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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I actually think these statistics are relatively difficult to get access to- the 2021 Census a) missed the large numbers of people who arrived 2021-2024 and b) almost certainly vastly undercounted. Roughly 3 million people have arrived in the country Jan 2021-Dec 2023 according to migration observatory, and most of these arrivals won't feature in the Census data, plus whatever the 2024 numbers are. The census estimated 1.9m Indians living in the UK in 2021. Between 2021-2023, the official preliminary numbers estimated 670,000 Indian nationals arrived on long term visas. Adding in people overstaying short term visas, plus the 2024 numbers, and 1 million total Indian arrivals since the Census took place looks reasonable. My 95% confidence interval for Indians in the UK would be 2.75m-3.5m, as I have no idea what the potential undercount might be. This doesn't include Sri Lankans, Nepalese, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis but does include 2nd and 3rd gens ticking the Indian ethnicity box.
Going just off the primary language census data (with the caveats noted above), Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi and Tamil speakers have seen the largest proportional increases since 2011. So mostly South Indians/Dravidians. The established languages have all either plateaued (Punjabi, Urdu) or fallen (Bengali, Gujarati) which probably reflects the maturation of these groups as their 2nd gen offspring use English as a main language. Of course Bengali, Urdu and Punjabi speakers are probably mostly of Bangladeshi or Pakistani origin.
I repeat that, anecdotally, very recent Indian migration in particular seems to heavily skew towards men. This might be a feature of where I live rather than for the whole of the UK. I can't find any stats to back this up, especially as trying to make estimates that don't factor in the 1m post-census arrivals would be redundant.
Whereabouts do you live? You’re probably correct but I wonder if it’s balanced out by large numbers of female NHS etc workers now that Filipinos and Poles are being joined by both Nigerians and Indians in larger numbers.
Quite possible, I live in one of the nice but not elite areas of zone 2. Demographically speaking it is probably similar to the other nicer parts of inner London, low in white British but relatively high in general white population via Americans/Europeans, more (2nd gen/upper class) Indians and Chinese than Pakistanis/Bangladeshis etc. My exposure to the recent arrivals then are mostly through service job interactions and the swathes of food delivery couriers, and the tube. I have practically 0 interaction with the NHS, so this could be correct. Nigerians I think are almost certainly more balanced demographically. Given the huge changes in HMO licensing and rental patterns, I don't think that these new mostly male Indian arrivals have wives or girlfriends at home, but rather live 8 to a flat with other single 20-something men. A lot of the time the landlords for these properties are themselves upper class and/or 2nd gen Indians who extract/exploit the maximum they can from these new tenants.
Take the recent scandal from Jas Athwal, the labour MP recently as a slum landlord in East London. Anecdotally, a property I used to rent a long time ago I saw has been converted from a 3 bed to a 5 bed (by turning everyone room except the kitchen and bathroom into bedrooms). The landlady is (unsurprisingly) a 2nd gen East African Gujarati who rotates between London/Dubai/Kenya. This is quite a common pattern that I have seen from parents of friends and colleagues.
Edit: of course the other possibility is that a similar but gender reversed situation is taking place with Indian women, where they live in large HMOs and all work in the NHS, in some kind of parallel world. But I don't think is happening, at least not on the same scale as the men.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link