People had very strong opinions about things they know nothing about long before social media. The overwhelming majority of people who had a "radical" on Vietnam couldn't have found it on a blank map.
We aren't an epistemically modest species - if we were most "debates" would just be both sides admitting they don't have a well informed point of view. But arriving at the truth is not what the social activity of arguing with people is usually about.
If you'll allow me to play devil's advocate: I've never understood the whole "I bet you can't find ____ on a map" way of thinking. When Hamas carried out its terrorist atrocities on October 7th, nobody thought to themselves "hmm, let me go read up on recent Palestinian history before commenting, in order to ensure that I am able to issue a well-informed take." That would have been insane! When you see footage of terrorists murdering civilians, you don't *need* any context in order to know that it's wrong. The same goes for Israel's murderous assault on Gaza, as well as its maintenance of an apartheid system in the occupied territories.
Is it really radical to call the situation in Gaza a genocide or Israel an apartheid state? There is room for debate but to call it radical at this point seems inaccurate. A bunch of moderate liberal institutions have endorsed those conclusions (particularly the second one). Am I a “boring radical” for accepting the conclusions of human rights watch, amnesty international, the ICJ et al without reading a book on the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon? Is it radical to call other controversial human rights crises genocidal (like the suppression of the Rohingya in Myanmar)?
In general, I think your point is correct, but Israel-Palestine seems like a particularly poor example. You don't need to know details about the history to know that killing 10k children is wrong. It wouldn't matter if all of the propaganda from Israel was true. It wouldn't matter if everything they said about Hamas, the underground tunnels, human shields, the previous failed negotiations, etc was all correct. None of it would justify what they're currently doing. You don't need to have Chomsky's encyclopedic knowledge to make a determination here. This is one of the cases where just seeing the footage of the mass destruction and mass murder is enough to condemn Israel.
I'd agree with you if I thought that the pragmatic content of Americans expressing pro- or anti-Israel views were predominantly about Israelis and Palestinians. But I think they're actually overwhelmingly a proxy for domestic political conflicts. This seems like the best explanation for why most of them didn't give a shit about Yemen, or Somalia, or Azerbaijan, or ongoing non-war mass suffering from malaria, tuberculosis, HIV or malnutrition.
The genocide argument isn't just dumb and wrong it's a tactical mistake.
Even if Israel stood up and said, "yup we intend to murder every last resident of Gaza to destroy Hamas" it wouldn't be genocide because that requires an intent to destroy (in whole or in part) an ethnic group and as long as that wasn't Israel's intention (as evidenced by the lack of similar bombing in the west bank) it still wouldn't be genocide. They have to be interested in actual ethnic cleansing.
It's just fucking stupid. It alienates many natural allies and shifts the debate away from the issue of whether Israel's response is disproportionate or insufficiently concerned with protecting civilians and onto a subject where it's easy to show that Israsl lacks the relevant intent.
Indeed, the court case is just about whether Israel has exercised sufficient discipline over some extremists in the military and not about the underlying justice of the bombing campaign.
Hot takes are a lot of people needing to be understood. I wrote a good opener sentence it goes T the essence of prop all agitated isnot it is like effect that cus words make themselves understood it is aerobic jazzercise of pure power. Funny that I hate ax murderers but Agree with t Talking heads Line why say something again? And love the tune of olord please dont let me be misunderstood but I donot agree. Blame rock and roll. Or Bulldog? Tell us something about how to read attitude with like latitude as if it was the quantity of tone language in English. Like it is the inverse of the wrong chestnut t. says 90% of talk is visuall? I inverse the numbers. And that is a bad guess. 14 per cent? Sold.
People had very strong opinions about things they know nothing about long before social media. The overwhelming majority of people who had a "radical" on Vietnam couldn't have found it on a blank map.
We aren't an epistemically modest species - if we were most "debates" would just be both sides admitting they don't have a well informed point of view. But arriving at the truth is not what the social activity of arguing with people is usually about.
If you'll allow me to play devil's advocate: I've never understood the whole "I bet you can't find ____ on a map" way of thinking. When Hamas carried out its terrorist atrocities on October 7th, nobody thought to themselves "hmm, let me go read up on recent Palestinian history before commenting, in order to ensure that I am able to issue a well-informed take." That would have been insane! When you see footage of terrorists murdering civilians, you don't *need* any context in order to know that it's wrong. The same goes for Israel's murderous assault on Gaza, as well as its maintenance of an apartheid system in the occupied territories.
Is it really radical to call the situation in Gaza a genocide or Israel an apartheid state? There is room for debate but to call it radical at this point seems inaccurate. A bunch of moderate liberal institutions have endorsed those conclusions (particularly the second one). Am I a “boring radical” for accepting the conclusions of human rights watch, amnesty international, the ICJ et al without reading a book on the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon? Is it radical to call other controversial human rights crises genocidal (like the suppression of the Rohingya in Myanmar)?
In general, I think your point is correct, but Israel-Palestine seems like a particularly poor example. You don't need to know details about the history to know that killing 10k children is wrong. It wouldn't matter if all of the propaganda from Israel was true. It wouldn't matter if everything they said about Hamas, the underground tunnels, human shields, the previous failed negotiations, etc was all correct. None of it would justify what they're currently doing. You don't need to have Chomsky's encyclopedic knowledge to make a determination here. This is one of the cases where just seeing the footage of the mass destruction and mass murder is enough to condemn Israel.
I strongly endorse this post!
I'd agree with you if I thought that the pragmatic content of Americans expressing pro- or anti-Israel views were predominantly about Israelis and Palestinians. But I think they're actually overwhelmingly a proxy for domestic political conflicts. This seems like the best explanation for why most of them didn't give a shit about Yemen, or Somalia, or Azerbaijan, or ongoing non-war mass suffering from malaria, tuberculosis, HIV or malnutrition.
The genocide argument isn't just dumb and wrong it's a tactical mistake.
Even if Israel stood up and said, "yup we intend to murder every last resident of Gaza to destroy Hamas" it wouldn't be genocide because that requires an intent to destroy (in whole or in part) an ethnic group and as long as that wasn't Israel's intention (as evidenced by the lack of similar bombing in the west bank) it still wouldn't be genocide. They have to be interested in actual ethnic cleansing.
It's just fucking stupid. It alienates many natural allies and shifts the debate away from the issue of whether Israel's response is disproportionate or insufficiently concerned with protecting civilians and onto a subject where it's easy to show that Israsl lacks the relevant intent.
Indeed, the court case is just about whether Israel has exercised sufficient discipline over some extremists in the military and not about the underlying justice of the bombing campaign.
Hot takes are a lot of people needing to be understood. I wrote a good opener sentence it goes T the essence of prop all agitated isnot it is like effect that cus words make themselves understood it is aerobic jazzercise of pure power. Funny that I hate ax murderers but Agree with t Talking heads Line why say something again? And love the tune of olord please dont let me be misunderstood but I donot agree. Blame rock and roll. Or Bulldog? Tell us something about how to read attitude with like latitude as if it was the quantity of tone language in English. Like it is the inverse of the wrong chestnut t. says 90% of talk is visuall? I inverse the numbers. And that is a bad guess. 14 per cent? Sold.