This week didn’t seem like much. Trump didn’t win in Iowa. There was kerfuffle over Roosh, which, like most kerfuffles generates orders of magnitude more heat than light. Trump and Bernie “win” in New Hampshire. Yawn. But some of the best minds in the reactosphere were at work penning some real gems. Why watch the first draft of history, when you can turn in here to This Week in Reaction and read second and third drafts? If I had to characterize this week (other than several genuinely standout articles which I’ll get to in a minute), I would point to the collective awakening of the Wider Reactosphere to the strategic wisdom of the passivist approach.
Reactionary Future has some imprecations Against consensus. Also a lesson from the General Piquemal arrest on how not to become worthy. Spandrell has his own take on the situation in Europe, bedecked with lessons from (relatively recent) Chinese history. “Situation”, that is, for insufficiently welcoming Europeans, I mean.
Jim kicks off the week with The Road of our people’s democracy. He draws parallels between Soviet-dominated Hungary’s Salami Slicer and America’s burgeoning PC regime. PC has long been a joke among engineers of sufficient caliber (and Y-chromosomality). It’s no joke anymore.
Jim also has more admiration for Can’t stump the Trump. He proceeds with analysis of two Trump vignettes where he manages to blithely state obvious and therefore unsayable. Says Jim:
Trump … well at worst, it is truly great professional wresting, and the people I hate are getting pounded good and hard, and are not liking it very much.
Based on their behavior, Jim is forced to conclude Women like rapists. Women’s suffrage was a massive generational shit test that Western men failed about 100 years ago. It’s been downhill for them—the men and the women and the West—ever since.
And finally from Jim: Fall of Aleppo reveals that asymmetric warfare is bunkum. Confirmation of basic NRx Theory:
In war, the stronger party prevails. [Period.]
Asymmetric warfare only works when the weaker party has political protection.
Period.
Esoteric Trad has “Short Thoughts” Children of the Ruins, Dead Religions, and Media Frenzies. As usual, they are very intelligently framed… and not nearly as short as mine.
Prompted by part one of our recent AtT podcast, David Grant has some opposite thoughts Concerning Pericles over on his home blog. We were talking about how Great Men too often build systems too dependent on their greatness to operate, and thus collapse quickly after they’re gone. Pericles appears to have been an extreme case of that.
Alrenous defines Exit, Shortest Version.
Nick Land comments on “The intolerable clarity” of Steve Sailer
Count Ø-Face finds much to like in the BBC’s Black Mirror and takes a recent episode as a jumping off point for an excellent essay on retributive justice. Specifically how utilitarian justice is incommensurate with… erm… justice.
Becoming worthy and how not to do it.
Over at Sydney Trads: Getting Antimodernism exactly right.
Mark (Based) Citadel announces his visit with the Ascending the Tower regulars and pours a heaping pile of condescension upon accusations that he’s “not white”. Which was probably a lot more than the accusation deserved. But we reserve the right for folks to get pissed off. At least every once in a while. Ironically, Citadel’s almost exactly as “white” as his interlocutor in this case. Citadel is really making the audio rounds (awesome Oxford voice) these days and joined Reactionary Ian’s Christianity Hangout. I had been invited too, but I was unable to attend. So next time!
Also from Mark, the story of Roosh and what it portends: The Crackdown has Begun.
Atavisionary expresses surprise at, and commentary upon, the existence of Kami, The HIV Muppet. Yes, that’s a thing. Remember when Sesame Street was all about Early Childhood Education? Or at least that’s what everyone thought it was about? Well, think of that as Early Childhood Education+.
Lawrence Glarus has rather well put-together Thoughts on Proverbs 1. His quest for wisdom has clearly begun.
This chapter lays out the beginnings of the guide for an orderly society. We would be cynical (scornful) to dismiss it as the obvious truth. To know that Wisdom has been lost in this age that so many men have been swallowed by the earth. That our cities are full of men that run to evil and lurk privily for the innocent. It is no coincidence that the age of Empiricism is also the age of cynicism. Part the nature of the democracy is that we doubt each other. Many are quick to judge and pretend they know the truth. But there is no wisdom in crowds, nor is there truth to be found in the simple explanations that people tell themselves. When an entire nation thinks that it has found the truth, that the truth has already been discovered and the world is explored, is it so surprising that they miss what is written in old books.
