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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

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I can only say that engaging with the Chinese, and with people like you, has gradually convinced me that White People (Hajnali European stock specifically) are basically jumped-up serfs, the confused lower caste of prawns from District 9, with little more to offer to the world sans stale kanging and hollow, corporate-coded pretense of “soul” that, if it ever existed, resided in your currently extinct owners. You don't even notice my point about simple economics and logistics, so lost you are in your racial superiority masturbation. But of course those issues are related.

if Japan were in China's position instead

But it isn't, and you are largely responsible for that, because your previous generation had the exact same attitude towards the Japanese. Deaths from overwork, rigid hierarchy, soulless collectivist automatons cheating and copying to flood the markets and dispossess our Christian Germanic workers – this can't be allowed, can it? Oh, what a pity that now that we know them better, Japan is a geriatric country of no ambition, that mainly produces anime to give you some respite from the toxic antihuman sludge of your own media. (Presumably this is the fault of Joos. Somehow for all your natural nobility of spirit you are not capable of resisting a tiny tribe of natural wordcels. At least the Chinese managed to overthrow the Manchu).

Regrettably, China is 10 times larger and the same tricks won't work.

A change in American economic policy sent global markets into a tailspin, so objectively speaking, America is in fact a big deal.

Yes, you can do a great deal of damage to humanity. This is akin to the bafflingly swinish line of argument that “China needs us more than we need them, because they need to sell their valuable manufactured goods to someone; our consumption is more valuable than production”. We shall see how well this philosophy works.

  • -11

Speak for yourself, serf.

What I see is the inverse. The professional managerial class seems to have internalized this idea that intelligent reasonable moral people should not exercise agency.. That intelligent reasonable and moral person does not just do things, and if they do the inescapable conclusion is the individual in question is not reasonable, not intelligent, not moral, and possibly not even a person.

Ironically this valorization of non-agency and the demonizing of those like Elon Musk and Daniel Penney who break from this is itself the road to serfdom. The serf is a serf because he prefers the guarantees of servitude to the risks of being a free agent.

So how has this intelligent reasonable agency worked out for you? Not tired of winning yet?

It's actually been working out reasonably well. So no, I am not "tired of winning" yet.

Godspeed! More wins to come then.

internalized this idea that intelligent reasonable moral people should not exercise agency

This is a better treatment: https://www.themotte.org/post/1827/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/315895?context=8#context

He's a spurned Russian nationalist who has run into the arms of the Chinese. A tragic outcome I don't wish of the Russians writ large. Being a serf isn't a problem so much as a traitor. Justifying that, welcoming the Chinese overlords, on the accusation of Europeans of being serfs is... interesting especially given this criticism is in context of the erratic behavior of high-agency people rocking the boat, like you said.

This is of course a projection of your own tribalism and your own deluded moral framework.

Your problem is that your only guiding light, the only salvation you see for your people, is Nazism, and Nazism is still quite degenerate and NGMI. I won't talk of its moral merits, it's just strategically bad because it's aestheticized desperation and refuge from hopelessness in animalistic impulses. A stronk chieftain (high agency!), will to power (rock the boat!), blood-based tribal identity, vibes over facts… in effect, reject modernity, retvrn by rolling back the evolutionary clock 9000 years, to where an average European was a fat bipolar slob with 65 IQ. Nazism was swiftly crushed by Capitalism and Communism. 80 years later, they remain the dominant forces on the planet and continue their dialectic and coevolution. You like to think that Judaism is still more important, the root of all evil. Well, it's underrated for obvious reasons, I'll give you that, but Earth is a big place, and your struggle with Joos is ultimately quite parochial.

I have observed many sincere Nazis over the years and most are suicidal. It doesn't have to be this way. Accept that the dream of Aryan greatness is dead, but you can live if you accept this world on its own terms, where your people have some advantages and disadvantages entirely irrespective of “jewish manipulation” or “suicidal empathy” or what have you, and need to manage them soberly. In particular this requires a good understanding of where you stand relative to that huge chunk of humanity in East Asia. One approach is to cope with 4chan gifs of tortured dogs and industrial accidents, or the book of Ralph Townsend. Another is to grow the fuck up.

And yet you run into the arms of National Socialism with Chinese Characteristics... No, Nazism is a dead political movement, not something to be treated as a cheap foreign import. I want to see something new, not trying to rehash a dead ideology, and certainly not turning traitor and running for the embrace of the Chinese who hold those same racial sensibilities you mock Europeans for, and which Europeans do not themselves actually hold.

