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 -
HAPPENING NOW: ISRAEL LAUNCHES MASSIVE ATTACK AGAINST IRANESE NUCLEAR FACILITIES—AIR RAID SIRENS HEARD ALL ACROSS ISRAEL—MASSIVE AIR ACTIVITY OVER IRAQ-SYRIA BORDER—MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS CONFIRMED IN TEHRAN INCLUDING COLLAPSED BUILDING—IRANIAN FIGHTER JETS SEEN TAKING OFF FROM AIRSTRIPS NEAR TEHRAN—BALLISTIC MISSILE LAUNCHES REPORTED IN IRAN—REPORTS OF EXPLOSIONS AT US BASES IN IRAQ—MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS HEARD NEAR IRAN’S NATANZ NUCLEAR FACILITY—VIDEO FOOTAGE SHOWING NATANZ NUCLEAR FACILITY BURNING—UNCONFIRMED REPORTS THAT THE CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE IRANIAN MILITARY HAS BEEN KILLED IN A TARGETED STRIKE
—Inb4 source
—Inb4 “low effort post ban” Additional facts and my thoughts will be added as the situation develops
Regarding culture war aspects of this: I predict more Israel Bad posts everywhere. I have already seen some on reddit saying they'd rather that Iran have nukes than Israel because Israel has been the main aggressor in the region since its existence and Iran having nukes would help reign them in. I doubt we'll get huge rallies of people shouting "Free Iran!", though.
Well, I'd peg Iran as a good case of "bad guys who are in the right". I don't have much love left for the Islamic theocracy they are running and think there are many ways in which they deny human flourishing for no good reason at all, but also it seems clear to me that they have more of a popular mandate to run the country than anyone else does, and in particular they came to power as a sort of last-resort response to all sorts of alternative attempts of running Iran were tried and turned out to be more unjust.
As for Israel Bad, let me present an abbreviated case that Israel is in fact Bad. Really, in my estimation and value system, it is hard to think of a state entity that is more unambiguously evil: they stole land to build a murderous ethnostate (the last part already being bad in itself, if you subscribe to a certain brand of humanism); take, take and take from even their so-called friends while repaying the friendship with perfidy and treason, and use their extensive influence network to gaslight the friends into not even being able to coherently respond to said perfidy; and, worst of all, they come to be among the worst purveyors of hypocrisy and double standards anywhere to cover up for their actions, which I see as an attack on the idea of standards and rules, and civilisation built upon it, itself. If an Arab kills one random Israeli, they tell us, this is an atrocity of the highest order, retroactively justifying every abuse that not only this Arab but the grandfather of his cousin thrice removed was subjected to; if an Israeli kills a hundred random Arabs, this is maybe a little excessive and you really wish they would exercise restraint but of course their right to defend themselves should not be questioned? Those hundred probably included a lot of people who felt vaguely positively about the Arab who killed one Israeli before? Even their very founding myth does this - their target demographic suffered the great injustice of being murdered and expelled for the sake of someone else's ethnostate, so they will gloriously murder and expel an entirely unrelated people to get their ethnostate. The median Israeli, furthermore, seems about as complicit in this as any citizen can be complicit in the actions of their country - few other countries are as affluent, polyglot and well-connected, and I figure any Israeli who wanted to leave would be welcomed with open arms in most of the Western world. Certainly, if I were Israeli, I hope I would have the integrity to either leave or else accept any retribution that comes my way with the serenity of a repentant murderer on death row.
I think having the worst version of their standards applied to themselves is the most appropriate punishment for purveyors of double standards. Israel contends that 55k dead Palestinians (80% civilians) is a just response to 1.2k dead Israelis (68% civilians) (Wikipedia figures). If against all odds Iran came through and successfully applied the same ratio to them, I would not think the world became a better* place, but it would be hard to shake the feeling that it became a more just one, in the ruat caelum way.
*I do not reject the argument that net suffering even for Arabs in Israel (let alone net disutility for its Imperial Citizens) is lower than net suffering for Arabs in self-governed countries, but find it irrelevant. I wish for people to have the right to be governed by their own choice and consent, including the right to be governed badly.
Firstly I will say I don't have a camel in this race because I don't care much what two strangers do to each other. I don't think Israel is Good but its tough to convince me they're Bad:
It seems to boil down to: (1) they're bad allies to the US; (2) they treat their enemies as enemies. Now I will grant you (1), since you're probably right and I don't care either way. But I'd like to push back on (2).
So Israel is Bad for valuing one citizen over a hundred Arabs. Does Gaza value the life of a Jew equally to one of its citizens? Does Iran? I haven't researched what Gazans and Iranians think of Jews, or read anything their governments say about various attacks and grievances. I have however seen some Gazan propaganda television teaching their kids to hate Jews, so I know where I'd put my money.
