Last year I was visiting Chicago and decided to swing by the Field Museum in my free time. I was exploring the exhibits and ended up seeing a sign at the start of an area on Native American displays about new federal rules regarding implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Essentially new Biden Administration guidance was imposing new requirements that the Museum was implementing by covering up all of their displays until they had the time to review all of the cultural artifacts they had. But it was a little funny because they still had displays from cultures like the Aztecs or other Mesoamerican groups outside of the United States. Because NAGPRA only covers relations with federally recognized tribes. A later exhibit with Native Alaskans was similar, nothing was covered. It's interesting to see the back and forth on how best to display history in a respectful way, and it seems like sometimes the implementation leaves something to be desired in the transition. I haven't seen if Trump has undone these regulations yet, but wouldn't be surprised.
> In 2023, the head of the Hungarian National Museum was fired for exhibiting photographs that included images depicting men in women’s clothing.
Specifically, he was fired for not censoring the LGBTQ-themed entries in the World Press Photo winners exhibition. (More realistically, for publicly saying that it would be a pretty bad idea to start censoring the largest press photo exhibition in the country. If he just said something agreeably and then did nothing, it would probably have been fine. It was the case of an Orbán flunky with a tiny fragment of backbone being replaced by a completely invertebrate Orbán flunky, so not many tears shed, but it's a good example of how Orbán is in using relentless culture warring to distract from the catastrophic performance of his regime on cost of living and other more mundane issues.)
Though I Cannot Condone This typial Trumpian turnabout (it's not even fair play at this point, if it ever was) - it's weird not to see a mention of the infamous 2020 "Aspects & Assumptions of Whiteness & White Culture In The United States" infographic from the Smithsonian, either in the PM or in the comments. That was A Thing that happened, and much hay was made over it on both sides of the aisle! Five years ago is a long time to hold a grudge, especially for something that got retracted *during the Great Awokening* - never say that progressives never course-correct - but it's not like there's a dartboard of random cultural institutions in the Ovaltine Office and this one museum just happened to be on it for no reason. I think it's possible to chew walk and gum at the same time, where one can be quite concerned over the beacon of free speech dimming, while also acknowledging that such farcical own goals are increasingly painful in the modern political climate. Barring a mutual disarmament of political valence from culture (if fishes were wishes...), victory going forward will require tighter play along both axes, it seems.
(Expressing appreciation again for this new essentially-bonus-content, really helping sell me on a continued paid subscription!)
In an adjacent space has anyone studied the political leaning of library directors? Appear to be well far left of their respective local populations which doesn't bode well for future funding.
Late to the party but I really liked this piece from David Bernstein on Trump, DC, and liberals focusing on the wrong thing (yes crime is down in DC since 2021 but that's not why this is happening and thus isn't a good political strategy on pushing back) https://goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/crime-counts
"Trump and his motley crew of tough talkers on Monday morning made it awfully clear that their issue is not with high crime in Washington per se. There’s a certain kind of crime they’re responding to, and it’s not the bulk of what’s in that crime data—that mostly happens in places and to people who they think exist naturally in what Trump described as “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor.”
Trump doesn’t know how the typical, dare I say Black, resident of Washington lives; he’s talking about how crime affects good people—nice, white, professional class people, like the Central Park Jogger back in his New York glory days, or the infamous “Big Balls” in Washington today.
Trump was even willing to include in that latter group the very white, professional class reporters in the briefing room. “You people are victims of it too,” he told them. “You don’t want to get mugged and raped and shot and killed.”
Trump cited five specific examples in making his case at the Monday presser: former DOGE employee Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, beaten earlier this month; Congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, shot to death in June; first-term Trump official Mike Gill, killed 18 months ago; Rand Paul aide Phillip Todd, stabbed in 2023; and a three-year-old shot last month. The first four were all white victims who belonged in the innocent world of government Washington. The girl was Black, but the only detail Trump gave about her, aside from her age, was that she was shot and killed “while sitting in a car near the Capitol.” That was added, I presume, to make clear why she mattered, as opposed to the many dozens of Black murder victims of the past two years: it happened in our part of the city; it could have been one of us!....
