The Big Story™ this week was Too Redpill for Redpill. SoBL writes the First draft of Official #NRx History. Based Duck, the Official Spokescreature of Neoreaction, trolls because he cares.
NIO breaks his blog fast with some open-source ideas on Open Source Afrikaner Citystate Building. This is following John Gelernter’s surprisingly balanced—i.e., racist—article over at NRO on white South Africans. NIO wonders whether the Western powers that shot South Africa in the head in the first place wouldn’t do the same to a white homeland, with players like Russia or China unwilling to take up the slack in trade. It’s a legitimate concern. No one seems particularly well vexed, however, about Orania, an explicitly Afrikaner homeland, which excludes everyone of non-Dutch descent, which may therefore be interpreted plausibly as not “racist”, as though that term actually meant something. Of course, Orania being poorly defensible 3.5 mi2 plot of barren rock in the middle of nowhere does not have the makings of a future African Singapore. So there is that.
What else…
Legionnaire has decided officially to go by Donovan Greene now. I had known him by that name for a while from private correspondence, but hitherto had assiduously avoided calling him that in public. For all I knew it was his real name. It isn’t, but Donovan Greene it is now. I think, over time, the Pseudonymns of Neoreaction will become ever more plausible. Also from Donovan: Friday Frags For the Week.
Nick Land notices Patri Friedman warming up to Neoreaction—tho’ unsurprisingly he seems still quite attached to certain dogmas of the regnant Progressivism. Nothing that a little rightward status signaling can’t fix I hope. Also from earlier today, Land makes a modicum of sense to me on the topic of Moral Terror where he really hadn’t before. To be honest, I don’t know how “bad shit that happens” quite rises to the vaunted designation: Moral Terror™, but potayto-potahto I guess.
Michael Anissimov gives away Chapter Two of his book for free.
Isegoria has been tripping out on tripping out lately. Having never had a psychedelic trip, I sometimes wonder whether I have missed out. Then I read about some of the trips and I say, “Hey that sorta thing happens to me a lot.” Then I think, “Maybe I’m not missing out after all.” Also from Izzy, these Lord Of The Rings Illustrations by Chinese Artist Jian Guo were fantastic!
Over at The Mitrailleuse, Robert Mariani has some qualified, but rather high, praise for #NRx:
I think that the neoreactionary ideology could conceivably become a force in the world not because its ideas are good, but because its ideas are radical. And not just radical, but with the the aforementioned ideological nirvana of the man without desire or delusions of changing the world. The emperor is wearing no clothes, and for all their buzzwords, only the neoreactionaries seem to point this out in a consistent and utterly sober fashion. That is their power, that is their mystique.
Speaking of the Mitrailleuse, #NRx’s own Neovic has his Striving to cease being “Addicted to Distraction” up over there. The media is the message; and the message is: oh look! A squirrel!!
This Week at Social Matter
Mark Yuray kicks off the week by admitting Neoreaction is a Jewish Conspiracy to Thwart the Incipient National Socialist Revolution… is not a valid theory.
Henry shows up Tuesday Making Impossible Thoughts Possible
World-shaking ideas don’t necessarily need to be adopted by the entire planet, or even a substantial plurality of a large country, to have an enormous impact. All that’s necessary is to spread the idea to a sufficient number of the right kind of person, to buttress its credibility with pilot projects, to find the right environment for its implementation, and to adapt it to new audiences.
…
Anything notable begins by daring to think the thoughts that others are too frightened to make. Once you understand that most people will just think whatever the people to the right and left of them think, it comes to be a matter of shifting the tone of discussion until the opinions which were hazardous become the safe opinions to hold.
John Glanton adds to his post last week with some clarification and expansion upon the Red and White Blues. He hits upon the number one reason identity and victim politics will not cannot work for white Middle Americans Kulaks:
Victim identity politics aren’t just a non-starter psychologically, though. They won’t work as a practical matter either. The whole point of playing the victim is to get someone to act on your behalf, maybe, you know, donate to your Patreon. In politics, of course, it’s the government that you’re petitioning with your grievances. You want them to step in and forcibly integrate a school or make someone bake a cake for your gay wedding. But getting the federal government to do the dirty work isn’t really an option for middle America. She can’t petition Washington for support against her enemies; Washington is one of her enemies. Many of the other interest groups you can think of find purchase in DC because their interests in some way align with those of our national (and transnational) elite. … Middle America is sponge that our elites squeeze. And they look like they’ll squeeze it right down to the last drop. Petition them all you want.
