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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27214 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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the Leviathian shaped hole

I admit to not being enough of a Hlynka scholar. Can someone explain what this actually means?

A related question, who coined the phrase Leviathan-shaped Hock? It's been living in my head since I read it in one of these roundups.

I did, to make fun of them both being a meme at the same time.

Essentially (to my understanding) that people assume our rules and norms are self-enforcing whereas in actuality (as per this theory) without significant effort we would exist in the "state of nature".

So thinking that men would revert to such a state when deprived of the social efforts to repress our base instincts means you are noticing the hole in our current (mostly Western) mindset.

Exactly what it says on the tin. Modern civilization is so successful at hiding the base reality of violence that props it up that it's easy for people to forget it even exists. That we're just animals in a well organized pit.

Though I would argue, here this distance from violence rather manifests in being so delusional that you think a bear isn't a death machine that can eat you alive on a whim if some armed man isn't around to save you.

As I understand it, it's the assertion that whenever someone identifies a societal problem and begins asking "why is it like this? what can we do about it" the answer is that the identified problem arises from something we ought to already be aware of; base human nature.

The solution (what Hlynka used to point to as the piece that would fit into the "Leviathan Shaped Hole") is often some mix of traditional cultural values, a stronger executive within the state Apparatus, more rigidly defined social roles for men/women/minorities/majorities. I'll admit that on this last part, I could be a little wrong as Hlynka's writing was often a little impenetrable.

I hope I'm close enough here.

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