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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025

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By way of reply, if I knew the answer, and that answer were yes, do you think I'd talk about it?

By way of reply, does your willingness to acknowledge whether someone else is a coward or not change any factor of them being a coward?

In his old reddit posts on the trucker protests, Kulak made cowardness conditional on whether one conducted political violence regardless of being caught and identified. This was a demand for a positive action, and failure to meet that action was a categorical proof of personal failure deserving social contempt. He established no exceptions- inaction itself was proof of failure.

Kulak has also made no claim of having conducted political violence at the time he claimed it was necessary to prove one was not a coward. Nor have any of his sympathizers. In fact, sympathizers have provided claims that he did not meet the non-coward criteria for reasons that did not meet his pre-established exceptions. Further, no claim of compensatory action has been claimed- nothing that might provide absolution for the initial failure if her were physically incapable of prioritizing getting into a protest over his personal health. Which itself is a claim no one has made, least of all his defenders.

The principle of positive claims requiring positive evidence to warrant belief does not get reversed for reasons of OPSEC by people who dismissed fear of discovery or arrest as grounds for non-involvement. 'Oh, Kulak can't admit to conducting political violence- he'd be caught!' is not a basis to believe Kulak lived up to his claimed requirements for not being a coward. Kulak would not admit to have conducting political violence if he had not met the standard. The absence of the claim is not proof of a claim.

None of this would seem to have any relation to whether you would admit to any knowledge or lack of knowledge.

Kulak can be accused of many things but I haven't yet caught him in moral inconsistency.

Kulak being a moral coward would be morally consistent. It might be morally contemptable, but it would be consistent.

Kulak can be condemned on plenty of grounds. As a historian, a literary analyst, even a rhetorician. However, the condemnation of cowardness can be justified by his own standard presented that he presented as a demand for action lest one be dismissed as a coward.

He did not act. Hence, he can be dismissed as a coward. That he makes no claim to having acted in other cases are additional, but redundant, cases for being a consistent coward.

I find this whole conversation and the intensity of your passion bizarre, but okay.

Setting aside the indisputable fact that you have no idea whether he 'conducted' 'positive action', it remains the case that even you don't claim he's ever said that someone should intentionally broadcast the matter afterward. That would obviously be crazy. After reading your post multiple times it's still not clear to me what inconsistency you're trying to catch him in. What is clear to me is that there's some kind of unseemly antipathy here. At any rate I'm checking out of the conversation and will not be responding further.

I find this whole conversation and the intensity of your passion bizarre, but okay.

And I find your attempts to play coy in Kulak's defense silly.

There is no schrodenger's anarchist. Either Kulak can be credited with living up to his standard, or he is not credited.

Setting aside the indisputable fact that you have no idea whether he 'conducted' 'positive action',

I have multiple reasons to believe he did not, including but not limited to previous admissions of absence and his testy defense of absence on grounds of surgery. He deleted that reddit post soon after, but the surrounding claim of surgery is echoed by others including yourself.

it remains the case that even you don't claim he's ever said that someone should intentionally broadcast the matter afterward.

I have, however, claimed that people do not get to claim credit for actions neither they nor anyone else claim they have been a part of.

That would obviously be crazy.

Bravery often is. However, Kulak's call to action was not to be something other than crazy, but to not be a coward. Note the different goalposts. Being non-crazy is perfectly consistent with being a coward.

You know what would also be crazy, though? Being a substacker who makes calls to violence on associated social media accounts while secretly moonlighting as an actual anarchist engaging in political violence. Clearly Kulak is not above being crazy at least some of the time. We are merely in dispute as to how much and when.

After reading your post multiple times it's still not clear to me what inconsistency you're trying to catch him in. What is clear to me is that there's some kind of unseemly antipathy here. At any rate I'm checking out of the conversation and will not be responding further.

I am moved by your attempt to leave with the last word and a final zing, and your confessed confusion on the position that Kulak is a consistent coward by his own standard.