And Glarus also has second batch of notes from Peterson’s Maps of Meaning: A Recurrence in Forms. The forms in question here: Those of a constrictive state religion. That happens not to go by that name.
True believers in Christianity, or at the very least progressive heretics are low status. Why wouldn’t they be? They are infidels from the state religion. The state of course must fight the good fight and evangelize, that’s what mass education is for.
The religious wars never really stopped. They just changed the labels.
I’m not a young earth creationist, nor do I think that it is actually a tenant of Christianity, however, the insistence of beating children over the head with not being a young earth creationist is part and parcel of the progressivism. It is not enough to teach evolution, it must be taught as a counter signal to the infidels. It would be perfectly possible to teach evolution without mentioning creationism or better yet to teach it as merely irrelevant to theology. Part of the problem of having one state religion is that other religions tend to suffer. If all the brightest minds are flocking to gain status in the church of progress, you have many fewer minds to managed unofficial religions.
Ding ding ding! And also… why the Church of Progress has basically taken over 95% of the real estate (both figuratively and literally) of (historically recognizable) Christianity. Just a fantastic bit of analysis here from Lawrence Glarus. Canon-worthy on this, thus far insufficiently explored topic. Do RTWT. I don’t think I’ve even quoted the best bits… Lawrence wins ☀☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Award☀☀. (Shares it actually, see below.)
Isegoria (can’t follow him by email) always has lots of good stuff. This is particularly notable Mike Wallace Interviews Rod Serling. Also: Do you ever fall? If not, you’re apparently doing it wrong.
Anti-Puritan Axel McKibbin has some well-constructed thoughts on The Other Kind of Monarchy—electoral, but with a very high bar for the franchise. Also, Broken World Syndrome is quite good. A taste:
Equality is a mass-delusion with no basis in reality and no hope of ever being achieved. Which is more oppressive, the reality of inequality, (which can never be changed), or brainwashing children to resent that reality? In my book reality is never wrong and people who resent it are insane.
The basic puritan mentality that infects our entire culture is a hatred of the real. I love the real and look with pity on anyone who can’t stand it. The problem isn’t “out there.” The world is not where it’s at. The problem is “in here.” It is you, and your unwillingness to accept the physical world and its people as is. Your hate has been given to you, it is not your own.
The world is broken enough. Indoctrinating people to bang their heads against reality makes it a whole lot worse. This too: The Artificial is Better. Well, for small values of artificial, yes.
Finally (Omigosh! McKibbin was a busy beaver this week…): Why women can’t be trusted with voting, free speech, national budgets, or power. Not to put too fine a point on it. Inspired and inspiring is this ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀:
[S]ince women have achieved the right to vote, power has shifted from the masculine to the feminine, and thus, from logic to tantrums, from debate to censorship. This is not a product of liberalism, but feminine power. Universities are now majority female. It is not a coincidence that the most challenging academic disciplines and hazardous jobs are male dominated. Women are psychologically, not just physically, weaker than men. They choose the easy road in everything. They censor rather than debate honestly in women’s studies departments. They chose easy majors that pay less. They chose easy low paying hobs rather than dangerous/difficult high paying jobs. They lie about wage gaps rather than take responsibility and do difficult work. They believe that regret constitutes rape when they could instead take responsibility for their sexual choices. They screw up classified emails rather than do a minimum of ass covering. They hate white men who they disagree with rather than Muslims who rape them.
Speaking of beavers, Reactionary Ferret is going to ((((grad school)))). Try not to hold that against him.
Anomalyuk has some thoughts on the importance of Archiving in the sphere, and how it might be done.
The Duck speaks to Radix.
Spandrell has a Modest Proposal. I prefer to think of it as a swift kick in the pants.
Reactionary Future (RF) takes Spadrell’s “Easy way Out” as a launch pad for Legion. And de Maistre.
