growing up in Northern England in the 1950s he used to routinely be called the N-Word and referred to as if he were the darkest person in the world. And this was a major port town after the empire had already happened.
Yep, Marco Polo in China means that white people were ALWAYS there. They're completely acclimatised to whites. Never mind hordes of Chinese adults coming to touch your blonde kid's hair when you visit Beijing.
I've been to Beijing. They are so used to white people that they don't care and don't want to touch your hair. Maybe decades ago they were like that.
Beijing/Shanghai don't give a shit but when I visit even more industrial second tiers as a tall blonde I get asked for photos a ton by passerbys.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link