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 -
What I find most interesting about the current Israel - Iran conflict isn't necessarily a lot of the geopolitical implications / consequences (although of course they are important), but instead the way the war is being waged. It seems, so far as I can tell, that they are almost entirely "trading missile strikes" and that no boots are on the ground, there isn't even really much of a naval component. Just missile centers in cities or in the desert shooting at one another, causing damage that, from a citizen's POV, is essentially random.
I know that the World Wars were considered horrible because death in combat felt so random due to bombings, machine guns, etc. Are we now entering a new stage of warfare where soldiers are barely even involved, and we just shoot missiles at each others population centers, trying to decapitate the enemy leadership?
On the one hand, it's certainly... cleaner, I suppose? Much better than the horrid conditions of trench warfare during the World Wars, at least based on what I've read about it. Still though, it feels extremely cold and random, disconnected from the perspective of the average person.
Then again, the whole war in the Ukraine is very much boots on the ground, even if drones are heavily involved. I'm not sure (obviously) exactly how the future of war will develop, but we are certainly seeing interesting new innovations as of late. And we have barely even scratched the surface of using AI in warfare!
What are your best predictions for how future warfare will develop?
Something I think hasn't been addressed thus far: the degradation of international law over the GWOT period, leading to the current Iran-Israel conflict. War used to be declared publicly, fought to a conclusion, ended with finality. Now there isn't really a declaration of war, states of conflict exist in nebulous ways between strong-state, non-state, and weak-state actors. Obviously this goes back a long way, but the US pioneered this process during the GWOT, asserting its right to bomb within certain countries at any time, with no declaration of war, and no peace made afterward. The USA was never at war with Pakistan, and Pakistan never formally publicly approved the use of force by the USA within Pakistan's borders in either a narrow operation or broader war. Yet the USA continuously bombed targets in Pakistan, and even launched a commando raid within Pakistan's borders killing residents of Pakistan with no formal notice to or approval by Pakistani authorities. The USA continuously asserted its right to bomb targets in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, without a formal declaration of hostilities commencing or ceasing.
What was initially the prerogative of the hegemon leaked. Israel and Iran started to assert their right to do the same after terrorist attacks, first within weak states and targeting non-state actors. Israel periodically bombs targets in Lebanon, Syria. Iran responded to attacks by bombing non-state targets in Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan. Now they're trying to assert that right to bomb each other. Now we're in a situation where the belligerents escalated from proxies, to hurling drones and missiles at each other, with no particular realistic end point in sight.
What we're seeing is a kind of low-grade warfare, that will drag on, because it forms political positive feedback loops. The leaders who send the bombs are strengthened by the bombs that come in reply. Peace is an unclear process from here.
Good points. It's repeated a lot around here, but the post-WW2 global order does seem to have almost fully broken down at this point.
I think it goes way deeper than that. The concept of declaring war and making peace within European (and hence today, global) diplomatic systems goes back to Rome at least. The Romans had huge amounts of superstitions and traditions related to declaring war, and making peace. Numa Pompilius, who first held the title Pontifex Maximus which has gone in unbroken succession to our current Pope Leo, introduced the tradition of the Temple of Janus to the Roman populace in order to tame their warlike urges. The temple's gates were open in times of war, and closed in times of peace. The formal declaration of war and peace was a superstitious, religious matter for the Romans.
When we abandon that kind of simple logic, we chip away at an organized international legal system, and we wind up with a permanent murky state of conflict. If you never have declared war, you can never have peace.
Weren't the gates open for something like a 400 year stretch at one point? AKA longer than the USA has been in existence?
More options
Context Copy link
Hasn't the succession been broken a few times? Like with the antipopes and such?
But yes agree with the broader point. It speaks to the entire idea of chaos growing and the flood coming to consume us as we chip away at meaning and reality. Truth becomes impossible to pin down - are we at war? or are we in peace?
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