site banner
PaperclipPerfector  15hr ago (text post)   2263 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 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.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Washington Post v. Karen Attiah

An arbitrator has asked and answered:

Did The Washington Post have good and sufficient cause to terminate the employment of the Grievant, Karen Attiah? If not, what will the remedy be?

As remedy for its violation of the CBA, The Post is ordered to reinstate the Grievant and make the Grievant whole, including full backpay and lost benefits.

Mrs. Attiah is the Washington Post writer who rather famously and falsely claimed that Charlie Kirk had said "Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously" in the immediate aftermath of Kirk's murder. I was going to say ex-, but that's not the case anymore. It's now established rule that the Washington Post can not fire someone merely for dancing publicly in the blood of a recently murdered man to disparage people on the basis of race and gender, and making false claims while doing so.

In this case, at least.

There's a legal formalist perspective where this is defensible. The Post may have included all of Attiah's post-shooting posts in the strict text of the termination letter, but they only quoted a couple posts, so maybe the arbitrator felt that the rest weren't sufficiently plead. Though she does spend enough time to repeat, without noting as false, the false attribution of the quote to a dead man. The Post did argue 'security concerns' at length, and the extent that rhymes with a heckler's veto isn't a great policy matter to rest on. The comparisons to Dave "Ratfucker" Weigel and a random contractor not covered by the stated policies might be pretty nakedly different conduct given context, but perhaps if you squint hard enough and there's no other comparisons, you get stuck with the bad approximations. Attiah isn't a government employee, but she is a union one, so as tempting as the obvious Damore comparisons get, they do have limits.

But it's still the floor, now.

As best I can tell from reading the decision the incorrect quote of Kirk didn't come up in the firing context at all. There were two posts cited to, allegedly because they disparaged white men on the basis of gender or race, but the arbitrator ruled that was not supportable by reference to the post themselves (Page 30, Section C The Record Does Not Establish That the Grievant Disparaged White Men). The posts themselves are:

Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is … not the same as violence

Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.

As a white man myself, I don't feel disparaged by either post.

The only other basis given for the firing was the alleged security threat due to other people threatening Attiah for her posts on the topic. I generally think it would be a bad precedent to set that you can get fired because other people communicate threats against you. If people had sent threats to Google over Damore, would they have been more justified in firing him?

More generally, I think this illustrates the advantage of having a union! If there wasn't a CBA I'm skeptical Attiah would have won a more general employment discrimination lawsuit from this set of facts.

As best I can tell from reading the decision the incorrect quote of Kirk didn't come up in the firing context at all.

The termination letter gives examples that don't include the incorrect quote; the strict text of "Your public comments on social media regarding the death of Charlie Kirk" do.

As a white man myself, I don't feel disparaged by either post.

That's nice, but the test is not traditionally resolved by finding one person with thick skin.

The only other basis given for the firing was the alleged security threat due to other people threatening Attiah for her posts on the topic. I generally think it would be a bad precedent to set that you can get fired because other people communicate threats against you.

Fair, and agreed.

More generally, I think this illustrates the advantage of having a union!

I think it illustrates the advantage of having a union for Attiah. Even in the rare winnable case for a conservative, there's limited way to get the union involved or punish it where it encouraged the unlawful firing, short of winning the case first (and sometimes not even then).

As a white man myself, I don't feel disparaged by either post.

I mean, I don't feel disparaged as such, I regard this kind of thing as so infantile that it's trivially beneath my notice. Attiah is so obviously an idiot that it's a waste for me to even take offense. But this kind of rhetoric is all part of a "Radio Rwanda" dehumanization campaign. It's all rooted in extreme racism against whites. Which is why, in the first place, she can't just say "a man who espoused violence," she has to emphasize his racial identity, she has to establish that he's white: What Kind of Man Is He?!? A White Man! It's really simply plain racism. Again notice her problem with America -- it's not that America "performs care" for people "who espouse hatred and violence", the problem is that America is too nice to white men! The implication is either that she wouldn't have a problem if espousing hatred was done by non-whites, or she doesn't consider it to be a problem in the first place. (Non-whites espousing hatred and violence is just a hypothetical.)

Notably, if I said something similar it would be understood as inflammatory (in a way that doesn't even add anything worth discussing). The problem with America is its insistent on catering to black men who practice violence and hatred... see what I mean

I'm not really going to get offended by this stuff, but I do take offense. How else am I supposed to react? She clearly wants to disrespect me, that's worth less than caring what she has to think but worth more than acting as if I don't know what she's really saying.

