I looked at the premise of his book that this article seems to connect with, and it basically boils down to "History shows that societies becomes a lot more peaceful and productive after periods of war."
Wow, who'd've thought that things get better for the people who survive a war? It's a good thing we can apply survivorship bias to the whole of human history with such confidence like that.
So it's not that war makes things better, but that we become better off after we stop fighting? We become better off after we decide fixing our problems peacefully is a good idea? Brilliant.
It's also not true when you consider all the times war follows war and societies see decades if not centuries of decline involving numerous civil wars. On top of that, when war is not devastating for those that start it, it does not inspire them to change; rather it becomes part of their norm.
Is that compared to the war itself, or the time before it? I have a doubt. We were all told that we were in a historic era of peace before things kicked off this month, so the bar is set pretty high. Plus, even after the dust settles, the entire Northern hemisphere will likely still be up to its collective asses in fascists with way too much power to turn around and do it again.
"There's less death from warfare and economic production diverted to support said warfare when people aren't fighting wars" is a helluva argument in favor of fighting wars to improve lives and benefit the economy.
It's like a financial advisor telling you that you should blow all your money in the casino, then quit gambling and start saving.
That was not how I read the article at all. What it is arguing is essentially that people benefit from the presence of order, especially when it includes larger numbers of people, but that historically such order only tends to come about through warfare. By all means disagree with this—though you might consider reading the article if you haven't so that you are responding to its actual points—but it has nothing to do with people doing better merely because they have survived the war.
Artist putting the dove of peace in there should be shamed, too. Mf’er thinks they have some design porn going on there when all it is is selling out to oppressors
This is also still peddling the false "30 year life expectancy" that is completely not true when accounting for the high infant mortality, so the initial premise is false.
You know how there a immigrants who are pro ice. Same is true across the entire spectrum of fools. This writer is not part of the "us" but thinks that by aligning themselves it some how makes them part of the group. Anyone with basic reasoning skills knows otherwise but the world is full of fools and they aren't all illiterate.
So, not agreeing with the premise but: this article is from 2014, written by a legit historian, and is specifically not discussing the short term.
Their premise is effectively that war consolidates power and minimizes violence at scale inside the unified territory afterwards. Further, the things nations do to be ready for conflict, like build roads, administrative statates and all the social structures that accompany a standing army facilitate trade and prosperity.
It's less that he's arguing for war, and more just ... Describing the historical consequences of war in aggregate.
It was certainly only titled the way it was because he was publishing a book and this is more eye catching.
Yeah it thinks it's counterpropaganda, but it's just propaganda.
I agree with it of course: we shouldn't need war to build roads today. No matter if this is how it went in the last few centuries, we should do better.
You'd think, apparently it was a historian. Looks like like in the last centuries, governments would rather build infrastructure for wars than for rational reasons, but that infrastructure ended up being used for good things too.
Would be great if we could get rid of the ghouls and just build roads without needing them for war instead.
I mean I think that might have been true historically but it is not the case today.
The US obviously doesn't really wage wars domestically anymore sp whatever infrastructure is built for these wars I would imagine presumably occurs in foreign countries. Some evidence for this point would be gestures at the general state of American infrastructure. One of the unifying features across America is complaining about shitty roads that never get fixed. And I seem to remember reading a report a little while ago about the vast majority of bridges in the US being past overdue for maintenance.
And while wars generally do generate money to some degree (increased manufacturing, i.e. ww2 lifting us out of the Depression) modern wars tend to end up with money being extracted from the taxpayer and just concentrated in the hands of the already wealthy.
I'm happy to be corrected though if anybody has any research that points to the contrary.
Yeah, fuck Bezos! I hope him and every single billionaire fuckhead spend a decade in prison for every person they fucked over. I hope they need to actually kill themselves in prison rather than get assassinated by people who don't want them to talk. They need to meet this fate, not because they deserve it, but because society needs to get rid of them to ever recover.
