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 -
America First is a sufficiently ambiguous doctrine that could cover a lot of things. It did not mean, and never meant, isolationism. Rather, it indicates a turn away from 'world policing', and the acknowledgement that there are bounds to American interests.
Secondly, there are downsides as well as upsides to fostering domestic enthusiasm for war. The bottom line here is that Americans will not simply line up for more military adventures on hearing the word 'terrorism', a fine trick while it worked but no longer. Americans must be persuaded that Taiwan is actually relevant to their interests, and a track record of pursuing those interests makes that persuasion easier. Just as a track record of anti-communism made it easier for Nixon to sell rapprochement with China, a track record of hard-nosed pragmatism will make it easier to sell intervention when the time comes.
The other thing is that for all this talk, Trump actually was President for four years, and neither Ukraine or Taiwan were invaded under his watch. Is that because he was construed to be a committed idealist?
Trump's not a great example here. In the Korea crisis in 2017, Trump signalled successfully that he was crazy enough to start WWIII, which is why he's the first POTUS since the Korean War to actually drive a wedge between Beijing and Pyongyang, and why Seoul and Pyongyang started singing kumbaya to at least some extent (they both wanted Trump to go away).
All that aside, while without the USA the PRC could take Taiwan, it still takes* quite a while - probably over a year - to prepare. D-Day wasn't exactly a spur-of-the-moment thing, you know.
*I say "takes" rather than "would take" because I suspect the PRC has in fact started these preparations. What's changed since 2016? Well, they've continued to expand the Chinese military and the USA's culture war has gotten worse, but also the Hong Kong crackdown in 2020. I think the CPC is telling the truth that it would like to get Taiwan peacefully - you'd have to be a complete maniac to prefer fighting over getting what you want without fighting, and that goes back to Sun Tzu. But Taiwan is never going to agree to a reunification deal now that there's an object lesson in Hong Kong that the PRC likes to alter deals of this exact sort, so I think the PRC is dusting off the "brute force" option. They could still abort, but I think the wheels are actually quietly in motion.
More options
Context Copy link
To me, it sounds a lot like those showflake souls that propose replacing the police with "community non-violent conflict resolution teams". Which, predictably, results in criminals doing their thing openly and without fear, and "resolution teams" standing around or sitting in a nearby caffe, looking like the doofuses they are. The problem is evil exists, and contrary to what some self-centered Americans may think, it is not always caused - in fact, in most cases isn't - by "American meddling". And if you close your eyes to it, it will grow, until closing your eyes to it is no longer an option. And when that happens, you'd still have to deal with it somehow. Just as inhabitants of "defund the police" cities still have to deal with criminals going nowhere - just there's no more police because the politicians they voted for had those grand ideas about how police meddling causes all the trouble. It's very nice to sit and think "if we just don't meddle, everything will be fine and peachy" but it wouldn't work this way, and the oceans won't help much in today's small world.
There are undoubtedly people who want less intervention because they think that the US is a progenitor of all evils. These are often either people who want peace on the cheap, or people who want the US out of the way of other interests e.g. cleansing Israel of Jews.
However, the more sensible view is that there are cases where a lack of US intervention will still result in a shitshow, but nonetheless likely to be a less bad shitshow on the whole, e.g. the Vietnam War or the Iraq War.
It's not at all clear that the shitshow sans the US would be actually less. I mean, sure, not opposing the USSR (and China) communist takeover over the globe would be cheaper near-term. But do you think USSR taking over the whole Asia, South America and Africa would be less of the shit show than now? Of course, all these commit regimes would come crashing down as they did in Eastern Europe, but with the West looking the other way and pretending the commies don't exist or don't matter - could it have happened 50 years later? Could it cause much more blood (remember Budapest 1956 and Prague 1968?) and death? I think pre-supposing the answer to that is the same fallacy as saying "US meddling is the root of all evil", only in different words.
With Iraq, again looking into it in context, no US meddling means Iraq taking over Kuwait, and then expanding its operations further, and likely getting into a hot war with Israel using whatever WMDs they had. I'm not sure that'd be less of a shitshow, especially given that Israel does have nukes, and doesn't have any strategic depth, which means if seriously threatened... use your imagination. Not saying Iraq would be strong enough to get as far as to threaten Israel's existence as such - but if they get lucky and get this far, who'd stop things going there? Remember, US is not meddling anymore, which means they would neither prevent any shit from happening by force nor by promise of their protection (or its withdrawal). The world of "not meddling" would be much more dangerous and shaky, I am afraid. When there's no police, there would be shootouts. I suspect that'd be much bigger shitshow.
Yes, I agree that it's a matter of degree and context. For example, South Korea in 1950 had more strategic value than Vietnam, because it would have meant the loss of a buffer between the USSR/China and Japan. Similarly, there was meddling in Iraq (sanctions, defending Kuwait etc.) that had a lot more expected value than the 2003 invasion.
However, regardless of whether these interventions were right, I simply wanted to clarify that non-interventionism is not necessarily a "panacea" view.
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