site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It's continually baffling to me how the majority of this forum thinks that defending your own lands from a hostile foreign invader somehow makes you a puppet.

and it seems like bad faith to me when globalists are suddenly completely certain that nationalism is universally supported and good. Even the more right wing people I chat with aren't purely line on a map nationalists that ignore cultural differences. Ukraine is an especially poorly partitioned country where you have entire regions that are mostly Russian speaking, then others that are Ukrainian speaking, and still more that are heavily Hungarian. The place is a complete mess. It doesn't matter if they fix the "conscription issues" (which is a very clinical way to say that 10k+ a month are dying and their older male population is so exhausted the only way to keep the front from collapsing is to lower the conscription age and get rid of any opportunity for long term conscripts to demobilize)

credibledefense bans all opposing views... it's an echochamber like most of reddit.

Ukraine is an especially poorly partitioned country where you have entire regions that are mostly Russian speaking, then others that are Ukrainian speaking, and still more that are heavily Hungarian.

This sounds like a "Comrade Stalin threw a dart on a map and put the border where it landed" problem. And I agree it causes tremendous issues of national identity and integrity post-breakup. For the Bolskeviks, obviously that was the point: divide the minority ethnicities, put them in SSRs with people they hate, destroy nationalist ambitions, profit collectively owned return on collective investment.

And then there's Moldova, which just is North Romania, but was divided from the motherland because of dumb Soviet border disputes.

Who wore it better: UK or USSR?

And then there's Moldova, which just is North Romania, but was divided from the motherland because of dumb Soviet border disputes.

I think it's more because of it's conquest by Russian Empire in the 19th century.

Some Hungarians are there but they're only a tiny fringe along the Carpathians. Ukraine is indeed split with some supporting Ukraine (and the West) and some supporting Russia. But having a Russian contingent isn't unusual, as the Baltics and Moldova also have that. I doubt most Estonians would want a chunk cleaved out of their territory to appease the ethnic Russians.

credibledefense bans all opposing views... it's an echochamber like most of reddit.

It has a UA tilt, but they definitely don't autoban pro-RU people. Glideer for instance is pretty prolific and often gets downvoted, but the threads are sorted by new so his posts aren't hard to find. There are also plenty of rather eloquent pro-UA but pessimistic people, like Duncan-M.