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 have established two important things that we agree on:
Civilian casualties bad, but will happen in war.
We need a good reason to go to war, partly because civilian casualties bad.
The two points of contention were:
Why do the Iranians and Syrians deserve civilian casualties.
What will be the result of Europe turning the refugees away.
Neither of these were answered.
What I'm looking for is a distinction between the good and the bad. Why, for instance, was Oct. 7 bad? Or 9/11? If genocide is a militarily winning strategy, was the holocaust bad?
You might want to stop me here and mention that these questions don't need to have moral answers. Things happen. The causal chain of events that drives us towards our next disaster is too vast and complex for such simple terms. And I'm perfectly willing to recognize the salience of that position. But until that is done consistently, is there any reason for me to do so? Because the mainstream line has been that all of the above were bad, Iran also bad and that America is morally good. It is especially when America is doing morally bad that geopolitical realism is trudged out, claiming that, in reality, America needs to do bad to ultimately do good!
But even then. If we set morals aside, this Iran incursion can hardly be considered a positive move on the geopolitical side of things. If worst come to wear and there is a big refugee crisis, everyone knows Europe wont say no. They will let them in. Nations that are in a very precarious position demographically. Economies facing all manner of crises. This is practically every single modern ally the US has. How can this be justified?
I touched on it a bit for Iran, but in short:
Points 1, 3, and 5 also applied to Syria, and back to geopolitics I like for there to be less nations that are economically and militarily aligned and supported by Russia and China. I am explicitly for American dominance on the world stage because that means I am more likely to keep enjoying the benefits of a giant and very defensible united land mass that is far from war in all its forms.
Presupposes a tide of refugees which I am not inclined to think will happen (I touched on this in my first comment). I'd also mention that even if it did happen, overall Iranians are a good bit more westernized, less Wahhabist (that's a Sunni thing!), less tribal, and less teen-rapey than the current stock in Europe (to oversimplify, Syrian in the mainland, Pakistani in the UK), so a few refugees from there are more likely to integrate unless they do the whole "we'll just import young and pissed off men" thing again. Even then, I doubt they're nearly as bad as what we see now.
Persians are not Arabs, and will proudly tell you so, and that's for the better.
To be clear you only oppose this on the grounds that this is harmful to US interest in the region, which you support based on personal prosperity, not that these attacks were unjustified or unrelated to US provocation that might have caused them.
To that extent I'm having a hard time aligning myself with your position from a geopolitical point of view. Iran, and tell me if our history does not match up here, wanted the same thing you want for yourself. Peace and prosperity. To that end they wanted control over their natural resources. Resources that the US and UK were making use of. This leads to a very clear incursion into Iran by these nations. Which ties into reason 3, 4 and 5. What else is a nation to do when foreign entities so clearly disrupt their process of self determination?
I get it, 'aw shucks, sucks to suck, now give us the oil' but given the cost, past failures and losses, and how far the US has moved forward, and how quickly and drastically technology has bettered our standard of living, can any of this be rationally justified anymore? It feels like a giant sunk cost fallacy. Where a list of old grievances gets trudged out to justify an evergoing tit for tat that is of no tangible benefit to American or Iran.
I don't think it will happen either. Which is why I said it would be a worst case scenario. But even then, we are comparing potential cost and benefit. The cost being overloading Europe with refugees. And there is no contingency or plan. Americas allies in Europe will be weighted down even more. Further carrying the indirect cost of American incursions in the middle east. I ask, how can this be rationally justified? I get that personal prosperity is important, but at some point the calculus stops adding up. I have a genuinely hard time believing that you believe that America is having its interest served by risking their already weak allies and their precarious position for whatever it is you think is being gained by this campaign into Iran.
To my knowledge there has been no "give us our oil, we're going into take the oil back" discussion from any level of the (admittedly scatterbrained) Trump administration. The fact that the discussion is so scatterbrained makes me more likely to believe it's not the intent, not less. In fact, given your own rundown of history, it looks a lot more like Iran was the one that said "sucks to suck, now give us the oil" when they nationalized it. I'm not personally hurt by that, in fact that's par for the course when you play in other countries. No one I can see in a decision-making position is using that as a casus belli.
Also, both your "process of self determination" and this
line do a lot of work to reframe what Iran was doing. Soldiers in Iraq were killed by rocket strikes from Iranian backed militia groups. In what way were soldiers in Iraq (during a huge drawdown, mind you) doing to Iranian self determination? Self determination in Iraq?
