site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33353 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So I conclude that, from a certain point of view, South Africa in peacetime really could be more violent than a full-scale war in Europe. This is an intimidating level of dysfunction.

I always get ratio'd when I say this, but, well, that's what autism is for, to make me impervious to pro-Ukrainian social pressure.

To wit: have you considered perhaps that Ukraine is not embroiled in "full scale" war in Europe and is instead being subject to a limited and comparatively humane Special Military Operation? Y'know, like that one side keeps saying it is, but everyone just keeps disregarding in spite of mountains of circumstantial evidence (like this)?

Well I don't buy the whole 'Russia inflicting genocide' line and I suppose the war isn't being waged along the whole front-line, mostly in the Donbass. But there have been mobilizations on both sides!

What would a post-45 full-scale war look like if not this? Korea had short, manageable frontlines and intense strategic bombing involving the flattenning of all the North's urban centres. Russia made an attempt at destroying Ukrainian power infrastructure but there's a lot of it to destroy plus missile defence and SAMs preventing unlimited bombing. Is it practical to flatten areas they want to conquer anyway? No.

In my book, if both sides are conscripting then it's a full-scale war. It isn't a total war, that would be finished in a week. I suppose you can ask 'why aren't you considering a full-scale war and total war to be the same' and my answer is that it's a matter of nuclear weapons. If it was a total war, Russia would demand unconditional surrender and start glassing Ukrainian cities if their demands weren't met.

Well I don't buy the whole 'Russia inflicting genocide' line

Russia's stated goal is to reunify the Ukrainian people with the Russian people, destroying an independent Ukrainian identity. That matches the definition of genocide.

By "genocide" we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. ... The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups

Forced assimilation qua taking Ukrainian children is one of the 5 prohibited acts, amounting to genocide in context.

Well they can define genocide that way but unless Russia is actually killing huge numbers of Ukrainian civilians, it's not meaningfully genocidal. When France enforced its own state language and culture on the various regions in the 19th century, that wasn't genocide. Political and social institutions come and go. The Soviet Union messed with a lot of things in terms of political and social institutions, culture, religion and economic existence. Yet we only talk about its genocide or classicide in the context of mass deaths in Ukraine, kulaks and so on.

Forced assimilation conducted in various ways might be bad but it does not fit the core meaning of genocide, which relies upon massed deaths. Why is genocide bad? Because of the massive numbers of civilian deaths! When Theodore Roosevelt raged against hyphenated Americans, he was not calling for genocide in any meaningful way. Wales was not genocided when its identity became part of Britain via military force. Alsace-Lorraine was not genocided by either France or Germany during its long history of conflict.

Imo a lot of what France did to the south would definitely count as genocide today. Not to mention their religious wars.

Yeah, the religious wars would count. Suppression of the Vendee in the revolutionary war too. But what were they doing that was so bad in the 19th century?

But what were they doing that was so bad in the 19th century?

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, France (really shouldn't single out France, a lot of placed did this) banned the teaching of local languages/official use and engaged in a campaign of forced assimilation (basically, to make France "french").

Before modernization, basically every region of France (and pretty much everywhere in the old world) had a regional language and culture. I think under modern criteria the wiping out of these languages and cultures would be considered ~10-15 genocides (although you could make a convincing argument from anywhere between 4 and about 50).

That's the story of pretty much everywhere in the old world during that period (the period does vary a bit, for example, England managed to wipe out a lot of regional languages much earlier).

England managed to wipe out a lot of regional languages much earlier).

could you be more speciific? Wallish still exists. Sorry I don't know much about them.

Sorry, but reversed stupidity is not intelligence. Dodging pro-ukrainian sentiment doesn’t make Russian apologetics correct by default.

The Falklands war had something like 3,500 killed and injured, total, and only 3 were civilians. Clearly, the definition of “war” includes “limited and comparatively humane” invasions. Russia killing 40+ civilians per week is above that bar.

Defending it as just or necessary is one thing. Acting like it doesn’t count as a war is unreasonable.

