The hottest Culture Wars Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Philosophy Topics

'Woke' might not be the enemy, but it still deserves critique

Odds and Ends of History • 1608 implied HN points • 26 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Culture Wars
  1. Focusing on "woke" controversies often distracted people from the much bigger danger of rising right-wing authoritarianism and authoritarian politicians.
  2. Criticism of "woke" ideas from within the left isn’t inherently misguided; internal critique can help the left stay effective, accountable, and appealing.
  3. People on the centre-left should reprioritize to confront authoritarian threats while still debating cultural issues so those debates strengthen rather than weaken progressive politics.

TGIF: The Situation Has Snowballed

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1562 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. The U.S. men's hockey team's dramatic gold-medal win gave us an iconic, bloody-toothed celebration but became controversial after the president called them on speakerphone and made a joke about the women's team.
  2. Sports moments are being heavily politicized, with media and fans reading politics into who cheers for whom and treating athletes' supporters as political statements.
  3. Many people want to celebrate athletic achievement itself — praising both the men's hockey team and athletes like Eileen Gu — instead of letting national ties or politics erase admiration.

Political Psychology Links, 3/3/2026

In My Tribe • 303 implied HN points • 03 Mar 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Rapid demographic change causes real psychological disruption that many people feel, and technocratic leaders often ignore these non‑material costs because they prioritize what can be measured.
  2. Intellectual virtues like courage, humility, patience, and charity are essential for honest debate, and professors should model and teach those virtues so public discourse survives disagreement.
  3. Elite secrecy can function as a social technology to create and entrench hierarchies, and rising tolerance for political violence—plus surprising sex differences in that tolerance—could signal increasing social and political instability.

Maybe It’s Bad That Recent Progressive Ideas On Race Are So Compatible With White Nationalism

Singal-Minded • 1464 implied HN points • 16 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. The phrase "white culture" is often used but rarely defined clearly, so people struggle to explain what it actually means.
  2. Widely circulated progressive frameworks that list "white supremacy culture" traits treat common behaviors as part of a coherent white identity, and many organizations have adopted those lists.
  3. That adoption can backfire because it makes the idea of a coherent white identity seem real and gives critics an easy way to accuse progressives of validating the same categories white nationalists use.

Mob Rule Comes for My Yoga Studio

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 2425 implied HN points • 08 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. A yoga studio confrontation in Minneapolis involved crowds berating staff over alleged removal of anti‑ICE signs, with shouting, clapping, and crowd pressure.
  2. The scene is described as part of a broader pattern where public spaces are increasingly taken over by shouted ideology, shunning, and 2020‑style mob behavior.
  3. That atmosphere of public shaming and ideological enforcement is pushing longtime residents to leave the city.
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Alex Pretti Was Murdered by the State

Justin E. H. Smith's Hinternet • 1987 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Alex Pretti’s death is presented as a killing by the state, and denying that is framed as spreading authoritarian propaganda.
  2. Modern media forces everyone into nonstop punditry, which turns politics into performative purity acts and privateizes our shared responsibilities.
  3. True liberalism should protect a neutral public sphere, resist coercive enforcement of beliefs, and demand honesty instead of becoming another regime.

The Popular Progressive Podcast Calling Evangelicals ‘Cancer’

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1261 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Jennifer Welch’s podcast 'I’ve Had It' is a hugely popular progressive show with seven-figure followings and high-profile Democratic guests.
  2. Her profane, provocative style attracts mainstream liberal listeners and the so-called dirtbag left while provoking conservative outrage.
  3. She directs unusually harsh contempt at evangelicals, openly dismissing their faith in language that seems uniquely tolerated from a major media figure.

MAGA doesn't build anything

Noahpinion • 25235 implied HN points • 26 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. The MAGA movement is currently powerful but lacks a long-term plan for future growth. Winning elections based on anger is not enough to create lasting change.
  2. Unlike previous political movements that built communities and culture, MAGA is seen as destructive. It criticizes existing structures but doesn’t offer new solutions or alternatives.
  3. While other movements create new cultural traditions and groups, MAGA has failed to establish a cohesive grassroots culture. It primarily exists online, lacking real-world connections and community-building efforts.

Chartbook 425: War over the Fed? Is this "The Big One" or will it be another moment of American nihilism?

Chartbook • 2131 implied HN points • 12 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Legal threats against the Federal Reserve and its chair are being used as political pressure to influence interest-rate decisions, putting central bank independence at risk.
  2. Financial markets have mostly shrugged so far — gold and silver are up but the Treasury market and big institutional investors aren’t panicking yet, though a real reaction could come if inflation forces hard policy choices.
  3. The episode is part of a broader partisan drive to weaken institutional checks and normal political restraints, and while some establishment Republicans are protesting, their ability to stop it may be limited.

