Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 April 2

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April 2

Is there anyone notable with a negative view of world government?

The world government article says "World government has both supporters and detractors from across the political and ideological spectrum", yet so far as I can see it doesn't specify any detractors. It lists a series of people who seem either resigned to the inevitability of world government (whether under fascism, communism, or as a federation) or positively joyous about it. I don't see so much as a note of caution anywhere in the article, have I not read closely enough?  Card Zero  (talk) 00:08, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Right-wingers in the U.S. have railing against evil plots to establish an oppressive world government for many decades. Almost everybody who supports a United States withdrawal from the United Nations thinks world government would be a bad idea. See also New World Order (conspiracy theory)... AnonMoos (talk) 00:19, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether they would oppose the creation of a global United States.  Card Zero  (talk) 00:44, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

That seems rather irrelevant -- whether a U.S. government which expanded to the whole globe allowed people outside the current 50 states to vote or not, the result would be a very different system than the U.S. as it exists now. Most of the people who want to withdraw from the United Nations are somewhat nostalgic for the U.S. relationship to world affairs as it existed before WW2, when the U.S. could to a significant degree shelter behind the two oceans -- and your scenario is the exact opposite of that... AnonMoos (talk) 11:50, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

That sounds like isolationism, and not like a principled concern about the effects of world government on the world.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:09, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

That's nice -- you didn't ask about people who oppose a world government for one specific reason, so I answered the question you originally asked. AnonMoos (talk) 23:50, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for an entirely valid answer, it's just that I didn't think adding isolationists to the article would do much to balance it. (Let alone conspiracy theorists.) I mean, if they have a reasoned opinion about world government, rather than mere nostalgia for a comfortable domestic situation, then yes.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:16, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Many of them would call themselves Paleoconservatives, though some might not object to an isolationist label... AnonMoos (talk) 21:29, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

In the UK, one of the principal gripes of Brexit supporters (again mostly on the right, but some on the left too) was that the EU was leading inevitably towards a United States of Europe. Presumably World Government would be even less acceptable, although as far as I can tell, it's not a live topic here. 46.102.221.177 (talk) 11:12, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Anarchists are also not enthusiastic about the idea. Any democratically governed polity may become authoritarian and even totalitarian, whether by a power grab or by the erosion of democratic sentiment. Can anyone offer an iron-clad guarantee that a world government cannot become stuck in brutal totalitarianism? Without such guarantee, I think anyone, whether left or right, should oppose the idea of a world government.  --Lambiam 12:16, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Telling that we have "right-wingers" and anarchists so far opposed to a cast of supporters that runs from Dante to Roddenberry. Right there with you as to totalitarianism, but multilateralism and unilateralism are equally good reading all considered. We'll soon be talking "end of history" and WP:Recentism. fiveby(zero) 14:47, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I found Kenneth Waltz and his Theory of International Politics. (If he was an anarchist, he was a very sober one.) "World government, according to Waltz, would not deliver universal, disinterested, impartial justice, order or security, but like domestic governments, it would be driven by its own particular or exclusive organizational interests, which it would pursue at the expense of the interests and freedom of states. This realist view thus provides a sobering antidote to liberal and other progressive narratives that foretell peace through interdependence."  Card Zero  (talk) 16:45, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't realize you were working on the article. John Mearsheimer, here's The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. You might do better starting with E. H. Carr The Twenty Years Crisis instead of dividing into proponents and opponents. "Liberals and Realists", "Realist Foreign Policy", and "Realism" from Oxford Bibliographies. fiveby(zero) 13:17, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I was definitely planning on feeling guilty about not working on the article, at any rate. I think I might start a section called "Criticism", or maybe "Realist Critics" – it seems like realism is the general umbrella term for these viewpoints?  Card Zero  (talk) 14:19, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Will Smith-Chris Rock slapping incident

Re: Will Smith–Chris Rock slapping incident. I am a little confused about this situation. I'd like to know if anyone can clear this up for me. Thanks in advance.

The latest update, in a nutshell, is this: Smith resigned his membership with the Academy; nonetheless, the Academy will continue its investigation to administer whatever discipline / sanctions it deems appropriate.

So, the Academy is a private organization. Will Smith is a private citizen, with absolutely no ties to the organization. (He is no longer a member; he resigned his membership.) What possible discipline or sanctions can an organization have in a scenario such as this?

In other words, how would a private organization (like, for example, the Academy) have any "jurisdiction" or "control" over any private citizen (like, for example, Will Smith)?

