I first heard about Dark Enlightenment or the Neoreactionary movement probably a decade ago, but I was an Obamabot and just thought "Huh, weird, anyway".
I finally sat down and spent a few hours reading An Open Letter to Open Minded Progressives. Especially as someone who already had tried to rid himself of progressive thoughts and beliefs, it was quite a ride.
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2008/04/open-letter-to-open-minded-progressives/
Overall I find his ideas and arguments fascinating. The claim that our modern progressives as the direct heirs of Protestantism/Whigs is quite the claim, but I think it makes sense. The way that he lays out the history of the Whigs and the Tories and their respective religious factions and how the Whigs won and that their religion and ideology is the literal foundation of our culture to me rings at a bare minimum as partially correct.
It just makes too much sense that something like the Inner Light doctrine would naturally evolve into "No human is illegal", or whatever slogan they're throwing around about how we're all exactly equal and the same. Even the sect I was raised in (Mormonism...I know) experimented in communistic communes and I can't even tell the difference between Mormons (The heads of the church, not necessarily the individual adherents) and Globalists anymore, which I think was inevitable due to the way that they proselytize globally.
When he brings up the Malvern Conference I honestly was speechless. A giant representative coalition of American Christians came together to produce a document demanding No Borders, One World Government, International Control of all Armies and Navies, etc, is almost unbelievable. Unless he's correct that whether folks are aware of it or not, nearly all of us are Whigs, who would make argument for such things and have consistently for hundreds of years?
I assume some people here have read him before, what do you think? I find his diagnosis and historical narrative of our country incredibly persuasive, but I'm not sold on his prescription (Restoration of the Stuarts). If nothing else, I am quite moved by the argument that we're all Whigs. Obviously not literally 100% of Americans, just like 99%.
Oh absolutely. I didn't even mention the cathedral as I just assume that is an accurate description of reality and not really up for debate as KiA really started out as a rebellion against the cathedrals propaganda being inserted into video games.
I don't see how he hasn't had a massive cultural impact already. We use his words and some of the lenses he uses to view the world are already widely adopted on the right. I've parroted plenty of his thoughts without knowing that they came from him. I think the internet is just about the only place his ideas could have spread, as telling republicans that our country was founded by the progressives of that time, I would expect to generally fall on deaf ears. I don't think leftists would have listened either as telling them that their ideas are rooted in Protestantism is like slapping them in the face.
Do you think democracy is a failure? In a way I already did before reading him, as I think pure democracy is just the madness of the crowds. I already thought that service guarantees citizenship is a far more preferable system to universal suffrage, as our direction we're headed (I think) towards mob rule is terrifying.
He's a genius, has a deep understanding of the U.S. (as you point out), and reads vast amounts of historical stuff that has been purged from our collective consciousness, making him an invaluable bridge to our past in our 1984-esque society. Pretty much the most interesting person I read. He's also the reason I stopped being concerned about holocaust denial stuff.
Some other cool dudes: Steve Sailer, Charles Murray, Hans Herman Hoppe
I'll look into them, cheers.
I think he's brilliant, so much so that I barely feel qualified to say anything about him.
Made this account to let you guys know that he does have a new blog.
Recently his wife passed away, in the wake of which he even demonstrated some considerable poetic talent. (Peace be upon her)
Can you tag people on here? @Gizortnik seemed well-read on American history I'd be interested in his take on Moldbug. I've personally only read his biggest article and it seemed accurate. The "Cathedral" description is so accurate and obvious it feels trite even though I've never talked to someone who used it.
Try u/MilkPilled for user mentions.
His articles are pretty interesting, and offer a refreshing new perspective compared to the usual views from both the left and the right.
Even when I don't agree with his takes, or I don't understand the topic too well, I can tell by his commentary that he knows what he is talking about.
u/Gizortnik
Indeed. He sounds incredibly similar to Moldbug.
