It’s been pointed out recently that the topics discussed in the Culture War thread have gotten a bit repetitive. While I do think the Motte has a good spread on intellectual discussion, I’m always pushing for a wider range (dare I say diversity?) of viewpoints and topics in the CW thread.
I was a lurker for years, and I know that the barrier between having a thought and writing a top level comment in the CW thread can loom large indeed. Luckily I’m fresh out of inspiration, and would love to hear thoughts from folks about effortposts they want to write but haven’t gotten around to.
This of course applies to regulars who post frequently as well - share any and all topics you wish were discussed in the CW thread!
Jump in the discussion.
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Notes -
Furries as a result of reduced environmental enrichment and maternal bonding. Furries associate with a dog foremost because (1) dogs receives abundant physical affection and (2) dogs primarily engage in the environment in a sense-rich way.
How the New Testament is a truly great central text for a culture. It tracks a humble individual who persuades his followers with plain truth and moral insight, it criticizes both legal authority and the very idea of moral authority, it shows us the universal propensity toward social sins, it repudiates power and wealth and distraction, and it possesses a better understanding of happiness than pop culture today (the hedonic treadmill, growth mindset, and so on are efficiently fleshed out in the Gospel). It’s truly remarkable that this became the central text, let alone in the Roman Empire. I fear the consequences of a society which no longer sees it as a high level of truth. You don’t have to “believe in God” (I increasingly find belief or unbelief to be missing the point). The idea that such a text could actually become sacred is proof of the importance of religion, because only fervent individuals could hoist it up against the Pagan stories and worldly books. I can’t imagine any solitary book as useful for guiding a society than the New Testament.
I’d be curious about the second one, as I’ve been kinda deep diving the history of the whole thing and I’ve sort of come around to the idea that Jesus actually founded the Ebionite movement and that Paul co-opted it and later the Romans turned it into a politically useful mystery religion.
Which kinda goes back to my thoughts about effort posting— the most effective way to shut up Yesua the Jew was to turn him into the second person of the trinity.
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Where does it address that, out of curiosity?
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I agree with you on the furries one now that I think about it, but I think the other factor is that dogs these days are pampered pets from whom nothing is expected. I admittedly don’t know much about the demographics of furries but I’d always assumed this was a perpetual adolescence phenomenon for whom ‘everyone likes you and you don’t have to do anything productive’ is pretty close to an ultimate fantasy- you’ll notice very few furries are farmers.
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FWIW, one of my earliest memories (like from age 3) is of me telling another child that I had a strong desire to be a dog. And I had no shortage of maternal bonding either.
If I had to attribute the phenomenon to anything, I would just attribute it to the prevalence of dogs in children's media.
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Furries are result of ancient call of blood - Germanic blood waking up and yearning to retvrn to old Teutonic forests.
This explanation is as scientific as yours, but much cooler.
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Write the furries one, it sounds wild.
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