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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   31485 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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Your point of view is consistently that of a wealthy, entitled person who sees the police as her personal gendarmarie whose job it is to keep the riff-raff from inconveniencing her life in any way. From that point of view, yes, anarchy is a much greater threat than tyranny, because tyranny will mostly leave you alone, while anarchy threatens you. Not to get all "woke" (har) but this is exactly why "privilege" dialog took root. There was originally a legitimate point to it. You consider the lower classes to be undesirables to be kept away from you, and the only thing you fear is revolting peasants. So nearly any level of state crackdown is acceptable to you because only at North Korean levels would it actually threaten your lifestyle. Whereas those beneath you understand what tyranny will do to them.

From a Conflict Theory perspective, there is no reason you should care about this, or people who are not you, as long as your side maintains the levers of power. But "Let them eat cakeboot" does have the potential to redound on you. Traditionally, rich people had some concern about oppression either out of genuine (liberal) conviction or self-preservation.

Your point of view is consistently that of a wealthy, entitled person who sees the police as her personal gendarmarie whose job it is to keep the riff-raff from inconveniencing her life in any way. From that point of view, yes, anarchy is a much greater threat than tyranny, because tyranny will mostly leave you alone, while anarchy threatens you. Not to get all "woke" (har) but this is exactly why "privilege" dialog took root. There was originally a legitimate point to it. You consider the lower classes to be undesirables to be kept away from you, and the only thing you fear is revolting peasants. So nearly any level of state crackdown is acceptable to you because only at North Korean levels would it actually threaten your lifestyle. Whereas those beneath you understand what tyranny will do to them.

From a Conflict Theory perspective, there is no reason you should care about this, or people who are not you, as long as your side maintains the levers of power. But "Let them eat cakeboot" does have the potential to redound on you. Traditionally, rich people had some concern about oppression either out of genuine (liberal) conviction or self-preservation.

You know how sometimes you learn a new word or concept and you start to see it regularly?

I recently learned the word "bulverism" :)

Pointing out that "What's so bad about tyranny?" is coming from someone who will benefit from tyranny is not bulverism.

Pointing out that "What's so bad about tyranny?" is coming from someone who will benefit from tyranny is not bulverism.

Looks like a textbook case to me. Wikipedia:

The Bulverist presumes that a speaker's argument is false or invalid and then explains why the speaker made that argument (even if said argument is actually correct) by attacking the speaker or the speaker's motive

Bulverism is only bulverism if it side-steps the speaker's argument entirely. Arguing that the speaker's motives caused them to make a reasoning error at a particular step in the chain is not bulverism. As I understood it, @2rafa argued that "so-called 'tyranny' short of North Korea isn't worthy of the name, because in practice it's very easy for ordinary people to live with unless they actively go out of their way to antagonize the regime"; and @Amadan retorted "no, in fact you are over-generalizing from the experience of a privileged few; living under USSR-style tyranny is very disruptive to actual ordinary people's everyday lives even if they keep their heads down, it's only the upper-middle-class who might get by alright if they're apolitical enough".

Bulverism is only bulverism if it side-steps the speaker's argument entirely. Arguing that the speaker's motives caused them to make a reasoning error at a particular step in the chain is not bulverism. As I understood it, @2rafa argued that "so-called 'tyranny' short of North Korea isn't worthy of the name, because in practice it's very easy for ordinary people to live with unless they actively go out of their way to antagonize the regime"; and @Amadan retorted "no, in fact you are over-generalizing from the experience of a privileged few; living under USSR-style tyranny is very disruptive to actual ordinary people's everyday lives even if they keep their heads down, it's only the upper-middle-class who might get by alright if they're apolitical enough".

Would you mind taking the post I was responding to and quoting the part which is NOT an attack on the previous poster's motivations? TIA.

I will grant you that this post, taken out of context, was very easy to interpret as straight bulverism. It's Amadan's original, longer reply to 2rafa which I believe can be more charitably interpreted as a more valid argument.

I will grant you that this post, taken out of context, was very easy to interpret as straight bulverism. It's Amadan's original, longer reply to 2rafa which I believe can be more charitably interpreted as a more valid argument.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you able to (1) take the post I was responding to; and (2) quote the part which is NOT an attack on the previous poster's motivations?

I am not, but I don't feel I have a duty to do so, because the post you were responding to is not the one I was defending in the first place. If you want more than that, take it up with Amadan.

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