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 -
Not sure if this belongs here or in SQS, but it could either be a small question I don't understand or a discussion depending on whether or not people disagree about the answer.
Why did support for Ukraine split along the left/right the way it did (at least in the U.S.), when typically one would expect it to go the other way. That is, the right is usually more pro-military, pro-military intervention, and patriotic defending of one's homeland. Even though the right tends to be more focused on domestic issues and oppose foreign aid, military support tends to be the exeption. Although there was bipartisan support of the Iraq war (at least in the aftermath of 9/11) the Republicans were more strongly in favor of it and stayed in favor of it for longer. If Russia had threatened to invade the U.S. the Republicans would have been not only gung-ho about repelling them but also about retaliating and obliterating them in revenge so that none would dare try ever again. So you would think they would sympathize with Ukrainians as similarly patriotic defenders of their home turf, while the left would be all peace and let's try to get along and diplomatically convince the invaders to stop without violence, or something like that.
But that's not what happened. Why?
Is it just because the left has been harping on about Putin for years so hopped on the anti-Russia train too quickly and the right felt compelled to instinctively oppose them? If China had invaded Ukraine (for some mysterious reason) would the right be pro-Ukraine and the left opposing intervention because they don't want to piss off China (and accusing Ukraine of being nazis as an excuse)? That is, is there something specific to Ukraine/Russia that caused this divide here specifically, or am I misunderstanding the position of each side regarding military intervention in general (or has it changed in the past few decades and my beliefs used to be accurate but no longer are)?
I think support for Ukraine is more of a pro/anti-establishment issue than a left-right one. The anti-establishment left (Chomsky, Greenwald, Corbyn etc.) are at best lukewarm in their support for Ukraine and more normally both-sidesist. AOC got in trouble with her hard-left supporters for supporting Ukraine - arguably part of the process where here anti-establishment card is heading for early expiration. The small number of pro-establishment Republicans who are not afraid of a MAGA backlash (e.g. senators McConnell and Graham) and the various centre-right commentators who went NeverTrump in 2016 are fairly strongly pro-Ukraine.
As various people have pointed out in the thread, the pro vs anti establishment lineup on Ukraine is consistent with the pro vs anti establishment lineup on every other foreign policy issue going back to the New Deal era - the establishment supports US hegemony and the "rules-based international order", which in this case means that Putin must lose. The moderate anti-establishment view is that trying to maintain hegemony wastes resources which could be spent domestically and provokes unnecessary conflict. The rabid anti-establishment view is open support for America's rivals on enemy-of-my-enemy grounds.
The main reason it has become partisan because the anti-establishment right has crushed the pro-establishment in intra-right political battles since 2016, and the pro-establishment left has been dominant in intra-left battles since Biden won the primary in 2020. So pro-establishment vs anti-establishment can now look sufficiently like left vs right to trigger a Blue vs Red happy tribal death spiral - the same thing happened with COVID-19 vaccines despite Donald Trump's attempts to promote them as a Trump administration success story. The factions lined up the same way over the Iraq war (Bush/Clinton in favour, Buchanan/Chomsky against) but with the opposite partisan valance because the anti-establishment left had a megaphone and the anti-establishment right did not.
There are also moron-in-a-hurry culture war factors (Putin has been marketing Russia as white Christian country with strong gender roles and no queers for a long time) and dodgy domestic politics reasons (Russia helped Trump with opposition research in 2016, Ukraine refused to in 2019), but I think the pro vs anti establishment angle is a necessary and sufficient condition for support to Ukraine to be partisan in today's climate.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link