The Culture War™ Is a Waste of Time
Dump the false hope-dope dichotomy
Much of my Substack is a laundry list of all my mistakes - some quite recent. I’m still making mistakes now, including some I’m not even aware of yet. Making mistakes is bad, but not learning from them and pretending one never makes them is even worse.
Many of my mistakes are due to my limitations. Insufficient memory, skill, and knowledge. A couple of days ago, I read this passage by
on limitations (the whole piece is worth reading, as is Part 1):Humility means the courage to admit your human limitations without compromising your self-esteem. Your limitations are simply the potential of your physical and mental capacities, which you make up for with your virtue, ideals, principles, and your faithful adherence to those principles.
I admit my limitations. But I do not surrender to them. I push them as far as I can. I memorize. I practice. I learn.
What appalls me about TAnons - the Trump plan trusters - is that no matter how many facts I show them about their ‘heroes’ - facts in the public eye, not conspiracies, not speculations - they won’t learn. Or argue. Or anything.
Nothing from an Unapproved Source matters to them. My knowing them for years means nothing because I am not an Authority. I am not The Jordan.
Suicidal and addicted to drugs, but he wears a suit deeeep with symbolism!
How can AMRX Mark II ever compare to the White Patriarch? Daddy!
I am not the Tucker. Or the Eeeelon. Or the ♥ANCE. Here’s a face you can trust.
Or any other member of the Good Guy Gang.
Sage Hana speculates that their
fealty to a floating collection of Hero Leaders is probably a regression back to childhood as the stress of reality becomes too much.
The Jordan is the daddy so many ‘dissidents’ wish they had.
There is no shortage of White Patriarchs. Here’s another.
And another.
Kasting is key to making Kharacters Kompelling.
So Kompelling that principles don’t matter. Only loyalty - the central cord.
Loyalty: The Central Cord
I was going to call this post “Die Heart-est”, the logical followup to “Die Heart-er”, but then I realized I wasn’t going to write about the dead heart of amnesia. Instead, I was going to write about the central heart of loyalty.
I can never get over how someone who believes THE SHOT KILLED MY ___ can vote for the self-proclaimed “father of the vaccine”.
Another Sotiris Rex passage that I also read a couple days ago comes to mind (and again, the whole thing is worth reading):
you begin to love your oppressor for his occasional kindness in between abuses - Stockholm syndrome
And what does Great Orange God’s “occasional kindness” consist of? Here’s a hint in Mao’s handwriting.1
And here’s the answer on Startpage.
Here’s The Grauniad’s take on the Orange Culture Warrior (emphasis mine):
“They actually came out with a directive – ‘too white’,” the US president told reporters on Thursday, seeking to blame former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden for including Black and Latino people in the federal workforce.
The propagandist and xir audience believe Trump wants an all-White fedworkfarce.
“We want the people that are competent.”
That it took Trump less than a day to exploit a tragic plane crash for his crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs should come as no surprise. The 78-year-old president is on a mission to win the “culture wars”, acting with speed and ferocity to bring his rightwing agenda into every corner of American life. It is a form of shock therapy that aims to rewire society itself.
Less than two weeks back in office, an emboldened, unapologetic Trump has launched a series of executive orders and policy changes that broadly target DEI, education curricula and political protests. The actions aim to reverse so-called “woke” policies and restore “merit-based” systems.
The TAnons I know are so thrilled by the prospect of losers being cast out by the glorious Orange State that they’ve already forgotten about the poisoning of millions. Microamnesia.
The Die Heart Trilogy (1): Microamnesia
Five years ago at the start of convid, I initially bought into the mask myth - a remnant of my Japan-worship - but soon learned how useless muzzles were.
TAnons love winning. Their Great Orange God told them:
The TAnon is very much like the ZAnon convinced Russia is winning - and winning BIGLY. This is what “Total PATRIOT Victory” looks like, folks.
There is overlap between both sets of victory addicts. The intersection between the two sets in a Venn Diagram is TZAnon. Or should I say צAnon? Godland is often the good guy in the eyes of both.
TZAnon/צAnon in a meme from that post of Rurik’s:
This isn’t a post about Godland, though. Or even Russia.
Although Rurik’s specialty is Russia, a lot of what he writes is universal. He ends the post above with,
people need to start trying to see the world for what it is, not what they’d wish it and their roles in it to be.
But seeing - not just physically with the eyes but acknowledging and processing that sensory input with the mind - is hard.
I know, because I used to refuse to see.
Now I try to keep my eyes open as much as I can. I can handle these revelations:
I see now that my respect for Matt Gaetz was misplaced, to put it mildly:
So while the Committee did not find Gaetz engaged in trafficking of a minor, it basically concluded he was a corrupt, sleazy degenerate who was not averse to sex with minors.
Not the kind of guy any reasonable, decent person would want holding the highest legal office in America.
But “reasonable, decent” is just code for LIE-brul now. You don’t wanna be blue, do you?
We can only see so much a day. The enemy is aware of this limitation and tries to capture our attention, laser-pointing away from its machinations.
The Culture War™ is one giant laser pointer operation.
And I had been following its bright beam. Like I said at the start, some of my mistakes are “quite recent”. With long, deep roots.
I was obsessed with anime, manga, and Japanese superheroes in the eighties.
In the nineties, I switched to Hollyweird and saw lots of movies I’ve long since forgotten. I used to have long convos about current and upcoming blockbusters. I used to read AICN.
