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 -
Dehumanization is a very old and popular practice among homo sapiens sapiens. It is closely connected with tribalism, with the division into ingroup and ougroup. These concepts can quite reasonably be considered part of human nature, or rather neurology(Dunbar number). To think about the number of people exceeding the Dunbar number by several orders of magnitude, stereotypes, generalizations and such abstract concepts as "nation" or "people" used, which is why many racists can have friends of another race, communists may not have problems with a businessman they know personally, and Hitler respected his Jewish doctor.
The current situation around the "special operation" is therefore not at all unique, but rather normal for any conflicts in history. Just as state propaganda in the participating countries in World War I presented their enemies as monsters on posters, today's propaganda shows opponent`s soldiers as orcs and pigs. Propaganda, like advertising, works for most people, and while avoiding its harmful effects can be easy for some, the problem is that few people try. Now a large part or maybe even most of Ukrainians and Russians hate each other, along with this, real Russophobia is widespread in many Western countries - this is an inevitable consequence of unleashing "special operations" and nothing can be done about it yet. I think it is wrong to dehumanize people in return for theirs dehumanization of ourselves. Of course, after reading hundreds of comments by Ukrainians about stupid orcs without culture, who need to be forced to pay tribute and decolonize their "Рашка"(disparaging nickname for Russia coincidentally having the same name as medieval Serbian principality), average Russian can be filled with desire to write about stupid grunting piggies and their Khokhlostan, but this desire is worth overcoming in oneself. He should think about how the "Khokhols" came to such a life: are they themselves do not consider that the "Rusnya" was the first to start? Almost everyone is sure that their hatred is just and reciprocal in its own way, this is perfectly cultivated by propaganda that specifically chooses what to show to its target audience. For this to stop working, people need to stop thinking that the answer to hatred should be the same blind hatred.
It should be clarified that here I am talking about specific xenophobia of a general nature, of course, strongly disliking army of the country that destroyed your house is completely different. But to transfer these emotions from the army, from politicians, from specific criminals to gigantic groups of people consisting of millions of individuals is stupidity. At the same time, one must understand that average commentators and couch experts who succumb to propaganda are not doomed to maintain their opinions for the rest of their lives. Germanophobia in Europe after the First and Second World War did not last so long, as well as Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States. As in the past, propaganda will shift its focus to other things, and the majority of people will gradually lose their radical positions. Of course, some parts will not be forgotten for centuries but it will not be the full-fledged xenophobia of today. I think Orwell written about it brilliantly in relation to his own time`s big war here - https://orwell.ru/library/articles/revenge/english/e_revso
I find all the propaganda around Ukraine to be weird just in how often it’s being sold as various tropes of sci-fi, fantasy and anime tropes to sell various forms of support for the war. Dehumanizing people in wars is definitely normal, but there’s just something creepy about the way that the war is sold.
Russophobia has been a trope of western propaganda since well before the Cold War. But they were never “orcs”. And there were varying ways of saying “just the military,” even if that part never really made it to the homes of the working class. Not only that, but the rapidity of shutting down Russians in the West (or suspected Russians) and insisted on inane changes (Kyiv may well be the technically correct transliteration of the Ukrainian city, but until 2022, nobody in the West cared about the spelling). Russians were banned from public life, or permitted only if they took special pains to denounce their home country (including rather absurdly, opera singers and dancers) Russian themed restaurants were shuttered. Likewise, Ukraine has been lionized as all kinds of things, Zelensky was memed as Captain Ukraine, Miss Universe featured the contestant from Ukraine dressed as an anime angel with fully articulated wings and a sword.
The issue isn’t just dehumanization, which has been happening, but the extremes and contrasts are such that talk of peace and real politik become impossible. If Ukraine is Marvel superheroes and Russia is orcs, how do you sell negotiations? How do you prevent escalation? How do you have sober conversations at all. And what does it say about the seriousness with which we’re taking a war if we’re discussing it on the level of action movies and genre fantasy? It seems in the past, even if we were dehumanizing the enemy, we were at least aware that it was a real war, against people, perhaps barbaric people, but people, with real weapons being deployed against real cities with real people in them.
This is a problem because without taking the war seriously or acknowledging that people are dying and cities are being destroyed, there’s a risk that this conflict escalates to much higher levels, going from being a US-Russian proxy war into being a full on world war, potentially even a nuclear one.
No more creepy than, for example, WWI propaganda, only as advanced as modern weapons are compared to WWI weapons.
You do not have to "sell" anything to the public. Negotiations could be going on and are going on behind the scenes without consulting the public.
Easily. MSM stops talking about Ukraine 24/7 and starts talking about something else (for example: drag queens).
Everyone who cares about Ukraine because MSM told him so, will forget Ukraine and starts agonizing about the new burning issue - are drag queen shows necessary part of modern 21st century education?
People who cared about Ukraine before, who could find Ukraine on the map before March 2022 might continue to care, but they are small minority.
When, after few months or years, everyone forgets, you can even do 180 turn and show Ukraine as racist nazi homophobic transphobic corrupt shithole. Many such cases.
I say.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link