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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   38836 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 24, 2025

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A pre-Lenten post that's been in the works for a while.

On April 10, 1947, a man named Rudolf Hoss went to confession, six days before his execution. Hardly a particularly unusual course of events, but Hoss had left the Catholic Church in his teens over an incident involving confession, joined the Nazi party, and would shortly therafter issue the following declaration:

My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity. As Commandant of Auschwitz I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of the 'Third Reich' for human destruction. In so doing I have inflicted terrible wounds on humanity. I caused unspeakable suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am to pay for this with my life. May the Lord God forgive one day what I have done.

He was not the only war criminal to seek absolution following WWII. On the other side of the world, Yasuhiko Asaka would convert to Catholicism in 1951. While his connection to the imperial family would prevent his being charged for war crimes, he gave the order beginning the rape of Nanking. His immediate superior, general Matsui, who was executed for the crime, spent his retirement after the massacre promoting devotion to the Buddhist goddess of mercy and advocating for full independence for captured territories, and his last request was for his family to adopt a maid, presumably a large favor in postwar Japan.

On a lesser scale, I have spoken to missionary priests who talk movingly of impoverished third worlders walking hundreds of miles, often barefoot, to go to confession, often with no interest in the faith beyond it(especially in west Africa, it seems many had been baptized by Pentecostals but wished to confess transgressions rather than simply trust in the mercy of God- He may forgive, but does your ancestor spirit?). The early Spanish missionaries in Mexico noticed the same thing- Indians clamored for confession, they clamored for baptism, for release from their sins, but before the Guadalupe apparition had few interested in the practice of the faith.

The natural state of man is to fear retribution from the immaterial- will the ancestors punish me? Is the river angry with my conduct, will it flood? Have I cursed the whole village? How can I appease them? Will there be retribution on me, or maybe on my whole clan?

We have not moved past this. WEIRD Americans speak of Karma, of what comes around goes around, of 'garbage people getting what's coming'. It's been noted that the SJW brigade seems not to forgive; transgressions contaminate you, your works, your associates... forever. I don't know any SJWs so I have to take the motte's word for it.

Scott noted new atheism as a failed hamartialogy, but he focused mostly on the question of 'why do bad things happen to good people'- there's another aspect to hamartialogy, the question of 'how can I, as a person, move past my sins? How can I end the contamination?'. In Catholicism there's a simple answer- confess to a priest, do whatever penance he gives you. There might be purely natural consequences, like health problems from drug use, but the contamination is gone. As far as I know there is no other answer, anywhere, ever. Notice general Matsui, above, never seemed to regard himself as having atoned for the rape of Nanking- and he said, at the time:

I now realize that we have unknowingly wrought a most grievous effect on this city. When I think of the feelings and sentiments of many of my Chinese friends who have fled from Nanking and of the future of the two countries, I cannot but feel depressed. I am very lonely and can never get in a mood to rejoice about this victory ... I personally feel sorry for the tragedies to the people, but the Army must continue unless China repents. Now, in the winter, the season gives time to reflect. I offer my sympathy, with deep emotion, to a million innocent people."

Even if you are a secular materialist, the time to think about what you have done wrong is nigh. And it's the time to remember that guilt is real, very real. How does your society remove guilt? I suspect for many, the answer is 'it doesn't'. And removing guilt serves a vital and important function. We see it, so I am told, in the internecine warfare of SJWs over being too closely associated with wrongthinkers- without it you can't reintegrate into the community. We see it in the man weighed down with guilt over his past behavior, unable to move on. And I suppose we see it more controversially with the post-religious right, hanging a sword of damocles over the heads of converts from all sorts of degenerate behavior. Former abortion doctors and homosexuals are minor celebrities in Christian spaces; I suspect many of these people would have committed suicide without the ideas of Christian mercy.

If there is a hell, then Höss in the very lowest pit, and while nobody deserves to be in hell, I can hardly think of anyone who tried harder to deserve to be there. When the utilitarians break hell, his kind shall be the last to be freed.

The amount of utility loss Höss has caused is unfathomable. A comic book villain could rape and murder a five year old every day of his bloody life, and still the QALY loss of his lifetime would be less than what Höss and his team achieved in a month. He had every opportunity to regret his actions during his tenure of running the hell he had created on earth. If god wanted him to repent, then every cry of a child he murdered was a call to repent, and he ignored them all. He did not try to blow up the gas chambers, or take his own life, or even ask to be transferred to the front to serve Hitler without directly getting his hands dirty.

And then in a prison cell, he suddenly discovered that he had done grave wrong and asked god for forgiveness. Why did the Soviets even give him a priest? And if I had been his confessor, I would have told him that a million murders were a bit about my pay grade, but that I would be very happy to forgive him a dozen murders of his choice, and let him try the Nuremberg defense at the pearly gates for the others.

