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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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Fascism is when you exalt strength, might, and glory, and Will, when you devote yourself to the State, when greatness takes priority over weakness and the lie of equality is laid bare, when the noble races are given their due, when the parasite of judeo-bolshevism is purged from the blood of the nation.

And so on. Or at least it claims to be that, but if it doesn't sound like that, it's probably not fascism. Moldbug? BAP? Sure, clearly similarities there. Lockdowns may be state overreach, but they aren't fascism.

would you prefer authoritarian?

Forgot about the whole "yeah the 1st amendment doesn't apply anymore, no religious services or protests (except the state-sanctioned ones)"

I still disagree with 'authoritarian', mostly because I think this scale of societal intervention in itself is inevitable, both for good and for ill (consider prohibition, drafts in existentially threatening wars, etc). But it's much closer to what you seem to be arguing than fascist.

yeah the 1st amendment doesn't apply anymore, no religious services or protests (except the state-sanctioned ones)"

Do you think the "state" had a genuine desire to harm religion by closing religious services? That's what this seems to imply. Yet it makes much more sense to me that religious services were shut down along with similar kinds of businesses.

I think it is more likely a happy accident then a deliberate targeting, but it is hard to say for sure. There is much about what went on in March 2020 that is still very unclear to me. I think it is definitely possible it was more a general egregore that drove the shutdowns than any one specific thing (China is sometimes mentioned, though if so they were clearly drinking their own kool-aid rather than trying to sabotage anyone).

EDIT: I should say I'm referring to an "egregore" being responsible rather than directly the "state", as in my mind much of 2020 is better explained by some sort of social media/traditional media/political expediency/current thing/good 'ol fashioned hysterias then more concrete concepts such as "the state"