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MadMonzer

Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

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joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC 

				
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MadMonzer


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Temporarily embarassed liberal elite

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 06 23:45:01 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There was a famous noughties fake website offering exactly that service. Large parts of the MSM were taken in and wrote outraged articles about how awful it was.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I guess, at least one reads that no one's having sex anymore.




My understanding is that this is driven by fewer people being coupled up, not by couples having less sex.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Both settlements mentioned in that article were between adverse parties. The innovation in this case is that Trump is funding a slush fund settlement by suing himself.


I agree with @JTarrou that the fundamental tactic is a very old left-wing one. Trump's version is more brazen in its corruption in two ways:


    

  • The policy change requested is a direct cash payment to Trump's allies with no pretence of a service provided in exchange, as opposed to the expansion of a government programme which hires his allies at above-market salaries.
    • 

  • When lefty NGOs sue Democratic state and local governments, they go to a lot of effort to create the impression that the settlement is negotiated between adverse parties. Trump just admits that he is suing himself.
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think this is a reasonable comment. My mis-spent youth as a student politician gave me a front-row seat for the flippening around 2000 (I think the 1999 "Battle of Seattle" WTO protests was the turning point) when over the space of about two years being an activist on PC issues suddenly became cringe and all the cool kids were protesting about green or economic issues. You can definitely make the case that the people pushing 1990's PC were never beaten, they just got bored. If that is true, it follows that when there was another flippening in the early 2010's (I see the failure of Occupy as the turning point) and social justice activism became cool again they were just able to pick up from where they left off.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In the current year, there is a Ukrainian nation. If Putin succeeds in his political goal, there will not be. That is the meaning of the word "genocide". That you think there shouldn't be a Ukrainian nation is irrelevant, given that there clearly is - people don't fight this well for non-existent nations.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is not my experience of my (recently gentrified, ethnically mixed) neighbourhood of London. Cheap chain restaurants absolutely have kids' menus with puzzles and colouring sheets on the back. Parks have more playgrounds than they used to. (I am aware that London is exceptional among top-tier cities in terms of the number and quality of our modern playgrounds). And the solidarity among parents that people with prestigious platforms talk about in the past tense still exists on the ground. When my autistic sons sperg out in public, I get sympathetic responses rather than judgemental ones.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't think the theory of a civilization scale parasite is necessary. There is a simpler explanation: the vast majority of people simply don't see falling fertility rates as a problem.




It isn't sufficient either, if the parasite is anything to do with the culture wars. Fertility in first-world Asia crashes long before the western culture wars reach them. The parasite has to be something that existed in 1970s Japan.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Is there any belief by any serious thinker that this is a war of genocide?




Yes. Numerous Russians, including Vladimir Putin and Aleksandr Dugin, have said that one of the goals of the war is the elimination of Ukrainian nationhood as an idea and making the Ukrainians understand that they are actually "little Russians". Dugin at least is a serious thinker, and this qualifies as genocide under the standard definition.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


even as they make their way to a BLM march in a > 99% white country.




BLM in Continental Europe was a single-digit number of people per country until it became an excuse for ignoring COVID lockdowns in summer 2020. After lockdowns were relaxed, it went back to being a single-digit number of people per country. BLM in the UK was less pathetic, but not by much.  BLM in Australia was an Aboriginal-rights movement that was only nominally connected to BLM in the US.


Grassroots movements adapt themselves to local conditions - on both sides of the political fence. The culture war in Western Europe has Muslim immigrants as the n*****s, not black people.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Because one of the themes from Jupiter is used as the tune for the British patriotic hymn I Vow to Thee, my Country, it makes me feel patriotic for Britain and not Jupiter. But Holst didn't intend that use and his daughter (who was also a composer) said that the well-known secondary use ruined the original meaning of Jupiter.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
We didn't lose them. 2010s wokeness won against considerable opposition, including opposition from other forms of leftism. (2016 Bernie was the less-woke candidate). The question is "Why did 2010s wokeness overcome the antibodies when 1990s PC couldn't?"


