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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9031 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 23, 2025

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the argument is less "this content is sinful", and more "this content is demonstrably poisoning the relations and sexual health of our children".

What did you think 'sinful' meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays?

Sin is definitionally injurious to individuals and societies.

All that's changed is that instead of warning people (and getting called crazy), we now get to say "I told you so" (and still mostly be ignored).

If "sinful" just means "harmful" then say harmful.

It doesn't 'just' mean harmful, but it's always harmful.

What did you think 'sinful' meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays?

Yes, and trivially. The problem with 'sinful' is the same problem 'misogynistic' or 'hateful' has in that it's thought-terminating and usually invoked as "fuck you, stop doing what I don't like".

I am happy that the traditionalists have figured out they actually have to make the argument without the short-circuit. Which should be easy, because they're unimpeachably correct, which is why they were right to pick up the thought-terminating argument from aesthetics in the first place and it didn't take them 60 years to come up with a workable counterargument.

Yes, and trivially. The problem with 'sinful' is the same problem 'misogynistic' or 'hateful' has in that it's thought-terminating and usually invoked as "fuck you, stop doing what I don't like".

This reminds me of the guy I met who couldn't believe that I described something as heretical. "'Heresy' is, like, something fundamentalists scream while losing their minds!" His only experience with the concept was from media hostile to Christianity. Had no idea that within the tradition we use the word matter of factly; dispassionately.

Sin has only ever meant one thing and at least in my experience it's been used consistently. Via (hostile) media portrayals I have a vague caricature in my head of an ignorant Southern woman throwing the word around to suit her biases, but all such types I've met in real life have instead been progressives.

I am happy that the traditionalists have figured out they actually have to make the argument without the short-circuit. Which should be easy, because they're unimpeachably correct, which is why they were right to pick up the thought-terminating argument from aesthetics in the first place and it didn't take them 60 years to come up with a workable counterargument.

Where's that CS Lewis poaster when you need him?

There has never been a shortage of Christian intellectual tradition for those willing to engage with it. Except, I guess, in Protestant backwaters isolated from that tradition. But even they generally had access to Lewis.

Where's that CS Lewis guy when you need him?

never been a shortage of Christian intellectual tradition

You're making my point for me: there has been a serious lack of meaningful addition to Christian intellectual tradition over the last 60 years, and that tradition ran into a sort of... replication crisis of its social science (from the standpoint of those on the ground at that time).

I'm a bit confused as to your thesis. My intent here was to demonstrate that the argument was made over 60 years ago and hasn't required updating. And even Lewis was only riffing on much older material that also still stands to this day.

To be sure in that time period people have massively fallen away from God and lost fluency with the language in which the arguments are made. I think the disconnect you're talking about has more to do with ignorant moderns needing lots of extra hand holding to be able to understand what we're even talking about, after generations of educational bankruptcy and training by hostile media.

But re: the rest, your words do not match my experience. The Western tradition has been very active in that time (though mostly in the wrong direction imo) and the Eastern tradition has been exploding in both vigor and popularity. Surely Solzhenitsyn made a mark? And a lot else has been going on. Only, few are listening.

This sort of thing would seem to be cyclical for mankind. People honor God, prosper, become prideful, turn away, suffer terribly, and only once the same old lessons have been relearned the hard way do the survivors pick up the pieces and start the process again.

Usually, the word "sinful" is taken to mean an appeal to abstract, unfalsifiable moral commandments dependent on faith in some religious nonsense for even the slightest form of coherency, not "here is the solid statistical evidence that consumption of this media will make your life objectively worse by your own values."

It seems to me that the population is moving from seeing porn consumption less like saying "fuck" and more like smoking cigarettes, and that this is because porn consumption is in fact more like smoking cigarettes than it is like swearing. There are significant observable costs to consumption and the industry that supports it, even from within the Materialist frame.

It seems to me that the population is moving from seeing porn consumption less like saying "fuck" and more like smoking cigarettes, and that this is because porn consumption is in fact more like smoking cigarettes than it is like swearing.

Any polling data showing this?

Then bring those porn studies that are comparable to tobacco harm studies. Are you going to die early because of porn? Has science re-discovered that it does indeed make you blind?

The institutions of science are held by the other side, so you're not going to see that. The base knows this and thus doesn't require that.

