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 -
For what it's worth I feel like there's a common thread in @xablor's post on voting and some of the replies to @zataomm's post on WWI that really ought to be broken out and examined on its own that being how exactly do we ascribe agency and responsibility.
It's trivially true that the current war in Ukraine could've been avoided had the Kievan Russ welcomed Moscow as liberators and acquiesced to their rule instead of choosing to fight. It's trivially true that World War 2 may have avoided or postponed if the Poles had acquiesced to being partitioned between the Bolsheviks and the Nazis instead of choosing to fight, or if the British Empire had valued Germanic notions of racial brotherhood over their own self-conception as World Hegemon/police or desire to adhere to previously made agreements.
But that's just the thing, they didn't, and the arguments that they ought to have seem to be relying on a lot of legwork that is not in evidence.
I recently read a book of CS Lewis' letters and essays including the full version of The Abolition of Man over the course of a cross-country flight, and it struck me as surprisingly relevant/contemporary for something that was written over 80 years ago now. It also reminded me of an argument between Habryka (or maybe Hlinka?) and some long-standing DR aligned poster from back in the day. I don't recall whether it was on LessWrong or in the CW thread on SlateStar codex but it was prior to the move to reddit and in anycase I can't seem to find it now. The jist of it was that it was impossible for an actor to be both moral and rational because having "moral principals" was effectively a precommitment to behave irrationally in specific circumstances. IE While I know that I could easily get away with lying, cheating, stealing, or otherwise "hitting the defect button" and that it might even be in my personal interest do so, I won't do that because to do so would be wrong and right/wrong is something that trancends rational self interest.
For example I'd like to think we could all recognize that killing 77 men over a puppy and a car is wholy disproportionate and perhapse even a bit extreme but at the same time I would also like to believe that all but the most autistic of contrarians would agree that a world of men like Neo is preferable to one of men like Theon Greyjoy
I feel like this is something that Lewis saw clearly that a lot of otherwise intelligent commentators today do not. Namely, that it is easy to argue with the benefit of hindsight that the British were idiots to abide by this agreement or that, but this must be whieghed against the question of what value does any agreement with the empire have once you've set the precident of reneging on any agreement the moment it looks like the bill might come due? After all, the thing that makes a debt a debt is the obligation to pay.
I feel like we see something similar in a lot of the rhetoric around voting and other forms civic duties. There seems to be this widely held belief that voting doesn't matter unless your specific vote gets to be the deciding vote but how dumb is that? how many elections are decided by one vote? and how do you decide which specific vote for candidate A or policy B out of however many is the deciding vote. It seems to me that the sanest, if not neccesarily most rational, approach is to stop asking dumb questions. Voting, even when your vote isn't neccesarily the deciding vote, has value for the same reason honoring your agreements has value. Doing so (or otherwise not doing so) tells the rest of the world something true about you.
There are times when fighting against the odds is wise and times where it is unwise. Let's examine the death toll for WW2 amongst various powers:
Denmark lost 0.16% of its population, barely a scratch. Surrendering quickly to Germany served them well. The US lost 0.3%. The UK, Belgium, France and Italy suffered around 1%. Czechoslovakia suffered around 2-3%, mostly Holocaust deaths as opposed to military deaths. Romania - 3%. Japan 3-4%. Hungary, 5-9% (a large number of Holocaust deaths plus they did a fair bit of fighting, like Romania).
Yugoslavia, 6-10%. Germany, 8%. Greece, 7-11%. The Soviet Union: 14%. But by far the hardest hit was Poland at 17%. Of course, all these countries faced widely different threats, some were luckier in their position than others, some took on much greater challenges.
However, nobody lost more than the Poles in WW2, nobody left that war in a worse position than Poland. Germany was partitioned but at least some got to escape communism. The Poles ended up being pushed westward, losing a fair few cities and enormous numbers of people. And they had to suffer another 45 years of communism.
Polish late interwar leaders faced a clear and unpleasant choice - Germany or Russia. They chose neither and got demolished by both. This was a terrible decision. Moral principles dealt them a crushing blow that the country has scarcely recovered from today. How many millions of people is standing up for freedom and independence worth? My country escaped lightly with 0.58%, yet 0.58% is still an enormous death toll! That was 60 COVIDs for us, targeting the young rather than the old. We in the Anglosphere suffered very little in the last 200 years, we were nearly always the strongest and won the most important wars. Yet we have a vast apparatus of war memorials and reverence for those sacrificed in war. Can we even imagine the sacrifices that others have made?
I have more sympathy for the Czech leaders who escaped total disaster than the Poles who plunged their country into catastrophe. Sometimes surrendering is the best course of action. We can only imagine the internal feelings of those who proudly chose death before dishonour, only to receive double portions of both.
Respect for agreements, obligation and one's reputation are secondary to the core health of the nation.
There is no plausible scenario in which we emerge from the war in a meaningfully better condition.
We ally with the USSR? Today's invasion might get postponed slightly, but the Soviets would still enter the eastern territories and loot under the guise of help. Katyń might not happen in 1940, but these officers would be probably killed after the war, like e.g. Pilecki. The nightmare march westward in 1945 during which Soviets raped basically every encountered woman between the ages of 10 and 80 would still happen. The latter is most certain out of those, as it historically did happen post-Barbarossa, when we were technically allied with USSR. After the Yałta, instead of a satellite state, we could have ended up as a fully fledged Soviet republic, which means the next 45 of oppression are some 50% worse.
We ally with the Reich? They had no scruples breaking Ribbentrop-Mołotow, why would they have any breaking a (highly implausible, ahistorical) Ribbentrop-Beck? (Seriously, the guy who I entrust my life to w/r/t historical knowledge, who is not a normie but a Mishima-and-Evola-reading /ourguy/, completely thrashes the linked book). The Nazis would still shell and bombard us eventually. The Holocaust would still have happened, maybe worse are the government would be collaborating with the German war-death complex instead of resisting it.
But long term, the worst would come after the war. See, nobody cares too much about Vichy Government these days, or the Swiss, or how Sweden supplied Germans with steel. That is because they had decades to wage a successful diplomatic and propaganda campaigns to bleach their history. Hell, pretty much nobody holds a grudge against Germany now. But Poland would be a poor satellite state, unable to have significant democratic relations with the west. What is nowadays a relatively fringe position would be a mainstream one: all the responsibility for the Holocaust would be offloaded from Germany to Poland. We would remain a pariah state for centuries. We might have not get allowed into the EU and NATO, and become a Belarus-style authoritarian backwater. The war that is happening right now across our border might have been happening on our soil instead.
This is just made-up. There is no reason to think that Russia might have a significantly greater chance of invading Poland based on a point of divergence some 80 years ago. Nobody can predict what would happen over such a time period. The decision not to pick one of the two choices INCREASED the chance of Russian invasion, it didn't lower it. The Ribbentrop-Beck pact book is nonsense (why would Germany invade Western Europe if allied with Poland?) that doesn't mean all variations of similar ideas are nonsense.
This is also ahistorical, Hungary collaborated. Romania collaborated eagerly. Various Soviet minorities were happy to liquidate Jews. Yet responsibility still lies with Germany. It's not as though Hungary and Romania have enormous influence in world opinion to cover up their misdeeds.
Ally with Germany and hand over Danzig in exchange for parts of Belorussia. Ally with Russia and get gains at Germany's expense (presumably more than received in real life).
Both of those are more realistic options than spurning both powers. There is absolutely no reason to think that the world is fair, that vast suffering is compensated for with rewards of any kind.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link