It cannot be too often repeated that men do not at all guide the Revolution; it is the Revolution that uses men.
RF adds:
Any attempt at public attack of the revolution will be, and is, met with glee, as it gives an opportunity for power. Look at Roosh, a fucking insignificant blogger, but the minute he provided a possibility for attack – bang. Thank you very much for the power up Roosh, now we get to gain status with the revolution and make a name for ourselves. There are no real enemies left anymore, so any tiny morsel of resistance is descended on and devoured in a frenzy – if they have to embellish even that tiny morsel, they will. There is no reasoning with this. You kill it at once, and in full.
Here is another of Spandrell’s patented Chinese History Tales: Choices—Mandate of Heaven Edition.
Also this fine one from Spandrell Means, goals and signaling. “What do you care about? The survival of your people? Or signaling how edgy and manly you are on the internet?” To Spandrell being white is being progressive. He’s not exactly wrong.
Now I may be wrong about Flight from White being a good strategy, and I may be wrong about Islam being the best place to flee to. But one thing I know, chances of survival are way higher than by going Nazi. White converts get to be shown as heroes in TV shows. While nationalists are still shown as the epitome of all evil. Muslims breed, nazis go to their soccer matches, drink a lot, have their fun, and then fail to have children.
Now of course I’d prefer that whites collectively converted to Mormonism, started pumping white babies, and put all Africans and Middle Easterners in a fleet of boats bound to Liberia, to be taken care by General Butt Naked. But then again I have my doubts about the resilience of Mormons as a people. Defection rates of Mormons into progressivism are way higher than those for Muslims.
Islam as a place to flee to was a joke, right? Spandrell seems to me overly concerned about saving European genes. Doing so is, of course, a good thing. But there’s more to being European than having European genes. It remains in the average man’s power to ensure his own genetic and cultural legacy. If he works hard enough. If he’s not willing to do that, then no one should shed a tear for his genes.
Seth Long finds a salutary example Un-Desegregating.
Sarah Perry comes on Ribbonfarm to talk about Free Money. UBI to be precise. With some actionable predictions and a whole lotta good sense.
Alf has Alles dat je als Nederlander over Donald Trump moet weten. He finds in Trump much confirmation of NRx theory, but not a whole lot else, concluding:
Dit politieke stelsel is niet meer te redden. Hedendaagse politiek is popcorn entertainment, meer niet. Trump is top-notch popcorn entertainment, maar meer ook niet.
E. Antony Gray has a short (but dense) one: Hall of Mirrors.
And CWNY speaks of Europe’s New Dawn. He notes:
When you marry and have children you want to hand down your faith to your children. If your faith is one with your contemporaries, you can go through the usual process – school, church, and the community at large. But if you feel estranged from the culture you live in, you seek another way.
The only way that “usual process” is going to return is for millions of us to suck it up in that latter, harder way. In for a penny, in for a pound.
This Week at Social Matter
Ryan Landry’s Big Think Piece™ this week: Not All Geopolitical Problems Are America’s Fault. Some they actually inherited…
[The Saudis] did wonders with this money, right? Look around the world. They have funded terrorism, built mosques, bought politicians, built Big Ben replicas in Mecca, bought expensive military hardware, and nearly gone bankrupt. Nothing good has come from this wealth, but did it have to be so? Of course not, but this time, American foreign policy is not to blame as much as the British backing the wrong horse. Recall that the American Empire is the Byzantine Empire to the Brit’s Roman Empire. We are just a continuation of their decisions and ideas. Some of the chess pieces on the board are there because the British misplayed the game.
Landry goes deep into the history with this one, adding his patent-pending razor sharp analysis—an ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀.
David Grant, after his set up last week, returns with his promised Star Trek: Chain of Command Part 1 Review. It brings back a lot of memories. The way hastily appointed Captain Jellico impresses rapid changes to the culture aboard the Starship Enterprise, you almost get the impression that some of the scriptwriters were rebelling against the stultifying progressivism of the primary show arc. We’re supposed to not like Jellico, but in retrospect, a kick in the pants appears to have been exactly what the crew (including Picard) needed.
