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 -
There is no upper limit on how many civilians could die with the actions being entirely acceptable. The key point is how necessary any particular action is. Militaries are mandated to take on a certain risk by virtue of being non-civilian, and that risk can be asymmetrical if you're the invader. For example, it may not be acceptable to bomb a factory making fighter jets that kills 10 people if those jets can be shot down in the air by SAMs even though the latter is more dangerous to the armed troops.
That level of analysis assumes there’s never going to be a genuine threat to your own civilians. This was true for the mainland USA. It wasn’t for any of the countries in Europe or asia.
If you’re a country in range of enemy bombers during WW2, any enemy planes you fail to shoot down are now a threat to not just your own troops but also your own civilians. The less enemy planes built, the fewer that can potentially get past your air defences.
Additionally, the distinction between a civilian working at a military manufacturing plant vs a soldier working in the logistical side of things is blurry, especially in a country with mass conscription and a totally mobilised war economy.
Besides even today, Civilians get contracted to do also sorts of support services for the military, particularly in terms of logistics, that soldiers also get used for. Why is the life of a 19 year old conscript assigned to drive a truck somehow less morally worthy than a civilian contracted by the military to do the same thing?
It's worth noting that a great deal of effort to minimize the damage of war to civilians came about in Europe. Despite the threats each nations armies posed to each other, they were willing to accept the idea that it was best to avoid going after non-combatants even if they were in a position to strike. Indeed, there was significant debate over this precise issue when Germany and Britain were exchanging air strikes in WW2.
True. I don't have any hard-line stance on what is or isn't an acceptable target. But this is precisely what the lawyers and scholars do for a living, so I'm fine leaving it to them to decide on a case-by-case basis.
More options
Context Copy link
Certainly the western allies saw very little distinction to be drawn between German civilians and combatants. There was sometimes an employment of various euphemisms to skirt around the brutal logic of this worldview (the proponents of strategic bombing liked to talk about "damaging enemy morale" or "targeting worker housing"), but generally the perspective was that the ultimate good was forcing unconditional surrender as soon as possible, by any means possible.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I started to go down this rabbit hole, arguing that the correct decisions have to be made case-by-case. You don’t decide civilian casualties on the operational level; you handle it in target selection. “Be aware of your target and what’s behind it.”
But the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that there is a role for macro estimates. It’s a go/no-go signal for the whole operation. Eisenhower & company had the option of saying no, we can’t do this without depopulating the whole countryside, we will wait for the Soviets and Italy to apply more pressure. They had good reasons not to do this, but Overlord could have theoretically been shelved.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link