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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026

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The other big problem with this post is the target. Saying "the West" or "the state" is at fault is wrong in the sense that it treats the government as some ultimate entity that must ensure fairness

The West refers to the places I'm talking about. I said society and culture, not state, so I don't know where you're getting this from. I said neighbor a bunch at the end, not civil servant far away in the capitol.

feminists and wokes, but much less success pushing against the Olds because people have not mobilized against them.

Young men become old men. It wasn't old men in their capacity as men who caused a lot of these problems. I agree old men should have less but economic replacement migration and TFR destroying feminism are also huge problems.

The idea that young men are somehow financially worse off than they were previously is just dead wrong

I never said that, I said they have been betrayed, not that they are overall poorer than 100+ years ago.

I said society and culture, not state, so I don't know where you're getting this from.

You're right that you didn't say "state". But your advice in the third to last paragraph was mostly pointed at things that would affect the country/nation which is what I meant.

The degenerate "my group is oppressed" narrative is extremely attractive for most people, and it leads to vicemaxxing where being an awful person is recast as getting karmic justice for perceived inequalities. Blacks went down that path in the US and it turned their culture into something worthy of nothing but contempt. It's insane to me that the online right wants whites to also go down that path. Your post is echoing similar sentiments.

Young men become old men. It wasn't old men in their capacity as men who caused a lot of these problems.

Wokes were responsible for a lot of terribleness that afflicted Western cultures recently. They're getting a lot of hate now, which is well deserved.

But the Olds have rigged the welfare state in most Western nations far more than feminists or wokes ever have. If you want to complain about taxes, we should compare the amount of money going towards groups like feminists vs how much is going towards the Olds. It's not even close. Then we'd also need to throw in all the problems caused by NIMBYism, which is a defacto subsidy for Olds.

People hate high housing prices and high taxes, but for some reason that doesn't translate towards animosity towards the actual source of the problem.

I said they have been betrayed, not that they are overall poorer than 100+ years ago.

Saying there was a "betrayal" is weak without backing it up.

If your argument was "our money we once had was stolen!" then OK. But that's not true as I've pointed out.

If your argument is instead just "we're much richer than we were before, but not quite as rich as I wish we were", it's hard to call that a "betrayal".

… Blacks went down that path in the US and it turned their culture into something worthy of nothing but contempt...

Well to be fair it was Lyndon Johnson and later Richard Nixon who led them down that path primarily, but I think you’re giving too much credit to Vance outside the media pipeline. Literally no one I know pays attention to him or has the slightest clue what he’s says or does.

People hate high housing prices and high taxes, but for some reason that doesn't translate towards animosity towards the actual source of the problem.

It doesn’t make sense to you because you aren’t looking at the problem the way civically responsible do. If I’m comparing two competing tax programs from different parties, the one that costs less isn’t always the optimal solution if the one that costs more spends money on the services that most directly affect you. But the problem is also worse than that. If accepting your tax program means I have to onboard all the social values of your party, I’ll take the hit to my wallet and live with it.

The degenerate "my group is oppressed" narrative is extremely attractive for most people, and it leads to vicemaxxing where being an awful person is recast as getting karmic justice for perceived inequalities. Blacks went down that path in the US and it turned their culture into something worthy of nothing but contempt. It's insane to me that the online right wants whites to also go down that path. Your post is echoing similar sentiments.

No, blacks are just like that. Anyway, I don't want people to pity young men, I just think young men should demand to stop being robbed or otherwise should seek the collapse of the West. I believe that if my neighbors steal from me, they deserve to be overrun by the third world and to lose everything nice that they like.

If your argument was "our money we once had was stolen!" then OK. But that's not true as I've pointed out.

Young men are prevented from making money they can naturally make, and what they make is stolen from them to be given to other groups. Yes, society is richer due to tech, but that doesn't detract from the broader society's crime against its young men. It's like if Elon Musk makes a million dollars, and I rob him and steal $950,000 of it, and then I defend myself with, he still got what he deserved, or maybe a little less than that, but that's okay because I donated some of it to an African charity, and he's already rich anyway so it doesn't count. Guess what my stealing society will do? Put me in prison anyway, for the crime they do to me. So they are hypocrites too.

No, blacks are just like that.

Are you serious dude?