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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   24627 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 2025

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Alright, here's my contribution: It sure would be nice if one society could manage to agree to one set of core values and live by them and everyone pulls on the same rope, as we say here, and also that creed turns out to be a really good one and there's nothing wrong with it. Others can come in so long as they comply with this creed. People are kicked out when they don't. But the creed is good, and the nation prospers.

Failure modes:

  • Inclusion does not work; people are let in but they do not actually uphold the creed. This happens all the time in western society.
  • Exclusion does not work; people ignore the creed yet remain citizens. This happens all the time in western society.
  • The creed is not self-destructive, and upholding it is actively harmful. This happened in, for example, the Soviet Union.
  • The creed is viable, inclusion and exclusion work, the nation prospers, but the creed isn't actually western liberalism so we don't want it. I have no examples on hand.

I'm rambling a little. My core point is this: A creedal nation, if poorly thought out, will just be any western country as it exists right now, or a totalitarian nightmare, or something entirely unlike what we (for a given vaue of we) currently envision or desire.

IMO it's all hot air anyways. The future won't give a shit about what people believe or what ethnicity they might be traced back to. Technological totalitarianism that has full control of each and every individual seems more likely than grand social experiments of the feel-good kind.

The creed is viable, inclusion and exclusion work, the nation prospers, but the creed isn't actually western liberalism so we don't want it. I have no examples on hand.

The Amish? Depending on your definition of 'prosper'.

Actually a good example, thanks.

But would the Amish work if they weren't embedded inside a larger country?

It's complicated. They can't protect from depredations by more advanced neighbours, so in that sense no. But they aren't necessarily competing for the same type of resources. 'Produces food if you leave them alone' isn't the worst civilisation trait to have in a neighbour but it depends on whether you are Nuclear Gandhi.

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