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 -
It isn't a victory, but isn't the fact that Ukraine is still fighting this far still an impressive feat?
At some point, you can't expect the West to be able to defeat Russia in every proxy war context.
This isn't even a symmetrical proxy war. The West is fighting only as a proxy against full Russian involvement. Feels a lot like Russia's Vietnam, even if in the long run Russia might eke out a points victory - a major power thwarted by a minor nation backed by opposing major powers, except even less flattering for Russia because at least Vietnam was half a world away and not bordering America.
More options
Context Copy link
Ukraine losing half their population and their most valuable oblasts as well as 600,000+ dead (I haven't seriously looked into casualties for the last 6 mo or so) in order to successfully stall a much larger and more powerful country is impressive. The coordinated western and Ukrainian propaganda blitz and ability to control how the war is perceived in the West is very impressive. Unfortunately, manipulating perceptions eventually has to sync with reality. The West manipulating or buying of Ukrainian elites to feed their people and nation into the shredder is impressive.
However, it's going to result in a catastrophic loss and at enormous cost, too. Western weapons have been exposed, and even if we're being overly kind, western industry and capability to make these weapons in sufficient numbers to affect the battlefield has been exposed, and Russia (and their allies) now have countermeasures to all of them and they're quite effective, the multipolar alliance strengthens, Russia's willingness to supply weapons and tech to American enemies is in overdrive, the deindustrialization of Europe, amongst others.
The West has engaged in dozens of actions which could legitimately be characterized as acts of war and the only reason it's not is because of escalatory danger. There's a difference between supplying some 3rd world guerilla group to combat an enemy and focusing nearly your entirely military output to support a country up to and including on-the-ground military personnel who interface intelligence with that military and even even weapons.
I do think it's reasonable to expect a competent West to pick these sorts of wars only when they can win them and the cost is worth it. I don't consider the Western foreign policy establishment to be competent or reasonable because they have a now 40+ year history of incompetent idiocy which has burned the benefits of winning the cold war.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link