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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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Well I don't buy the whole 'Russia inflicting genocide' line and I suppose the war isn't being waged along the whole front-line, mostly in the Donbass. But there have been mobilizations on both sides!

What would a post-45 full-scale war look like if not this? Korea had short, manageable frontlines and intense strategic bombing involving the flattenning of all the North's urban centres. Russia made an attempt at destroying Ukrainian power infrastructure but there's a lot of it to destroy plus missile defence and SAMs preventing unlimited bombing. Is it practical to flatten areas they want to conquer anyway? No.

In my book, if both sides are conscripting then it's a full-scale war. It isn't a total war, that would be finished in a week. I suppose you can ask 'why aren't you considering a full-scale war and total war to be the same' and my answer is that it's a matter of nuclear weapons. If it was a total war, Russia would demand unconditional surrender and start glassing Ukrainian cities if their demands weren't met.

Well I don't buy the whole 'Russia inflicting genocide' line

Russia's stated goal is to reunify the Ukrainian people with the Russian people, destroying an independent Ukrainian identity. That matches the definition of genocide.

By "genocide" we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. ... The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups

Forced assimilation qua taking Ukrainian children is one of the 5 prohibited acts, amounting to genocide in context.

Well they can define genocide that way but unless Russia is actually killing huge numbers of Ukrainian civilians, it's not meaningfully genocidal. When France enforced its own state language and culture on the various regions in the 19th century, that wasn't genocide. Political and social institutions come and go. The Soviet Union messed with a lot of things in terms of political and social institutions, culture, religion and economic existence. Yet we only talk about its genocide or classicide in the context of mass deaths in Ukraine, kulaks and so on.

Forced assimilation conducted in various ways might be bad but it does not fit the core meaning of genocide, which relies upon massed deaths. Why is genocide bad? Because of the massive numbers of civilian deaths! When Theodore Roosevelt raged against hyphenated Americans, he was not calling for genocide in any meaningful way. Wales was not genocided when its identity became part of Britain via military force. Alsace-Lorraine was not genocided by either France or Germany during its long history of conflict.

Imo a lot of what France did to the south would definitely count as genocide today. Not to mention their religious wars.

Yeah, the religious wars would count. Suppression of the Vendee in the revolutionary war too. But what were they doing that was so bad in the 19th century?

But what were they doing that was so bad in the 19th century?

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, France (really shouldn't single out France, a lot of placed did this) banned the teaching of local languages/official use and engaged in a campaign of forced assimilation (basically, to make France "french").

Before modernization, basically every region of France (and pretty much everywhere in the old world) had a regional language and culture. I think under modern criteria the wiping out of these languages and cultures would be considered ~10-15 genocides (although you could make a convincing argument from anywhere between 4 and about 50).

That's the story of pretty much everywhere in the old world during that period (the period does vary a bit, for example, England managed to wipe out a lot of regional languages much earlier).

England managed to wipe out a lot of regional languages much earlier).

could you be more speciific? Wallish still exists. Sorry I don't know much about them.