LOL that link to whitehouse.gov. “Voice” is that sheet of soft velvet they put over the iron fist. Secessionists of the World, Unite!
And on Friday, Ash Milton delibers The Crab and the Bear: On Alexander Dugin. I liked Milton’s format here of comparing and contrasting Dugin and Neoreaction point by point:
Dugin talks about “practice as theory”, and believes that one cannot separate lived experience from ideology; Neoreaction discerns the prerequisites to Civilization from the historical record rather than manifestos. Liberalism claimed to leave individuals free to choose their own ways of living; the modern Liberal agrees, provided they make the proper choice. With Dugin, Neoreaction recognizes the slight of hand. All three have come to understand that unrestricted personal freedom is inimical to an enduring social order. The only difference is that the latter two are honest about it.
This Week in Henry Dampier
Ethel & Julius Rosenberg: Red and Dead
Henry starts out the week with Better Dead Than Red—part nostalgic look at the good old left who really just wanted to kill you; part warning, that tho’ their methods may appear more humane these days, their prize is now your soul.
In Samizdat, Henry expands on the meaning of the relative lack of American Gulags vis-à-vis the USSR. Speech codes are enforced very differently in the anglophone world, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist and don’t have teeth. They’re just a little more ad hoc:
“Social media” has made almost everyone into a publisher, but it has also helped to make everyone a potential censor. The legal penalties may be ad hoc and largely indirect, but volunteer censors can use the threat of the enforcement certain laws to gain some real power over even powerful and influential people who begin to cross some important lines.
Despite this, many in conventional, censored publishing have expressed worry about the loss of authority which they have experienced. People seem to not read what they used to, and seem to trust what they read less, which is backed up by surveys.
Henry has some thoughts to add to Steven Hayward’s NRO article: Grievance School. (For those keeping track, that’s two (2) articles this week at NRO that did not totally suck.) Henry articulates something I’ve been trying to say for quite some time. Somewhere along the line, the classical mission of the university, liberal learning for the upper classes, got hopelessly confused with job training. But that only meant more money (and power) for universities (“Ahem… Of course we have a major in Hospitality Management”):
Most university students and parents are not really interested in the academic life, and are instead looking for vocational preparation. The market there has to be un-muddled, so that the two groups of students stop mixing together as much as they have over the last century or so.
We cannot expect the universities to blow the whistle on this foul. But the sooner ordinary people opt out of this system—or opt in only because it is in their financial self-interest—the better. Forewarned is forearmed.
An Interview with Pippa Malmgren About Markets & Geopolitics is very polite in noticing that The Emperor is stripping off articles of clothing faster than they can be purchased at the mall.
Henry’s Competitive Mindset vs. Savior Mindset is a new articulation (to me) of the Exit Over Voice mentality.
Bismark called politics “the art of the possible,” but in the case of universal suffrage democracy, winning elections is the art of pre-selling every childish voter a unicorn that excretes gold.
By comparison, it’s more achievable to form a competitive faction and focus on breaking away from the people dazzled by incredible promises. That’s why it’s better to emphasize exit over voice.
Thursday, Henry reviews Mangan’s Top Ten Reasons We’re Fat—a “slim book” which Henry says you should be able to read “over the course of a couple lunch breaks”. LOL.
Henry takes notice of Millennial Woes’ reading of Kill the Kulaks—arguably Henry’s scariest post and made all the scarier by getting read aloud with a Scottish accent.
Finally, a useful primer on so-called “Net Neutrality” in Information As Controlled Substance. “Fast lanes” are clearly a camel’s nose. It’s hard not to see FCC control over the internet as a near perfect analogue to FDA control over tobacco. Only a lot more far reaching, socially and economically.
