This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Time for another dating market piece
From a non-Western angle this time. I enjoyed* this article on the Chinese dating market and its increasing level of dysfunction
*which is to say, I liked the information I gained. I did not at all enjoy reading it as it has the most irritating style known to man, a turbo Linkedin style piece by someone who thinks they are vastly more profound than they actually are. Do not read it. I have excerpted the interesting bits below:
Speaking from my own experience, the article is a touch overwrought. I'm in a major bubble - I haven't lived there for years, I was a foreigner, and all the expats I know now are successful families with children the same age as ours - but so is the person who uses anecdotes from TV shows and marriage markets. Nonetheless, there is some obvious truth here, given the collapse in marriage and fertility rates in the country.
There does seem to be an inherent contradiction in streaming, with the author assuming the government are both using it as a substitute for human affection, while also trying to crack down on gifting and parasocial relationships. Which is it? Perhaps this is a flaw of the CCP themselves, pulling in multiple directions and unable to find a fix for their country's broken dating market.
It sometimes amazes me that there's anyone who actually pushes back on the redpill observation about "Hypergamy."
The idea that women are selecting for the highest status male in their local social system is integrated into virtually every aspect of human culture. There are exceptions in media (Disney's Aladdin had a princess fall for the street rat rather than an uber-powerful, and not bad-looking sorcerer sultan who wanted to keep her as his slave).
I would argue that reality is more exacting than fiction, here. Find me a real life story where an attractive woman with the option to pick between a handsome, reliable, but only moderately wealthy Blue Collar worker, and a high status millionaire minor celeb, and intentionally settled for the former.
And biologically its perfectly sensible. I don't think there's any other way for a woman to operate if she wants to ensure her offspring's success and her own long term security. Completely fair to acknowledge and accept this biological imperative.
The "blackpill" is that this factor doesn't get turned off if a woman gets married and has kids, so a guy is never fully safe from being supplanted if he loses status or a higher status male sets eyes on his woman. The high status males need to be reined in as well!
There is actual research showing that women who acquire more wealth use that to acquire independence, men who acquire wealth use it to start families.
But we are currently seeing what happens when all cultural guardrails and guidelines that limited that factor are removed:
Approximately, women will start demanding outsize displays of wealth, status, power, physical fitness in exchange for mating privileges, and thereby controlling more and more actual wealth, which leads to further inflation of demands.
This is at least one explanation for why females have gotten less satisfied with their status, even as they've been given more wealth and power.
Find me a single person who can argue with a straight face that females are on balance worse off, socially or politically speaking, than 2002.
And so China is rapidly plunging down this dystopic slope and trying to aggressively re-establish the guardrails from the top down.
Interesting to see if they can get to any sort of agreeable equilibrium. At least they are willing to do things that might upset women.
I would still guess that South Korea is the one plumbing the deepest depths of how far things can fall, but even they are showing the slightest glimmer of things turning around.
No, no, no! This is exactly wrong. You cannot solve this problem by placing additional restrictions on men. We have been trying that for decades. It doesn't work. High status males don't need to be reined in. Women need to be reined in. But this is so unthinkable, even your otherwise redpilled comment instinctively veers off from that conclusion.
A man needs to know, when he marries, that he owns his woman from that day forth, the same way a man needs to know, when he buys a car, that he owns that car from that day forth, and that he will be allowed to defend that car with deadly force if needed, and that the state and his community will back him up if Daquan tries to dispute the ownership of his car. And if he does not, do not be surprised when nobody buys a car. The arguments for secure rights over women are isomorphic to the arguments for secure rights over any other form of property.
For marriage to work, a man needs to be able to kill his wife when he finds her in bed with another man. Instead, she files for divorce and gets rewarded with cash and prizes.
From "Why We Need the Double Standard" by the Dread Jim:
From the comments of "The Reactionary Program" by the same:
And from the comments of "COVID Public Service Announcement", idem:
If you execute or castrate ninety-nine fuckboys, but miss fuckboy number one hundred, he gets to spoil a hundred nice girls.
