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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30447 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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All this guilt has to me a definite, Old World flavor: Christianity. The original sin, the sin that one cannot cleanse oneself of, the sin that one must regularly and harshly atone for. What's baffling is the paradox that this reactionary agenda of mourning and atonement for the actions of one's ancestors is pushed by left-leaning individuals that would often identify as progressive and usually want to have nothing to do with religion or tradition.

At this point, just as it approaches banality to compare "wokeness" to a religion, it approaches banality to say that many progressive people are far less non-religious than they think (or, to put it another way: they are simply uninterested in the historical and religious roots of so many of their beliefs beyond some Whiggish "things were bad then they slowly got better as we became more enlightened" intuition).

Once, at work, when I raised my point, I was rebuffed by a coworker who stated, more or less, that White Americans should be guilty because they benefit from the fruits of the violent extermination of Native Americans. But isn't this a slippery slope? Who decide where this stops? Should I also feel guilt about Roman conquest? Or, going farther, the many petty conflicts that occurred between the Tigris and Euphrates?

This is the problem with haphazardly secularizing something: in religion, where God acts as the final arbiter who can forgive sin, cataloguing sins and constantly declaring yourself and others sinners isn't as big a deal since we're all sinners and God can provide recompense. We can pray for forgiveness because we don't necessarily get it on Earth.

Within the secular framework there isn't even the possibility of justice. What could possibly make centuries of slavery and domination and just plain snobbishness "right" in any deep sense?

It can't. So basically this secularized view condemns you to permanent guilt to no end for all sorts of things that have happened, are happening and will happen.

Conveniently, this turns you into the stereotypically obsequious, white guilt-possessing progressive who offers no resistance to whatever the spokespeople of the "victims" demand (some have just directly demanded money, and the peasants desperate for their indulgences paid!).

Making people existentially sicker as an electoral strategy...interesting move

Within the secular framework there isn't even the possibility of justice. What could possibly make centuries of slavery and domination and just plain snobbishness "right" in any deep sense?

If you're referring to irreligious people in general, and not just wokeists, then my response is that practically every group (ethnic, religious, etc.) has, throughout history, been both oppressor and oppressed. We don't need a god to forgive us: we can agree it's bad, forgive each other, and agree never to do it again.

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many indigenous /antiracist/ anticolonial movements in recent times are demanding not reconciliation but restorative justice. Never before has this been such a global and forceful phenomenon, all directed at one group: white Europeans.

Two points of contention here. First, there certain has been a strong global anticolonial movement before now: back in the 60s, when decolonisation was at its height.

Second, speaking as a right-wing European: second-wave colonialism from 1870 - 1970 in Africa was bad policy. It didn't help European imperial powers on net, and (to be generous) it helped African natives only in a very suboptimal way.

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