So, let’s be honest, District of Columbia crime data has little to nothing to do with the Washington law enforcement takeover. Citing that data might feel satisfying, but it is not the reason they’re doing it, not the reason you object to it, and not a persuasive argument for anybody else."
Lol i am simmered. If I am coming across as angry, in any of these posts, I apologize. I am not trying to.
I am, though, trying to wrap my head around what you are saying. So I go back to that question, if one person lies about something you just immediatly question everyone else who claims that? Thats pretty weird to me. I understand that people do that, but I am talking to you, someone who comments here and (i hope) thinka more deeply about this kind of thing. Im nog asking some rando on the street, but someone who comments here
Me, personally? Depends on the claim and on the context. Generally speaking, no, I don't think one instance of a false claim invalidates all the other claims. But I might start squinting harder at subsequent examples.
There was a big kerfuffle in Anabaptist and Quaker circles recently when some young man with a Quaker background got dragged off in leg irons (okay, handcuffs) because of his participation in a protest against ICE. They broke down his front door in the middle of the night. His Quaker mentor and his girlfriend posted about it asking for support, saying he was committed to nonviolence and would never have assaulted an ICE officer as claimed. In his picture, he looked like a sweet young white guy. Surely a sweet young white guy Quaker from Reed wouldn't assault an ICE officer! My Mennonite instincts got the better of me.
Then pictures were posted of Sweet Young Quaker White Guy from Reed throwing rocks at the ICE agents and one of them hitting the guy's head and causing blood loss.
Ooops. My bad. And once again I resolved not to be such a gullible dork. Trust, but verify.
And don't throw rocks at ICE agents. It won't go well for you.
I guess where I am coming from is a more systemic thing. I am able to brush off one random liar (or more likely, grifter) if its a one off and there are hundreds of examples to the contrary. Your example being just one guy, yeah, i wouldnt believe him after that either. But the date rape and residential schools thing, I am more likely to bruah off one outlier story when the whole narrative still points to something else (date rape exists and is a problem, residential schools were horrible for, and killed some, kids.)
Anyway, I am at a pub on vacation and I apologize for making it seem like I am angry. I did not mean for that and genuinely enjoyed this. I hope to be a part of the community here and was maybe a bit too guns blazing on this topic lol.
I wasn’t aware of the French capitulation to the CCP. It obviously isn’t the state, but I think our own film and television industry’s similar capitulation is shameful. I remember when Hollywood liberals used to at least claim willingness to speak truth about oppressors; but not that one!
You can make fun of Trump all day long, no one cares. Real power belongs to bad actors that we don’t even have the nerve to mention.
I find it amusing how China and Turkey are both very aggressive when it comes to censorship/oppression, but super quick to play the victim card when anyone questions them. For example, Erodogan’s successful campaign to change the spelling of Turkey in English. I say change the spelling when they acknowledge the Armenian genocide.
When I am weaker than you I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles
I have genuinely been increasingly amazed at that as more and more countries demand (and those demands are honored) that their preferred name be used in other languages even when there's no argument that the original name was inaccurate or offensive.
I found this super annoying. Dude, it's our (well, Britain's) language, you can't just insist we add umlauts at your whim and fancy! We also call it "Germany" instead of "Deutschland", and they deal. Like, I am sorry that the word for your country is more commonly used to describe our Thanksgiving dinner and you're a little sensitive about it, but you're free to change the Turkish word for "United States" to "goat's anus" in retaliation if you'd like. Insisting upon new grammatical entrants to the English language is a bit much though.
As I think about it, the English spellings for most non-anglophone countries are different from the spellings in the native language. The ones where the English spelling and the local spelling are identical seem to be rare. Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia, Chile, Portugal, France, and Angola are some of the few examples. Even countries with languages very close to English (e.g. Norway, Netherlands) have different spellings.
You can start by acknowledging that you made this comment on soon to be Chinese land, and preparing to pay war reparations to offset the cost of their liberation of Turtle Island.
