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 -
Would European Red-analogues, if they were had their day in the limelight, even be natural allies to American Reds? The existence of a "Blue Ummah" is, in a way, the intrinsic advantage of Blues; globalists everywhere have common cause, but nationalists can only have temporary allies of convenience. I forget if it was SSC or some other blog in the general sphere that proposed the thought experiment of some lizard species where a subset could be identified as cooperate-bots with a visual signal only visible to fellow cooperate-bots and thereby outcompeted all the others (as a metaphor for certain mind-killing minorities), but it's kind of like that except the signal is not even secret.
Yes, I think so. Mutual admiration, mutual support and mutual cooperation are completely possible, provided there's a foundation of shared values. I like England and Japan, I want them to continue and to prosper. We've been allies with England for well over a century at this point; we've been allies with Japan since the end of World War II. There's no reason in principle that we shouldn't continue to be close allies with these nations for centuries to come. I'm not sure where this argument that "nationalists can only have temporary allies of convenience" actually is supposed to come from. Numerous western countries engaged in both nationalism and durable alliances spanning decades or even centuries; numerous Communist countries fought wars with fraternal socialist allies even in the short span of formal Communism.
Many communist countries were not actually particularly globalist (North Korea in particular, but also e.g. Albania; North Vietnam came out of a nationalist movement of colonial liberation that was just desperate for backers after the US sacrificed them for the sake of their European postwar order political project; I think Laos might even still forbid its citizens from marrying foreigners). On the other hand, what are actually your Western examples? I won't take mere decades as evidence of durability here, on historical clocks it should at least be 100 years to transcend the realm of suspected expedience. England and the US are, well, the same nation; I wouldn't consider German-Austrian alignment to be evidence that nationalists can trust other nations either. Proper nationalism has not even been around for that long (it is commonly taught as really taking off with the revolutions of 1848, though arguably the English and French both woke up to national consciousness earlier than that), and the whole story of Europe is that up until the Pax Americana the alliances were constantly shifting.
Your argument is that Nationalism has a worse record for international cooperation than Progressivism/Blue/Globalist Ideology, correct? If so, asking for a century's record seems to me to define away the discussion. Communism as an official system didn't last a hundred years, so the China-Vietnam-Cambodia wars don't count, presumably the USSR violently suppressing Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia and making repeated attempts on Tito in Yugoslavia doesn't count, And Angola's civil war doesn't count. Likewise the numerous civil wars/purges/whatever-we-call-mass-killing-your-own-citizens. And as you note, Nationalism itself isn't actually much older, maybe 50 years more, and you've said the US and Britain don't count because they're the same country. I'll note that once we're past Napoleon, Britain and France seem to hang together fairly well; ending up on the same side in two world wars and the cold war ought to count for something. But overall, if you draw your standards of evidence in this way, it seems to me that I probably can't demonstrate a solid record of nationalism being good for cooperation, but likewise you can't draw a solid record of it being bad at it either. By your reckoning, it seems not enough time has passed to draw any conclusions at all.
I would argue a looser standard, and point out that we do actually have around two centuries of nationalism and around a century of Progressivism as large-scale reigning ideologies, and I would much, much prefer the nationalist experience across that time.
More options
Context Copy link
Not sure where you're trying to get with these examples, he was not invoking the famous Soviet - North Korean war to prove his point.
It's not like he gave any examples of wars between Communist countries. The most obvious examples I am aware of all involved the China-Vietnam-Cambodia triangle, which I did cover with examples; I then added some more obviously nationalist communist countries because otherwise there would not be enough content.
Soviets sending their army to Czechoslovakia, or Stalin trying to off Tito multiple times, is what immediately comes to my mind.
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