There are a few obvious stories (and I have no idea what the relevant contributions are):


    

  • It really was academia. 1990s PC lost in most places, but they won in certain parts of the academy, and used their academic platform to indoctrinate a future generation of elites.
    • 

  • The Sailer/Hannania theory - long-term culture change caused by the normalisation of anti-discrimination compliance activity in universities and workplaces. People in leadership roles in the 1990s had grown up in a world where anti-discrimination law was new and felt like an outside imposition. Power leadership roles in the 2010s had grown up in a world where of course it was illegal to mistreat members of protected groups.
    • 

  • The people who should hold the line on far-left idiocy (namely the establishment centre-left) can't because Hilary Clinton goes full wokestupid in the course of attacking Bernie from the left on cultural issues in 2016.
    • 

  • Social media made everyone dumber and more susceptible to bad ideas. It also enabled a new type of pile-on, where a random small business can find itself on the receiving end of several thousand requests to fire an employee. Jon Ronson published So You've Been Publicly Shamed in 2015 and about half the shamings he is talking about are social media pileons on randos whose unwoke behaviour went viral.
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Both "60's nostalgia" and "80's nostalgia" involve a lot of nostalgia for works released in years beginning 197. Both the Rolling Stones and disco peaked in the calendar 1970's, for example.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


This phenomenon is best illustrated by the music video for "Buddy Holly" by Weezer, directed by Spike Jonze, which uses trick photography to make it look like the band is performing in an episode of Happy Days. That is, it's a video from the 1990s which is a nostalgic throwback to a sitcom from the 1970s, which sitcom was itself a nostalgic throwback to the 1950s in which it is set.




I always thought the canonical example was Grease, in which everything except the cars was a giveaway that the film was made in the 1970s and not the 1950s in which it was set.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


There is so little of "better" arts because the finance bros and other medium-to-super rich have a revealed preference of complaining about modern art on Xitter rather than patronizing the arts they supposedly like.




I think it's the finance bros and suchlike who are funding a lot the bad contemporary art. Deutsche Bank in particular has made "we fund edgy contemporary art" into part of its corporate identity. Drexel was the founding sponsor of the Turner Prize. Saatchi and Saatchi were not finance bros, but a lot of finance bros showed up at their art parties.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In a specific house, I defer to the judgement of the lares, who have been there before me and will remain after me. And the lares of my current home like crimson.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Biologically-related infertility is obviously an exceedingly small cause of declining fertility, and in any serious discussion it must be pretty far down the list of priorities.




I disagree. Age-related infertility is a major cause of couples with children having fewer children than they wanted after starting too late, and "couples with children not being able to have as many children as they wanted" is about half the fertility decline.


Unfortunately, "mum too old" is one of the harder fertility problems to fix with IVF.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Scandi minimalism with off-white colours is a costly signal of cleanliness - it looks awful if cluttered, messy, or grubby. So if you can pull it off either you are very zen about material possessions, or you are very careful about tidiness and can probably afford a SAHM and/or servants.


Victorian maximalism copes much better with mild dirt and mess. (For the OG Victorians, mostly coal smoke - it was impossible to keep anything clean in smog-era London). We have two boys.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Today I think that’s changing, since 2018 or so when the Deano and McMansion types had for some years adopted a twisted version of 2000s beige Scandi minimalism the upper-middle class meta has clearly returned to full-on maximalism complete with a lot of (even in dreary London) very dark 19th century living rooms and antique shop clutter.




You have seen through me. We were at the leading edge of the trend when we redecorated our Victorian terrace (rowhouse for Americans) in the original coffee-and-crimson colour scheme in 2017. The stated reason is that the reflections when direct sunlight shines on beige walls cause various autistic family members to have sensory issues.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Most people aren't hanging a replica Mona Lisa on their wall.




What they say is that a print of the Mona Lisa wouldn't be like the real thing because the eyes wouldn't track you round the room. I have seen the painted replica Mona Lisa (by one of Leonardo's students) at Leonardo's home in Amboise, and the eyes on that did track me round the room (much more effectively because the room wasn't rammed), so I am suspicious that this claim would turn out to be false if you had a high-quality giclee print.


That said, the class of people who want to put large quantities of fine art on their walls but can't afford decent paintings buy modern, signed limited-edition prints and not giclees of Old Masters.  I think this is straightforwardly snobbery-driven, but I don't really understand the mechanism (although I realise I have unthinkingly done the same thing decorating my own house).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


George Lucas wasn’t exactly shy about the leftist political messaging,




I think it is more "Democracy, Fuck Yeah" than left-wing - the aesthetics of the OG Empire are generically evil rather than distinctively Nazi* and the reading of the original trilogy where the Empire is the USSR works just as well (hence Reagan using it in his famous speech), and Lucas moved between endorsing and not endorsing it depending on the political winds. The Empire of the prequels is a consolidating dictatorship following an autogolpe, again with generically evil aesthetics - Lucas cited Napoleon and Caesar (who are not obviously left or right-coded in 2026) as inspiration as well as Hitler. The First Order is obviously fascist, but that is just lazy filmmaking.  Lucas gets the thing Orwell gets in a way the makers of the sequels don't - that it is the nature of tyranny and not the political rhetoric used to justify it that matters.


