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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   16645 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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It wouldn't surprise me in the least if, in the next ten years, Platner jumps ship and joins the GOP.

I would be surprised.

The left/right split in the US is increasingly about identitarianism and collectivism vs individualism. Some like David Friedman would argue that it always has been about this. Plattner seems to be solidly in the identitarian/collectivist camp, contrast this with folks like Fetterman and Gabbard who consistently backed the Democrats' economic policies but always seemed a bit uncomfortable with the id-pol stuff.

As I said above, the right is not about individualism. Just a different collectivism.

The right is genuinely much more willing to evaluate people as individuals or members of small groups while the left is much more willing to generalize. Treating people as individuals doesn’t necessarily correspond to granting unlimited freedom.

The "right" often speaks the language of individualism, especially around markets, speech, guns, taxation, and personal responsibility. But for other topics like nation, religion, family, sexuality, immigration, crime, and cultural loyalty, its pretty damn collectivist. Realistically the "right" is multiple divergent camps, some are individualist, others are far more collectivist. Do you really want to tell me that the average HBD believers, Alt right, and dissident rightists are in any form individualists?

Do you really want to tell me that the average HBD believers, Alt right, and dissident rightists are in any form individualists?

Yes. Allowing for collectivism in your framework is not the same thing as "not being individualist in any form", though with how extreme the demands for individualism are (at least as far as a certain group of people is concerned), I understand the distinction might be too subtle to notice.

HBD believers,

HBD is a belief about an is, not an ought. It says nothing about collectivism vs individualism and in actual practical use is almost always used to counter a collective guilt blood libel.

nothing about collectivism

We must witnessing very different applications if you think the average HBD poster is making comments about African-Americans being more violent and lower IQ on an individual level. And not by definition on a collective level. There's a fig leaf towards it being an distribution and obviously not every individual. Followed up by here's my 10 step plan to reshape society so that AAs collectively have reduced social impact, freedom, rights, and political power.

HBD is a belief about an is, not an ought

Only in the most theoretical autistic form. If the belief is that certain populations underperform along ethnic lines and have increases in certain undesirable traits. The follow on is almost always policy actions to reshape society around that theory. That's an "ought" not an "is"

Followed up by here's my 10 step plan to reshape society so that AAs collectively have reduced social impact, freedom, rights, and political power.

Can you give an example? Most I've seen is people arguing to remove the special privileges that were given to them, and therefore to actually equalize social impact, freed, rights, and political power.

The right's collectivism treats people as individuals when assigning blame, but that's as far as it goes. They tell you what to do and them blame you if you don't do it right.

They tell you what to do and them blame you if you don't do it right.

That is quite literally what a belief in individual responsibility and agency entails. If you fuck up you don't get to blame it on "society" or some "structural -ism", your fuck ups are on you.

That's only half of individualism, though. Assigning everyone a role and holding them responsible for fulfilling is still collectivist.

No it is not.

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