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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34563 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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As mentioned by 2rafa, Louis would have if anything done worse under the old version of social punishments in more conservative societies.

Either I'm missing something, or this critique does not seem thought-through. Prior to the sexual revolution, all sorts of sexual improprieties occurred in a whole variety of contexts. The world was not, in fact, one big Baptist church picnic. I think you're mistaking both how (uniformly(?)) repressive the old world was, and how permissive the new world is. There were places where the response you describe would happen; those places involve tight-knit communities. I see no reason to think the theatres of a major urban center would display such dynamics, given the theater's long-standing link to sexual license, often decried by those same conservatives in the olden days. Female entertainers would most likely not have male relatives on-hand to provide retribution, since if they were still enjoying such protection they wouldn't be working as female entertainers.

Social media has expanded the reach, and social changes have made some changes as to what is actually tabooed (and why) but the underlying practices are thousands of years old and are intrinsic to social bonds and enforcing behavioral norms.

I think this is wrong as well. You're correct that, faced with a moral vacuum, people are reinventing restrictive sexual ethics. Unfortunately, it's not the same sexual ethics, either in abstract principles or in the concrete methods of enforcement. These ethics aren't actually grounded on community, they aren't coherent, and their enforcement is both more capricious and less constrained than the old ways. The new method isn't long-term stable; the contradictions just thrash each other and everyone nearby endlessly.

I think this is wrong as well. You're correct that, faced with a moral vacuum, people are reinventing restrictive sexual ethics. Unfortunately, it's not the same sexual ethics, either in abstract principles or in the concrete methods of enforcement. These ethics aren't actually grounded on community, they aren't coherent, and their enforcement is both more capricious and less constrained than the old ways. The new method isn't long-term stable; the contradictions just thrash each other and everyone nearby endlessly.

What they are targeting may well be different, but the underlying practices of sub judicial social sanctions are pretty much identical. With the scope extended via easier communications and social media.

"Female entertainers would most likely not have male relatives on-hand to provide retribution, since if they were still enjoying such protection they wouldn't be working as female entertainers."

Yes but being an entertainer is high status now at least at the level they were interacting with C.K. (The Chris Rock Show and so on) so projected back they would be fairly low status in a fairly high status field themselves otherwise we are not controlling for social status in the comparison. This would of course be more constrained but perhaps they would be secretaries at a newspaper with C.K. the editor at another more influential paper or similar. And the fact it wasn't universal is moot because it isn't universal now either. There are surely many people who have masturbated in front of others in some mildly related work setting that we never hear about.

Whether the rules now are more capricious or coherent or whether their enforcement is stable doesn't mean it isn't the same phenomenon. Indeed the old version wasn't long term stable either as evidenced by it being overturned in many places.

You can certainly make an argument that the new version is worse or less understandable or more confusing I think, but so would the older version as you travel between locations and communities (as you yourself point out), the near instant communication we have now, means all those different versions are clashing all the time (online at least). My local hardware store still isn't going to fire someone using the rules of a progressive big city but according to his own local community.

I would certainly agree that a more stable version is definitely easier to navigate for everyone, but that would require (given the above) a very widespread one sided victory (including internal tribal variances) which I just don't see happening anytime soon.

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