If "Democracy, Fuck Yeah" comes across as a left-wing political message to you, that says more about the right-wing in your country than it does about George Lucas.


* The only scene in the original trilogy directly ripped off from Triumph of the Will is the finale of ANH where the Rebels put on an awards ceremony with aesthetics that Hitler would have approved of.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You were at Cambridge, where tutoring is a core part of the service.


I'm not seeing how it benefits the UK in practice, but graduates of elite British universities have received a more rigorous university education than graduates of elite American universities. I think Eton provides a more rigorous pre-University education than traditional-elite American prep schools, and I'm absolutely sure that Westminster and St Paul's provide a more rigorous education than Sidwell Friends and similar bougie private schools in Blue cities.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The original intention of the whole Bill of Rights was that it was a limitation on the Federal government only. For SCOTUS to interfere in the internal affairs of a state in the name of enforcing the federal Bill of Rights would have been an unacceptable abridgement of state sovereignty according to both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.


I think the preambulatory clause of the 2nd amendment has something to do with the intended meaning - it would be odd if it was a pure rhetorical flourish on the part of the 1st Congress. The obvious interpretation of "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State" is that the drafters of the 2nd amendment expected someone to be regulating the militia, and given the structure of the original constitution, the power to regulate the militia is shared between Congress and the states, and founding-era practice was that the power retained by the states included powers that the modern 2nd amendment movement would prefer the states not to have.


Part of the problem here is that there isn't a standard originalist theory of how the Bill of Rights became incorporated against the States. The relevant original intent is the original intent of the framers and ratifiers of the 14th amendment, and this is hard to work out because the Jim Crow-era SCOTUS rendered the Privileges and Immunities clause nugatory in a way which was almost certainly not compatible with the intent of the Reconstruction Congress. In practice originalist thought cashes out as "the 1860s Congress intended to reach back in time and impose a 1790s understanding of the Bill of Rights on the States" which usually leads to coherent law even if it doesn't make sense as political history. But it doesn't give a clear answer in cases where the 1790's understanding of the Bill of Rights doesn't make sense without federalism, like the Establishment clause, or the carefully negotiated compromise about who controlled the militia. Local byelaws against going armed in urban areas were a lot rarer in 1790s America than in the UK (where they were ubiquitous) but nobody at the time thought they were constitutionally problematic (except in Vermont, which had a much broader RKBA clause in its early state constitution than the other states), ditto state-level bans on gun ownership by free blacks if you want a less happy precedent.


The other problem is that handguns that actually worked were not available at the time of the founding, so applying the 1790's understanding of the RKBA to the most important questions in modern gun policy (which are largely about routine concealed carry of handguns) involves somewhat strained hypotheticals.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


A right to overthrow the government is written into the second amendment.




I don't think this makes sense. The technical ability to do something and social/legal permission to do it are separate. The anti-tyranny interpretation of the second amendment is that private citizens (and state militias) have the right to attempt to maintain the technical ability to overthrow the government. The reason why this is a dubious idea is that the government has both the right and the obligation (under the guarantee clause and general principles) to maintain the technical ability to defeat a rebellion. A right to try to do something where failure should guaranteed is not a useful right.


But social permission to overthrow the government is something that you just don't get. All governments can and should protect their own existence, including by punishing unsuccessful attempts to overthrow them.


The founding fathers knew they were traitors and would be hanged for it if the French took too long to show up.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is plausible for land-based weapons, but the Letters of Marque power (which implies that private citizens cannot legally operate warships without a letter of marque) and the prohibition on state navies (which would be nugatory if the states could support private navies) only make sense if the 2nd amendment did not cover naval weapons.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The linked article talks about "horrific acts of sexual violence involving dogs" but doesn't say which part of the dog was involved. Without further information, I would assume it was the teeth, and the bit that makes the violence sexual was the part of the human involved.