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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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My post says nothing negative about low-class people. I'm taking issue with lower-middle-class conservative policy wonks who fetishize manual labor. As to being a one-trick pony, I've written much else, see:

https://alexanderturok.substack.com/p/the-flat-earth

https://alexanderturok.substack.com/p/the-garden-of-eden

You go on about "fetishing" manual labour, but what work are people who are not senior AI developers going to do, Alexander? Right now if we had way more construction workers (ugh! icky manual labour!) our housing problem could be solved, because we need to build way more houses (yeah, issues of planning etc. are also involved, but if you don't have the brickies and the sparks, no houses are gonna get built).

You see why I think you have a bee in your bonnet about class? That use of "fetishising" where you don't use an equivalent term about your dream of middle class white collar status for all (providing the "all" meet your criteria for being recognised as humans).

Indeed. We need to reclaim manual labour from the lower classes. I like (some types of) manual labour, it gives the mind good rest after a hard day of work. I'm not unique in this either and nor is this a new thing: the elder Count Bolkonsky in War and Peace was an impassioned wood worker.