Finally, I agree with you that Iran and Palestine are entitled to take their revenge on Israel. It seems Israel already thinks their enemies want that anyways. So, I also don't begrudge Israel turning their neighbors into glass. Actually I'm quite impressed with their restraint.
Israelis liquidated entire vilages, women children and all during the Nakba. They would deserve everything that's coming to them, were this universe even slightly just.
The Nakba resulted from a war the Arabs started, and it was a tea party compared to the displacement and massacres accompanying the partition of India and Pakistan. Somehow we manage not to deplore those states for it, seven decades on.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
One data point is Shalit, for whom Nethanyahu paid with 1027 Arabs in 2011. Of course, this was a terrible decision on Israel's part: releasing 280 terrorists serving life sentences will have expected costs much higher than a single Israeli life. But likely Netanyahu needed a cheap political win at the time or something.
With all the hostages taken on Oct-7, the market value of Israelis has really crumbled to the point where 200 Arabs are exchanged for for four female IDF soldiers.
(Arguably, the most valuable contribution an IDF soldier could ever hope to make to Israel's wars is to suicide when captured. Most soldiers can never hope to personally neutralize 100 enemies, but a captured soldier can prevent 100 enemies from being un-neutralized.)
This is precisely the rationale behind the so-called Hannibal Directive
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Palestinians appear to value a dead Israeli more than the lives of multiple Palestinians.
More options
Context Copy link
I would care significantly less what they did if I weren't forced to be complicit in it, by way of taxes if nothing else (which also forces me to in fact be okay with some amount of being blown up by Arab terrorists in revenge, because per my own morality I do deserve it); but yes, I do in fact think that a 1:100 valuation, especially from a capable state, is an unacceptable defection against peaceful modernity as I envision it. In my ideal world, every state brazenly implementing such a value function in favour of its own citizens ought to be ganged up on by everyone else, until only countries that assign reasonable value even to foreigners remain. ((1) I'm not sure what sort of ratio I'm okay with; (2) I'm happy if all of Israel's enemies are next, should they prove that they still have such a preference function after Israel has been obliterated. Israel at least has provided circumstantial evidence that their relative valuation is not confined to a handful of countries.) Think of Russia/Ukraine as the usual comparison case - in the case of those two countries, neither actually dares to "treat their enemies as enemies" in the Israeli fashion, because they know full well that being the first to do so would invite massive Western retribution (if Russia does it) or at least a nearly as fatal downturn in Western support (if Ukraine does).
As for (1), it's not just the US. (I'm not American! The USS Liberty episode was just the starkest display of cuckoldry I could think of, and probably more compelling to our American majority.)
Is whats good for the goose good for the gander? The Arab states CONSISTENTLY display and act on their desire to destroy their proximate enemies, be it the neighbor or village or country or cousin. Israel isn't even the most devastating conflict each of their antagonists engaged in, with Egypt intervening in Yemen to lose more troops than the Yom Kippur War and Syria losing.... well, literally everything. Even their domestic conduct and respect for foreigners leaves much to be desired, as anyone who has ever set foot in any of those countries can attest. Try going for Haj if you're not of superior Arab or acceptable White blood, see how they treat you. If you put your value function as 'fuck these constantly defecting assholes', we have EXISTING proof of such actions being conducted ad nauseum. I maintain that the best path for the Israelis is to just buy out Carnival Cruises and go on a nationwide 4 year booze cruise, and let the region implode upon itself.
In general yes, and with the Saudis in particular I actually think they are long overdue for a drubbing on very similar grounds to Israel. (Since Saudi Arabia is not even remotely democratic, though, I think the moral case that its civilians deserve it is far weaker!) That being said, I think of the obligation to be a "good citizen" among the nations to only really come into full force after a certain threshold of national capability is surpassed - tasers and rubber bullets are appropriate for antisocial adults running wild, not antisocial children throwing a temper tantrum, with the latter being more appropriately subjected to gentler and more patronising modes of reeducation. If some random minnow on the order of Syria is impotently mouthing off against its neighbours, what they need is a stern talking-to and maybe a review if at some point it looks like they might be acquiring the capacity to making good on those threats.
