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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 10, 2025

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We can add not owning stocks to the list of RW life advice that includes not going to college, working at the nail factory, marrying an 170 pound woman, dumpster diving for yogurt, and not getting vaccinated.

https://x.com/L0m3z/status/1899623568650145985

(Yeah I know he's "joking" but what's the joke?)

  • -46

This is a pretty good example of a low-effort "boo outgroup" post. From the rules:

There are literally millions of people on either side of every major conflict, and finding that one of them is doing something wrong or thoughtless proves nothing and adds nothing to the conversation. We want to engage with the best ideas on either side of any issue, not the worst.

Post about specific groups, not general groups, wherever possible. General groups include things like gun rights activists, pro-choice groups, and environmentalists. Specific groups include things like The NRA, Planned Parenthood, and the Sierra Club. Posting about general groups is often not falsifiable, and can lead to straw man arguments and non-representative samples.

I think I have heard the name "Lomez" before. I have no idea who they are, or why they are a good representative for the "Right Wing" generally, or why this meme tweet is indicative of "Right Wing Life Advice". I think it's probably possible to describe a coherent category of "Right Wing Life Advice" and describe central examples of that category; I do not think "not going to college, working at the nail factory, marrying an 170 pound woman, dumpster diving for yogurt, and not getting vaccinated" would be a reasonable summation of that category, but if that's the argument, you should put some effort into proactively providing evidence to support it.

...and due to my "e" key being broken, @self_made_human beat me to it. Consider his warning seconded.

Do American leftwingers think that men should be allowed to shun fat women? I mean legally yes, but morally. From my understanding of American discourse around fat women, the 'fat pride movement' (I do not remember the exact term) is left coded.

If I am correct, then attacking rightists for normalizing fat women is kinda meaningless, if both sides do it.

Do American leftwingers think that men should be allowed to shun fat women? I mean legally yes, but morally.

Traditionalist-progressive thought posits that the only worth women have is their beauty (and it is the social role of men to offer the highest price for this service). Progressivism privileges women at the expense of men, so reducing the quality of the service men are forced to accept while not reducing the price for such means, in a zero-sum society/economy, more power and resources for the more beautiful. QED.

I understand what you mean, but i resent the use of the term "traditionalist" to describe this tendency, when actual tradition explicitly rejects the idea that beauty is of primary importance in favor of motherhood and homemaking.

There used to be a whole genre of fiction praising men who choose plain moral women over femmes fatales, and this general wisdom is so hard to kill that it even bubbles up in modern fiction (to wit, Knives Chau's obvious moral superiority over Ramona Flowers).

BAPism and other such Nietzchean ersatz reject in part this wisdom in favor of more base passions, but they needn't do so and the devil is in the details. The whole internal contradiction of that movement is a known problem that they haven't managed to deal with yet, mostly bursting out as that constant tension between Christians and neo-pagans.

Hence I believe it important to name things accurately given how tricky this philosophical entanglement is.

There used to be a whole genre of fiction praising men who choose plain moral women over femmes fatales, and this general wisdom is so hard to kill that it even bubbles up in modern fiction (to wit, Knives Chau's obvious moral superiority over Ramona Flowers).

Although in the movie Knives Chau gets tossed and the Good Ending involves Scott getting Ramona. My take on the movie (I haven't read the comic) is that the screenwriters want to, but don't explicitly, condemn the Scott-Knives relationship as inappropriate because she is still in school and he isn't.

Also, I don't think Ramona is supposed to hotter than Knives in the movie - her most prominent feature apart from being taller than Knives (who IIRC is tiny) is her electric pink buzz-cut hair - this is not something that is attractive to most hetrosexual men. Ramona is supposed to fun (unspoken subtext - slutty) in a way which an Asian-Canadian middle class teenager is not.

is her electric pink buzz-cut hair - this is not something that is attractive to most hetrosexual men

It isn’t that attractive today because it has culturally barber-polled down to having lots of low status associations. Back when the comic was made, having electric pink hair meant you were a cool/hot alt-girl.

Regardless of the colour, the buzz cut is unattractive to heterosexual men in the vast majority of times and places.

I think the distinction between "cool/hot alt-girl", "fun" and "slutty" is one without a difference. I mean this girl is in her mid-twenties and has already had seven messy breakups.

Movie Ramona is mid by the standards of female characters in Hollywood movies. I assume this is deliberate on the part of the filmmakers.

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