The implication is either that she wouldn't have a problem if espousing hatred was done by non-whites, or she doesn't consider it to be a problem in the first place. (Non-whites espousing hatred and violence is just a hypothetical.

I'm sure if I dig into this person's post history or knew their views I would find them despicable but this simply doesn't follow from the above quote. There is a more charitable, and I honestly think in this case correct, reading that she views it as a hypocrisy because she, incorrectly, believes that America would not expect people "tear [their] clothes and smear ashes on [their] faces in performative mourning for a [black] man that espoused violence"

Which is why, in the first place, she can't just say "a man who espoused violence," she has to emphasize his racial identity, she has to establish that he's white: What Kind of Man Is He?!? A White Man! It's really simply plain racism.

Would you say the same to right-wingers who complain about the race and national background of criminals/suspects being left out when they belong to a left-favoured group? Because this complaint really just looks like plain old culture war stuff that both sides run on to me: make bad acts by the outgroup and good acts by the ingroup stick, but insist on individuality for the converse.

  1. Right-wingers generally know they’re racist

  2. Right-wingers are in fact held to such high standards that extremely careful and specific claims are treated with extreme prejudice. (See John Derbyshire being fired from his op-ed job.)

  3. Attiah is not making a careful remark at all. She is bringing race into something that was not racial at all (a white conservative getting shot by a white man). She’s doing this so she can inflame the situation, but also because she’s extremely stupid.

  4. Attiah wants to say this because she has animus against white people. Even a lot of right-wing commentary doesn’t pass this threshold (and a lot of it does — but you won’t see it at the Washington Post). The point is that Attiah is given a national platform to say, basically, we need to disenfranchise white people.

  5. And, yes, of course it’s about the outgroup. It’s really simple: Attiah is saying out loud that I am in her outgroup, and she intends to be in mine. Ok then! No need to make it more complicated than that. I’m not going to go out of my way to hold her to a higher or lower standard than I hold myself, because I don’t degrade myself like that for other people, but it’s not about standards at all: she hates me no matter what standards I have.

Well, the author in question (in an actual article) did make some comments structured similarly about black women. From page 25/26 of the arbitration PDF:

Ms. Attiah herself routinely wrote about the way in which race influences the discourse around politics and violence. Indeed, the Post published her column in 2024 under a headline chosen by her editors: “Harris and Black women are face of Biden administration’s ugly Gaza policy.” The piece was highly critical of “Black women,” stating, among other things, “Black women are both enforcing U.S. complicity in this atrocity and attempting to soften its appearance.”

Is it racist against black women to describe them as "enforcing U.S. complicity in [an] atrocity?"

These are categorically different remarks.

The comment about white men is that society does too much for them. Whiteness is emphasized above and beyond Charlie Kirk and made into a general tendency that needs to be changed.

The comment about black women is that they should know better. The author literally proclaims that black sacrifice “lent an air of moral authority” to the Biden administration’s actions.

It’s really obvious: white violence is extra bad because white men are evil; black violence is extra bad because black women are supposed to be good.

white violence is extra bad because white men are evil

I think the point is more "feeling bad about violence against white men is superfluous, because white men are privileged".

Do you think this is a just outcome for this incident?

If you think this is a just outcome, are you comfortable with people generalizing the logic behind this outcome into a set of rules you will then accept living under?

If this is an example of what Unions can achieve, I am even less interested in allowing unions to continue existing than I was previously.

My predictions were logged long ago that I think violence is going to increase. When it does, I intend to quote this post and the context it references back to you, to the letter.

are you comfortable with people generalizing the logic behind this outcome into a set of rules you will then accept living under?

The general logic that contractually agreed upon terms should be followed by employers is very comfortable to me personally.

My predictions were logged long ago that I think violence is going to increase. When it does, I intend to quote this post and the context it references back to you, to the letter.

Your predictions have been logged long enough to have been proven wrong. Violence has decreased broadly since the pandemic. I imagine you'll point towards the two attempted Trump assassinations and Charlie Kirk, but I'm unconvinced this is out of the ordinary for a particularly controversial political figure.

