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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   22828 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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I see that you’ve edited your previous comment too, because I don’t think I read this paragraph when I last replied:

That the cultural mores change and the signals with them is not a failure of tradition. It is in fact how tradition works and how it is eternal, despite the specific instantiations of it being ephemeral.

This is an argument I have never heard before. I have only questions, as many as you’re willing to field, please:

  1. What information does society need to function that it can only obtain by the costly closing off of an entire avenue of expression? What disasters have occurred by the loss of these signals? (Sure, adult children are much more empowered to stand up to their parents these days, but in and of itself I don’t see that as a disaster despite how much it offends conservative sensibilities around familial loyalty.)
  2. How many avenues of expression need to be sacrificed for such information? How would we know that it is not enough/too much?
  3. By the atomization of life, I presume that you mean that individuals are isolated from each other instead of forming healthy communities. But how would closing off a form of expression help individuals connect? (Eg I have seen many strangers with tattoos get to first know each other by appreciating each other’s tattoos and the meaning behind them)
  4. Is the aforementioned atomization what you mean by “fungible shapeless good”? And when you say that traditional institutions must not reduce individuals to this, do you mean that they should not (but sometimes do), or that liberal values prevent them from doing so (and therefore it’s impossible for them to continue to exist)?
  5. What are some good previous discussions on the effects of sex segregated spaces on mental health?

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