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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   15298 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026

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On Social Norms

The English writer G.K. Chesterton talks about what one should do if you encounter a fence unattended in a field. Some people might have the impulse to just tear it down. After all, what is it doing there, standing alone in this field? But he actually suggests that one should investigate. The fence may not seem useful to you in this moment, but it was probably put there for a reason, and one should try and figure out what that reason was before discarding the fence entirely.

I think that notion can be applied to social norms too, even once it seems outdated.

So here's one example: Should men open doors for women? When you're trying to figure out whether a norm has any use still, it's helpful to look at what it was there for originally. Was it there to help someone, to protect, to orient society in a useful way? Is that use case still in some way valid now? If so, maybe that norm is still doing something good, even if it isn't evident immediately to you.

One thing I dislike about critics of social norms is how bad they tend to be at understanding why people had certain norms in the past. Many people believe that everything was simply oppressive and to shit on people, without critically thinking about anything in particular.

Feminist for example, love to dunk on slut shaming, without thinking about the alternative, which is basically people getting sick as shit from disease, and various illegitimate children with multiple mothers/fathers. Of course, as long as you get checked for STD's and use protection, you could avoid many of those problems, but the fact we see large amounts of STDs, abortions, and single motherhood among various racial groups withing society (blacks, Hispanics, & native americans) doesn't make that argument convincing at scale. I've known of men & women who deliberately for go condoms because it doesnt "feel good", and then get a pikachu face when they are given diseases or get pregnant.

Its become more and more apparent to me that there are many people in our society who simply dont or cant make good decisions, even if given an optimal environment. Perhaps there is a discussion to be had around norms about dating and sex, even if we conclude slut shaming isnt an ideal solution?

I think part of the problem is that when these norms were challenged, the people defending them didn't have anything legible to use. For example, homosexuality. They might say that it's a sin, and I don't think they're lying or coming up with an excuse, I think that's what they legitimately believed and they just didn't know the real reason was that gay promiscuity would lead to an extremely deadly STD being spread. In other words, they were right for the wrong reasons. So if you argued with them, it was very easy to win the argument and convince people there was no good reason for homosexuality to be taboo. But then you get the AIDS epidemic and millions of otherwise healthy young men dying in droves.

Yeah, this is a huge problem with most conservatives in general. Honestly, I think part of the reasons societies become more liberal overtime is at least, in part, because conservatism is defense (which is arguably harder) vs liberalism which offensive. And as you point out, often times, even the the people defending the status quo dont understand the status quo.

Well, we can add though that liberalism isn't that impressive and convincing either when on the defense, as we have seen in the past decade or so.

The past decade? Many hypothetical, pre-civilization states of nature thinkers like Rousseau came up with don't really seem congruent with our evolved history.

I interpreted Nerd's comment to mean that not only does (political) conservatism represent defense, which is an inherently passive activity unlikely to generate much enthusiasm about its prospects, but that it also comes across as pathetic and uninspiring when it tries to defend itself. I'd argue that Western liberalism has also been on the defensive since 2016 or so, for a decade, or at least that is surely how its believers see themselves, and I don't think the defense they're putting up appears that impressive or convincing either. I see a lot of bitterness, pessimism, despair and a lack of vision for the future on their side.

I'd argue that Western liberalism has also been on the defensive since 2016 or so, for a decade, or at least that is surely how its believers see themselves, and I don't think the defense they're putting up appears that impressive or convincing either.

It really isn't. But liberals/progressives have an additional asymmetry in their advantage: even though people may not like their own proposed solutions they don't actually have to deal with a return to some older regime because it's been practically foreclosed. Multiculturalism may not win, but you're not getting back to the old white majority, secularism may have failed but adherence to faith and the power of the church has collapsed regardless, liberalization to divorce law was only supposed to impact a few cases but now you can't roll it back, etc.

So, once conservatives have failed, the solution will be some form of "progress". Even the reactionaries often can't fathom a real RETVRN.

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