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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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A question: why do people believe that people - especially men - who are unsuccessful with romantic relationships are unsuccessful because of a lack of moral virtue? A man who's 30 years old and has never gone on a date or kissed anyone is assumed by default to be some kind of fat, basement-dwelling loser. When he is in fact a short but fit engineer, or a corporate lawyer, or a programmer for Google, he's then roundly criticized for being misogynistic or lacking in moral virtue. Occasionally, darker - much darker - suspicions are raised: let's say that there are reasons why these men frequently avoid being around unrelated children. It seems difficult for people to comprehend that an apparently healthy, gainfully-employed individual could fail to meet with romantic success despite a decade of trying...unless there is something seriously morally wrong with them.

Someone who fails at being a salesman, or a business owner, or even at playing basketball worth a damn...doesn't get that. "I'm a nice, decent, hardworking guy...but I can't sell shoes at Nordstrom, I've been working hard to do this and have dreamt of being a salesman since I was 12" is a kind of absurd complaint. He might be a fine human being and maybe he'd make a great heavy equipment operator, but he just doesn't have the talent for sales. We don't think there's something morally wrong with our hero because he can't sell shoes, or because he's a short, clumsy guy that sucks at basketball.

Someone who fails at being a salesman, or a business owner, or even at playing basketball worth a damn...doesn't get that. "I'm a nice, decent, hardworking guy...but I can't sell shoes at Nordstrom, I've been working hard to do this and have dreamt of being a salesman since I was 12" is a kind of absurd complaint. He might be a fine human being and maybe he'd make a great heavy equipment operator, but he just doesn't have the talent for sales.

Because your metaphor is severely retarded. Failing to get laid isn't like failing at basketball, or failing at selling shoes, or failing at running a restaurant; it's like being unemployed. Failing at being a lawyer is like failing at sleeping with some particular girl, or some particular genre of girl perhaps. One criticizes a guy who fails at starting his business the same way one criticizes a guy who strikes out with the sorority girls at a party: for lack of skill and ability. One criticizes a guy who sucks at golf the same way one criticizes a guy who can't score with Asian chicks, for lacking some particular talent.

But we ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY criticize men who fail at every single job they try for being lazy, useless, morally worthless, losers, wastes, effeminate, overgrown boys, the cause of the downfall of Western Civ. Men who are unemployed at 30, who don't have or have never had a real job, come in for exactly the same kind of moral criticism we level at incels. When they whine that no one would hire them, we gesture at the want ads. When they whine that the jobs they can get suck, we tell them beggars can't be choosers. When they whine about the Capitalist System, maaaan, that forces them to work to live...we tell them everyone else has to work too. When they really piss us off, we bring up Second Thessalonians.

Thanks. That makes sense. It's probably better to have a terrible relationship with a girl that puts you in the fucking hospital with stab wounds than none at all. It's only now that I have realized this. You gain valuable wisdom if you survive and if you don't...who cares? At least she's probably going to pay for it.

Seventy-three men sailed up From the San Francisco Bay Rolled off of their ship, and here's what they had to say "We're callin' everyone to ride along to another shore We can laugh our lives away and be free once more" But no one heard them callin' No one came at all 'Cause they were too busy watchin' those old raindrops fall As a storm was blowin' out on the peaceful sea Seventy-three men sailing off to history Ride, captain ride upon your mystery ship Be amazed at the friends you have here on your trip Ride captain ride upon your mystery ship On your way to a world that others might have missed

It's probably better to have a terrible relationship with a girl that puts you in the fucking hospital with stab wounds than none at all.

Er no, why would you ever even think this? There are plenty of successful life paths that don't require any sexual interaction with women ever.

I mean, /u/FiveHourMarathon is fairly explicitly analogizing 'failing to get laid' to unemployment, and via analogy describes them as losers, useless, morally worthless, wastes etc.

Not if you consider "successfull," to be "having genetic children that will themselves have genetic children." Not everyone agrees with that, but we're all descended from those who did.

This is unnecessarily antagonistic, and also oddly specific, which I suppose tracks.

If you would like to talk about the specifics of your personal difficulties, we do have a weekly Wellness thread. Though even there, you'd need to be seeking advice (and be open to gracefully receiving it!) rather than just venting. I don't think I could draw a bright line between "expressing frustration over CW-adjacent issues" and "aimless heated venting," but your posts seem to lean more toward the latter than the former, and if you can't rein that in, you're going to eat a ban.

I am sorry if I came across as antagonistic.

I genuinely, sincerely believe that it is better to have a partner that might be considered abusive than to never have a partner at all. It's better for a 30-year-old man to have been working shitty, dangerous jobs for $5/hour cash under the table than to have never had a job. This doesn't change if he's killed or maimed on the job. The only real thing that changes it is basically it being highly illegal...nobody's going to think badly of our basement-dwelling hero if his weed guy invites him to run drugs for the cartel and he says that they never had that conversation. It's better - no shit - for a guy to get stabbed in the goddamn lung with a samurai sword than never have a partner. At least this way, the guy's having a relationship. Arguably, it's better that he get stabbed than his better-looking, more socially-graceful (come on. Samurai sword? Neckbeard might've gotten got with his own damn weapon), taller peers. Also, she's going to wind up in the system and as such face consequences for her actions. No different than if our neckbeard hero was working a dangerous as fuck job that paid dogshit and wiped its ass with OSHA regs and got shanked in the lung by a flying chunk of metal or something.

I hope that this clears some things up, and again - I don't mean to come off as antagonistic.

I might agree with the job analogy but you're missing a major piece about abusive relationships. They tend to emotionally damage both people and their inner reasoning to a degree that leads to future dysfunction. As opposed to the other examples, it leaves a lasting decreased ability to succeed in relationships in the future. If you start a business, but fail, you usually learn a lot and are less likely to make those same mistakes again for your second business. If you take a bad job, it might motivate you to get better ones. If you approach a girl poorly, you learn what doesn't work. If you suck at golf, you will probably get better when trying again.

But if the girl you are dating literally stabs you, not only do you have some medical recovery going on, but studies as well as practical psychological research and experience show that the patterns of harmful mental thought that have resulted from the relationship are very damaging to future relationships. It's easy to get stuck in bad modes of thought. Research suggests that victims of abuse frequently find themselves in abusive situations again in the future at dramatically higher raters than can be attributed just to environment alone. They literally become worse at picking good, emotionally healthy partners and relationships (especially without therapy).

I might agree with the job analogy but you're missing a major piece about abusive relationships. They tend to emotionally damage both people and their inner reasoning to a degree that leads to future dysfunction. As opposed to the other examples, it leaves a lasting decreased ability to succeed in relationships in the future.

Being injured on the job may leave you with a lasting decreased ability to succeed in jobs in the future. That is more or less certain if the injury is permanent. Our hero, after having had his arm shattered after working for Unsafe Ulm's Garage Door Company and tensioning a torsion spring with a goddamn screwdriver and piece of rebar, might be dealing with some mental trauma from that as well as potentially limited use of his arm for life. Same if he gets his lung run through with a piece of flying metal on the job instead of a samurai sword from his girlfriend - there may be lasting physical and mental trauma there.

So too, our shanked hero also has a responsibility to report what's going on, so that Unsafe Ulm or Crazy Carrie don't fuck up any more dudes. They are cannon fodder: it's an honorable niche. They'll fill the emergency rooms and operating tables and yes, the graves as well as better men.

It's better for a 30-year-old man to have been working shitty, dangerous jobs for $5/hour cash under the table than to have never had a job.

If he can live on the land without ever participating in the exchange of goods and services, no it's not.