Of course, the evilness of giving comfort to Höss pales compared to what the Catholic Church did for other Nazis. The same Church which had barely lifted a finger to try to stop the genocides of Hitler was not only willing to forgive famous Nazis such as Adolf Eichmann or Joseph Mengele, they were willing to bet all their moral authority on helping them to escape worldly justice as well. Thanks to Christian forgiveness, Mengele, the Nazi doctor died in freedom in Argentina, and Eichmann only got his due because the Israeli were less forgiving than the Vatican.

Anything the Catholics did after the ratlines is small fries compared to the evil they did back then. I mean, if Christian forgiveness means smuggling mass murderers to Argentina, then it obviously also means shielding priest from worldly authorities and enabling them to continue to sexually abuse children. As long as they confess from time to time, a few raped kids will not prevent them from joining Höss in the Catholic conception of paradise.

And then in a prison cell, he suddenly discovered that he had done grave wrong and asked god for forgiveness.

Few convert for glorious reasons.

It's been noted that the SJW brigade seems not to forgive; transgressions contaminate you, your works, your associates... forever. I don't know any SJWs so I have to take the motte's word for it.

This isn't strictly true. The transgressions of an ally may be ignored for as long as that ally provides more value to the movement as an agent of it than as a victim of it. The second they have more to gain by cutting him down, he will be cut down. A great many male feminists and the like were "known" to be creeps, and it was even documented by places like kiwifarms for years, before their eventual public excoriations. Then all of a sudden one day it's "I always knew he was a scumbag" "I was afraid to speak up before" and so on as everyone joins in the public ritual of cancellation to snatch their personal shred of virtue from being part of the firing squad.

That's because this isn't only about morality and enforcement, it's also a status game. Tearing down an avatar of badthink elevates oneself; imagine a communist state in which firing squad members were both volunteers and exalted for their righteous service.

If you don't mind me necroposting a bit, can you give an example of a person who was discussed on KF pre-cancellation? I'd prefer not to have to wade through their material wholesale.

I'd strongly recommend taking a dive and reading up on random ecelebs sometime. The stuff they document is incredible.
Keffels(?) was one of the big "libs made him a saint and declared all evidence to the contrary Officially Hate Speech, then turned round and Knew All Along he was actually bad news and Highly Problematic"

You could also go to the various podcasts that plagiarize straight from the farms, like Jessie whatever.

I find the idea of externally 'atoning' for your sins and/or expelling them in some way disturbing. If you do wrong and feel bad you deserve it. These emotions are yours now and you must carry them on with you. Trying to get away from this burden or attempting to ameliorate the pain through some self afflicting physical process is an act of rebellion against your own conscience. You are running away from pain your 'being' is telling you to feel. Paying a price for wrongdoing, for example a legal price, should not be seen as an excuse to free yourself from your deserved emotional turmoil.

Reading about pious pilgrims flagellating for faith, I'm reminded of people who speedrun video games. I feel sad when I see videos of them getting a new best time, springing out of their crusty chairs in a dimly lit room, screaming in elation: A new world record! Who knows how much effort, how many hours these folks spend on this completely insular and self driven compulsion to get the best time that is of no consequence to anything at all. But this perversion of effort and strife gets paraded around as an important accomplishment by similarly minded people.

Much like a sad teenager playing Super Mario for the millionth time, a pious pilgrim will do a real life barefoot desert speedrun. This is not an external exercise. It's completely internal. Completely useless and devoid of value beyond the perverted compulsion of the speedrunning pilgrim.

Reflection is important. Twisting and contorting your body to push yourself towards a better understanding of what life is for you can be noble and good. Struggle and strife for its own sake can also be good. But it has to be done for the sake of something actually 'real'. I think it's universally recognized that the only actually 'real' thing is having children and raising them. Anything else that is not working towards this goal is ultimately fake.

As an aside: To that extent you can pinpoint an ultimate 'gotcha' on the new religious right. As far as Christianity being a proxy for people successfully having children, it is obviously good. Beyond that, it's very little beyond philosophical speedrunning.

I'm reminded of people who speedrun video games. I feel sad when I see videos of them getting a new best time, springing out of their crusty chairs in a dimly lit room, screaming in elation: A new world record! Who knows how much effort, how many hours these folks spend on this completely insular and self driven compulsion to get the best time that is of no consequence to anything at all. But this perversion of effort and strife gets paraded around as an important accomplishment by similarly minded people.

Couldn't you say the same of any art or hobby without a practical use, though?

Could you? I think most normal people have a very immediate and visceral understanding of the difference between a 'good' hobby and a 'bad' one.

For example, kayaking doesn't seem to have any immediate 'practical use', but I can tell you with full confidence that it's a much better hobby than playing Donkey Kong Racing on repeat.

One could probably write essays on why and argue at length through whatever wordgames possible back and forth, but I think most people share this fundamental understanding on the matter.

For example, kayaking doesn't seem to have any immediate 'practical use', but I can tell you with full confidence that it's a much better hobby than playing Donkey Kong Racing on repeat.

At this point many speedrunners are living off of it, so it's more like a career path.

