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| ▲ | zeroonetwothree 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Legal definitions are often up for discussion and debate. That’s a large part of what lawyers do, in fact. Anyway I have no comment on the specific claim being made here, I just really dislike it when discussion is stifled by saying “I’m right and no one can ever disagree”. |
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| ▲ | computerex 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's like debating the definition of homicide or rape. There is no nuance here. | | |
| ▲ | glenstein 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Exactly. I think people socialized into certain conversational norms in politicized online spaces, ridiculously overestimate plausibility of the rhetorical gambit of going "gee, who's to say?" when attempted out in the wild. I think one strength of the liberal academic tradition is that whether it's philosophy, whether it's law, you get introduced to the "whose to say" archetype early on and get inoculated against it. It's not just that the concepts are well enough established that they're resilient against such skepticism, but even in cases of uncertainty, routine amounts of conceptual uncertainty are not a deal-breaker to investigating and understanding urgent moral issues. A real argument in the negative would be along the lines of "here's how food truck inspection policies are tied to well-established norms that better explain the outcome of famine than intent to destroy". A not real argument is spontaneous, mid-debate discovery of the transience of linguistic meaning, discovered just in time to skirt the question of genocide. The trouble with this form of skepticism is it can only ever be hypothesized, never actually consistently embodied by real people. Long before navigating to hacker News, you would look at your computer and be paralyzed by fundamental puzzles like "what is electricity", "what is information", "is there really an external world" and so on. It wouldn't have been discovered mid conversation about genocide. | |
| ▲ | mrits 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Homicide? Like abortion? No nuance? Rape? Like age of consent being different across regions and time? No nuance? Like how half the planet laughs when a boy gets molested by his attractive teacher and the other half calls it rape? | | |
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| ▲ | rashkov 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| If you're referring to the "International Association of Genocide Scholars" (IAGS), all it takes to join that organization is $30 and self identifying as a genocide scholar. Furthermore the resolution was passed with a total of 129 voting members, and about 107 voting in favor, out of over 500 total members. Here's a letter from 514 verified scholars and legal experts calling on IAGS to retract their resolution, along with their rebuttal of the substance of the resolution: https://www.scholarsfortruthaboutgenocide.com/ |
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| ▲ | jameshilliard 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > If you're referring to the "International Association of Genocide Scholars" (IAGS), all it takes to join that organization is $30 and self identifying as a genocide scholar. They have certainly had some interesting members[0]. [0] https://archive.ph/J52WH |
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| ▲ | glenstein 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It is perhaps important, also, for genocide scholarship to survey the ways proponents rotate through various forms of apologetics. Not that I would wish it to be the case but the last few years are rich in case studies for how people debate and communicate about genocide, and it's attempts to muddy definitional waters that make it so important to have strong scholarship and scholarly consensus. A long way of agreeing with your point, I suppose. |
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| ▲ | jajuuka 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | It definitely depends on the proximity to the genocide itself. Plenty of Americans easily call what happened with the Uyghurs in China a genocide. And if they know about, the genocide in Sudan a genocide as well. But when it comes to Israel it's a real reluctance. Will definitely be interesting to see how this time is viewed through history. It's close enough to western culture that it will likely stick around and just be something that happened in a poor country that gets forgotten. |
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| ▲ | mrits 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is a bit off topic but there isn't anything more debated in history than legal definitions. Maybe religious scripture? I don't think you could have raised a weaker point. |
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| ▲ | glenstein 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I think you actually, without intending to, raise the reason why this is an exceptionally powerful point. Given the diversity of academic opinion on so many fundamental subjects, consensus on any topic is extraordinary. I actually don't agree with you that "legal definitions" are as hotly debated or that the existence of debate in general negates consensus on specific topics. And I do think one important point with genocide scholarship is regarding muddying the waters with tom-ay-to/to-mah-to approach to definitions. Treating definitions as inherently transient is an important instrument in normalizing cultural acceptance of genocides when they're unfolding in real time, which is why that tactic is targeted by so much scholarly criticism. | |
| ▲ | serialNumber 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Also - many many institutions have declared that what’s happening is a genocide, and unfortunately that hasn’t changed anything. (Perhaps naive of me to believe that it would change anything) |
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| ▲ | khazhoux 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think the debate (/question) is whether it is Israel’s goal to eliminate the entirety of the Palestinian people. That does not seem to be the case, which is where the “not genocide” argument comes from. Now I understand that the UN has specific criteria, etc. But the most famous genocide was the systematic execution of millions in gas chambers. This is not akin to that, is what people are arguing. |
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| ▲ | jewjitsu 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [flagged] |
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| ▲ | skinkestek 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It shouldn't be. But here we have UN and other twisting it to fit a situation that clearly weren't meant to be covered by it. Because if the war in Gaza can be called a genocide so can almost every single other major war! Also it is absolutely ridiculous to call a war that is started by one side, and one that only that side can end, a genocide against the same side that started it! |
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| ▲ | komali2 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | skinkestek 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Do you honestly think it is correct to use the same word that we use for the 500 000 innocents that were clubbed to death in Rwanda? The boys that were transported by buses into the woods of Srebrenica and gunned down? The millions that starved to death in Ukraine during Holodomor? to use the same word for a war, ome that they can end tomorrow just by uttering a credible claim about wanting to release the hostages? Because if Gaza is a genocide, then we must also talk about the genocide of the Germans in 1944 and 1945. But for some reason we don't call it a genocide when somebody forces someone else to stop them. Except when that someone else is Israel. This fits a broader pattern BTW: Hamas executes possible the worst sexual terrorism since the rape of Nanking in 1937: not a word about war crimes. Israel hit a legitimate target hidden in civilian hotspot: waRcRiem! Surrounding countries have various apartheid laws: nothing to see. Israel being a democracy where every citizen can vote, be in the government, be a judge in the Supreme Court: apArthEid! When will people stop and look at the evidence? | | |
| ▲ | ascorbic 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Hamas executes possible the worst sexual terrorism since the rape of Nanking in 1937: not a word about war crimes. What are you talking about? The ICC issued an arrest warrant for war crimes for the Hamas leadership |
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