So anyone else listen to Ezra Klein do an hour and forty five minutes of, like, weird, confused hand wringing over the definition of genocide on his show today? Was that supposed to be enlightening about anything? Did I miss something or did we all experience it as a kind of full blown collapse into neurotic, navel gazing, self indulgence?
I haven't listened to it yet, but I am quite certain that unless and until I understand what the definition of "genocide" is then I will have no opinion on whether what is going on in Gaza is bad.
The discussion is at least good for providing THAT. The guy he was interviewing did a good job articulating the issues I had with calling it genocide at first, and the problem of South Africa bringing the case when they did. It was a good discussion.
I thought it was a useful and riveting discussion as like many liberals, I have wanted to hear for a while now, a technical argument on the use of the term "genocide" from someone who knows what they are talking about and Ezra brought on Philippe Sands a literal ICJ lawyer.
The main message I took away from it is that the ICJ has made proving "genocide" almost impossible because the judges there chose a high bar regarding intent. International actors are better off focusing on other charges like "War Crimes" and "Crimes against Humanity" that seem like obvious slam dunks at this point if the goal is to try to stop the atrocities in the near term.
So basically while we will not be able to stop people colloquially screaming "genocide!" the legal standard is unlikely to be met and we should not use "genocide" as a litmus test in US politics to determine how committed one is to Palestinian human rights.
Doesn't this objection apply to almost anything under the sun? Most of what we are doing sitting here is just navel gazing and ruminating about problems far away because we happen to be lucky enough to not be in the middle of a calamity ourselves.
For me personally I would like to know what to make of a situation even if I have no hope of influencing it (which is the case 99.999999% of the time).
It's one thing to ruminate about far way events. It's another to spend almost 2 hours preoccupied with how some third party academics, who also have no influence on events, will retrospectively discuss the application of an ill defined concept to those events in some vague future intellectual paradigm.
There are many concepts that are ill-defined/vague or ambiguous. But we are choosing to discuss "genocide" and not some other such term because the use of the term is having real world impacts in the political sphere here in the USA and perhaps elsewhere.
As 2025 rolls into 2026/2027, candidates for political office in the Democratic party will be asked to state whether or not a "genocide" is occurring. So dealing with the ambiguities of the term effectively is going to be a skill candidates need. Having watched the interview, I am better informed and I will be in a position to better assess if a candidate is an empty headed idiot or someone that can actually think through ambiguous topics. Of course it is not going to change anything on the ground in Gaza or elsewhere but I don't think Ezra is naive enough to think that.
The interview did nothing but strengthen my perception that the only correct thought to have when some one asks "Is Gaza a genocide?!" is "What a stupid question." No politician should answer it. It's like answering a question about if the government should pay for undocumented immigrants to get sex changes in prison.
That's interesting. I guess I should have listened further. But Sands also said:
"But it was different in this way also: Until 1945, a state was basically free to treat anyone subject to its jurisdiction as it wished. There were no restrictions. There was nothing called human rights law. Under international law, the only international crimes were in relation to war crimes. There was no such thing as crimes against humanity or genocide. These things were invented in 1945 for the famous Nuremberg Trial, and the ideas that came to fruition then basically said for the first time — it was a revolutionary moment — that the freedom of the state is not absolute. The emperor doesn’t have absolute power. The king doesn’t have absolute power."
Now wait a damn minute! I don't think the U.S. started saying that "the freedom of the state is not absolute" in 1945! There were lots of restrictions on actions of the state that started from the get-go. And plenty of other liberal democracies were the same.
It is possible to argue that international law is not natural law. Had Pearl Harbor never happened and the US never joined WWII, would there have been a Nuremberg? There was no Nuremberg after WWI, and the Kaiser's army did not exactly play nice with Belgian civilian populations, among others. Not to go full Dick Cheney, but international law only exists to the extent a majority of nations agree it does.
I am sure I am missing some subtlety but what law is natural? It seems to me there is no other natural law apart from the law of the jungle whether internationally or domestically.
Our rights exist here at home only because we have collectively agreed that they ought to be enforced using coercion by the state which gets a monopoly on the use of force.
Internationally, we did not agree on a "world police" so the local goons get to control their own little neighborhoods.
