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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

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'noblesse oblige' only worked in societies which adhered to the concept of 'noblesse'. Modern society, on the other hand, does not believe that the ruling class assumed its status through hereditary privilege, consequently it does not believe either that the ruling class is obligated to anything by its status.

Modern society, on the other hand, does not believe that the ruling class assumed its status through hereditary privilege

The ruling class in modern society assumed its status exclusively through age (and to a point, gender, but it's the vaguest possible one as it's a whole 50% of the population).

This is orthogonal to actual merit (which is generally what hereditary privilege implies), which is why the standards this class imposed as they came to power were destructive.

merit (which is generally what hereditary privilege implies)

What merit does it take to be born to the right parents? One of the major and common failure states of hereditary privilege is that the failson of someone with merit inherits all the power and fucks everything and everyone up (generally combined with fuck-all recourse).

The ruling class in modern society has no Noblese Oblige because they are extremely mercenary. Noblese Oblige requires a recognition of the common man as part of your tribe/society/culture. A rootless cosmopolitan mercenary who feels no ties to any one society or tribe is of course not going to feel any oblige to the downtrodden.

This is a post-import the third world belief. I definitely believed that I had obligations for my gifts and elites had obligation to society up until like 2018. Younger people just don’t understand how things use to be.

Morally I completely changed somewhere between 2018-2022.