Libya was run by a clown moron that looked like a parody of what a dictator should be. He was also sponsoring terrorist attacks that managed to actually kill a sizable number of people, in addition to just enriching many terrorists groups that were not competent enough to achieve their goals. The reality is that terrorism has a fairly low capability bar to clear, and maintaining the discipline of agents until a target of opportunity arises is the largest problem. Even after Gadafi died Libya still hosted terrorist training camps that resulted in the manchester bombing, killing dozens of actual children - prepubescent little girls not 17 year old bearded boys - to no response from the UK authorities. Perhaps the irritating Syrian minnow should not be brushed off as irrelevant just because you wish to focus energies on preferred aggressors. Thats not very aladeen of you if you only aladeen the aladeen aladeen.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Probably, if you consider absolute value. They'd definitely accept more than one Gazan killed in exchange for killing a Jew.
The "You also value my property more than your life" meme but its Israel aiming a missile reading "You also value my citizens more than your own"
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's probably not something I should make a habit of, but I feel compelled to give some support to Israel here. Israel didn't steal any land any more than anyone else won or lost land before and after World War II, but the difference is the reaction to them has been way crazier because they planted themselves in the middle of a sea of extremists based around a nucleus of religious sites (geez, how many holy sites are Muslims entitled to? The Jews just have a few right there, right?). Much blood has been spilled because there was no postwar liberal consensus in the Middle East as there was in Europe. The postwar liberal consensus had to be created by Israel basically all by itself, with limited success, as the situation in Gaza shows. Israel was making some serious progress on a two-state thing, but that whole deal was killed by rampant terrorist attacks, and due to these sustained attacks, the Palestinians have never been farther from their own state. That's never what they wanted, anyway; they want everything, river to the sea.
Israelis are considered more valued by both sides. You can see this based on the prisoner exchanges between Hamas and Israel. Always, Israel releases hundreds or thousands of militants in exchange for a handful of their own soldiers or civilian hostages. Hamas is glad to accept these deals that bear the implication that one Israeli is worth thousands of Gazans, so I can't blame anyone for believing it's true. But disproportionate casualties have always been acceptable in war, which is what this is. Those civilian to militant casualty ratios are not even out of the ordinary for war. Massive assaults on civilians have also always been a decent cause for war, especially ones committed by the literal government of a territory.
If Israel is an ethnostate (it probably is), it's not a very good one. Do you think that Nazi Germany would accept having a populace composed of 20% Jews?
Normally, I find the idea of actual genocide to be pretty terrible. Ethnic groups and DNA and culture are fascinating to me, and to see something like that die entirely is a huge bummer. Gaza tests this value of mine. Never has a people been more problematic than them and never has a people been more determined to reject their lot in life. Basically their entire purpose nowadays is to take back every square inch of Israel, no matter how impossible that is, no matter how many people on their own side and on the enemy side are killed. Before the 20th century, they absolutely would never have been tolerated. They would have been, at the very least, brutally slapped around until a huge percentage of the population was dead and the rest was too weak and scared to retaliate. If this is not done, this conflict will likely never end. Even forcibly moving every Gazan out of the area probably would not fix the problem, because they are extremely intent on getting their territory back, and distance does not stop the likes of the Houthis and the Iranians either.
I am a little fascinated by the right wingers who do not like Israel. For them, it's generally a much more obvious case of antisemitism than it is for left wingers. My father introduced me to the fact that antisemitism is really, really old in Europe. For Christians, it makes a lot of sense; they were a very radically different group that lived in close proximity to them, considered sinners, forced into a universally disliked profession as bankers, and there is some basis for the idea that they killed Christ and called down a blood curse upon themselves. This, plus random grievances accumulated throughout the centuries just from tallying up every negative incident they could find. For the non-religious, I do not know why they would dislike Jews in particular. My best guess is conspiracy reasons related to Hollywood or perhaps certain Holocaust deniers. If anyone here is agnostic or atheist or otherwise not a Christian, and really doesn't like Jews, please let me know your reasons. I'm interested, scientifically. My father really liked Jews before his, uh, awakening, and he hated Muslims. Now he basically loves Gazans and hates Jews, while still mostly hating Muslims in Europe.
Jews are politically minorities in a way that does not exactly endear them to the far right.
Why so many secular far right wingers(and in middle eastern conflicts, when forced to have an opinion, I simply support whatever side is better for local Christians. Ethnoreligious prejudices are how the locals make their decisions, after all) hate Israel I can't say- it is after all Jews being somewhere else.
Are you Arab? If not, how is supporting your perceived interests of Arab Christians comparable to "ethnoreligious prejudices?"
Can you be more specific about which "secular far right wingers" you think want "Jews being somewhere else?" Does supporting the goals of the "Jewish Lobby" result in American Jews emigrating or reduce the number of foreign Jews immigrating?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The difference is that WWII land loss mostly affected belligerents, who had legitimate beefs going back centuries. Israel was built at the expense of Arab villagers who didn't really do anything to anybody. If you get injured in a mass brawl, you can't just go on to maul a random bystander and excuse yourself by saying that everyone in the mass brawl you just came out of suffered injuries.