I don't think there are that many who can realistically look at speedrunning as a career path. Especially not relative to how many participate in the activity. On top of that, many of those that are living off of it are living a sedentary isolated lifestyle where they have no responsibilities or costs that reach beyond their personal needs. Needs that usually don't reach beyond their bedrooms. Their 'living' doesn't cost all that much, and, sad to say, probably isn't worth all that much.

I'd also add that, relative to a 'good' hobby, you don't need an excuse like 'it makes me money' to confidently partake in it. You spend money on kayaking to go out on the water to paddle around and you still look far superior to someone who takes five hundred to a thousand dollars per month streaming their speedruns of Mario.

Much like a sad teenager playing Super Mario for the millionth time, a pious pilgrim will do a real life barefoot desert speedrun. This is not an external exercise. It's completely internal. Completely useless and devoid of value beyond the perverted compulsion of the speedrunning pilgrim.

Every religion has this kind of ‘speed running’ rules lawyerism. Many Buddhists believe that instead of chanting mantras you can just spin prayer wheels with them inscribed. In Bhutan, when I visited, the natives would hold them in rivers or running streams, or even let them float away, or build water wheel contraptions. If it spins a thousand times, that’s a thousand prayers, right? Far more efficient than saying them yourself.

If it happens in faiths as diverse as Buddhism and Christianity, I would expect that pre-Abrahamic European folkways / religions would have similar things. It’s just who we are.

We have not moved past this. WEIRD Americans speak of Karma, of what comes around goes around, of 'garbage people getting what's coming'. It's been noted that the SJW brigade seems not to forgive; transgressions contaminate you, your works, your associates... forever. I don't know any SJWs so I have to take the motte's word for it.

Counter-point: Dan Harmon committed sexual harassment, a real no-no sin, and gave a fairly heartfelt apology and was apparently forgiven and is now back to work. So it's not impossible.

I think part of the problem is more that SJW ethics are almost tailor-made for exploitation by narcissists and other bitter/status-seeking people disinclined towards forgiveness in the first place (and cancellation disproportionately affects people with enough status to become visible and thus provide an incentive to continually pick at), so it's hard to come up with a simple principle that accounts for all cases because someone can always defect and there are reasons to deny status even if one personally forgives.

And I suppose we see it more controversially with the post-religious right, hanging a sword of damocles over the heads of converts from all sorts of degenerate behavior.

A lot of this is likely because this is very online: converts are essentially acting as influencers, which gives good reason to gatekeep the usual positive reinforcement that comes with forgiveness.

If I see an aging instathot in a burqa I'm willing to accept she's a Muslim now (it's frowned upon to question that sort of thing without good reason), but there are good reasons to deny her prestige for wearing it. She clawed her way back to neutral, she's not a moral exemplar.

If I see an aging instathot in a burqa I'm willing to accept she's a Muslim now (it's frowned upon to question that sort of thing without good reason), but there are good reasons to deny her prestige for wearing it. She clawed her way back to neutral, she's not a moral exemplar.

Yeah, I think this is part of the human condition, though, we are always more impressed by the convert than by the born believer, find it hard not to be. People find it flattering when someone changes to be like them and to agree with them, whereas someone who always did is less interesting.

Also in practice there tends to be a fair cost / friction in doing things like changing religions.

The more religious you and your community already are. For many it isn't as big a burden as it once universally was.

A lot of this is likely because this is very online: converts are essentially acting as influencers, which gives good reason to gatekeep the usual positive reinforcement that comes with forgiveness.

If I see an aging instathot in a burqa I'm willing to accept she's a Muslim now (it's frowned upon to question that sort of thing without good reason), but there are good reasons to deny her prestige for wearing it. She clawed her way back to neutral, she's not a moral exemplar.

I find people who are influencers/celebrities for a certain point of view and then flip flop on that, converting but maintaining their public profile to be reprehensible. If your publicly-endorsed perspective or behavior, the one that made you famous, was really so wrong, it calls into question the whole concept of your deserving any fame at all.

The appropriate response to so publicly being wrong is to state your intentions and then disappear. Run to the wilderness. Strike your breast. Fast in sackcloth and ashes. If your reasons for converting are about gaining the mercy of God, you will receive it; seek and ye shall find, and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. But if your reasons for conversion have to do with saving face or maintaining status, I have bad news for you:

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 18)

The appropriate response to so publicly being wrong is to state your intentions and then disappear. Run to the wilderness. Strike your breast. Fast in sackcloth and ashes.

And figures like dr Bernard Nathansen would be pointed to by many practicing Christians as a counter example.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/03/03/how-things-even-out

This comedy piece sort of encapsulates how I feel about karma. In the long run, things even out. Maybe a bunch of bad stuff is happening, but good things will happen eventually. Maybe innocent people are being punished now, but in the long run guilty people will get away with stuff, and innocent people will get away with stuff too, and the guilty people will be punished for other stuff, and every permutation thereof.

Except if the human race goes instinct, ofc. Then all bets about future karma are off, so to speak.

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