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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   34735 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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Good points. It's repeated a lot around here, but the post-WW2 global order does seem to have almost fully broken down at this point.

I think it goes way deeper than that. The concept of declaring war and making peace within European (and hence today, global) diplomatic systems goes back to Rome at least. The Romans had huge amounts of superstitions and traditions related to declaring war, and making peace. Numa Pompilius, who first held the title Pontifex Maximus which has gone in unbroken succession to our current Pope Leo, introduced the tradition of the Temple of Janus to the Roman populace in order to tame their warlike urges. The temple's gates were open in times of war, and closed in times of peace. The formal declaration of war and peace was a superstitious, religious matter for the Romans.

When we abandon that kind of simple logic, we chip away at an organized international legal system, and we wind up with a permanent murky state of conflict. If you never have declared war, you can never have peace.

The temple's gates were open in times of war, and closed in times of peace. The formal declaration of war and peace was a superstitious, religious matter for the Romans.

Weren't the gates open for something like a 400 year stretch at one point? AKA longer than the USA has been in existence?

The Romans had huge amounts of superstitions and traditions related to declaring war, and making peace. Numa Pompilius, who first held the title Pontifex Maximus which has gone in unbroken succession to our current Pope Leo, introduced the tradition of the Temple of Janus to the Roman populace in order to tame their warlike urges.

Hasn't the succession been broken a few times? Like with the antipopes and such?

But yes agree with the broader point. It speaks to the entire idea of chaos growing and the flood coming to consume us as we chip away at meaning and reality. Truth becomes impossible to pin down - are we at war? or are we in peace?

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