Are you willing to make any actual falsifiable predictions on any kind of timeline? You all predicted riots and burning and political violence after the Roe V. Wade repeal, after the 2024 elections, after pretty much every red tribe victory. And just like your predictions about the coming 1,000 year Christian Nationalist Reich in the wake of the 2024 election, you've been categorically wrong. What is it you all like to say? The demand for political violence outstrips supply?

I first read you predicting catastrophic political violence and the disintegration of American society 6 years ago on reddit, and I'm still here in 2026 reading it after none of these things have come to pass.

I imagine you'll point towards the two attempted Trump assassinations and Charlie Kirk, but I'm unconvinced this is out of the ordinary for a particularly controversial political figure.

I would also point to the popular reaction to the murder of Kirk and the attempts to murder Trump within Blue Tribe, and how these reactions compare to Blue Tribe's previous positions on how speech should be policed. I'll point to the endemic calls for the assassination of Musk, the organized vandalism and arson campaigns against Tesla dealerships and even (IIRC) individuals' personally-owned vehicles, and how major national politicians winked and nodded along rather than taking a stand against their mob. I'll point to Mangione's killing of the United Health CEO, and the obscene public reaction to the killing from grassroots Blues generally. I'll point to the continued Anti-ICE rioting and intimidation campaign, culminating in the shooting deaths of Good and Pretti, and how the discourse rolled out of those two shootings. I'll point to the evident entrenched denial of basic civil rights in Blue strongholds in the Pacific Northwest, where organized gangs of thugs abuse disfavored religious and political minorities while the authorities pointedly refuse to intervene unless it is to protect those thugs from reprisal. I would point to the Kamloops graves scam and the subsequent rash of church arsons. I'd point to church invasions being pushed as a "protest" tactic, and the apparent reluctance to enforce black-letter federal law against such tactics. I'll point to the ascendence of the DSA types within the Democrat Party, and the complicity of their leaders and influencers in all of these problems and many more besides.

I'll also point out that the arguments made in an attempt to keep a lid on these things are deployed when convenient, but cannot be undeployed when desired. We're Wrenching, here: it was very important that we address "right wing extremism" when a campaign ad put a crosshair on a congressperson's district and then she was publicly shot, or when it was obviously necessary to purge Red Tribers from every major social media platform, and we debated those ideas here at length. Now it's very important that we remember that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me, and the very idea of policing public expressions of murderous pseudo-ethnic hatred is beyond the pale because muh freeze peach. Maybe some people still take these arguments seriously; there's a sucker born every minute, after all. For those who have more memory than a goldfish, though, it seems to me that the ability of these arguments to moderate conflict simply goes away and never comes back. Certainly it ought to.

You all predicted riots and burning and political violence after the Roe V. Wade repeal, after the 2024 elections, after pretty much every red tribe victory.

I am not a plurality, and I'm pretty sure I didn't predict riots and political violence specifically after Roe V. Wade appeal, much less a 1,000 year Christian Reich. I have predicted that the violence is going to get worse, and it seems to me that it is getting worse. You can admit it or not, but there is now a faction inside the Overton window that is explicitly endorsing murder as a viable political tactic, not in some hypothetical, abstract future but specifically in reference to actual murders and attempted murders that have actually happened. You can, as some here do, pretend that this is not a serious problem, right up until it's your champions catching bullets. And when that happens, what will you say when Blues here discuss how grassroots political extremism and popular support for murder as a political solution is a problem, actually, and I reply exclusively with @magicalkittycat quotes?

I first read you predicting catastrophic political violence and the disintegration of American society 6 years ago on reddit, and I'm still here in 2026 reading it after none of these things have come to pass.

There's a lot of ruin in a nation, but it appears to me that the trend is consistent, and as noted above, you appear to be ignoring a whole lot of the stuff you argue isn't happening. Conflict resolution mechanisms continue to degrade, conflict continues to escalate. Race relations are much worse now than they were ten years ago, in ways that appear to me strongly resistant to the standard liberal arguments for comity and toleration. Tribal relations are much worse now than they were ten years ago, again in ways that liberalism has no real answer for. The Democratic party is now entering its own political civil war between a corrupt relatively-centrist establishment and grassroots ideological extremists, which will be actualized in the upcoming elections and in the policy consequences of those elections. I do not think that this will result in an increased likelihood of peace and prosperity for all, but I'm ready to stand corrected.

