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 -
OK but has the military been made to take a personal loyalty oath to Trump?
Or for the civil service:
"I swear: I will be faithful and obedient to the leader of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, to observe the law, and to conscientiously fulfil my official duties, so help me God!"
Hitler would also give generals huge estates, pay off their debts informally, personally.
Not having some anti-fascist scholar show up at West Point or not giving Harris secret service protection is not the same kind of thing fundamentally as real fascism. The Secret Service are no match for random 20 year olds anyway, anyone who wants to kill her probably can if they learn how to shoot or use a drone. But under real fascism Harris would've been sent to exile, imprisoned, disappeared, Navalnyed... The anti-fascist scholar would be whisked away to a prison camp. There'd be paramilitaries under direct Party control like the Blackshirts, PAP or SS/SA muscling in on the Pentagon's domain.
Something can be unseemly, dubiously legal, illegal or authoritarian but not actually be totalitarian or fascist. And the latter is what many on the left get so hysterical about.
It's like the Trump-Russia collusion angle. Trump is slightly warmer to Russia than the Biden administration. But Trump is actively sending Ukraine munitions used to kill Russian troops in war. He's anti-Russian. He was anti-Russian in his first term too, sending Ukraine Javelins. I don't recall him providing sanctions relief, the Magnitsky sanctions remained. But the left doesn't care about this at all, they live in an alternative reality where Trump is a Russian stooge because he's not deadset on antagonizing Russia 24/7 and has other priorities besides that.
It’s worth noting that Hitler rolled out the oaths gradually to supplant an existing loyalty oath to the constitution.
Also, I think wikipedia has a minor error. If the Wehrmacht wasn’t renamed until March 1935, it’s quite unlikely that the Führereid mentions it by that name. But according to this dispatch, the August 1934 version does say “defense force.” Is this a translation error or a timeline error?
But I digress.
Would you change your mind if the military did get a new oath? What about the civil service? Does it have to mention Trump personally?
We actually have a specific law against Nazi-style loyalty tests. The administration did try to get around it anyway. I think that intentionally trying to take down guardrails against fascist policy is a bad sign.
Yes. Even the proposed 'free response' questions are less overt than 'I swear: I will be faithful and obedient to the leader of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler'. Loyalty to the office rather than loyalty to the person.
They do this all the time. It's like in academia, they phrase it as 'how do you implement diversity and love diversity and advance diversity, write an essay about it'. You get a choice as to how you respond. They don't go 'swear an oath that you'll advance DEI' formally. Likewise, in the US Air Force under Biden, they sent a memo around saying that they wanted an Air Force that represented the country, so it should have these demographics. Of course they added the 'don't actually act on this, it's all supposed to be meritocratic, it's not a quota haha' part too: https://www.af.mil/Portals/1/documents/2022SAF/Officer_Source_of_Commission_Applicant_Pool_Goals_memo.pdf
If they strip out the waffle and say 'this is the goal, now make it happen' then there's a phase-shift. De facto and de jure are brought into alignment.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Maybe a better question then would be: if the US were to become more authoritarian (because let’s be honest that is probably the more accurate word), what would it look like? I’m puzzled as to what you think it would look like. Of course the Bayes calculation is something separate, but no country ever goes from 0 to 60 instantly
The US is becoming more authoritarian. I agree with that. But my point is that it's being pattern-matched to fascism too aggressively by libs who have these nightmare-wishmares about Trump sending LGBT to camps and implementing white supremacy. Or they go 'tariffs will crash the economy' when tariffs are bad but not beyond the usual range of terrible economic policies the US indulges in. They can't possibly do as much damage as the EU has done to Europe.
You can legitimately use troops to crack down on criminals, the US crime rate is too high by developed world standards. Send the criminals to prison, crack down on them. The US sent a bunch of criminals to prison in the 1990s but we don't necessarily consider that fascism. Trump hasn't even gotten that far. The US just blew up that boat of maybe drug smugglers and people are complaining about it. But the US blows things up all the time. Biden blew up a 'maybe terrorist' that was just an Afghan trying to get water for his family during the chaotic evacuation. Clinton blew up a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant for no good reason.
That's not necessarily fascism either. It can sound like fascism if you make the argument, it's aggressive and obnoxious behaviour. Authoritarian too. But you can go from 30 Authoritarianism to 40 Authoritarianism and stop there, it's not a slippery slope in and of itself. The situation may change and being stuck at 30 is no longer adaptive.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link