Anti-porn feminists have been looking for evidence of harm from the inside for ages.

Conservatives have plenty of studies they use to support their other arguments, it just happens anti-porn is among the least empirically supported of all their positions.

Usually, the word "sinful" is taken to mean an appeal to abstract, unfalsifiable moral commandments dependent on faith in some religious nonsense for even the slightest form of coherency

I think you have been well trained by enemies of Christianity.

not "here is the solid statistical evidence that consumption of this media will make your life objectively worse by your own values."

Solid statistical evidence is a pretty recent invention, and its accessibility to the public even more recent. The ability of the public to competently evaluate such evidence we can, heh, call a work in progress. In the meantime humans live human lives and require human guidance.

It seems to me that the population is moving from seeing porn consumption less like saying "fuck" and more like smoking cigarettes, and that this is because porn consumption is in fact more like smoking cigarettes than it is like swearing. There are significant observable costs to consumption and the industry that supports it, even from within the Materialist frame.

I was raised evangelical and converted to Orthodoxy and have never heard it suggested that swearing is somehow implicitly sinful. An argument sure can be made that it is in most particular instances, but that would be according to logic that would, as you'd have it, be coherent to materialists.

Apart from failing to cultivate a relationship with Christ I'm unable to think of any behavior typically described as sinful that doesn't have observable material costs. And even that one is arguable given mental health and life outcomes. The question is how aware one is of those costs, and how seriously one takes them, not whether they exist.

Solid statistical evidence is a pretty recent invention, and its accessibility to the public even more recent. In the meantime humans live human lives and require human guidance.

People have been asking about my political ideology and this pretty much sums it up: the first-world is better than the third-world. It's a good thing that we're not burning witches anymore. But you all are so concerned with "third-world immigrants" you can't see the third-worlding occurring right in front of your faces.

People have been asking about my political ideology and this pretty much sums it up: the first-world is better than the third-world. It's a good thing that we're not burning witches anymore. But you all are so concerned with "third-world immigrants" you can't see the third-worlding occurring right in front of your faces.

I never understood how you could be so good at caricaturing this obnoxious persona until I saw the page where you explicitly catalogue your history of trolling people on reddit.

This is tiresome and it'll be a nice day when the mods finally get around to banning you.

I was raised evangelical and converted to Orthodoxy and have never heard it suggested that swearing is somehow implicitly sinful.

Wikipedia cites Exodus 20:7 and Deuteronomy 5:11:

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

A much better set of citations is Colossians 3:8:

But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth.

And Ephesians 4:29:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Yeah, sorry, on my phone so I can't really give this the nuance it deserves.

We should distinguish between three different items here:

  • Taking God's name in vain
  • Swearing oaths
  • Using impolite language ('swear words')

The first and second require way more foundation than I can lay right now. The third I just answered elsewhere in this thread, probably pretty close to this post.

I was raised evangelical and converted to Orthodoxy and have never heard it suggested that swearing is somehow implicitly sinful. An argument sure can be made that it is in most particular instances, but that would be according to logic that would, as you'd have it, be coherent to materialists.

I was taught that swearing with words or phrases that invoke God are implicitly sinful (eg, all variants of "damn"), while others are merely signs of bad character (eg, "shit", "fuck").

Hm, I’m wondering if this is highly regional, or maybe generational. The Christians I know take offense at swear words and would be likely to describe them as minor sins. In my household, you got a stern talking to if you said “shit.”

I have also never met anyone who has said a racial slur of any kind unironically in my presence. I think I’m from the region and social class that is least likely to use profanity.

Since when is ('merely') signaling bad character harmless?

Propriety is a useful concept, as is reverence. Every minor decision we make, and word we use, directionally warps our character. It changes our own conception of ourselves. Offhand I can point to TracingWoodgrains as an atheist who recognizes the pattern and so refrains from foul language. (Though of course use-mention distinction applies to all of this.)

It is not good to regard ourselves as oppositional to order, propriety, or reverence. Instances where disruptiveness, impropriety, or irreverence are correct are exceptional and should always be engaged with deliberately. Never mind the value of cultivating verbal continence; of regarding oneself as holding to a standard other than the vulgar.

These arguments touch on Christian understanding but don't rely upon it. And they are only inward-facing. There's a whole additional side when it comes to the impressions we make upon others and how that can harm them and us.

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