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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   12314 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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Good for him. This was the virtuous thing to do.

By the treatment of Hunter's own daughter, this is not some demonstration of higher code to one's family. I understand you want to make Nietchian strong-man arguments, but exercising one's power to meet their ideosyncratic preferences is not virtue, it's tautology of will to power, even when your preference is for your family to prosper. Loyalty to smallest possible tribe, at thee xpense of other duties to one's station, natuion, and culture. is not the ur-virtue by almost any standard. It's just mob behavior. It's the definition of corruption.

I am supposed to appauld someone for taking advantage of power to enrich their personal loyalties as virtue?

Finally, Biden is a professed Catholic, and there's nothing in Catholic morality that upholds loyalty to flesh as virtuous (quite the opposite, tfh). If we want to appaud Biden's virtue, he should start by renouncing the all the other duities and affiliations that this virtue undermines. Or is it also virtuous to exercise raw familial enrichment through deception and expressions of false standards of morality?

Would TheMotte really be here condemning Trump if he pardoned Don Jr. in a tax fraud case? Be honest now.

I would, of course. Corruption and personal loyalty over loyalty to either the American people, or the principles he was elected on are among the biggest criticisms of Trump. Why would I bury my head if Trump further legitimized those criticisms?

Finally, Biden is a professed Catholic, and there's nothing in Catholic morality that upholds loyalty to flesh as virtuous (quite the opposite, tfh).

Aside from the fourth commandment, the traditional understanding of which has been to consider loyalty to relatives morally obligatory.

Also, subsidiarity would imply that you should do charity to the once close to you first before you move to larger circles.

I understand you want to make Nietchian strong-man arguments

I briefly outlined the reasons for my judgement in another comment in this thread. None of them have anything to do with Biden's "strength". (And for the record, the idea that "good = being 'strong' and doing whatever you want" is, at best, a highly simplified distortion of Nietzsche's actual views.)

I am supposed to appauld someone for taking advantage of power to enrich their personal loyalties as virtue?

It does depend on Biden's motivations to an extent. If it was done out of genuine love, then yes, you should applaud. If it was a purely self-interested act of political calculation, not so much.

Finally, Biden is a professed Catholic, and there's nothing in Catholic morality that upholds loyalty to flesh as virtuous (quite the opposite, tfh). If we want to appaud Biden's virtue, he should start by renouncing the all the other duities and affiliations that this virtue undermines.

Forsaking your flesh for Christ - there's at least a real dilemma there. That's at least an interesting problem. But forsaking your flesh for the abstract idea of democracy and the rule of law? Well, I'm afraid that's where I'll have to part with Catholic morality, if that's what it recommends.

Forsaking your flesh for Christ - there's at least a real dilemma there. That's at least an interesting problem. But forsaking your flesh for the abstract idea of democracy and the rule of law?

I know that this view (I'm not sure what to call it, post-Rationalist?) has a cadre of supporters on TheMotte as I've seen it numerous times over the years. I imagine because it has a certain meta-contrarian appeal and draws on a yearning of reactionaries that perceive modern western Whites as too domesticated, too deracinated and slavishly devoted to abstract Enlightenment concepts to the point of their own destruction. This view seems to have a kind of admiration for the naked tribalism of American blacks ("He wuz a good boy!") that supersedes any attachment to honesty or justice.

This view is just repellent to me. I'm all for White nationalism and family loyalty and nepotism and blah blah blah, but Hunter Biden is 54 not 18 and Joe Biden is the President not some random guy. If the cops found a teenager's drug stash and his father stepped up and claimed the drugs to be his, taking the fall to protect this son, sure, I could see that as honorable and respectable.

Hunter Biden is 54

Man how the hell does he still look so good at that age with that lifestyle? He easily looks 10 years younger than he is.

It's incredible. Even his father didn't have nearly as much hair at that age.

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