As a South African history buff who posts on reddit, i will sometimes come across individuals who will say things like “South Africa was an apartheid state therefore everyone fighting said apartheid state are flawless individuals” when thats just not the case. For example, leftists (most often of the tankie variety) will claim that “Cuba was in Angola because they wanted to stop the racist apartheid regime” which is not true, and which implies that governments during the cold war arent inherently selfish in the name of their ideologies. Cuba wasn’t involved in fighting South Africa out of the goodness of their hearts. They were doing it to gain a communist sphere of influence in Africa and threaten capitalist supply chains.
Of course, there is a fine line between acknowledging that both sides have done bad things (which is academic) and whataboutism (which is not academic), and thats a line i have hopefully learnt to master when discussing such topics. In many such cases, the people who generalize that “every person on X side was morally good and righteous while every person on Y side are evil spawn of satan” tend to be motivated more so by politics than genuine academic discussion, which is cringe. Just to be clear, this is different to pointing out things like “the confederacy fought for slavery” or that “the nazis were led by imperialistic pieces of shit”, because those things, while factual statements, focus moreso on those countries as a whole and their governments, rather the average person.
If you generalize, commit apologia for your favorite fascist/tankie/whatever historical state, or just talk biased rubbish- you arent an academic or a historian. you’re a fokken Prawn.
Washed_up_Vanski on
If anything we are tribal and want to pick a team.
Woden-Wod on
nah, you don’t need to condone everything you can acknowledge multiple faceted environments. and even if there is a clear side you would “support” that doesn’t mean you condone all the actions of that side, you can acknowledged the nuance of events.
but it does depend on how the conversation is going.
anytime I discuss the British conduct in the British raj and how that came to be I don’t mind talking about the clearly bad actions from malicious parties and conflicted interests so long as the conversation is in good faith if the other party is angling more, “Britain is inherently evil,” or “you should pay modern reparations and nothing good about Britain is British” or even that bullshit number about “extracted wealth” (which isn’t a thing) then I’m not interested, my longshanks is coming out, the East India company is an agent of god, brigadier general Reginald Dyer did nothing wrong, Churchill sent too much, say thank you, and you’re welcome.
to be clear there is nuance in all of those but those can only be discussed in good faith not with malicious actors.
Efficient-Orchid-594 on
People on internet when you tell them that people in past were also humans with flaws and not everyone in past was miserable asshole who hate their husband/wife :
Distinct_Chef_2672 on
Thats the biggest issue I have had when discussing history and philosophy also. Having a subjective opinion on something is fine and all, but presenting it as an objective truth is not. From every debate I have had, everyone was presenting their worldview as scientific truth and refused to accept that their opinion was subjective and biased. I have no issue with people who admit that this is my opinion and say yeah, I’m a communist, therefore I think Stalin was not a dictator, or I’m conservative and believe that the sexual revolution shouldn’t have happened. What you think and what is/was are two different things!
Yrec_24 on
it applies to any discussion in internet and beyond. Some people just can’t comprehend an idea that two not mutually exclusive things can be true, just because one of them doesn’t fit in your narrative perfectly
ALEGATOR1209 on
I agree with you. But I’ve been observing the same but opposite more recently. You know “Nazi are evil but Allies did Bengali famine and Drezden and Japanese in the US so they are bad too” and it’s then implied that it wasn’t moral to fight Nazis and that Allies were no better and shouldn’t have won. Even worse when this logic applied to current events.
So yeah I guess, nuance it is.
Xylit-No-Spazzolino on
Any context of the gif?
Ebonhold on
One of the biggest crimes was not making a sequel of District 9, it was such an interesting concept to me.
Ambitious-Pirate-505 on
Both sides…..