I mean, they are clearly working on it. South Africa, generally recognised as pretty evil, always was minority-European.
Would it fix the problem on the Israeli side? They have already also grabbed parts of Lebanon (more, recently); how do we figure there would be a real limit to their quest for Lebensraum?
South Africa never was ethnonationalist project. Vast demographic stratum of not-coethnics is incompatible (with ethnonationalist ethnostate). Apartheid era South Africa was an attempt at ethnosupremacist caste society. Some similarities with multicultural empires (but without the position, resources and stature of empire) or American South. Agreed it was pretty evil, though, but accusations should be kept correct and precise. The post-apartheid "Kill the Boer" South Africa may be catching up on the relative evil.
It's also not super clear Israelis are "working on it", no matter is "it" ethnostate or South Africa. Israel seems content with 20% Israeli Arab population with civil rights. That attitude may change if the demographic balance ever tips the other way (not unlike how demographics became so contentious topic in Lebanon that no official demographic surveys are conducted), but orthodox Israelis seem to be working on keeping the favorable balance with the 6.6 fertility rate, so perhaps they can keep kicking that can forward until end of time.
Putting my realist glasses on: it's the same as for any other country: none, nobody can figure it out, there is no such limit other than established by tradition of peace. I don't think it as any special perfidiousness of Israel: no country in a habit of making war has had such limit, either, until perhaps they are clearly losing. If you are winning, there will be no shortage of warmongers who want to win some more. Britain never had any limit in enlarging the British empire. Success at defensive war may encourage starting offensive war: Revolutionary France wanted keep the Revolution, then they wanted natural borders at Rhein, and then Napoleon was at the gates of Moscow. In broad strokes, there are only two stable states: mission creep until eventual failure, or no war at all.
I like to bring up Denmark and Sweden: they had a tradition of trying to conquer/reconquer each other for centuries. Then, after Napoleon the military and political landscape changed, they stopped waging war due to circumstances, the circumstances became a habit, and after two centuries today nobody (up to lizardsman's constant) in either country seriously considers ownership of previously contested areas a just casus belli. Unfortunately it is never permanent, the mentality can changed with a concerted propaganda effort in one generation. So, nobody can guarantee limits to war aims, in general and not in this particular case.
Back to topic of Palestine. Until recently, the Palestinians and their supporters have had equal or upper hand at rejecting opportunities to begin the tradition of peace. Predictably, after few decades of that, cycle of war feeding itself and warmonger politicians with maximalist claims, they got what they wanted: there is few Israeli powers-that-be willing to entertain peaceful solutions like two-state. As long as neither side seriously considers peace, I view Israel equally just in waging the war as the opposing side.
Now do I like Israel and their policy of war? Less and less more brutal they become, but it is an untrue claim Israel has always been "unambiguously evil": at every window of opportunity for co-existence that doesn't feed the evil, Palestine and their backers have never took opportunity other than to make opportunity more remote; find more evil ways of fighting war and hurt "random bystanders", and never shown willingness to back away from plan to drive the Israel back to sea.
Not really related to main point, but I think this is bit selective. Israel has existed today longer (77 years since 1947) than "Germany" had existed as a country in 1939. If you count back to Confederation of the Rhine, you get a "beef" beyond 130 years, but you could count Israel starting from Zionist migration to Ottoman Palestine, and that started late 19th century. By standards of beefs going back to centuries, Israel/Palestine has been around long enough.
...yes, and Germany has basically only lost territory nonconsensually since its creation. In terms of lands it controls that were not German in even semi-recent history, at most you could make an argument about a narrow strip it took from Denmark in the very north, and there there was a corresponding longer history of mutual wronging between Denmark and various particular states that were later absorbed into the German fold.
Israel and Palestine are still around, and basically every piece of real estate Israel owns was stolen from ancestors of modern-day Palestinians. In this particular case, it is really hard to buy into the "it was out of their hand for so long, they should get over it already" argument - especially since Israel still continues expropriating and settling more Palestinian land, in brazen defiance of admonitions even from its "friends".
With some civil rights. I have actually been to Israel, and it's impossible to ignore how obviously the Palestinian population is being treated differently - there are villages fenced in by Berlin-style prefab concrete walls everywhere across the countryside, random checkpoints with separate, overflowing queues for them, parts of cities randomly locked off on the basis of some or another Jewish festivity with police filtration points that keep them out completely, etc.; I searched a bit and Amnesty has a much longer list including things that I would not have noticed during my fairly short stay.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link