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 -
We now have a new addition to the list embarrassingly wrong Scott Alexander quotes:
How is that wrong?
Edit: I have no qualms saying my comments aged poorly.
The Afghan 'collaborators' were often drug-ridden, totally undisciplined, shamelessly corrupt, traitors and/or child rapists. These are the guys who gave us green-on-blue attacks. That's why the combined power of the US bloc lost to semi-literate goat-herders, the people we were allied with were in many respects worse than the Taliban and commanded less legitimacy among the population.
Plus the average Afghan refugee in the West is one of the most rapey and ill-mannered refugees.
Are we talking about the translators who were embeded with and beloved by US military units or the local warlords who got the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" treatment?
The program was not limited to translators, and Scott acknowledges that with "eg as translators". Anyone who worked for the American or coalition forces for at least 12 months can get a special immigrant visa.
Even steelmanning your argument though, why would we grant citizenship to someone willing to sell out their country to an invading power for a paycheck? When they swear their oath of citizenship to the United States, promising to bear arms on behalf of the US when required by law, and support and defend the Constitution, why would we believe them?
So your claim is that the Taliban regime ca. 2004 was the obvious Schelling point for Afghans interested in the long-term thriving of their country, and those who did not support the Taliban were clearly defecting from the common good of the country?
Personally, I think the loyalty of a population is earned, not given. Citizens of the US or modern Germany should display some loyalty to their government because it represents an equilibrium which has a higher utility than any other equilibrium they are likely to establish working against the government.
By contrast, less optimal regimes do not deserve loyalty. In 1945, Hitler was just the mobster in power, Stauffenberg blowing him up would not have let to a lower utility equilibrium, hence it was not treason to try to do so. Nor were the exile Germans who aided the Allies betraying Germany, because even with the Soviets, Ally-occupied Germany was a far better place for the Germans to thrive than Nazi Germany.
The real world is not Civilization where governments change but annexation is forever.
The Allies did polling in West Germany a year after the war ended in 45’. Hitler was still remarkably popular even then. Different societies have different attitudes about what they believe their relationship to their governments should be.
For you to have been a patriot back then you’d had to have actively opposed your own government, essentially knowing you were going to be rounded up and executed as these people undoubtedly knew. And they are certainly heroes for what they did.
It always boggles my mind how so many revisionist types can think otherwise. At heart I think a lot of people have this suppressed desire that they wish to have seen the Nazis win out and to have gotten their racial utopia. If you look at Nazi society it didn’t work very well for the people who were in it. And it certainly didn’t end very well for the people who were in it. Some people definitely benefitted but it wasn’t a government of its citizens, but of a particular category of citizens who the Nazis saw populating Germany’s future.
It’s also why the Allies took very careful steps in their postwar planning of Germany to crush Prussia and its influence over Germany. It historically was a massive fountainhead for its supremely militaristic attitude over all aspects of society. There’s a reason why it was called the “Iron Kingdom” and the “Sparta of Europe.” States like that tend to have a short half life. The ancient Assyrian Empire ended the same way, eventually declaring war on almost everyone within its neighborhood and having a religious ideology that demands you bring order and stability to the world outside by conquering the chaotic neighbors among the fringes of your borderlands.
What do you mean? Morality aside, it appeared to be working great. As you say, Hitler was remarkably popular, even after the extremely costly war was lost, and all the evil was revealed to those who pretended not to see.
First, like FDR, he presided over the recovery for the worst economic crisis of the century, which by itself confers Saviour status, even though it’s likely just mean reversion. In foreign policy, he was a gambler who repeatedly won big. At first the western allies kept flinching, giving him everything for nothing, and then when push came to shove he even easily beat what was in theory the best army in the world, partly because of his own tactical input.
In domestic policy, he understood himself as both of and as a ‘friend of the people’ – as a lower middle class guy, a corporal, he disliked both the liberal elites which ran weimar and the old conservatives elites, the ‘vons’. Aside from the economic recovery/rearmament boom, he was also transferring to poor germans the wealth stolen from jews, and later, other people’s jews’, and other people’s. Because of all his achievements and popularity (which he and his regime cared very much about), for the first years there was little repression.
I would say he bribed the germans far more than he threatened them, but bribe implies that they didn’t intrinsically want to follow him in the first place. The truth is, as vile as he was, he genuinely cared about and improved the life of the common man (in peacetime at least, and with increasingly evil means), and they always loved him back.
💀. Well yeah. Morality aside, everything was working fantastically.
Apart from that to the economic point. Hitler either understood or ultimately figured out (or rather his advisors did) that large scale Keynesian state expenditures could rescue a morbid capital economy from destruction. Basically what American businessmen later learned during WW2.
But it’s difficult to say this is because they lived under a “Nazi” program specifically. “Nazism” faced the exact same problem “Communism” did in this sense. The Nazis weren’t in power all that long and so nobody really got a chance to see what a “National Socialist State” would look like. They didn’t just oppose Communism. They also opposed Capitalism. One reason they wanted lebensraum was to prepare for an autarkic economy because they knew their activities were going to lock them out of international markets; quite similar to the way North Korea is today. Hitler specifically wrote about this. They also opposed modern practices of the credit system. The amount of days you could analyze their political program and domestic policies numbers in the mere months at best, outside of the war effort.
The same with Communism. Marx never wrote about what a post-Capitalist system would look like. He died before he was able to do that. When people attack “Marxism” and they point to the Soviet Union, what they’re really attacking is “Marxist-Leninism” which is one particular twist and variation that was grafted onto Marx’ ideology by others and at a different time.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link