A random quote:
America basically was founded as a White Country (Because, you know, our founders emigrated from Europe and England specifically), and if one thinks that Moldbug is correct on our history, we didn't even "embrace" leftism, we seem to have always been. The idea that an ethno-state will serve as any sort of bulwark against leftist-ism/progressivism/collectivism does seem rather just flat out wrong historically.
/u/Ralt & u/MilkPilled
Honestly, I think I've read Moldbug once, and I didn't agree with him because he was a bit too black-pilled. But his comments about the Cathedral are absolutely true.
I just happen to think it might be even less organized than that because of how rapidly the scope of The Cathedral has actually grown in recent decades. The Social Justice Rackets have invited every single sociopath, narcicist, and degenerate into a position of hall-monitor/internet-janitor levels of power to expand The Cathedral well beyond it's normal reach.
The Cathedral is still supposed to be an elite vangaurd for pushing Fabian Socialism, but it seems like the "Mass Society" dynamic has actually caught up to the Cathedral itself, and it has begun expanding so fast that it is breaking itself down. It is hoping to profit off of balkanizing and partitioning people into controllable segments, but you can't populate the cathedral with that many predators without someone getting their throat bit.
I actually see all of human society moving towards liberalization in this century in the same way early 20th century and late 19th century historians and political scientists saw human societies moving towards Socialism due to the human comodificaiton of the industrial revolution. As such, the Fabian Socialist Syndicate (read: Cathedral) has effectively found itself in a power 'bubble' that is about to burst. They know something's wrong and they are resorting to it by trying to double down on totalitarianism; but the radical left are moving from Global Syndicalism to Anachro Syndicalism which will still lead to the total destruction of the the current political order.
From my view, the entire current political order is dead and no one knows it.
But anyways, that doesn't matter against Ralt's point.
Not only due the White Naitonalists not understand that "whiteness" doesn't protect against Leftism. Whiteness is Leftism. Whiteness was European Homo Globo for the 18th Century, and it really does stem from English Supremacism along with the construction of the purely abstract "British" identity. Whiteness, at the time, was a multi-ethnic identity. White ethno-nationalism, is effectively an oxymoron. It is why Whiteness never caught on as a construct in Europe, and why the French never really adopted it either. It's why "Identity Europe" will fail, and any White Nationalists should be utterly opposed to people like Adolf Hitler and National Socialism if they had any honesty, since he slaughtered Whites. The thought white slaves were as worthy of extermination as anyone else.
The construction of an "inter-temporal abstraction" to turn into a single, socialized, body-politic, that represented a myth of a race (what Hitler called, a "Volksgemeinschaft") is a Leftist tactic. No different when they do the same thing with Labor, Women, Gays, Blacks, Immigrants, or even Islam. This is why it is so important to recognize the use of White Racialism for Democrats to seize power from Republicans during Reconstruction, and institute a one party state in the Solid South. It should not be a surprise that Woodrow Wilson was a Progressive Racialist. It should also be no surprise that Richard Spencer is pulling the same stunt, and I still argue will be the leading White Nationalist in the world within a decade; as he is slowly adopting a political strategy to infiltrate the concept of "White Affinity" on the Left. The only reason that the Democratic Party ever appeared to abandon Racialism was so that they could subvert the American people's natural Liberal instincts. Their attack on the Dixiecrats is no different from any other purge that the Left has ever conducted when it's leadership changed direction and declared that they were always at war with East Asia.
The John Birch Society was right about Communist infiltration and direct-action within the Civil Rights movement. We are seeing the direct descendants of those radicals within the movement operating today under the same arguments. Barry Goldwater was right about the 1964 Civil Rights act, because in 1965 the Left immediately started arguing that legal equality wasn't enough and racial discrimination through Affirmative Action was necessary; but the American people of the time period thought it an incredible contradiction considering what they had said before, and this started to stall the movement. In response to this stalling, the Civil Rights movement descended into open violence as Leftist Racialists struck out against a weakened Fabian Democratic Socialist order (like the Anachro-Syndicalists of Spain struck out against the Fabian Spanish Republicans as the Spanish Civil War broke out), and allowed an alleged Rightist, but political Leftist, Nixon (like Franco) to take power.
