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 -
Non-violent resistance and civil disobedience are things, actually.
A few people might believe that their government is always morally right, axiomatically. Most believe otherwise.
A lot of people will concede that a government can become so evil that it is imperative to violently oppose it. I think that is a popular idea in America, in the abstract.
But what if government does evil, but not on a scale were you feel justified waging total war against it?
Then people often employ methods to hamper the goals of the government, especially the goals they find morally objectionable, without resorting to violence. Perhaps you just 'forget' to add the fuse in half of the bombs you build for the Nazi war machine. Perhaps you use your privileged status as a white person to help slaves escape to the northern US. Perhaps you give aid to civilians persecuted by a regime. Perhaps you just decide that you did not see a petty theft.
The specifics vary widely over axes such as personal risk, effectiveness, cause. Morality being subjective, some causes you will agree with and some you won't. I don't share the world view of anti-abortion activists, so I would view the attempt to sabotage an abortion clinic by welding their front door shut as property damage. However, I will vastly prefer an activist who employs such tactics to one who has decided to just blow up doctors instead. The former is an annoyance, but at the end of the day we are merely disagreeing about some details how civilization should work. With the latter, there can be no peace or common ground.
Nor is non-violent resistance necessarily ineffective. The underground railroad freed a lot more slaves than John Brown did (debatable indirect effects like the ACW aside).
Good was obviously believing that using her plot armor as a white US woman to hinder ICE was moral. (Like whenever a human does something, there were also signaling considerations involved, but to pretend every action is just caused by them is too cynical by half.) She was likely willing to deal with fines and the like for her cause, but probably did not expect to be shot.
I have criticized her rather harshly for her fatal decision, but on reflection I think I was wrong to characterize her as 'cosplaying #LaResistance'. Her beliefs are not my beliefs, I would have preferred for her to work and donate to some EA cause area (not that I am one to talk, there). But for all these differences, she was faced with something she considered morally wrong in her society and did not react by mashing the defect button as much and as fast as possible, e.g. planting IEDs against ICE.
TL;DR: 'She should just have stayed at home, and nobody would have shot her' only works if either you believe your government to be infallible or your own moral beliefs to be fundamentally true while every other belief is just a silly error.
I understand where you are coming from but to be frank I see this doctrine as an aberration. The fact of the matter - to me - is that you simply cannot run a prosperous and well-ordered society when any random person feels entitled to sabotage it every time that they personally feel it is important enough (and there is always someone who feels it's important). It is a recipe for lies, betrayal of duty, and the kind of despairing slowdown we now see where any attempt by the government to solve any problem is bogged down by activists until it grinds to a halt. Notably this behaviour featured heavily in sabotage manuals that both the USSR and the CIA gave to their fifth-column spies, because it is the most effective method of destroying a well-defended country over time.
Like the doctrine that soldiers should disobey orders when they decide they ought to (yes there are rules but ultimately it comes down to a personal decision), the idea that you personally are enjoined to enforce your morality on your country even if it means betraying your duty is a malign holdover from the memory of Nazi Germany* that has been rotting Western civilisations for the last eighty years, supported by the accession to global superpower of a country that for historical reasons fetishises rebellion.
If someone doesn't wish to build bombs, and their children aren't being held at gunpoint, then they shouldn't get a job as a bomb-maker. If you want to stop the government doing something that you think is wrong, then go into politics, fight as hard as you can, and accept that you may lose. If you are not going to see the hungry homeless man stealing bread, do not let someone pay you to guard their shop. Again, it's not that I'm not sympathetic to some of these scenarios, I've been there to some degree. But the whole point of having laws against obstruction is to make it clear, harshly clear when necessary, that just because you don't like where society is going doesn't give you the right to unilaterally sabotage it. In a sense, going on a killing spree would almost be more admirable than a smile and a knife in the back, because it clearly signals that you are an enemy of the current society and intend to war against it and suffer the consequences.
TL;DR: 'She should just have stayed at home, and nobody would have shot her' works if your beliefs have nothing to do with whether you are allowed to sabotage law enforcement
*that is, the problem with NG is that it did things that are bad, not the fact that its populace were effective at doing them. If a man kills three children with a kitchen knife, it does not mean that kitchen knifes should be made cheap and rusty in the future. Or to put it another way, telling people to do whatever they're told risks disaster, but in the long term telling them to #resist whenever it seems appropriate guarantees disaster.
To be honest, yeah I don't see how you can run a democratic, free society where people aren't entitled to sabotage it when they feel it's important enough. That's a core mechanism of how societies remain free; the state being afraid of the populace!
A free state has to keep nearly everyone baseline content nearly all the time. I think that's genuinely the whole reason why it's better to live in one than an autocracy.
With the logical corollary that if it's not possible to keep everyone baseline content nearly all the time (due to values inhomogeneity / economic headwinds), it's impossible to run a state that is free according to your definition?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link