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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6855 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026

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It is true that South was the better combatant, but all the stuff you've said about how the South lost its war suggests to me that you didn't really read my comment - their loss is precisely what you would expect to create Strong Men (in the Strong Man cycle theory) and thus them losing the war is evidence for the theory, not against it, as you seem to think.

As you note, the South already had a strong martial culture. What exactly changed after their loss in the civil war to strengthen it? Is there evidence that they became more likely to sign up for military service on a per-capita basis? They weren't a bunch of pacifists who got beaten up and decided to enlist as a trauma reaction. It is very weak evidence at best, if used to support the Hard Times theory.

(I used an LLM to check, and it claims that 37% of white Americans come from Confederate States, but make up about 40-45% of active duty personnel who are white, and thats roughly a quarter of all active duty personnel considering all races. I haven't double checked the figures, since I've been awake for 36 hours now, so I'm open to evidence otherwise)

There are all kinds of martial cultures that are greatly divorced from hard times, especially when you compare how bad things were to what to they have now. The Gurkhas. The Sikhs. The latter fought (and often lost) a whole bunch of wars, but made a name for themselves, creating a self-identity that persisted. They were already "strong men" when times are hard, they are debatably still so, even if they mostly drive taxis in Canada. The standard is awfully wooly.

Really? Which ones do you have in mind? I think the Russians were impressive at Hostomel. I actually suspect this is an area where the Chinese severely lag. The UK and France, I think, have good trigger-pullers but not a lot of mass...who else?

Israel. Their special forces punch way above their weight class, but then again the entire country does too. Korea (the southern one, though NK SF did pretty well in Ukraine).

Loss of faith (probably religious but possibly also in a shared national project)

Loss of reliance on reason

I disagree with Kipling on many things, but I find this mildly funny. I suspect that an increased reliance on "reason" is responsible for a lot of the loss of (religious) faith. Intelligence and education negatively correlate with religiosity.

I agree that Europe stagnated because of poor economic choices, including excessive redistribution and deindustrialization. I do not see how that is strong evidence for the argument in question. One would assume that going through WW2 would put them in prime position to become stronger men, while the Americans, having had it easy for centuries, would be the ones in decline.

the South already had a strong martial culture.

Yes - I think the strong martial culture => strong martial culture is a better predictor than hard times => strong martial culture (in this case); however, in the specific context of the United States, I suspect the combination of strong martial culture + hard times cooperated (since military service is a reliable route out of poverty, though of course not just for Southern Americans.)

Is there evidence that they became more likely to sign up for military service on a per-capita basis?

I've heard anecdotes that the opposite was actually true for some time, as signing up in the services was viewed as going over to the enemy. I haven't seen that addressed statistically one way or the other, though.

Israel. Their special forces punch way above their weight class, but then again the entire country does too.

Yeah, agree with this for sure.

Intelligence and education negatively correlate with religiosity.

Not true, at least in the United States, where graduate education is correlated with religiosity (although people with graduate degrees are slightly more likely to be atheists as well).

I agree that Europe stagnated because of poor economic choices, including excessive redistribution and deindustrialization.

Perhaps you would even say they are less reasonable than Americans?

One would assume that going through WW2 would put them in prime position to become stronger men, while the Americans, having had it easy for centuries, would be the ones in decline.

You're wandering back around again to the version of the meme you described instead of what I am suggesting has some descriptive power: that a lack of virtue (for a certain value of virtue) creates (let's say) bad times.

It seems to me that you agree with me and Kipling that robbing the collective Peter to pay the collective Paul has put them in danger of being sold and delivered bound to their foe. You're going to object here that the insight is trivial: doing dumb stuff leads to bad results. Well, Kipling called them the Gods of the Copybook Headings for a reason - they seem like pretty basic stuff, and people fumble them anyway.

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