Visualizing Neoreaction
Its a sign of maturity that the neoreactionary movement has begun to go meta on itself. Scholars of the Dark Enlightenment are beginning to ask self-reflexive questions about who they are, where divisions lie, and what it all means.
1. AnomalyUK frames neoreaction as a critique of the abstract ideals of democracy, justice, and equality.
2. Nick Land charts three paths in neoreaction: traditional theonomists, ethno-nationalists, and techno-commercialists.
3. Spandrell charts more or less the same paths: religious/traditionalist, ethnic/nationalist, and futurist/capitalist.
4. At Thumotic, Frost categorizes neoreactionaries as secular, Christian, and nihilistic.
Here, I try to visualize the topography of Neoreactionary Space, taking from the frameworks above as well as adding my own. This visualization is a work-in-progress, and I hope it will eventually be interactive. Please do leave suggestions, corrections, or additions in the comments section. Click to enlarge.
- Networks of Dark Enlightenment
Updated to include a couple bloggers. If you leave suggestions about other bloggers to add, also leave suggestions about where they should go or how to tweak the labels.
And while youre at it, take Rachel Haywires fucking hilarious Reactionary Quiz.
what was it nydwracu always likes to say? oh
the far right becomes a fandom of itself
yep
April 22, 2013 at 12:26 am
yep, been saying that ever since i saw the mencius moldbug fanfiction
April 22, 2013 at 12:40 am
youve mentioned that before but i dont think i believed it existed at the time
April 22, 2013 at 12:43 am
Im not sure how dots and lines come anywhere near fan fiction, but if thats how you want to read it . . . .
Its meant to piggy-back off the various classifications that have been going around. Classification and self-discussion is inevitable, you know. You may as well join in.
April 22, 2013 at 12:51 am
Moldbug wrote fanfiction? Link me pls.
April 22, 2013 at 1:35 am
i think it was fanfic ABOUT moldbug
also apparently it cant really be found anymore, which is (also apparently) for the best
April 22, 2013 at 1:54 am
LOL at all those jews being Secular Traditionalists. The punchlines write themselves.
April 22, 2013 at 1:36 am
Steve, based on your Twitter feed, I think youve got what it takes to be the worlds greatest performance artist since Fred Phelps.
April 22, 2013 at 2:14 am
apparently it cant really be found anymore
This is terrible, isnt it in the Wayback Machine at least?
April 22, 2013 at 2:22 am
This graph is awesome. For a while now, Ive had a mental model of how all the blogs in this corner of the web were interconnected, and this visualization is spot-on. However, I think there are some blogs that could be added:
- Anomaly UK (http://anomalyuk.blogspot.com/)
- Devin Finbarr (http://intellectual-detox.com/)
- Isegoria (http://www.isegoria.net/)
- TGGP (http://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/)
- Anatoly Karlin (http://akarlin.com/)
- Aaron Jacob (http://www.graaaaaagh.com/)
- Michael Anissimov (http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/)
- Simon Grey (http://cygne-gris.blogspot.com/)
- Malcolm Pollack (http://malcolmpollack.com/)
- Aretae (http://aretae.blogspot.com/)
As well as a couple reactionary twitter users:
- Kalim Kassam (https://twitter.com/kalimkassam)
- Pax Dickinson (https://twitter.com/paxdickinson)
- tjic (https://twitter.com/tjic)
And of course, the whole Less Wrong crowd:
- Konkvistador
- paper_machine
- Athrelon
- ErikM
- nyan_sandwich
- Karmakaiser
(Do they have a blog together yet? Someone *please* email me if this is actually coming to fruition.)
Honorable mentions:
- gwern (http://www.gwern.net/) Im not completely sure of his opinions, but I think he comments on ~50% of the sites listed. If nothing else, he should be on periphery of this chart.
- Scott Alexander / Yvain (http://slatestarcodex.com/) . Id put him around the Futurist / LW section, maybe even with a dotted line. While he definitely doesnt agree with most of the bloggers listed, he is one of the few people that actually engages with reactionary ideas on a regular basis. Hes a big part of the Greater Less Wrong Cluster, and definitely belongs on here more than Robin Hanson does. At the very least, hes quite the contrarian, and his blogs readership is significantly reactionary.
