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 are not burning your house down, but possibly we aren't going to put out the fire out of deference to you any more.
A month ago, Europe had an energy problem. Now, thanks to America going in without even the slightest thought for the rest of the world and setting fire to everything, we have a looming energy catastrophe.
OP is arguing that this is good, akshually. I think not. Nobody asked for this. Nobody wanted this. Even most Americans didn’t want this!
I am prepared to believe that America has a 50 year feud against Iran after the hostage crisis, but somebody who thoughtlessly gets in fights and wrecks all your stuff is not a good friend and him saying, “well, why’d you put your stuff there?,” afterwards will not make him so.
But Iran's wrecking your stuff. The US isn't mining the strait, Iran is. It turns out Iran thinks you're their enemy too!
If China bombed Pearl Harbor, and in response the US bombed the merchant ships of every nation in the Pacific regardless of where they were going or who they were selling to, you would say, "The US is not our friends here. The US is our enemy now." And act accordingly. You wouldn't blame China for the US's actions, especially if they had a half-decent reason to bomb Pearl Harbor (say we were in a fight over Taiwan or take-your-pick.)
Iran is telling you , "I am your enemy! I will do whatever is in my power to cause you pain!"
Europe's response is, "America, control Iran better!" When the response should be, "Oh geez, these Iran fellas are harming our interests. I should protect our national interests better."
America isn't going to keep the seas safe on its own. Other countries that like having a global ship trade need to step up and protect their interests on the waters.
When it comes right down to it, America is the one who went in and started killing people and blowing things up. Without consulting anyone, without giving a shit about the rest of the world, Trump just decided 'I'mma kill these guys now.' Months after he made noises about attacking Europe to steal Greenland.
In my lived experience as of this month, the safest thing for the seas is for America to stay far, far away from the Middle East, or at least to give Trump some sleepy pills.
It's not that I don't get what you're saying, it's just that this is after a barrage of contempt and thoughtlessness from America and I'm tired of being friends with the big aggressive guy who keeps getting into fights with the people who make the stuff my civilisation needs to stay alive. The massive cope that it's secretly some kind of 4D chess to teach us a lesson makes it 10x worse. If America were actually in really serious trouble as a result of outside aggression, we would do what we could to help our ally if asked, and I hope the reverse is also true. But right now Europe is in very serious difficulties that can't be overcome by just 'getting a clue', we need time and space to find the will and the means to recover, and being friends with America is giving us the opposite of that. I'm quite happy to kiss and make up with Iran, and get some oil in return, and I don't see what UK interests are threatened by that.
In general, we would prefer to get American 'help' when we ask for it. As a wise man once said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
This is why I generally don't think Trump is the problem. The response to Trump is almost always worse than Trump. TDS is not Trump's fault. He occasionally does stuff that's legit bad but usually it's just "being blue collar" or "non-Western diplomatic norms coming from a Westerner."
For a decade now people in authority have committed to kicking, screaming, and abandoning professionalism and cooperation in response to anything Trump does.
Usually the political benefits have seemed good enough to make people think that's a good idea but this is a very serious example of how that was always stupid.
As we talked about before the motivation for this misadventure is probably something like "okay the drone and missile production is starting to get to the point where doing something is going to become mandatory or will turn forever impossible."
Getting support for something like this after the second Iraq war would be incredibly hard. With Trump at the helm? Impossible. European leaders would probably try and actively sabotage it.
The U.S. runs off on its own because TDS made compromise and cooperation impossible.
We see this domestically in the US all the time. Trump is happy to make a deal, but the Dems will maximally complain no matter what he does, so he doesn't bother and just does what he wants.
A big piece of what is happening is European leaders abandoning professionalism for personal reasons or to score easy domestic policy points (looking at you Spain) and potentially doing profound damage to the structure and economy of Europe in the process.
I also strongly suspect Trump is doing a side game with this (and with Greenland and other things) to bail out of NATO and Europe is playing right into his hands.
Yes, there’s no way Europe would ever support this, with or without Trump, because it’s potentially hugely damaging to us and there’s no obvious need for it.
The point of consulting other people is that you sometimes get told that something of a terrible idea and you shouldn’t do it.
Consulting your citizens over forced heart donations wouldn’t result in twelve pages of constructive criticism aimed at doing it with minimum pain and compensation to the widows. It would result in horror and refusal, but that’s a lot better than the alternative!
The point is that there is no benefit with consensus building with Europe because you know in advance Europe is going to oppose it regardless of if it's a good idea.
The old "if Trump cured cancer you'd see pro-cancer rallies in the street" vibe is true.
Our allies and the opposition party have made very clear that teamwork and discussion is not valuable so now the Trump U.S. doesn't bother and it's not his (or our) fault.
He loves deals and working together! In many ways he is one of the easier presidents to manage, you just have to hold your nose...but people can't.
Ultimately Europe has made discussing with Europe a completely unfruitful endeavor.
It was a bad idea that has predictably gone tits-up. The possibility of saying so is why people want to be consulted.
Again I'd be very happy in a world where Trump has the ability to create a broad tent and big decisions can be discussed robustly from a variety of perspectives. This world does not exist and it's not his fault. He can't make it exist - if you want it to exist you need to encourage the people and leaders to create the necessary conditions for it to be.
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