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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10809 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

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Yeah, I think Catholics/Jews/Protestants all somewhat misunderstand each other, but they do have distinct and conflicting models of the world, and I think the US is substantially worse since letting Catholics and Jews into positions of influence.

The biggest point of conflict is that unlike Catholics and Jews, Protestants have no will to power in the sense of large state or quasi-state institutions, while Catholics and Jews do. To American Protestants, the dream is to be self-sovereign and free not merely from control by the centralised state, but free even from dependency on it in the first place. As far as I can tell from extensive interaction with Catholics and Jews, this dream is... not at all shared by them. This entire thought paradigm doesn't even exist in their heads, and to the extent they try to entertain it, it seems silly and quaint. Their model of the world is there is centralised power and we need to be in control of it. The Catholic view is they're the rightful shepherds of the sheeple, and the sheeple ought to defer to their expertise, and this is the rightful way of the world; the Jewish view is to exploit the discrepancy in cognitive ability and offer the sheeple bad deals which put the Jews in charge of everything, then say "Well, the sheeple signed off on it right here! Look at the contract they signed!" Potter from It's a Wonderful Life, basically. Or Mark Zuckerberg.

As someone from a Protestant-adjacent background, I do find both of these views naturally repulsive. But at the same time, the root problem of the Protestant model is that the sheeple are indeed completely retarded, and trying to give them a say in anything really does just result in them putting shysters in charge of everything. As is abundantly displayed in software choice, if you offer people sovereignty and freedom, they don't want it: they want the mass surveillance, censorship, and ads. I don't fault the Jews for the slur "goyim": it's completely justified.

Protestants have no will to power in the sense of large state or quasi-state institutions

Let me roll on the floor laughing here. Yep, no will to power. Just wanna sit at home being a Quietist Pietist, reading the Bible at mother's knee and knitting in the rocking chair.

Not like they went out to conquer empires or the likes.

Not like they went out to conquer empires or the likes.

Those Protestants were Church of England, whom I've heard described as 'Catholics who flunked Latin'.

I probably should have specified "American Protestants" in the first instance, rather than the second. There is, in fact, a difference between people who cross an ocean to brave a frontier with their own little religious sect and a monarch who wants to get a divorce.

Protestants have no will to power in the sense of large state or quasi-state institutions

I think that this is downstream of the grievous damage that Mainstream Protestantism did to itself and the United States when it started dabbling in theological liberalism. Since mainstream Protestants controlled the institutions, their liberalization kicked off a withdrawal by theologically conservative Protestants. The conservatives ended up with the numbers and zeal, but didn't inherit the institutional capacity (although they have been working to build it back up).

To American Protestants, the dream is to be self-sovereign and free not merely from control by the centralised state, but free even from dependency on it in the first place

I am pretty libertarian and so sympathetic to this desire, so I'd interrogate to what degree this is actually a problem. But I definitely don't think it's inherent to Protestantism (and fwiw you see much less of this sort of thinking, from what I can tell, among the Reformed Protestants).

I don't think theological liberalisation or even a loss of faith among Protestants necessarily entails a decay into centralised power. In fact, if anything, I'd say libertarianism is the more fundamental ideology that was hallucinated into existence as a way of dealing with religious fracture. I wouldn't say things like homesteading, having solar panels, raising cattle, hosting your own git server, self-custody of your Bitcoin, etc., have any particular rooting in Protestant theology itself (although I won't pretend some Protestants don't try to contend so; but I think this is them failing to recognise their own reflection in the Rorschach dots, rather than remotely serious exegesis of what's actually being said in the text).

As for whether theological liberalism resulted in a loss of power, I mean, kind of? But the Jews who are actually in power are not the sort who take the Torah particularly seriously. I mean, they do in a sort of "It's tradition, and it's our tradition" sense. It's clear Scott in Unsong has great affection for Jewish tradition. But it's also definitely not the same sort of respect as religious fundamentalists have.

And the Catholics in power today... well, as has been questioned on this very forum: "Is the pope Catholic?"

I don't think theological liberalisation or even a loss of faith among Protestants necessarily entails a decay into centralised power.

No, you're mistaking me: I am saying Mainline Protestants had a lot of power in America for a long time, but theological liberalization split them and the (conservative) splitters by default didn't have institutional control. Here, this comment explains more of what I am getting at.

if anything, I'd say libertarianism is the more fundamental ideology that was hallucinated into existence as a way of dealing with religious fracture.

Libertarianism is famously hard to define but the traits that are shared by libertarian-leaning Americans predate the fundamentalist-mainline split.

I wouldn't say things like homesteading, having solar panels, raising cattle, hosting your own git server, self-custody of your Bitcoin, etc., have any particular rooting in Protestant theology itself

WELL THIS IS AN INTERESTING QUESTION and what I would say is that the theology and culture are all caught up together. To grossly simplify things, there's a good argument to be had that the libertarian tendency in the United States is in no small part downstream of the British Isles and specifically the borderers. Now, Christianity in the Isles were always distinct from the mainland. Check in on the Scottish clergy and you'll find them doing things like "illegally seating an excommunicated guy as king." It's not particularly surprising that if you check in on them a bit later you find that their theology is, if not "libertarian," skeptical of tyranny and ("papish") centralized authority. I think the culture and theology accelerated each other; necessity is the mother of invention and all that.

As for whether theological liberalism resulted in a loss of power, I mean, kind of? But the Jews who are actually in power are not the sort who take the Torah particularly seriously.

  1. I didn't say anything about the Jews, I am only talking about Protestant Christians
  2. I am not arguing that theological liberalism inherently leads to a loss of power. I am saying it split Christianity in the States.

And the Catholics in power today... well, as has been questioned on this very forum: "Is the pope Catholic?"

Power is downstream of institution-building. I have had an unusually high amount of exposure to institutions of both Protestant and Catholic origin and I have every respect for Catholic institution building. They are very smart, very serious, and their approach to the world helps them avoid some pitfalls that Protestants often fall into, in my opinion. Protestants are extremely likely to want their organizations to be a fully confessional community, which has serious advantages but cuts Protestant entities off from the talent of other faith groups. This is easiest to see in their universities: Catholic institutions are typically quite happy to hire talented professors and staff of all or no faith, while conservative Protestant schools often restrict staff to those who share their faith. This has real benefits but narrows their talent pool, sometimes fairly dramatically.

Indeed, my own Catholic people's history since 1759 has been trying to set themselves free from Protestants, so I think the parent's opinion requires being very selective with evidence. I'm sure the Irish also would have some choice words about Protestants' will to power.

Yes, I think conservative Protestants were likely under pressure from three different directions

  1. that they were getting outflanked in the institutions
  2. the institutions were genuinely doing stuff that was inimical to their culture and beliefs and in some cases also really bad
  3. there's long been an anti-institutional conservative-libertarian-borderer-frontiersman cultural streak in the United States that many Protestants were also a part of

For all of these reasons, chunking the ring into Mount Doom instead of trying to continue to wield it began to look increasingly attractive. I think the degree to which Protestants actually bailed out of institutional competitiveness is likely overstated, but I wouldn't say it's not real.

there's long been an anti-institutional conservative-libertarian-borderer-frontiersman cultural streak in the United States that many Protestants were also a part of

That seems a much more likely reason, that early colonisation of the american frontier selected heavily for people who prefer to be away from centralized power, and that is not necessarily downstream of being protestants, lest we forget that the US states were not the only european colonies in early America.

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