"Heritage Americans" Is a Claim to Unearned Status

Richard Hanania's Newsletter • 4218 implied HN points • 21 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Claiming 'Heritage American' status asks for unearned deference and is used to shut down debate instead of offering reasons for political positions.
  2. Identity politics on both the left and right often replaces evidence and logic with appeals to immutable traits, producing poor policy and irrational arguments.
  3. A civic, ideas-based definition of American identity is preferable, and disagreements—like over immigration—should be settled with facts, principles, and arguments rather than ancestry.

How Democrats Lost Men

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1465 implied HN points • 26 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. When men stop feeling respected or honored, they can become more likely to embrace far-right narratives that cast them as victims.
  2. In crisis situations many societies rely on traditional roles—men for defense and women for protecting children—so treating the sexes as fully interchangeable ignores how people actually behave under threat.
  3. Politically, mocking or dismissing men as "toxic" can push them away, so winning them back requires outreach that restores respect rather than derision.

Tired of trash? Try new Wokespy!

Disaffected Newsletter • 1358 implied HN points • 31 Jul 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Wokespy.com provides daily short articles that poke fun at 'woke' culture. It's a light-hearted way to stay informed about current events.
  2. The content includes both written pieces and short videos, making it accessible in different formats.
  3. The site aims to share humorous takes on social issues, often highlighting bizarre or ridiculous stories in the news.

Political Psychology Links, 2/17/2026

In My Tribe • 136 implied HN points • 17 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Conservatives should aim to cultivate a positive, hopeful intellectual vision as their central task. But people often take a perverse pleasure in hating and conflict, which makes combative, pessimistic narratives more popular than constructive ones.
  2. The rise of social justice or 'woke' ideas is tied to mass higher education and changing social values that see human nature as malleable, making large-scale social transformation and activism morally urgent. Those beliefs also operate as a status strategy, turning approved speech and identities into assets supported by media, education, and institutional networks, while simple economic explanations for the phenomenon look weaker.
  3. Behavior genetics shows most heritable psychological variation comes from many small-effect genes under purifying selection and mutation-selection balance. As a result, many individual differences are likely neutral or slightly maladaptive rather than being direct adaptive traits.

how to tell if you are the problem

bad cattitude • 206 implied HN points • 03 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Ask yourself one simple question: can you remain friends with someone who holds a significant political or social view you disagree with? If the answer is no, that’s a warning that your beliefs may have hardened into dogma that damages relationships and social cohesion.
  2. When a political faction gains unchecked power it often radicalizes and pushes ideology into institutions like schools, provoking backlash and deeper polarization; both left and right can do this and ideology-as-identity fuels censorship, purity tests, and broken ties.
  3. The cure is humility, honest questioning, and practical problem‑solving while preserving relationships across disagreement, but there are moral boundaries—people who advocate or seek to impose extreme harms (e.g., child slavery or forced child marriage) are rightly excluded and resisted.

Troublemaking Dissent

Heterodox STEM • 213 implied HN points • 08 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Non-conformist, truth-seeking dissent is socially valuable because it corrects consensus errors and spurs innovation, even though it often brings ridicule and personal cost.
  2. People with lived experience under repressive leftist regimes often flip the usual political associations of dissent and lean right, showing that dissent’s political direction depends on history and context.
  3. Many contemporary academic spaces favor identity and power narratives over open debate, which undermines the principle of defending dissent; truth-seeking dissent should be protected regardless of political label.

Political Psychology Links, 12/30/2025

In My Tribe • 349 implied HN points • 30 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Social media use and a lack of historical grounding are pushing many young adults to treat politics as a form of self-expression, which helps explain growing attraction to extremist ideas.
  2. Centrist elites are reacting to populist pressure by adopting more authoritarian, technocratic measures to defend the status quo, sometimes at the cost of democratic norms.
  3. Politics is split between a universalist, creed-based outlook and a nationalist, particularist outlook, and resolving it requires honoring both individual dignity and cultural heritage; current elite status signaling (the “woke” model) should be replaced by a pro-social, work-focused status strategy, possibly involving major reforms in higher education.

Self-Mogged: How Conservatism Stupidified, Triggered, and Destroyed Itself

JoeWrote • 64 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. A political strategy built on online outrage, conspiracies, and bigotry helped conservatives gain power but is now triggering bitter infighting and eroding the movement from within.
  2. Right‑wing media has deliberately peddled cheap, viral outrage that dumbs down its audience and rewards trolling over serious policy or civic engagement.
  3. Mainstream conservative figures and institutions enabled grifters and extremists, and now they are losing control as those actors steal audiences, expose hypocrisy, and weaken the conservative coalition.