Lives. Human lives, no different from yours or mine. Possibly even yours or mine, or a loved one, definitely somebody's loved ones, a lot of somebodies actually.
Also immense financial and ecological cost and minds and bodies that will never recover. But it's your cousin, or your classmate, or the neighbor's kid all cut down in the prime of their lives alongside ordinary people from far away. Innocents and combatants alike.
No sane and moral person desires war unless they feel they absolutely must.
Of courses it does, especially when you are the world's biggest arms dealer! By far, not even China, Russia, and Germany combined, throw in UK and France, too
Keep in mind that this is a guest opinion, which means it is not intended to reflect the official opinion of the Washington Post—in fact, it might be the opposite, but published anyway in order to provide a diversity of viewpoints. (Personally, I do not like everyone they have chosen to platform, but it is not unreasonable for them to want to err on the side of listening to what the other side has to say to avoid creating an echo chamber.)
Nah fuck that, that's like posting straight Nazi gibberish and playing the "representing both sides" argument when someone calls you on it. In this day and age that whole idea can go fuck itself right into oblivion. We are all grown enough to known the difference.
It is not always the case that the side you disagree with is just a bunch of Nazis, and furthermore sometimes it is you who are wrong. That is why it is important not to be too zealous in shutting out everyone you disagree with on any issue.
Nonetheless, that does not mean that everyone should be platformed, and I am not a fan of some of the choices that the Washington Post has made in this regard, which is why I am no longer a subscriber. However, I did not think that this particular article was that bad, because it is essentially just saying that order results in far greater peace and prosperity than no order, especially when it incorporates increasingly large scales of people, but that it unfortunately requires violence to bring this about. One can very reasonably disagree, but one needs to do more than what many have done, which is to just read the title, assume that one knows what the article was arguing, and then criticize it based on that assumption.
War is bad. Good things coming about from bad things does not make the bad thing good. Especially when that bad thing is the death of who knows how many people, combatants and civilians alike. One should not need to carefully consider the idea that "maybe mass death and untold suffering is good?" because it is objectively bad. Also you type like a redditor.
Obviously war is bad, which is why the idea that was actually being considered was actually "maybe mass death and untold suffering is not the worst thing, if it buys peace and prosperity for subsequent generations by building a civilization of greater scale". As @inputzero@lemmy.world says below, one's thoughts on this probably depends on exactly how one feels about utilitarianism.
And... is the best attack you could come up with that I "type like a redditor"? Really?
No, mass death and untold suffering is still bad. Good things that come about from bad things does not make the bad thing good, or as you put it, "not the worst thing." This really isn't some complex moral dilemma and I don't understand why you feel the need to make it one. It's bad when people suffer, the more people that suffer the more bad-er it is. Can good things come about from that suffering? Yeah, good can come from anywhere, but that doesn't mean the suffering in of itself is justified. Also you type like a redditor.
I think that if you do not believe in your own argument strongly enough to let it stand on its own without adding bizarre criticisms of my writing style, then it is really not worth me continuing to engage. Have a good day! 😉
And I think you can't stand the thought of "losing the argument" so you have to paint me as some facetious clown so that you may coddle your fragile ego, if we're just throwing out random accusations now. People shouldn't suffer. That's not a debate point or something to argue over, it's a fact. I don't understand why you would want to argue otherwise, I simply cannot fathom it. Also you type like a redditor! 😉
Nonsense. The "it's just opinion" canard is so tired, please just let it die. By publishing an opinion in a well regarded (deservedly or not) news outlet, they launder ideas into mainstream acceptability by announcing that a reasonable person could hold such an opinion. A reasonable person can not hold such an opinion as this. If it was published with a warning and an analysis of how dangerous this is and to make people aware of how the extreme right thinks, that would be one thing. But publishing an opinion without comment is endorsement, no matter how much people say it isn't.
Bezos changed the editorial line of the paper so that conflicting views are not allowed.
Imperialist wars are, in fact, a pillar of neoliberalism, so of course they support it. They also make you richer, as the title claims, if you're the propaganda appendage of a fascist regime, or own stocks in military corporations.
