AmrikeeAkbar
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User ID: 1187
AmrikeeAkbar
4d ago
Eh, it's definitely done in more of a thought experiment way than a give-me-sjw-points way. Part of the subtext is that people are constantly falling into gender roles whether consciously or not, and the narrator draws attention to this.
AmrikeeAkbar
4d ago
Honestly, audiobooks are great for those long 19th century novels. I just tune in for the interesting parts while driving/doing chores/whatever. Whether this counts as reading is of course a matter of perspective
AmrikeeAkbar
4d ago
Alternately bouncing between "The Making of The English Working Class", a very interesting history book, albeit colored somewhat by the authors Marxist sympathies and "Too Like The Lightning", a mid-to-near future science fiction mystery-thriller. Between the two of them, I think I prefer the history book. It's quite long but feels, for lack of a better term, very real in way the sf doesn't. Lest this sound like a dig, I should emphasize I give full credit to "Too Like The Lightning" for trying to envision a plausible near future that is different from our own world yet plausibly derived from it. The author is swinging for the fences; it's just that the price of trying to swing for the fences is sometimes you miss.
AmrikeeAkbar
8d ago
That's a fair point, and it caused me to do some thinking. I think in the case of Japan, we very deliberately went out of our way to embed the US occupation in the existing structure of the Japanese state, leaving the Emperor on the throne etc. In the Tokyo War Crimes trial, we went out of our way to only prosecute a relatively small handful of top-ranked leaders and a whole bunch of lower-ranking folks were allowed to return to political and government life after a short time. We also kept boots on the ground for a long time, both to contain any resurgent militarist tendencies, but also to shield Japan against enemies like Russia and Communist China. Nothing makes people over look old enmity like a new common enemy. So there was a carrot-and-stick arrangement in place which encouraged post-war reconciliation.
In the case of Vietnam, you again have a case of common adversary in the form of China, which fought a war with Vietnam within a few years of US departure. I will note that even so, it took twenty years for the US and Vietnam to normalize diplomatic relations. And crucially, the North Vietnamese won; its a lot easier to be generous in victory than defeat.
So I won't say its impossible for us to be friends with the Iranians in a decade or two. If an ISIS-like entity were to re-emerge, say, I could see us making common cause. But I do think that kind of reconciliation would require a major fat-tail event that is hard to see from here.
AmrikeeAkbar
12d ago
We did the first two episodes of S5 last night. So far I quite like it; I'll try to maintain momentum and finish strong. I definitely know what you mean about the actors. It's not so bad with the older kids, but it can be hard to suspend disbelief when you're watching someone whose in their twenties notionally playing a high school sophomore
AmrikeeAkbar
13d ago
I guess it is basically a steel man if your argument. To be fair, they're not the only nation whose leadership committed them to decades of misadventure in the region based off of conspiracy theories
AmrikeeAkbar
13d ago
Just finished Stranger Things Season 4, after taking a long hiatus following season 3. I had assumed the law of diminishing returns would apply but was presently surprised that 4, imo, was the strongest season since the first. Taking things in a more horror inspired direction seemed to be just the right move to reinvigorate things while still developing in an organic way from the original premise. I've heard season 5 isn't great; should I end on a high note?
AmrikeeAkbar
16d ago
To the extent I can give you a neat answer, I think it comes down to the principal-agent problem, a ruling class which legitimizes itself on the basis of a particular revolutionary ideology, and of course, blind luck and historical contingency.
As you indicate, prior to the Revolution, Iran was basically an Israeli ally. Then you have the revolution, in which counter-elites overthrew the Shah's regime in the name of an ideology which fused left-wing anti-colonialism with religion. As is usually the case, there was a range of opinion amongst the revolutionaries about what shape the post-revolutionary world would take, but the more hardline elements won out. The Iranian Hostage Crisis was a kind of bleeding ulcer that would have prevented normalization of relations between the US and Iran even if the US had been inclined to recognize the new regime - which we weren't. The Shah had been perceived as a key ally against Communism and the whole US security complex had been humiliated by their failure to anticipate or prevent the revolution, so negotiation was always gonna be a heavy lift.
Then comes the Iran-Iraq war, an absolutely brutal conflict in which all sorts of atrocities are committed and in which the US (who mostly still sees Iran as their main problem in the Middle East) backs Iraq. During the war, Iran doubles down on its revolutionary hard-line attitudes. Remember, a lot of the military was considered unreliable because they were associated with the Shah, so Iran lacks a corp of professional, capable officers. They compensate by invoking sheer fanaticism. When the war ends, you have a generation of leaders whose formative experiences have been fighting the US and it's proxies in the name of Revolutionary Shiism, burying their friends and family along the way. Additionally, various things happen which contribute to Iran being an international pariah and make normal relations difficult to impossible with the rest of the world.
Combine this history with geopolitical opportunism. There's lots of Shia throughout the middle-east, mostly in a politically subordinate position. As you pointed out, Iranians are not Arabs, and are the wrong kind of Muslim as far as most of the middle eastern regimes are concerned. So there's already a lot of tension there, not helped by the fact that Iranians aren't shy about considering themselves the successor of the Persian empire. Iran doesn't have the conventional military power to be a regional hegemon, but of course just as the revolution happens we're entering a golden age of unconventional warfare. So, lets assume you're at odds with all your neighbors, and you don't have the guns, tanks and airplanes to threaten them, but you do have a whole bunch of dedicated Shia operatives with paramilitary experience. And you have a bunch of not-particularly-happy Shia looking to put pressure on their own governments. What do you do?.
Thats more or less how we got to where we are. You have a generation of leaders invested in a particular view of the world, who have embedded themselves in the government and security apparatus of the state. You have a hostile but stable equilibrium in which Iran doesn't get along with the US or its Arab neighbors but nobody wants to risk a full-on military conflict (until recently). Personally, everything I took from own study of Iran in grad school was that I'm glad it wasn't my problem to deal with. Cuz it really is a thorny problem. If you're a based conservative, you can point out that Iran is constantly starting shit at every opportunity, and you're absolutely right. If you're a bleeding-heart liberal, you can point out that all the stick-shaking and sanctions and tough-talk haven't actually effected a change in regime attitudes, and you're also absolutely right. Personally, I'm not optimistic about the latest developments. Sure, we can smash their conventional forces, and their economy, and kill all their leaders. But in another twenty years there will be a fresh crop of military age males. And what will their formative experiences have been?
AmrikeeAkbar
16d ago
Seconding Axeworthy's book. Additionally I'd recommend "The Eagle and The Lion" by James A Bill, which is about US-Iranian relations specifically.
AmrikeeAkbar
16d ago
Listen to that podcast all the time, just put together that Tom Holland is one of the hosts. No idea he used to write fiction, I'll have to check him out.
I still have to read that one! Is over-rated or as much a classic as people say?
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