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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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it is social and sexual expression

Exactly.

The thing about Islam is that it's a religion from a place that has basically zero natural resources; it's starting from a condition of overpopulation and permanent, complete dependence on resource-gatherers (i.e. men) with very little to invest in industry or other secondary development (men extract, women refine, but refining can't happen without extraction, they have no way to increase extraction, and are barely extracting enough as-is).

Thus women in that religion remain a mere resource to be managed and controlled; time and resources spent on their desires and flourishing is in that context a deadweight loss. And because this has been the default state for all but the most recent ~15 generations of humankind (for Europeans and their Consequential Industrial Revolutions, less than that or even 0 for other parts of the world), this default state is baked into male biology and requires some effort to overcome (and note that it's only "misogyny" if the surrounding society is advanced enough to make running on pure biology maladaptive; everywhere else just calls that "normal gender relations").

Religions that have their genesis in lands of material plenty without relative overpopulation tend to be able to cope with women able to act as men through technological advancement much better. Islam succeeds when areas become more populated and less technologically advanced, which is probably why the European elite (who uniquely have technological devolution as a core tenet of their own religion- their desire to murder their fellow citizens and otherwise degrade their standard of living is universal) get along with them so easily.

Until the industrial revolution everyone in the long run was either (1) in a Malthusian trap, (2) had a lot of war, or (3) had a lot of disease. Before sustained economic growth and birth control, something bad was always the check on population growth.

But the same is true of almost all other cultures. Even China had pretty strong control over women (look up foot binding) and most of the rest of us have long since ditched those controls. Some of the results are obviously good — women can contribute to earning money for the household, they can make and sell art, and aren’t restricted in communication with the rest of society. And some are quite obviously bad— children essentially raised as daycare orphans, single mothers, the denigration of the military as it must loosen necessary requirements to accommodate women who aren’t and cannot meet the standards, the growth of welfare state benefits out of proportion to the growth of the tax revenue collected, safetyism.

I thought foot binding was a largely upper-class phenomenon as a result of a Versailles-esque status-game gone bonkers, which then spread among the general population?

I followed you up until the point you lost me. Islam as a religion-as-meme uniquely suited to areas with low resources makes intuitive sense to me.

However, the meme might break down a bit once you look at the oil-producing gulf states awash in plenty. Maybe their inclinations towards religious extremism is toned down by the generous state handouts.

And finally, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to call the European elite technological devolutionists, but saying they have a desire to murder their fellow citizens and otherwise degrade their standard of living is probably pushing it. I think it's altogether more insidious; it's vibes. They are bound to a vision of technological devolution because they're attracted to a future where they can recreate classical paintings of bountiful farmlands of plenty, vs the banlieues and urban hellholes of depreciated industry, it's an aesthetic and a fad. They'll loop back to something else just as insane in a few decades. They don't want to murder their fellow citizens, they don't even think of them as fellow citizens. I fall on the side of believing their misery happens entirely as a side effect of the European elite's quest for vibes, not out of any active desire to see them suffer. The elephant doesn't consider the ants it crushes.

However, the meme might break down a bit once you look at the oil-producing gulf states awash in plenty. Maybe their inclinations towards religious extremism is toned down by the generous state handouts.

The Gulf states not being awash in oil money is still in living memory in those places- they have liberalized a bit, but they're going to need more time. Countries that did technically speedrun those changes (thinking mostly of the Asian ones) still took a hundred-ish years to see major changes and their culture didn't start in the desert.

They don't want to murder their fellow citizens, they don't even think of them as fellow citizens

But they still do want to murder them, proof upthread. Also, that's pretty funny, considering the elites' entire problem with the riots is that the natives pretty clearly don't see the new imports as "fellow citizens". But then again, citizenship is for subjects.

Enh, he was a former councilor and he was arrested. A proper elite wouldn't have been arrested. This is a clown playing to his audience misreading the audience a bit. If this man was anywhere close to elite, he would have actually murdered his fellow citizens if the urge struck, and gotten away with it.