site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

On the other side in the ledger, empires as far back as the Babylonians realized that ethnically divided provinces were easier to rule.

I'd imagine that only applied to remote parts of the empire that are ethnically distinct from the heartland. Close to home, I'm pretty sure you'd rather your territory be ethnically unified to lower chances of rebellions/separatism.

Ethnic rebellion and separatism are rare. The Ottomans successfully played divide and rule for centuries.

The more members of the ruling ethnicity are around, the more credible competitors there are.

This is the problem a lot of ethnonationalist philosophy suffers from, it starts from the assumption that ethnos is primary. If I'm the Ottoman emperor, am I making moves to maximize the odds the empire stays together, the odds a Turk is on the throne, the odds a member of the dynasty is on the throne, or the odds that I and my immediate descendants remain on the throne? All can be in conflict on the margins.

Perhaps outright rebellion or separatism is unlikely, but at the very least stability is far more likely under conditions of ethnic homogeneity? With highly diverse populations, you've got a higher chance of different factions fighting each other, and even if they're not fighting you, that's still pretty detrimental to overall security, the economy etc. As you said, this might take a back seat to certain other priorities, but I'd imagine it's generally pretty high up there. Ethnically divided regions might be easier to rule, but they're also easier for enemies to conquer.

To take the Ottoman example (and I could be completely wrong on this, I'm not a subject-matter expert), I doubt there'd be many Sultans who'd would want core provinces like Anatolia to look like modern-day Lebanon.

Core Ottoman provinces like Anatolia always looked like modern day Lebanon. To my recollection, core modern Turkey didn't become majority Muslim until the refugee inflows of Muslims fleeing Eastern European nationalists in Greece and the Balkans combined with Christian migrant outflows to those new countries in the 19th century. And it didn't start to look as Muslim as it does today until the destruction of Greek and Armenian communities during and after WWI.

Also, Once again, you're talking from the perspective of the state. The ruler does not necessarily care about maximizing outcomes for the state. He might care more about maximizing outcomes for himself, and his sons. Which starts and largely ends with hanging onto personal power.

Minorities have advantages for rulers. Because they depend on the ruler for protection from the majority, they are in the special power of the ruler, and can be used more readily. It's a trick seen over and over throughout history.

This is the problem a lot of ethnonationalist philosophy suffers from, it starts from the assumption that ethnos is primary.

People are still thinking on 1789-1945 terms. Ethnonationalism (really, it should just be 'nationalism') thrived then because the military meta made loyal mass armies the backbone of a good army. The only other period in history quite like it, as far as I know, was the infantry meta of the Warring States period 475 – 221 BC, and if you look at the institutions of Qin, the winner of that conflict, they sound exactly like something out of 19th century Prussia.

Absent this, empires frequently bring in outsiders to help them rule even their core provinces. The Mamluks had their Circassian slaves, the Turks their Balkan janissaries, the Roman emperors their freemen and barbarian-staffed administrations.