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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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The right plays second fiddle to the left so has to be the moral side so that they can call the outgroup for "hypocrisy" which is utterly spineless since only the powerful can be hypocritical.

To get what I mean, imagine if you woke up and realised that Musk was just a front used to pump up the value of the various firms he is in and is closer to Elizabeth Holmes than to steve jobs, that he literally does nothing at his day job and just larps, purely hypotehtical scenario. In that case, it would sour how you view some things. People who are attached to movements that are defined by a person feel that way when any kind of moral rot is found as it obviously matters. The political sphere is very vengeful and zero-sum, everybody dogpiles and doxxes others, it is done many times for personal reasons, so to them it is akin to seeing an elder turning out to be a duplicitous purpose.

I do not feel that way at all, I have never had issues with homosexuality or any values that go against Christianity not just because I am not a Christian but because I do not believe the cover story or the idea of a hero to begin with but many buy into that.

The right plays second fiddle to the left so has to be the moral side so that they can call the outgroup for "hypocrisy" which is utterly spineless since only the powerful can be hypocritical.

If anything its the opposite. The left plays second fiddle to the right as the left defines itself in its opposition. The right erects structures that the left then subverts and destroys.

only the powerful can be hypocritical.

Lenin was wrong though, hypocrisy has nothing to do with being strong or weak, it is the price paid for having principles that go beyond political expediancy.

See, I kinda see it differently. The demands of non-hypocrisy and morals are much less important if you’re the weaker party. The thing that the underdog must do is get sufficient numbers and popularity to be a credible threat. You can’t do that if you’re throwing potential allies away for reasons that have nothing to do with the issues at hand. Numbers matter if the goal is power. That’s why the Left loves to pound the right on hypocrisy especially hypocrisy they’d never hold their own side to. It’s an easy way to limit the power of conservatives, as they’re having to throw away good Allie’s all the time for whatever reason the left starts pointing them out. And as such, you end up with fewer people fighting for power

I think the causality is backwards — the left is powerful because they are willing to be hypocritical, they’re willing to be accused of being a crime-thinker. The right has less power because the accusations of hypocrisy and thought crime still bother them enough to make them embarrassed. A lefty accused of being socialist or progressive doesn’t get kicked out. A rightist will be, to the point that even the accusation is too much.