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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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That's one model, and it's definitely one that's correct in at least some circumstances. But it's not the only possible or relevant one.

Most people have different axioms and interests and preferences than you do, or I do, at some level. To go among others is to go among mad people. Yet most things don't devolve into a war of all against all. I'd like to wax poetic about recognizing the humanity in the other or recognizing the madness in oneself, but rather than that, or even some serious negotiated settlement, or some broader Westphalian Peace. It's not even that we don't care about these things, or that there are no weirdos that make the most trivial of these things their entire personality and want to restructure society, but it's possible to see them from the outside as something examined, and examined as a concept rather than as an enemy.

And that seems a lot more interesting for me, even if it's layered over axioms that can't be solved, even if a lot of the object-level discussions overlap.

I dunno. There are genuine pragmatic reasons that this particular issue is something people care about, and as much as I might personally want the libertarian perspective as a solution I can see why that would just make both mainstream views madder. Hell, even my "outsiders examining" goal is objectionable to a lot of people who find it dehumanizing. But I don't think it's inherent to every environment, even if it's inherent to many.