site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   7184 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 16, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

There is something rather reprehensible about picking up on certain events that happened 100+ years ago and then insisting on prefixing every mention of a nation with that event like a Homeric epithet. It has only two possible outcomes: maximal woke virtue signaling competition to derive somehow moral superiority from talking about horrible things your grandparents have done (a la Germans) or Balkan-style history fights because if you are aware of any history beyond John Oliver sketches then you know that events don’t occur for no reason.

In 1915 something like a quarter of the Muslim population in Anatolia were recent refugees ethnically cleansed out of Caucasus and Balkans in very similar ways to Armenians. Country was fighting for its survival against the Entente that had explicit plans to further this ethnic cleansing from both western and eastern directions until Russia collapsed. Probably a majority of non-Kurdish population of Turkey today has near ancestry who were ethnically cleansed out of their homelands during the events of late 19th-20th century. Something like half the countries in yesterday’s Eurovision rooster holds some significant responsibility for these series of cleansings which included the 1915 Armenian one too. Somehow as long as they don’t challenge NATO consensus these countries never get to carry a genocide epithet.

It’s commonplace for Turks like your friend’s boyfriend to act opportunistically hypocritical but I am generally quite proud that our population at larger never succumbed to the propaganda regarding their own ancestors unique evilness.

Would you acknowledge the evilness of Armenian genocide if we agree to drop the "unique" part?

Yes of course.

I got a lot of pushback here, but I still think my standard of "anything over 50 years ago should be dropped" as a current-year topic still works pretty well, not ideologically obviously but as a more pragmatic principle that preserves at least some notion of evenhandedness. 50 years later, most everyone in power then is dead now, or dying, so it seems increasingly pointless to try and get reparations or impact current policy. For Israel, that means the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War both ought to be non-factors, but the Oslo Accords and first Lebanese conflict might still be fair game. For Ukraine, that would mean you can't hold Stalin against Russia, but you can look at some of the last decade of the USSR. For Turkey, that would mean a lot of the PKK conflicts are still relevant. Does that imply that an Armenian shouldn't feel ill-will towards Turkey still? No, that's understandable, I would more say that it implies that you can blame their upbringing or current education system for mis-educating people still, but that at the same time pursuing any kind of reparations would be a fool's errand.

More controversially, your reasoning would imply that the following are off the table:

  • Every former British colony griping about British colonialism (including the Great Famine of Ireland, the partition of India and Pakistan, and on and on)
  • Jews griping about the Holocaust
  • Black Americans demanding reparations for slavery, or even bringing up Jim Crow
  • Aboriginal Australians griping about the Stolen Generations
  • First Nations people griping about residential schools
  • Native Americans griping about the Trail of Tears

Interestingly, the Rwandan genocide and South African apartheid are still within the statute of limitations.

I'm actually ok with those being disallowed from the complaining zone. I get quite sick of being held to collective blame (as a white American) for things that happened before I was even born. Slavery and the Trail of Tears happened before my ancestors even came over to the country! It doesn't seem very fair to hold grudges against a group of people who couldn't possibly have committed the wrong to begin with.

I basically agree, though I'd prefer an exponential function with a half-life of 25. But I guess that will be too complicated.

I don’t think eternal guilt is viable, but Turks could behave a little more like - say - principled British Empire defenders and admit the atrocities but say by and large it was a proud history in their opinion.

All large scale population transfers (ie ethnic cleansing) involve great suffering and usually many civilian casualties. Nevertheless, in the case of the Armenians the death toll and much of the historic narrative suggests at least some genocidal behavior, many outright mass killings of civilians in huge numbers and so on, and the death toll speaks to that (because as a percentage of Armenians at that time, it was an order of magnitude if not more greater than the casualties of the Greek-Turkish population transfers for example).

Greek-Turkish population transfers were negotiated between Greek and Turkish states at peace time with no direct urgency or threat. It’s not a good comparison at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I also wish my countrymen could be more enlightened about their patriotism. But then I should ask, as I know many British people personally from various backgrounds and education levels, where are these principled defenders of the British Empire? I certainly haven’t encountered many. What sort of effect do they have on the national consciousness of the general public? Close to none. The country we are supposed to imitate according to you is so lethargic that it cannot even react to the organised race-based rape of digit percentages of its young girls. Fuck no thanks I will take jingoism over that.

It's one thing to refuse to allow your national identity to be defined by a horrendous crime committed generations ago. It's quite another to pretend it never happened at all, as modern-day Turkey quite explicitly does.

But in practice the first is much harder than the second. Telling someone, “Yes, my ancestors killed millions of people not very long ago, but I choose not to let it define me,” is very difficult, especially if your conversational partner is related to the people they murdered.

It’s much easier to say, “nah, that stuff’s all exaggerated,” or as e.g. the SNP do, “no, you don’t understand, all that British Empire stuff was the evil hateful ENGLISH really, they oppressed us too, please don’t look at any of the Mac names on the memorials…”

Of course it's easier. And I'm not singling out the Turks for criticism as uniquely evil: this whitewashing of history is reprehensible no matter who does it, whether it's the Americans, the Japanese, the Belgians, the Brits etc.

For sure. I’m just saying that I don’t think the first approach is actually viable and I can’t remember seeing any examples, except when the genocide is centuries old and long forgotten except by revisionist historians. Can you think of any examples?

Germany is the obvious one, to the point that a lot of people think they take it too far (e.g. deporting people who criticise Israel). Arguably Australia and Canada, although I don't really believe either of the latter two were really guilty of "genocide" as such, but certainly genocide-adjacent activities. I've heard that American high schools have gotten a lot better in recent years about teaching pupils about slavery, Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears, Vietnam etc. (even if I'm sure it likely often devolves into lists of atrocities those horrible Red Tribers committed, which we noble Blue Tribers opposed at every turn).

The interesting thing going on right now IMO in high school history classes is we're starting to see them teach topics like the 80's, which is that awkward frontier where it's like, definitely starting to be established history in an important sense, but it's also still very impactful on current politics, so you theoretically still have to tread carefully. It seems like history classes in high school typically roll up to like a 20 to 30-year lagging window or so. APUSH for example technically covers "1980 to present" as a whole category, but in practice it usually starts petering out around the mid-2000's, with the last official topic being the Obama presidency, so about 10 years ago. But most history classes won't push that frontier as much.

OP said

It has only two possible outcomes: maximal woke virtue signaling competition to derive somehow moral superiority from talking about horrible things your grandparents have done (a la Germans) or Balkan-style history fights because if you are aware of any history beyond John Oliver sketches then you know that events don’t occur for no reason.

Those seem to me classic examples of OP’s first case. Modern Germany defines itself (negatively) in relation to the Nazis, while Australia and Canada are constantly weeping performative tears (and arson campaigns, cancellations, affirmative action etc.) on behalf of the ‘genocided’ peoples.

Yeah, I think that's a fair characterisation.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats