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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28320 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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I happened to speak with two Canadians this month and in both cases housing was brought up. One told me that there were too many immigrants arriving too fast but that their country of origin was immaterial, and in any case Canadians don’t have a right to complain because of the residential schools controversy. The other told me point blank there were way too many Indians arriving, that it is ruining the country and that they would vote for Trump if they lived in America. The former was a white Canadian of colonial stock and the latter was a first-gen Pakistani replete with accent.

As a migrant who mainly works with migrants , the complaints about housing and traffic are identical to what you'd assume the white "racist" would say.

It's at the point where more secure migrants are annoyed at the last wave.

Canadians don’t have a right to complain because of the residential schools controversy

I hate the idea that the residential schools narrative (and narratives of similar nature) could be so effective. How do you even begin to deprogram such a person?

Maybe just callously adopting your local equivalent of 'Armenian genocide? made up nonsense, and they deserved it all anyway' is the meta. Admittedly I'm biased in that direction.

I mean, residential school mass graves are quite literally made up.

When the "graves" were dug up and showed that the interpretations of ground penetrating data were not evidence of graves, the narrative immediately pivoted to 'starting a conversation'.

Its the rallying cry of idiots caught with their pants down, and our mistake is thinking being caught out is a bad thing for these grifters. The point of a grift is attention. They don't need to be correct or right, just be the juiciest butt progressives can parasite their social media onto for self edification.

Have you guys heard of Welcome To Country? Its basically land acknowledgments but somehow cringier, performed in Australia everyfuckingwhere especially at government level. I am 100% sure they originated as a tokenistic way of fobbing off the concerns of 'indigenous' communities.

While the aussies seem largely uncaring or sick of this government grovelling, the Canadians have been absolutely enthralled by it. White Canadians drooling at the prospect of demonstrating their progressive credentials, to further set themselves apart from their brutal southern kins.

I honestly think the Canadians are going the way of the Scots. A funny accented people whose entire modern existence is defined by differentiating themselves as much as possible from their far more successful and relevant southern brothers, with an almost ironic fetishization of a local orange-brown liquid. Thankfully for the Canadians Maple Syrup is actually good, unlike that disgusting abomination Irn-Bru.

unlike that disgusting abomination Irn-Bru.

Now that I know about this, I would be quite interested in finding a way to try it without having to actually visit that cursed island.

And Canadian accents aren't that funny.

Having recently visited said cursed island (which was delightful and I highly recommend) I can safely say Irn Bru trying was the worst part of the trip. That includes a trip to the cliffs of Mohr that was so foggy we practically couldn't see our hands held out in front of our faces.

You can buy bubblegum soda in the US, Irn Bru is just that.

You can buy it in Ireland too.

It's an overly sweet bubblegum flavour drink that makes cherryade seem sophisticated and grown up.

While the aussies seem largely uncaring or sick of this government grovelling

Depends on the Aussie. People I've met from Melbourne were devastated when the voice referendum failed. I doubt they mind land acknowledgements.

Thankfully for the Canadians Maple Syrup is actually good,

How dare you try to appropriate what rightfully belongs to the Green Mountain State!

The other told me point blank there were way too many Indians arriving, that it is ruining the country and that they would vote for Trump if they lived in America. The former was a white Canadian of colonial stock and the latter was a first-gen Pakistani replete with accent.

Was this an attitude toward South Asian immigrants generally, or a reflection of Indian-Pakistani animosity? I'm assuming the former, but I've seen the latter around from time to time (my favorite example was a mixed group of second-generation students mocking that their parents probably hated each other).

I was told by this person that said animosity completely goes away upon migrating to the West, that Pakistanis hate Indians because they are “uneducated”.

Let’s say the resident school controversy was true. As best I can make out the logic, it is:

  1. Europeans came here and took land from the native population.

  2. Natives suffered as a result.

  3. As a descendent of those Europeans, I am morally responsible.

  4. Therefore it is a good thing if a new population comes here and harms the current natives (ie me).

It seems quite odd to me. First, it assumes generational guilt. And if that is true, then maybe the original natives “deserved” it. It also implies the new population while enacting justice is committing a wrong. Very confusing.

Well, if we did this to the Indians, it's only fair that the Indians get to do it to us.

More seriously, I think that especially among young Canadians, there is a sense that progressive policies have failed. As I write this, I'm walking by a sign advertising our local progressive party (The NDP). The sign sits in front of a number of tents containing the homeless (or "unhoused people"). 9 years ago, when I moved into this neighborhood, it was still not a good neighborhood, but there weren't visible crack pipes, dirty needles, or homeless people shrieking profanities all through the night. The BC NDP decriminalizing drugs has visibly led to an explosion in the homeless population and general appearance of decay.

I live in a rent controlled building. My rent is around $1200 CAD monthly, compared to what would be around $2700 CAD if I were to move in today. The progressive party has failed at keeping life affordable for the middle class (and their federal counterparts literally voted to keep increasing demand on housing.)

What I think has happened is that the youth have reached a point where it is literally impossible to survive with the progressive policies. The insulation that the standard progressive has against the negative repercussions of their policies has been worn away, and when they cry uncle, the government they elected doubles down on the policies hurting them.

It's easy to be progressive when it just means being nice. It's much harder when it means that you rent a tiny shoebox for the rest of your life, and can't start a family, or travel, or do anything but eck out an existence for the corporate overlords the progressives swear they opposed, but who somehow keep doing better and better. And all the while, the government keeps upping taxes, but somehow they're all gone by the time you're supposed to see them.

It’s quite interesting. In New Zealand, the leader of the anti-immigration party is a Maori. But Māori likely have more influence in New Zealand than the first nations do in Canada.

Adding to the confusion, only the guilt is transmitted forward through time. For some reason, none of the credit for building a first world country follows.

The same people saying "You must feel bad for the horrible things your ancestors did" will not even skip a beat before saying "you can't feel pride for the great things your ancestors achieved." So conveniently you can't assume any credit for creating a successful nation, but you get to feel blame for what happened to any minorities or natives who suffered during its creation, just in case you thought those two factors might balance out the ledger.

I am utterly unclear as to the mechanism that allows blame to propagate forward through time and generations but doesn't allow credit and pride to propagate as well.

Some of them hate whites, some of them are aware of the internal tension, and some of them see a sort of collective guilt that needs to be repaired by incorporating minorities into the broader structure of society.

ETA: there's also some revisionist pseudohistory about how blacks/natives/whatever really built the nice societies in question, but I don't think it's the dominant strain of thought.

I am utterly unclear as to the mechanism that allows blame to propagate forward through time and generations but doesn't allow credit and pride to propagate as well.

It's not about a mechanism. It's bullshit wordcelry.

The entire thing exists to harm what's left of the culture of your people and to deprive you of power. That was explicitly stated by the people who made it up, except nobody bothers to read marxist books but people paid to do so or lunatics. Trying to tease about the internal consistency of an ideology seeking your dispossession is just crazy.

Rufo's book "America's Cultural Revolution" goes about the genesis of that bullshit in excruciating, mind numbing details, it's also widely available.

I feel like Canadians used to be very smug about being a first world nation. America with +40% niceness and +20% multiculturalism basically.

I don't know what happened. My social circle has narrowed in terms of ethnic Anglo/native-born Canadians outside of a few at work and my media diet is extremely Americanized (and hyper-guilt driven) so maybe I don't see it as much (or people really are just tired after the recent migrant wave). On the other hand that may be true of Canadians themselves, which might explain the increased pessimism. Or whatever common factor drove the hope-and-change era around the time I arrived in both countries is just done everyone is now more pessimistic.

I am utterly unclear as to the mechanism that allows blame to propagate forward through time and generations but doesn't allow credit and pride to propagate as well.

Other countries didn't succeed in becoming first world nations because Canada/America/the West's success is based on their exploitation. Simple.

Other countries didn't succeed in becoming first world nations because Canada/America/the West's success is based on their exploitation. Simple.

Doesn't really work when you can see how Japan recover from nukes and occupation, or Singapore vaulting to first World status and becoming a beacon of civilization, with little apparent exploitation of other nations.

Works even less when you notice that places like Rhodesia and South America were pretty much first-world or close second-world countries right up until the Western influence withdrew.

I said it was simple, not that you would find it credible. But that's the argument.

You start giving counter-examples and you'll hear about Haiti's reparations, slaves building America, coups in LatAm, how India had X% of the world's GDP before Britain looted it, bad borders in Africa and the ME, sanctions against Zimbabwe meanwhile honorary white Japan (which was spared colonialism - somehow) was needed as a bulwark against the Soviets and so was treated relatively well. They have explanations, it's just a matter of how much you think they're cope (I've swung over to the "cope" side but I change most of my opinions an average of every eight years and I'm in the "converted zealot" stage and it's really not helpful for digging out nuance.)

It may not hold up but it's the closest thing to a coherent justification for the asymmetry I've seen.

You asked for some theory that would allow one and not the other, not just an explanation of nakedly self-serving behavior. I doubt anyone needs to hear "my opponents want me to believe things that help them and to avoid things that don't" from me.

No, I get that.

Its just every epicycle they have to add makes it less credible to me.

It is one thing to point to some guy who inherited wealth built on the backs of actual slaves or exploitation, and say that maybe he doesn't deserve everything he has.

Quite another to point at somebody who just happened to be born into a civilization that was built in part on the back of slaves and through exploitation of weaker neighbors, and claim that just because his ancestors bled, died, and labored to build a nation so nice that everybody wants to move there he doesn't get to be proud of himself... and he also should feel guilt for all the people that were exploited to build the nation (which includes his ancestors, mind!).

I've said it elsewhere, the lesson of politics since about 2010 is "identity politics and racial grievances are a great way to get others to do what you want and give you their stuff."

Of course the end state of this is leftists revolting against nature. It always is. Some nations were bequeathed huge stores of natural bounty, some were not, and this determined their future courses to some huge degree. The only way to correct for this is to move that natural bounty around until every place on earth can obtain some kind of parity.

Of course it's less credible. It's naught but bare faced lies with the purpose of destroying all that we hold dear.

This isn't a very good comment on multiple dimensions.

All it really adds to the discussion is a negative sentiment towards leftists. Which the previous comment already has, but expresses it in a more interesting way and adds additional detail.

Its a mix of building consensus, low effort, antagonistic, and waging the culture war. Next time just upvote the comment you like and move on.

meanwhile honorary white Japan (which was spared colonialism - somehow)

When the threat of colonization became apparent, they built themselves up into a modern state.

Which itself is a rather good refutation of the nonsense theories about how the plight of the Third World is all due to the First World, but you'll never get anyone who believes it to change their mind.

Reading the actual history of the Meiji restoration, it seems to have been dependent on the samurai class producing vast numbers of geniuses engaged in pointless bureaucracy they could be pulled off of without anyone noticing. It would be like the Hasidim deciding collectively, overnight, that they need to build an industrial economy and so their best and brightest have to be moved off of torah study to learn chip design or whatever.

Most colonized societies didn't have anywhere near the ability to do this. If we assume the samurai class had the same IQ advantage over the commoners that college graduates do over the hoi polloi in the USA(probably an underestimate) we're looking at a class of people with an average IQ similar to Ashkenazi Jews, who had quite literally nothing to do so they were given sinecures commanding vast resources with enforcing social conservatism as their only responsibility, and a single point of authority to rally around when it was apparent times needed to change, and a pre-existing tradition of employing literal geniuses in copying western technology. Those ingredients were rare in isolation; together they existed only in Japan.

Most colonized societies didn't have anywhere near the ability to do this.

There are more modest achievements that make the point.

If I wanted to pick a topical example it'd be El Salvador. You also hear people blaming deported US gangs (like that makes it the US' responsibility) but a solution was not only imposed by local elites, following well-meaning Western liberals likely would have made things worse.

Most colonized societies didn't have anywhere near the ability to do this.

And now you see the difference between them and the colonizers.

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Why do you assume an Iq advantage for samurai? It seems more likely to be reversed in class terms of we assume the class system existed long enough to have a breeding effect.

It is honestly a weird self hatred

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