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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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This is where you misunderstand me, because you seem to have mistaken me for a leftist, rather than a far-right extremist who thinks the American Revolution was a mistake.

Have you considered that a genuine counterrevolution is not an opposing revolution, but the opposite of a revolution? Social conservatism is a bottom-up phenomenon which grows by community functioning and institution building. I understand you're an atheist and thus not welcome in most social conservative communities, but prejudice is lindy.

A social conservative politics which wants to actually work can't just enforce socially conservative norms, although of course arresting gay pride marchers for public indecency is a good thing, or the generational rot will prevent any changes from sticking around. It didn't work in Spain, it's not working in Iran, and it won't work in the USA. Instead a reactionary government needs to prune society so that organic socially conservative community building fills the vacuum in society.

Social conservatism is a bottom-up phenomenon which grows by community functioning and institution building.

Yes, but this requires certain favorable conditions. Like a sane, functional official religion (every society has an official religion, even if it's unofficially official, like the insane one we have now).

In fact, I think Jim Donald sums up the basic conditions pretty well: "throne, altar, and freehold."

Instead a reactionary government needs to prune society so that organic socially conservative community building fills the vacuum in society.

Given the decayed state things are in, that's gotta be a lot of pruning. And certainly a lot of pushing back against globalism and immigration despite their benefits for "line go up" economic metrics. Plus, most of the churches aren't exactly maintaining their congregations all that well. AIUI, the Mormons are barely holding steady because, despite being one of the few with significantly above-replacement birth rates, said excess is only just countering their losses from people leaving. And these don't just come down to things the government is doing, such that merely clearing government away will fix the problem.

And how do you propose to pull off all the pruning? It seems to me to be the sort of thing you need an Augustus for.

(And now I'm reminded of some fellows of my acquaintance who, despite denouncing democracy as "fake and gay," and wanting a government headed by a single man with supreme executive authority who serves for life, insist that this cannot be compared to "monarchism" in any way, because their support for such a leader derives purely from the Führerprinzip, and "Moldbug is a Jew." When pushed on just what exactly the difference is, when you set aside "CEO-king appointed by shadowy cabal of cryptographically-anonymous "shareholders" who direct him to maximize the gold he extracts from the masses to line their pockets" scenarios, between their desired "Führer" and historical monarchies, particularly the non-hereditary ones… and the answer is basically "it'll be more explicitly racist." Bringing up the contrast between Rex Anglorum and Rex Anglie just resulted in more antisemitic ranting about Curtis Yarvin.)

Yes, but this requires certain favorable conditions. Like a sane, functional official religion (every society has an official religion, even if it's unofficially official, like the insane one we have now).

This is defeatist talk. If you want socially conservative institutions and communities, go and join them. They exist in the present day and the government doesn’t harass them enough to get rid of them. Go back to church, join a community org(lions club is always recruiting), and expect to tough it out for a few generations. Even a high immigration scenario has the US population peaking later this century; make social conservatives the ones to whom the future belongs because we show up.