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 -
This is barely responsive to my post. Which I suppose happens when one's argument is shown to be without merit and there's no incentive to admit as much.
I dismiss this, because a) in no realistic event can those Russians hope to get long-term residence in Finland or Latvia and b) nobody there is even arguing that this is a risk, instead complaining about being a transit country or that Russians have to take responsibility or some such.
Why Finns, how could that fit the context? Those little miscommunications are a repeating pattern with you, and they are very telling.
Russians of course. Your starting thesis was: Putin has repeatedly used ethnic russians as pretexts to intervene, or threaten intervention, around the region... significantly increasing the Russian national population in the border states- who are almost certainly going to locate themselves to the ethnic russian enclaves- strengthens an ethnic-based framing of a future pre-conflict narrative
How, exactly, does this work? Surely you understand that wars of conquest waged by non-democratic states are not contingent on objective reality behind claimed moral justification, so this framing is as strong or as weak as the propaganda makes it. (Even absence of Russians can be spun into an ethnic cleansing story, if one tries). Your response on the same point to @hustlegrinder is similarly lacking in your usual causal clarity.
Are you really one to talk so smugly of this, given that your specific explanations for the Russian military buildup (forcing the NS2 issue or something) didn't differ much from mine and also implied no war? Also, «any chance» sounds very strong. But okay, I never quantified it, and indeed it seemed implausible, which in retrospect was stupid of me.
And before:
Assuming this is true: this is but a spin on the casus belli thesis (technically, was a spin on that thesis, now it's just a speculation on morality). The casus belli issue has already been addressed. Without it, what exactly does this add? If they consistently oppose being drafted for base egoistic reasons, they are even less likely to help out with the invasion of the host country (which would be even more personally dangerous). Is this about strategic security, helping Ukraine, or about punishing people who supposedly don't oppose Russian Imperialism in principle?
Wut? This if literary fluff in the shape of a coherent argument. I believe you can do better in distinguishing issues.
This gave me a pause. Perhaps we have differences in worldview regarding what constitutes ethnic cleansing, too? Wiki sounds about right: «Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous». I don't know man, this doesn't sound like, um, issuing short-term residence permits or erecting refugee camps for draft dodgers from a multinational neighboring state.
I imagine in a more equanimous state you'd have remembered that, and managed not to make this into another cause for a lame attempt at deadpan comedy.
This is some heavy stuff.
In any case, if Europeans do not believe in ethnic cleansing, like you assert, they might not believe in collective ethnic responsibility like you do, either.
Right, thanks. Admittedly I suspected this will be how you'll read it, which is why I wrote it ambiguously like this, and I know this isn't my broken English but your blinding, zoological ethnic prejudice that predictably determined this queer reading. Pease spare me more snark; few things could be funnier than what you're doing here on reflex, condescendingly explaining sovereignty to an imagined petulant Imperialist who asserts such a right to freely immigrate and colonize. (I don't believe in the usefulness of the doctrine of rights at all, in any case – at the bedrock, there are only interests and capabilities).
My claim here was that the subset of Russian males attempting escape and not posing current military threat will, in the case of being turned back, be mobilized for war (primarily in Ukraine), reinforcing Russian forces that are currently attempting annexation of parts of Ukraine. Which is, indeed, from the official European point of view, somewhat bad and more important than welfare of those males, and (I argue) more important than special pleading about ethnic blocs of the far future, weird definitions of ethnic cleansing, low moral qualities of all ruskies who leave home when staying becomes immediately life-threatening, and other 300 IQ bullshit.
Sure, they take care of their own. Can't say anything against it! I don't believe in the doctrine of rights, after all.
And of course they're under no obligation to spell it out. Because there is a pretension of broader solidarity, and it's convenient in many ways.
Since my point began with that you misremembered my position, which de-merited your argument, I suppose this is a nice admission on your part without having to admit it.
Your dismissal is irrelevant, because you are not a Finn or Baltic country citizen whose perspective and endorsement is the source of legitimacy for border policy.
Hopefully they tell you what I've repeatedly raised, which is that you occasionally use ambiguous conjugation and references that can be interpreted in different ways. This is a common translation issue of non-native speakers, and in your case regularly comes in the direction of intent when discussing multiple subjects that you treat with similar tone.
When I face confusion with your language, I raise that there is a question, go from the context I believe fit in the broader theme (objection to the Finns/Baltics), and work with that. I've no particular objection to dropping anything based on a mis-translation.
Yes, since that [or something] carries quite a lot of ground, ground which has stood well enough since to not but at the time earned me a lecture from you about how I would never understand Slaavic brotherhood and how much it mattered.
Now, I may not share your sense of collective ethnic responsibility, but I think that my lack of sense of collective ethnic responsibility was not only vindicated since late February, but continues to be validated now, given how the other Slaavic brotherhood regions reject such premise ethnic collective solidarity. You wrote one of your best works as a self-analysis of how your world view was undermined and fundamentally shifted by the start of the war. By contrast, I've felt generally vindicated in my understanding of how other people in the region view Russia.
So yes, I believe I am possibly the best person to talk so smugly of this to you, since this has continuity with how I talked about it before. I do not defer to your interpretation of the reasonableness or rationality of Russia's neighbors and their views of Russia.