This Week in Son of Brock Landers
In The NY Times Hosts a Week of Putin Bashing by Jewish Ex-pats, SoBL proves that non-Jews can play at Tu Quoque too. He shows too how Cathedral-Approved Putin-Bashing, whilst containing the unmistakable odor of Gefilte fish, reveals more about the psychology of the bashers than it does Putin or red-state Russians.
Shteyngart is confident of the 2015 [Russian] Channel 1 news being seen as horrible as old Soviet news documentaries. He cannot bear to put the American product under the same microscope. Loving one’s nation, traditional approaches to family life and other hick sentiments are more the historical norm than glorifying gays, pushing BDSM and whatever it is that Shteyngart and all of his guests’ cousins in Hollywood and NYC are pushing on America. What is even weirder is the insinuation that the Russians are secretly gay themselves, which I thought was bad taste humor and homophobic when [done] in America. This [NYT] essay is a failure at comedy. It does not work. It is very Daily Show in its attempt where it shows you the “other”, points and laughs at it, expecting you to laugh along as it is the “other” and therefore dumb, crude and stupid. he is part [of] the ruling class, and it is his right and privilege to point and laugh.
Neoreaction has a name for that sort of thing: Крокодил Humor. Wesley makes a note on Shteyngart as well.
Part 3 (by my informal count) in SoBL’s series Tales for Weimerican: Incest is Real and Normal. Weimerica may not be the future we asked for, but the one we deserve. Plus a bit more Gefilte Fish.
Be wary men The Second Aging.
Not exactly man bites dog, but… They Progged Cartoons. SoBL waxes quixotic about the Good Ol’ Days™, when cartoon story lines were at least mediocre; and any propagandizing that needed be done was clearly labeled as such:
Did Tom + Jerry teach us anything? Was Speedy Gonzales a stereotype of Mexicans with tons of Mexican jokes? Was the entire Saturday Morning Cartoon [smorgasbord] devoid of lessons? No, yes, and no, but we turned out fine. We scored higher on tests than kids today and with far less time devoted to school. Hollywood cannot just entertain us anymore. There has to be a lesson, and the lesson has to reinforce prog ideology. GI Joe taught us something about staying out of trashed refrigerators and away from downed power lines, but that was after the show.
Fallon Fox, a dude who looks not very much like a lady
In the Sportzball News news, SoBL catches Grantland Shining Its SJW Credentials. The latest cause célèbre is Fallon Fox, who is a transwoman, by which we mean a dude, who just wants “her” fair shake in the very feminine world of MMA. What possible advantage could Y-chromosomes have there, right?
And SoBL closes out the week with some thoughts, complete with cool pics, on the Fleur de Lis vs. the Double Headed Eagle. He hopes that the future independent nations of North America will takes as much care with their heraldry as our European ancestors did. So say we all! Secessionists of the World, Unite!
This Week in Mitchell Laurel
Life in Portugal is apparently providing Canuck Mitchell Laurel with enough leisure to blog like crazy…
Donna Reed, handicapped by telos
He’s got real Loonies on the line for general North American cooling. Think of it as a hedge. ‘Tis a pity, really: I was looking forward to places like Saskatoon, Moose Jaw, and Winnipeg being habitable for more than 6 weeks out of the year. He also gives reasons why The Sudanese Are The Prize Of The Arab World and why Foggy Bottom may not like that too much.
Mitchell asks Is Bitcoin Really Creating New Jobs? (Tradução Português aqui.) I’m not entirely sure we were expecting it to, but his main point, viz., “technological advancement is a conditional good” is dead on. What to do with it when the conditions make it bad, however, remains a difficult problem.
More predictions from Mitchell, this time more of the Greek, Euro, Russian and Grexit variety than Canadian climate. Also Government “Shutdown”? <<…yawn…>>.
In Leftists Between A Rock And A Hard Place, Mitchell identifies bad and worse kinds of leftists:
What Jeff J. Brown curiously describes is what we would call the Cathedral but sees not his participation in it. I’ve noticed a funny thing about leftists. There are leftists motivated by power, and leftists motivated by empathy and human goodness. Both typically, though not exclusively, create destructive results.
Lenin came up with a name for good-hearted, ostensibly redeemable Leftists like Jeff Brown: Useful Idiots. More analysis from Mitchell on Poroshenko and likely natural consequences in Ukraine.
