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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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Sure, I can posit or imagine all that. But I wish I could find someone who actually thinks that. It seems philosophically unstable. It's internally inconsistent, and violates the first categorically imperative.

Though I suppose it's the formulation of conservatism by which there must be a class that the law protects but does not bind, and a class that the law binds but does not protect.

there must be a class that the law protects but does not bind, and a class that the law binds but does not protect

There was indeed such a class in Alabama and the rest of the South for several centuries. The framework you're struggling to come to terms with just works so much smoother when there's a large number of completely unprotected women in your midst.

This mentality and philosophy is a holdover from that time. The problem for those who hold it is that it's hard if not impossible to reconcile it with modern America.

But I wish I could find someone who actually thinks that.

The manosphere (think Andrew Tate) thinks this way explicitly. I know people who think like this in real life. No amount of pleading about how unfair it is will phase them. They'll just shrug and say "men and women are different", therefore the categorical imperative does not apply (different rules for different types of humans).

Andrew Tate: good father?

I feel like you missed the point somewhere.

I was providing an example of someone with the following view:

Males are suspect if they aren't seeking sex with women. It is a good thing when they succeed, for them. Girls shouldn't have sex until they're ready to start looking for a husband and promiscuity is a bad thing all around

That's all.

The 'country music crowd' is not noted for their attention to moral philosophy. They care about doing right, but not much about whether that derives from first principles with no contradiction. Once again, this is not the 'church crowd', which does care about such things. It's kind of definitional that the 'country music crowd' is sort of a compromise between prevailing societal values and the values of the red dirt types(who also openly disapprove of premarital sex, at least for women, but think that overpolicing it does more harm than good) they frequently larp as or the 'church crowd'.

I do meet people who have this idea. I'm not 100% sure on what the internal thought process is, but it's not a mystery to me what they think in end results. And, honestly, I don't think they know what their internal thought process is either, if I asked them they would say something like 'uhh....... uhh... well.... uhh... I'm not sure why anybody cares? You have your values and I have mine. Maybe yours are better but mine are good enough.' They're not Kantians, they're not Utilitarians, if they had any inclination at all to develop a moral system out of their values they'd probably join the 'church crowd' and wind up at virtue ethics. The more self aware will say that holier-than-thou attitudes towards them from the 'church crowd' are literally true but exaggerated. The less self aware will say 'I'm a good person, why does it matter?'.

And caring about doing right but not having a developed ethical system is fine for most people most of the time. It's not like they've been kidnapped by ethicists to run live iterations of the trolley problem. Motteizeans who are a) highly analytical and b) would like genuine social conservatism might disagree, but these people are neither. They might hold views about women and gays which are not very enlightened but they don't actually want an actual literal patriarchy. They like the fun parts of conservatism. They're not reactionaries- you find those elsewhere in the red tribe.