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What does the light at the end of the tunnel look like?
Look, every now and then I stop watching my footfalls and get pensive. And one of the things I've gotten pensive about the past few days is this: the Western culture war is not going to last forever, which means it's going to end. And when it does, how will we look back on this mad time?
Two of the answers are obvious:
But what I can't really put together is the third option, the narrative that will be told if SJ is indeed just a passing phase, either because Red/Grey defeated it or because it wins and then turns out to be unsustainable. Frankly, the Blue Tribe's been writing all the history books since before I was born, so it's hard for me to even picture it. And that troubles me; it's the scenario I think is most likely, and the one I'm to at least some extent trying to bring about, so if I don't have a good idea of what it even looks like that's kind of an HCF. "It is not enough to say that you do not like the way things are. You must say how you will change them, and to what."
So, how will the people in that scenario think of this time? What story will they tell?
(To the SJers here: feel free to answer, if you think you understand your opposition, or feel free to correct me if you think my #2 is uncharitable.)
As an SJW: You can't win. It is as impossible for you to win as it is for me to will big communism into existence ex nihlo.
We are currently playing Culture War by a set of rules that gives me infinite tries and only allowed you temporary victories; and it is the same set of rules that means I can vote in as many elections as I like and choose between two dudes representing corporate interests but one has the pride flag.
So, I win the culture war. You loose the culture war. Maybe you make some headway here or there, but in the end all your causes will fail and all of mine will succeed, until they move beyond me and I become the reactionary.
Unless there is some sort of radical reorganization of society; until the socialist or ancap revolution really comes, this is just how it do. Capitalist realism baby!
You might be right, but what does the endgame look like? It seems like the issue of immigration in particular has the potential to undo most of the gains that progressives find important. I'm thinking of France, where it seems inevitable that there will be a de facto Islamic party in the near future. In that case it seems like both progressives and conservatives (except the immigrants) lose.
Then the game board gets flipped and france becomes the seat of the Neo-Caliphate (both lose option); or like every fundamentalist religious group taken out of their milieu, the Muslims get Mellowed over the generations. They go from fire breathing puritans to evangelicals barely holding on to one or two strictures in the style of a cargo cult (capitalist realism option).
Okay, now it sounds like you're saying "we always win, except when we lose and become a Neo-Caliphate." How is the mellowing of Islamic countries going? What's the mood like in Afghanistan or Somalia?
Mellowing*. This is what the market is, this is what the market does. It connects your country to the global super culture; which overwhelms you with it's fitness. They managed to maintain their shitty standards because they were decoupled from the global economy; as they become actual states that need to do shit instead of just saying shit and as they want to participate in the market, they mellow.
It's like how republicans and libertarians talk a big game, but when they get elected what they do is cut taxes and take the most minor possible step in the culture war as red meat for the base, which immediately gets shouted down and rolled back usually while they are in office.
*You can avoid lots of the supercultre effects by being a totalitarian dictatorship, but you also miss out on lots of the benefits. Trading ideological purity strength, as it were
The problem with this is that The Mellowing that comes from constructive interaction with capitalism is dependent on actually being able to interact with capitalism. The average banlieue resident doesnt have much to offer in the French marketplace, and even their unskilled labor is mostly devalued and surplus. I dont see this situation improving, either.
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I agree that market activity tends to reduce ideological fervor. But as you note, that doesn't necessarily happen if the government becomes totalitarian, which you also agree is a distinct possibility. So I'm not even sure what your claim is anymore. "Progressivism always wins except when it doesn't"?
Pretty much. My claim is that the American right has to choose between their economic and social goals; they can't have both. They (and other conservatives in free market/free association states) have goals which I believe to be contradictory.
Makes sense, I think I agree. And AI just makes this happen faster and on a larger scale - humans will be outcompeted unless we put a stop to basically all competitive pressures.
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