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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023

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Historical injustice depends a lot on where you start the clock.

I'll try to keep this mostly general, because much of history is under debate, especially about culture war issues, and litigating ancient history for current politics is a fool's game (if potentially entertaining). This phenomenon is not relegated to any particular side, it is rather the method by which fact and fiction become myth. It is how partially-understood history becomes dogma, and drives our current politics and society.

The history of humanity is a history of injustice, conflict and strife. When we look to history to explain our modern world and inform our modern politics, much of the divide between us can be discerned by where we start our "clocks". One notices that, for instance, in the Jewish/Palestinian arguments, one side likes to start the clock in the 1970s and one starts it in the 1930s. Real history, of course, is not divided artificially. Every conflict leads to the next, every injustice to the next. Progress happens on a long enough timeline, but there are enough reverses along the way to outlive any of us.

This is something to watch in ourselves, as much as in others. To think about where we're starting the clock, and whether something important might have happened before that to produce that situation.

To take a silly hobby-horse theory/hot take of mine as example, I think the british fought on the right side of WW2, but the wrong side of WW1. I think the historical context WW2 is completely dependent on WW1, and that of WW1 is inextricable from the Franco-Prussian war, the countries, borders and alliances it produced, and thus the clock should start in 1870 rather than 1913. Anyone who starts the clock in 1913 is a Francophile.

I think the british fought on the right side of WW2, but the wrong side of WW1.

I can see the claim that, say, Russia or Serbia bears the blame for WWI, that Austria was in the right, and even that Germany’s actions are understandable(although not praiseworthy) given the context. I can see assigning some blame to France.

What I can’t wrap my mind around is the idea that Britain was in the wrong- whether you have central powers sentiment or not, responding to an ally in time of need is almost definitionally a just war. It seems like Britain was the only major belligerent that didn’t do anything wrong.

If you are referring to the claim that Britain only got involved to defend Belgium, that is literally just British propaganda. They wanted to get involved from the very start and the Belgium thing was a convenient excuse.

I think you've chosen a very interesting place to stop your chain of logic here, not examining why Britain "wanted to get involved from the very start". Given that Britains war aims were essentially to keep the continent pretty much as it was before the war and preserve the balance of power in Europe, it is in fact accurate to say that Britain chose to use the excuse of maintaining Belgian independence in order to join the war in support of Britains true goal of supporting Belgian independence.

Given that Britains war aims were essentially to keep the continent pretty much as it was before the war and preserve the balance of power in Europe

"We want Austria-Hungary to keep oppressing everyone because the status quo is profitable to our top-hat class" is not exactly my definition of Just War.