There was still some diversity of viewpoints, though it was much narrower. Still, I agree it got significantly worse, which is why I stopped subscribing to it. (I stuck around for longer than many because the reporting outside the opinion page was pretty good and I wanted to support that, but it eventually became too much for me.)
Also, out of curiosity, did you actually read the article? Because none of the points you seem to think that it makes come close to what it actually argues.
I think opinion pieces are great for matters of taste.
War, on the other hand, is about life, death, money, and politics all rolled into one giant horror-show. Publishing op-ed on such a topic, on such a well-known paper, is basically elevating -whatever- to the same level of validity as actual journalism. It's a really bad show on the Post's part.
Actually, no, I really think they shouldn't. In such matters I think it's crucial to stick to just the facts and journalistic integrity (such as it is). Elevating personal opinion to the same level as wartime photography, reporting, data, etc. has dangerous ramifications for all involved. I'm aware that newspapers and other news/media outlets have bias, one way or another, but I think it important to draw a line and minimize that bias to the greatest extent possible; saying no to op-eds on war is such a line.
WRT to opinions and discussion on war, we have other kinds of media and public forums to serve that.
Out of curiosity, did you actually read the article? Because it neither commented on any of the wars ongoing in 2014 nor proposed any new ones.
Also, newspapers generally have a designated opinion section, and this was in that section, so it was not treated the same as factual reporting in the manner you are concerned about.
75 Comments
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 199 pts · 164d
For general context, the opinion piece was published April 2014. Bezos owned The WaPo at the time and had since 2013. Author is Stanford historian and archaeologist Ian Morris.
Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world · 67 pts · 164d
Thanks for sharing the link in the interest of fact and transparency.
zikzak025@lemmy.world · 43 pts · 163d
I looked at the premise of his book that this article seems to connect with, and it basically boils down to "History shows that societies becomes a lot more peaceful and productive after periods of war."
Wow, who'd've thought that things get better for the people who survive a war? It's a good thing we can apply survivorship bias to the whole of human history with such confidence like that.
TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 13 pts · 163d
So it's not that war makes things better, but that we become better off after we stop fighting? We become better off after we decide fixing our problems peacefully is a good idea? Brilliant.
It's also not true when you consider all the times war follows war and societies see decades if not centuries of decline involving numerous civil wars. On top of that, when war is not devastating for those that start it, it does not inspire them to change; rather it becomes part of their norm.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 163d
Is that compared to the war itself, or the time before it? I have a doubt. We were all told that we were in a historic era of peace before things kicked off this month, so the bar is set pretty high. Plus, even after the dust settles, the entire Northern hemisphere will likely still be up to its collective asses in fascists with way too much power to turn around and do it again.
mech@feddit.org · 2 pts · 159d
The "historic era of peace" is a lie.
In truth, we live in an era of constant wars, we're just so dominant that they don't happen on our soil.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 162d
"There's less death from warfare and economic production diverted to support said warfare when people aren't fighting wars" is a helluva argument in favor of fighting wars to improve lives and benefit the economy.
It's like a financial advisor telling you that you should blow all your money in the casino, then quit gambling and start saving.
totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 163d
That was not how I read the article at all. What it is arguing is essentially that people benefit from the presence of order, especially when it includes larger numbers of people, but that historically such order only tends to come about through warfare. By all means disagree with this—though you might consider reading the article if you haven't so that you are responding to its actual points—but it has nothing to do with people doing better merely because they have survived the war.
yakko@feddit.uk · 22 pts · 164d
He seems like not a great guy.
Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social · 20 pts · 163d
WTF this is a real article
sveltecider@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 164d
Of course it was WAPO
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 163d
It says it right at the top ...
skittle07crusher@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 163d
Artist putting the dove of peace in there should be shamed, too. Mf’er thinks they have some design porn going on there when all it is is selling out to oppressors
totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 163d
I will do one better and provide a link to an archived copy of the article so you all can read it for yourselves!
drthunder@midwest.social · 1 pts · 163d
Stanford has a lot to answer for these days.