It also ignores the Houthis, Hezbollah, the support to Hamas, all of which lie far outside Iran's borders. Was Yemen's government part of Iran's self-determination? Was Lebanon's? As far as I'm keeping score, there has never been a strike within Iran. The last time there was any firing on Iranian infrastructure (i.e. not Soleimani in Iraq, again far outside of the self-determination defense) was the accidental shootdown of the Iranian Airliner in 1988. Which is indefensible, but that doesn't really read as "we're destroying your country for self-determination".
At some point, it all regresses to the original Iranian revolution and overthrowing of the US-backed Shah. Is that an eternal defense from any meddling the nation commits? Where would you draw the line at their self-determination? I'm not defending the US strikes as a support of our own - it's our geopolitical strategy. Iran wanted to play at that too, and so now we're fighting.
Also, again, it's an oppressive theocracy that kills its own people, but again, that's not a casus belli. It does undermine me feeling bad for them not being able to self-determine themselves in other countries, though.
That's my mistake, I did not properly express that I was talking about what started the conflict, back in the 50's. From that point of view America is in the region for reasons that are considerably hostile to Iran. And outside of the coup and other meddling, the support for Iraq during their 1980 invasion of Iran feels like it provides a very rational reason for Iran to start funding its own proxies to fight against American presence.
Thankfully we got to that point regardless of the confusion I caused.
No, I feel they should be afforded the same defense any other country would be afforded. Considering the history and the reasons you gave, I don't see how they are not acting within reason.
Whilst the Iranian government is bad in many ways, the US can hardly position itself as competent judge after their handiwork in the region.
But even in a domestic comparison America can fall short. For instance, Iran executes drug dealers amid rising levels of drug abuse. Meanwhile in America the Sacklers get to die in peace with around 10 billion made from intentionally killing potentially hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Both regimes play dirty politics at the cost of their citizens lives and others. I am more partial to Iran being excessive with regards to 'popular uprisings' due their history and recent events in the region. By comparison I see no reason why rural Americans are being flooded with pharmaceutical or imported drugs that are killing them in droves. But that comparison may be too far afield, I don't know.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Are you comparing the holocaust to "deaths caused by military bombing/heavy weapons"?
I'm comparing things generally considered to be bad by Americans with the morally neutral geopolitical framework supplied by LazyLongposter. Which I think he is using to selectively justify Americans doing things we all known are morally bad.
As he stated, the US could have won the war in Vietnam had they just intentionally bombed the civilians harder. But because doing such things is too awful in the eyes of the public, the US stopped. Using that morally neutral standard, what is the problem with the holocaust? Killing your enemy is a winning strategy. Is it better to starve to death in camp than it is to be burned alive in a firestorm that was intentionally created by dropping incendiary bombs on wooden residential areas?
Yes, by ignoring my central point of "all of it's a disaster, you better have an objective you are accomplishing by doing so, and that better be worth the deaths", you can twist the tragedy of any intentional death into equivalence with genocide.
I also reject the "morally neutral" framework. The circumstances of what a country's objective is matters more than anything. It's the exact reason I support US and allied interests and do not support the objectives of hostile nations. It's not merely that they're opposed to me (though that is my personal stake in foreign policy, as I admitted earlier); it's that they're nations that do bad things and make people suffer. I can't think of a modern adversary that we've had where the opposing nation is hunky dory, and we're just going to war because we failed to resolve things in any other way (in fact, that is the great advantage of the post-World War II order we live in). It's not like we're bombing Canada over border disputes.
Again, object to the feasibility, justification, or alignment (if you dislike the US) of the use of force all you want. I'm just saying that if you're going to object to even a single civilian casualty in cases where the regimes are both actively operating against the US and are pretty nasty in and of themselves, you're not going to sway me.
Because if it's all a disaster and the only barometer to judge actions is our own self interest then we aren't twisting anything when we chalk up our collateral damage at the end of the day. It was all in the service of the objective we believed was worth the deaths. I'm sure the 1940's Germans wrt jews were as heartbroken as you are when you suggested Europe just turn away millions of refugees.
If the entire thing you wrote earlier boils down to your personal alignment with US foreign policy and you believe America to be morally superior then I'm not sure what lesson you were trying to parlay.
For instance, if you can't achieve your objectives without murdering millions of civilians or destabilizing entire nations, by what token are you morally better?
You can ignore my central point and restate your argument all you want, but it's not very convincing.
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