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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8508 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026

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This is a post that's been floating around in my head for a while that I finally wanted to get out. Apologies if this is a little rambling.

There's a phenomenon I observe on both the left and right that is a little mysterious to me and I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on it. There seems to be a tendency to take the actions of particular individuals and ascribe some kind of moral responsibility for those actions to demographic groups the perpetrator is a part of. Such and such man/woman/white/black/migrant/christian/etc did a bad thing and, actually, all men/women/whites/blacks/migrants/christians/etc are in some sense responsible for it. Such that it is reasonable to think less of or perhaps take retribution against all members of whatever the relevant demographic group is.

I don't think it's too hard to come up with examples. I'm confident a lot of innocent Jews or Palestinians have caught strays from people mad at the Israeli government or Hamas. There was that unrest in the UK after a Sikh Northern Ireland after an African man stabbed a guy to death. Go to probably any dating forum and you can find men and women generalizing about the evils of the other gender based on their dating experiences.

I think of myself as having an essentially liberal individualist view of moral responsibility. People are morally responsible for the things they actually do and not the things that other people who happen to share demographic characteristics with them do. This makes arguments or actions of the above kind feel alien to me. I don't see the logic, the reason, that connects "Person A of X demographic did a Bad Thing" to "Therefore it is justified for me to do a Bad Thing to Person B of demographic X." I also observe deployment of arguments of this type seem to have a whiff of hypocrisy. People who deploy these kinds of arguments about demographic X they are not a part of would ~never accept similar generalizations about demographic Y that they are a part of.

I should also mention that I sometimes see a reverse of this. People of a particular demographic want credit for the good things other members of their demographic have done, regardless of what they themselves have done. The examples that come to mind here are all right-coded to me ("men built society so I, as a man, should get credit for what those other men did regardless of what I personally have done". s/men/whites) but that is probably just my bubble.

I guess I'm trying to understand if there's some underlying logic, some theory of demographic-based moral responsibility I'm missing? Or is this all a kind of pre-rational responsibility assignment?

A while ago I saw somebody complain somewhere on the internet about a bunch of young Amish guys causing some annoyance to him. I don't remember the exact details, but something like they would take a shortcut over his property with their buggies and it would destroy some grass or something. Again, my memory isn't clear about the details, I seem to recall the poster put up a sign saying its private property or something and it was ignored and he was asking for advice on what to do. Multiple highly upvoted comments suggested he go find a local elder and tell him about it and the elder would make sure it would stop. Everybody in the thread seemed convinced that this would be pretty much guaranteed to work. If Amish youngsters are causing problems you can apparently just talk to an elder in their community and the problem is solved.

Personally, I would like the Western world to stop being individualist liberals who don't feel any responsibility for their communities and would rather have them act like the Amish in this regard. If the Amish elder in the anecdote above would have replied "people are morally responsible for the things they actually do, why are you coming to me? I didn't do anything", considering the subject of this anecdote already put up a sign which got ignored, he would have to escalate to the police or something. I think people should be in communities and communities should hold their members responsible to a moral standard. If somebody from a community does something bad and they can get away with it without getting into trouble with their community, that says something about their community.

Of course, this reasoning presupposes people actually are in a healthy community. In some specific cases I think the above logic does permit some sort of group judgement. In other cases people might have innate communal intuitions which might not do their job properly in the current unnatural hyper-individualistic societies we find ourselves in where we offload any responsibility for our fellow men unto the government.

Personally, I would like the Western world to stop being individualist liberals who don't feel any responsibility for their communities

Of course, this reasoning presupposes people actually are in a healthy community.

Talking about communities is missing the point. The groups in question "men", "women", "migrants" aren't communities at all, can't be and shouldn't be.

For example, most healthy communities contain both men and women, but two men living on opposite sides of the country and have never met aren't part of the same community.

Demographics aren't the same as community, and unlike a community, there's zero sense in assigning a moral identity to a demographic that makes it members beholden to each other.

Talking about communities is missing the point. The groups in question "men", "women", "migrants" aren't communities at all, can't be or shouldn't be.

I don't see how it's missing the point. Men and women tend to act in pretty distinct ways, and healthy communities tend to recognize it,and set up social rules that take the differences into account. This becomes doubly impossible under individualism, first because it forbids you from even recognizing there's a difference between the groups, and secondly because it dissolves the community structures that would allow for setting up these social rules.

It's missing the point because the post it was responding to wasn't about communities. As an independent criticism of individualism it's fine. As applied to groups that aren't communities (but are sometimes thought of as communities when considered as identity groups, like "men" or "women" or "blacks"), it goes in the wrong direction.

Men and women tend to act in pretty distinct ways, and healthy communities tend to recognize it,and set up social rules that take the differences into account.

That doesn't mean at all the group of "men" is a community. You can have communities that are all one gender, like maybe the boy scouts or girl scouts, but you can be male without being in the boy scouts.

Remember, the top-level post was about the responsibility of group members for the behavior of other group members. If the group is just something you are born into and says nothing about your relation to other group members, this doesn't make sense.

An example of something that can be a community, is so less often in modernity and arguably should be more so, is a neighborhood. A gender is not.

“responsibility of group members for the behavior of other group members. If the group is just something you are born into and says nothing about your relation to other group members, this doesn't make sense.”

I don’t think they would have a responsibility in moral sense. But as far as DNA is essentially Code then people who share DNA are likely to behave in the same way and if the fathers program does murder it is likely Sons code will do murder. Etc.

But as far as DNA is essentially Code then people who share DNA are likely to behave in the same way and if the fathers program does murder it is likely Sons code will do murder. Etc.

I pose to you the same question I've posed to 6tjk, hanikrummihundursvin and a few others on this forum.

Do you believe that I should care about who's someone father is more than I should care whether that person shares my interests or wants me dead?

Why do I have to choose between your conditions? It’s not an either/or.

I can care about someone’s genetic makeup and care if they share my interests or want me dead.

Isn’t your question obviously a false conundrum?

I supported Pinochet killing communists and I am anti-immigration of bad genetic fits.

Public polling shows non-whites and in fact every non-white race on net being against traditional liberalism. A persons father is a great predictor for whether they will be against your interests.

That question presupposes that a) those two things are orthogonal, and b) that you know the answers to the latter queries. If you don't, and if lineage correlates to interests and aggression, then who someone's father is can be eminently worth caring about.

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