April 22, 2013 at 5:26 am
Thanks for the helpful additions. A few of the bloggers you list, Id thought about adding, but wasnt sure where to place them. Ill update and improve it over the next few months.
April 22, 2013 at 11:32 am
The More Right collaborative blog project is coming to fruition, yes. It will be up soon.
April 22, 2013 at 11:47 am
Techno-commercialists? Futurists of the reactionary sort seem to be against that fluff.
April 22, 2013 at 5:53 am
Like admin said over at Outside In, its mostly short-hand for a few folks in the blogosphere open to reactionary tenets and really into AI, hastening the Singularity, improving the human race to its next stage of evolution, and all that jazz. (If you want a taste of hardcore techno-futurism, I suggest reading John Campbells The Moral Imperative of Our Future Evolution.) They are commercialist because theyre usually, at bare minimum, wary of government control over markets or anything else. Campbells essay, for example, is essentially a call for private eugenic experimentation and funding.
Who were you thinking of when you mention anti-tech or anti-commercial futurists? Are you thinking about the post-scarcity line of thought?
April 22, 2013 at 11:43 am
Ok, I just checked out your site. From your EFF description:
The future has been commodified by the mainstream in an effort to make revolutionary technologies easy to digest. As a result we are now living in an era of complacency, in which the true leaders and game changers are made to feel like outsiders. It is time to rise against the dominant current of our society and declare that nothing is too extreme. We refuse to be assimilated into a carbon copied version of a new humanity. As evolutionary agents we will push the boundaries of what it means to transform our species.
I should place you in that part of the network, apparently! Especially if by new humanity you include people who want to optimize for high IQ.
Dont read too deeply into techno-commercial as if its part of an identity. Its, again, a short-hand description. I mean, youre working with technology in the non-government commercial sector. Presto! Its descriptive, not definitive, and Im open to other labels, of courseI see your point about the commercialism baggage.
April 22, 2013 at 11:49 am
I understand what Nick meant now. Was just asking for clarification because techno-commercialist applies to the leftist tech industry these days. They sell their gadgets along with their social causes. Reactionary ideas are not commercial in the futurist world.
By new humanity I do mean enhancing IQ, genetic optimization, and creating a new race that is better than Humanity 1.0. DIY Transhumanism is my term for this.
Anyway, I love the map that you made, and I see it expanding greatly. Cheers!
April 22, 2013 at 1:53 pm
Bruh I dont get to be on your mind map?
You wound me.
April 22, 2013 at 2:03 pm
An oversight that has been remedied.
April 22, 2013 at 4:26 pm
Need to filter for quality too, I mean, Whiskey?
April 22, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Theres also the Evolian traditionalists: Gornahoor, @ahm, and so on, but theyd only be connected to the rest of the graph through graaaaagh.
I think theres a divide between the neoreactionaries who used to be libertarians (who still think in libertarian terms rationality and profit and all that and cite reactionary libertarians like K-L and Hoppe) and the ones who used to be leftists (who think in terms of building a good society and are more likely to advocate religion and talk about culture rather than just governing structures).
April 22, 2013 at 4:09 pm
Yeah, thats probably the only divide that matters, in the end. (As far as I can tell, Auster would have had as much in common with Moldbug as he would with Amanda Marcotte.) Although, now that Ive been thinking more about it since yesterday, I think Frosts divisions are pretty damn exhaustive, too:
1. Hitler did nothing wrong.
2. Ill be poolside.
3. Seek ye first the kingdom of God.
http://www.freedomtwentyfive.com/2013/03/where-does-it-end/
April 22, 2013 at 4:31 pm
Sure, but then most reactionaries proper (as opposed to HBDers etc. who dont talk much about politics) would land in the third category Moldbug is headed in that direction and Auster and everyone at Gornahoor are already there. Auster has less in common with Evola than he does with Moldbug, so which god? is an important question: the Christian one covers Auster and the Orthosphere, Tradition covers the Traditionalists, and then there are people like me and probably Moldbug in a few years if not already who are more interested in recovering something that can vaguely be described as virtue.
