site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

No! I'm happy that we allow Holocaust deniers or the (iirc) nazi pedophile from a while ago to post if they follow the rules. But that's the kind of comment I'd expect to see as a reply to iamyesyouareno on twitter, not one I want to see here.

nazi pedophile

That's a whole new kind of "mixed race and belongs in neither camp" lol

Chomos are the lowest of the low and I think the pedos think the same of 'nazis'

The Nazi paedophile was komm-nach-unteralterbach. And I'm not badmouthing him by saying that; this is his literal flair-text:

transhumanist libertAryan monarcho-pedo(anti-agecuck)fascist/natsoc + androsupremacist (unironic)

Unfortunately, he disabled search-by-poster.

Jesus wept. Just in case you happen to read this buddy, drop me a line, let's talk

Are you asking for a PM conversation with me, or KNU?

We would probably get along famously if you'd like to DM, but I was reaching out to KNU who seems like they could use a friend

If you don't like their opinion, you should argue about it and not try to censor it by trying to manipulate the rules. Personally, I am much more outraged about people's views excusing warcrimes that happen now than any of the view about 80 years ago.

On the specific issue, I have both a negative view of historical nazis, and the nazi derangement syndrome types who have excused all sort of extremism on the basis of antinazism and try to take the opposite extreme view. There really has been a problem with destructive extremism of American liberals and communists in general, including in their cooperation in the 1940s, but also how they behaved separately while the nazis are also a group that should be seen as a warcriminal group, and not as Europe's defenders.

If under someone's analysis Europeans on the long term would be even worse off with the liberals than if the nazis won WW2, that is an indictment of liberals, and doesn't wash out the crimes of the Nazis against european ethnic groups. However, I also don't think trying to ascertain that is illegitimate, or extreme. This isn't what the person you are replying with were about, since they had an one sided pro mid century german view, but censoring the discussion, also helps excuse the extremism of liberals.

If the rule by so caled liberals, leads to the destruction of Europeans, then that is something insanely negative about liberals, and how the post WW2 order evolved. That matters when talking about how valid the good vs evil narrative is, and how good USA, one of the victor of WW2 has been.

One way to understand how I'm not trying to censor is that I invited OP to make a more detailed and direct defense of whatever the nazis were doing.