When traditional taboo domains (religion, sex) lose elite enforcement currency, social‑status‑driven moralizers shift to new normative terrains (e.g., social‑justice language), institutionalizing fresh rule sets that function like legality for in‑group policing. The mechanism explains recurring waves of moral enforcement across eras and why universities and humanities often incubate them.
— Recognizing priggishness as a reusable social mechanism explains the recurrent rise of new culture‑war orthodoxies and helps predict where and how institutional capture of norm enforcement will occur.
2026.01.05
100% relevant
Paul Graham’s account (as summarized by Stewart‑Williams) that the moralizers who once policed religion/sex moved onto social‑justice rules when the earlier domains lost force, plus the point that PC incubated in humanities as student radicals became faculty.
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