They keep doing the same shit, in the same ways, with same mistakes, every fucking time. I'd ask how this could be possible, but if they were capable of learning, they wouldn't be Socialists.
In the end, the Racialist "Right" are the single most dangerous force to the Right at this point because their reactionary attitudes allow them to disguise themselves as being anti-Left, while profiting off of resentment mongering that the other progressive racialists have stoked. They serve as a useful structure to undermine and de-legitimize all anti-Leftist movements by being controlled opposition based on their policies that are Leftists in all but name.
I have another problem with Political Catholicism... of which the entire concept of Social Justice stems, but that's a different essay for another time.
I don't know, what do you guys think? Does that sound like Moldbug?
I don't have anything to add I just figured I'd enjoy your thoughts. I mostly just follow Nick Fuentes and don't know how much their views overlap
Thanks. Not a fan of Fuentes tbh.
I don't know exactly how to describe what you sound like other than you seem to be trying to objectively describe reality and history. Which I do think is similar, but perhaps that's because I'm really just becoming aware that I was still viewing the world through progressive lenses (ie. democratic or whig) and anyone speaking from a perspective truly outside of the cathedral sounds similar to me as it's not the same propaganda I've heard my entire life.
I've long been a fan of history and science, so I have long spoken about it objectively. When I realized how much bullshit I had consumed, that same focus on history and science pulled me pretty violently clear because I couldn't rationalize the old narrative with the specific facts in my hand.
As such, speaking from (not exactly an objective standpoint) but a narrative that rejects the mainstream fabain socialist narrative's tropes, it can sound more objective because it ends up having more nuance and showing all sides in more human ways.
When I try to speak truly objectively, I'll tend to try and weave the different perspectives together with the individual events, so you understand how each faction saw the same thing.
That's a good way of putting it. I've never discussed the topic of the founding of america without a cloud of "And thank god the RIGHT people won because we are champions of democracy" progressive thought in the air and so to even hear say, an actual opinion from a tory in 1700's England without editing, is honestly hard to properly comprehend. The idea that our founding fathers rebelled against people with opinions who wrote them down that I can read myself never properly occurred to me. Even in my best attempts to educate myself I reached for, at best, historical compilations with the stamp of approval from the cathedral.
It's common for them to play those games, but even from my perspective, there's definitely a "thank god we won" because look at what Britain's system turned into.
Honestly, the English felt what we felt when the British Parliament behaved the way it did with Brexit. The Remainers even argued "Parliamentary Sovereignty" when they utterly rejected multiple overtures to finish Brexit. That same argument was made by that same Parliament against the Americans who were complaining about Taxes, Tariffs, and military governance; and a rejection of state government; when the British parliament did whatever the hell it wanted.
Basically, American colonies claimed their natural rights as Englishmen were being violated (not by the King), but by Parliament who was operating without any consent or input from the colonies or their representatives. In response, Parliament claimed "Virtual Representation" through "Parliamentary Sovereignty". Basically, "we're the parliament, so we do what's best for Britain, which is how you are represented, so your complaints aren't valid because were're doing what's best for Britain."
The Colonials tried damn near every imaginable pathway in the fucking book for 30 years in order to get Parliament to listen even once, and they just got more obstinate. The Stamp Act set everyone on fire because the British Parliament just gave themselves unlimited authority to tax whatever the hell they wanted, with absolutely no consent, no negotiation, no discussion, and then they'd throw anyone in jail who didn't pay it. So people refused, and got really fucking angry that they were ignored again after years of obstinate retardation. Protests were had, letters were written, speeches were given, mockery was made, but things were getting pretty tense. The British Parliament decided that now was a good time to tax tea. The tax was written in such a way that other costs & duties didn't have to be paid, so the tax meant that the Americans could pay less for Tea. The Colonials figured out the scam still meant they agreed to be taxed illegally, and dumped that shit into Boston harbor. When they protested, rioted, smashed shit, burned shit in effigy, the total disorder finally got the British Parliament to take notice to calm the situation down. They repealed the Stamp Act... and immediately passed the Coercive Acts and sent armed troops to Boston to launch a military occupation of the city.
