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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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unless you run in religious or traditional circles

Minor point here but I'm intrigued by the thought of a non-religious traditional circle. Do you have any examples?

There seems to be a revival of non-religious conservativism, often called as Cultural Christianity. One such example is for instance Carl Benjamin AKA Sargon of Akkad - a self declared atheist who nevertheless is socially conservative, and lately even started going to church on Sunday. This is also very common for Jews, as judaism is more open to legalistic forms of worship, but I also find it quite common right now amongst former atheists.

It may also be one of the reasons why Orthodoxy is now on the rise, as they have more space for orthopraxy/lived theology/theosis as eventually leading to redemption as opposed to Catholicism and other churches, which put faith above all else.

I was at a LessWrong meeting when a guy told us he had recently got married. We asked if he was going to have kids and when he said no, the reaction of the (almost all secular) group was quite hostile.

Young Rightists who are politically active are creating their own pronatal subculture. That's how you get quotes like this, from a 24-year-old White House correspondent who (like me) grew up marinating in 4chan:

Besides, the young women of DC have more on their mind: finding a husband. “A lot of young girls I know who have moved back are very adamant on trying to find their partners,” says one Maga figure over a glass. “Maybe it is just an age shift. People also say it out loud — ‘I am actively looking to get married’ — three people in the past 24 hours.”

{snip}

What about herself? “I think most men are gay in DC — either out or closeted depending on whether they’re Democrats or Republicans,” she says. “I want to marry someone who allows me to protect feminine energy in a world that is forcing me to be a girl boss because they keep sending Steve to prison. Perhaps I have…” She stops there.

https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/katy-balls-night-out-trump-young-maga-crowd-9dv93rlx8

What's even the point in getting married if you don't want to have children?

There’s definitely circles at least as culturally conservative as a typical evangelical church where strong religiosity is not the norm. They’re typically rather well heeled and in fairly non progressive areas.

I guess the word 'traditional' is doing a lot of work here and hasn't actually been defined.

The elites on both sides of the aisle are fairly culturally conservative in practice; the 'red'(and to some extent black tribe) elites will even cop to gender roles(yes, that means the woman gets your money, deal with it). And even among reds lots of these people are not weekly churchgoers. The country club crowd is not particularly religious and also their daughters are not in situationships.