Fisking That Infamous White Culture Infographic, IV

Continued from here. (Or you can start at the beginning.)

Protestant Work Ethic:

• Hard work is the key to success
• Work before play
• "If you didn't meet your goals, you didn't work hard enough"

What happens to the squirrel who doesn't gather and store nuts in good weather?

Every adult organism must expend energy in order to eat. And the survival of every human civilization - from the earliest hunter-gatherer bands to today's capitalist democracies - has hinged on the industry of its constituent members. Indeed, only young children and the inheritors of great wealth have ever gotten by without work -- until, quite recently, white-dominated societies decided to build extremely generous welfare states.

And that last bullet? That's a straw man. Of course hard work, while necessary, isn't sufficient. You obviously need to have some natural talent and a supportive home environment. And, as I've suggested in previous posts, you need to have an economic system in place that provides equal opportunity to work. And that's why I - and many other classical liberals, for that matter - support changes to public policy that will knock down barriers to education and workforce entry that disproportionately impact the disadvantaged. But once those barriers have been cleared? The rest is up to you. 

Our refusal to hand everything to you without your giving something in return is not oppression or dastardly "whiteness"; it is, in fact, what has been recognized as just throughout human history. No major culture - whether black, white, yellow, red, or purple polka-dotted - has ever entertained the notion that the lazy should be rewarded for their sloth. Only Western radical leftists think this is a good idea.

Hard work is not a "white" idea; on the contrary, what certain wealthy, privileged white people actually invented was the lionization of indolence. Your celebration of parasitism, in other words, is what's truly "white."

Religion:

• Christianity is the norm
• Anything other than Judeo-Christian tradition is foreign
• No tolerance for deviation from single god concept  

Those first two items are true to a point: the majority of Americans (including most black people!) do profess some sort of Judeo-Christian faith. But I will reiterate what I said in the first of these posts: the mere existence of a norm does not indicate a supremacist culture. Again, what matters is how we treat people who fall outside the norm. And contra the third bullet, we are extraordinarily tolerant of differing religious faiths compared to the rest of the world. 

Out here in the real America - as opposed to the America of woke fever dreams - Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, neo-pagans, and atheists live side by side with very little in the way of serious inter-religious conflict. We will argue with each other quite vociferously, of course. And yes: there are a few people here and there who harbor genuinely bigoted religious sentiments. But only an idiot would declare that a society with the First-freakin'-Amendment (which, among other things, makes religious pluralism an institutional requirement) is broadly intolerant of deviance from dominant religious beliefs.

What the absolute hell are these people smoking?

Status, Power, & Authority

• Wealth = worth

Who? Who actually says this? No: traditional American culture understands that morality = worth. Actually, check that: the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition asserts pretty clearly that all human beings, regardless of their socioeconomic or developmental status, have infinite worth by virtue of their being human beings.

Of course, our society does not always reflect that fundamental belief because people, quite frankly, are sinful and will often be unduly influenced by wealth and status. But that's not a "white" thing. That good old evidence of human history I keep mentioning reveals that excess respect for power and riches is a universal human failing.

• Your job is who you are

There are some elite white people who evidently believe this -- but for most white people, identity comes from our religious, political, recreational, and familial affiliations as well. On my Twitter bio, I identify as a teacher -- but I also identify as a Navy brat (familial), a Catholic (religious), a center-right individualist (political), and a geek who's unusually obsessed with Iron Man (recreational).

• Respect authority

Uh, no? I mean, not completely. American thought has a strain that values obedience, yes -- but it also has a healthy love of "sticking it to the man". Remember: the moment we patriotic Americans celebrate as our national birthday was, in fact, a moment of rebellion against the British crown -- and against the notion of monarchical authority in general. 

The key, in the traditional American view, is to balance authority and freedom. We believe authority should be heeded when it's reasonable and fair -- and that it should be challenged when it's not.

Additionally, respect for authority is not solely a "white" value. It is, in fact, a global moral "taste bud". Ancient Chinese philosophy, for one thing, teaches respect for elders and superiors as a high virtue. But I suppose I can't expect you critical race theory grifters to have any genuine understanding of cultures beyond our own.

• Heavy value on ownership of goods, space, property

We respect private property, yes, and for good philosophical reasons. If we cannot keep the things we make and acquire through our own bodily and mental labor, there's zero incentive to do anything but lay around and eff off. Why bother to open up a business to serve your local community, for example, if the fruits of that effort will be destroyed by rioters and/or confiscated by central-planners? Sorry, but real human beings can't run on good feelings alone; they need tangible compensation for putting in their time.

Furthermore, in any place where private property has not been respected, violence against human beings has always followed. Please note: several people have already been murdered as a result of present-day disorders. A general tolerance for lawlessness is, right now, putting lives at risk. 

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