You simultaneously mock Europeans for being "not capable of resisting a tiny tribe of natural wordcels" and for being parochial when they do voice resistance. You just hate Europeans, particularly the West Europeans, you see them as your enemy and you always have. It's unfortunate. Whatever you accuse me of, my hope for the future is fundamentally pro-European, I want the best for Europe and the United States and I do not want to see them under Chinese hegemony. That's not the future I wish for Russia either. You can mock the suicidal Nazis, I will mock the despondent Russian nationalists who have decided to become Chinese nationalists to have some sort of vent for their understandable but misguided hatred of Europe.

National Socialism with Chinese Characteristics...

It's a funny joke but really, they're not any more National Socialist than any normal European state was before WWII. They are quite different from historical Nazis. They have a representation for minorities (even repressed ones) and affirmative action, they have legalized gender transition, they employ open furries in the PLA (explicitly as fursuit engineers, to develop next generation combat armor). Their notions of “degeneracy” or “racial hygiene” would be quite alien to Germans. The basic level of care for the ethnic majority is just what a state is supposed to do. And Socialism – that they owe to being literally Marxists, with a big portrait of Marx in their main hall of power and stuff. They're far more Capitalist than the Third Reich was, too. Xi has restored the cult of personality, though. Seriously speaking, it's its own complex thing, and should be considered on its own merits in its own historical context, not as a copy or a pastiche of Western paradigms. When all is said and done they're just a modernized Chinese empire.

You simultaneously mock Europeans for being "not capable of resisting a tiny tribe of natural wordcels"

I apologize. My sarcasm there may have been too confusing. I don't think Jews are solely guilty for the quality of your media. Jews, from what I can tell, genuinely like their sermonizing slop, but so does the audience, and creators are increasingly Gentiles too. I think you just have ran out of gas. Particularly Americans. Your culture is vulgar and plain bad, and you should feel bad about it. Your mavericks are sleazy hustlers at best and psychopaths at worst, and you do not resist your worst impulses to bow before the undeserving strongman. You come up with zany and harmful ideas and then force them upon everybody else. Thus, you are what has to be resisted now, at least until you improve somehow.

You just hate Europeans, particularly the West Europeans, you see them as your enemy and you always have.

I don't hate Europeans. I am disappointed in you. In you collectively and in you, SecureSignals, personally. You are less than what I figured, you don't deliver on the crucial advertised open-mindedness and ability-to-change-opinions features, and you take pride in stuff that's completely meh or plainly disgusting. You're like some purebred dogs. Remarkable, peculiar, WEIRD phenotype, but no spark, or almost never. Disappointing.

and I do not want to see them under Chinese hegemony

And at the rate you're going, you may well see Chinese hegemony. It is indeed unfortunate because the Chinese themselves never had it in them to establish one, I don't think. Too insular, too mercantile, too autistically uncharismatic, and frankly not capable enough to dismantle natural affinities and alliances. They'd have secured their backyard and grew content to have limited trade with barbarians, and this was the scenario I still consider preferable. But a few more iterations of low-IQ, smug WINNING and ROCKING THE BOAT, and who knows, they may have to pick up the crown tossed their way.

And the ironic thing is that all this is because you'd have wanted your own hegemony, because for all the denialism – the dream, the hope of being Intrinsically Racially Superior, crushing lessers under the jackboot, still lives and yearns for confirmation. Alas.

It's a funny joke but really, they're not any more National Socialist than any normal European state was before WWII. They are quite different from historical Nazis.

The Chinese have essentially adopted fascism since the death of Mao. Certainly they are more fascist and National Socialist than any nation in Europe, so lauding the Chinese to spite those European "Nazis" is frankly ridiculous. Even your premise "The basic level of care for the ethnic majority is just what a state is supposed to do" you yourself seem to pattern-match as "Nazism" when Europeans advocate for that same premise.

But a few more iterations of low-IQ, smug WINNING and ROCKING THE BOAT, and who knows, they may have to pick up the crown tossed their way.

Don't know who you are talking about, I did not vote for Trump and I've criticized him, and I criticized his trade policy. I don't like low-IQ Magaism any more than you do and I don't want to see American imperial hegemony weakened.

Your culture is vulgar and plain bad, and you should feel bad about it.

Yes, I have plenty of criticisms of American and European culture. But you remind me of a lot of other people on the Right Wing who will go, "i.e. American culture is so bad, so I support Putin because only Russia can pose a real challenge to the degeneracy America is exporting around the world." They adopt the same tact in lionizing somebody like Assad, and they just project onto him this Resistance to American culture when it is no such thing- with no logical connection for how Putin or Assad or the Axis of Resistance are going to improve what are fundamentally cultural issues endemic to the United States and Europe.

A culture can change, certainly changing American and European culture is the highest priority. But none of my criticisms of American culture would drive me to support the Chinese.

you yourself seem to pattern-match as "Nazism" when Europeans advocate for that same premise.

Lie. Blocked.

  • -11

Then why do you call me a Nazi? Because I have racial sensibilities that were shared by the vast majority of Americans before 1940? Because I support historical Revisionism? Why would that imply I adhere to one of the ideologies involved in the controversy?

I would expect others to throw that label around carelessly but it's strange coming from you.

More comments

To the user who reported this comment with:

can we not have wumaos invade this forum?

lol. Dase has been productively commenting since before you knew this forum existed.

That said, I’m going to remind him not to put words in other peoples’ mouths. Especially not with this level of sarcasm.

At least the Chinese managed to overthrow the Manchu

An intellectual like yourself is no doubt familiar with the extensive Chinese online theories that they secretly control the CCP.

I do know this and I wonder how that coexists with the common East Asian respect for the Hebrews. Have they considered playing one great tribe against another? Or learning the Manchu ways to beat them at their own game, like Koreans try with Talmud? I should ask.

My own impression (and you are likely more familiar than I) is that most Chinese never think about the Jews, a smaller group of boomers and people interested in international politics are vaguely or in rare cases substantially philosemitic, and then young very right wing men online are antisemitic in a vintage /pol/ type way, hate Israel etc.

You don't even notice my point about simple economics and logistics

No, I did notice your point about economics and logistics. But your point wasn't relevant. The likelihood of winning a conflict has little relevance to whether that conflict should be waged in the first place.

Ironically, and contrary to your accusation, it is the serf who acts in accordance with prudence and rationality. The serf is a serf precisely because he correctly calculates that servitude is what gives him the best odds of continued survival. The nobleman, in contrast, acts in accordance with virtue, even when the outcome is certain destruction.

A Nietzsche quote for every situation:

Noble and common. - For common natures all noble, magnanimous feelings appear to be inexpedient and therefore initially incredible: they give a wink when they hear of such things and seem to want to say, 'Surely there must be some advantage involved; one cannot see through every wall' - they are suspicious of the noble person, as if he were furtively seeking his advantage. If they become all too clearly convinced of the absence of selfish intentions and gains, they view the noble person as a kind of fool: they despise him in his pleasure and laugh at the sparkle in his eye. 'How could one enjoy being at a disadvantage? How could one want with open eyes to be disadvantaged? Some disease of reason must be linked to the noble affection' - thus they think and look disparagingly, the way they disparage the pleasure that a madman derives from his fixed idea. What distinguishes the common nature is that it unflinchingly keeps sight of its advantage, and that this thought of purpose and advantage is even stronger than its strongest drives; not to allow these drives to lead it astray to perform inexpeditious acts - that is its wisdom and self-esteem. In comparison, the higher nature is more unreasonable - for the noble, magnanimous, and self-sacrificing person does in fact succumb to his drives; and in his best moments, his reason pauses. An animal that protects its young at the risk of its own life or during the mating period follows the female unto death does not think of danger and death; its reason likewise pauses because the pleasure in its brood or in the female and the fear of being deprived of this pleasure dominate it totally; the animal becomes stupider than it usually is - just like the person who is noble and magnanimous. [...]

The likelihood of winning a conflict has little relevance to whether that conflict should be waged in the first place.

It actually has a lot of relevance. The real reason you act like it doesn't is that you do not seriously engage with the possibility of losing, and losing badly (losing what? To what degree? How many cards do you have left at the point of losing, and what terms can be negotiated?). People make unreasonable maximalist demands when they are assured of their invulnerability. You treat a great power conflict like another Middle Eastern adventure, “oh we found WMDs in this shithole, our Democracy will perish if we do not conquer it hue hue!”. It's an instinct that's hard to overcome after a century of uninterrupted wins and cost-free losses. The same Main Character Syndrome, coupled with low human capital in Trump team, explains decidedly suboptimal and cost-insensitive means that were chosen for prosecuting the conflict. Americans think they can afford anything, because that's recorded in their institutional DNA. But they have never fought a superior power, due to it never having existed prior to this day. So they have developed an auxiliary belief that the very fact of them antagonizing any power confirms it is inferior. It's hard to feel pity for such a narcissistic people.

it is the serf who acts in accordance with prudence and rationality. The serf is a serf precisely because he correctly calculates that servitude is what gives him the best odds of continued survival. The nobleman, in contrast, acts in accordance with virtue, even when the outcome is certain destruction.

In Imperial Russia, there was a trend when mujiks, LARPing as nobles, initiated duels over petty spats, murdering each other with axes; eventually the state had to put its boot down. Due to extremely low literacy rates they couldn't have plausibly cited Nietzsche when doing so, but I believe that they'd have appreciated your quote.

