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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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Clearly elites are protected from the worst results of their bad decisions, but I don't think it's some conspiracy to divide the working class.

A better explanation is that it comes from social signalling, where high status people can signal their abundance by not being concerned with petty things like crime and taxes.

As societal wealth gets higher and higher, the signalling required to separate oneself from the commoners gets more expensive. A high end watch is not going to cut it. You need luxury beliefs, the more extreme the better. Among these luxury beliefs, one of the most common is a hatred for white people and the belief that countries need to be reformed by importing large numbers of non-whites. If they are criminals and layabouts, it's actually better because it destroys the existing society more effectively. The signal is clear: "You worry about crime and your community all you want. Your worries are low status. I have so many resources I'll be fine whatever happens."

I've been meaning to write a post about the irony of dirt-poor post-grad white men being the most motivated regime propagandists on Twitter; compensating for lack of real status by signalling luxury beliefs as hard as possible.

The guys who were sneering hardest at every concern about inflation, crime, and woke discrimination were the ones getting mugged on their way to teach a graduate seminar in European history for $14.50/hr, because they'd watched all the tenured positions go to Queer Black History profs.

Yeah, I've noticed that too. I always wonder what kind of man puts himself in that situation.

But it does give me hope that maybe we've reached peak woke. Woke beliefs have filtered down to some very low status people now, and so its time for another turn of the barber pole.

It's quite common now for women to express contempt for sniveling "male feminists". They'll often couch this in terms of these men not being true allies, but I think more accurately it's a disgust reaction to low status men.

Having heterodox beliefs is a luxury afforded to the strong and high status.

It's quite common now for women to express contempt for sniveling "male feminists". They'll often couch this in terms of these men not being true allies, but I think more accurately it's a disgust reaction to low status men.

I’ve long had a theory that outspoken male feminist Allies are mostly the men you don’t particularly want around your daughter, because of selection effects- men with bad behavior choose that stuff to compensate for red flags.