This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I want to argue with you, but it's hard to. I've also been profoundly distressed that Trump is the best our nation can muster in defense of it's founding principles, before they are abolished entirely and written out of history. He's like a fucking child, pretending to be Thomas Jefferson. He can gesture at ideas he doesn't understand, but knows the adults in the room talk about with reverence. He governs like my four year old pretends to woodwork in the shop with me. Which is to say, he sits at his desk, mimes some actions he thinks he's seen politicians do, but has no understanding of how to work the levers of power. He's also not allowed to use any of the real tools actual politicians use to govern.
And yet, he's it. He's all that's left. Americanism has been extirpated from all the institutions that train up future leaders. Nobody with experience working the levers of power will ever believe in our founding principles ever again. That's how thoroughly our nation has been attacked and conquered. I'm waiting for three letter agencies to start quartering troops in our homes just to teabag the bill of rights completely. It's going to be an increasingly centralized command economy, increasingly looting the country to give party members in good standing the spoils, and fewer and fewer rights and standards of living for everyone else. And probably flooding the country with people who will rape, maim and murder the founding stock of the nation.
The conservative movement does have people who are extremely smart and capable: Vance, DeSantis, Thiel, and Musk for example.
But they can't speak to the people because, as you mention, the people just want government handouts, legal marijuana, and Doordash.
Trump can speak to the rubes, and he is willing to work with the smart people in the room. Choosing Vance is evidence of that. It might not be much, but it's the best we've got. The alternative is just more socialism forever.
I'll put DeSantis down as a maybe, but Vance, Thiel and Musk are radical libertarian opportunist. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have their help, god knows we need it. They might even put off the abolition of free speech 5 or 10 extra years. But their entire temperament is wrong to "conserve" anything. Their have that typical silicon valley mantra of "move fast and break things". Works great when you are building an unmanned reusable rocket. Less great when you are attempting to restore the republic.
Unless you are using the Romans as your template. But that only buys a generation or so of time, at most. Though it would be satisfying.
I disagree. Actually much of the libertarian right, via a ton of really weird reverse-engineering of religion through game theory and such a la @coffee_enjoyer, have come to genuinely respect religious institutions and social coordination mechanisms.
In fact, a few of them have even genuinely converted to religious beliefs privately, I have heard through the grapevine. (Not the figures I mentioned, but some in that space)
We're going through a massive religious revival at the moment, it just hasn't gotten the public's attention yet due to censorship of anything right-coded and the tight grip of the media. I don't think it will be long before you start to see more and more of these figures publicly coming out as religious.
There may be a religious revival among a very certain set of previously agnostic to atheist right-leaning people in specific industries who spend a lot of time on Twitter, I see no evidence in church attendance numbers or other factors of any actual shift in religiosity among the larger population.
More options
Context Copy link
The religious revival is notable for only really happening among heterosexual white men. I believe this is because it’s become clear to everyone that the ruling belief system has no place for heterosexuals or white men, and they’re searching for an alternative belief system and community that values and valorizes heterosexuality instead of rejecting and demonizing it. The young straight men I know are either depressed and demoralized, or they’re religious.
Old religions have the social proof and track record to do this. They’re also attracted to personal development and ideological purity, which is why traditional Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and to a lesser extent confessional Protestantism, are the religions of choice. Evangelicals bend too far to try and appeal to the world with laser shows and electric guitars, and mainlines try too hard to appeal to the world with ideological indifference.
But the problem is it takes two to tango, and straight women are the movers and shakers of the ruling belief system. So you’re ending up with straight men crowding into Latin masses and Divine Liturgies, with the women there so crowded with male attention that it might as well be Tinder or so obsessed with a rigid sense of gender roles that no spiritually-sensitive man could ever be masculine enough for them. The one exception I’ve found is the genuinely rad-trad Catholics who are comfortable attending mass at SSPX chapels, where there do seem to be a lot of women. This certainly has a lot to do with having 7 children to a family, approximately half of which will statistically be women.