Self-serving, petulant, handwavy, shallowly aesthetic notions of virtue are cheap and easy to brandish in defense of one's animalistic impulses; any kind of impulsive retardation can be dressed up as a calling of aristocratic, virile masculine nature, there's a whole genre of extremely popular Western music about it, authored by the impromptu warrior aristocracy of the streets. Your own elite has been wiped out to such a degree that this whole discourse is vacuous, we can't consult with a living bearer of a tradition, only speculate. It is plausible that I am wrong and there's just never been any substance to the whole fraud.

But they have never fought a superior power, due to it never having existed prior to this day.

America fought Britain twice and the Ottoman Empire once when they were far superior powers.

I know. This was a completely different America, it's like saying that Moscow was once conquered by Poles or something (Russians are very proud of that episode, thanks to propaganda in history lessons, but obviously there is no memory, institutional legacy or military tradition that survived) – a dim fact people learn in school. America that lives today was born in the Civil War and was fully formed in McKinley's era, probably. Since then, it was straight up dunking on weaker powers. With some tasteless underdog posturing from time to time, of course.

Russians are very proud of that episode

Really, very proud? Because, against all odds, it ended with Romanov dynasty rather than a Polish king, or did you mean to write 'Poles' there?

Oh, there even is a national holiday. We of course focus on the conquest and 'ugh, what could have been', so one gets the impression Russians could only be embarrassed by the episode. Dumb, I need to pick up a history book written from Russian perspective.

We are aware that at the time the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth wasn't the «poor little plucky Poland, the sacrificial lamb of Europe, bullied and partitioned by cruel great powers» which I'm told is your national narrative, but a more developed and organized, competent expansionist power and that, indeed, it «could have been» that we'd have lost sovereignty indefinitely and been supplanted in history by the mighty Polish Empire. This feeds into schadenfreude and relief about your subsequent decline and losses of sovereignty. Pre-Romanov era Poland is viewed as a quite serious actor, without any condescension.

So, there's enough of a cause for pride to both sides I guess.

P.S. I also should look into how the Polish side sees that episode.

What you wrote looked like you meant to write Russians are proud of being conquered by Poles, not of kicking the Poles out.

Russians are proud of the episode in its fullness, not just the part where Kremlin gets occupied but before it's liberated, of course. I could have phrased this better but whatever.

Self-serving, petulant, handwavy, shallowly aesthetic notions of virtue are cheap and easy to brandish in defense of one's animalistic impulses; any kind of impulsive retardation can be dressed up as a calling of aristocratic, virile masculine nature, there's a whole genre of extremely popular Western music about it, authored by the impromptu warrior aristocracy of the streets. Your own elite has been wiped out to such a degree that this whole discourse is vacuous, we can't consult with a living bearer of a tradition, only speculate. It is plausible that I am wrong and there's just never been any substance to the whole fraud.

Missed your writing. Glad you’ve rejoined us briefly in this transitional period while we no doubt wait for ASI to materialize and save/destroy us.

It actually has a lot of relevance. The real reason you act like it doesn't is that you do not seriously engage with the possibility of losing, and losing badly (losing what? To what degree?

I am well aware that losing is a live possibility, and I know exactly what losing would look like. Losing means a Guangxi Massacre in every American town and city. Losing means obliteration; losing means being consigned to the graveyard of civilizations. Still we press on.

Given that your deepest yearning is for technology to liberate us from life as it has existed hitherto, it is unsurprising that you find these values to be unintelligible.

Losing means a Guangxi Massacre in every American town and city.

It's not clear what must happen for the world to end up like this, but America is a nation of dreamers; I suppose you can effect even this result if you keep pressing on. However, my optimistic theory of American loss is that due to constant bluffing and irresponsible policy epilepsy the USD loses its status as reserve currency, your fraudulent markets deflate, your internal racial contradictions bloom, and after a while you get a lot quieter and less obnoxious as your living standards crash down to roughly Polish level, which is actually very neat and, given your current course, more than you deserve. The traffic to your shores dies down, as mandated by the Great Leader Donald Ieyasu Trump; the rest of humanity, free of the loathsome star-spangled yoke, peacefully trades and gets richer, while you lick your wounded pride and dream of revenge.

A median scenario is that you simply accept the existence of a bigger guy on the block (bloodlessly, or after trying your luck one last time in the South China Sea) and retreat to your hemisphere, living much the same lives as today.

And I suspect that you know this. But it's too painful to imagine such a world, a boring high-probability world where the sky didn't fall, but you're no longer the uncontested Main Character Nation. Visions of massacres and genocides are anesthetic in comparison, they return you to the familiar domain of Marvel movies. Any Avengers-Level Threat, by laws of narrative, ultimately gets defeated, so there really aren't any stakes or hard decisions to make this way.

Great Leader Donald Ieyasu Trump

That should be Iemitsu if you are looking for whoever enacted sakkoku.

I would happily accept either of these worlds. Certainly they sound much better than where things seemed to be heading as of last year.

I try to be more positive lately.