site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34561 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Dreher apparently wrote an article that too specifically quoted Orbans thoughts. Supposedly it’s a bigger deal in Hungary but I believe there’s a few money quotes to discuss.

On Ukraine:

“To be clear, Viktor Orban doesn’t want the West to be in a war with Russia. But he says that far too many Westerners are deluding themselves about what’s really happening—and what could happen. . . .

Orban said that the West needs to understand that Putin cannot afford to lose, and will not lose, because he’s up for re-election next year, and he cannot run as the president who lost a war. What’s more, he said, Russia cannot allow NATO to establish a presence in Ukraine. The time has long passed when Russia might have been able to conquer Ukraine, or install a friendly regime. Had Russia won a quick victory, that might have been possible, but it’s hopeless now. Therefore, said Orban, Russia’s goal is to make Ukraine an ungovernable wreck, so the West cannot claim it as a prize. At this, they have already succeeded.”

On Ukraine I 100% the west, specifically NATO and the US, is at war with Russia. I often see the criticism from critics of the war that we do not understand this point. We do. It’s just in the modern world country’s don’t officially declare war. Russia did not. Nato did not. Perhaps it gives you cover for peace or something to not say it directly, but for whatever reason war is not called war. I agree Putin probably can’t lose the war or he’s out of office and perhaps a sacrificial lamb for the next dude. Disagree Russia had any strategic fear of NATO. 100% agree a fear of EU in Russia was justified as the western cultural umbrella would spread easier which he didn’t mention but culture war I’ve always believed was far stronger than any military war. Think Putin could have won the war earlier with better planning by crushing the military in the east first. But they had bad intel. Now the west is invested so theirs no way for Putin to win so his only play I guess is to make Ukraine in the east depopulated. Perhaps that’s not losing at a high costs.

On EU:

“Someone asked the prime minister if he wanted Hungary to stay in the EU. “Definitely not!” he said, adding that Hungary has no choice, because 85 percent of its exports are within the EU.”

This is true everywhere. Our wealth is thru trade. The old meme - the right can just invent their own twitter, their own internet, their own payment system…….Everything is interconnected and dependent on others. Centralized services have better economies of scale. Hungary due to geography can only be wealthy by becoming interconnected in the EU. Some businesses more constant costs businesses do not have these factors - farming, light manufacturing, etc (mostly right dominated industries). The lefts conquered all the industries that scale or have strong network effects. And that’s where the culture war fight has come from of trying to not be dominated.

https://www.thebulwark.com/how-rod-dreher-caused-an-international-scandal-in-eastern-europe/

Disagree Russia had any strategic fear of NATO.

What is the basis for this belief? Doesn't the current war prove that they would have been right to have a strategic fear of NATO proximity, considering that right now NATO is using its proximity to successfully stop Russia from attaining its interests in a third country?

What is the basis for this belief? Doesn't the current war prove that they would have been right to have a strategic fear of NATO proximity, considering that right now NATO is using its proximity to successfully stop Russia from attaining its interests in a third country?

I've never understood this argument. Switzerland (a non-NATO country) is surrounded by NATO on almost all of its borders and doesn't seem the slightest bit concerned. Is the argument that Russia is different than Switzerland because Russia might do things like invade its neighbors and Switzerland has no such intentions? I don't think Russia can then expect anyone to take seriously the argument that their fear of NATO is morally justified.

The qualifier "morally", which was not in the discussion before, is doing all the work here. You can surely argue that Russia's desire for the ability to invade its neighbours when this inclined is immoral, but that's not an argument that it is irrational as OP seems to have intended to imply - after all, countries do not optimise for your sense of morality but for (depending on what sort of cynic/idealist you are) the welfare of their citizens, ruling class or culture.

If their fear was that NATO would prevent them from invading their neighbors, they were quite right to be afraid. That just means that the fear is more projection than rational opposition.

What are the definitions of "projection" and "rational" you are using here? The former doesn't seem to make sense at all, and the latter seems to directly contradict your first sentence under any meaning of "rational" I'm aware of. (What other examples of beliefs that are "right, but not rational" do you have?)

You may be right that rational is not the right word (I actually kind of hate that word, I just wasn't being precise enough I guess) but projection and the general meaning of the statement as a whole should be pretty obvious--they are projecting their worldview and values onto other countries, that America and co have the same zero sum authoritarian worldview and that will lead them to conflict with russia, when it's obvious by their different actions (How NATO plays out vs historic Russian alliances) that this isn't the case. They then use this claimed worldview to justify things they were going to do anyways (invade a third party). I think it's totally fair to call this irrational, in that it's just not an argument that stands up to any scrutiny, but it is also has a clear purpose and the term rational is too wishy washy relativistic to be meaningful.

The NATO fear is always stated as NATO invading Russia which is irrational. Not to stop Russia from invading a neighbor

I'm not sure it's always stated this way (and even if it is, this may not reflect their real thinking: after all, "we want to be able to invade neighbours" has terrible optics), but either way I think that "NATO invading Russia" is now solidly in that territory that some of our residents like glossing as "it won't happen and when it happens you bigots will have deserved it". Western support for separatist groups and exile opposition has ramped up, Ukraine has actually been making noises about pushing into Belgorod, and the strange meekness of Russia's nuclear posture given the course of the war and Western participation to me suggests that the Western bloc has found some way through the game-theoretical thicket that gives it confidence that Russia can be prevented from effectively using its assured-destruction card.

The NATO fear is always stated as NATO invading Russia

This is both an uncharitable and untrue strawman of the Russian position.

is always stated as

why would you include this?

A year into this war your the first person I’ve come across to say that Russians nato fear was about stopping their ability to invade other countries.

your the first person I’ve come across to say that Russians nato fear was about stopping their ability to invade other countries.

are you confusing me with someone else or are you strawmaning me aswell?

If you would like to hear different analysis after a year of hearing the apparently same, this is a quote from a British political scientist working at the Institute for International Relations Prague.

As one analyst (Galeotti 2016) wrote, “In Russia, NATO is periodically portrayed as a military threat. … Realistically, this is not a military one. … To many in and close to the Kremlin, Russia faces a real threat, not borne by tanks and missiles but cultural influences, economic pressure, and political penetration. This is, in their eyes, a civilizational threat aimed at making Russia a homogenised, neutered, subaltern state.”

As for their fear of NATO in their sphere of influence, and Russian politics, here are some choosen quotes from the same paper. It would be better to read the paper itself

In the context of the conventional insecurity perception, political changes in Georgia and Ukraine were viewed by the Kremlin as a Trojan horse for getting these countries into the Atlantic alliance and push Russia in the direction of regime change.

This securitized perception of political change was at the heart of Russia-Georgia conflict. In addition to grown instability in the region, the colored revolutions added to the perception within the Kremlin that Washington’s chief objective was in fact to change regime in Russia. Although the public support for a revolution was weak, the Kremlin’s political technologists took the threat seriously knowing that influential elites in the United States maintained contacts with some radical organizations in Russia. For instance, in April 2007 the U.S. State Department issued a report highly critical of Russia’s political system pledging various assistance to “democratic organizations” inside the country.

Russia can go all North Korea and close their borders if their fear is cultural hegemony.

Your the one who accused my take of NATO invading Russia as uncharitable. And elsewhere I’ve said cultural conquest is a more legitimate fear. Nato though is explicitly a military alliance so you should have specified their fear was the EU not Nato.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats