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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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Right, the devil is very much in the details as far as @BurdensomeCount’s account of his noblesse oblige. The nobility of medieval Europe were expected to actually materially improve the lives of the people living under them, and to provide military protection for them. They were warlords - warlords with culture and at least the trappings of a genteel bearing, to be sure, but we’re talking about a network of guys who were expected to raise and lead armies in brutal combat.

I’m sure that @BurdensomeCount would say that he’d be happy to be a benevolent patriarch to the Western proles, and to provide for and protect them, if only they hadn’t pre-emptively spurned his noblesse with their gross insubordination. But could it be that he has gotten the causation backwards? Maybe the Western proles hate him and revolt against him because they are fully aware that he is in their country specifically to do something parasitic which produces zero actual value for anyone who isn’t a mega-wealthy vulture capitalist, and they don’t believe that he has anything remotely useful or beneficial to offer them.

A shake-up a few years ago in the executive suite of the multi-billion-dollar corporation with which I’m employed led to the ascension of an Indian Brahmin CEO, who then hired a few of his co-ethnics to major positions in the company. I’m sure that this guy probably sees himself precisely the way that Burdensome sees himself; as a paragon of superior breeding, here to rescue a flagging company with his immense and visually-obvious inborn talents. What most of us proles see, though, is a painfully awkward empty suit with not one iota of integrity or love for the common man in his bones. A parasite, here to bleed the company dry, dither about wage increases, and give a leg-up to other immigrants from his caste. A massively well-compensated parasite, and almost certainly a profoundly intelligent and numerate man, but someone I wouldn’t let into my home.

I would actually be fine with an immigrant overclass who displayed a genuine noblesse oblige. I agree with Burdensome that Anglosphere proles - I can’t speak to the state of Western proles more broadly - are degenerated and unworthy of the mantle of self-rule. They are crying out for someone to be their champion, but their shitty tastes and miscalibrated instincts keep leading them to elevate what, to the rest of us, are obvious grifters and charlatans. A ruling class with a combination of genuine erudition, hyper-competence, and noblesse oblige is exactly what these people need, and while I’m far from convinced that we’re past the point that we could construct such a class entirely from native-born talent, it’s at least plausible. The problem is that we can sense, with zero difficulty, that the overclass we’re actually importing are soulless sycophants and parasitic quants, saying whatever they need to say to get ahead while privately undermining and bleeding dry the people they’re ostensibly supposed to be protecting. Until the proles see concrete changes, of course they’re going to be insubordinate. You can play chicken-and-egg games all day, but from my perspective the ball is in your court to earn their deference.