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 -
And it exactly these sorts of sentiments that leave me feeling like a lot of people have failed to grasp certain basic tenants of western philosophy. Tenants like; how one reaps what they sow, government by consent of the governed. Simply put it's not the US that's risking escalation here, the escalation has already happened. It's not the US or even the Ukrainians who chose the sword here the Russians did, and if the If Putin decides that he'd prefer nuclear war to a world where Ukrainians participate in Eurovision the culpability for that war will lie entirely with him.
If anything, I feel like this only highlights how wrong-headed Dreher's take is, as for all his work on "resisting authoritarianism" he's ultimately taking the side of the authoritarians. What his (and your) argument essentially boils down to is that might makes right. Russians should be allowed to do as they please (up to and including invade/bomb their neighbors) because Russia is a big important country that has nukes. Anyone who objects to this position is stupid and evil for risking unnecessary war.
Where I break with Dreher and the rest of the "realpolitik" crowd is on the question of whether such a war is in fact "unnecessary". From where I'm citting, the great tragedy of WWII was not that the UK and France were willing to risk destroying Europe over a silly made-up country like Poland, the tragedy is that Patton was ordered to halt at the Rhine instead of at the Volga. If Stalin had been made to shared his ally Hitler's fate maybe it wouldn't be necessary to be having this conversation now.
But why would we not fund the war? It benefits our interests and costs us virtually nothing. And Ukraine has declared us their friend. It’s just naturally for someone to protect their friends.
A skeletonized historical enemy, tests for new weapons technology, Europe getting off their ass and pulling their weight.
It is a Foreign Policy win in every way, but only if you care about Foreign policy
The opposite has happened. The EU has proven it can't move forward without American overwatch; look at Germany refusing to send tanks until the US did. Look at Macron slamming NATO then talking about not humiliating Russia which alienates Eastern Europeans and makes the EU army seem even more far away.
The US' role as a balancer of various European interests is (perhaps unfortunately) even more entrenched now.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Russia gets defanged at very low risk to NATO soldiers (including American ones) and at relatively low cost.
And without defaulting on USA treaties and alliances.
More options
Context Copy link
Not living in a world where someone can kill you with a rock because they are bigger than you.
Give it a shot and see what happens, I guess.
Prove us wrong!
(this is a joke, do not actually kill anyone with a rock. you will be arrested)
More options
Context Copy link
Most of us are living in areas that has many incentives ensuring that people are generally not killing each other.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
A free world with global trade.
You push the barbarians even farther away from your border and to some close friends you keep them from being directly on their border.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Who funds (or doesn't fund) the war is irrelevant. The Russian government could have avoided war through the simple expediant of not invading Ukraine.
Incorrect - the conflict in the Donbass had been ongoing for some time. If Russia just did nothing, there'd still be an active warzone directly on their border.
The conflict in the Donbass was greatly escalated by the Russian invasion, occupation and annexation of Crimea.
???
I don't understand the purpose of this comment beyond advertising that you do not like Russia.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If Russia did nothing, the warzone would likely not be a warzone for long without their support of the Donbass side.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Do you want "a say" or do you want to decide, because if all you want is a say you are free to vote for representatives who will oppose aid for Ukraine just as I am free to vote against them. If you want to decide, well tough shit, it's not your call to make.
For my part I find the moral/political arguments against providing Aid to Ukraine repugnant and the to cost/limited recourses unconvincing. Something like 30 Billion dollars might sound like a lot in absolute terms (and it is) but it is quite literally pocket change when viewed in the context of the wider US Federal budget. For comparison It's about twice what the Obama administration was spending a year on solar power subsidies and less than a tenth of what the Biden Administration has proposed spending on student loan forgiveness. Furthermore, as far as government expenditures go this one seems to offer a pretty large and immediate ROI. Seems to me that reinforcing the post WWI norm of "don't invade your neighbors" while simultaneously undermining a significant geo-political rival and diminishing a clear and present threat to our allies would be a worth while at several times the price.
As an aside did you know that a lot of munitions, especially the larger more complicated stuff like like artillery rounds, missiles, etc... have a shelf life? Sure that shelf life is measured in decades and our ability to spin up new production on a moment's notice might not be what it used to be, but a lot of the stuff we've been sending Ukraine was looking to be scrapped anyway and maybe I'm just being weirdly irrational and sentimental but I feel that it's only "proper" to dispose of a missile by launching it rather than sending it to the scrap heap.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Any true threat to US interests in the current geopolitical environment is always going to involve Russia, either directly or indirectly through supporting China. Taking an easy opportunity to weaken the Russian military is not just wise, it's a no-brainer on a silver platter.
It's absurd on the face of it to argue that being the top dog is somehow "not beneficial" to you.
Yes, being powerful is good. Being weak is bad.
To get into some specifics, even if the US were entirely self-sufficient (it isn't), the amount of inflation the US exports to the rest of the world through the dollar's status as the global reserve currency is hard to overstate. That's one of many things.
As a left-wing social democrat, I'm going to say the "living paycheck to paycheck" poll numbers are basically BS.
Yes, a lot of people live 'paycheck to paycheck', but that living paycheck to paycheck includes putting money in retirement accounts, saving forr your kid's college, and so on, and so forth and that's why you have $0. The actual amount of money with zero wiggle room is actually fairly low.
If the standard American family w/ two jobs making $65k a year lost one of those jobs, I'm not saying it'd be tough. But the idea they'd be in desperate straits immediately simply isn't true. First of all, depending on their state, they'd be getting 1/2 to 2/3 of their former wages in unemployment for up to six months, and even after that, the big spending (mortgage, etc.) have a relatively light touch if you're not obviously just walking away and paying nothing.
There are people who would be screwed quickly without a job, but many of those people are getting financial assistance in addition to their current job at the moment anyway. Now, as a left-wing social democrat, of course, I want a bigger and stronger safety net for everybody, but at the moment, the couple making $100k who claim they're living paycheck to paycheck may have no money in their bank account on the 14th of the month, but they're not actually without a cushion.
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, coal mining was a very attractive job in this period. Men travelled across the country with the hope of somehow getting a job in a coal mine. Miners' houses compared very favourably with the rural hovels that had been the lot of ordinary people for all of UK history.
More generally, the late 19th/early 20th century was both the peak of the British Empire and the period when the British working classes finally experienced real wage growth from industrialization. It was also a period of rapidly improving sanitation and infrastructure in the cities. It was the beginning of modern retail, with rapidly falling prices and the beginnings of an unprecedented era where ertswhile luxuries like imported meat, oranges, and dairy could be afforded by an increasing proportion of working class Britons.
Not that the Empire caused the prosperity, as Leninists might claim. The Empire was arguably yet another luxury that the Industrial Revolution enabled Britain to afford - it has been described as "outdoor relief" (make-work) for the upper classes. The US is similarly in a position where even many poor people have smart phones and yet it can easily fund even Ukraine's military to the point of stalling Russia's.
More options
Context Copy link
This era pulled most of the British population out of the rural subsistence poverty that the rest of the world was mired in, so yes.
What typically didn't happen in Rome is their population being killed and enslaved on a massive scale by a stronger neighbor, because there was none. Although later on I'm sure there were complacent Romans talking about how they should just ignore the rest of the world while Attila the Hun was ravaging their borderlands again because there wasn't enough gold in the treasury to bribe him away for the seventh time.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link