site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 15, 2024

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.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

By historical standards all sorts of mass murderous attrocities are not abnormal, including genocides. As is rhetoric of people calling such conduct as not abnormal to justify and excuse it. It is definitely a disgusting atrocity of ethnic cleansing through mass murder, complete obliteration of the homes of the Palestinians, inducing policies to starve them.

Considering the starvation it is mass murder in the process of becoming genocide if one takes a higher standard for genocide. Or already qualifies as a genocide if one considers the mass murder that already has happened as qualifying.

Also, obviously all this attempt to understate terms and it would be too late if the numbers of dead keep on pilling, in line with what Israeli politicians want. Not to mention all the people who have lost limbs.

The reality is that the treatment of Jews in WW2 is brought precisely to justify the murderous ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by people who certainly prove in that regard that we should be careful with our sympathies for bad actors would use them to justify vile warcrimes. It would be more sensible to not be manipulated to obsessing about Jews from 80 years ago and be diverted by that from confronting those committing or supporting the warcrimes of today.

You have a problem with war in that case. That is, you can’t attack Gaza effectively without the collateral consequences.

I go back to “don’t start nothing won’t be nothing.”

Obviously the Palestinians haven't started this conflict in October 7th and there was plenty of something before this. So the way you frame it is completely inaccurate. Of course, I am not someone who is as biased for Palestinians as those I criticize are for Jews, but I do have to defend them when they are under destruction. Frankly Jews and Palestinians living separately (and freely) in their own homeland and keeping out of each others affairs would be the sane ethical way to go.

This would require Jews to stop doing plenty of "somethings" against the Palestinians and respect the group rights of other groups.

While much of war is going to be ugly, there are different levels to this. There is a difference between fanatic supremacist warmongers trying to destroy other ethnic groups and take over their homeland and other ways to conduct yourself. It is excusing warcrimes to say that war is this always. The rhetoric of Israeli politicians and their actions shows that this is about ethnic cleansing through violence and death, starvation, destroying peoples homes.

In the case of Israel, I have no doubt that without the attention of people putting pressure, that Israel's leaders in line with their rhetoric and those who support the already war criminal conduct would have pushed things far further. On the other side, those who have been apologists for this conduct have stained their hands. Israel would have done even less with a less favorable environment in the USA especially.

Here the world is watching and they are reacting entirely differently than your propagandistic Jewish supremacist framing which is why lot of the world wisely has become much more negative against Israel. https://time.com/6559293/morning-consult-israel-global-opinion/

And we see a change to negativity towards Israel even in countries like the UK with a significant Jewish lobby that have also have been harmed by Muslim extremism as well which would give them less reason to sympathize with the Palestinians.