site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 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.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

There is always this stupid idea that if only we were a bit kinder with those leaders (be it Hitler, Putin or others), if we had made just one or two small concessions, there would have been no war. But this is a complete misunderstanding of the nature of their regime. Whatever you give them, they see as a sign of weakness, a proof that they can push harder. You negociated with me about Syria, so that I can do anything there? I will also take Ukraine. You give me Danzig? I will also take Alsace. It's a game where they can only win: either you give them what they want, and they are stronger and can push for more, or you don't, and they get a casus belli.

EDIT:

In the wake of the 9/11 Attacks, the Jewish Neocons stampeded America towards the disastrous Iraq War and the resulting destruction of the Middle East, with the talking heads on our television sets endlessly claiming that “Saddam Hussein is another Hitler.”

By the way, I remember quite precisely what happened, and the jews were not responsible of it. All of America wanted this war. The people who opposed it took a ton of shit. You probably wanted this war yourself. But I guess it is easier to blame the stupid choices you made on the jews.

All of America wanted this war.

I remember, too. I remember the mood over here being largely sympathy for the tragedy and understanding why they would want revenge, but also that this was a terrible idea and was driven by emotion, not any reasonable evaluation of what was going on. I suppose some of the foreign policy hawks also saw it as a chance to get back into the nation-building game, but it was the completely understandable lashing-out of a people who had been hurt.

That didn't make it right, but there was no need of sinister Semitic string pullers to urge it on.

Right, the Iraq War had a huge number of non-Jewish backers and it's ironically quite philosemitic to ascribe agency only to Jews and not to any gentiles and to claim the former persuaded the entire west (with polling routinely showing supermajority public approval) to invade.

Often overlooked is that Bush Sr considered not finishing off Saddam to have been a grave mistake and possibly to have cost him re-election, and imparted this unto his son. So W had a personal vendetta against Saddam and had stacked his team full of his father's advisors (who also had the same personal vendetta). Many of these were gentile and their reasons for wanting to invade Iraq had little or nothing to do with Israel.

The Israelis themselves were ambivalent; Ariel Sharon discouraged the war - certainly the entire Israeli establishment would rather have invaded Iran than Iran. Mossad was more in favor, but it certainly wasn't the case that all the Israeli elite favored the war, and Jewish Americans were one of the most opposed of all American demographics.

it's ironically quite philosemitic to ascribe agency only to Jews

There's a joke about Rabinovich who was subscribed to every anti-Semitic newspaper there is (probably going back to pre-revolution times in Russia). When asked why he's doing that, he answers - well, you see, if I read Jewish papers - the Jews are attacked, the Jews are oppressed, the Jews are murdered... It only depresses me. But when I read these papers - the Jews run Russia, the Jews run America, the Jews run Europe, the Jews buy everything, the Jews always win... It makes me feel a bit better!

There was (allegedly) a similar joke about a Berliner Jew in 1930 who always read the Nazi papers "Volkische Beobachter," "Der Angriff," and "Die Sturmer" instead of the comparatively-mainstream "Berliner Tageblatt."