Tell me your intelligence Level without telling me your intelligence level
BitcoinBishop on
It’s contextual. If you chime into a conversation about the Holocaust by bringing up bad things the USSR did, you’re not adding anything, and it’s an implied justification of Nazi ideology
Business-Gas-5473 on
Hey they did bad things too. And we didn’t do it. But they deserved it!!! /s
Diabolical_potplant on
You see, Eisenhowers deportation plan that he ran for a couple years is equal and compatible to the twenty ish years the USSR ran of deportation and forced labour that caused the cultural destruction and death to millions of people because they used a slur as the operation name
13 Comments
As a South African history buff who posts on reddit, i will sometimes come across individuals who will say things like “South Africa was an apartheid state therefore everyone fighting said apartheid state are flawless individuals” when thats just not the case. For example, leftists (most often of the tankie variety) will claim that “Cuba was in Angola because they wanted to stop the racist apartheid regime” which is not true, and which implies that governments during the cold war arent inherently selfish in the name of their ideologies. Cuba wasn’t involved in fighting South Africa out of the goodness of their hearts. They were doing it to gain a communist sphere of influence in Africa and threaten capitalist supply chains.
Of course, there is a fine line between acknowledging that both sides have done bad things (which is academic) and whataboutism (which is not academic), and thats a line i have hopefully learnt to master when discussing such topics. In many such cases, the people who generalize that “every person on X side was morally good and righteous while every person on Y side are evil spawn of satan” tend to be motivated more so by politics than genuine academic discussion, which is cringe. Just to be clear, this is different to pointing out things like “the confederacy fought for slavery” or that “the nazis were led by imperialistic pieces of shit”, because those things, while factual statements, focus moreso on those countries as a whole and their governments, rather the average person.
If you generalize, commit apologia for your favorite fascist/tankie/whatever historical state, or just talk biased rubbish- you arent an academic or a historian. you’re a fokken Prawn.
If anything we are tribal and want to pick a team.
nah, you don’t need to condone everything you can acknowledge multiple faceted environments. and even if there is a clear side you would “support” that doesn’t mean you condone all the actions of that side, you can acknowledged the nuance of events.
but it does depend on how the conversation is going.
anytime I discuss the British conduct in the British raj and how that came to be I don’t mind talking about the clearly bad actions from malicious parties and conflicted interests so long as the conversation is in good faith if the other party is angling more, “Britain is inherently evil,” or “you should pay modern reparations and nothing good about Britain is British” or even that bullshit number about “extracted wealth” (which isn’t a thing) then I’m not interested, my longshanks is coming out, the East India company is an agent of god, brigadier general Reginald Dyer did nothing wrong, Churchill sent too much, say thank you, and you’re welcome.
to be clear there is nuance in all of those but those can only be discussed in good faith not with malicious actors.
People on internet when you tell them that people in past were also humans with flaws and not everyone in past was miserable asshole who hate their husband/wife :
Thats the biggest issue I have had when discussing history and philosophy also. Having a subjective opinion on something is fine and all, but presenting it as an objective truth is not. From every debate I have had, everyone was presenting their worldview as scientific truth and refused to accept that their opinion was subjective and biased. I have no issue with people who admit that this is my opinion and say yeah, I’m a communist, therefore I think Stalin was not a dictator, or I’m conservative and believe that the sexual revolution shouldn’t have happened. What you think and what is/was are two different things!
it applies to any discussion in internet and beyond. Some people just can’t comprehend an idea that two not mutually exclusive things can be true, just because one of them doesn’t fit in your narrative perfectly
I agree with you. But I’ve been observing the same but opposite more recently. You know “Nazi are evil but Allies did Bengali famine and Drezden and Japanese in the US so they are bad too” and it’s then implied that it wasn’t moral to fight Nazis and that Allies were no better and shouldn’t have won. Even worse when this logic applied to current events.
So yeah I guess, nuance it is.
Any context of the gif?
One of the biggest crimes was not making a sequel of District 9, it was such an interesting concept to me.
Both sides…..
Tell me your intelligence Level without telling me your intelligence level
It’s contextual. If you chime into a conversation about the Holocaust by bringing up bad things the USSR did, you’re not adding anything, and it’s an implied justification of Nazi ideology
Hey they did bad things too. And we didn’t do it. But they deserved it!!! /s
You see, Eisenhowers deportation plan that he ran for a couple years is equal and compatible to the twenty ish years the USSR ran of deportation and forced labour that caused the cultural destruction and death to millions of people because they used a slur as the operation name