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I care because it is one of the many instances of how the social norms are established and before you know it, it will be your own daughter smelling around the dinner table. I am done with the "live and let live" attitude for all the craziness it brought upon us. I am now all for return of good old shaming/blaming back into town. So yeah, I have no problem calling Aella and any of her partners as disgusting people. Sue me.
Okay. And progressives will use their cultural influence to shame you for not being one of them. You want to swing a dangerous weapon around. It will predictably be turned on you and me.
That seems like conflict theory done only halfway.
I'd say all weapons will be used by all sides that are capable of using them, with no respect for unilateral non-escalation. Progressives will shame conservatives regardless of conservatives refraining from attempting the same, because progressives are currently in a position to quote that piece of the Melian Dialogue: "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.".
Observing the proprieties while your enemies are biting and gouging is only a winning move if there is some powerful third party who values non-escalation.
You seem to be making the mistake that what's important is to win or lose. But as the cliche goes, what matters is how you play the game. I would much rather lose while upholding good moral behavior, than win by sacrificing morals.
Nietzsche asked:
If your morals lead you to be devoured by the monster, for no benefit to anyone except monsters, then what good are those morals?
To quote a long-eared muppet. "That is why you fail".
This is why leftism always devolves into purity-spirals and circular firing squads, this is why utopians are incapable of building anything other than mountains of skulls. The first step to building any lasting legacy is to care about something (usually a principle, but possibly an institution or other person) more than you care about yourself.
-Thomas B. Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome
Seems like you want principles but also some pragmatism.
Utopians often have principles but it is in those non flexible principles that leads them to creating hell on earth.
I don't believe this is the case. More pointedly I don't think that the modal Utopian has any real principals other than "Achieve Utopia", and that is why they have a tendency not just to tolerate but embrace "evil" in the name of achieving their "greater good". After all, it becomes trivially easy to justify GULAGs, Guillotines, and Gas Chambers when your only limiting principal is "first we have to win".
What I mean by pragmatism is perhaps better worded as tolerance. I know not everyone is going to agree with me or my principles. I should be happy getting 85-90% of the way. Trying to get that final 10-15% is where he’ll is often created.
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