Riverside@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 162d
afromustache@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 162d
This is also still peddling the false "30 year life expectancy" that is completely not true when accounting for the high infant mortality, so the initial premise is false.
AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social · 110 pts · 164d
Define "us".
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works · 56 pts · 164d
Us, the wealthiest owners of Raytheon and Lockheed shares. Who did you think?
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 164d
US...A
kibiz0r@midwest.social · 10 pts · 163d
“When we talk about U.S.A., we ain’t talkin bout you, ése.”
pressanykeynow@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 164d
Probably the author of the article and the people who paid him to write it.
Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 162d
You know how there a immigrants who are pro ice. Same is true across the entire spectrum of fools. This writer is not part of the "us" but thinks that by aligning themselves it some how makes them part of the group. Anyone with basic reasoning skills knows otherwise but the world is full of fools and they aren't all illiterate.
BinzyBoi@piefed.ca · 75 pts · 164d
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 41 pts · 164d
This stopped being a warning and started being a mission statement.
GalacticSushi@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 163d
Right up there with Google's "Don't be Evil"
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 163d
That's why Bezos has his secret mansion on the dark side of the moon.
Exec@pawb.social · 57 pts · 163d
Democracy died in daylight
ricecake@sh.itjust.works · 44 pts · 163d
So, not agreeing with the premise but: this article is from 2014, written by a legit historian, and is specifically not discussing the short term.
Their premise is effectively that war consolidates power and minimizes violence at scale inside the unified territory afterwards. Further, the things nations do to be ready for conflict, like build roads, administrative statates and all the social structures that accompany a standing army facilitate trade and prosperity.
It's less that he's arguing for war, and more just ... Describing the historical consequences of war in aggregate.
It was certainly only titled the way it was because he was publishing a book and this is more eye catching.
BigMike@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 162d
Ironic that this post is trying critize propaganda while being a bit propagandish itself
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 162d
Yeah it thinks it's counterpropaganda, but it's just propaganda.
I agree with it of course: we shouldn't need war to build roads today. No matter if this is how it went in the last few centuries, we should do better.
Riverside@reddthat.com · -2 pts · 162d
zammy95@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 163d
Did a war write this article?
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social · 4 pts · 162d
Just a neoliberal entering his pupae to begin turning into a fascist.
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 162d
You'd think, apparently it was a historian. Looks like like in the last centuries, governments would rather build infrastructure for wars than for rational reasons, but that infrastructure ended up being used for good things too.
Would be great if we could get rid of the ghouls and just build roads without needing them for war instead.
afromustache@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 162d
I mean I think that might have been true historically but it is not the case today.
The US obviously doesn't really wage wars domestically anymore sp whatever infrastructure is built for these wars I would imagine presumably occurs in foreign countries. Some evidence for this point would be gestures at the general state of American infrastructure. One of the unifying features across America is complaining about shitty roads that never get fixed. And I seem to remember reading a report a little while ago about the vast majority of bridges in the US being past overdue for maintenance.
And while wars generally do generate money to some degree (increased manufacturing, i.e. ww2 lifting us out of the Depression) modern wars tend to end up with money being extracted from the taxpayer and just concentrated in the hands of the already wealthy.
I'm happy to be corrected though if anybody has any research that points to the contrary.
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz · 26 pts · 164d
Yeah, I mean, what it said. Genocide! Love that. I respect The Washington Post and its commitment to corruption, abuse of power, and harm to kids.
DandomRude@piefed.social · 24 pts · 164d
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 164d
Probably not for ethical reasons but more uhh aristocratic in-group disputes/conflicts of interest.
Doomsider@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 163d
This right here, and he was never taken down. He voluntarily resigned and faced zero consequences.
MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 163d
I didn't even see the WaPo part of the post at first... and I didn't need to.
Ghyste@sh.itjust.works · 22 pts · 164d
What the fuck.
SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml · 19 pts · 164d
The first thing to die in war is the truth.
toxicbubble@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 164d
nice try bezøs
Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 163d
Just a heads up - you don't have to self-censor names on lemmy. These are communities, not corporate servers.
TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 163d
Yeah, fuck Bezos! I hope him and every single billionaire fuckhead spend a decade in prison for every person they fucked over. I hope they need to actually kill themselves in prison rather than get assassinated by people who don't want them to talk. They need to meet this fate, not because they deserve it, but because society needs to get rid of them to ever recover.
toxicbubble@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 159d
nice try bezøs
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 164d
Tiger_Man_@szmer.info · 15 pts · 163d
if by "us" they mean the billionaries behind this company then sure it does
berg@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 163d
Did someone say Blowback?
SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 163d
It's a good podcast
GuyIncognito@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 163d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmd-RJUO_RY
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 163d
AT WHAT FUCKING COST?!?!?
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 162d
Lives. Human lives, no different from yours or mine. Possibly even yours or mine, or a loved one, definitely somebody's loved ones, a lot of somebodies actually.
Also immense financial and ecological cost and minds and bodies that will never recover. But it's your cousin, or your classmate, or the neighbor's kid all cut down in the prime of their lives alongside ordinary people from far away. Innocents and combatants alike.
No sane and moral person desires war unless they feel they absolutely must.
lvxferre@mander.xyz · 10 pts · 164d
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 10 pts · 162d
Am I the only one that sees a Wehrmact soldier with an MP-40 in hand? Like... Come on.
afromustache@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 162d
There is no way that is not an mp40 lmao they're not even trying with the fascist propaganda anymore
FreddiesLantern@leminal.space · 8 pts · 164d
Go walk in the rain some more, you’ll dry quicker.
FalschgeldFurkan@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 163d
"Yeah because after WWII there was peace!!!1"
Technically, after the war is before the war.
Doomsider@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 163d
At the cost of murdering others and taking what is theirs.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 163d
Of courses it does, especially when you are the world's biggest arms dealer! By far, not even China, Russia, and Germany combined, throw in UK and France, too
That's the problem.
thingAmaBob@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 163d
Even if true, there has to be a better way to achieve safety and economic security for all. War causes losses for far too many.
ETA: grammar & clarity
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club · 5 pts · 164d
Pictured dove ofc carrying cluster bombs.
SethTaylor@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 163d
Well, shit...
Somebody turned off the lights at Washington Post then lol
Pogogunner@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 163d
The last time I checked, wars only destroy
totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 163d
Keep in mind that this is a guest opinion, which means it is not intended to reflect the official opinion of the Washington Post—in fact, it might be the opposite, but published anyway in order to provide a diversity of viewpoints. (Personally, I do not like everyone they have chosen to platform, but it is not unreasonable for them to want to err on the side of listening to what the other side has to say to avoid creating an echo chamber.)
BrickEater@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 163d
Nah fuck that, that's like posting straight Nazi gibberish and playing the "representing both sides" argument when someone calls you on it. In this day and age that whole idea can go fuck itself right into oblivion. We are all grown enough to known the difference.
totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 163d
It is not always the case that the side you disagree with is just a bunch of Nazis, and furthermore sometimes it is you who are wrong. That is why it is important not to be too zealous in shutting out everyone you disagree with on any issue.
Nonetheless, that does not mean that everyone should be platformed, and I am not a fan of some of the choices that the Washington Post has made in this regard, which is why I am no longer a subscriber. However, I did not think that this particular article was that bad, because it is essentially just saying that order results in far greater peace and prosperity than no order, especially when it incorporates increasingly large scales of people, but that it unfortunately requires violence to bring this about. One can very reasonably disagree, but one needs to do more than what many have done, which is to just read the title, assume that one knows what the article was arguing, and then criticize it based on that assumption.
bogusbison@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 163d
War is bad. Good things coming about from bad things does not make the bad thing good. Especially when that bad thing is the death of who knows how many people, combatants and civilians alike. One should not need to carefully consider the idea that "maybe mass death and untold suffering is good?" because it is objectively bad. Also you type like a redditor.
