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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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it treats Ukraine as just some pawn instead of an independent country

Well, you know, that doesn't bother me. I don't believe in countries (states). Literally, I don't believe that they exist. They're fictions, like corporations. Really it's a sort of theological idea.

I do believe in nations and to be charitable I can sub that word in. But in that case, from a secular perspective, it's not clear to me why one nation has a right to a piece of land and another doesn't. Where would such a right come from, if not the test of societal virtue that is war? And how sure are we that the ruling class of a nation actually represents that nation, rather than having parasitized it?

It's so demeaning to the Ukrainian people who are fighting for the independence of their country.

If they don't want to fight they can stop. Or, if the people want to stop but can't -- as is evidenced by their enslavement and sacrifice by the men calling themselves their leaders -- we should ask if perhaps that's the real problem!

Ukrainians are the ones who will determine how far they are willing to go to protect their homeland and their people.

It's not clear to me that the ruling society of Russia intends to harm either the land or the people. Actually I think it would be happiest keeping both wholly preserved (but under its own control).

Seems to me that what's going on here is that the land and peoples (the people living there are hardly homogeneous) exist and two competing ruling classes are vying for control over them. One is willing to enslave them and spend their lives to stay in power. The other is basically willing to do the same. It's not clear why either of those is 'right'.

I just don't know where everyone seems to be getting their sense of clear-cut moral stances from.

Definitely an interesting philosophical framing. The moral framework for me is something of a practical one - how can different nations live in the world with a minimum of morally despicable things taking place. Things like: war, slavery, poverty, oppression.

The goal of the 'rules-based international order' was to create rules for the game of international competition and cooperation where the morally worst actions are taken off the table. We don't go to war to settle disputes over who gets to control land and peoples (especially nuclear war) because it's something everyone wants to avoid. It's morally bad and it's practically bad, especially for those lands and peoples.

Russia is the clear bad actor in this framing. They are signed on to a ton of agreements that say 'we will not invade other countries to take their land' - the most fundamental being the UN charter, which says any UN member will respect the borders of the existing countries. This may seem arbitrary under your system, but it serves the very basic purpose of preventing war. It's not a complicated moral stance. If Russia hadn't invaded another country, there wouldn't be a war.

Hell, if Russian troops weren't blatantly and constantly committing war crimes, targeting civilians, indoctrinating the people of territories they've conquered... then maybe we in the West could ignore this as just another border dispute, like the other times in the 21st century Russia has invaded its neighbors. But, Russia is doing all these morally despicable things. They are the clear moral bad agent in almost every way, and are simply flaunting the fact that they can break international rules and norms, essentially do whatever the hell they please, because they have nuclear weapons so nobody will stop them. But whether this deserves punishment from the international community on a moral level is beside the point. This needs to be punished so that every other aggressive authoritarian government with delusions of grandeur doesn't do the same thing, and the whole world devolve back into war.

The moral framework for me is something of a practical one - how can different nations live in the world with a minimum of morally despicable things taking place. Things like: war, slavery, poverty, oppression.

Right, well, they can't. The incentives don't align that way and never will. It can be more or less overt, and more or less local, but it's going on somewhere. This is due to resource scarcity. Someone has to lose, and usually many people. Those with the ability to change this are better-served by winning, and arguably should. And even they can't change it much.

The goal of the 'rules-based international order' was to create rules for the game of international competition and cooperation where the morally worst actions are taken off the table. We don't go to war to settle disputes over who gets to control land and peoples (especially nuclear war) because it's something everyone wants to avoid. It's morally bad and it's practically bad, especially for those lands and peoples.

No, that's just what the most-powerful cabals at the time said to justify the cementing of their power into the foreseeable future. In fact they're plenty willing to do abhorrent things when it suits them.

Russia is the clear bad actor in this framing. They are signed on to a ton of agreements that say 'we will not invade other countries to take their land' - the most fundamental being the UN charter, which says any UN member will respect the borders of the existing countries. This may seem arbitrary under your system, but it serves the very basic purpose of preventing war.

Only the power of the hegemon prevents war. This is a symptom of that power failing, not a de novo source of evil.

Hell, if Russian troops weren't blatantly and constantly committing war crimes, targeting civilians, indoctrinating the people of territories they've conquered... then maybe we in the West could ignore this as just another border dispute, like the other times in the 21st century Russia has invaded its neighbors. But, Russia is doing all these morally despicable things. They are the clear moral bad agent in almost every way, and are simply flaunting the fact that they can break international rules and norms, essentially do whatever the hell they please, because they have nuclear weapons so nobody will stop them.

I think you'll find that we and our allies do all that stuff in spades. Who, whom.

This needs to be punished so that every other aggressive authoritarian government with delusions of grandeur doesn't do the same thing, and the whole world devolve back into war.

From the perspective of the hegemon, it needs to be punished to preserve the hegemony. The question is whether that's possible any longer.

War simply is. There are ways to sort of move it from one column into another on the ledger book but basically, given resource scarcity, this is just how things work. There is no other way. And a bad peace is worse than war.

You're just clearly factually wrong about this. The fact is that there have been no major wars in Europe since the creation of the rules-based order. In other words, when those countries played by the rules they've seen exactly the results they wanted: reduction in war, economic prosperity, global trade.

I think you'll find that we and our allies do all that stuff in spades.

This to me is proof that you're not arguing in good faith. Anyone who's given even a cursory look at the war crimes committed by Russia could never say something so ridiculous. It's just cynicism for cynicism's sake, untethered to reality.

There are ways to sort of move it from one column into another on the ledger book but basically, given resource scarcity, this is just how things work.

This is also obviously not true. International relations is not a zero-sum game. The global international order has decreased global poverty from 50% to about 10% in the last century. Who did they steal that prosperity from? Western countries, despite not going to war with each other, have grown wealth exponentially and raised the standard of living to the point where we no longer have extreme poverty at all. This myth of resource scarcity is not only foolish, it's dangerous, because it leads to bad ideas about policy.

I think you're just fundamentally incorrect about all these issues. Not meant as an attack, but you don't happen to be a communist do you?