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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

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A common flavor of mockery is to find leftist posts about "what I'll do after the socialist revolution" and ridicule them. We were discussing the genre and the general amusement at folks that think they will have a quasi-aristocratic life: oh I'll work on the commune garden and teach embroidery and prepare meals for everyone. Weirdly, many of the posts by women ended up being weirdly trad too -- but that's a bit of a sidetrack.

Example

KYM

My friend had an important insight: there is probably a rightist/reactionary equivalent to this. That's a good observation. We came up with a few of these

  • He believes society has prevented him from being a warlord, it more likely prevented him from being a slave
  • He believes society could police sexual & religious morality, it would more likely have had him flogged for drinking or disrespect or dirty jokes
  • He believes he'd be the head of a respected family, more likely he'd chafe under his grandfather/uncle's authority

Yes, I’d say there are definitely people like this — though, as @IGI-111 points out, not in the symmetric way you pose; I’ve gotten that “you support monarchy/aristocracy/reaction only because you think you’d be king/a lord” bit before, and when I turn it back on them — is the only reason you hold your political views because you expect to personally benefit? — it does indeed seem to be projection/typical-minding.

And beyond endorsing both IGI-111 and @Stellula’s replies, I’ll note that I, as a reactionary, have repeatedly responded to the “you think you’ll be king” arguments with acknowledgement that, no, I’ll be dead. As I’ve said more than once, my ideal society would probably have me executed.

I’m well aware that the liberal modernity I oppose is the only thing keeping me alive at all, let alone giving me the lifestyle I currently have, and that come any serious reactionary victory, my life will most likely end (and become massively worse in the case it doesn’t)… and yet I still want that liberal modernity destroyed.

(Has anyone here seen the movie Serenity — the Firefly sequel/conclusion movie? If so, do any of you remember the speech by Chiwetel Ejiofor’s nameless “Operative” character — the “there's no place for me there” one?)

I don't know exactly what your ideology is, but murdering the disabled for being a burden is a thing I associate with liberal democracies like Canada, or with Nazi Germany(as far as I know there were not other fascist regimes that did this). It's not exactly associated with monarchism or reactionary government generally.