I don’t actually know if this current wave of religious revival will last, if it can’t reproduce it can’t persist. Rad trad Catholics will, but I don’t have much optimism for the future of Eastern Orthodoxy in America as I think the orthobro converts will burn themselves out, and the evangelistic and phyletistic contradictions at the heart of Orthodox ecclesiology will eventually show their ugly face.
Maybe this is just local conditions but in my (heavily convert) Orthodox parish a supermajority of people have converted as couples or families, and I've not noticed anything like the conditions you are describing among those who are/were single. If anything it's been the single young women who have been most desperate to get married -- which they are succeeding at. (Though I wouldn't read as much into that part, the sample size is pretty small.)
More options
Context Copy link
Thanks for the mention!
Yeah, I have no idea how the coming years are going to shake out. Looking to political data (since that's what I know has been tracked), there's clearly a large gap between young men and women between conservatives and liberals. I know South Korea's had the same problem. People don't exactly like marrying across partisan lines, so I imagine that'll be a source of some dissatisfaction? Presumably this presidential election will have one of the largest gender splits in a while.
I wish we had better religious stats, I'd find that quite interesting.
In a lot of ways this election does seem to be the men vs. women election -- abortion, childless cat ladies, blowjob Kamala, Republicans are weird, couch fucking, horse semen. Everything's just so... sexual.
I realize we've had discussions about politicians' sex lives before, but this election is simply NSFW. Genuinely. I've heard way too much about candidates' sex organs than I would have liked to hear in a lifetime. It's like the story of our election is being written by a horny teenager. Is this just what happens when you throw off all sexual restraint and couple it with mass sexlessness?
And put it online.
Yeah. This also feels like the first real internet election in the sense that the memes are defining the campaigns. That’s why the election feels so fake.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Rad trad Catholics have a TFR of 3.6 based off of shitty internal data. This is almost certainly being dragged down a bit by a lower than desired marriage rate. No idea if that’ll get fixed. 3.6 sounds like it should be above replacement when you account for generational apostasy, and most outside observers seem to agree that it is, but the apostasy rate isn’t really known- other than higher for men than women.
Proportionally, there are more rad trad Catholics in France- much more hostile to religious minorities- than in the USA, so there’s almost certainly some level of ability to weather hostility in place. Rad trad institution building is, however, strongly hampered by things like internal divisions.
This is news to me. What do you think is causing this?
-Actual IRL tradcaths socialize their daughters to be shy, stick close to their parents, and not party or stay out late. This makes it harder for young people to meet on their own.
-Actual IRL tradcaths expect men to be full time employed in potential provider roles before beginning to date. The geographic effects of this(young men having to move away to get good jobs) tend to distort local gender balances, and young women are socially expected to live with their parents until they marry so it can’t self-correct. There’s also some minor effects with social skills but most men figure those out quickly enough.
-Gender roles in the community can have a gender-segregating effect which combines with a cultural prejudice that the man pursues to make it harder for young people to meet organically.
-Some young people are becoming monks/priests/nuns. Worrying about whether to do so isn’t the main factor but it makes it mildly more difficult to escalate from ‘meeting’ to ‘dating’ for a population which is already a bit awkward with the opposite sex.
-Social uberconservatism can make it difficult to date by imposing lots of extra rules.
-As mentioned above, you can’t date unless that couple can have the woman stay home full time. Student loans are sometimes a factor taking women out of the marriage market for that reason- payments simply need to be bought down first.
The first two factors are definitely the big ones. If the community were better organized I suspect there would be some equivalent of shidduch independently derived but it’s not. Most influential lay community members recognize the situation as a problem but will not coordinate well enough with each other to make more than partial, patchwork progress.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The religious revival is, if anything, a reactionary retreat in response to the disgusting progressive ideology. I will use such a negatively loaded term because the actual visceral response most normies have to Drag Kids, or Black Crime Is Just Unfair Noticing, or Public Junkie Defecation Is Part And Parcel Of Living In A Big City is disgust.
