Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 September 6

= September 6 =

Vietnam War
What were the causes of the Vietnam War? 2600:8803:2B00:1320:9DA9:4B36:869B:417 (talk) 16:15, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * See: Vietnam war. Blueboar (talk) 16:32, 6 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't know what's in the article but IMO a lot of what gets written in the US media about Vietnam is wrong, so here's my opinion: The ultimate cause was that the UK and French colonial empires were disintegrating after WWII. Both nations were in debt and their populations were sick of wars. But the business interests in the west still got a lot of value from colonialism and after the war the US was both the richest nation and had the most powerful army. So we took over many colonial "responsibilities" of the British and French, which of course includes Vietnam where the French were thrown out by the Vietnamese people after their defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The supposed reason for the US getting involved was that we were helping the South Vietnamese preserve Democracy but 1) the South Vietnamese government was never democratic, they had some of the most corrupt tyrants ever and 2) the Geneva treaty that the French signed specified that Vietnam would be one united nation. It was the US who encouraged a separate movement in South Vietnam and then responded to "requests" from the puppets we put in power. A justification for us sending more troops was the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Supposedly, North Vietnam attacked USN warships in International Waters. One of the revelations in the Pentagon Papers was that the USN was conducting operations off the coast of North Vietnam where they would attack the coast and then move into International Waters and that the goal was to entice the North Vietnamese to make such an attack which could be used to justify further US presence both to the international community and the American public. Also, the USN claimed that there were two attacks but there was only one. The second one was probably a mistake in the fog of war where ships thought they were being fired upon but weren't. I recommend Chapter 18 in Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States for more detail and references that don't just reflect the standard "the US fights to preserve Democracy" point of view. MadScientistX11 (talk) 22:34, 7 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I think you should probably read our Vietnam War article. See also Domino theory for what was motivating the US, Australia and Thailand.
 * I'm not sure which British "responsibilities" MadScientistX11 is thinking of, but we were a bit preoccupied with fighting Chinese-backed communists in the Malayan Emergency and the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation. Alansplodge (talk) 22:48, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Moreover, the British Empire was "disintegrating" and the US taking over its "colonial responsibilities" in part because, behind the scenes, the USA insisted that it be dismantled as a further diplomatic price for US help in WW2. This was over and above the publicly acknowledged repayments of monetary, materiel and other loans, which the UK only completed paying off on December 31 2006. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.131.160 (talk) 23:40, 7 September 2022 (UTC)


 * The Vietnam war was an anti- French war of Independence; but later a war of communist infiltration of the South by North Vietnam, helped by Russia. This attack on the South was supported by many nationalists in the South. But thanks to the Tet- campaign, which basically wiped out the South Vietnamese guerilla, the northern communists after victory had no problem to dominate Nam Viet.--Ralfdetlef (talk) 18:28, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Civil Wars
How can we prevent future civil wars? 2600:8803:2B00:1320:9DA9:4B36:869B:417 (talk) 16:17, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * We can't. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:01, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Well.... we could. But not many people would be in favor of the voluntary extinction of the human species.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:14, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you sure? (user:radh)--2001:9E8:5678:B300:C5D1:34DB:788C:9D90 (talk) 17:58, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Very few would be in favor of their own extermination. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:23, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * True, but a deliberate implementation of the situation in Children of Men, for example, would in itself kill no-one living, but would ensure the end of humanity. I'm sure there are Nihilists who would favour such a course. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.73.43 (talk) 22:24, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * There's always VHEMT, but I'm not sure what it has to do with civil wars... AnonMoos (talk) 21:31, 6 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Easy. We make it illegal. Then we make it illegal to break any laws, including that one. This has the advantage of projecting us straight into Utopia. I don't know why nobody has ever come up with this idea before. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:54, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Jack ofOz -- Some who opposed the North militarily mobilizing at the beginning of the US Civil War advocated for something like that. If a member of a southern military unit shot at a northerner, then supposedly the proper response was not to shoot back, but to bring a legal case for attempted murder in the courts of Virginia (most of the early fighting was in Virginia, which then included West Virginia).  I'm not sure how seriously the idea was ever proposed, but the idea was out there... AnonMoos (talk) 21:03, 7 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Elect Kang or Kodos Emperor of Earth in perpetuity (or they could switch back and forth from time to time, just for variety). A bit of eternal slavery would solve that problem. Either that or have rude people run things, so conflicts aren't so civil. No more "May I attack you, please?" Clarityfiend (talk) 23:46, 6 September 2022 (UTC)


 * See Childhood's End. That book provides one way to do it.  Comes at a cost, though.  -- Jayron 32 15:05, 7 September 2022 (UTC)


 * post removed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:570A:601:1139:8157:25CB:4FEA (talk) 18:59, 8 September 2022 (UTC)


 * You are aware that you've just spent an entire paragraph covering information relevant to only approximately 1/200th of the potential civil wars in the world, right? Please try to be useful, and not ramble on with such rants as well.  It is not what we do here.  And the rules don't say there are no rules.  They say you're allowed to ignore rules, if the rule gets in your way of making an encyclopedia article better.  You've done nothing like that.  Please stop, and if this is what you intend to do at the reference desk going forward, please don't return.  -- Jayron 32 22:55, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I searched your question verbatim on JSTOR and came up with (among other interesting articles) "Preventing Civil War: How the Potential for International Intervention Can Deter Conflict Onset", the freely viewable first page of which claims that various factors are correlated with an increase in civil wars, including low average incomes and nondemocratic governments. It seems plausible, then, that one should raise average incomes and support democratic governments to reduce the chance of civil war. This jibes well with my own intuitive belief that democracy and a concern for public welfare tends to improve society and reduce discontent. Perhaps the role of democracy is that it provides a "safety valve", as it were: a method to change government without resorting to violent means. It seems reasonable to me that governments mutable by peaceable, popular means are less likely to be forcibly altered through warfare.It's also important to differentiate between prevention and eradication. Other replies seem to have interpreted "prevent future civil wars" to mean "destroy all possibility of future civil wars occurring". I think it's more useful to interpret it to mean "take preventative measures to minimize the chance of future civil wars occurring". One of these goals is easier than the other. Shells-shells (talk) 05:50, 8 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Presented without comment, James Meek's article "What are you willing to do?", examining civil wars around the globe against the current American context and considering that "if it is a real danger that civil war may threaten democracy, it is also a real danger that democracy may die because its defenders refuse to start one." Dr-ziego (talk) 09:58, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * This is very closely related to the=paradox of tolerance, popularized by Karl Popper; people who value tolerance will tend to allow intolerant people to become entrenched in power; and because the intolerant people are more willing to use abhorrent tactics to get and maintain power, the tolerant will tend to be marginalized over time. OR even more simply, if I'm willing to murder you to get what I want, and you aren't willing to do anything to stop me from murdering you before I murder you, you're always going to get murdered.  -- Jayron 32 14:36, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * As exemplified by the Russian revolution.  At the time of the uprising the Bolsheviks were out of the country and the moderates had seized power.   The Bolsheviks hatched a plan to return and oust them by undemocratic means. 2A00:23C4:570A:601:1139:8157:25CB:4FEA (talk) 19:02, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Deutschland, Deutschland über alles. (German user--Ralfdetlef (talk) 18:32, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
 * If the concept of the state is sufficiently discredited, maybe no one will bother trying to be it. —Tamfang (talk) 00:48, 10 September 2022 (UTC)