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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29357 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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But this won't be accomplished by TikTok ads (lol) encouraging the boys to man up and / or talk to a therapist on BetterHelp (thank you for sponsoring this podcast, BTW). I think it requires the sincere confrontation of a modern liberalism that prizes the autonomy of the individual above the stability of society. I can see a good argument to be made that liberalism should be about the tension between those two things. But I don't believe we're living in that world. We're in a world where individuals demand acknowledgement, recognition, and validation from all of society all of the time regardless of any conflict between an individual's value system and societies. This is "live your truth" in a nutshell. And when that nut cracks open, it burns down everything it touches - like, literally.

Yeah and a huge problem with modern "liberalism" is that it isn't even liberal, as folks here know. There are certain values and taboos that still very much exist, and there always will be.

The idea that we can just fully liberate and allow anything and everything to go with no values whatsoever has always been a completely illogical thing. I do think a coherent underlying metaphysics (like Christianity?) is absolutely required for liberalism to thrive.

My personal vote for the young men is:

  1. Major works projects, building giant monuments, perhaps building a bunch of flop house camps for homeless people in rural areas to get them working/productive, repairing bridges/roads, basically New Deal stuff.
  2. Space!!! Send these mfers to the moon or mars, once we get the tech. Which will be soon. Though ofc this would be more for the higher IQ ones, at least at first.
  3. Martial arts and sports and fight clubs. Make these more common and available and high status. Lifting is good but lacks the social component.

Lifting is good but lacks the social component.

Lifting absolutely has a social component. You hit the gym on a schedule, get to know the other guys, how their lifts are doing, etc. Even an antisocial guy like me found it easy to develop a "group" of guys I expect to see at the gym.

Very much depends on the gym, your schedule, and person. Literally orders of magnitude worse for social connection than these other options I mentioned. I have lifted for years and have met, as in exchanged names with, 0 people.

I can imagine a 24 hour fitness type situation is not great for this but all of the smaller gyms I went to that focused on some sport (i.e. wl or pl) obviously had a decent amount of community in them.

I wonder to what extent just decriminalizing minor physical violence would help. Like you look back to the 30s/40s and it seems like a low level of pervasive physical violence was normal. Guys get mad at eachother, fight it out, all is well (unless someone suffers a horrible permanent injury, which did happen).

Commonplace martial arts etc might do it well enough but I do feel part of the desire/need is the need to be unconstrained by a boss/teacher/parent/state/wife. Those adventures were vital for my own development and I think if I grew up where I live now (generic mid-sized US city) then I would never have gotten that taste of freedom. That unsupervised part is just as important as the physicality I think

I wonder to what extent just decriminalizing minor physical violence would help. Like you look back to the 30s/40s and it seems like a low level of pervasive physical violence was normal.

In that period, about 56% of the US lived in urban areas. Now, the equivalent figure is about 81%. If two guys working on a farm get into a fistfight, it's unlikely to result in anything worse than a black eye. If two guys get into a fistfight outside a bar, a single punch can easily result in one of them falling over, hitting his head on the concrete and being killed instantly. This is such a big problem in Australia that various states passed so-called "one punch" laws.

Guys get mad at eachother, fight it out, all is well (unless someone suffers a horrible permanent injury, which did happen).

Still happens, a lot. It's just a lower-class marker.

Don’t the lower classes have the lowest rate of suicide? Suicide is correlated with income if I remember correctly. Seems like that supports the idea.

I think omnipresent surveillance has pushed it even lower class than is otherwise natural, as it’s never been easier to get into legal trouble for brawling due to the ease of recording and the social & psychological incentive to do so.

Likelihood of facing consequences is higher and the penalty is more severe.

It’s why I think every teenage and adult man should engage in some sort of combat sport and / or semi risky and preferably outdoor endurance sport like mountain biking, trail running, rock climbing, etc.

Danger is to the male brain like salt is to the diet; no intake is extremely harmful, moderate amounts are beneficial, and too much is inevitably fatal over the long run.

I wonder to what extent just decriminalizing minor physical violence would help. Like you look back to the 30s/40s and it seems like a low level of pervasive physical violence was normal. Guys get mad at eachother, fight it out, all is well (unless someone suffers a horrible permanent injury, which did happen).

Mutual combat is legal in Washington. Despite this, it's not exactly a shining city on a hill.

In Chicago, it goes beyond "minor physical violence"

https://abc7chicago.com/post/kim-foxx-lightfoot-mutual-combatants-combat/11100664/

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