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 meaning to write out my full thoughts on Israel Palestine for a while, and as rhetoric heats up around election season, I figured now is as good a time as any.
First off, so that I don’t keep anyone guessing, let me state my position right off the bat. I don’t care. I would love nothing more than for the I/P conflict to be treated by the media like the much bloodier Sudanese civil war – a few words of condolence during the rare slow news cycle, then shutting up. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in, and it seems we’re destined to listen to the same hyperbolic arguments from both sides over and over instead of news that’s relevant to our lives. So, that being the case, let’s look at the conflict.
A - There is no peaceful solution. You have two groups of people that have a multi-generational blood feud going. While there might be people on both sides that want peace, there are enough that want war to ensure that war will continue. Short of separating the groups for a generation until the memories of dead relatives die out, there is no way to end this peacefully.
B - Israel is in deep trouble. The original framework of support for Israel was US/Western World in favor (out of a combination of guilt and wanting to spread democracy), communist world against (mainly for reasons of optics/opposing western imperialism, etc).
Unfortunately for Israel, the cold war ended. For the American left, they are an easy scapegoat. The “America Bad” fifth column faction of the left has a long history of hating them for cold war reasons. Given that the factions that have joined together to make up the new left (identity group tribalists + various flavors of communists) don’t have any real reason to oppose this, hating Israel makes a for a great rallying cry among groups that historically have had a REALLY hard time finding common ground (LGBTQ & Muslims, etc). And as the American left goes, so goes Europe and the rest of the Anglosphere.
As for the American right, they seem to have lost any interest in the US maintaining international hegemony. As far as I can tell, the main effect of the social media age on the right has been to break down any sort of trust they once had in American institutions. I will be the first to admit that some of those institutions have been marred by leftist politics. But the net outcome seems to be that the right now sees ALL government peripheral institutions as inherently corrupt and not worth the cost of upkeep (which, to my mind, is the antithesis of conservatism, but that is a different discussion). Needless to say, satellite states are now within the realm of things they no longer want to pay for.
Finally, there’s Israel itself. Its secular population is declining at the same rate as the rest of the developed world. And its fundamentalists are procreating faster than almost anyone else on the planet. Within another generation, they will be the majority. They’ll have full control of everything, including a reputedly large and advanced nuclear arsenal. At which point, I’d imagine that what remains of the secular population will flee, and we will see yet another theocratic state arise in the land of milk and honey.
C - The Palestinians are utterly doomed. There is no scenario where they come out of this well. The BEST case scenario is that they somehow get integrated into the surrounding Arab countries, and are spread thinly enough that there is no repeat of the Black September uprising. But in general, the conditions that the Palestinians have been subject to has made them into a vengeful and violent people, and I don’t know what country would be willing to risk taking them in.
Short of that, every road leads to death. If Israel becomes a true, North Korea style pariah state lead by fundamentalists, then there will be little to stop them from ACTUALLY committing genocide. If the modern equilibrium holds, an increasingly aggressive Israel will continue to whittle away at the Palestinian population and territory until there is nothing left. If somehow the gulf states unite and defeat Israel militarily, given the horrific deaths the Israelis would likely meet at the hands of an invading Arab army, I have little doubt that Israel would elect to glass the entire region.
And in the end, I don’t think any of these outcomes (except maybe the one with the mass nuclear exchange) are going to have much more of an effect on the western world than the Sudanese civil war, or the oppression of the Uighurs, or the various coups in Burma. Except for the fact that, due to some quirks of history, we are doomed to hear about it forever.
Let's consider America's allies/satellites. Britain - Five Eyes, cooperative, sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, was going to help out in the Asia Pacific before things heated up in Europe. Not very strong but causes no problems.
Australia - Five Eyes, cooperative, Pine Gap signals, rare earths, sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, helping out with developing US submarine-building to buy some nuclear subs. Small and weak but causes no problems.
France - a bit unruly, wants more European strategic autonomy, doesn't like buying US weapons, kicked out US troops of their own country for a while but is still in NATO. Not a major problem though.
Turkey - quite unruly, buys some Russian weapons, complicates things with Syria or anything to do with the Kurds. Constantly double dealing everyone.
And then there's Israel.
Israel is constantly needy for US weapons - about 3-4 billion in military aid per year. Israel has all kinds of special carve outs where the US will contribute to R&D for Israeli weapons that the Israelis later export. Whenever there's a war they get more supplementary military aid. Even their neighbours get military aid to serve as a bribe for being nice to Israel.
The Israelis provide bad intelligence, it was the Israelis producing imaginary armies of Kurds for this most recent Iran shambles. They've been demanding Iran be bombed for 20-30 years now because of nukes that nobody's ever seen. They were demanding war with Saddam's Iraq and didn't lift a finger to help out. They don't contribute to US wars, unlike all other US clients who at least show up sometimes. South Korea sent plenty of troops to Vietnam. Israel never shows up for a US war with the exception of the Iran war, which was started for Israel. Rubio's initial remarks were that Israel was about to attack Iran and so America had to go in too due to the inevitable response. Israel causes massive diplomatic and reputational problems for the US. Why was Osama and all these Muslims so upset with America? To a large extent because of Israel.
Consider non-proliferation, how much harm does it do to the US non-proliferation agenda for Israel to be sitting there while America warns Iran must never be allowed to have nuclear weapons? Rules for me and rules for thee...
Israel is a uniquely toxic US ally but exercises such vast power over American politics it's insane. What has Canada ever done to America that would motivate harsh rhetoric and trade wars? Canada might be incompetent and weak but is that such a great crime? They show up to US wars. Better a weak friend than a moderately powerful leech, deceiver and problem-starter who's shown zero intention to help the US.
Trumpian anger with US allies has been directed everywhere except where it actually belongs. Most farcically, he's now fallen taken that final step that even Bush shied away from.
The idea that America went to war with Iran because of Israeli intelligence about the Kurds strikes me as very bizarre.
Why does Iran keep building secret nuclear sites under mountains where inspectors aren't allowed to go?
How much harm does it do?
Canada imposes tariffs and other barriers on American goods, often in violation of our agreements. Trump retaliated. I really don't think it's deeper than that.
Let's be fair here, America also had its own share of unfair trade practices that Canada tolerated. I don't begrudge Trump for playing the game, and I find silly how politicians here act like his actions are unprompted aggression (it plays well to the population, who loves a good reason to feel offended or to act morally superior to americans), but putting fingers on the scales with regards to trade is a game everyone, including the US, has been playing.
I think the US took more than it gave before Trump but I think you're also basically right.
This is one of those things where, I think, a lot of the emotion and anger is really just for the cameras. That is to say, I know that a lot of Canadians are angry, and I know that a lot of Canadian politicians also claim to be angry, and I know that Trump certainly sounds angry, but I suspect that behind closed doors Trump and the Canadians probably are just doing business.
As I understand it from my Canadian friends, the defining point of Canadian culture is being "better (morally/culturally, rather than economically/militarily) than the US". The 51st state talk really riled them up far more than any trade war could ever have.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. I think it's an Anglo/French HBD thing. Fortunately, with all the immigrants they're importing at my direct expense, they'll soon be a minority; unfortunately, it'll be too late for me to gain financially from that because destroying any hope of that is why they are importing the people in the first place.
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