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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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It's possible that the ugliness is deliberate. For some people, beauty is uncomfortable and alienating. If people are insecure about their appearance or neurotic about unfavourable judgements about other people (especially "marginalized" people) perhaps to the point of trying to reject the very idea of beautiful people (more common than you would think - "Everyone is beautiful" is a rejection of the concept of beautiful people)

More generally, GloboHomo has an emotionally flattening, inclusive, and childlike quality. It wasn't present nurseries when I was young, but I can easily imagine it in them, in a way I can't imagine anything like your first picture being let anywhere near a nursery. It's hygge-culture and wholesomism, extended to art. When I think about it, GloboHomo repels me far more than brutalism or modern art, and that's saying something. At least they aspire to something daring, even if there's more than a little of Satanic bitterness to them. It's the type of thing that makes me want to join the Wagner group, and I'm about as anti-Putin/pro-Ukraine as can be.