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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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What art could they possibly make that inspires young people?

It'll take some time, but the answer is the same thing as it always is: Things that piss off their parents and teachers.

The greater proportion of parents that are leftist puritans, the more the counter-culture will swing right. No, it won't be Christian right, but it'll be about freedom to offend, same as it always was.

The greater proportion of parents that are leftist puritans, the more the counter-culture will swing right.

No, it won't. The left has captured the culture and the counter-culture, simultaneously. I don't know how they managed, but they did.

No man, that's progressive sleight. The counter culture is not a movement or a type of clothing or a button you wear, it is the culture that is counter to the mainstream. This place is counter culture (this is a pre-emptive bup-bup to the objection I hear some preparing to type, yes this place is counter culture). You are counter culture. Hell, at this stage of the game, you are a counter culture hero*.

What I think the left have done is develop the controlled opposition model into a multi tiered system, so now below the RINOS is a fake counter culture that is actually mainstream - for people who want to leave progressivism but are still saturated in it. It's a clever move, because it allows them to bridge the gap between their new upper middle class audience and the older money hating hippies, and also maintain control over people who try for the first time to exit the mainstream, like my friend Bill.

Bill is an army guy who never really paid attention to politics until recently when he started to get fed up with how pathetic he thinks the (Australian) army is and how completely unlike anything his dad or uncles or grandfather said it was, how the modern army is like a larp of what it used to be. He started paying attention recently, and when I sent him a barrage of links to read he felt a deep connection to the writing of moldbug and land, but he won't talk about them except when we are in private, and he's thinking of abstaining from the upcoming voice referendum because he knows voting yes is wrong, but doesn't want to vote no and 'embolden racists'.

He hasn't yet become counter culture, he's still just controlled opposition, because thanks to censorship 'to protect the marginalised', he doesn't even know real counter culture groups exist, and so must still reach for the mainstream culture for belonging. But they do, they might only be small and local, or hidden and secretive, but they exist. We exist.

We can't expect to immediately see Woodstock, we lost all the institutions and have to build them up again. That might mean decades even of eking out minor, almost pyrrhic victories, and it certainly means very little mainstream recognition, but so what? You haven't given up have you? And your blackpilled status is a motte meme. But giving up, even in the face of overwhelming odds, is for losers, and so you're still here reminding everyone to temper our expectations and not expect miracles.

*Sometimes in my idle daydreams I like to imagine you as the motte's Burroughs. Because you're both bitter about being Cassandras, but still capable of finding humour in it.

No man, that's progressive sleight.

Yes, but it worked. Counterculture is, and long has been, a product of the same progressive movement that runs the mainstream culture. There isn't any real "counterculture".

Hell, at this stage of the game, you are a counter culture hero*.

No, defeatists cannot be heroes; their own side hates them for their defeatism and the other side hates them for being opposed.

We can't expect to immediately see Woodstock

Woodstock was manufactured too.

Yes, but it worked. Counterculture is, and long has been, a product of the same progressive movement that runs the mainstream culture. There isn't any real "counterculture".

It didn't work - pol is not controlled opposition, for example. Chan culture is a counter culture. It's more accurate really to say that it worked in the sense that they have redefined counter culture for most people, but it didn't in the sense that counter culture is any culture which is counter to the mainstream. The left might define counter culture as hippies and artists, but we don't have to accept that framing and we shouldn't.

No, defeatists cannot be heroes; their own side hates them for their defeatism and the other side hates them for being opposed.

Well, I like you.

Woodstock was manufactured too.

True, but it is still a cultural icon of 'the left as counter culture'. Actually it might even be more appropriate now.

Hah, thanks for this little aside about @The_Nybbler. You've redeemed him a bit in my eyes. :)

This is the truth. You can see this in shows like The Boys which mocks "wokeness" in theory, but what it's really doing is mocking people who aren't woke enough or just pretend to be to get ahead. It's a criticism of wokeness from the more woke. This would be like if Life of Brian mocked Christians from the Right for not being Christian and conservative enough instead of mocking it for being silly and superstitious.

The closest thing you'll ever actually get to making fun of progressives/wokes in Hollywood would be from old school leftists who argue that it's gotten off the tracks and needs to be reigned in a bit but still mostly agree with it. You will never see a mainstream movie completely rejecting the modern Left's narrative because they all more or less agree with it.

"Life of Brian" was a movie whose actual function could be seen as wrapping up messages like "actually empires are good", "the masses are a bunch of sheep", "look at the idiot leftists and their infighting" and "trying to change things is futile, best just not do it" (the entire crucifixion scene, really) to a mildly transgressive and nominally anti-religious cover, where the Pythons took pains to make it clear that Brian is not supposed to be literal Jesus and they're not trying to mock Jesus. The scenes I linked are some of the most famous and most widely-quoted scenes from the entire movie.

I won't dispute that because I haven't seen that movie since college and I was probably high every time I watched it. I remember it making fun of Christians when I watched it, but maybe I missed the point of it because I was pretty young and uncultured. Christians did seem to be pretty opposed to it at the time it was released though based on Wikipedia, including banning it from many countries.

The point I was trying to make was that almost all of the criticisms of wokeness in mainstream media come from the left and criticizes it for not being woke enough or the wrong kind of leftism instead of coming from the right and being opposed to all forms of leftism full stop.