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 -
tl;dr: Yes, Russia made everyone choose a side and the masses clearly chose Ukraine, including the vast majority of Russian(speaker)s. The war is daily souring impressions further, making people transition to Ukrainian more and more. Ethnic purity is literally irrelevant, buy in for the anti-Russia project counts. See many Russian dissidents who moved to Ukraine and became Ukrainian citizens in the past years.
Yes, very much so.
Well, that's not true.
They've clearly chosen one. The 20-30% of the Donbas still living there don't speak well for Russian rule. In the past, I was antimaidan (primarily for cultural reasons), I knew many who'd gladly have integrated into Russia in 2015 or so. [3] But time changes things.
Something like 10 million Russian speaking Ukrainians moved Westward as a result of the war, just further to the West or into the EU. I've seen a few online showing support for Russia, I know a few who used to live in Ukraine in the past or who went to the Donbas in 2014, but literally everyone else is strongly pro-Ukrainian. No one cares about "ethnically pure" because it's impossible. Everyone has Russian and Polish ancestors, generally grandparents. Many in government, in the military etc. continue to use Russian day to day (weird instances like the Mayor of Kharkov's fine aside).
I lived in Kharkov, Kiev and Odessa at different times, viewing them as nice Russian cities where I nearly never encountered Ukrainian. I was there not too long before the war too. Hell, just go to Ukrainian subreddits. Plenty of Russian is used. Plenty of Russians use it in Ukraine. Denying that's just a blatant lie [7], whether from ignorance or something else. Well, what is a "Russian"? That's the hard part... [4] You can change languages quickly. See Svyatoslav Vakarchuk (singer of a big rock band), Volodomir Rafayenko (a big novelist) or Zelensky [5] himself. They all primarily used Russian and were very popular in Russia. At different stages, they became unwelcome in Russia - not because of their Ukrainianness, but because they didn't support the Donbas or such. Volodomir for example quickly learned Ukrainian and started writing novels in it instead.
Kharkov and Odessa aren't suddenly speaking Ukrainian (although many people are changing their correspondence to Ukrainian - I've had some friends stop talking because they no longer feel comfortable speaking Russian, associating it with the people shelling them for months - and we share no other language. In the Summer this was higher [2] , but then people shifted back to Russian a bit.) This is what time changed. Russians in Ukraine saw life in the Donbas go from the wealthiest places in Ukraine to a mafiarun hellzone where bandits force people to sign property away at gunpoint, like a far worse version of the 90s. That's what "Russia" means now. Not culture, freedom of language, becoming another Chelyabinsk etc. but the destruction of everything built in the past decades. This is not Russian vs. Ukrainian but Russia vs. Ukraine, two East Slavic states speaking extremely similar languages. The difference is in government, economic outcomes.
------ random links etc -----
Note, no census since 2001. I believe Ukraine's population is quite low now, perhaps even under 30 million (the Donbas is certainly under 2 million): https://old.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/ymryp5/credibledefense_daily_megathread_november_05_2022/iv97rtc/?context=999
[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/zfy88s/credibledefense_daily_megathread_december_08_2022/izhip9q/?context=999
[3] https://old.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/ze65px/credibledefense_daily_megathread_december_06_2022/iz7tc06/?context=999 and https://old.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/u0g54m/ukraine_conflict_megathread_april_10_2022/i45tf36/?context=999
[4] censuses in the whole region are deceptive. E.g. the terms translated as "native language" don't refer to the language(s) you grow up speaking, but what you believe your ancestral language is. Many will declare their native language as something they don't speak, especially in Russia and Kazakhstan.
This may interest you: https://old.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/yom5fv/credibledefense_daily_megathread_november_07_2022/ivi3blh/?context=999
Also n.b. I'm pro-Crimea not being in Ukraine. E.g. https://old.reddit.com/comments/45tl6z/_/d00bq3i/?context=999
If you want, pm me and we can talk on telegram. Perhaps you can speak to many Russians in Ukraine/Russian Ukrainians or however to phrase it.
Note, I say Russian and Ukrainian are nearly identical, yet it's uncomfortable for me to try to understand Ukrainian or to Ukrainianize my speech. So the differences are there in practice but they feel small. Really it's a sign of weak friendship, eh?
[5] Zelensky being pro-Russian language: http://news.sevas.com/world/zelenskij_o_zaprete_vezda_rossijskih_artistov_v_ukrainu
Also note Zelensky's corruption shown in the Pandora papers.
[7] but there's a lot of uncomfortable space re: language laws. But every article about "Russian being banned" exaggerate much smaller steps.
Thanks for the sources will definitely check them. I am generally very skeptical of enthusiasm for post-maidan Ukraine. Economic indicators don’t show a developing country at all, their demographics are still collapsing at East Asian levels and my only personal experience with Ukraine in the last decade has been the white woman trade in Turkey shifting from Russian to Ukrainian sourced.
I have strong suspicions most of this enthusiasm comes from a small group of well connected well educated people who suddenly received a flush of western NGO money and political power. I am very familiar with the Turkish version of this class of people and I see everyday how their views of the country influence foreigners so much. Creates a strange echo chamber where an average German is getting reflected back the views their own government is paying those locals to hold. The difference is those people are constantly limited and hindered by the Turkish government while they have free rein in Ukraine.
I have no illusions about Russia’s power of winning hearts and minds either. Their economic recovery miracle failed to take off and now indefinitely cancelled. What sensible person would want to live there instead of the “West”? Especially if they don’t even have to leave home and the west comes to their country. Turkey was supposed to be “almost” entering the EU recently as well so I get that feeling of hope for a better future very well. It’s quite likely the Kremlin boomers finally realised that they are definitely going to lose all influence in Ukraine soon and got scared of what might come if Ukraine with a fully NATO trained army and very hostile population decided to solve the Crimea problem once and for all. Then they fucked even that up…
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link