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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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Yes, another top level comment about The Origins of Woke from me, in the same thread on the same week. But this is about something else. I had an epiphany while reading the book.

I've wondered for many years why Marxism is more socially acceptable than racism when it's responsible for even more deaths than the Holocaust. It's because companies are (de facto) legally required to fire racists, but they're not required to fire Marxists. In fact, firing a Marxist for merely being Marxist would be illegal in California.

California has a state law against firing people for their political beliefs, but it didn't protect James Damore, who was fired in compliance with the law against creating a hostile work environment for protected groups.

It all adds up.

Communism might be responsible for more deaths than the Holocaust but all historical forms of racism put together are probably responsible for more deaths than communism. Not that it really matters. Probably the main reason why communism is more socially acceptable than racism is that communism seems more well-intentioned than racism. Communism mainly hates people for things that they can change about themselves (being rich, being capitalists, being landlords, etc.), whereas racism hates people for things they can't change about themselves. Also, whereas communists claim to fight for an unprecedented better world, racists have nothing new to promise because the world has seen plenty of racism before. It's old hat and does not have any air of novelty around it.

Communism mainly hates people for things that they can change about themselves (being rich, being capitalists, being landlords, etc.), whereas racism hates people for things they can't change about themselves.

This is why communism is worse than racism. Hating people for their virtues is worse than hating people for morally neutral properties like race.

If you're going to present the least charitable take of what communists hate it would behoove you to match it with a similarly uncharitable take of what racists hate. Which isn't "just morally neutral properties". You could start by claiming islamophobes hate Muslims because Muslims are better at reproducing, or that antisemites hate Jews because Jews are better at mostly everything.

Just about the core moral tenet of communism is that owning wealth is not a virtue, and that capitalists didn't earn it by being virtuous, either.