InputZero@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 163d
Something something, act utilitarianism something something.
totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 163d
Obviously war is bad, which is why the idea that was actually being considered was actually "maybe mass death and untold suffering is not the worst thing, if it buys peace and prosperity for subsequent generations by building a civilization of greater scale". As @inputzero@lemmy.world says below, one's thoughts on this probably depends on exactly how one feels about utilitarianism.
And... is the best attack you could come up with that I "type like a redditor"? Really?
bogusbison@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 163d
No, mass death and untold suffering is still bad. Good things that come about from bad things does not make the bad thing good, or as you put it, "not the worst thing." This really isn't some complex moral dilemma and I don't understand why you feel the need to make it one. It's bad when people suffer, the more people that suffer the more bad-er it is. Can good things come about from that suffering? Yeah, good can come from anywhere, but that doesn't mean the suffering in of itself is justified. Also you type like a redditor.
totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 162d
I think that if you do not believe in your own argument strongly enough to let it stand on its own without adding bizarre criticisms of my writing style, then it is really not worth me continuing to engage. Have a good day! 😉
bogusbison@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 162d
And I think you can't stand the thought of "losing the argument" so you have to paint me as some facetious clown so that you may coddle your fragile ego, if we're just throwing out random accusations now. People shouldn't suffer. That's not a debate point or something to argue over, it's a fact. I don't understand why you would want to argue otherwise, I simply cannot fathom it. Also you type like a redditor! 😉
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 163d
Nonsense. The "it's just opinion" canard is so tired, please just let it die. By publishing an opinion in a well regarded (deservedly or not) news outlet, they launder ideas into mainstream acceptability by announcing that a reasonable person could hold such an opinion. A reasonable person can not hold such an opinion as this. If it was published with a warning and an analysis of how dangerous this is and to make people aware of how the extreme right thinks, that would be one thing. But publishing an opinion without comment is endorsement, no matter how much people say it isn't.
merdaverse@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 163d
Bezos changed the editorial line of the paper so that conflicting views are not allowed.
Imperialist wars are, in fact, a pillar of neoliberalism, so of course they support it. They also make you richer, as the title claims, if you're the propaganda appendage of a fascist regime, or own stocks in military corporations.
totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 163d
There was still some diversity of viewpoints, though it was much narrower. Still, I agree it got significantly worse, which is why I stopped subscribing to it. (I stuck around for longer than many because the reporting outside the opinion page was pretty good and I wanted to support that, but it eventually became too much for me.)
Also, out of curiosity, did you actually read the article? Because none of the points you seem to think that it makes come close to what it actually argues.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 163d
I think opinion pieces are great for matters of taste.
War, on the other hand, is about life, death, money, and politics all rolled into one giant horror-show. Publishing op-ed on such a topic, on such a well-known paper, is basically elevating -whatever- to the same level of validity as actual journalism. It's a really bad show on the Post's part.
totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 163d
So newspapers should never publish any opinions that have any commentary on warfare?
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 163d
Actually, no, I really think they shouldn't. In such matters I think it's crucial to stick to just the facts and journalistic integrity (such as it is). Elevating personal opinion to the same level as wartime photography, reporting, data, etc. has dangerous ramifications for all involved. I'm aware that newspapers and other news/media outlets have bias, one way or another, but I think it important to draw a line and minimize that bias to the greatest extent possible; saying no to op-eds on war is such a line.
WRT to opinions and discussion on war, we have other kinds of media and public forums to serve that.
totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 163d
Out of curiosity, did you actually read the article? Because it neither commented on any of the wars ongoing in 2014 nor proposed any new ones.
Also, newspapers generally have a designated opinion section, and this was in that section, so it was not treated the same as factual reporting in the manner you are concerned about.
Riverside@reddthat.com · 0 pts · 162d