April 22, 2013 at 8:17 pm
The map is nice but it blurs the big ideas the bigger it gets. It would be interesting to see where the various identified voices and or clusters stand with respect to the big ideas of neoreaction (assuming there are any):
Heirarchical social structuresheirarchy is not only not bad, but natural and absolutely essential to the proper functioning of any social structure;
Sex Realismsex differences are real, are ordained by nature or natures god or both, and we ignore them at our peril;
Race Realismrace and group differences are real, are ordained by nature or natures god or both, and we ignore them at our peril;
Memetic Realism (just made that up)traditional folkways tend to be real, i.e., non-ideological, and naturally arising adaptations to social realities, which therefore represent pretty good (at least) local solutions to very (or intractably) complex problems;
Economic Realismin any economy where an absolutely fixed supply of (properly divisible) money is deemed impossible or impractical, there is ipso facto a con game going where the issuance of money has itself become a political weapon; (thats not articulated well as a general principle, but you get what you pay for)
Hyperfederalismlocal optima rarely scale well, the right of exit must be guaranteed (somehow, how?)
Some other big neoreactionary idea that I just forgot
If you were to say poll the various writers on such questions from strongly disagree (-5) to agnostic (0) to damn straight (+5) you could then tease out some correlations that might at least give some 3- (or N-) dimensionality to the map. Might be surprising, say, how closely thesophists agree with the Miseans for example.
April 22, 2013 at 7:07 pm
Ooops that <ul> and <li> stuff didnt quite take. shucks.
April 22, 2013 at 7:08 pm
Excellent. I think Nick Land summed up your points once: Reality wins or something to that effect. Or E. O Wilson if you prefer: Communism: good idea, wrong species.
As someone who tends to identify with the futurist end of things, Id say that not only do we ignore Reality at our peril, but we waste a lot of time and effort and money trying to combat it-time and energy and money that could (should) be spent on [insert kick ass scientific endeavor here].
Youre also right that the more I try to map, the more things get muddled. Ill get an interactive, info-heavy visualization up as time permits, and that one should be able to handle more nuance.
April 22, 2013 at 7:29 pm
“Communism: good idea, wrong species.”
Is that on a T-shirt somewhere? Ha!
April 22, 2013 at 8:29 pm
You’re also right that the more I try to map, the more things get muddled.
Odd
Thats a principle of quantum mechanics as well.
Perhaps it would be simpler to assimilate everything into one big category,and observe each thing as it fits together with the ones before it chronologically and/or developmentally than it is to endlessly divide and subdivide into smaller and smaller categories.
April 23, 2013 at 10:04 pm
One of the big questions of neo-reaction that I happened to forget: To what extent are Jews to blame, as an ethnicity, for the current conditions? Thats a deal-breaker for some and a complete yawner to others.
April 22, 2013 at 9:24 pm
I had the same thought I am a Jew. Not sure how you are generating the map. This may be a dimension that is largely independent from the ones you are using, or map along one of them.
Another dimension may be applied neoreaction or breaking into the mainstream. Athol Kay (MMSL) is doing that in a very interesting way. He would still fit on your graph but he is selling his niche effectively:
a) he is living on the income from his blog
b) his writing is changing *tons* of lives in a measurable way
c) though he is guided by neoreactionary principles, he writes in a manner that is acceptable to the mainstream.
Something that GLPiggy is also starting to pull off.
April 23, 2013 at 3:38 am
A complete yawner as far as Im concerned. For every screeching Jewish LGBT Professor of Feminism and Anti-Racism, theres a Larry Auster, a Ron Unz or, at least, a Steve Pinker. And Israel is probably the only mainstream reactionary state on the planet at the moment. I suppose one could define a sub=population of Left Jewish subversives, but in my experience, they are nowhere near the entire population, and, unlike the entire population of, say, Ethiopians, Jews as a sum-total have delivered some extremely valuable things to this planet, as well as to reactionary thought. Isnt Moldbug a fucking Jew?
April 23, 2013 at 3:48 am
@ad*m . . . . Youre right about GLP and Athol Kay. The manosphere/PUA/sex realist scene is the best hope the reaction has for going mainstream. The outrage of Dongle-Gate proves it.
April 23, 2013 at 3:52 am
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You should certainly add Laura Woods blog, The Thinking Housewife, to the Christian traditionalist section. http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/
April 22, 2013 at 8:08 pm
Thanks. I havent read her stuff. Would it be fair to give her a connection to the Feminine Reaction network, as well? Or is she a Christian Traditionalist who just happens to be a woman?
