site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 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.

opposing "it's okay to be white", which they are wholly justified in doing.

The Left does not believe that whites should be ashamed "for the color of their skin", but for the innumerable crimes they have committed against non-whites* in the 500 years since they set out from Europe to gain their globally advantageous position.

I think that the latter reduces to the former, in addition to baking in another problem and thus being even more objectionable.

Specifically, to get to "being white implies responsibility for all the crimes whites have committed" requires two premises:

  1. People can be held responsible for the actions of other people
  2. The relevant criterion to use for assessing such guilt is skin colour.

#2 must be skin colour (or other "racial" traits, but asking people to feel guilty for having e.g. thin lips or blond hair raises 100% of the same issues), not closeness of blood relation, as for any given white criminal (e.g. a slaveowner) there usually are some "non-white" people more closely related to him (e.g. the descendants of the bastards he sired by raping his slaves) than some white people.

And #1 is a whole other can of worms which most modern Westerners find barbaric.