Mark Citadel joins Anthony, Antony, and me for Ascending The Tower – Episode XIII, Part 2 – “Gazing Into The Age Of Kali”. Truly this is one of our finest moments. Well… three hours.
Moar for your listening enjoyment: Ryan Landry has episode 11 of Weimerica Weekly—Boob Jobs Etc. Edition.
The incomparable Reed Perry graces the virtual pages of Social Matter once again with Keep America Shitty Again. He looks at Trump both ways, which is instructive.
Some have aptly called Trump, not a candidate, but a murder weapon used to slay neoconservatism along with the media. Well, I doubt he will slay it, but he can hold it off long enough to lead on a platform that was considered centrist a matter of 18 years ago.
I find something particularly odd in the New Right’s support of this candidate. Since early on in his campaign, Trump’s victory seemed inevitable to me. This was merely due to the strength of his character and the size of his wallet. I still see nothing that could stop him. This is fascinating because Trump has reinvented himself so effectively that many conservatives don’t even seem to recall the previous image of a New York hustler bouncing off of bankruptcies and appearing on the Howard Stern Show. Is this a stream of forgiveness or forgetfulness? I think it’s simply desperation.
Perry sees a Trump Regime as all but inevitable, which is a view which I’ve actually put some money behind. What that regime will look like is far from a foregone conclusion, but the Trump as Caesar so wildly wished for by most of the AltRight seems quite implausible. Perry outlines the more likely scenario of Trump the Player. An improvement, no doubt, but only because he is a custom-made creature of the American media-establishment:
Trump is obviously a player. Many have pointed out that Trump uses game strategy to win supporters and manipulate the media. They fail to take this to its logical conclusion, which is that they are falling victim to a ruse. In this scenario, many of Trump’s plans will turn out to be complete bullshit, which is the norm for all politicians. In this case, Trump’s smug smile he carries would be just a hint that he’s not laughing with his supporters, he’s laughing at them, because he’s playing a game that was made crooked. As an insider, he knows that. Daryl and Jimbo in Iowa don’t know that, never knew that, and only act like they understand the underbelly of democracy, a system someone roughly explained to them in junior high school.
At least, Trump will admit that he has no intention of obeying the rules. Breathtakingly honest, in fact. But this is hardly any assurance that he’s interested in presiding over an epsilon more conservative America. Trump, in my view, is Bloomberg—without the aquiline nose. Without doubt an improvement over any mainstream politician today, but a savior for the White Race? Erm… well I hope so. But I doubt it. Perry goes on to analogize the (once) strong, (once) independent White Cishet American male as a mountain lion. In his inimitable way, he writes about more than what he’s writing about. Trump fades into the background. The crucial story is our wounded culture, and how you can’t fix that by electing the Right Guy™. All things equal Trump is great. But things are not equal, and Reed Perry tells us by how much. A canon quality contribution here. Reed ran away with the ☀☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Award☀☀… until we read Lawrence Glarus’ piece mentioned above. So: They share it.
This Week at 28 Sherman
Over on his home blog, Ryan brings another installment to what may be his Greatest Series Evah™ Hidden History: Treasonous Fathers + Sons. Could treason be genetic? It’s not obviously not. He considers the case of Philby family in this ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀:
Harry St John “Jack” Philby [father of British defector and Soviet Spy Kim Philby] called himself the “first socialist to join the Indian Civil Service”. Papa Philby was stationed in what is now southern Iraq to protect oil fields of the empire and hopefully inspire an Arab revolt. The Arab revolt was spurred on by Lawrence of Arabia, but Papa Philby made inroads deep into the Arabian peninsula with the Ibn Saud clique and puritanical Wahhabis.
Hey different eschatons, maybe we can work together on imanentization.
Philby decided even as far back as during the Great War, and against official British foreign policy, that it would be better if the Saudis ruled the entire Arabian peninsula. Philby did not act as an agent for the British as much as he acted as an agent for the Ibn Saud clique.
