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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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Rousseau's core axiom is not "that all men are created equal".

Rousseau's core axioms are, that all injustice is a product of social structure, and that social structures are imposed from the top down. Accordingly, the first step to building a healthier and more just society must be to demolish and discredit the existing social structures/norms. It is this conclusion that both Nietzsche and the political left are starting from.

However, as @FCfromSSC observes, the logical end point of this sort of belief is that there is no such thing as morality or "a higher law". Everything is "the will to power" all the way down. And I would argue that is why explicitly secular progressive and technocratic governments have displayed a historical tendency to pile mountains of skulls that put the likes of Genghis Kahn and the Holy Roman Emperors to shame.

Rousseau's core axiom is not "that all men are created equal".

You'll have to forgive me, because I thought that's what you were referring to when you opened up with talk of the primary axioms of the left. Equality and equity are very big bugbears on the left, and that's what my mind immediately jumped to when you spoke about a core axiom of Rousseau in the context of core axioms of the left.

However, as @FCfromSSC observes, the logical end point of this sort of belief is that there is no such thing as morality or "a higher law". Everything is "the will to power" all the way down. And I would argue that is why explicitly secular progressive and technocratic governments have displayed a historical tendency to pile mountains of skulls that put the likes of Genghis Kahn and the Holy Roman Emperors to shame.

I don't even see anything here that Nietzsche himself would disagree with. My understanding of his stance is that morality is in fact just another expression of the will to power, and it isn't like he has a terribly big problem with mountains of skulls. I think he'd disagree heartily with the left on exactly whose skulls should be put onto the pile, but the existence of it isn't really a problem from within his philosophy. Yes people are going to die, and as long as they aren't great people, who cares?

That said, I don't think there's all too much aversion to mountains of skulls these days. If you gave rationalists a button which said "In exchange for 98% of Subsaharan Africans getting their skulls removed and placed into a giant pyramid you will receive a perfectly aligned AI and full implementation of your desired social policies" I think that there'd be more than a few willing to push it.