site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 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.

2
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You would want to punish whichever party started the war even if both parties were equally likely to have started the war; if you cause either party to lose then it will result in a “lesson” about instigating conflict even 50 or 100 years down the road. Unlike the Trump admin, I think the Iranian leaders actually care about the longterm good of their particular people / nation, so they consider how to secure benefits for their group long after they are individually gone, as opposed to falling into the nihilistic “we are all going to die anyway” boomer-death-spiral ideology (something I also hear from the boomers in my own life). But with that said, the Republicans have tied themselves at the neck to Israel, so Iran has a clear interest in making them lose for this reason alone apart from concerns about war continuation; there’s more than just the war per se, there’s “I don’t want America to give a bajillion bombs to Israel for free” which is the Republican plan.

My point is that the parties are equally beholden to Israel, which is very different from being equally likely to have started the war. If they were just both ideologically neoconservative, you could train them to be anti-war that way, but it's well established that they care more about pleasing Israel than they do about winning elections, so the midterms are a nonentity to them.

They would rather have their pro-Israel opposition in charge of Congress than enact a not-pro-Israel policy themselves.