It's not like international law even exists in some kind of quasi democratic "most countries agree" kind of way. International law only exists to the extent of the will and military capacity to enforce it, which is too say, mostly not at all.
Admiralty law exists and is generally followed. But that is like the exception that proves your point, because admiralty law is built upon hundreds of years of tradition, handshake agreements, and the physical reality of being at sea rather than on land. It wasn't "imposed" by dictat.
Individual states of course had human rights going back at least to Magna Carta if not longer but I suppose countries/sovereigns could not bring human rights charges against one another?
Sands goes on to mention that the US did not argue for genocide against the Nazis because they were worried that under Lemkin's conception of it, the US itself would be guilty of genocide against Native Americans and African American slaves. Under colonialism there were many instances of human rights violations that would fall under a broad enough definition of "genocide" as Lemkin argued for.
So, everyone decided to (pragmatically) start the clock in 1945 and not to look too far back in the past.
I had to turn it off. I was pessimistic when he started his intro in that doomy, tear-stained voice, and his part didn't get better. I thought his guest was okay, talking about the origins of the contemporary concept of genocide, but eventually I was just saying "Get to the point!"
Did he ever talk more about the evolution of his own perspective? Because he was pretty pro-Israel shortly after Oct. 7.
I will say I was convinced by his argument about being able to make the determination of genocide before you get to the mechanized extermination. Also the Serbia example was good.
I’ve always felt that Israel was allowing genocide to occur in the West Bank. But Gaza didn’t count until Israel caused a famine.
I live practically across the street from a historical Black cemetery. I walk my dog there almost every day.
At the entrance is a plaque about a period of Jim Crow racial violence in the late 19th century. It provides a detailed narrative of what happened. When I read that, I didn’t feel shame for my nation’s history. I felt optimism for the fact that we have overcome it.
Yeh that's like the African American History Museum - it starts off with the little kid handcuffs from the slave ships and ends with Obama. You leave thinking - this is truly the greatest nation in the history of the world.
But the message was about what we've overcome not endless struggle session navel gazing about all our perceived flaws.
I agree. It is extremely obnoxious to be surrounded by people who are more interested in navel-gazing self-critique than addressing actually important matters.
I wish they had more culture in the museum than just the top floor. There’s not a lot of reason to go back a third time, though a second time was great.
Someone who thinks everyone in the past is irredeemably evil shouldn't work in a museum. But lots of museum staff clearly have that deeply misanthropic view.
Scott Alexander has any intresting but unforunatley paywalled article on whether you should hate everyone in Ancient Rome if you time travelled back there. I feel 50 years ago every museum curator if they got a chance to meet Ceasar would ask "What was it like to triumph at Alesia?", while a significant share of modern staff would ask "why were you an evil slave trader boasting of killing a million Gauls?"
You have a wildly optimistic view of museum curators if you think faced with Caeser they would ask anything of the sort, when any such insult would very obviously result in their deaths.
Last year I was visiting Chicago and decided to swing by the Field Museum in my free time. I was exploring the exhibits and ended up seeing a sign at the start of an area on Native American displays about new federal rules regarding implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Essentially new Biden Administration guidance was imposing new requirements that the Museum was implementing by covering up all of their displays until they had the time to review all of the cultural artifacts they had. But it was a little funny because they still had displays from cultures like the Aztecs or other Mesoamerican groups outside of the United States. Because NAGPRA only covers relations with federally recognized tribes. A later exhibit with Native Alaskans was similar, nothing was covered. It's interesting to see the back and forth on how best to display history in a respectful way, and it seems like sometimes the implementation leaves something to be desired in the transition. I haven't seen if Trump has undone these regulations yet, but wouldn't be surprised.
> In 2023, the head of the Hungarian National Museum was fired for exhibiting photographs that included images depicting men in women’s clothing.
Specifically, he was fired for not censoring the LGBTQ-themed entries in the World Press Photo winners exhibition. (More realistically, for publicly saying that it would be a pretty bad idea to start censoring the largest press photo exhibition in the country. If he just said something agreeably and then did nothing, it would probably have been fine. It was the case of an Orbán flunky with a tiny fragment of backbone being replaced by a completely invertebrate Orbán flunky, so not many tears shed, but it's a good example of how Orbán is in using relentless culture warring to distract from the catastrophic performance of his regime on cost of living and other more mundane issues.)