April 22, 2013 at 8:36 pm
More the latter, probably. But my take on it is that you can come at Sex Realism from two sides: God said so and Biology said so and end up with pretty similar principles. The specific application of those principles, what you do with the corner cases will, of course, depend on your metaphysical commitments. But for those open-minded enough to see it, the terms Human Evolution and God can often be used interchangeably without much loss of meaning.
Lets not forget the female bloggers at Traditional Christianity, who are slightly more game oriented. Theyve recently lit up the com boxes over at Zippys quite a bit.
Laura Wood, IMO, would be blue dot SE of Auster, with a green line toward Feminine Reaction. Traditional Christianity would be a green dot SW of Darling Doll with a lavender line to HBD and blue line to Christian Trad.
April 23, 2013 at 9:02 pm
Recommended additions to the map in no particular order:
Radish (probably IS Unamusement Park but in any event very close)
Chariot of Reaction (Jehu)Christian trad protestant with popish leanings, but much closer to the secular right of Jim Donald
Orthosphereunion of Catholic neo-Monarchists and disaffected Protestant rightists. Pretty much downtown Christian Reactionary Traditionalia
WWWtW (Whats Wrong with the World)Othosphere but more protestant
Zippy CatholicThomist Stubbornness, Game-Lite, Pre-Misean/pre-modern economics
Jim Kalbwrote the book on liberalism (part of Orthosphere, but writes non-pseudonomyously in sort of respectible journals)
Oz ConservativeOrthosphere but with Aussie sauce
Thinking Housewife (Laura Wood)female version of Larry Auster, only about 10 dB less idiosyncracy [that's a second apparently]
Alpha GameVox Days other blog (on Sex Realism)
DalrockChristian Trad on Sex Realism
Isegoriaunclassifiable reactionary science reportage
Assistant Village IdiotProtestant neo-reaction
Anonymous ConservativeK/r-selection realist (supremacist) not too far from Vox Day Id say
Anomaly UKanti-democratic thought and reportage from UK (Id put him somewhere between Nick Land and Jim Donald)
Wilhelm Durand (The Evil Blog, formerly Unreasonable Expectations)Moldbug-squared plus anti-social-cubed
Occams Razormainstream ethno-nationalist (I guess?)
Gucci Little Piggy (Chuck Rudd)game plus HBD plus politics (near mainstream)
Wilson Revolution UnpluggedNorweigian (I think) monarchist
Mad MonarchistMonarchy-Fandom in a dirty glass, neat
Social PathologistCatholic reaction with moderate sex realism
Le Cygne Gris (Simon Grey)Sex realism, game, small-L libertarianism, weakish Christianity
Rhymes with Cars & Girls (Sonic Charmer/Crimson Reach)Unamused of the Misean snarkosphere. Funny economic and social commentary. No sacred cows.
April 22, 2013 at 8:17 pm
Many conservative Christian blogs promulgate a form of universalism, which is the enemy of the Dark Enlightenment. I true litmus test to see where they stand is is the issue of race, which Auster would have passed but probably not some of those listed above.
April 23, 2013 at 5:46 pm
Which ones? I think, for example, although race realism is not the main focus of the Orthosphere, when it comes up, the principal authors generally qualify.
To me, race realism is a conviction, based on scientific evidence, that race is a real genetic construct that explains most differential outcomes between diverse racial groups. From that we may draw all sorts of conclusions from the very modest (e.g., end affirmative action) to the very strong (e.g., de jure segregation should be enforced) and lots of stuff in between.
April 23, 2013 at 8:51 pm
Reactionary rationalism (or futurism, if you prefer) seems to prefer Twitter to blogs.
April 22, 2013 at 8:21 pm
At 140 ascii chars per, that must be a helluva lotta tweets
April 22, 2013 at 8:34 pm
Im trying to figure out where Id fit in; probably somewhere between masculine reaction and techno-futurist.
April 22, 2013 at 8:57 pm
Ive already outed myself elsewhere as Christian Trad, but with strong sympathies to most of the rest of the map. That makes me persona non grata in almost any setting.
April 22, 2013 at 9:21 pm
I think sympathies are, generally, extended all around. As you pointed out, all the groups appreciate hierarchy, realism, and cultural-intellectual excellence, and realize that the Left is destroying all three. Sure, there are the militant atheists, but in my experience, more of non-Christians take Derbyshires attitude, somewhere between benign neglect and veiled admiration. Ill take St. Pauls and Michaelangelo over shamans and face paint any day of the week.
