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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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There is something to the concept of the "woke right". To simplify, they accept all the woke theories, but just switch the morality on its head - sometimes trying to even to flip the narrative of oppression. Yes, men did form patriarchy to oppress women and it was is a good thing - just look how shit the world looks like when they rule now. We should go back and repeal the 19th. Yes white supremacy is the boogeyman that woke activists describe. And we can become powerful again and rule the world, even woke people envy that power and want to take it for themselves. Why give them that?

This was always the problem with any victim-victimized ideology, especially if it wins the culture war: why assume that people will sympathize with victims? It is just slave morality, embrace the narrative and reclaim the power from the rabble.

why assume that people will sympathize with victims? It is just slave morality, embrace the narrative and reclaim the power from the rabble.

This makes sense, provided you believe yourself to not be the rabble.

Slave morality won because people did the math and figured out that there are a lot more slaves than masters.

This makes sense, provided you believe yourself to not be the rabble.

Joke's on you. I'm consider myself part of the rabble, and will probably always be part of the rabble, but I consider the current system promising me a share of power to be nothing but lies, so if a would-be aristocrat can make credible promise of restoring sanity, I'm more than happy to bend the knee.

The post above, however, discards "sympathizing with victims" as "just slave morality". In the scenario where you bend the knee in exchange for sanity, you're still sympathizing with at least one victim: yourself. Master morality as proposed by the post above ("reclaim the power from the rabble") leaves nothing for the rabble, and even the comfort of sanity is not guaranteed or promised.

In the scenario where you bend the knee in exchange for sanity, you're still sympathizing with at least one victim: yourself

Yeah, but I'm not the master, so that's allowed.

Master morality as proposed by the post above ("reclaim the power from the rabble") leaves nothing for the rabble

It doesn't leave any power for the rabble, which is absolutely fine, because like I said the claim I have any right now is a lie.

See, this is the point of many of these ideologies that divide people into the groups and believe in some divine struggle. They need to portrait the enemy as very powerful and almost impossible force to counter, which puts them squarely into the victim category. But at the same time they need to provide some alternative and make their side of the conflict as powerful enough to overcome that adversity. It reminds me of the old joke:

  • It is 1935 and Kohn and Goldberg are taking a tram in Berlin. And Kohn sees that Goldberg is reading the latest issue of Der Angriff

  • Kohn: Hey, why are you reading that Nazi slop?

  • Goldberg: We are hounded all the time, our businesses are confiscated and I feel all powerless. This is the only place where I can read how Jews are awesome and how they actually control everything. It keeps my spirits high.