The Falklands war had something like 3,500 killed and injured, total, and only 3 were civilians. Clearly, the definition of “war” includes “limited and comparatively humane” invasions. Russia killing 40+ civilians per week is above that bar.

Is it?

The intensity of fighting is far higher. Falklands was a tiny war, with few soldiers.

If you adjusted the figure to show deaths per week of fighting / 1000 combatants, would it still look as bad ?

Might as well ask the Russians to tune it down to Falklands levels. The problem is that they’re invading at all, not that it doesn’t compare to Iraq or WWII. OP is trying to elide that bit.

The problem is that they’re invading at all

Try to empathize with them.

Russia killing 40+ civilians per week is above that bar.

How's that compare to Afghanistan or Iraq?

I would imagine pretty unfavorably for the period of normal combat operations (though part of that is because the U.S. is way better with precision munitions, as I understand it). To my knowledge (and I could be wrong here) the Ukraine conflict is much less of a partisan war than Iraq or Afghanistan. I would assume far more civvies die in suicide bombings and random attempted mortar attacks on scattered firebases than in trench warfare.

But then again, I haven't served, so I could be very wrong.

No idea. But I’d certainly rate them both as wars, not as Special Military Obfuscations.

This seems like a reasonable answer. @Supah_Schmendrick also offered what seemed like a reasonable answer. The thing is, aren't your two answers contradicting each other? The part you rate as a war is emphatically not the part he dismisses as bloodless, and vice versa.

First of all, we didn't actually declare war in either Iraq or Afghanistan; both were, quite literally, "special military obfuscations". Secondly, the actual war part in Iraq at least was extremely brief. Who can forget the iconic declaration of the end of major military operations in Iraq? After that point, Iraq was definately a "special military obfuscation", as politics for the next several years centered on trying to pretend that our occupation wasn't a bleeding ulcer.

I think the domestic politics of warfare are separate from the object-level question. If you asked a random…uh, let me find an uninvolved country…Belgian citizen, “was the US waging war in 2011?” He’d probably say yes. Not because of some floor on casualties per week, military or civilian, but because we were parked on foreign territory en masse, shooting at people.

Butlerian was trying some sort of excluded-middle argument where not rating as “full-scale war” means the Russians are being very cool and very legal humane. That’s not true. At the end of the day, they’re still parked on foreign territory, blowing up Ukrainians.

I think "limited and comparatively human special military operation" is the consensus view on the Iraq war as well, though. It's certainly not a view I share, but I will not forget how all the rhetoric about war crime tribunals abruptly evaporated the day Obama was inaugurated. This despite the fact that we were, as you say, still parked in foreign territory, blowing up Iraqis.

It seems plausible to me that the Ukraine war is less objectionable than the Iraq war, on account of killing fewer people, of having less disastrous consequences long-term, and of not being so obviously pointless. Iraq set fire to a good portion of the middle east, and the killing is still ongoing.

Hell, I can't even get some interlocutors to stop calling it a "genocide" on the Ukrainian people much less agree that the attack is less than total war. Nothing is ever the middle version of anything, it's always maximally terrible.

I hope the irony in this observation was intentional…

"genocide" on the Ukrainian people

Russia is kidnapping Ukranian children and Russifying them. According to the 1948 Genocide convention, ratified by both Ukraine and Russia, such actions rise to the level of genocide:

any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Russia is kidnapping Ukranian children and Russifying them.

There are barely any 'Ukrainian' children in the areas Russia has conquered so far.

These are mostly ethnic Russian areas.

How would we distinguish 'Russification' of Ukrainian children, from evacuation of Russian-speaking children from a warzone ?

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

We've got bigger problems than Russia then...

The difference being that you are doing these things to yourself, unlike Ukraine which is getting them forcibly imposed by another.

Partially yes.

Then there are other things that are hard to see as anything other than deliberate policy.

And on top of that you have more subtle things that are hard to prove are deliberate, but you have to keep in mind you're talking to a self-confessed conspiracy theorist.

Unless by "to yourself" you mean to say they're imposed by my own government. In which case: yes, but the people ruling me are hostile occupiers, as far as I'm concerned.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats