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 -
I think a mistake that a lot of commentators (both in Russia and the West) have made is conflating Yanukovych's "Party of Regions" Ukraine with Euromaidan Ukraine. Back in 2019 I was in Poland for a few months, helping set up local training/maintenance pipelines for the Polish DoD, and had the opportunity to talk to a few UAF guys who were cross-training with them.
According to them Ukraine had been trying very hard since 2014 to crackdown on corruption and rebuild their military and economy along more western lines. They described the war in Donbas as "a wake-up call" and were quite adamant about having no desire to be soviets again. Granted, guys being sent to cross-train are almost certainly going to be the cream of the crop/those already flagged for promotion but still... Reading about the alleged persecution of Russian speakers in Ukraine I found myself wondering just how much of it was "racial animus" vs "genuine attempts to fight corruption". It's probably impossible to ever know for sure, but my impression at the time was that the Euromaidan government enjoyed a much broader base of support than many were giving it credit for that the UAF was quite serious about getting it's act together. Accordingly my prediction back when this all kicked of was that any attempt by Russia to push into western Ukraine was likely to end in a blood-soaked clusterfuck. Id say that prediction has been borne out.
My suspicion now is much the same as it was in April, that this will play out similarly to the Russo-Finish war, with Russia ultimately "winning" on paper by gaining some minor territorial concession but loosing in most of the ways that actually matter. IE suffering outsize casualties and utterly destroying any future chance of bringing
HelsinkiKiev back into the empire.More options
Context Copy link