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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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If they truly felt guilty, then wouldn't they stop beating up Armenia? They've continued doing it to this day, they were helping Azerbaijan against Armenia in the recent war.

No. Feeling a certain way does not lead to the same behaviour in all cases. The feeling is an unpleasant stimulus and the behaviour it leads to depends on how you have learned to manage such unpleasant stimuli. Having a neighbour that constantly triggers the unpleasant feeling just by existing might well lead to holding a grudge for over a 100 years, if you are sufficiently immature as to being unable to see past the present moment. A more mature approach might be to realize that asking and receiving forgiveness resolves the issue now and forever and frees precious resources for something more useful.

If the Turks genuinely did not feel guilt they would say they drove away the Armenians and established a Turkish ethnostate, and are proud that they did, and not continue with obviously contradictory denials.

The armed burglar might say (if dragged into court or questioned by some third party) that of course he feels guilty and ashamed and it was society's fault and he was underage at the time and his friends made him do it and they had it coming anyway... But there is no sincerity in his words.

Perhaps you yourself have a somewhat immature point of view, as if playing a game of Sims or something. If the burglar says that they feel guilty, ashamed, are sorry and promise to not do it again, there is no sincer-o-meter that reveals if they "really" and "truly" mean it.