Since he is not a member of their organization, he does not have to abide by anything they say. There is nothing whatsoever that they can possibly do to him, as he has no relationship with them, and he -- as a private citizen -- is not "under their control" nor subject to any of their rules, decisions, discipline, sanctions, etc. Am I missing something? The whole thing makes no sense. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 06:08, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

The Academy has to follow due process. The fact that he has resigned doesn't relieve them of their responsibility to carry out disciplinary proceedings for violations of their standards of conduct. Just because they can't sanction him any more is no reason not to go through their internal procedures. I see it as similar to the situation when someone is sentenced to life imprisonment and then also convicted of some other crime for which they will serve their sentence concurrently. There's no additional penalty for the second crime, but that's no reason not to charge, prosecute and sentence them for it. --Viennese Waltz 06:32, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Joseph_A._Spadaro -- they could prevent him from attending or presenting at future awards ceremonies, or declare him ineligible to receive future awards. AnonMoos (talk) 11:53, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

They could, for example, demand that he give the Oscar statuette back. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:02, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

This appears to have been written before Smith resigned, [1]. AFAICT, only two of the possible specific punishments are precluded by Smith resigning; expulsion and suspension. Although I'm not sure if service and volunteer roles require you to be a member of the Academy, it's possible they do so his resignation already preclude that but maybe they don't. As AnonMoos said, he could be excluded from ceremonies (and other events or activities) and from future awards or honours. A notable point is that Smith would normally present the best actress award next year. As for BB's point, it's another possibility albeit suggested as unlikely. One thing not specifically clarified is whether the Academy can demand the statue is returned with some legal backing. I suspect they can, but either way they can at least revoke the award. On the expulsion and suspension point, while it isn't specifically mentioned it seems likely whether under expulsion/suspension or the exclusion thing or “other sanctions that the Academy in its sole discretion may deem appropriate”; Smith could be temporarily or permanently banned from the Academy i.e. could not rejoin even if he wanted too. Note the fact that Smith was a member of the Academy during the whole thing may further complicate things, see for example this fairly unrelated and old (i.e. possibly out of date) legal case surrounding whether a fine issued by a union to someone who was a member at the time but left to avoid paying it, is legally enforceable [2]. (Edit as I also wrote below, I'm not suggesting this is a likely punishment, it might not even be possible given the Academy's constitution etc. But the OP's question seem generalised asking about what an organisation could do about someone who is no longer a member but was when when the events of the disciplinary proceeding happened.) Nil Einne (talk) 17:16, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I did not even think of the "tradition" whereby the Best Actor winner of the prior year presents the Oscar to the Best Actress winner of the following year. Wow, that will be awkward at the 95th ceremony next year. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:21, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Given recent history I should emphasise the Academy is well known for being not a union indeed it was initially anti-union. Also while researching this answer I found out that the SAG-AFTRA has also opened disciplinary proceedings into Will Smith. However my answer is not a comment on them in any way, I avoided opening any of the many links I came across even though it's possible they would have helped since I wanted to avoid any suggestion I was talking about Will Smith and the SAG-AFTRA or any other union.

Fines aside, the limits of what unions can do is perhaps a useful comparison as to what sanctions an organisation can legally do which may affect a non member. I vaguely recalled reading during some entertainment strike in the US that even non union strike breakers were affected. I thought I read they might be prevented from working on future union productions but after a lot of research I'm fairly sure this is wrong.

A union may forbid someone from joining the union and some unions did say they would do so to non members [3], or alternatively ban them for a certain period [4]. But even for a union shop beyond the loss of any union benefits the most that is supposed to happen in terms of future job prospects, is they still have to pay the dues or even only the parts related to collective bargaining etc while not being part of the union. Note that the union shop is fairly universal among unions in the entertainment field in the US and the most you get since the closed shop is forbidden under the Taft–Hartley Act. Anyway if they pay what's needed, at least theoretically, they aren't supposed to be discriminated against because they aren't part of the union etc. See [5] which while an anti-union site concurs with our messy extremely pro union Financial core, [6] and other things I've read.

The fi-core is extremely controversial in the entertainment field as it allows people to work on union jobs while also working on non-union jobs something prevented by most entertainment unions in states without right to work laws, see e.g. [7]. Mostly this relates to people who join the union and then leave under the fi-core system, but AFAICT, this applies to those who were never members because they're not allowed to join, and those who leave for other reasons or are banned after joining, so I'm fairly sure Deadline is right here [8]. (As per the NRTW site and my earlier link, they may still be subject to disciplinary action for stuff they did while members.)

