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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   16484 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026

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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.

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.

I don't think I agree. The first time I went abroad my parents told me to be on my best behavior, because I won't be just representing myself, I'd be representing my entire nation. Were they wrong to tell me that? Or is an entire nation analogous to a community?

That's you taking (additional) responsibility for your own behavior, and therefore categorically different from you taking responsibility for other people's behavior.

"You're representing your country" is part aspirational, part practical, not moral. If you misbehaved abroad and then another countryman of yours comes in, the locals might distrust him (because you represented your country in the minds of the locals), but if they try to hold him to account for what you did, he'd be right to point out that you don't actually represent him.

That's you taking (additional) responsibility for your own behavior, and therefore categorically different from you taking responsibility for other people's behavior.

My parent's statement rested on the assumption that other people are responsible for my behavior. If we accept that no such responsibility exists, what they said is nonsensical.

"You're representing your country" is part aspirational, part practical, not moral.

"Part aspirational, part practical" is pretty much what morality is.

If you misbehaved abroad and then another countryman of yours comes in, the locals might distrust him (because you represented your country in the minds of the locals), but if they try to hold him to account for what you did, he'd be right to point out that you don't actually represent him.

In my opinion the OP is about the former, not the latter. He didn't say "I don't get why people do this thing where they hold someone legally liable for crimes they didn't commit, just because someone from their group did it".

My parent's statement rested on the assumption that other people are responsible for my behavior. If we accept that no such responsibility exists, what they said is nonsensical.

Which other people? Your parents? Yes, we accept that parents specifically have some responsibility for their behavior of specifically their children. This doesn't imply a man is responsible for the behavior of other men. It's personal relationship, not group membership at play there.

"Part aspirational, part practical" is pretty much what morality is.

That's wordplay and has nothing to do with my point. "Aspirational" here means "you should should consider this as a way to aspire to high standards for yourself", not "you're actually a representant". And "practical" means "behaving badly might ruin your country's reputation and therefore hurt your countrymen", without having to take a position on whether the locals are morally in the right to stereotype on your example.

In my opinion the OP is about the former, not the latter. He didn't say "I don't get why people do this thing where they hold someone legally liable for crimes they didn't commit, just because someone from their group did it".

OP is very clearly about the latter, and they did say:

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.

Which other people? Your parents?

Not just them, my fellow countrymen in general. Otherwise they'd be giving me the "don't bring shame to the family name" talk, which I also got on completely separate occasions.

That's wordplay and has nothing to do with my point

I don't see how. Morality is very often the exact same combination of exactly the same kind of aspirations and practical matters that you just described.

Such that it is reasonable to think less of or perhaps take retribution against all members of whatever the relevant demographic group is.

Doesn't "retribution" mean the kind of distrust that you've been talking about? Otherwise I haven't a clue what he's talking about. Reparations? That's the only issue I can think of that fits a stricter interpretation of "retribution", and it's a niche issue which to the extent it has any support, it's to a large part from self-styled liberals.

Not just them, my fellow countrymen in general.

Nothing in "you're representing your country" assigns responsibility for your behavior to your countrymen. That's simply a total non-sequitur. Your parents' statement is all about your own (heightened) responsibility for your behavior.

I don't see how. Morality is very often the exact same combination of exactly the same kind of aspirations and practical matters that you just described.

You're doing wordplay around the term "morality". When I said "not moral", I meant that you're parents don't have a moral belief that you're actually a representative in an ideal sense. To the degree they believe it, it's a concession to practicality.

Also, morality [as you might use the term] might originate in practice from something like that, but to become morality it needs to be detached from its origins.

Doesn't "retribution" mean the kind of distrust that you've been talking about?

No. Distrust is just the self-interested response to a belief. It has nothing to do with any deliberate moral judgment.

Reparations would be one of the clearer examples, but all sorts of woke identity politics count.

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