I imagine you'll point towards the two attempted Trump assassinations and Charlie Kirk, but I'm unconvinced this is out of the ordinary for a particularly controversial political figure.

I'm somewhat on the fence about Trump (I can't remember any president in my lifetime having actual assassination attempts, however controversial, but presidents have been assassinated before so it's at least not unheard of), but Kirk? No way. It's completely out of the ordinary, hell, completely unheard of as far as I know, for people to go out and murder a political commentator. No matter how reviled that commentator is.

There was the radio guy murdered by neo Nazis

Violence has decreased broadly since the pandemic.

Murders have decreased, but political violence has increased.

You all predicted riots and burning and political violence after the Roe V. Wade repeal

Nicholas Roske, was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home in June 2022 carrying a gun, knife, and burglary tools. He later admitted he intended to kill Kavanaugh

Crisis pregnancy centers (anti-abortion counseling centers) were vandalized or firebombed

Nationwide protests occurred after the decision. State police in Arizona had to deploy tear gas to disperse rioters. LA police did same. More pregnancy centers were attacked.

The left, broadly, killed the most popular young conservative in America that was the head of the movement.

The left, broadly, have come within an inch of killing a sitting President.

Until the day I die, I will read comments like yours and remember not only those two actions but the constant riots over the last several years over police shootings and well whatever, we don’t have to detail the post Covid collapse of civil society.

Yea - the right did Jan 6th … whoopty doo.

I understand society hasn’t collapsed, but if it does, it’ll come from whatever in the hell is happening to the left, here in the US, and abroad, with our European allies.

Maybe Japan and SKorea will be courageous enough to save us this time.

Was Kirk actually that load-bearing? This is one of those bubble things, maybe, but I never thought he was all that influential. Jordan Peterson seemed to have more pull. The big church groups had more sway than anyone. This was in the Midwest.

Bubble or not, I really disagree that “the left, broadly” did either of those things. A leftist murdered Kirk; a random asshole tried to kill Trump. Blaming “the left” is about as solid as hand-wringing about stochastic terrorism. I believe in individual responsibility.

I don't think "load-bearing" is quite the right word, but at the same time I don't think our resident norms-enjoying Democrats and anti-MAGA Republicans truly appreciate just how badly their reactions to his killing (be that open celebration of it, attempts to downplay it, or Norm McDonald-esque worries about potential blowback) played outside their liberal technocratic bubble.

AIUI, his ground game among young voters was considered very important, but in a way that wasn't really appreciated openly until after his loss.

Blaming “the left” is about as solid as hand-wringing about stochastic terrorism. I believe in individual responsibility.

We handwrung about stochastic terrorism for the better part of a decade. Federal and national corporate policies covering vast swathes of our lives were set, and large amounts of meanness coordinated, based on arguments fairly summarized as "handwringing over stochastic terrorism". "Hostile environment" law and policy was and is given force of law based on arguments significantly weaker than "handwringing over stochastic terrorism."

I believe that you believe in individual responsibility. But you could not actually coordinate a consensus around "individual responsibility" before, and to the extent that "individual responsibility" carries the day in the current circumstance, it will be because that is the argument of maximal convenience to Blue Tribe at this moment. This will have consequences, and those consequences will be profoundly degenerate in obviously-foreseeable ways, chief among them that you, personally, are in this moment losing the ability to ever argue the contrary position persuasively ever again, regardless of future circumstances.

I mostly don't write effort posts lately, I've been too busy working on art and raising kiddoes. But one of the ones that languishes in my drafts folder is "Arguments we can have in advance", situations where it is extremely easy to model how the current conversation will evolve given likely future events. This is one of the big conversations we can have in advance. It seems to me that people really ought to give it a try, while there is still the present amount of unburned charity.

What did you think unions protecting their employees meant? Vibes, papers, essays?

Anyways, an opinion writer winning in arbitration with a private company is hardly the most egregious example of union bullshit.

"Our estimates imply that collective bargaining rights led to a substantial increase in violent incidents of misconduct among sheriffs’ offices, relative to police departments."

Do you think this is a just outcome for this incident?

I think the arbitrator makes a compelling case.

If you think this is a just outcome, are you comfortable with people generalizing the logic behind this outcome into a set of rules you will then accept living under?

I am not even sure what this means. I expect we disagree about what the rules are here that you are suggesting generalizing.

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