However one thing I wasn't able to definitely answer is whether unions can effectively black list someone for reasons unrelated to their membership [9]. There is the infamous albeit very old Hollywood blacklist, and more recently Harvey Weinstein was said to have black listed people for illegitimate reasons, which implies that there must be legitimate ones.

In other words, can an organisation require that their members don't work with a person under possibly penalty of themselves being subject to disciplinary proceedings? Both before and after research, the answer seems likely to be "it depends on why, their constitution, etc". (To be clear I see no chance the Academy or for that matter the SAG-AFTRA will forbid members from working with Will Smith. My point wasn't the chance of this happening, but instead on what powers an organisation may have against someone who isn't a member.)

Nil Einne (talk) 21:43, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

My initial reaction -- when I heard the news of Smith's resignation was this. Smith knew that -- pretty much -- the worst that they (the Academy) could do was to expel him or to suspend him of his AMPAS membership. Once he's not a member (i.e., if he were to resign), they (AMPAS) don't have a lot of options to "discipline" a non-member. So, he resigned ... almost as a cagey, sneaky, clever, pre-emptive strike ... to "de-fang" the Academy of its most serious possible consequences. That was my thinking. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:27, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Resigning doesn't always get you off the hook [10]. 80.44.92.176 (talk) 10:30, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Can I resubmit it?

Draft:Meena-Mina controversy -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 10:05, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

You've posted your question in the wrong place. This page is for general knowledge questions, you want Wikipedia:Help desk. --Viennese Waltz 10:15, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

What about Eena and Mo? --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:02, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Muscovite–Novgorod wars

What is the common English name, if any, for the 15th-century conflict between the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Novgorod Republic? The Russian wiki has Московско-новгородские войны (Muscovite–Novgorod wars), but this doesn't appear to be a thing in English-language sources. I also checked the related Battle of Shelon and Marfa Boretskaya, but none names the war. Brandmeister^talk 14:16, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Here's a 1967 journal article on "The Fate of the Novgorodian Republic" which calls the conflict "a number of military campaigns". Our article Novgorod Land says "Ivan III launched his first campaign against Novgorod in 1471", but Vasily the Blind's attack on Novgorod in 1456 should also be part of the thing you're trying to name. The term campaigns has some precendent, anyway. (Compare Livonian campaign against Rus'.) Something like "Russian campaigns against Novgorod" sounds reasonable to me, if it's correct to say Russian in this context (maybe Muscovian instead?)  Card Zero  (talk) 15:24, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Part of the "Gathering of the Russian Lands" or Ivan III/Muscovite "conquest of Novgorod" seem the most common. You looking for an article title, or a descriptive phrase in other article content? fiveby(zero) 15:43, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm looking for an article title. Brandmeister^talk 07:38, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

There does not appear to be a specific en.wikipedia article about said war. Parts of it are covered in articles such as Territorial evolution of Russia, the aformentioned Novgorod Land article, Ivan III of Russia#Territorial expansion, and Novgorod Republic#Fall of the Republic. --Jayron32 15:44, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Psychology of Russian soldiers in Ukraine

So far, I have always had the understanding that the bulk of the Russian troops in Ukraine are young kids from the countryside who, blinded by propaganda, don't know any better. Now, in this article from a reliable German source (sorry that it's behind a paywall) I read that they are employing a number of practices, such as Double tap strike, which clearly violate even the most basic sense of humanity. (Yes, I know, there are signs of bad morale in the Russian troupes, but the majority still seems to support their Gröfaz (de).) I'm not writing this merely in order to vent my outrage - after all, coming from Germany, I am in no position to point the finger at other countries in this regard.

