site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26715 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 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.

7
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Since special thread dedicated to current Middle Eastern issues fell into abeyance, I am posting latest war culture war report from the scorching sands of Middle East cold and brutal streets of Gotham City.

And the latest victim of the war is one Stuart Seldowitz, former humanitarian diplomacy consultant, National Security Council member and deputy director of the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs,who fell in glorious struggle against terrorism was arrested by NYPD for persistent harrassment of halal food street vendor.

In one widely shared video, Seldowitz is heard to ask the unidentified vendor: “Did you rape your daughter like Muhammad did?” In another, he states: “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.”

When the vendor says he doesn’t speak English, Seldowitz laughs and says, “That’s why you’re selling food in a food cart, because you’re ignorant,” before suggesting that the vendor will be deported to Egypt and tortured by intelligence agents.

“The mukhabarat in Egypt will get your parents,” Seldowitz said in the video. “Does your father like his fingernails? They will take them out one by one.” The vendor is heard asking Seldowitz to “please go” and saying that he would call the police.

An NYPD spokesperson told the outlet that they are aware of the videos and monitoring the situation but that no reports had been filed. The woman who posted the videos, who is believed to be a social activist and Columbia University graduate, said Seldowitz had been harassing the vendor for weeks.

According to some reports, the street vendor was allegedly previously tearing down posters with dead and kidnapped Israelis.

Whole incident was covered on dead bird site in every possible angle, if you are even only casual deadbirders, you already learned about it and made your own minds.

What is my take?

In the best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because whole world, including Middle East, would live in peace and harmony, there would be no wars, no one would be killed, no one would be kidnapped, no house would be bombed or bulldozed.

In the second best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because no one living in Gotham City would care enough about some war going on the other side of the world to deface their beloved city.

In the third best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because laws of Gotham City against posting and graffiti would be strictly enforced and people splattering around unauthorized posters and leaflets would be fined (and, in case of repeated and persistent vandalism, deported from the city).

Well, we do not live in any of these worlds.

This is why I’m much more of a nationalist in international affairs. It’s actually harmful to everyone involved to have the entire planet watching the war. If this conflict were treated like any of the dozen other low grade conflicts going on in the world, it would be over quite quickly and would not flair up as often. It would also mean less division in America and Europe as people wouldn’t be using it as another front in the culture wars.

Oh right, see no evil, hear no evil...

Given that lives are on the line, a countries foreign interventions should ethically be of great concern, both for the lives of their own citizens but also foreign citizens. Even if you hold your own nationals as being more important, it would still be important to want to limit unnecessary foreign deaths where there are no strategic gains.

The idea that you would be happy just for innocent people to die, would put you in a pretty small set of people. Some people speak rhetorically in such a fashion but I question whether they would actually be able to kill an innocent person themselves if they knew there was no justification. As you point out, the key is not to know about it or to be in the fog of war.

If you're looking for relevant examples, think Iraq war. Lot's of innocent civilians dead, no strategic gains beyond regional chaos perhaps. This sort of thing is only possible when the truth is hidden. Otherwise people tend to understand that it's bad, because most of us value self-consistency and aren't psychopaths.

I don’t think it’s psychopathic to suggest that you not give inordinate attention to conflicts happening half a world away that don’t concern the vast majority of Americans except in the form of aesthetics. I think it honestly holds back lasting peace because a lot of the decisions are made in a grandstanding way with no thought to the possibility of securing a peace. If the world weren’t protesting and watching and following everything on social media, then there’d be a lot more reason to end things quickly. And point of fact, we are actually pretty selective about the conflicts we pay attention to and follow let alone protest. Nobody’s breaking into Grand Central Station over the plight of Uyghurs, Yemenis, or Armenians. Syria has had a decades long civil war, and again the mental space that conflict has on us is pretty small. Those conflicts exist, and others exist around the world, but again they’re not fixtures in our collective imaginations even if thousands die there.

And furthermore, there’s only so much a country can do about these conflicts. We cannot get involved in every single conflict as we have limited resources. We’d have to at some point be selective about who we back and why, and it makes more sense to base the decisions about who to back on what’s in our interests than on whether or not one party or another is posting tear jerky videos on Twitter.

Well I don't have a solution to the larger problem of national rivalries over various interests. And I admit that my tendency is also to gloss over these things as well.

But we are influenced by our goverments and media. This prevents us from seeing our agency in at least some matters. The Iraq war was a coterie of hawks who hoodwinked the US and UK into a war. If journalism had highlighted true facts and enquired more deeply, they could have, perhaps, been stared down.

It was also a war we were directly involved in. It was our troops, our bombs our leaders making the decisions. Yes, in that instance we could and should have done what we needed to to stop the war we started in a way that doesn’t destroy what remains of Iraq.

The problem with us getting involved in wars that we have no interest or stake in is that it artificially prolongs and deepens the strife because they know the west in general is there to play cop and stop things before they get too crazy. Hamas doesn’t think that attacking Israel is a potentially lethal move for them because they know that Biden will negotiate a “pause”, that the retaliation will be decried as genocide, and that they’ll get billions in aid and other middle eastern countries will resupply them with weapons as soon as the coast is clear. Israel has no fear of the consequences of their actions because they know that nuclear aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean is a warning to all the Arabs that the American empire and her Allies will bomb the shit out of them if they intervene. What this means is that the war continues to infinity because we prevent them from fighting to the conclusion, and thus creating whatever the final outcome of the war that’s been going on since 1948. Instead we have the war flare up every few years, fight it to the exact same stalemate we’ve been stuck at for 75 years and know that whatever happens in this round is ultimately meaningless as the ceasefire just means rearming and preparing for the next round of the forever war.

I can see what you mean, and agree with the drawn out nature of many wars, especially proxy wars. But Im not sure previous wars where fighting was less restrained necessarily resolved issues such as contested land, though might-is-right was certainly understood well by the loser in heavy defeats. But these memories stay until fortunes change presumably and then the chance to even the score presents itself. I'm thinking regions like the Balkans - I mean they had a decent war not so long ago, but it hasn't resolved the tensions.

I mean the thing for me is that those wars ended decisively with one victor who won strongly enough to prevent the losing party from being able to spin back up to relight the fuse and try to win again. In 1850, if two countries went to war, they fought until one capitulated to the other, and it was known by all parties that the matter was settled. If the Ukraine war had happened in 1903, then we’d probably find ourselves redrawing the map to reflect that Western Ukraine wasn’t able to control Donbas and Crimea. Instead, we’re still trying to keep the war going instead of having West Ukraine simply cede the territory and shore up defenses.

Because now we have a principle that you can't acquire territory by conquest. It means that some conflicts will be considered ongoing for a long time, but it's also supposed to mean that most countries don't even consider starting a war of conquest in the first place, because no one will recognize their gains, so we have many fewer wars of conquest.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats