site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022

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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Proof of it is that the main leader of that 'nationalist' country is Jewish

Wild stuff.

No nation with a jewish president can be a sovereign country? Jewish people can't be nationalistic? This is "proof" that Ukraine is not sovereign, or has no agency in its own affairs?

Jewish nationalism is called zionism.

My evidence for Zelensky not being a Ukrainian nationalist is that :

-he is an actor. Not exactly where you expect to find nationalists, but it is a career where duplicity is an important skill

-he learned the Ukrainian dialect as an adult and was sued for not using it in official setting while it was a requirement of his job

It seems that Ukrainian nationalists are very concerned about usage of Ukrainian, why would an authentic nationalist not know that?

That's like being an American progressive who doesn't care to learn the pronouns.

Usually nationalists of a given country follow people that actually represent the majority of the nation.

For example American nationalists usually elect white people because that's who they think the nation should be represented by.

All I'm saying is that it's pretty odd for nationalists to elect a minority actor who does not even follow the basic codes (even law) of being an elected official for that country.

The fact that the guy immediately throws the country into a war that pretty much guarantees that Ukraine will not exist as a nation in any meaningful way in the future kind of support this further.

Sending all your womenfolk overseas for the next generation pretty much guarantees that you will not have fresh blood in the future, unless imported EU-style, but by my definition of nationalism, that is not really the same nation.

-he learned the Ukrainian dialect as an adult and was sued for not using it in official setting while it was a requirement of his job

If an IRA member grows ups using English and learns Gaelic only as an adult and cannot use it very well, does that ipso facto mean they're not an Irish nationalist?