The goal of my question here is to reach some understanding. What is going on psychologically in these people? For the behavior of Nazi troops and concentration camp wardens, there are a number of concepts, such as xenophobia and racism, which can explain why they treated other human beings as animals, but these don't apply here, since Ukraine has been considered a "sister nation" for a long time.  Sebastian 20:47, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

The majority of low-ranking cannon-fodder (especially in the northern areas of invasion) could be young recent recruits, while many of the higher-ups, or other personnel who have been in the Russian military for a long time, could be using in Ukraine tactics they previously used in Syria or Chechnya. There's not really a contradiction... AnonMoos (talk) 23:47, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Your answer seems to assume a surgically clear distinction between those that “use” the tactics (by which I suppose you mean “decide”) and those who execute them. Is there such an impenetrable class system in the Russian forces? ◅ Sebastian 09:17, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

You're overinterpreting what I said. New recruits probably would be unlikely to use Chechnya or Syria tactics on their own initiative, but many of those who have been in Chechnya and Syria are likely to have fewer inhibitions. AnonMoos (talk) 21:32, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Don't forget that the oppressed Ukrainians are eager to welcome the Russian liberators but are held back from doing so by the fanatic genocidal neo-Nazis that fight against the heroic Russian army. Since only military sites are hit, pummeling them twice is only fair.  --Lambiam 00:09, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

That's basically my question. If only a small fraction of the horrible pictures we have been seeing every day now is true, then there must be many soldiers who have seen the carnage inflicted on civilians. Or are you saying that people can be so indoctrinated that they can't distinguish a pram from a tank anymore? ◅ Sebastian 09:17, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

The ones firing the rockets or dropping the bombs are distant from the locations where their weapons inflict their damage. So are we (at least I), but we see these painful images on the TV. I think they do not.  --Lambiam 12:12, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

"Do what I say or I will lock up/torture/kill you/your family" turns out to often be a good motivator. The Schutzstaffel put an emphasis on recruiting "family men" because they were judged to be more reliable in following orders. --47.147.118.55 (talk) 01:37, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

That may be a factor, but even so, in the end there should be – in a “special operation” that often has run out of control, where people on both sides are losing count of their dead, in a country where many people speak the same language – plenty of chances to escape the watchdogs without them knowing if you're dead or alive. Once people realize they're just cannon fodder for a fratricide, shouldn't the vast majority desperately seek such opportunities? ◅ Sebastian 09:17, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think we should be drawing a parallel with the SS unless we have a source (see Godwin's law). Some points:

• In all wars, it's necessary to portray the opponents as the "bad guys" and there is plenty of Russian propaganda claiming (possibly correctly) Ukrainian humanitarian violations during the prolonged fighting in the Donbas, which might be seen as justification.
• In every society, there are aggressive and violent people and these traits are encouraged to an extent by military training where they are sometimes necessary. Western armies go to a great of trouble to keep these carefully channelled, but maybe this isn't so much of a concern for the Russians, and it seems they have severe command-and-control issues on the battlefield.
• Just about every active army has been tainted with some major human rights breaches; Bloody Sunday, Mỹ Lai and Abu Ghraib spring to mind. Even the inoffensive Dutch have the Rawagede massacre and the Niš cluster bombing to their discredit. Alansplodge (talk) 09:06, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

By way of a reference, The Psychology of War Crimes discusses why soldiers obey orders to mistreat people, but there may also be cases where the culture of an army (or a wider society) and a lack of supervision, encourages soldiers to commit war crimes on their own initiative, as at Abu Ghraib. Alansplodge (talk) 09:10, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Alansplodge, those are good points that give me food for thought. I especially appreciate the bigger perspective you're providing with the references to other situations around the globe. Would you have an example where the belligerents were close enough to consider each other something like a sister nation? ◅ Sebastian 09:27, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Maybe the American Revolutionary War or any civil war? ◅ Sebastian 09:42, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

It appears that nobody can come up with any comparable example, nor an explanation that leaves any chance to keep even an element of respect for the Russian side. At the same time we're seeing more and more extremely disturbing news in this matter. So it is with profound sadness that I am giving up any hope of contributing to peace by looking for the humanity of the perpetrators.

I'm not saying that no such path exists. Possibly someone studying The Psychology of War Crimes might find one. But that would be an achievement worthy of a Nobel Price for Peace – way above my league. ◅ Sebastian 05:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

'Humanity' and 'perpetrators' require exact definitions in this context and not any loose usage. In some senses the contribution to peace was made long ago, we do not "look" for the humanity of anyone, the very basis of liberalism is that we never deny it. fiveby(zero) 15:12, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Your post is based on a misunderstanding. “Humanity” has more than one meaning – see Merriam-Webster. I meant meaning #1, you understood #2. Of course, I agree with you on meaning #2. ◅ Sebastian 20:11, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Sorry I've tried to ignore the OP's soapboxing but I just can't any more so yes I'll soapbox myself Nil Einne (talk) 14:00, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I've tried to ignore this but with the OP's latest post I just can't. I've said before I detest what is happening in Ukraine but I'm also deeply troubled by the OP's implications there's something somehow unique about what is going on in Ukraine beyond the fact it's a prosperous well developed European countries with a decent military. In addition to Fiveby's post, it's worth noting that according to our article, the inhumane (as per the OP) double tap strike has been used by the US in Pakistan and Yemen. As per Lambiam's point, I'm sure one justification the US has used is that they're all militants so it's fine. But this gets into how we actually know beyond blindly trusting the US or weird definitions sometimes used like everyone who has a weapon in a current as violent as those or especially Afghanistan or Iraq must be a militant. If we stick with Yemen, while undoubtedly a lot of horrors are going on in Ukraine, there's a lot of horrors going on in Yemen too but generally ignored except for the occasional mention when it go too severe. These have mostly been committed by Saudi Arabia and/or the UAE along with the Houthis and (generally less directly) Iran, but the two former have often been using support and weapons from the West. This has often included maintenance of military aircraft etc. [11] (OTOH, the US seems quite willing to try and cut off all maintenance for Russian civilian aircraft when they can, including threatening anyone who tries with US sanctions. This may mean some who haven't banned Russian airlines will be forced to do so, but the more likely effect as with Iran is that they will continue to travel but with aircraft increasingly at risk of major incidents including crashes due to a lack of maintenance.) The conflict in Yemen is an interesting case study in the complexity of relationships. As Houthi movement mentions, while they are Shia who have sometimes mistreated Sunni Muslims, they have allied with some at times too. They are also Arabs, as with most Yemenis. And it's not like the areas they control are exclusively Shia. I mean attacking a prison [12] may even mean killing those who have been mistreated for being Sunni. (To be clear, I'm not suggesting anyone involved knew it was a prison at the time.) Are these collateral damage, still not "sisterly" enough or ??? Beyond those directly killed in attacks, there are many again including many Sunni Arabs killed by starvation etc thanks in no small part to the Saudi Arabian blockade. While okay, a lot of this is indirect e.g. the blockade and air attacks and there are fewer people on the ground, this has also meant it's easy for images etc to get out very fast. And despite the censorship in Saudi Arabia and to a less extent the UAE, it's been going on for so long, one would assume quite a few Saudi Arabians and Emiratis involved know about what's going on; but it still goes on. And yes, pan-Arabism is a somewhat recent development, there's still a fair amount of tribalism in those areas, but I think it's way too simplistic to suggest that's why people are fine with these deaths. Meanwhile major Western powers like the US and frankly even Germany clearly have the ability to tell Saudi Arabia to fuck off and override the blockade or do other stuff, but they don't. Although yes you could say racism and a lack of care about people who are seen as different or always dying or killing each other etc is one reason but then this also harks back to my first point about how what's going on in Ukraine isn't really unique. Since it's only so if you embrace such views. And meanwhile, no one seems to know what to do about Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover and too few seem to care. While the Taliban may be horrors in many ways, it doesn't seem they're intentionally trying to starve or freeze their people, instead their takeover and no one wanting to deal with them means the Afghanistan economy has collapsed and most aid the relied on has dried up. Enough has been done to avoid the worse predictions for now [13], whether that's going to continue though, that doesn't seem clear. The OP mention the US civil war, but while quite few civil wars involve people with different ethnicity or religions fighting each other, there are a lot of civil war and conflicts which involved other recent disputes generally political i.e. these are not centuries long views of each other as a foe. For example when South American dictators were torturing, throwing people out of airplanes often with the tactic support of the US and probably parts of Western Europe, this was generally mostly due to recent political differences. (And by no means were children etc spared these atrocities.) Korea and China/Taiwan are other disputes largely political. I won't bother to discuss Libya, Syria, Chechnya (both which has already came up), Egypt, Lebanon, Mali, Ethiopia or the hotbutton of them all Israel/Palestine but them and many other examples are worth looking in to if you think Ukraine is somehow an outlier nowadays in terms of what people are willing to do to each other when you convince them somehow the other side is the enemy. Incidentally, in the early days of the Ukrainian conflict, there were ample reports of Ukrainian border guards etc preventing African and Indian non-citizen residents mostly students from leaving giving priority to white Ukrainians. While it wasn't