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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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For me, this is another example of the woke are more correct than the mainstream. Don’t whine about black music! Respond to this criticism by saying that it’s much easier to appeal to PMC fears of chud expression, that liberals said they favored free speech, and that this is a serious art form that deals with all aspects of human life, including the negatives. Have they ever listened closely to country singers and thought about what it might mean for an artist to give voice to the people that they grew up alongside in the trailer park? It’s doubtful.

This misses the point, Walsh was not as much whining about rap music, he was pointing out the double standard of Aldean's critics. And even that one is not self-serving, it is just a reminder that the PMC class does not not care about the rules - they run anarchotyranny of culture. The clerics on Twitter are the ones interpreting the reality, and they are the only ones with arbitrary authority to call for excommunication for any transgression - even the one that is on the face value thousand times milder than what they regularly not only tolerate, but also praise.

For me, this is another example of the woke are more correct than the mainstream.

Yes, this is nothing new. As an example, back in the dinosaur days of 2019 Bill Maher had Denis Prager on his show who talked to him about how there is a push to say "men can menstruate". I think Maher was absoletely clueless about it, he thought that Prager was some nut inventing conspiracy theories or some such. I think Maher now admitted that he underestimated the whole thing back in the day on Rogan's podcast, and he now does interviews with Peterson, which is interesting to see. I would not describe it as woke being more correct as mainstream as opposed to mainstream being absolutely clueless. It is almost a defining feature of mainstream, as soon as you stop being clueless you will pick a side - Maher will be right-wing coded by "platforming" people like Peterson.