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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   35555 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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whereas Iran is on a clear secularization path

[citation needed]

A beginner overview

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/iran-secular-shift-gamaan.html

A study

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/5/592

Wishcasting, as has been going on with respect to Iran since the waning days of the Reagan administration. Most likely they're reaching a non-representative set, with religious Iranians being more likely to eschew their survey. Islam tends to the more strict, not less, from the bottom up; any moderating influence comes from a "degenerate" (or Westernized) elite, which Iran lacks (largely because they killed them or drove them out in the Revolution)

What metric would you trust?

  • TFR is going down, indicative of women no longer internalizing the values of Islam

  • Hijab is becoming less common. The requirement is for the veil to fully cover the hair, but from watching any video of Iranian streets most women totally ignore this — it just barely covers the back of their hair

  • a majority of Iranians use VPNs

TFR is going down, indicative of women no longer internalizing the values of Islam

TFR is going down in almost every country. In Iran, which had a brief 1970s baby boom under the Shah, TFR has declined almost every year since the Islamic Revolution, even when it was rapidly becoming more conservative.

Yeah.

Any argument based on "TFR is going down, which clearly shows that X is the cause" is trivially defeated by the fact that every country has this same outcome regardless of the cultural starting point.

Its almost legitimately bad faith to deploy that argument.

Any argument based on "TFR is going down, which clearly shows that X is the cause" is trivially defeated by the fact that ever country has this same outcome regardless of the cultural starting point.

The starting point may differ, but do those countries share any cultural drift? For instance, is there any country that has a lowering TFR over a span of time where women's education and liberty are reduced? I think there's a strong argument that globally, TFR is falling anywhere where women are getting more empowered. The degree and rate of empowerment might differ, of course, but as far as I can tell the root cause everywhere is women in higher education and the workforce.

My 'deep dive' into the question shows that it is multifactor, although there's some overlap/common causes behind certain factors.

Like, its almost ridiculous how many disparate pressures appear to make women less prone to producing kids (that's a slightly unfair way to put it, but it captures the problem, I think).

Chemicals they randomly encounter in the modern environment, chemicals they intentionally put in their body, social expectations shifting, economic incentives shifting, the (short term) opportunity cost of kids, the increase in immigration rates, the advent of social media, increasing concentration of people in urban areas, and yeah, the fact that women are now solely responsible for choosing their mates and there are zero restrictions left on their decision process... so they decide to not decide.

I don't think all of these factors are downstream of female liberation.

And many of these pressures are only possible thanks to technological developments of the last century. Which is also true of female liberation itself.

As I put it:

Please guys, I said right at the outset that its multifactor and I'm really uncertain about the major causes! I'm just proposing the policies I think most directly target the issue at hand. I really wish I had better things to do with my time than think about this at length and type long screeds to the internet. Better things like raising kids! That'd be really nice! BUT APPARENTLY I HAVE TO SOLVE ALL THE REST OF THIS to bring my chances up.

Chemicals they randomly encounter in the modern environment, chemicals they intentionally put in their body, social expectations shifting, economic incentives shifting, the (short term) opportunity cost of kids, the increase in immigration rates, the advent of social media, increasing concentration of people in urban areas, and yeah, the fact that women are now solely responsible for choosing their mates and there are zero restrictions left on their decision process... so they decide to not decide.

A lot of these same pressures show up in subcultures that still manage a superior TFR, though. What changes is how empowered the women in them are. Or do you see something else?

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