In More Weight Against ISIS, Mitchell inveighs against the terrorist group’s supporters. Also Meteors And Their Consequences with an interesting Russia Times video and some concern about a general lack of concern about the phenomenon.
Here Mr. Laurel praises The Wonders of Tobacco. It makes you smarter and actually protects against lung cancer. Not joking.
Finally,in Backing The Russian Horse Mitchell explains why he’s so bullish on Russia, with a wish for the American-led West to follow its path toward restored social health.
This Week… Elsewhere
Well, speaking of progging the cartoons, Atavisionary notices they progged The Walking Dead as well. Ha ha, this is great:
The major problem is the er… hrmm northern aggression of it all. It is the fact that these assholes can’t keep their fucking values to themselves. They HAVE to try to propagandize me and everyone else who don’t want to have anything to do with them or their values; even if we would never bother or hinder them in their personal lives at all if they just left us alone. It isn’t enough that I am (or was) willing to just let them be if they let me be. They HAVE to get in my face about it. Fuck them. Goodbye libertarianism.
Speaking of Jacobin Mag, this article by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the persistent action of the NCAA in restraint of free trade was one I basically agree with. I suppose virulent Jacobins and virulent anti-Jacobins may agree on quite a lot… before we exterminate each other.
Speaking of transgendering MMA, Reactionary Tree highlights the truly heartbreaking story of Jazz in Transgenderism is Anti-Male—heartbreaking that is to say because Jazz started “sexual reassignment” at age 5 in the plain view of ABC News. It is, I think, a doubtful victory when technology defeats telos. But it is a whole nuther level of evil to wield that dubious technology on behalf of another who hasn’t even had the chance to try on the telos gnon game him in the first place.
Male Privilege, capably illustrated
Free Northerner disabuses us of the silly notion that Feminism is About Equality… In a repost (but a good one), he also notices Shameless White Male Privilege White privilege and male privilege exist. Indeed they do, but so does gravity. Privilege is just getting credit, based upon phenotypic traits, you don’t necessarily deserve. But just because you don’t necessarily deserve that credit doesn’t mean you don’t actually deserve it, especially if you live up to or exceed your phenotypic stereotype.
Kakistocracy helps out the DNC with its, albeit temporary, White American problem. Well, if the RNC tried to attract them, it’d obviously be rayciss. Also, Come and Listen to a Story ’bout a Man Named Jeb—a tantalizing history highlighting just how close we came to never much hearing of the Bush family.
Peppermint points to some Things that Happened 50 Years Ago, or thereabouts. This is the first I’ve heard of the interesting and colorful Revilo P. Oliver—a palindrome but also his real given name. And here’s some more collation of Oliver with Moldbug. Interesting work.
Bonald asks, in view of the modern Annulments Crisis, Is it possible for a human being to consent to anything? He concludes:
California thinks it can solve its sex problems by demanding prior explicit positive consent. Sorry, we Catholics already tried that, only to learn that “yes” doesn’t necessarily mean “yes”, at least when people have a strong interest in saying it doesn’t.
Bonald also notices that Sometimes memes do die. Unfortunately, a lot of the ones that do die get replaced with worse ones.
And then there’s this: That anomalous moment: America in the counter-revolution and Vatican II—a brilliant bit of analysis I think and one of the very best things I’ve read all week. “America’s reactionary moment,” i.e., the 50s and only relatively speaking, says Bonald, “was an anomaly.” He goes on to note:
Times have returned to the post-French Revolutionary normal. Stuff written in 1850 seems more sensible to us than stuff written in 1950. Only one institution has failed to return to type: the Catholic Church. At the Second Vatican Council, she locked itself into mid-century illusions about a pro-Christian version of liberalism, and she now finds herself controlled by a cadre of men who built their careers off of promoting those illusions and marginalizing those who weren’t taken in.
RTWT!
Here’s more Turkish particularism from The Oriental Neoreactionary. Still not seeing a lot of neo- in that reaction, but it’s interesting to keep tabs on.
Welp… that’s all I got time fer. Have an appropriately dismal yet edifying Lent everyone. Keep on Reactin’!! Til next week… TRP, over and out!
Filed under: This Week in Reaction