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Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 17, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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There is a part of me that thinks the people in these social groups are otherwise reasonable, but they are also caught up in the social mania of modern times. I would like to be more social and make more friends, but the social norms of the spaces around me make me uncomfortable and closed-off to people. There don’t appear to be spaces near me without the straight white men are problematic norm for the areas I’m interested in (such as book clubs or running clubs).

The problem with the niche crunchy con book clubs is that they're organized in person, often at churches, so you wouldn't know unless you, say, attended the church or somehow made friends through other means, but I can't think of how. My parents are in a very nice book club that's currently reading some 19th Century Russian intellectual, and previously read Death Comes for the Archbishop, GK Chesterton, CS Lewis, and so on. It was formed through their local Antiochian Orthodox Church. My dad also plays tennis with his church friends, specifically, including from a church he attended 30 years ago, they both changed churches several times since, but they continue to be tennis friends.

You might say that you don't believe in Jesus any more than you believe that white men are still benefiting from unearned privilege, and fair enough. But social groups gain cohesion through either a shared moral narrative, or shared ethnic identity. I suppose an alternative is an ethnic club -- I've still seen Celtic and Greek clubs anyway, perhaps there are others? I've also still seen evidence of current activity from the Elks and Rotary Clubs, I'm not sure what they're like, but they donate eyeglasses to children anyway.