site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 24, 2025

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So 'the bed you made' was the response to nurses and members of the military who got the axe because they didn't get the covid vaccine. Learn to code was the response to coal miners who didn't want their mines shuttered and sent off shore.

Now is it fair to tar all academics with that brush? No of course not. But if that's how the beautiful, intelligent, charismatic, industrious elites behave, how else can you expect us dirty, stupid, fat, ugly and lazy proles to act?

When progressives assumed control of the zeitgeist I think they assumed they'd always stay in touch with the working class so they didn't need to work at it. As a result their respect for the working class atrophied, and through a blend of corruption and the seductive nature of power (and its accompanying feeling of righteousness) they have become woefully out of touch and almost fully captured by the unscrupulous. But in doing so they ceded the working class to Trump, who - whatever you might say about him - is at least able to feign respect for them.

People in the working class get so few wins that they naturally accept 'not letting the enemy win' as worth celebrating. The elites were supposed to stop this by behaving better, so the working class would have a better example to live up to. The elites stopped behaving better, as those examples demonstrate, so of course the working class does too. Extrapolating that into 'they hate science!' is how we got here in the first place.