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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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There are arguments against that that are not primarily based on "it's disgusting to me", though of course the line is thin ("disgusting to me" is easily turned into a seemingly less-egotistical "I believe it damaging to the consumer's psyche/society" at no cost).

("disgusting to me" is easily turned into a seemingly less-egotistical "I believe it damaging to the consumer's psyche/society" at no cost).

While this is true, little-l liberalism has long believed that a certain amount of "harmless disgust" or "low-impact psychological damage" should be present in society.

There are some pretty gruesome horror movies out there, that would shock and dismay a lot of unprepared people. But instead of banning them, we trust that individual consumers will avoid things they think will make them unhappy.

How harmless/low-impact is it? The Montreal shooter clearly thought easy access to, and mass dissemination of, and mass consumption of, porn was not harmless.

The problem is the slippery slope, and that can't be simply shrugged off as "pfft, that's only a fallacy". Tolerance leads to pressure for tolerance of the more extreme, little by little, and then acceptance, and then celebration (look at Pride Month). I did find the outrage over "Pride has become too family-friendly and wholesome now! it's supposed to be kinky and obscene!" funny, however.

I'm seeing it in my own country right now with pressure to change elements of the safeguards around the limited form of abortion access we legalised six years ago. I'm not surprised by this, because I knew it would come, seeing the way things went in other countries and the open declaration by pro-abortion activists back then that this was just the beginning.

But this is how it happens: no, we don't approve of this thing, but it shouldn't be illegal, however we will put safeguards in place so it will go this far and no further. Time passes, it becomes an accepted thing, then the next move is "well do we really need this particular safeguard? it only hurts and doesn't help" and then bit by bit things get chipped away, people become accustomed to "it was always like this", so the old views on harm/impact are lost, and now there's a new "well this is okay, it's normal even, but that is not good" standard.

Then, in time, the "that's not good" becomes the pressure point for "we don't approve but it shouldn't be illegal".

Move the needle on "this is only fictional/only pixels on screen" and "of course most normal people won't even look at this stuff but if it keeps the real sickos from going out and committing offences then it's worth decriminalising it" and in time there will be the dares of teenage boys to "did you watch this baby-rape animatic? no? chicken!" and here we go again: "Dear Abby, my twelve year old son watched baby rape porn at a friend's house, how do I talk to him about this?"

However, liberalism only persists so long as "the people who can suffer from low-impact psychological damage should not be helped and to a point deserve it" does. Once that's gone, liberalism "degrades into" progressivism, where the damage goes from descriptive (something that happens to people) to prescriptive (something that should specifically be visited on the outgroup).