[…]
Philby set up shop with a private job in Jeddah and was the voice in King Saud’s ear for decades. Philby did not just wear the robes and LARP to later put it away and return to England. He went native. He also took it one step further in 1930. In 1930, he converted to Islam.
Not different eschatons any more, I guess. Landry has a moral from all this:
Kim Philby is a figure that makes it into Cold War specials. Most of the Hollywood films on intelligence moles are modeled after his career in MI6. Practically no one knows of his father. No one asks why such a well oiled Empire could lose sight of one of their own going to the other side yet select that same man’s son for sensitive jobs. Few if any in the 1930s would consider the security concerns and if there may be a hereditary component to the ability of men and women to turn on their own for the “other”. No one today would even be allowed to publicly think in that manner.
Wanna harebrained theory? Landry’s got one: How Jeb Could Become President. “Low probabilities”, he says? He’s got to know there’s an infinite number of real numbers between 0 and 0.00000001.
This Week in WW1 pics: Spotting the Enemy. From the air.
Finally a quick bit on Ryan’s and my (and others’) twitter search shadow ban. This was something I noticed last Thursday (2/4) morning. @Empedocles_DR (The Perceptive) told me my tweets weren’t showing up in search results, e.g., “This Week in Reaction”. I thought, “Hmm… that’s odd.” Others confirmed the result as did I under an alternate account. (Note: When conducting the search under your account, your own tweets magically show up. Amazing! That Tech!!) We quickly began testing out other users who might have been search banned, and gathered a small list. And began to publicize:
.@twitter has created a special category of user. Non-violator of ToS Whom We Happen Not to Like. twitter.com/mattstat/statu…
—
Nick Babylon Steves (@Nick_B_Steves) February 04, 2016
I just joined my friend @Nick_B_Steves in the Twitter Shadow Search Ban Club. A proud honor.
—
William M. Briggs (@mattstat) February 04, 2016
If they exist in YOUR srches, but not yer bud's/alt's, its @twitter's way o sayin "Can't catch ye on ToS violatns but we just don't like ye"
—
Nick Babylon Steves (@Nick_B_Steves) February 04, 2016
Now overwhelmingly obvious that @twitter is shadow censoring me. This is 1 of the proudest days of my life. I'd like to thank my mom...
—
Nick Babylon Steves (@Nick_B_Steves) February 04, 2016
Unfortunately @twitter actually seems to have taken action in response to our tweets because they removed the filters by the next morning. I say “unfortunately”, because it really would have been far more embarrassing for them if more screen-capped proof of this ban could have been gathered. By the time Breitbart picked it up, there wasn’t a whole lot of story left. Lots of people noticed this behavior, but now everything was okey-dokey. “Oopsie,” says Twitter (hypothetically), “that was a glitch. Thank you for bringing it to the attention of our expert staff.” A glitch. Well, it was exciting while it lasted… Let’s see what was going on in The Kakistocracy.
This Week in Kakistocracy
Porter kicks off the week discussing Pretense Without Borders. In the setup, he has an expert grade observation that “the extent to which a thing may be remarked upon is inversely proportional to the extent it exists.”
Of course, the opposite is also true. We may no more speak of what does occur than hold our tongues to what doesn’t. For instance, exsanguinating muslim horseplay and blacks getting their lives together are far less reclusive phenomenon, and thus may be mentioned only under the bashful providence of bigotry. What is, isn’t said. And what isn’t, goes on the big screen.
Porter then goes on to draw attention to the breezily assumed premise, taken by Labor MP John Martin McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, that a “Borderless world is inevitable”. Because, once you assume that “we” can all move on to talk about the really interesting things like, what are “we” going to do about it? Well obviously, “we” are going to have begin by giving up retrograde notions about borders. I guess even British MPs can “assume the sale”… provided the stakes are high enough.
In Doctor My Eyes, Porter documents the indignities Rand Paul signed up for in deciding to run, however briefly, for President. The younger Paul is not remotely alone in engaging in soul-destroying sacrifices for the scent of power, but his seem more inexplicable than most.