The Powers That Were

Breaking the News • 1859 implied HN points • 01 Aug 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. American institutions are important for protecting people's rights and need support, especially in challenging times. It's about strengthening what helps us as a society.
  2. There are major issues like misinformation, leadership troubles, and cultural conflicts affecting governance today. These problems point to weaknesses in our political system.
  3. Media institutions that once held significant power and influence are now struggling, illustrating how quickly strong organizations can decline and the importance of their role in democracy.

Scott Adams and Intellectual Courage

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 78 implied HN points • 17 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Speaking truth to power in elite circles can cost you your career, income, and reputation, but it preserves personal integrity and can inspire others.
  2. Media and institutional opinion cartels enforce conformity through cancellation, humiliation, and economic pressure, which can suppress dissenting views but often backfires by drawing more attention to them.
  3. Dissenters can still be wrong and should be willing to revise their views, and building alternative platforms lets them keep speaking after mainstream rejection.

Bari Weiss Overplayed Her Hand

JoeWrote • 134 implied HN points • 19 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Americans voted largely because of economic frustration, not to endorse a broad conservative cultural revolution.
  2. The GOP’s aggressive push of culture-war policies is unwanted by many voters and is making conservatives seem annoying and alienating people.
  3. High-profile examples and stunts tied to that cultural push have backfired, underscoring the miscalculation and worsening approval as economic problems persist.

Google Censors are Still Waging the Transgender Culture War

Handwaving Freakoutery • 690 implied HN points • 10 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Google can censor information by removing articles that go against their policies, especially on sensitive topics like transgender issues. This shows how big tech can influence discussions by limiting access to certain viewpoints.
  2. There are ongoing debates about the impact of transgender medical treatments on minors, with concerns over whether such decisions may lead to regret later in life. It's important to weigh the risks and benefits carefully.
  3. Recent court decisions suggest that beliefs held by many about the necessity of medical transitions for youth may lack scientific backing. This raises questions about the assumptions driving these discussions.

Building new cultures

Escaping Flatland • 1120 implied HN points • 23 May 23
🎭️ Culture Culture Wars
  1. Building new cultures is challenging and requires careful planning and inclusion of diverse perspectives.
  2. Online communities can mirror the challenges faced by historical attempts at creating new societies.
  3. It is important to be mindful of the culture you are creating by curating your social interactions and engaging with specific information.

Friday Funnies: Antifa / Anti Ice

Who is Robert Malone • 41 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. A BBC documentary on Persia is presented as a strong, family-friendly primer on Iran's history, with the early episodes praised and the final episode described as more 'woke'.
  2. Using terms like "people who menstruate" and avoiding clear sex-based language is criticized as erasing women and confusing medical discussions about pregnancy and reproductive care.
  3. If exercising a claimed right requires others to provide unpaid human labor, it is argued that this becomes slavery, so rights should not obligate free work from other people.

Elite Human Capital in Open and Closed Cultures

Richard Hanania's Newsletter • 755 implied HN points • 03 Feb 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. People with high human capital often prefer reading and writing over watching videos or listening to podcasts. This preference comes from a higher intelligence and a desire for deeper understanding.
  2. Not all groups with high human capital are liberal; some can be conservative. However, these conservative groups may create closed cultures that do not accept different views.
  3. Currently, in American politics, there is a divide between open-minded thinkers with high human capital and those who are less open and informed. This division shapes political discussions and community attitudes.

Culture Wars Are not For Sissies

Disaffected Newsletter • 1159 implied HN points • 07 Mar 23
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. There is a belief that we are in a serious cultural conflict, not just a disagreement, and the left seems to control most of the media, spreading misinformation.
  2. Laws are being proposed that some believe would allow harmful medical treatments for children, sparking heated debate about child safety and rights.
  3. Some people think that a softer approach to these issues isn't working anymore, and there is a call for more direct and strong action to address the perceived dangers.

Anti-Trans Activists are Unprincipled and Depraved

American Dreaming • 246 implied HN points • 18 Jul 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Anti-trans activists often focus on issues like fairness, but many times their real motives are rooted in bigotry. They don't actually care about the fairness they claim to fight for.
  2. The argument for banning trans people from certain spaces, like women's sports, is often contradictory. Critics worry about fairness but ignore that some activities, like chess, are not physically competitive.
  3. The rise of anti-trans sentiment has led to a dangerous environment where any dissent or different viewpoints are quickly attacked. This movement is growing in power and is becoming more aggressive in its approaches.

Left Wing Authoritarians

Disaffected Newsletter • 679 implied HN points • 29 May 23
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Some researchers are finding that authoritarian traits can be present in left-wing groups, not just right-wing ones. This challenges the common view that authoritarianism is only a right-wing issue.
  2. There is a difference between being politely formal and genuinely respectful. Some people use formal politeness to disguise their condescension and social judgment.
  3. The conversation touches on the reality of mortality and the challenges people face when dealing with death and funerals, especially in a financial context.

the winds of phase change

bad cattitude • 293 implied HN points • 15 Feb 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. People are starting to recognize that they have been misled and manipulated by a small elite, realizing they're not alone in feeling this way. It's like a collective awakening to the truth.
  2. Cancel culture is about silencing voices and creating division among people. It aims to maintain control by making individuals afraid to express non-mainstream views.
  3. Recent events, like the changes brought by social media, show that the elite's control is weakening. More people are finding their voices and uniting against those who try to keep them isolated.

