site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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.

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It's tolerable. I try to wait for the mysterious disappearance of my neighbours and my conscription notice before I declare war on society.

I'm sure you will.

I doubt that you will.

In the spirit of charity I hereby express my baseless estimation that I consider it more likely for you to be talking tough than to actually mean what you say, but I have no proof so I suppose I'll take your word for it.

What does talking tough have to do with it? I believe murderous rebellion was justified, and this is presumably what you object to. Or do you agree that it was justified, but assume you would have done nothing out of cowardice? Because Lizzardspawn seemed to imply that it was right and proper for germans to die for Hitler, and my suggested course of action would be "traitorous".

I'm saying your moral absolutism with violent undertones is a luxury belief you would likely be quick to shed were you actually living in wartime Germany. That any one of those "worms" who marched into Russia or France to die for some supposed moral failing had a thousand times the spine of someone who comes in to deride them almost a century after the fact.

So as I said, you do not think my policy was justified, and my spine, yours, theirs, or the lack thereof is irrevelant. Else you’re arguing that their dying out of cowardice, was really courageous. I think they were obligated to murder and treason, but exile, surrender, suicide, or conscientious objection would have been close to okay. Failing that, they may be family, but they were scum who bled and died for nothing and took innocents with them. And even by their own, and Hitler’s standard, they failed and should have died, courtesy of survival of the fittest race.

Nothing personal, I hold similar views about the russian conscripts currently dying, the only difference being, of course, the magnitude of their moral fault. I do not believe in the nuremberg defense: if you lay down your life for your master, his crimes become yours, regardless of your intent.

It's very convenient that someone with such views lives in a world that does not oblige him to act on them.

It’d be even more convenient if I proclaimed my intent to fall in line no matter what our dear leaders decided to do. I quit (bzw. was fired from) my job over the mandatory testing they passed, if that counts as some level of spine.

It does, but insufficiently so.

Compare your quitting of a job to the worker, peasant and soldier Germans of the 1940s of whom you demand that they murder their family members, brothers-in-arms, neighbors and/or themselves and doom their families in the process in order to conform to the lofty ideals of people with the benefit of historical hindsight who needn't sacrifice a thing.

“If a state engages in large-scale evil (war, exterminations, etc) , then for a citizen, murder-treason (and lesser forms of defection, like surrender, exile etc) is the right thing to do.”

A: “no it’s not, because they have a duty to the state, their nation, family, comrades, oaths etc.”

B: “yes it is, but they can’t, because most people are weak. “

Which option do you think they would have picked in 1930?

To be clear, I think they would have picked A, and the modern far right when defending nazis (to a degree - I’m not talking about actual neonazis, just regular far right) , calling modern germans brainwashed etc, also pick A. That’s why I think the question of cowardice is a red herring .