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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   31375 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023

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I see that neither side of the culture war right now focuses on the positive, on something beautiful. Both sides see themselves as righteous oppressed victims fighting against the evil empire of the other side, but for both it is less a Star Wars vision than a Terminator vision. War machines running over skulls at night-time, death and lasers. The culture war is bleak and stark, it has no poetry, no romance. It is a grim attrition war, trenches and minor offensives but few large breakthroughs if by breakthroughs one means reaching one's opponent and convincing him of something. Where are the creative songbirds of thought and word who would transcend this opposition and maybe get both sides to become aware that both are equally stuck in the human condition? Has rhetoric truly reached the limits of its potential power? I have so rarely seen anyone change his mind about anything more than minor details.

It is all so tiresome. Maybe it is possible to move in some orthogonal direction and flank this whole conflict from a side that has the breath of fresh air behind it?

When has such a thing ever happened?

Look at famous Christian writers throughout European history, or the scientific utopian writers of the 18th and 19th centuries like Francis Bacon. Their positive vision of the world created much of the good we have today.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot in the way of a cause for optimism. Things always have a way of getting worse before they get better though, strangely. Hopefully 2023 is a signal of brighter days to come. And not because of heatwaves across the country.

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