site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   23889 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 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.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I can give you a very loose overview but I'm fuzzy on the details.

So remember that Poland was a Soviet puppet state until 1989. When they were democratizing they sort of set aside the issue of judicial appointments and kept the Soviet era judges on. Judicial rulings just hadn't been very important and they had a lot of things to sort out.

In the 90s the judges solved the appointment issue by deciding that future judges would be chosen by current judges.

Now it's important to remember that judges serve for life and people live a long time these days. eg Parler was shut down by Amazon in 2020 and had to go before a judge appointed by Jimmy Carter when they tried to get an injunction.

So in 2015 the right wing PiS government wanted to bring some democratic representation / accountability into the appointment process. And also appoint some right leaning judges, obviously.

There have been disputes since. Tusk says that the PiS appointed judges are illegitimate, President Nawrocki has refused to swear in recent nominations from the Tusk lead parliament. Tusk says that doesn't matter.

So there's a crisis of legitimacy for the courts.

This is kicking off now because the EU wants it's eastern nations to be fully on board for war with Russia. Tusk is heavily EU aligned.

This is kicking off now because the EU wants it's eastern nations to be fully on board for war with Russia.

Huh? Isn't PiS anti-Russian to the point they were the butt of jokes about it literally right up until the war?

Prior to Trump, we probably would have said the same about the US GOP, too. It could easily turn out that right-wingers in Poland just end up culturally affiliated with Russia.

Sure, in the same sense that it could easily turn out the EU is actually pro Russia now. Like, it's not logically impossible, so it could happen, but I think a better argument than "it could happen" is required.

The pattern I am obviously suggesting is a right wing cultural affinity for the clearly conservative Russia, which would not apply to the liberal EU.

They seem quite friendly with clearly conservative Muslims, Russians are positively liberal by comparison.

Fair point, but surely we both immediately understand this as just an outgroup phenomenon. They are too foreign to count.

I'm not sure I agree, given how many Muslims now live in Europe, I'd say they're, if anything, less foreign. What Russians do is Russia is no skin off a European liberal's nose, while they actually have to deal with, say, Muslim attacks on gay pride parades. What's more, it's not even that long ago that Europe was more pro-Russia, at least relatively. It was even pro-Russia relative to Trump (like... who do you think it was that built these Nord Stream pipelines?).

Now, I'm not saying that kind of flip is impossible, all is fair and love and war, and in politics allegiances change. From what I understand you can even see the right-wing pro-Russia shift slowly taking place as boomers die off, the thing is it's happening by way of a more extreme party slowly gaining voter share, not by flipping PiS from the inside. So given the history of the party, and given the history of the European establishment, this all just comes off as some advanced projection coupled with "we have always been at war with East-Asia".

Hmm, I guess we agree to disagree then. Muslims, to Western conservatives, would be a huge component of the threat to the homeland culture they are trying to preserve. Leftists would not care about this, and supporting Muslims goes straight to the fundamental ideal of diversity/tolerance, somewhat overriding the opposition to Muslims’ generally more restrictive beliefs. This is all enhanced by conservatives generally being pro-Christianity and liberals just outgrouping Islam.

Liberals might be more offended than conservatives about, say, women’s rights in Muslim countries, but they care far less about Muslim culture in the West, especially since there are so many famous examples of Muslims assimilating fairly well into American consumerism (eg the Kardashians). I realize that Poland is not exactly Western.

More comments

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