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 -
None whatsoever.
WWII is circumstantially unique- the vast majority of totalitarian land empires are not as bad as either Nazi germany or the Stalinist USSR. For that matter imperial Japan was a lot worse than a typical ethnonationalist imperial power, too. In the modern consciousness, including the consciousness of elite decision makers, everything about WWII is overshadowed by that fact(well, set of facts). And we are simply not very likely to have a war with three regimes that evil as active participants again on a timescale where people still remember WWII as a thing to draw lessons from and not as something Akin to the great Byzantine-Persian war or the war of Jenkin’s ear or King Phillip’s war. Sure, they’re historically relevant, but no one thinks about them to draw lessons.
‘Never again’ with regards to WWII refers to the litany of unprecedented and unrepeated human rights crises in the war, not to the existence of a war. And it was not obvious ahead of time that the Nazis or Soviets or imperial Japanese would murder so many people(although perhaps the nature of the regime should have been a clue that they would murder some number). Most continent-wide conventional wars between major powers do not involve the intentional killing of 10’s of millions of civilians. WWI featured a single genocide- the ottomans butchering Christian subject races- and a few smaller human rights abuses, the mass targeting of civilians was limited mostly to a single theater. The second Congo war and Vietnam both featured civilian deaths on a large scale, but no mass exterminations. The Iran-Iraq war was a war between some pretty detestable regimes- one of which carried out multiple active genocides during the war and the other of which conscripted children to use as human mine clearers- but doesn’t feature the gigantic relative civilian body counts that WWII did.
The closest parallels, morally, are the Yugoslav breakup and some conflicts in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the size doesn’t compare. And that’s the relevant reason WWII sticks in anyone’s mind. You can avoid another set of world spanning genocides by not putting genocidal madmen in charge of three major continental powers all at once, and that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon.
How many other totalitarian land empires are you counting as having existed (roughly)?
If there have been 50 other empires then sure these 2 are an outlier, but if China, the Central Powers (do they count as totalitarian?) and Tsarist Russia are the only other examples then it's at most a slim and in no way a vast majority.
Modern China and Saudi Arabia, Tsarist Russia, kruschevite Russia, fascist Romania, ceasescu’s Romania, Yugoslavia, Saddam’s Iraq, arguably Vietnam and North Korea, possibly modern Russia(I’m seeing a track record here), potentially apartheid SA and maybe Iran and hafez’s Syria. I’d also count Egypt at certain points in the late 20th century and mobutu’s Congo.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link