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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 17, 2025

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Europe has picked a side in the American culture war, and it is the far left side.

While I think your statement here has a strong ring of truth to it with respect to Kulturkampf and the dispositions of the cultural elites, I generally find claims that "center in Europe is far-left in America" to be true only for a very limited definition of the political spectrum. "Center in Europe" includes certain elements that I'd wager the average Republican considers far-right: Literal hereditary monarchs (many such cases, some established within living memory)! Official state churches (many such cases)! States collecting taxes on behalf of churches! Blasphemy laws!

Sure, "center in Europe" also looks a lot more friendly to carbon taxes than even the DNC, and endorses a shorter workweek, more worker protections (although German unions look very different in ways I find interesting from their American counterparts), firearms restrictions (although those aren't uniform across the EU, they're generally stricter than the US -- although Sweden has problems with hand grenades that seem unbelievable as an American!), and so forth. I don't think the statement is completely wrong, just oversold.

Yes, but those monarchs are just basically tourist attractions or ceremonial figureheads to lend legitimacy to the government of the day. And those established churches are usually more liberal than our American unitarians. Lastly, the "blasphemy" laws in practice seem mostly to result in Koran-burners getting harsher sentences than some violent criminals, while doing nothing to protect, e.g., Christian anti-abortion protesters. Hard for American conservatives to really be all that in support of any of that substantively, regardless of the label it's all wrapped up in.

Literal hereditary monarchs (many such cases, some established within living memory)! Official state churches (many such cases)! States collecting taxes on behalf of churches! Blasphemy laws!

We basically have never had any of this in America so it doesn't map to our Left-Right spectrum at all. In the instances we have something similar to those things, they basically map to the left: Hollywood dynasties, political family dynasties, state sponsored religious-like nonprofits, education centers, etc. They have all been left wing for generations.