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 -
I feel like that's a recurring problem in Star Wars. The original gets away with handwaving it away like "now we suffer under an evil empire, but once we had a glorious republic!" But every time it actually shows the details, the republic seems to be completely feeble and inept, while the Empire can at least
make the trains run on timedefend its people against alien threats. Like, in the Phantom Menace, it seems that slavery is openly practiced on some worlds and the Republic just doesn't give a shit.Something that always gave me pause in A New Hope in the officer meeting where Vader chokes the guy while saying "I find your lack of faith disturbing", is the way the Empire got rid of the last vestiges of the old republic. According to Tarkin, regional governors are taking over for the republic bureaucracy.
If we ignore the big villain energy he adds with the whole "fear" line, the change sounds... positive to me? In my mind an evil empire would be centralizing power, not decentralizing it. Bureaucracy is at the very best a necessary evil, usually closer to evil than to necessary.
Ultimately, the way things shake out in the prequel trilogy, I find myself rooting against the republic. Fighting separatists? Separatists are people who don't WANT to be in your republic, crushing them puts you on the side of meddling interventionist empires, not freedom fighters.
I mean, I don't literally root against the republic, because since it's work of fiction, it's written so all the cool people are that side, and all the kitten stranglers are on the other. But if you were describe to me in neutral terms with no loaded language and no villain speech about fear the political systems in the Star Wars universe, I don't think I would identify the good guys and the bad guys the way Lucas and Disney seem to think I would.
A regional governor isn't a guy you elect locally to represent his home region, it's a guy hand-picked by the central ruler to control his assigned region. Think Lord Cornbury, not George Washington. It's a form of centralization.
This, on the other hand, is part of my headcanon too. The separatists are clearly assholes, but they're also just the second-to-last of the series of puppets that Palpatine has been using to manufacture crises and accrue power, and at this stage of his plan the way to avoid such a trap would simply be to not walk into it. I'm honestly not sure whether this was a brilliant decision by Lucas (showing that the physical downfall of the Jedi was a consequence of their moral downfall, that they were all as prone to paranoid attachment and jealousy as Anakin, but for power and control and stability rather than for love) or a lucky-but-ignorant decision by Lucas (thoughtlessly internalizing a false lesson of the US Civil War, the idea that because separatism for an evil cause is evil, separatism can simply be assumed to be inherently evil), but it worked.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The Empire basically never defends its people. Sometimes it actively sells them out. This is because the Empire doesn’t really have people. It has subjects, measured only by their value to the Emperor.
It might be more accurate to compare the New Republic to Imperial splinter warlords (Zsinj, Isard) or to Pellaeon’s Imperial Remnant. None of those have a great track record vs. alien interlopers or even each other.
More options
Context Copy link
The opening crawl for that movie explicitly states: "The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute." Naboo is an outlying star system. Tatooine is even more distant from the capital than Naboo—possibly not even part of the Republic, as indicated by how Watto refuses to take Republic credits. These two systems are not representative of a "glorious republic", any more than Moldova and Transnistria are representative of Europe.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link