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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28201 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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This line of argument goes at least as far back as Gibbon's claim that Christianity fatally weakened the Roman Empire and the modern online form includes a heavy dose of Nietzschean master-slave morality in the way they contrast supposedly Pagan and Christian ethics. In a sense they are correct, in that if one is committed to permanent racial separatism and inequality then any universalist and egalitarian ideology, be it Christianity, Communism, etc. represents a beachhead from which future moral attacks may be launched on your position. What they don't have is any sort of workable replacement, retreating instead into memes and BAP-type shitposting rather than doing the hard work of building a philosophy to replace the one they continue to hack away at even as it holds up the ground beneath their feet.

It goes back to Celsus:

They say to each of their hearers:—Believe, first of all, that he whom I introduce to thee is the son of God, although he was shamefully bound, and disgracefully punished, and very recently was most contumeliously treated before the eyes of all men. Believe it even the more, on that account. If these bring forward this person, and others, again, a different individual, while the common and ready cry of all parties is, ‘Believe, if thou wilt be saved, or else begone,’ what shall those do who are in earnest about their salvation? Shall they cast the dice, in order to divine whither they may betake themselves, and whom they shall join?

They declare the wisdom that is among men to be foolishness with God. The reason of this has been stated long ago: their desire to win over by means of this saying the most ignorant, servile, or uninstructed of mankind. These sorcerers flee away with headlong speed from the more polished class of persons, because they are not suitable subjects for their impositions, while they seek to decoy those who are more rustic.

And it won, because there are always going to be more of the ignorant, servile, and downtrodden. See the French Revolution. Guys who are "we want to go back to the days when the likes of us were rightfully the nobles and rulers" should remember the rattle of the tumbrils taking the lords and nobles to execution before the jeering crowds as entertainment.

Everyone remembers that, but forgets the centuries where the lords and nobles had peasants executed for any offense or no offense. It's bad to be on top come the revolution, but good every other time.

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