This would be indeed a difference in attitude, because the European/North American norm is that in practice there is no such thing in practice as a short-term refugee permit and that ejecting refugees by force is verboten. Categorically, once an ethnic, racial, or religious group (Russians) are located in a given area (the state), especially one where the minority already exists (local ethnic russians), ejecting them out would make the region (the state) more ethnically homogenous (less Russian). This would, by European standards, be easily legally suspect for anyone willing to finance a lawsuite (such as interested Russians), even without considering the other fact of European law on the right to asylum, the request almost any given Russian arrival would make once on the states.
European humanitarian law basically follows that to expel someone who has tried to claim asylum, there must be someone willing to accept them who won't put them back in danger, or ship them back to the home country. In this case, you have not answered 'who' or 'where' the Europeans would expel the Russian draft dodgers back to.
I realize you've raised in the past the idea of Russian coders being a high value to European countries, but the question of the rest would remain the problem under the first-point-of-arrival policy that Europe implemented to deal with African migrants, and thus the border state's problems.
Them not believing in collective ethnic responsiblity is rather the point. They do not believe they are collectively responsible for, or to, ethnic russians collectively.
I reject your characterization of zoological or ethnic prejudice in this matter of describing other people's security perspectives. I may find the modern Russian state morally bankrupt, and the modern Russian culture generally uninteresting in it's acceptance of it, but I never deny the Russian humanity or that the Russians are the second biggest losers of Ukraine.
Since you find it amusing, and I'm sure you didn't accidentally reverse your adjectives again, I'll increase your levity. I believe you're a cultural chauvenist, not an imperialist, and have pointed others to your writings with that distinction.
This I don't generally disagree with.
And this I note other states reject, as past examples of future ethnic blocks (Russification policy effects and migration waves), weird definitions of ethnic cleansing (ones that currently serve as war justification), and low moral qualities of ruskies (such as those who supported Putin when it was cost-free) leaving home (trying to enter other countries without permission) is exactly how they- and we- have reached this current position.
Repeating steps that brought them to the present widens the chance of it reoccuring in the future. They do not view it as them having an obligation to Ukraine to host Russian refugee camps under international laws and agreements tailored for Africans. They will reject it, and send the Ukrainians more aid to make up the difference of the Russian manpower.
I don't believe they've made any pretension about being a good place for a Russian refugee column. Quite the opposite.
Was your speculation on future settlements and such meant to merely communicate the personal opinion of a Latvian or a Finn, or did you present it as an argument about security open to rational discussion on a neutral platform? You did the latter, of course, and now you're defending it with the sovereign right to endorse a policy that belongs to citizens of those states, not missing the chance to insinuate disrespect for that right on my part. Pretty lame, IMO.
...Speaking of collective responsibility. This reminds me of that one time @HlynkaCG accused me of having predicted quick surrender of «globo homo Ukraine», then apologized for having confabulated it due to clustering me together with advocates of that view.
You seem to be playing a game of equivocation and derailment, using a very clear term «collective ethnic responsibility» (such as your belief in collectively punishing Russians) interchangeably with a term «ethnic collective solidarity» that's less clear in context and has something to do with my past or present belief in «Slavic Brotherhood». I'd like to ask you to either be less creative with accusations in the future, or kindly use https://camas.unddit.com to quote the specific position that you refer to, not pull a Kulak or Hlynka (although, whatever I think about Pan-Slavism can't have much to do with the topic of collective responsibility, so this is an unproductive tangent).
Russia is not deemed to be a zone of humanitarian emergency (nor is dodging draft in Russia a «right») so the issue of shipping them back to Russia shouldn't be at conflict with humanitarian law, and indeed people are getting deported just fine now; it'll only detract from the purpose of sabotaging mobilization. Anyway. I recommend an approach that is expedient in this situation of mobilization, not legal asylum, precisely because rights or welfare of Russians cannot be expected to matter to Europeans now. Besides there already exist procedures for asylum seekers and they are used, but it'd be unrealistic to extend those to fleeing Russians in general – although Germany seems to flirt with the idea.
There are very many ways for Europeans to allow limited-term residence at risk of deportation, starting with frameworks of Schengen and worker visas. More naively, I don't believe a war is a proper time for EU bureaucracy; a good-enough (i.e. no concentration camps) legal grounds for temporary hosting of would-be Russian soldier refugees that's devoid of your speculative risks (and also precludes submitting an asylum request) can be drafted in a weekend, just like another sanctions package.
I don't believe this is the sort of belief that's amenable to refutation, as it amounts to not liking people of a particular group who display the universal and normal trait of ingroup cultural preference (which is inherently zero-sum).
And how is that an increase. In my impression, patting oneself on the back for old poetry or "sovl" and sneering at provinciality of hohols (or cowardice of the frog-eaters, or barbarity of... whoever) is a lesser transgression than attempts at imperial irredentism, unless one cares more about status signals than material insults.
If anything, the big issue with Russian chauvinism is that it is sadly inseparable from Imperialism, since for some reason – probably lack of non-imperial symbols of success – it consistently leads to Imperial fetishism and absurd delusions on the topic of Russia's capabilities and entitlements (demonstrated by our president and his support base). I clearly do not share this attitude (proven by consistent hatred of our president's support base and the reputation of a doomer), thus I reject this accusation as well.
This is an extraordinary show of bad faith and low-quality reasoning (you still haven't addressed the vacuity of your argument on «justifications» too). But since you opt to hide behind ventriloquism, it's not meaningful to continue.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link