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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Benny and his fellow travelers are postmodernists that sought to subvert how reality itself is understood by spuriously dismissing countervailing evidence as 'biased' and spinning motivations out of fairy farts. That Benny adjusted his position after his pet palestinians turned out to be the violent assholes they always said they were is merely an inconvenient blip on his quest to tear down the oppressive political/academic climate preventing them from ascending to their natural state as intellectual gods to be feted by proles.
i don't know what postmodernism has to do with this. it seems entirely possible to determine what in fact happened in 1948, whether arabs left because arab leadership told them to leave, or because they were afraid of being massacred, or because they were forcefully expelled by jewish soldiers, or for any other reason. motivations are more nebulous but you can look into official idf documents (plan D) and what leaders such as ben gurion wrote.
Ideologically motivated historians have unearthed Azzam Pashas genocidal statements, Khaled Azm (president of Syria in 1949) said that the Arabs themselves exhorted the Palestinians to leave first, the Jordanian papers blamed Arab generals for making such declarations... all this evidence is dismissed by postmodernists because it is 'manipulated', with only Plan D (why D instead of earlier plans) being proof of the evil of Israel. I think it is far more likely that people panicked and left of their own volition in the face of an advancing enemy, like what is happening to Ukrainians and Masalit, than it is a deliberate strategy crafted by the adversary. A coincidental benefit, but hardly any more deliberate in intent compared to the more pressing objective of killing armed combatants.
so it was about deir yassin. people panicked and left of their own volition... because they believed they would be massacred
But again, this is standard practice in these kinds of tribal conflicts, see October 7. I don’t think it makes the case that Jews are worse than Arabs; in fact far earlier than 1948 there had been violent Arab campaigns against Jewish settlers including slaughter of civilians, mass rapes and so on.
i don't think the jews were worse than arabs, at least in their intentions. certainly, if the arabs had won, the end result for jews would have been worse than expulsion. but expulsion was still a Bad Thing, although there's nothing to be done about it now.
Except, apparently, endlessly castigate the jews for being evil meanies and continue advancing the cause of Hamas because they will magically become good religiously tolerant liberals once the debt is paid (all jews dead).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link