Though I Cannot Condone This typial Trumpian turnabout (it's not even fair play at this point, if it ever was) - it's weird not to see a mention of the infamous 2020 "Aspects & Assumptions of Whiteness & White Culture In The United States" infographic from the Smithsonian, either in the PM or in the comments. That was A Thing that happened, and much hay was made over it on both sides of the aisle! Five years ago is a long time to hold a grudge, especially for something that got retracted *during the Great Awokening* - never say that progressives never course-correct - but it's not like there's a dartboard of random cultural institutions in the Ovaltine Office and this one museum just happened to be on it for no reason. I think it's possible to chew walk and gum at the same time, where one can be quite concerned over the beacon of free speech dimming, while also acknowledging that such farcical own goals are increasingly painful in the modern political climate. Barring a mutual disarmament of political valence from culture (if fishes were wishes...), victory going forward will require tighter play along both axes, it seems.
(Expressing appreciation again for this new essentially-bonus-content, really helping sell me on a continued paid subscription!)
Nuanced and correct comment imo.
In an adjacent space has anyone studied the political leaning of library directors? Appear to be well far left of their respective local populations which doesn't bode well for future funding.
They are all queers, what is the point guys
Late to the party but I really liked this piece from David Bernstein on Trump, DC, and liberals focusing on the wrong thing (yes crime is down in DC since 2021 but that's not why this is happening and thus isn't a good political strategy on pushing back) https://goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/crime-counts
"Trump and his motley crew of tough talkers on Monday morning made it awfully clear that their issue is not with high crime in Washington per se. There’s a certain kind of crime they’re responding to, and it’s not the bulk of what’s in that crime data—that mostly happens in places and to people who they think exist naturally in what Trump described as “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor.”
Trump doesn’t know how the typical, dare I say Black, resident of Washington lives; he’s talking about how crime affects good people—nice, white, professional class people, like the Central Park Jogger back in his New York glory days, or the infamous “Big Balls” in Washington today.
Trump was even willing to include in that latter group the very white, professional class reporters in the briefing room. “You people are victims of it too,” he told them. “You don’t want to get mugged and raped and shot and killed.”
Trump cited five specific examples in making his case at the Monday presser: former DOGE employee Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, beaten earlier this month; Congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, shot to death in June; first-term Trump official Mike Gill, killed 18 months ago; Rand Paul aide Phillip Todd, stabbed in 2023; and a three-year-old shot last month. The first four were all white victims who belonged in the innocent world of government Washington. The girl was Black, but the only detail Trump gave about her, aside from her age, was that she was shot and killed “while sitting in a car near the Capitol.” That was added, I presume, to make clear why she mattered, as opposed to the many dozens of Black murder victims of the past two years: it happened in our part of the city; it could have been one of us!....
So, let’s be honest, District of Columbia crime data has little to nothing to do with the Washington law enforcement takeover. Citing that data might feel satisfying, but it is not the reason they’re doing it, not the reason you object to it, and not a persuasive argument for anybody else."
Lol i am simmered. If I am coming across as angry, in any of these posts, I apologize. I am not trying to.
I am, though, trying to wrap my head around what you are saying. So I go back to that question, if one person lies about something you just immediatly question everyone else who claims that? Thats pretty weird to me. I understand that people do that, but I am talking to you, someone who comments here and (i hope) thinka more deeply about this kind of thing. Im nog asking some rando on the street, but someone who comments here
Me, personally? Depends on the claim and on the context. Generally speaking, no, I don't think one instance of a false claim invalidates all the other claims. But I might start squinting harder at subsequent examples.
There was a big kerfuffle in Anabaptist and Quaker circles recently when some young man with a Quaker background got dragged off in leg irons (okay, handcuffs) because of his participation in a protest against ICE. They broke down his front door in the middle of the night. His Quaker mentor and his girlfriend posted about it asking for support, saying he was committed to nonviolence and would never have assaulted an ICE officer as claimed. In his picture, he looked like a sweet young white guy. Surely a sweet young white guy Quaker from Reed wouldn't assault an ICE officer! My Mennonite instincts got the better of me.