April 22, 2013 at 10:49 pm
Might be cool to used some web traffic trackers (like Alexa or something) and change the size of the circles by the amount of traffic they get. This would give a great visualization of what authors and which ideas are exerting the most influence by numbers of people reached, though sadly those that can actually lead readers to action isnt something that can be tracked.
April 23, 2013 at 12:03 am
Might be cool to used some web traffic trackers (like Alexa or something) and change the size of the circles by the amount of traffic they get.
yeah, that would be neat!
April 23, 2013 at 3:35 pm
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Counter currents should have a dedicated node:
http://www.counter-currents.com/
April 23, 2013 at 2:58 am
An open question is whether or not to include White Nationalists and Supremacists on the list, and if so, do they cluster on their own or connect to the ethno-nationalists in any way? Im not too familiar with that end of things, so Im reliant on advice.
April 23, 2013 at 10:45 pm
Its clearly missing the genuine white Supremacist category.
There simply is no purer reaction to radical liberation than genuine white Supremacy.
April 23, 2013 at 7:13 am
Can we add a Chinese Supremacy category?
April 23, 2013 at 1:10 pm
I dont know a single one. Do you?
[Scharlach: Steve Hsu would count, I suppose.]
April 23, 2013 at 5:53 pm
They all speak Mandarin, so how would I know? </joke>
April 23, 2013 at 9:03 pm
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Glad the community is finally coming together
April 23, 2013 at 1:54 pm
Ive been on the fence for a while, though I tend to identify with the writers listed more closely than any others. My primary points of contention tend to be:
1.) Many seem to believe democracy is delegitimized by its inevitable decay into tyranny. As an alternative to this, they seem to prefer..more tyranny. Different tyranny. Tyranny on purpose instead of crypto-tyranny.
Opinions seem to be split between those who prefer sustained, limited government (which seems logically impossible to me) and those who acknowledge that humans naturally organize into rigid hierarchical governing structures. The latter seem to be the most confused, because we happen to live in a rigid hierarchy right now. In fact, it is growing more rigid each year, and separate and uncommon cultures are metastasizing around its soon-to-be social castes. This leads me to believe that many neoreactionaries support rigid social hierarchies, but are simply not comfortable being on the bottom of one.
2.) Given that our level of technological advancement would probably NOT revert to pre-enlightenment levels with our political system, I dont see how any alternative system would be substantively different from the Obama administration in any of the ways I care about. In other words, neoreaction is a fun idea until you imagine Louis XIV with an army of drones.
I like the religious aspect a great deal, more on the Julius Evola side than the Christian stuff. I think bringing a society into alignment with deep reality is the strongest argument for autocracy, but also suspect that is a relic of a former level of social development rather than a matter of trying on different forms of government for size. Im enjoying watching the thing unfold, though, and happy to be cognizant of it as it seems to be hitting the next stage of its evolution.
April 23, 2013 at 2:16 pm
Not all autocracies are created equally.
Louis XIV, even with an army of drones, would not feel an irrational impulse to, say, export democracy to the world, or reward the shiftless classes with goods extracted from the most productive.
As I said somewhere way up there, reaction is fundamentally about reality (hierarchy, sex, race, tradition, economics, local optima) and our disposition toward it.
April 23, 2013 at 8:38 pm
Good points, but do you believe the export of democracy is the real motivation for American military adventures? Im sure there are ideologues who genuinely believe it, but it seems (to me) more likely that the neocon/liberal agenda revolves around the exportation of capitalism for the purpose of opening up new markets. Would Louis XIV have embarked upon military adventures in the name of economic conquest? I see absolutely no reason why not (ha ha). He certainly wouldnt be opposed to the bread and circus approach to maintaining domestic stability (nor the food stamps and health care approach either.)
The third paragraph is interesting and highlights some of the paradoxes, I think, of the movement. Our society has been completely reformed by the technology it employs the technological society is reality, and thus the past offers, I think, less guidance than most hope.
Are we to accept hierarchy as part of reality? Well, our society is bifurcating into one society that revolves around complex social organization and one that revolves around immediate, animal social hierarchies. Our children will be part of the latter (Im assuming youre not a banker. I have some affiliation with members of the 1% and they are as a rule not neoreactionaries.) Are we to confront reality honestly and accept the hierarchy by which we will be increasingly disenfranchised? Well, the movement says we must.
