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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   23156 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026

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Pretending that no one understands what apartheid means is just annoying wordplay.

OMW was making a (pretty interesting) objection to a definition. If someone offers up a definition that can't stand up to annoying wordplay, it should probably be modified. (There's no shame in tweaking a definition; changing your argument in response to correct objections can only strengthen it, unless it is fundamentally weak).

OMW was making a (pretty interesting) objection to a definition.

Thanks, although my central objection on this issue is to people throwing around loaded buzzwords such as "apartheid," "genocide," and so on.

If someone wants to argue that it's wrong for Israel to occupy J & S without allowing the Palestinian Arabs there to have citizenship and voting rights, it's possible to do so without using the word "apartheid." Probably it would be a much more productive discussion.

But once a person has used a word like "apartheid," they've opened a door. It's on them to define the word "apartheid." And if it seems they have stretched the definition (or if they have a special, broader definition to use for Israel), then it undermines their position, perhaps even fatally.

Same with "genocide". People are using that word because they want me to react to it in the same way I'd react to a modern Holocaust. But I will only do that if you show that it's a central example, not a tortured definition being applied in misleading ways to try to emotionally trick me. Either properly define your terms so that they both a) apply to Israel and b) demand an appropriate level of outrage, or stop using the word "genocide" and expecting shocked gasps.

There's nothing interesting to that objection. It's the equivalent of stating that a labrador and a border collie can not both be dogs since they're not exactly the same.

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