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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8046 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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Sure, when you're a child you're subordinate to your parents and your teachers, then in college you're supposed to be subordinate to your instructors and subordinate yourself to the goal of finding work post college. Then when you're working you've still got to be subordinate to your bosses, but at least that's part time... then someone comes along and tells you you have to also subordinate yourself to your children. When do you get to be you? Never.

This attitude, despite being a 'conservative' one, seems to be new to the generations which grew up after WWII. Earlier generations did not maintain that the parents lived for the children.

No man is an island,

Entire of itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

As well as if a promontory were:

As well as if a manor of thy friend's

Or of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

— John Donne, "pre-WWII"

On the other hand, the idea that living for oneself is a bad thing is not new- the old style expression of it would have been that you lived for the community, and having children was part of meeting obligations to those around you.

A sort of primitive fascism, where everyone is basically a cell in the communal body. As E.O. Wilson said in a slightly different context, "Wrong Species".

No? Fascism is a specific thing. Obligations to the community is much much broader.

Only insofar as "fascism" has become a generic sneer-word for any philosophy that makes leisure class liberals uncomfortable.

Historical Fascists had a very clear and specific idea of what thier movement was about.

Yes, that's why I called it a "sort of primitive fascism" rather than actual fascism. Of course, sweep away the high-sounding language and everyone being expected to act as a cell in the body (or a cog in the wheel) isn't really such a good thing. And if you were to look at such a society, you'd probably find, as always, that there were a few people who were doing the directing of what the rest were doing.

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