Next The Descent, in which European conquering of K2 is considered, along with a fervent wish that a people awesome enough to achieve that (on an individual level substantially more difficult and dangerous than the Apollo moon landings), might throw some planning, energy, and skill into seeing to their own survival. One might hope that scaling K2 (or landing on the moon) is not merely some folks’ vision of “sitting poolside”.
This Week in Evolutionist X
Evolutionist X kicks off the week with a Cultural Marxist Happy Hour. It’s an entertaining take down of the utter bullshit that passes for post-modern “argument” these days. For example:
Gender based violence can never be discussed outside of colonialism because gender based violence is foundational to colonialism.
Concrete used in my sidewalks can never be discussed without discussing the World Trade Center, because concrete is foundational to the World Trade Center. It’s also foundational to almost every large building on Earth, so discussing this crack in the sidewalk outside my house is going to take a really, really long time.
Also, colonialism was about conquering land and making money.
Also, Norway hasn’t colonized anyone since the Viking era.
LOL.
Next she embarks on a big series on Mitochonrdrial Memes Part 1: Logos, Part 2: Aliens Within, Part 3: Viruses want you to spread them, and Part 4 (which thus far lacks a catchy subtitle). Part 1 is short, and doesn’t seem very essential to the series but mildly annoy Christians by mashing up cell biology with Christian symbolism. Part 2 is a biology lesson, essential if you (like me) are bio-ignorant. You might learn something like:
Why do mitochondria have their own DNA?
Because they aren’t human. They aren’t animals; they aren’t even eukaryotes. They’re prokaryotes, like bacteria.
Well… they are human prokaryotes. I understand the model. But the model is never the reality. At least, not all of it.
Evolutionist X gets around to what she really wants to talk about in Part 3. In spite of the title (and theists are always getting a bad rap for overdetecting agency… geesh!), this is very instructive.
Viruses are interesting things. They have a lot of the characteristics of living things–like DNA–but not all of them, and so are considered non-living or semi-living things. Critically, a virus cannot reproduce on its own–it must take over a living organism and hijack its reproductive mechanisms to begin producing copies of the virus.
Like ideas… “memes”. (I know many Catholic Trads, like Briggs, hate hate hate HATE this word. But hey, it’s not absurd to consider human ideas in terms of adaptive fitness. Is it?)
Viruses (and other infections,) of course, do not “want” anything, because they are not sentient. [Ed. Well, okay then!! ;-)] But anthropomorphization is a convenient shorthand. Viruses which are spread far and wide “succeed;” viruses which infect one person and never infect anyone else “fail.” Therefore, chances are good that any virus you catch wants to be spread.
Like memes… or ideas.
And ideas have spread in human populations pretty much since we became human… but they used to spread mostly in one way: vertically. And all of that began to change about 500 years ago… which leads us to
Mitochondrial memes don’t have to sound good to outsiders; they just have to work for the people who have them.
Meme viruses have to sound good enough to people that they get picked up and passed on. Meme viruses, therefore, are a lot more likely to sound fun to people who don’t already believe in them.
Horizontally transmitted memes outcompete the vertically transmitted—i.e., time-tested, fitness-tested—ones.
This Week in Matt Briggs
Matt Briggs, Statistician to the Stars, writes On Virtue & Holiness Signalling—and how to use it to win friends and influence people. Especially influence people. He articulates well the dynamic of a society in which, because there is no official official religion, unofficial official religion has seized virtually every aspect of social life. Especially if there’s power involved…
Because there is no clear path of advancement, innovation and exposure are seen as a good methods to gain status. The loudmouth who thrusts noisily into new frontiers of Political Correctness (a.k.a. Cultural Marxism), the simulacrum of dogma, is accorded the most credit. Not always, but mostly. Hence the left grows ever strident. What was routine and accepted by all five years ago is now irremediably racist, sexist, X-aphobic. For example, a racist was once someone who killed or harmed another because of the other’s race. A racist is now one who refuses to concur that whites are congenitally evil. This is why who was once a priest, if he has not kept fresh and on his game, is now demoted to the congregation, or even seen as apostate.
