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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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Well, for whatever it's worth, I've always been someone who hates people who hate other people for hating people. That's just the way I am. I'm a 3rd order hater. I guess I feel like the proper response to dealing with bigots is to admonish them, but try to do better yourself, not to debase yourself like they do, and not to play the victim.

I've always been someone who hates people who hate other people for hating people

I take it you have the common decency of hating yourself, bigot that you are?

Maybe you should walk away from this meta nonsense and do what everyone does: love the righteous, hate the wicked and admit to yourself that you actually have first order principles instead of postmodern aloofness.

admit to yourself that you actually have first order principles

Which would be what, exactly?

That's not for me to say.

Why are you asking someone else what your own first order principles are?

I don't know, I thought he was implying that my first principles were just that I'm conservative and I hate the other side or something, which is not true. I think my values in many ways don't really simplify down to first order principles, depending on what you mean by that. They really are meta level. I am against self-righteousness and people who are so sure of their own convictions that they become bad people themselves. That really seems second order, not first.

That just sounds like freedom/oppression, which is very much a first order value.