The economic culture of that technological society increasingly values conscientiousness and obedience over intelligence, which favors women over men by a wide margin and justifies the disparity in university enrollments (see charlton on this.) Is this the reality of sex that we must accept?
Does this make sense? I agree with your very good point that reaction revolves around removing the illusions imposed by liberalism I just think that we may be dismayed to learn that things are more complicated than throwback politics can solve for, because reality itself has changed.
April 24, 2013 at 12:33 am
The latter seem to be the most confused, because we happen to live in a rigid hierarchy right now. In fact, it is growing more rigid each year, and separate and uncommon cultures are metastasizing around its soon-to-be social castes.
I think the point is that were not really allowed to talk about the real causes of the hierarchies. I think some of your contentions might be appeased by assuming that a lot of reaction isnt a reaction against EVERYTHING about Western systems so much as a reaction against the complete censorship of pertinent lines of thought about them, namely HBD and the merits of welfare systems.
April 23, 2013 at 10:37 pm
I think youre right, but I think the visible bloggers have taken it one step farther and still come up short. Heartiste really is a nihilist who has fallen back on reproductive success as the highest ambition in a collapsing society and has been obsessing over gender relations since 2007 as a result with no real solutions offered other than rational egoism. Moldbug, more preoccupied with the political love affair between the Ivy League and the Iron Triangle, has dedicated himself to elucidating an extremely diffuse power structure that frankly Im not convinced ANYONE fully understood before he began writing. Still, with the cat out of the bag, I dont see any real solution in his formalist manifesto (thats just me, though.)
Personally, I have accepted that well all soon be part of the global third world, for whom direct social status and ranking in immediate, human hierarchies will be more important than occupational attainment. My solution has been using game theory to accumulate status and direct, human power, under the assumption that new societies will grow from the chaos of the 99% after the complex structure implodes. My feeling, unfortunately, is that this may be the best we can look forward to.
April 24, 2013 at 12:56 am
this is beautiful! (^_^)
you probably couldve swung me round so that i was closer to the ethno-nationalists/secular traditionalists somewhere in the neighborhood of messrs. mangan and sailer but i like it where i am. dont move me!
April 23, 2013 at 3:25 pm
I thought about adding one of those connections for you, but that element of your online ethos is pretty subtleI didnt know if youd want your cover blown!
Anyway, once I get this template finalized, Ill be able to turn it into something more interactive, like others have suggested.
April 23, 2013 at 3:58 pm
Honored to be on this chart! Note that Robin Hanson is an economist as well.
April 23, 2013 at 3:30 pm
Ah, yes, thats a silly oversight. Easily fixed.
April 23, 2013 at 3:55 pm
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My thoughts on this visual map:
http://occamsrazormag.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/networks-of-the-dark-enlightenment-alt-right/
..
April 23, 2013 at 4:43 pm
vdare.com (and Steve Sailer) should be listed as the grandpappy of the ethno-nationalist cluster
April 23, 2013 at 6:00 pm
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OneSDTV retired some time ago and I would drop amerika.org on there under secular trads.
April 23, 2013 at 6:37 pm
How would acceptance of Darwinism fit into this picture? My impression of most of the neoreactionary blogosphere is that evolution is not questioned and is more or less held to account for everything significant about human nature. I see only the Christian Traditionalists as being perhaps a bit skeptical, but my reading of blogs like Bruce Charlton or Chronicles indicates that whatever philosophical or theological problems they see in Darwinism, they are unwilling to embrace creationism or ID.
Perhaps one could say that acceptance of Darwinism is what distinguishes neo- from paleoreactionaries, e.g. the bona fide old-school reactionaries you still find in some of the traditionalist churches. I might further add that acceptance of Darwinism as it relates to human behavior is what distinguishes neoreactionaries from the mainstream.
April 23, 2013 at 6:41 pm
The acceptance of Darwinism would be foolish when the very battle is for your God-given freedoms.
Why confine yourself to a paradigm that you clearly unsurp and subordinate everyday?
You believe in Darwinism because your Master has taught you to unthinkingly limit your own free will.
You freely choose a paradigm that renders you a product of nature devoid of any agency.