An almost Menciian analysis, I think, and an ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀. Also from Briggs goes over to The Stream with: Olympics Might Allow Men Pretending to be Women to Compete as Women. I love the smell of clashing cultural Marxist orthodoxies in the morning.
And this On The Freedom Of Religion And Satanism. Since governments cannot actually be neutral to all religions and/or the absence thereof, strange things are bound to happen. Especially strange things that make the powerful—i.e., the fashionable—look fashionable.
Have you heard this one: Pope walks into a Propaganda Campaign…? Sadly, it’s no joke. The Holy Father has the position and the moment to actually teach Catholic doctrine, which is a subset of clear and accurate thinking. Unfortunately that opportunity lies in ruins, because his thinking (and that of his PR guys) remains at least as muddled as the rest of the Gov’t Media Academic Complex. A small blessing: It seems he could not teach a falsehood, because nothing he says appears to bear any relationship whatsoever (pro or con) to the truth.
This Week… Elsewhere
Over at Imaginative Conservative they have Eric Voegelin: A Primer. Especially helpful for understanding a philosopher who would have objected strenuously to primers.
Also this was interesting: Steve McQueen & the Hound of Heaven. I hadn’t known of his late in life apparent conversion. And an essay from Roger Scruton: How Bad Philosophy Destroyed Good Music, featuring Adorno as villain:
All [Adorno’s] assumptions [amounting to musical vandalism] involve an arbitrary intrusion of abstract thought into a realm of empirical knowledge, thereby upsetting wisdom that had been slowly acquired over centuries, and which was not in any sense the product of a single brain. The fact that there is no evidence for them counts for nothing, since they are philosophical, part of an a priori attempt to found an alternative to the existing music. For Adorno, they promised the renewal of music, the break with a tradition that had become banal and cliché-ridden, and the hope of a fresh start in the face of cultural decline. Those thoughts were wound into a philosophy that combined Frankfurt-school Marxism, the denunciation of popular culture, and a high-brow adulation of all that was recondite, unpredictable, and difficult to follow. Adorno had the gift—the very same gift that Schoenberg had—of masking his idiosyncratic views as necessary truths and clothing unsubstantiated speculations in the garments of priestly authority. He was the advocate of an intimidating orthodoxy. And yet the actual arguments, both in Adorno’s book and in Schoenberg’s original articles, are self-serving rhetoric, which assume what they set out to prove.
Worth it for the cartoon alone: Mark Richardson’s “There’s going to be so many casualties in the abolition of human nature”.
Greg Cochran has a couple juicy anecdotes about Columbia. Concluding:
If we ever had a real reason for manned space travel – I can imagine some – the first thing you’d need to do is kill everyone in the NASA manned space program.
Brett Stevens finds places Where conservatives can learn from neoreaction. He also sees Andrew Jackson as anti-Cathedral. This is only partially true. Certainly modern Jacksonians oppose what the Cathedral does, but have no principled opposition to how the beast works.
Also from Brett: Why I am a conservative, A Defense of Roosh V. And this late arriving: 2016: Why capitalism is in the crosshairs.
Freedom or Open Borders: Choose One. Only One.
Over at The Orthosphere, Kristor has thoughts on the nature of Pushing the Eschaton. Liberalism’s similarities to cargo cults is more than skin deep. Also, speaking of memetic viruses: Liberalism as a Reproductive Disorder.
J. M. Smith is just being his usual awesome self in Mortified by the New Necromancy. In which are identified, three paths to power—only one an occult path, both for good and, as is more common these days, for evil:
This leaves the Mortification Road, the path to power by which one man mortifies, which is to say kills, the power of resistance and denial in another man. He does this by way of charms, spells and incantations that call up demons of “moral obligation,” and with the aid of these spirits places the second man under his power. In common parlance, this is called “guilting him into doing it.” If he had taken the Mortification Road, J. Wellington Wimpy would have said, “Because of what happened last Tuesday, you owe me a hamburger today.” If J. Wellington Wimpy had taken the Mortification Road, he would have died a fat man.