Secular humanism and urban social dynamics have turned out to be bitter tinctures because progressive shibboleths have not been filtered for failure. With the continual rot of safety and education failings being unable to address due to the moral sanctity of the poisoners, religion is a steady bulwark standing against the continual social degradation. It is no surprise that some would find genuine comfort in religion as a result.
I honestly don't think Musk Thiel Vance are especially intelligent and capable. Certainly their public profile allows for such generous assessments to be feted, but thats just a best-fit for the Smartsuit, not that the suit actually fits. Too many normies don't think especially highly of Musk or Vance, and Thiel is not on the public radar. Also, Trump kicked out the last smartdicks he had (Tillerson, Mattis, Bolton - I accept the controversy about this dude, pls no bully), so there is a risk that being smart isn't actually good enough to stay in the cabinet.
I’m honestly curious, this isn’t a gotcha — if they’re not, could you name some public figures who are?
I'm not American so any specific figure hidden in the deep woods is likely to escape my current notice. I will state that I do pay attention to track records as evidence for total success, and mere participation in one successful project doesn't make up for historical failures. Musk powered through to get Space X and Tesla working despite immense (and to my mind still extant) disadvantages, and X is a flailing shitpile (along with Optimus, Hyperloop, The Boring Company, Neuralink and other stupid ass ideas). Thiel and Vance are SV VC who have culture war trappings drawing eyeballs to them and their decent-but-not-especially-outsize performance. @SlowBoy is right in saying that Musk beat Boeing and NASA with SpaceX, but that highlights the incapability of Boeing more than anything else, and Thiel is... like, he founded PayPal. Great investor/manager maybe, not exactly genius planetbrain.
My gut is basically 'when this man speaks does his rambling pass the smell test'. I'm too old and lazy to hyperoptimize and backtrace, so just based on gut for recent supposed smartdicks I've seen interviewed on whatever shitty clip floats to my attention. The following logarithmic scale is my assessment of smartdickiness, with 0/10 being College Educated Corporate Professional With 10 Years Of Experience And Steady Career Profession With No Fuckups. The modal mottizen is probably a 3-5/10 on this smartdick scale. A 10/10 galaxybrain is I dunno, a combination of Nikola Tesla, the Black Scholes dudes, Grace Hopper, and lets throw in Billy Beane and Michael Jackson (americentric references due to availability and common reference pools).
If forced to choose the closest I'd rank as a modern singular smartdick I'll demurr and give the following options (weighted for visibility and common knowledge osmosis),
Chase CEO Jamie Dimon 7/10
Berkshire chancellor Charlie Munger: soft 7.5 (or 8)/10
Stephen Cohen (the one I think actually has the sauce instead of Thiel) firm 8/10
(sigh) Steve Jobs: 8.5/10. The man had the product design and pivoting flexibility to drive the change we see in modern microcomputing. Theres a reason every SV blowhard wants to copy his style.
For reference I'd rank the 3 i cited as follows: Vance 5-6.5/10 Musk 6.5-7.5/10 Thiel 7-7.5/10
I do not think Musk Vance and Thiel are stupid at all, they clearly are smart enough to avoid crippling fuckups and have pushed appropriately for given opportunities. However I do think that current conservative fluffing of these particular smartdicks is to contrast them against the cucked college educated cowards abasing themselves to performative wokeness. The motivated reasoning to claim that these men are Truly Intelligent comports their actual achievements into parody. We fete these men as kings among sheep because they dare to stand against the intelligensia, even if their crown ill fits.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Musk and Thiel both invented some of the most important companies of the century. Just one of Musk's companies, SpaceX, now outperforms NASA and Boeing. Thiel is one of thr godfathers of Silicon Valley, one of the most competitive and important corporate battlegrounds in the world. They are probably two of the most capable men in the world.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link