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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   38919 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 24, 2025

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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.

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