Smith isn’t saying there are no moral obligations. Of course, there are. We just need to keep a straight accounting of the ones we signed up for, and the ones we didn’t.
When some low grifter comes to your door by way of the Mortification Road, he (or she) will try to place you under his (or her) power by calling up the demon of an unchosen moral obligation. With the aid of this demon, he (or she) will mortify your power of resistance by saying that you are a member of a class that owes a great debt of service to a class of which he (or she) is himself (or herself) a member. Now if he (or she) were a shifty vagrant shuffling on the doorstep and demanding, without proof, performance of some promise made by your grandfather, you would slam the door in his (or her) face. Likewise if he (or she) demanded restitution for a cow allegedly shot by your uncle while deer hunting in 1942. But let him (or her) begin to speak of what is owed by “people like you” to “people like me,” and we find our door-slamming arm deadened with mortification. We have fallen under demonic power.
SJW in a nicely crafted nutshell. J. M. Smith takes home another ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀.
Bonald looks back to 2015 and forward to The conquest of 2016: a prediction. He thinks… well… I’ll let him tell it:
Epistemic status is what mathematics, physics, biology, electrical engineering, and the like have: the presumption that they indisputably have delivered and will continue to deliver objective truths about the world. Moral status belongs to those disciplines that have evolved into naked social justice advocacy, without even a pretense of objectivity.[…] Which source of status carries the ultimate weight in the university? I don’t think this ambiguity will be allowed to stand much longer.
He sees that probabilistic wave function collapsing this year in academia, and settling on a clear Status Champion. And you’ll never guess which side he thinks will win. (Hint: Yes you will.)
HBD Chick has some very random thoughts on the reformation.
Real Gary makes some actionable predictions about Europe for this week. If I don’t get this post out on time, the verdict may already have come in. Also: Obama “identifies with Islam, not Christianity”.
Over at West Coast Reactionaries, Andrew Martyanov gets one thing: “[Y]ou cannot ultimately build a system that inspires morals and courage out of white skin worship.” Among several other things.
Froude Society digs up a meeting between contemporaries Carlyle and Darwin in a Brief Quote Regarding Scientistry.
Cato Disapproves has some fairly high octane political theory in Ex Falso Quodlibet.
Sunshine Thiry finds little to admire in Sheryl (((((Sandberg))))).
Kill to Party looks Under the Rainbow to examine Rebellion and Ideology, and finds them to be mostly the same thing. This is pretty good. And witty:
[W]hen Luke Skywalker is plucked his space-farm as a naive kid by an old, agenda-driven mystic, and fed narcissistic drivel about his massive importance in Galactic affairs, it isn’t such a leap to think he’s being told a bunch of deliberate bullshit to serve as a terrorist in training.
Even if Luke was happy to be trading power-converters and targeting womp-rats in his free time, living comfortably with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, Obi Wan quickly makes him ashamed of this humility and a short ninety-minutes later Luke cheers wildly as he commits mass-murder.
In other words, Luke would scoff at Dorothy, stay in Oz, and blow most of it up.
Dante is Looking forward as #GamerGate seems to be winding down.
Speaking of Menciian observations, Robert Mariani has one over at The Mitrailleuse: There is no such thing as left-wing dissent.
Retrochronal has a quick note on True Modern Reason, with some tasty nuggets of Moldbuggery.
I don’t fully understand how the rationalism wing of Whig dominance weaves in with status, Reformation, etc. Reason is probably irredeemably tied up with the emotional reality of liberalism. It seems to me that it would be better to subvert the wing entirely, rather than try to hijack it. So revolt against Reason, folks. It’s not that good anyways.
Bingo. Not to revolt against actual reason of course, but True Modern Reason, which is a status pose and not reason at all. Perhaps we could call it… reasonism.
That’s all I had time for. Since I’ve been sensing this weekly update has been getting longer, I’ve been watching. And (indeed) it has been getting longer. ~6200 words at last count. Hopefully, that adds value to your visit. If not, I GUARANTEE your money back!! Keep on Reactin’! Til next week… TRP, Over and Out!!
Filed under: This Week in Reaction, Weeks' Best