site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 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.

I can't figure out to what extent Americans realize how off-putting their rhetoric is for people on the outside.

I don't think that matters to most people and tbf I don't think that matters to me too much, as long as it doesn't interfere in our ability to maintain an American dominated global landscape.

That doesn't mean American controlled and I doubt it will ever mean that. Any attempt to exert too much influence will whittle away the power we do have as people slowly but surely move to alternatives. It's like what happens with the UN in a sense, to have people at the table listening to you necessarily requires concessions else they just leave and you revert back to never having a table (the league of nations). Domination only works as a long term strategy with either tremendous unbreakable strength (maintaining this long term is really difficult as empires throughout history learned) or making others want to be there under your boot.

But I do believe America can be and desire for America to be the main central voice. And as long as we don't push people away too much, we can yell a little and issue some spankings.

Unfortunately Trump does not seem like the kind of person who can drive us into the sweetspot. Especially if things are as dire as he claims, waging trade war on the whole world at once would be especially idiotic. We can only do this sort of nonsense precisely because we dominate the world.

Main voice, but dominance or even control were it feasible. You don't mention, is this is driven by pure self-interest?

Trump can't drive us into the sweet spot, but possibly there isn't a sweet spot -- a stable equilibrium -- to drive us into. If we have moved too far into accommodating Europe in paying for things they want (like freedom of navigation) while they just spit on the US in return, then Trump can at least drive us the right direction, though if he has the ability to overcorrect he certainly will.