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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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Likewise, I think this is why the Sexual Revolution and the rest of the works of the Enlightenment are not going to last much longer. The lie only works when it hasn't been tested or when the results of the test can be concealed. We've been running the test for decades now, and the systems that work to hide the results are breaking down. Once our society completes its current trajectory, the ideological precursors that created and maintained the Sexual Revolution will no longer be capable of sustaining any degree of credibility.

Really? I think that a bunch of people will feel vaguely burned by the SR as adults and retreat towards conservatism, but this won't lead to lasting change and the youth will be even more progressive and sex-positive and weird, and the cycle will repeat just like it did the past two generations.

The question remains whether there is a coherent cluster of behavior that is naturally shameful to humans, which can be altered through significant effort, or if it's all just a random walk. I think it's the former.

Nature changes with time, though, for some people at points in history it was natural and healthy that it was shameful to not own a proper number of livestock. Now, that's not true anymore. People look at their situation and try to judge what should and shouldn't be shameful. Instincts in our genes are evolved, too, and as the environment changes the value of an instinct changes. Better to justify the kind of shame you want than just say it emerges naturally.