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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   36584 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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I have a working theory that the reason that rootless cosmopolitans, late-stage capitalists', and various other flavors of socially atomized WERIDo seem to gravitate toward racialism, (be it of the CRT or HBD variety) is that they lack a sense of culture. They compare a McDonalds in Tokyo to a McDonalds in Manhattan and conclude that the differences between the US and Japan are superficial because they lack any wider frame of reference. They judge on skin color because skin color is easy to see/measure. It's the old streetlight fallacy.

They compare a McDonalds in Tokyo to a McDonalds in Manhattan and conclude that the differences between the US and Japan are superficial because they lack any wider frame of reference. They judge on skin color because skin color is easy to see/measure. It's the old streetlight fallacy.

This doesn't make sense. A racialist would interpret far deeper meaning to the differences between a McDonalds in Tokyo and a McDonalds in Manhattan than a liberal would.

Yes, that is what I said.

The reason that socially-atomized young progressive urbanites such as yourself gravitate towards racialism (be it of the CRT, HBD, or WN variety) is that race is visible, and being socially atomized they have no real sense of culture. They ascribe outsize importance to superficial details like race because, true cultural differences (IE a city without a McDonalds) is completely beyond their ken.

To clarify, the entire rest of the world places profound emphasis on racial differences, both implicitly and explicitly. You are one of the very few who can claim to not place strong emphasis on racial differences and treat them as superficial. You can let that be your legacy and cling to it until the bitter end, if you want.

Incorrect

The vast majority of the world places the primary emphasis on language/culture first with genealogy a distant second but you mistake it it for race because you can't see the cultural issues that underpin it. As other users have noted both Nazi Germany and Apartheid-era South Africa considered Japanese to be "white" which is nonsensical from a genetic stand point but makes perfect sense in a culture first model.

This is almost certainly true. In my experience, they compare their WEIRD acquaintances with WEIRD-mindcolonized non-Westerners and conclude that because everyone cares about Ukraine and climate change and reads and agrees with the NYT, regardless of nationality or race, we must all be the same on the inside. Next time you talk to someone who has "lived in China" or "worked in Tokyo for 5 years" consider that they may have never left their foreigner bubble or, even if they have, they spent time around non-Westerners who were Western-educated and, importantly, were the kind of people who preferred to hang around with Western foreigners.

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