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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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any opera (even Wagner)

I went to see Das Rheingold when it was playing a few weeks ago at the Royal Opera House and yep, pretty much everyone there coded as a westernized urban progressive to me (tbf, my looks/dress probably code me as a westernized urban progressive as well so this doesn't mean they were so). It was all modern this and modern that, pretty much nobody dressed up in the ways you'd expect a conservative to do so, even though there was no strict dress code (people came in wearing jeans and t shirts, but styled in ways that strongly hinted urban liberal).

my looks/dress probably code me as a westernized urban progressive as well so this doesn't mean they were so

Can you unpack what this dichotomy between your “looks/dress” and what you actually are? Like are too a BAP/DR chud type with blue hair or something?

Don’t mean to interrogate you or anything, I’m just genuinely curious.

Oh no, not at all. My hair is natural and everything. It's more that I'm relatively slim and wear expensive completely westernized clothing (not the tacky sort where you're a walking advertisement for multiple brands, but the tasteful sort where those who know, know and everyone else just thinks you're wearing well fitting normal stuff) while being visibly non-white (the ethnicity). Also the way I speak (mannerisms, speed) is an instant giveaway too. There's just a certain aura that westernized urban progressives have about them and I would say I have it too.

My opinions I'll leave you to decide on based on my post history, but you'd be hard pressed to say they are progressive or even pro modern western beliefs.

Just imagine Gandalf the White.

Yeah I think dress codes have died in London outside of those few very old school Pall Mall members clubs that (partially) cling on. In NYC even that’s gone, the Harvard and Yale now have some vague smart casual codes but they’re not taken seriously by either of them. Crazy to think that as recently as the 50s, nice restaurants would enforce not merely a suit but black tie!