totally clear from what I read how much this involved Polish officials, there were also reports of them being mistreated or threatened in Polish border towns. [14] Most of these people probably didn't want to stay in Poland anyway, I mean they wanted to continue their studies somewhere if possible and would have been fine doing that in Poland but in the absence of that then they'll probably have gone home. Showing how farcical this was, Nigeria at one stage suggested their citizens go to Hungary instead [15], where self-styled illiberal democrat Viktor Orban with his well known controversial views on migrants etc has now won re-election [16]. (Although it is true that Poland and Hungary have recently been competing to see who can annoy the EU etc the most with their policies including hardline stances on migration.) I won't bother to discuss Belarus's attempts to use migrants to punish the EU and the Polish response including many reports of pushbacks and abuse which the EU seemed to have tactically accepted but it's something else worth looking into. [17] Back to Ukraine, perhaps using molotovs cocktails [18] and poisoning soldiers with offered pastries [19] [20] is a form of legitimate resistance, but even if we put aside whether it'll be seen that way or instead terrorist attacks in a different conflict, it doesn't seem it will help Russian soldiers see civilians as civilians instead of deadly enemies. While this doesn't excuse atrocities committed, we've seen in many many conflicts, Afghanistan and Vietnam are obvious examples involving the West where ethnicity, religious or other differences aside; one factor which seems to have made forces involved willing to commit atrocities is they began to see everyone as the enemy in part because of how easy it was for someone who seemed a civilian to be a combatant. And while it's hard to know in the fog of war, all reports suggest quite a few Russians military personnel have been killed. Vast majority may have been by Ukrainian military but ultimately if your comrades (collegues or even friends) are being killed, it doesn't seem that surprising your views on everyone on the other side may harden. While you may also blame your commanders to some extent, this tends to be more about preparation, tactics, planning etc. As mentioned by others above, military training often discourages anything thinking about the legitimacy of a conflict and especially that your side is the "evil" one. (I'm reminded of the FPS America's Army which was funded by the US government where for understandable reasons you were always the US Army even though as a classic team PvP FPS, the two teams were always on opposite sides.) Alansplodge already mention this, but will Putin's de-Nazification is utter crap his claim about atrocities in the civil war by the Ukrainian side is mostly likely just serious overblown rather than utter bullshit. It's probably also worth looking into why the Azov Battalion was so successful. And the Ukrainians haven't been particularly friendly to Russian culture or language among their citizens in recent times. Yet it's perhaps not surprising there is mistrust and a hardening on views when there is a civil war and a divided territory, and this occurs on both sides. And we also shouldn't ignore how someone's world view significantly affects what they see is happening. This relates to points made above by Lambiam and others, a number of the atrocities have been committed fairly remote. The theater bombing is one specific example which received a lot of attention for a time. But while it's easy for us to say how could you do that, they even wrote kids on the ground; it's also easy to imagine some of those involved thought and probably still think pull the other leg with your Ukrainian propaganda, what weapons are you hiding there? That said though, I've also recently seen reports which answered one question I had before the conflict began namely how the Russian government who was seemingly up until not long before they attacked saying it was all Western propaganda etc would deal with the switch. At the time the US etc were suggesting a false flag attack but for whatever reason this never happened. Instead the Russians just seem to have just tried with suddenly emphasising the Nazi points etc. Anyway according to these reports one of the reasons for the low morale beyond the failures, deaths etc has been because there are a fair few on the ground who are confused about what they're doing given what they were told until very recently. Nil Einne (talk) 14:00, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Before addressing the one point that goes in the direction of an answer to my question, allow me to clarify two misunderstandings here, in addition to the misunderstanding addressed above:

1. It never was my intent to step on any soapbox here. From the onset, the purpose of my question has been to reshape my understanding.
2. Nobody denies that terrible things are going on elsewhere in the world. I regard your long list as an expression of your compassion for these other parts of the world, and I wholeheartedly sympathize with you on this. You are absolutely right that these, too, are “worth looking in to”. You may feel I am biased to focus on this one conflict among so many. Please understand that this is just because I can't shoulder all problems of this world. There has been a time when I dedicated much more time to a conflict that's much closer to where you're from. Now's the time for me to be concerned about Europe.

The one point of yours which seems to be going in the direction of an answer to my question: “one factor which seems to have made forces involved willing to commit atrocities is they began to see everyone as the enemy in part because of how easy it was for someone who seemed a civilian to be a combatant”. There's something to that point, but there are two problems with it: ① It doesn't square with targeting children's hospitals and others that are clearly no combatants. ② It belies the very reason Russians have been told why they're there: To liberate the “sister nation”. ◅ Sebastian 20:11, 5 April 2022 (UTC)