Odds and ends

Disaffected Newsletter • 639 implied HN points • 05 Oct 22
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. The author resigned from a long-term job because they feel they are being cancelled for their views on social issues. It highlights the impact of cultural conversations on personal and professional lives.
  2. They emphasize the importance of a nonprofit they worked for that helps families with funeral planning and costs. The organization continues to do good work despite the author's departure.
  3. The author is focusing on a podcast project called Disaffected and is seeking paid subscriptions to support their work. They mention the collaborative effort with a friend to improve their show.

The Dumbest Online Right In-Fighting You'll Read About This Week (I Know I Shouldn't Be Writing About It)

Default Wisdom • 266 implied HN points • 09 Dec 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. The term 'Woke Right' is being used in discussions about divisions within the online right, but its meaning is unclear. It seems to link various factions' behaviors to cultural policing and identity issues.
  2. Right-wing groups have their own ways of gatekeeping and moral testing, similar to issues seen on the left. This suggests that toxic behavior can show up across the political spectrum, not just from one side.
  3. Critics from classical liberal backgrounds may not mesh well with more extreme right factions, and their differences shouldn't be ignored. Instead of labeling them as 'woke,' it's better to critique ideas based on their own merit.

Election Countdown, 254 Days to Go: A Step Away from the ‘No Labels’ Brink.

Breaking the News • 615 implied HN points • 25 Feb 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Third-party campaigns often serve as spoilers in US presidential politics, increasing the risk of splitting votes.
  2. The idea of an 'open convention' to replace Joe Biden as a candidate faces significant challenges, like lack of clarity on alternative candidates and financial complications.
  3. A GOP impeachment bid against Joe Biden was derailed after a star witness was arrested for inventing stories about the Biden family on behalf of Russian state intelligence.

joy will be mandatory

bad cattitude • 284 implied HN points • 24 Oct 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. People are increasingly divided, creating separate realities that don’t share common facts or agreements. This lack of mutual understanding makes it hard for society to come together.
  2. There seems to be a strong trend of intolerance among those who claim to be progressive. They often reject differing opinions and quickly excommunicate those who think differently.
  3. A big issue is the isolation and echo chambers people find themselves in. It's important for individuals to engage with diverse perspectives to avoid losing touch with reality.

derangement syndrome as symptom of paradigm shift

bad cattitude • 212 implied HN points • 24 Dec 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Many people are becoming overly fixated on specific leaders or figures, leading to a broader lack of understanding and critical thinking about the issues at hand.
  2. The current education system often does not encourage true critical thinking, resulting in people who are more focused on memorizing slogans than engaging in meaningful discourse.
  3. There's a shift happening where social media is becoming a new space for open discussion and debate, moving away from traditional education institutions.

Peter Thiel's Convenient Antichrist

Daniel Pinchbeck’s Newsletter • 15 implied HN points • 02 Dec 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Silicon Valley elites are co-opting Christian and apocalyptic language to align with the religious right and shield themselves from criticism. They frame policy fights as cosmic battles to deflect accountability.
  2. The Antichrist idea is being stretched far beyond its biblical meaning to label opponents as evil, which shuts down debate and can justify extreme action. That dehumanization makes compromise impossible and raises the risk of violence.
  3. Thiel and other tech billionaires are using a preemptive scapegoating strategy to name convenient enemies so public anger won’t land on them. It’s a calculated move that deepens tribalism and protects the powerful at the expense of democracy and the environment.

HWFO Reading List, February 2025

Handwaving Freakoutery • 147 implied HN points • 21 Feb 25
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Culture Wars
  1. Spiking articles can be a way to maintain quality and ensure only the best thoughts are shared. It's okay to keep some content private if it doesn't meet your standards.
  2. There's a belief that guns could eventually be a unifying social force rather than a divisive one. However, acknowledging the historical context and issues surrounding gun ownership is important.
  3. Participating in discussions about complex issues, even if some ideas aren't suitable for publication, can still provide valuable insight and foster community engagement.

The West Must Die

The Abbey of Misrule • 534 implied HN points • 31 May 23
🎭️ Culture Culture Wars
  1. The essay discusses the limitations and challenges of writing and how it can shape our understanding.
  2. It delves into the concept of 'the West' and the cultural conflicts surrounding it.
  3. Finally, it raises the idea of letting go of the current concept of 'the West' to make way for something new and better.