Then pictures were posted of Sweet Young Quaker White Guy from Reed throwing rocks at the ICE agents and one of them hitting the guy's head and causing blood loss.
Ooops. My bad. And once again I resolved not to be such a gullible dork. Trust, but verify.
And don't throw rocks at ICE agents. It won't go well for you.
Are you Anabaptist-adjacent, or a Friend?
Anabaptist-adjacent.
Word. I was raised in Friends Meetings, seems like there's a lot of shared culture. That's pretty cool.
Gorchya, thanks!
I guess where I am coming from is a more systemic thing. I am able to brush off one random liar (or more likely, grifter) if its a one off and there are hundreds of examples to the contrary. Your example being just one guy, yeah, i wouldnt believe him after that either. But the date rape and residential schools thing, I am more likely to bruah off one outlier story when the whole narrative still points to something else (date rape exists and is a problem, residential schools were horrible for, and killed some, kids.)
Anyway, I am at a pub on vacation and I apologize for making it seem like I am angry. I did not mean for that and genuinely enjoyed this. I hope to be a part of the community here and was maybe a bit too guns blazing on this topic lol.
Have a great night!
You too, my dude.
I can't even figure out what everyone is fighting about this evening.
It's about whether addressing someone as "my dude" is respectful.
Better than "Sir"
I’ve been addressed as far worse.
I wasn’t aware of the French capitulation to the CCP. It obviously isn’t the state, but I think our own film and television industry’s similar capitulation is shameful. I remember when Hollywood liberals used to at least claim willingness to speak truth about oppressors; but not that one!
You can make fun of Trump all day long, no one cares. Real power belongs to bad actors that we don’t even have the nerve to mention.
Case in point: South Park's ratings so far are some of its best ever.
This week in abundance failures: https://www.nbcnews.com/video/farmers-want-california-to-change-its-autonomous-tractor-ban-244658757726
I find it amusing how China and Turkey are both very aggressive when it comes to censorship/oppression, but super quick to play the victim card when anyone questions them. For example, Erodogan’s successful campaign to change the spelling of Turkey in English. I say change the spelling when they acknowledge the Armenian genocide.
When I am weaker than you I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles
For some reason, China hasn't insisted we call them "Zhongguo"
I have genuinely been increasingly amazed at that as more and more countries demand (and those demands are honored) that their preferred name be used in other languages even when there's no argument that the original name was inaccurate or offensive.
I found this super annoying. Dude, it's our (well, Britain's) language, you can't just insist we add umlauts at your whim and fancy! We also call it "Germany" instead of "Deutschland", and they deal. Like, I am sorry that the word for your country is more commonly used to describe our Thanksgiving dinner and you're a little sensitive about it, but you're free to change the Turkish word for "United States" to "goat's anus" in retaliation if you'd like. Insisting upon new grammatical entrants to the English language is a bit much though.
As I think about it, the English spellings for most non-anglophone countries are different from the spellings in the native language. The ones where the English spelling and the local spelling are identical seem to be rare. Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia, Chile, Portugal, France, and Angola are some of the few examples. Even countries with languages very close to English (e.g. Norway, Netherlands) have different spellings.
China really has to be put in its place
I'm not holding my breath.
Me neither
You can start by acknowledging that you made this comment on soon to be Chinese land, and preparing to pay war reparations to offset the cost of their liberation of Turtle Island.
So anyone else listen to Ezra Klein do an hour and forty five minutes of, like, weird, confused hand wringing over the definition of genocide on his show today? Was that supposed to be enlightening about anything? Did I miss something or did we all experience it as a kind of full blown collapse into neurotic, navel gazing, self indulgence?
I haven't listened to it yet, but I am quite certain that unless and until I understand what the definition of "genocide" is then I will have no opinion on whether what is going on in Gaza is bad.
