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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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I probably am sea lioning a bit, it's true. But, on the other hand, it's not actually good for the Motte when it becomes a place for men to lash out in frustration at women with exaggerated claims. You joke that there are about 2 women here, but really, if you want viewpoint diversity, this can't become a space where people are perceived as having the right to complain about a particular subgroup without getting pushback.

For what it's worth, you have my agreement of some of your complaints. "Women are the greatest victims of war" is pretty indefensible. There have been instances in which the social movement against rape and sexual assault has led to deeply unfair outcomes for some of those accused. And, in this context, it is silly to blame men for not being in relationships. If women are "rational" for dating each other or choosing their careers instead, then men are just as "rational" for looking at the hell that is dating apps and deciding to watch porn instead.

The liberal position is that people can "demand" whatever they want out of a partner, provided that they are willing to accept not having a partner if they cannot actually convince such a person to date them. And I think that's a pretty important principle, actually -- that individuals can always opt out of the dating market, if they've decided that it sucks. That women fear coercion in this space is not actually a sign that we are manipulative; our fear is based on a not-too-distant history in which social norms used to make it harder for women to say no to relationships even when they wanted to. If you want to throw away liberalism in this context, because you think it simply isn't sustainable, then it's not illegitimate for people to respond by pointing out that this will create harms of its own.

If we're keeping liberalism, then I think the finger-pointing in both directions has to stop. I think sometimes people point the finger at men because they want to forestall any sort of conversation that might lead to social coercion of women, but I don't think this is actually helpful. Men are also within their rights to opt out if they want to.

Honestly, if you ask me, one reason this problem is hard is that child-rearing just doesn't fit easily into an atomised, market-based society. The strongest incentives are not economic nor directly related to happiness; they happen on the wishy-washy level of fulfillment and even sometimes self-sacrifice. The best ways to support it naturally take place not on the individual level nor the national level but rather on the intermediate, community level.

It's possible that some of the solutions to the problem of finding relationships need to happen on that local level, too. Dating apps suck particularly badly for men, but women don't really seem to love them all that much, either. Rather than berating people for not engaging with the system as it exists, it surely makes more sense to try to reform the system so that better ways of finding partners and starting families start to seem possible for people. That's easier said than done, but better than sitting around arguing about who is to blame.

Neither I nor Dasein suggested politically/legally disenfranchising women, you are arguing against a strawman if you think that is the case.

I'll speak for myself though; Given the parent thread is just a continuation of a conversation that has been going on for a while, I previously talked about my solution not being to take away women's rights (I'm a libertarian and that goes against my political framework anyways), but instead to stop;

  • Artificially inflating women's social status. And by all means, I do think it is artificially inflated; by subsidizing college degrees that are economically unproductive but female-dominated,

  • Non-stop feminist rhetoric from just about all facets of society/institutions starting from kindergarten; to stop holding boys back by punishing them in schools, essentially defeminizing schools, Stop with the incessant "yass queeen" girl power rhetoric in just about all media,

  • The boys drool rhetoric when it comes to every issue.

  • Assigning social status to college degrees to the point that a professional email sender who makes 40k a year stops thinking that an Electrician who makes 50k a year is beneath her feet,

  • Women being able to fight for their interests as a class (why does 50% of the population even get to do this? post full enfranchisement), And many more.

You can visit last weeks CW thread to see the entire list of ideas discussed that would deflate the currently presumed inflated female status without taking away any of their rights. Most of the changes proposed are cultural.

Ultimately, I don't think any of these things will work. Hence my doomerist position that there is nothing to be done about male disenfranchisement anyways because we have been psychologically/culturally primed otherwise beyond any fixing (partly thanks to online dating). I repeat, this conversation is not about TFR, it's about the fact that 60% of young men are single.

If you have a potential solution/idea for that problem, I am all ears.

That's fair but I hope you won't be as quick to assign blame to men when the consequences of those liberal positions come to fruition. More men, especially the Gen Z generation are opting into watching porn instead of the hassles of dating. They're also opting out of society, which by the liberal position is within their rights. The modern educated women is so far detached from the modern male laborer and man that I fear you don't fully understand how much they contribute to the world that you thrive in.