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 -
The annexation of Texas was largely downstream of first Spain, then newly-independent Mexico encouraging Americans to colonize the mostly-unoccupied-except-Native-Americans region (land grants happened elsewhere in the American West as well). For reasons involving language/culture barriers, a proto-fascist dictatorship, and, yes, slavery, Texas declared and won it's independence from Mexico, puttered along as a recognized independent state for a decade before US annexation, and the actual Mexican American war kicked off over the exact borders of Texas.
I don't see that many parallels here. Did Ukraine encourage Russian settlement in Crimea/Donetsk? I don't think the Spanish Empire fits in the place of the USSR here. And the US was actually pretty reluctant to annex Texas at the time because it would change the antebellum balance of slave and free states. Texas had formal relations with other major powers, and there was some discussion with the British about border guarantees as an alternative to American annexation, although IMO the close ties there probably made that a non-starter.
I see a little bit of what you are suggesting, but I think it plays almost equally well in reverse: with
independence from Spainthe fall of the Iron Curtain, Western ideals were invited into the region, setting up an inevitable conflict with caudilloSanta AnnaPutin in ways that lostMexicothe Russian sphere of influence huge swaths of territory and riches in ways that might have been salvageable. Was Texas independence, or the broader Mexican Cession, truly inevitable? Maybe, but Santa Anna didn't seem particularly interested in keeping them (edit: except by force), and Texas wasn't even the only rebellious Mexican province in 1835.In a way? How far are we willing to go back here?
The whole comparison with Mexico kinda breaks down as soon as you figure in the fact both Russia and Ukraine are broken pieces of the Soviet Union modeled after its internal politics.
If we introduce temporality into this discussion then it actually crippled the Texas=D/LNR and Mexico=Ukraine, and it becomes Texas=Ukraine and Mexico=Russia. The proximate relevance of 2022 Ukraines relationship with Russia is the 2014 Crimea and Novorossiya adventure, not the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union or the slavification of the Pale Of Settlement from god knows when to god knows when. 1991 Ukraine did not exhibit the same hostility to its parent patron as much as the Texans did the Mexicans back in 1991, but it certainly does since 2014. The animating force of hostility against Russia is the disregard for the internal motivations of the Ukrainian polity, and that fuckup is Russias own doing. Sticking with a Belarus model of relationship cultivation is yielding dividends in Hungary and maybe Romania in this year of 2024, and nothing indicates 2014 Ukrainians were especially lured to the liberal pieties of the West. Texas would not have seceded from Mexico without the change in political status quo, and in fact it brought in plenty of Anglos specifically seeking to escape the US diktats. Perhaps if Putin didn't fuck up his Ukraine adventure we would see Carlsonstan set up as an antiliberal tradcon utopia.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link