Whereas if you lock up and marry off ninety-nine girls, but fail to control girl number one hundred, you get ninety-nine happily married wives and one fallen woman.
To end the wars of the sexes, make women property again.
I really think this is just your lurid power fantasy. Conservative religious Westerners expect both men and women to remain chaste until marriage. So why don't you insist on that? Modern Western dating norms don't punish fuckboys or sluts so why don't you just push chastity for everyone? (if you don't just hate women that is). There are plenty of religious denominations in America that insist on chastity for all parties prior to marriage as a norm. And this is how it has historically been in Western countries. The conservative religious insist on chastity as a norm for all parties while the more secular or part inclined have a period of serial monogamy and/or courting. If you read Chaucer or Shakespeare I think you'll find that Anglo society has never treated women like chattel and plenty of people "had some fun" before settling down.
Now I will say that this period has expanded beyond reason and the endless dating roulette is something of a social ill. But why resort to something so draconian (unless you just really really want to). Northern European society never had anything like this and still had marriage or family formation. The Romans did but classical morality is totally alien from our own and it wasn't just this. I wonder would you accept your father having the power of life and death over you in exchange for the power of life and death over your wife? It doesn't matter though, because this way of thinking is just totally alien to Christendom, enlightenment philosophy and modern morality so it's a total nonstarter.
Believe it or not most men are not constantly terrified about being cucked. But couldn't you just allow the cheated on party to get all the assets in a divorce? Isn't that a more sensible solution to the problem you describe then reducing women to chattel. I feel like you could get a lot of people on board with that, so why not go for that? And why gender it? Why not say adulterers should get the death penalty? Also also your whole framing is wrong a women is not "rewarded with cash and prizes." she is rewarded with her half of the estate that's the whole point of marriage most people end up poorer after a divorce because they're wealth has been split in two. And in this day and age it's not hard to avoid that simply marry a women with a career or gasp one who makes more money than you. Then you get to divorce rape her when she catches you in bed with some Thot! If she doesn't poison your wine first!
I'm being a little tongue in cheek here but I just don't think it's that hard to find a faithful wife. Women want commitment and like casual sex less then men. Most of my social circle is composed of practical minded middle class people who are married and just don't have this soap opera drama you are describing. The don't need some draconian social order to force their wives to stay with them, and indeed why would want that? Why would you want a wife who is only staying with you under pain of ruination and imprisonment? Some of my friends parents got divorced when I was a kid but it wasn't the end of the world and most have now re-married. But divorce is down and it's not that hard to game the stats. Both on first marriage, both college educated, married after 27, same race, same religion, gets your starting odds down to 15%, Though I suspect (though lack the data) that believing women should have the status of chattel raises it significantly.
As well as presumably wanting your wife to be a virgin? If you were a member of a conservative religious denomination you could find one easily and if not why on earth would a secular Western women remain and virgin waiting for you?
The vast vast majority of Western guys do not think a woman is "spoiled" because she has had sex before. Western secular dating norms assume both parties have has several relationships before marriage. In our serious monogamous society, women see their sexual value go down for being virgins too long. A lot of guys after university will be more reluctant to date virgins and her girlfriends will view her as a bit of a loser or or a prude. Now some women will wait out of a sense of romance or anxiety about sex but there is a negative pressure on it in our society and the way you are thinking about this is just totally alien to modern western secular dating culture, and ignorant of it.
I think that these posts by you and Jim are really just a lurid fantasy. Do really think it's common for upper class women to sleep with poor refugees? But more I think you just want these solutions. I don't think you are actually proposing this to solve the problems you want to solve because there are much easier actually politically feasible ways to address what you are saying. And since wives have never been chattel in Northern European society I think you just really really want to own women who have no rights. I think this is just shady thinking to get what you want. You can go to Afghanistan and have that. To which you and Jim will no doubt respond， “But they are uncivilized barbarians!"... yes well exactly.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link