site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 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.

Sure they are. We can do this all day.

Okay, but using your own personal definitions and saying "Nuh uh" isn't much of an argument.

What I have argued and will continue to argue is that there is a constant churn of Cthulhu swimming left, towards greater and greater degradation of the commons.

Maybe so, though I am unconvinced by arguments that have been made basically since Roman times about the degradation of morals and the corruption of the youth.

I wouldn't have any heartburn about prohibiting Gender Queer from school libraries, but public libraries (which are meant to serve adults as well as children, and which can impose age restrictions on certain books) do not need to cater to your personal preferred level of acceptability.

Or maybe you’ll find your grandkid reading it in the library’s booknook and you’ll be appalled. I don’t know. But your current arguments are toothless to me because my stance is that Gor in the school library was already too much.

Likewise, your arguments are toothless to me, because I don't know anyone who turned into a degenerate because they read spicy genre fiction as a kid. I am not saying there is no line, but the line is always going to be fuzzy and negotiable and subjective. You are afraid I'd be okay with exposing children to bestiality; I am afraid you'd like to censor anything that would raise a maiden aunt's eyebrows in 1890. You're right that this is where the battlefield is, however much I personally find Gender Queer offputting (and inappropriate for pre-teens).

You are afraid I'd be okay with exposing children to bestiality; I am afraid you'd like to censor anything that would raise a maiden aunt's eyebrows in 1890. You're right that this is where the battlefield is, however much I personally find Gender Queer offputting (and inappropriate for pre-teens).

I actually agree with you on this. It seems that, if I'm interpreting @BreakerofHorsesandMen correctly, anything outside of the most saccharine, banal works would be banned. Does description of child abuse warrant censure? How about descriptions of warfare or violence? Where does the line stop exactly? It seems that trying to ban things based off on their "appropriateness" to different age ranges is an inherently moral/political question.

Likewise, your arguments are toothless to me, because I don't know anyone who turned into a degenerate because they read spicy genre fiction as a kid.

However, I have to disagree with you here. It's well documented that watching too much porn can induce transsexuality or autogynephilia at least. I'd also argue that in terms of how well slippery-scope applies, sexuality is one context in which it best applies. Reading spicy genre fiction can easily lead to reading more hardcore fiction, which can in turn lead to joining adjacent online circles/forums/tumblrs that if not encourage, at least implicitly validate non-standard sexual behaviors and identities. Just see cracking-the-egg in trans spaces, or the public and shameless speculation on and encouragement for identifying as gay for anyone who even seems to be gay; see the anger when it comes to "queer-baiting".

Really, I believe the above is the crux of the argument. On one side, you have people who rightly believe that these works of art encourage or at least lower the activation energy of acceptance, so to speak, for sexual identities and behaviors that they perceive to be disordered or morally incorrect. On the other side, you have people who believe that not only are those sexual identifies and behaviors not disordered or morally incorrect, but should actively be accepted and encouraged in society; so, those works of art that can help to either cause people to tolerate those sexual identities or incorporate them into their person should be, in their view, not only permitted, but disseminated.

In Thomas Sowell terms, it's a conflict of visions.

I'd argue that you could actually make an empirical decision on which specific sexual identities are disordered or not based on empirical material outcomes, but that's beyond the scope of this comment.