The discussion is at least good for providing THAT. The guy he was interviewing did a good job articulating the issues I had with calling it genocide at first, and the problem of South Africa bringing the case when they did. It was a good discussion.
Really? In what way would the outcome of this rhetorical debate sway your assessment of events?
Damn. Forgot the "/s" at the end of my comment.
I suppose I'm too bemused by the whole discussion to detect sarcasm at this point.
I thought it was a useful and riveting discussion as like many liberals, I have wanted to hear for a while now, a technical argument on the use of the term "genocide" from someone who knows what they are talking about and Ezra brought on Philippe Sands a literal ICJ lawyer.
The main message I took away from it is that the ICJ has made proving "genocide" almost impossible because the judges there chose a high bar regarding intent. International actors are better off focusing on other charges like "War Crimes" and "Crimes against Humanity" that seem like obvious slam dunks at this point if the goal is to try to stop the atrocities in the near term.
So basically while we will not be able to stop people colloquially screaming "genocide!" the legal standard is unlikely to be met and we should not use "genocide" as a litmus test in US politics to determine how committed one is to Palestinian human rights.
I'm not sure I'm seeing the value in all the hypothetical hair splitting. None of these definitions have any import of substance on events.
Doesn't this objection apply to almost anything under the sun? Most of what we are doing sitting here is just navel gazing and ruminating about problems far away because we happen to be lucky enough to not be in the middle of a calamity ourselves.
For me personally I would like to know what to make of a situation even if I have no hope of influencing it (which is the case 99.999999% of the time).
It's one thing to ruminate about far way events. It's another to spend almost 2 hours preoccupied with how some third party academics, who also have no influence on events, will retrospectively discuss the application of an ill defined concept to those events in some vague future intellectual paradigm.
There are many concepts that are ill-defined/vague or ambiguous. But we are choosing to discuss "genocide" and not some other such term because the use of the term is having real world impacts in the political sphere here in the USA and perhaps elsewhere.
As 2025 rolls into 2026/2027, candidates for political office in the Democratic party will be asked to state whether or not a "genocide" is occurring. So dealing with the ambiguities of the term effectively is going to be a skill candidates need. Having watched the interview, I am better informed and I will be in a position to better assess if a candidate is an empty headed idiot or someone that can actually think through ambiguous topics. Of course it is not going to change anything on the ground in Gaza or elsewhere but I don't think Ezra is naive enough to think that.
The interview did nothing but strengthen my perception that the only correct thought to have when some one asks "Is Gaza a genocide?!" is "What a stupid question." No politician should answer it. It's like answering a question about if the government should pay for undocumented immigrants to get sex changes in prison.
That's interesting. I guess I should have listened further. But Sands also said:
"But it was different in this way also: Until 1945, a state was basically free to treat anyone subject to its jurisdiction as it wished. There were no restrictions. There was nothing called human rights law. Under international law, the only international crimes were in relation to war crimes. There was no such thing as crimes against humanity or genocide. These things were invented in 1945 for the famous Nuremberg Trial, and the ideas that came to fruition then basically said for the first time — it was a revolutionary moment — that the freedom of the state is not absolute. The emperor doesn’t have absolute power. The king doesn’t have absolute power."
Now wait a damn minute! I don't think the U.S. started saying that "the freedom of the state is not absolute" in 1945! There were lots of restrictions on actions of the state that started from the get-go. And plenty of other liberal democracies were the same.
It is possible to argue that international law is not natural law. Had Pearl Harbor never happened and the US never joined WWII, would there have been a Nuremberg? There was no Nuremberg after WWI, and the Kaiser's army did not exactly play nice with Belgian civilian populations, among others. Not to go full Dick Cheney, but international law only exists to the extent a majority of nations agree it does.
I am sure I am missing some subtlety but what law is natural? It seems to me there is no other natural law apart from the law of the jungle whether internationally or domestically.
Our rights exist here at home only because we have collectively agreed that they ought to be enforced using coercion by the state which gets a monopoly on the use of force.
Internationally, we did not agree on a "world police" so the local goons get to control their own little neighborhoods.
