site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 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.

Evangelical Christians used to love Israel. A lot. Like the way cringe weebs loved Japan, but even scarier. They pushed for carte blanche support of Israeli foreign policy, massive military aid funding, direct US support and intervention to ensure the survival of the Israeli state. They donated money and material support to settlers and and private security forces for settlements. And they were vocal supporters of the Netanyahu government. They basically thought that America’s entire spiritual purpose was to keep Israel and the Jewish people alive. Israel’s response to that massive war chest of foreign political support was to crack down on Christianity in Israel (which is negligible), and to intensify rhetorical denunciations of Christianity. A high ranking member of Likud stated that spitting on Christians in the street and other forms of low level violence and harassment was “part of traditional Israeli culture” (Edit: this wasn’t anyone in Likud, this was a settler activist, and his statements were harshly criticized by most of the the higher ranking people in Likud’s government, including I believe Benjamin Netanyahu). At home, American Jews (who thought Israel was cringe and unnecessary anyway) led a 20 year crusade against Christianity, succeeding in driving it out of politics and a lot of public spaces. Then starting in 2012 American Jews acted as the tip of the spear for a racialist movement targeting Anglo Americans with Southern and Midwestern evangelical whites being on the top of the shit-list. Unsurprisingly, Evangelical support for Israel and American Jews has cooled significantly in recent years.

A high ranking member of Likud stated that spitting on Christians in the street and other forms of low level violence and harassment was “part of traditional Israeli culture”.

Who?

This part I think I got wrong, it was Elisha Yered, a settler activist who is otherwise a bit of a nut, and was denounced by most of the government. It made the rounds on Twitter several months ago. I will work on editing my above post to reflect that when I can figure out how the formatting works.