This is CLEARLY false and so to bring this into neoreaction is to bring radical liberalism into neoreaction.
April 23, 2013 at 8:01 pm
Im afraid I dont understand your reply. Are you addressing me personally? I never said I accepted Darwinism, and I dont know who you mean by Master. My Master is Christ, and he never taught me to limit my free will.
If youre trying to argue that the problem with the neo-reactionary movement is precisely the acceptance of Darwinism, with its implications for free will, I agree with you, at least to some extent. If youre trying to argue that my characterization of neo-reactionaries as essentially Darwinian fundamentalists is wrong, well I agree that this doesnt characterize all neo-reactionaries. Plenty, including those Christian Traditionalists, believe that our moral order cant be found only in biology. What these groups all have in common is simply the acceptance of the reality of human differences (which the Left denies) and the acceptance, however begrudging, of the power of Darwinian evolution to explain those differences (which the unenlightened Right denies).
April 23, 2013 at 9:47 pm
Depends what you mean by Darwinism. Obviously, the Christian Trads and the Secular Rightists have different prior metaphysical commitments, tho the often do not necessarily (I do not) reject Darwinism as an explanatory model. What (I hope) unites both Traditionalists and Secular/Alt Righters is whats before our lying eyes. Telos appears to be at work, for example, in sex differences. That we may disagree on the interpretation of that telos is much less significant than that we can see it at work and that rebelling against it is counterproductive at best.
April 24, 2013 at 12:31 am
I see that. Would you then group pro- and anti-Darwinist Christian Trads together under the label neo-reactionary, or would you accept that acceptance of Darwinism is what separates the neo from the paleo reactionaries. Im simply interested in how we are defining neo-reactionary in the first place.
April 24, 2013 at 12:52 am
The biggest flaw of the neoreactionary is that his scope of reaction is unbounded. The degree to which he can react is conceptionally unlimited. With the exception of the traditional Christians, there isnt even a pretense that the neoreaction should have real identifiable limits. Neoreaction is just another variant of radical liberation. But we also know that the truly radical have infiltrated at the very place where the reaction is most defined and bounded. We see that traditional Christianity is infected with the desire for radical liberation, also.
So if one were to pull back further and get a larger view of things then one could see that the largely unbounded WHITE MALE LIBERAL neoreaction to the zeitgeist is actually a symbiotic regression that seeks to avoid the impress of historical white Supremacy UPON THEMSELVES.
April 23, 2013 at 7:46 pm
You bring up some excellent points here that deserve fleshing out in a full post . . . . Its also a recent topic at Outside In.
April 23, 2013 at 7:59 pm
Although it can easily get lost in the weeds, reaction means something quite specific: an end to revolution, anarchy, ideology, and demotism, and a concomitant restoration of a more natural order. Though that does leave a wide field open for different types of reaction, it is not infinitely wide, and certainly does not include anything resembling radical liberation (at least in this world). It seems that Sharlach in this post, following recent contributions from several leading lights of the self-styled neo-reaction, is trying to wrap his hands around precisely that which, if anything at all, may unite all the disparate forms. A worthy and necessary exercise, in which I think wed all benefit from keeping (the inevitable, and even sometimes enjoyable) intramural squabbling to a minimum.
April 24, 2013 at 12:10 am
Sort of off topic but what software did you use to make that diagram?
April 23, 2013 at 7:46 pm
gephi.org
April 23, 2013 at 7:54 pm
Much obliged. Got a bit charty thing to make, all the flowchart software Ive tried so far has been crap.
April 23, 2013 at 8:16 pm
IMHO, Dalrock is a glaring admission here. Only Roissy, Vox, Roosh and the Spearhead have more hits than him in the manosphere, and Dalrock has been cited by several mainstream media pubs.
He has turned his blog into the lynchpin joining up the traditional Christian traditionalists and the Masculine Reaction, and he is at the forefront of exposing Feminist infiltration and subversion of the doctrine of Patriarchy as the founding of civilization.
April 23, 2013 at 8:07 pm
To leave out RationalMale a.k.a. Rollo Tomassi? Heavier on the theory than Roosh and Roissy.
April 23, 2013 at 8:26 pm
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Hey Neo, Id sling VDARE up on the ethnonationalist sector. Theyre pretty big. Also you could plant me in the masculine reaction camp.
April 24, 2013 at 4:02 am