site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

While using civilians as human shields is certainly morally dubious

Can you provide a falsifiable definition of what a "human shield" is? I've never seen one. What is the objective scientific difference between a legitimate tragic human shield and an aggressor killing a civilian without mercy ostensibly to get at a "valid" target, and just invoking the phrase "human shield" to abrogate moral consequences for their actions? How many people or what methods are used when one shifts from the other?

If a bomb is dropped and kills 10 people to get at one that operated much of his guerilla field planning from home is that human shields? 100? 2? If a cop shoots through a hostage to kill a fugitive killer is that a human shields (blameless and free from personal responsibility for their actions)? What if it's a drugee and not a killer?

It's all about intent and capabilities. When a guerilla force has an entire city to operate in, yet insists on placing weapon caches inside a hospital, that's certainly one. Or someone holding a gun to a hostage's head.

I really don't see anything particularly difficult about it. Is the enemy relying on your unwillingness to kill neutral third parties (or even their civilian supporters) to deter you from offing them? That's a human shield, not that cases like having the Pentagon in DC, because nobody does that to stop them getting literally nuked.