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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Last week, Luke Pollard, the UK Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, yet again called for a "national incel strategy". According to him, it's vital that we do this to prevent another "incel terror attack" like the Keyham shootings.

I think the first time I actually heard the word was around the time Todd Phillips' Joker had released. What I don't understand is this extreme alarmism of progressives surrounding incels, when they say the exact opposite of Islamist terrorism. An internet subculture of terminally online, socially disabled men who find themselves unable to order a Big Mac without feeling butterflies in their stomachs are such a big threat to our society that we need a national strategy to combat them? This to me seems like it's completely tarred by alarmism surrounding white supremacy and racial animosity. Granted, incels do hold on to ethno-supremacist views, such fringe ideologies always find purchase among those on... the fringes of society, often young, single men with no social life and no job/ a dead end job and having nothing to lose. They spew all the vitriol online because they tend to be non-confrontational in real life, they might claim to support violence but almost never have the stomach to commit violence themselves. They've locked themselves inside their heads, no one's allowed inside and they view the world, society and women through a tiny keyhole into the sewer that is the most toxic spaces on the internet. They aren't hurting anyone but themselves. But why are the "basement dwelling gamur incels" among the most reviled subgroups in the culture war? Is it simply because they spew the most bile against every 'vulnerable' demographic (women, minorities, LGBTs) online?

Christianity solves this. Arguably it was one of the greatest solutions to incel issues. And by limiting females to one male guaranteed one female for every male.

I don’t believe this is the solution he is searching for.

Monogamy is not a Christian invention. I'm not sure where people get this idea.

Maybe not a Christian invention (since the Romans also had monogamy), but it was Christian Popes that forced monogamy on non-Roman Europe, by threat of excommunication.

I don't believe non-monogamous systems were prevalent in pre-Christian Europe.

since the Romans also had monogamy

Did they? My understanding is that the Greco-Roman take was basically that a man could only marry one wife but he could essentially free access to slave and subordinate class women and males (this sort of system would also be prone to the inequity problem of polygamy - unless you have a broad class of exploited women to use as cheap relief for the lower class men*)

(This is also the status quo with Islam - except without the homosexuality. Thanks to Western Christian influence both polygamy and sex slavery have been suppressed but that's relatively recently)

Monogamy in the sense of the (alleged) Pauline epistles - husband of one wife - was a moral injunction for sexual monogamy on top of social monogamy and was thus substantially different.

* Which the Romans did. The price of sex at some points was distressingly low

My understanding is that the Greco-Roman take was basically that a man could only marry one wife but he could essentially free access to slave and subordinate class women and males (this sort of system would also be prone to the inequity problem of polygamy - unless you have a broad class of exploited women to use as cheap relief for the lower class men*)

In practice, this has been true in a lot of (most?) Christian societies, especially at the top of social hirearchy. "To wives and sweethearts... May they never meet."

Even in the Enthusiastic ferment of the Reformation, James VI still seems to have been able to have plenty of male lovers, and whether Shakespeare was intimate with men or not, his Sonnets certainly show that had a perfect language for seducing other men. Surely this is unsurprising: if Christianity has been an unreliable way of enforcing chastity among popes and bishops, it will naturally be an unreliable way of enforcing monogamy among other powerful men.

What Christianity has generally achieved is the practice of only allowing powerful men to marry one woman, but that was also practice in a lot of places, including Greece and Rome, IIRC.

In practice, this has been true in a lot of (most?) Christian societies, especially at the top of social hirearchy

It's true of every society that sex is not perfectly controlled (because it can't be - especially in premodern societies with very limited monitoring) and that the upper classes especially always have more routes to circumvent restrictions.

It doesn't mean that the change in standards wasn't substantial, or that it couldn't affect society broadly (in the case of the sex distribution problem the broad trend matters the most) and, sometimes, even the rich (as you point out: Henry VIII's circuitous route to getting rid of his wife would be hilarious to a Muslim sultan. Just take another?! Or set her aside!)

Even in the Enthusiastic ferment of the Reformation, James VI still seems to have been able to have plenty of male lovers

Case in point: this may be true but would anyone argue that the gains we've made in gay acceptance since then are unnecessary? If you agree not, then the general social taboos matter.

Case in point: this may be true but would anyone argue that the gains we've made in gay acceptance since then are unnecessary? If you agree not, then the general social taboos matter.

I'm fine with "Christian social taboos matter". I'm not fine with the suggestion that Christianity eliminated the dynamic described in the initial bit I quoted.

You don’t need to invent something to be the primary cultural conduit for a thing. Apple didn’t invent the smart phone.

Arguably it was one of the greatest solutions to incel issues. And by limiting females to one male guaranteed one female for every male.

You said this, which seems to imply it was a Christian 'solution.'