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 -
I've been really thinking about this tweet.
This point is interesting, and I think rather noteworthy. There were many protests over the Vietnam conscription, Muhammad Ali's being the most famous example, so perhaps saying no backlash at all is a bit hastey. And who could forget our poor friends in Ukraine.
Still, I think she raises an interesting point. Most men still, (both legally and socially). Have to abide by the traditional man script. And this pressure is more on them then womens end of the social contract, which (from what I can see) is basically non existent.
Now the easiest explanation for this double standard is probably just gender bias: we simply have less empathy for men as a whole.
The way I see it, there are a couple of plausible solutions to make things for fair or consistent(any additional ones are welcome):
Gender "Equality". Extend "bodily autonomy" rights (for those who are actually consistent and believe in the concept, as a side note, I believe this is just a silly excuse) to men and end the draft, eliminate male disposability. Both men and women ask each other out. Stop valueing men as pure economic units. Men aren't wallets or soldiers, their people! Ect. Basically "Masculism" or some variation of MRA movement.
Extend the social contract obligations to women, and all that entails. Basically bring back some (or all) of the "patriarchy".
From what I can tell, 1 has kinda been tried, and has basically failed, probably due to the gender bias mentioned. I imagine Lauren favors the 2nd option, (& I kinda do). Implementing it may be unrealistic, however, due to various political and environmental constraints. I think realistically though, we are probably gonna have take a hard examination at the female end of the social contract at some-point, when birth rates and their implications become more severe and un-ignorable. Maybe we get lucky technology bails us out, but fundementally, I find the prospect of a society with no children, no families, etc, to be deeply dystopian.
I think one thing conscription shows (and the fact that many societies have it) is that, no society really wants to cease to exist. Nor should we. There is something valuable about societies existing, and continuing on into the future, even if we have to make some sacrifices for it. I think one can make a case (and many indeed do!) for extending some modified version of the social contract/roles to women. I've been deep thought about if societies might attempt this in the future, or what a modified variation of feminine roles/obilgations would look like. What do you think?
As to the draft specifically my preference is that we abolish it entirely or, in the alternative, draft men and women equally. The way war is fought today it seems to me women could substantially contribute in a way that was much less true before the industrialization of war. Especially in an existential context, it would seem foolish not to bend all society's available capacity towards survival. I find some amusement in the fact that, historically, this has been the more feminist/leftist position on the draft while the more conservative position has been keeping a gender-segregated draft.
What, exactly, does this entail? Are we going to restrict women's ability to work outside the home? Bring back a form of coverture? To me this reads like another of those situations where a hypothetical burden on men, regardless of its actualization, is used to justify oppressing women in a way that does not seem, to me, very justifiable.
If we abolish the draft entirely then authoritarian states with less scruples would eventually overpower and dominate all the countries that tried to do so. Then they'd do things like what Russia did with the Donbass and use their subjugated lands to go after their next round of conquests.
If we instead drafted men and women equally, this would almost certainly devolve into mere performative equality where women are mostly given noncombat roles.
If we were really committed to equality then we'd run up against the reality that women don't make great frontline soldiers, and would face even greater risk of abuse if they were ever captured.
Evolution has made men into warriors and women into childbearers. You can try to push against that but you'll always come up against biological realities.
Evolution makes everyone into a warrior. Males may be generally better, but one glance at the dangerous wild and how basically all other species operates tells us that females will fight too when needed.. The world was and is not kind enough to let anyone coast through so easily.
But even more importantly, modern warfare just doesnt really care as much about your physical capabilities as nature did, what wins war isn't manly men with thick abs swinging their muscular fists at each other anymore. Instead what truly wins modern wars (if things are even "winnable" traditionally now) is the logistics and science, even Rambo has no defense against a drone swarm.
Ukraine hasn't turned the tides on Russia because they sent ther men to the gym, but because they've engineered incredible new advancements in weapons systems and made tons of logistical optimizations. Just recently they even took over a Russian position without a single boot on the ground. And it's only going to get more and more common.
Even Israel doesn't generally allow women in to frontline combat duty. Women simply do not fight well unless defending young- Mulan was a folk tale and not someone who actually existed, and the Trang sisters had a baby strapped to their back, and Joan of Arc didn't personally fight, she used psychic powers to make command decisions- and we're definitely not going to have a kindergarten class hanging out in trenches.
Yes, Kipling said the female is more dangerous than the male- because cows have calves with them, and bulls don't. I 100% believe that a mama would kill a bear in family defense at equal efficacy to a dad, given the aid of modern technology- but that isn't the problem militaries are trying to solve.
the way a woman commits violence is by convincing a man to do it on her behalf. Therefore, as someone who does not know (or need to care) about what that actually costs, it's more likely she will seek a violent solution and cheer it on.
Women shouldn't have a say in foreign policy if it's not them who will be sent to die over it. This is merely controlling a moral hazard- violence is very literally sex work (as in, "work performed by one's sex") and in a fair system should be treated as such.
Do the female soldiers who joined the military get an exemption in your book? The thousands of Soviet, Polish, French, Dutch etc women who died fighting the Nazis in WW2, some executed, some tortured to death, some thrown in concentration camps? Women like Valeriya Gnarovskaya who threw herself under a tank with a bag of grenades to save the wounded soldiers she was treating? The 153 American female soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, many from IEDs?
How many men died? Just an order of magnitude estimate will do.
Not that this is even necessary; men are more than willing to vote themselves into going to war even without universal sufferage re: WW1, or revoke their own ability to resist being conscripted like they did in Russia (not that it would helped; WW2 was existential for them).
In aggregate (which, let's be clear, is what we're talking about here) they do not. It's not even limited to protecting against foreign enemies; women more than men support things like decarceration, because the consequences (that being more violent crime) are disproportionately unlikely to affect them. That's what "moral hazard" means- no skin in the game means the freedom to make stupid choices.
I’m against treating people based on the aggregate of their various identities, as much as possible, as a moral principle. Otherwise this leads to identity politics, collective guilt, and ideology that’s toxic whether it’s from the left or right. You have to answer for the sins of your fellow white males/kulaks/women/[ethnic group], regardless of whether you, an individual, are guilty or innocent.
If you went all Starship Troopers and said military service guarantees citizenships, and women happened to be 0.1% of soldiers, I could respect that, even if I disagreed with it. But your point is to deny people rights based on what their identity group tends to do, regardless of how they themselves act.
You’d block an individual woman who volunteered in the military and risked her life to save others from voting, but allow a man who bribed a doctor to get a draft exemption, or got a cushy desk position out of danger thanks to his family connections, the ability to vote?
You blame women, yet wealthy, powerful men, from politicians to billionaires, are the ones actually deciding foreign policy while poor men get sent out to die. What personal risk did Donald Trump have when he decided to invade Iran? He evaded the draft, and he’ll carry on living in luxury without giving a damn about gas prices or electricity or skyrocketing cost of living. Meanwhile three American female soldiers died in the war in Iran, two in a plane crash, one in an air strike. They had far more skin in the game than Donald Trump and his cabinet.
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