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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 2, 2024

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It's the generic (and often unconscious) response to people being uncivilized on the left:

  • We ought to empathize with them, and take seriously whatever motivated them to such actions.

  • We can't put expect anything of them, because they're uncivilized.

  • We can't expect to influence them, because they're uncivilized. (And is it even right to try to sway them from it, given the justifications that they have for it?)

  • Instead, responsibility should be loaded upon those who react too harshly, because they should have known better. And we should feel bad for the victims of the response.

This is precisely the same path that leads people to adopt soft-on-crime prosecutors, and generally punish those who retaliate against the lawless. It happens often when it's easier or involves less unpleasantness for the state to punish those who are otherwise productive, than those who are wild.

This is the default thought pattern that happens when sympathy and responsibility get loaded onto different parties in some conflict. It clearly correlates with seeing things as oppressor (responsible) and oppressed (sympathetic), which is tied to why it's more common on the left, I think.

See Daniel Penny, see the UK riots (and speech arrests), see opinions on cops (when unjustified), etc.


I imagine things will get a lot better for you, if the 2024 election goes to Trump, and worse if it goes to Harris.