It's not like international law even exists in some kind of quasi democratic "most countries agree" kind of way. International law only exists to the extent of the will and military capacity to enforce it, which is too say, mostly not at all.
Admiralty law exists and is generally followed. But that is like the exception that proves your point, because admiralty law is built upon hundreds of years of tradition, handshake agreements, and the physical reality of being at sea rather than on land. It wasn't "imposed" by dictat.
Admiralty Law! I Do Not Enter Into Joinder With You! SIRRAH! I am Lapsed Pacifist the Man, not a Corporation!
I was trying NOT to go “full Dick Cheney,” haha!
"It is possible to argue that international law is not natural law."
Not merely possible; it's positively mandatory.
"international law only exists to the extent a majority of nations agree it does."
Correct.
Individual states of course had human rights going back at least to Magna Carta if not longer but I suppose countries/sovereigns could not bring human rights charges against one another?
Sands goes on to mention that the US did not argue for genocide against the Nazis because they were worried that under Lemkin's conception of it, the US itself would be guilty of genocide against Native Americans and African American slaves. Under colonialism there were many instances of human rights violations that would fall under a broad enough definition of "genocide" as Lemkin argued for.
So, everyone decided to (pragmatically) start the clock in 1945 and not to look too far back in the past.
I had to turn it off. I was pessimistic when he started his intro in that doomy, tear-stained voice, and his part didn't get better. I thought his guest was okay, talking about the origins of the contemporary concept of genocide, but eventually I was just saying "Get to the point!"
Did he ever talk more about the evolution of his own perspective? Because he was pretty pro-Israel shortly after Oct. 7.
His factually questionable doomy intro was basically all the actual assessment of the situation he offered.
I didn't listen to it. Is there some sort of obscurantist academic definition of genocide that is not broadly known, like there is for "indigenous?"
Basically, the court definition of genocide is a much higher bar than a lot of people’s definition of genocide.
While simultaneously being a lot lower than an even larger group's idea of a mechanized extermination.
I will say I was convinced by his argument about being able to make the determination of genocide before you get to the mechanized extermination. Also the Serbia example was good.
I’ve always felt that Israel was allowing genocide to occur in the West Bank. But Gaza didn’t count until Israel caused a famine.
I was convinced that to "make the determination of genocide" is basically meaningless.
The famine thing is specifically the most factually dubious claim in the whole episode.
That was the expertise of his guest, but his guest was pretty long-winded.
I think there were like 3, but I don't think it was ever clear what they were.
I live practically across the street from a historical Black cemetery. I walk my dog there almost every day.
At the entrance is a plaque about a period of Jim Crow racial violence in the late 19th century. It provides a detailed narrative of what happened. When I read that, I didn’t feel shame for my nation’s history. I felt optimism for the fact that we have overcome it.
Yeh that's like the African American History Museum - it starts off with the little kid handcuffs from the slave ships and ends with Obama. You leave thinking - this is truly the greatest nation in the history of the world.
But the message was about what we've overcome not endless struggle session navel gazing about all our perceived flaws.
I agree. It is extremely obnoxious to be surrounded by people who are more interested in navel-gazing self-critique than addressing actually important matters.
I wish they had more culture in the museum than just the top floor. There’s not a lot of reason to go back a third time, though a second time was great.
"a global trend toward state oversight of cultural, intellectual, and artistic institutions."
The Smithsonian is a creation of the state. Its board is appointed by Congress. It has its own police force.
There is nothing about it that is not subject to state oversight. That's got nothing to do with any trend.
Someone who thinks everyone in the past is irredeemably evil shouldn't work in a museum. But lots of museum staff clearly have that deeply misanthropic view.
Scott Alexander has any intresting but unforunatley paywalled article on whether you should hate everyone in Ancient Rome if you time travelled back there. I feel 50 years ago every museum curator if they got a chance to meet Ceasar would ask "What was it like to triumph at Alesia?", while a significant share of modern staff would ask "why were you an evil slave trader boasting of killing a million Gauls?"
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/can-you-hate-everyone-in-rome
You have a wildly optimistic view of museum curators if you think faced with Caeser they would ask anything of the sort, when any such insult would very obviously result in their deaths.