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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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Unfortunately, I don't think American society is able to do that any more. We (on the whole) are so, so risk-averse that it is unbelievable.

Perhaps, but I'll point out that this is far from uniform. It varies on factors like class, education, race, religion. Safetyism may be especially rampant among the PMC, for example. But, while inner city black communities have plenty of problems, I wouldn't say that this sort of rampant safetyism is one of them. There are plenty of smaller rural communities, of a religious conservative character, where older, more lax norms of parenting still persist. And then there are professions that pretty much select against risk-aversion, most notably front-line combat troops. If you go by Munger's definition, then "lead, follow, or get out of the way" is a pretty illiberal motto, no? And I'd note that from where I sit — though I don't have the hard data — it looks like safetyism is negatively correlated with birth rates. So, these lingering adherents of Thomas Sowell's "Tragic Vision" have advantages in both fecundity and in undertaking the risks involved in violent confrontation.

The problem is organizing them to step up, overthrow our safetyist elites, and take charge of society. Contra David Z. Hines perpetual calls for the right to learn from and adopt lefty organizing, those decentralized methods are really contradictory to our nature. We're hierarchical. We "organize" by falling in behind a leader.

Thus, the solution to this, as with so many other problems in our society, is for our own Augustus Caesar to arise.