Then I moved around - both within and outside the US - sometimes with no TV - and lost touch with pop culture. Haven’t seen a movie in a theater in years. Cancelled Netflix in 2015 since I hardly used it. I only have cable because it’s bundled with my Wi-Fi. My connection is so unreliable that streaming would be painful.
Nonetheless on those occasions when I’d come across lamestream Woke ‘entertainment’, I’d moan about it to my inner circle. And last year I started playing Culture War™ YouTubers while working and doing chores. Hearing them whine about movies, TV shows, and comics I never saw and had no intention of seeing. Even started reading Culture War™ CONtent on Substack.
I had a morbid curiosity about how Woke the ‘entertainment’ industry could get. The YouTubers made it sound as if the biz was headed for rock bottom.
Then four months ago, I read this note of Rurik’s2:
He inspired me to cut down on my Culture War™ CONsumption. I cancelled my free Substack and YouTube subs to a Culture Warrior. But I’d still watch their videos on occasion. The algorithm kept recommending them.
One video was about an alleged White-bashing scene that … had no mention of race.
Another video was about an alleged gay scene that … never happened.
But my clicks happened. Obviously not my likes. I was being lied to!
I found a YouTuber exposing Culture War™ grifters. So. Much. Lying.
Then I realized that Counterculture Warrior had an agenda going beyond crusading for truth.
Selling Superhero Soma
Sometimes I think Substack should show me Notes as they are published instead of a selection from the last few days, but a good Note remains valid no matter when it is read, and in this particular case, a two-day-old Note showed up at the perfect time today.
No, that YouTuber wasn’t working for the CIA or whoever. The genius of the Regime lies in its ability to manipulate us to do what it wants with minimal or no supervision. The Counterculture Warrior sells digital dope.
Stop objecting to capeslop. Swallow Captain Murrica V: Blackest Lives Matter. Don’t believe the Culture Warriors’ lies about it. It’s not so bad. It’s not perfect either. I’m not lying. Not exaggerating. It’s just a movie. Take your 42 milligrams of MCU.3 Don’t be an extremist. You’re Right, right? You don’t have to be an uptight Republican. Sit back and enjoy. Give your money to Disney. Let your brain cells die as the superhero soma takes effect. The fewer cells you have in your skull, the less negative you’ll be. Negativity is a no-no. Be a lobotomized fanboy.
Their Culture Warrior ‘enemies’ in turn sell … hope.
But how? The Culture Warriors seem so negative on the surface. Every new movie, TV shows, or comic is THE WOKEST EVER. I saw for myself how fake Wokeness was manufactured to fit that thesis.
Which is more than just EVERYTHING IS AWFUL. Because their logic is that EVERYTHING IS SO AWFUL that “go woke, go broke”. Disney, Marvel, that whole system is on its last legs. And we the CONsumers have the power to say no - to take down the entertainment industry. Just as we had the power to vote for our Great Orange God who is taking down globalism.
The criticism of the Culture Warrior disguises an optimism not unlike that of a TAnon. Because Culture Warriors are TAnons.
And Musk fans - their references to Musk would have made me tune them out even if I had never read Rurik.
I have never encountered a Culture Warrior for Biden.
The rhetoric of the Culture Warrior has a lot in common with the rhetoric of the ZAnon, the truster of Putin’s supposed plan. IT’S OVER for Disney/Star Wars/Kathleen Kennedy, just like how IT’S OVER for Ukraine/NAFO. Victory is always around the corner.
This is what ‘victory’ really looks like:
Nobody remembers yesterday’s failed prediction of ‘victory’ because they’re preoccupied by today’s clickbait.
In the case of the Culture Warriors, that clickbait involves what may or may not be supposedly wrong with entertainment - the same entertainment pushed by the Counterculture Warrior.
Either way, the audience is being entertained - by the over-the-top roasting of the Culture Warrior or the CGI of Wonder Womyn: Beyond Gender. Both the Culture Warrior and the Counterculture Warrior discuss the same nonsense - the same distractions. Both serve the Regime. Both addict us with drugs.
Both contain us.
The Culture War™ is as fake as the ‘war’ in Ukraine.4
None of those ‘warriors’ will ever mention the real enemy that
names.Not just the bankers, but also the spooks and crooks.
The stunning and brave Murricans on both ‘sides’ of the ‘war’ don’t have hate speech laws stopping them from naming the enemy (yet).
I’ll conclude with a question from Rurik:
Last week was the last straw, as I explained in “Selling Superhero Soma”.
made me put a Counterculture Warrior video on permanent pause.I’m one of these “disillusioned defectors”.
I’m never going back.
Further reading:
文戰 (文战 in simplified characters) is my abbreviation of 文化戰爭 ‘culture war’. Chinese is full of such abbreviations: e.g., the 文化大革命 Cultural Revolution (actually the Great Revolution of Culture; English leaves out 大 ‘Great’) can be called 文革. 文戰 is supposed to evoke 文革.
文戰 already exists in Chinese with two definitions according to Baike. Traditionally it refers to taking imperial examinations since 文 is ‘writing’ and 戰 is ‘battle’. I suspect the other definition is modern: 文艺论战 ‘literary debate’, literally ‘writing art discuss battle’.
I try to record the URLs of all Notes I like as I read them. However, with my luck I didn’t have a URL for this one, so I had to go to Rurik’s Notes page and scroll all the way down to November. Notes is very X-like, but the lack of a search function makes it much harder to use.
Marvel Cinematic Universe.
But as Rurik says, “the massacres [in Ukraine] are real.”
Excellent take and useful context on the culture war theater. Thank you for the mentions.