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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   24629 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 20, 2025

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Nigga, this is just going through the exact motions Amadan outlined.

Actually, no, it wasn't. I raised a general point on the meta level, one that I think is reasonable to ask and really could do with some effort in answering:

If you wish to argue by appealing to a general principle, what is the proper way to rebut such an argument if one disagrees that the principle is generally held?

Or to put it another way for you or @Amadan or @ThomasdelVasto or anyone else interested, if the sort of argument Amadan describes seems bad, what would a better form of argument look like, in your view?

...and then on the object level I raised a separate point about the division of labor model versus the current jack-of-all-trades model. I made no argument that jack-of-all-trades is better, only noted that if one is arguing against it, one should do so honestly.

In any case, if that's a discussion you'd like to have, I'm all for it, but the way it doesn't start is this:

I get it, libtards started it by employing legions of late night comedians and entertainers to metaphorically pour shit on Republicans for years except (duplicitous as always) they his behind a veneer of civility while their Hollywood Jews did the dirty work for them. Trump isn’t doing anything fundamentally different, he’s just more crass and if anything the crassness and directness of it is a virtue, there’s an honesty to the directness of it.

That is not my argument, and I don't appreciate you implying that it is. I am fully capable of speaking for myself, and do not require your assistance in framing my sentences. We actually have a specific rule about this:

Be charitable. Assume the people you're talking to or about have thought through the issues you're discussing, and try to represent their views in a way they would recognize. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly. Beating down strawmen is fun, but it's not productive for you, and it's certainly not productive for anyone attempting to engage you in conversation; it just results in repeated back-and-forths where your debate partner has to say "no, that's not what I think".

I think you can probably find at least one mottezan who would endorse each individual sentence you've offered there. I decline to answer for all of them in aggregate.

My point as always is that there is value to norms.

There is not, however, infinite value in norms, and many people, myself among them, believe the old system was worse for a variety of reasons quite apart from "dirty work" done by "Hollywood jews". The old system insulated our politicians from accountability on a scale that was appallingly unacceptable, because the formalized channels allowed a small set of elites massively disproportionate control over what the public at large knew, understood, and thought about. This had woeful consequences, such that enough of us rebelled to burn the old system down. You may disagree with that decision, but you would do well to engage with why we made it if you want to convince us that we've made a mistake.

Even if the norms seem paper thin or hypocritical I believe they are better than nothing. There are just proper ways a president should behave. I believe there is serious value in having a degree of ritual and civic religion.

But again, the argument is generally not that ritual and civic religion do not have serious value. The argument is that they do not have enough value to offset the abuses the old system enabled and continues to enable.

It has to stop somewhere else escalation begets escalation.

The "somewhere" that it has to stop is the grave. It can stop short of there, if enough people on each side recognize value in doing so. And yet: "give me liberty or give me death".

Many people on both sides believe that the principles at stake here are worth fighting and even killing over. Too many of them concluded this for the old system to survive, and so it has been gutted and is currently bleeding out in a ditch. I am not sorry for that, because I hated the old system with a passion words cannot adequately convey, and wish only that it would die faster.

This is a discussion forum. If you want to discuss why I believe what I believe, I'm happy to discuss that with you. You are certainly correct that many people here disagree with you on the value of the old norms. You are probably correct about the general shape of many of their arguments. But here's the thing: if their arguments don't persuade you, that doesn't mean they aren't persuasive. Maybe they're unreasonable. Alternatively, maybe you're unreasonable. If you want to discuss it, discuss it. If you want to take a "moral stand" and then complain when others object without substantively addressing their objections, it seems to me you've misunderstood what this forum is for.

I'm not trying to suggest that Trump is anywhere in the same league as Lincoln, but it is interesting how closely the contemporary complaints about Lincoln and the nascent Republican movement mirror those about Trump and MAGA today.

He is shrill. He is crass, He is uncultured. He is not even a proper gentleman, he is a backwoods bumpkin who grew up in a log shack. Electing him would be an insult to the institution of the presidency, and make an already tense situation worse.

Republicans in turn would point to the Caning of Charles Sumner and the ongoing civil unrest in the Kansas and Missouri territories claiming that the Democrats have shown zero interest in reigning in their violent fringe while the Whigs care more about losing gracefully while getting fat off the public trough than they do tackling the serious problems facing the nation.

I imagine there is an alternate timeline where moderate Democrats did more to police their extremists or the Whigs showed more spine and as a result Abraham Lincoln never became president. Is that the better timeline? I do not know.

Or to put it another way for you or @Amadan or @ThomasdelVasto or anyone else interested, if the sort of argument Amadan describes seems bad, what would a better form of argument look like, in your view?

I'm not sure I understand the question. I have staked out my position before: we should not go accelerationist and try to purge each other.

My argument has clearly lost to the accelerationists on both sides who want to purge each other. I'm being descriptive here, not making any (useless) prescriptions.

I think people are piling on you for being right, but... seriously, what is the alternative here? Lie down and get ground down more and more? The purity spiral goes ever upward. People just want to draw a line in the sand and say no more, cross it and we'll shoot you. I don't think that's an accelerationist position so much as an ultimatum.

Of course, it then loses its effect given that the lines keep being crossed and not enough people keep being shot, so the normie appetite for political violence is somehow much, much less than people profess it to be.

I'm gagging for an alternative, because American purges and culture wars promise to be ruinous beyond their borders. But hey, the same could be said about their economy.

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