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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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"Correctly", because "absolutely". If I'm having an amiable conversation with a new acquaintance, and I say something insulting out of the blue, and there's common knowledge that I realized it would be insulting before saying it, then no matter what other thoughts I was having at the time (excluding thoughts such that there's common knowledge that I had them and that they're mollifying), or the emotional coloration of those thoughts, it's fair to say I've insulted my interlocutor. E.g., if my interlocutor weighs 500 pounds and my insulting comment is a fat people joke, he'd be right to take it personally. It doesn't matter if it's ambiguous whether I meant it personally first and foremost, or if I habitually make fat people jokes and his being fat was just icing on the cake. The common knowledge that I might "just" think of it as icing on the cake won't endear me to him. You don't make fat people jokes around unmistakably fat people either unless you mean to cause pain, or there is common knowledge that they're meant in good fun. And if I only realized after the fact that I'd said something insulting, and determined my interlocutor had probably noticed the insulting interpretation, I would consider disavowing it.

I think there basically is common knowledge of how negatively all but the lightest (or most candidly non-maleficent), say, 10-20% of criticism of Charlie Kirk will be received by both enemies and allies. Lots of leftists out there don't care to clear themselves of a reasonable suspicion that they think he deserved it (reasonable because that seems to be a common belief, and because there's somewhat of an incentive, at least for respectable people writing under their real names, not to say "he deserved it" in so many words), and they put things out there that their enemies and allies will know (etc.) that they knew in advance would code as "good riddance". The timeframe is crucial: what you can say at what point in time is a social convention that creates the conditions for common knowledge. If you go on the offensive before the body is cold, you know what you're doing.

There are some exceptions, like professional anti-2A lobbyists. In their case, there's some common knowledge that they pretty much have no choice. I guess you can generalize that to everyone who has surrendered some of their agency to an egregore. Along with anti-2A people who credibly demonstrate remorse, like Dean Withers, they serve to weaken the chain of common knowledge.