site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Most peoples are able to achieve 100% peace. Maybe not 100% agreement, but 100% willingness not to join partisan terrorist groups when they lose the vote. I don't think Palestinians would, I think at least 0.1% would commit terrorist attacks in a way most peoples wouldn't. And unlike other peoples such as the Irish, just being given their own state and some concessions wouldn't be enough to mollify them, I think they'd keep doing it until they controlled all of Israel/Palestine.

I think that 100% peace would never happen either. I also think Palestine will never defeat Israel militarily either, that if they did it'd be just as big of a humanitarian crisis, and keeping this miserable status quo for the next centuries isn't the best was can do. That's why I think the best outcome would be a refugee process where Palestinians officially don't get the right of return, and are relocated to other countries. Hell, I think it'd be cheaper for a lot of places if there was some international cooperation to build the Palestinians a nice artificial island they can live on far way from Israel.

Most peoples are able to achieve 100% peace. Maybe not 100% agreement, but 100% willingness not to join partisan terrorist groups when they lose the vote.

I think history shows you are incorrect. My own home nation Northern Ireland (with parallels to Israel/Palestine) has not.

There are still terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland, there are just many fewer of them than they used to be. So no, the Irish were not 100% mollified by having their own state either. That is my point, after a conflict like this, only being satisfied with 100% peace is a demand that can never be met.

Most peoples after a decades long conflict like this will have some percentage who are so hurt and have lost so much and hate so much that they will try to continue the conflict. That is simply part of humanity, and there is no use pretending it isn't. It applies to the Palestinians, the Irish and everyone else. The only healer is time, a slow de-escalation where fewer people are being radicalized (on both sides) and so the worst of the conflict is decades in the past. Then you might be able to get a majority on board, but there will always be some who will not, until they die off of old age. The paras back home are still shooting, firebombing and kneecapping people 26 years after peace. Just fewer and fewer of them.

I admittedly underestimated the amount of continuing Irish terrorism then. I would still predict that the amount of continuing Palestinian terrorism after any Ireland-like peace deal would be far greater and at a level that would make decreasing tensions impossible.

Right now it absolutely would be, but remember the Troubles simmered down over years, until by the 90's it was much less intense than in the 70's. So it takes decades to lower those tensions, and for those who had family or friends killed to feel less raw, which fuels the whole merry-go-round.

Weren’t the troubles also a notable increase on previous tensions? My admittedly layman’s understanding is that Catholics in Northern Ireland were treated rather badly but content with essentially peaceful protests between Irish independence and Bloody Sunday, and that the troubles were a move to terrorism which eventually died down and got capped, the remaining terrorists being basically just ethnically-organized gangs like the crips or ms-13 at this point.

Well......it depends from when you are measuring. Broadly the civil rights movement in the 60's "provoked" responses from Loyalist paramilitaries. The RUC siding (usually) with the Loyalists then became targets during riots, which led to them moving into Catholic areas in force (or trying at least). This led to bombings and the like pre- Bloody Sunday. But many of the parades were celebrating the Easter Uprising, some 50 years before. So whether you count 1922 to 1966 as an increase in tensions or just a lull is subjective. There were riots in the 30's and 50's and the IRA only called off its Border Campaign in 1962, it just wasn't very effective.

Various anti-Catholic curfews and internment campaigns inflamed tensions as did the Ballymurphy massacre, then Bloody Sunday. It was certainly worse after that, but I don't think we could classify it as peaceful beforehand.