Remember, the Colonials thought they were English. This was illegal in England, but the British Parliament just declared that they had the right to do it in the Empire because it's totes different. ... This is why you have a written constitution.
At every single step, the British Parliament, for 30 years, pushed the colonials to rebellion. The reason they finally started shooting at each other, and why Independence made sense at all, was because conversation, philosophically went like this:
Colonials: "We're English. We're literally, ethnically, English; we are English subjects; we are loyal to the King; we have English Rights."
Parliament: "Fuck you. You're not English. You're British. I can't see you from here, so I get to do whatever I want, kill yourself."
Colonials: "We have English Rights."
Parliament: "You're not English. I'll fucking kill you."
Colonials: "King the Parliament has gone fucking mad!"
King George: "He's right. You're not English. I'll fucking kill you too."
Colonials: "I... alright, fine!"
ColonialsAmericans: "Okay, we're not English. EAT SHIT."King George: "THIS IS FUCKING TREASON"
Parliament: "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
Anyways, Madison and Adams are pretty good figures to read about how they approached the Constitution and why they did what they did within the concept of Liberal philosophy.
However, Blackstone is a particularly amazing read. He's not a founding father, but he has a major influence on both Liberal philosophy and the American revolution. His explanation of why you must have a property requirement for voting in a free society sounds counter-intuitive, but when you see how his explanations have come true, it really shows that your intuition has been poisoned by people making sure you don't realize that the shit that he was saying 300 years ago makes perfect fucking sense.
I'll definitely read Blackstone and thank you for your perspective. I have first been reading Brutus who was the most interesting author mentioned by Moldbug and I thought really understanding the anti-federalist case would be a good start to actually understanding our history from more perspectives.
I definitely think our revolution was a move overall towards freedom and liberty, I just thought we had finished there and that a representative republic ensures the most freedom for the most blah blah blah. I definitely agree on restricting voting rights in some way at least as a start, so I'm curious to see what Blackstones predictions were, as reading Brutus's has seemed rather prophetic.
His description of the Cathedral is insightful, though I think using the term "Cathedral" lends itself towards people thinking of it as a small group of people a la the Freemasons or Illuminati instead of a system of distributed power and governance. Had he called it the Matrix I think people would probably intuit it better, but perhaps then they wouldn't take it as seriously.
The idea that progressivism is secular Protestantism is one of his most self-evident claims, and many people have independently made this observation.
I think his "solution" of Absolute Monarchy is his inner technocrat shining through. If you have bad people and bad leaders, your organization is going to be bad no matter what system of organization and governance it has. If you have good people and good leaders, they will self-organize in a way to be effective.
Any recommendations for further reading on that?
Figure out what the Cathedral is, (I mean HIS definition, not the one parroted by people emulating Moldbug), what their motivations are, what they control, and what their patterns tend to be. Then drop Moldbug and move on. We're headed for a Weimar-shaped crash, there are other things you need to be reading.
I don't think much of him. Sounded like a smart guy when I read the summaries of his works and the glowing reviews. Sounded like a doofus when I tried reading his stuff directly - reminded me of highschool philosophers. I specifically was put off by him creating nonsense definitions for real words just to make his theories work.
So I have the impression that he's either a really likeable guy to get his fans to do his lifting for him, or it takes a certain kind of person to appreciate his thoughts.
As far as I know, he's an alt-right idiot.
Because the left and establishment right have done so well with everything we must reject anyone outside that narrow window otherwise we might end up in some kind of Orwellian hell world.
That is a false choice, rejecting the left and the establishment right does not require me to adopt every batty ideology that falls outside the Overton Window.
How about taking their idiocy and replacing it with something intelligent, not more idiocy.
Painting anyone outside of the Overton window as "alt-right" is a tool of the establishment. If you want to call him a "monarchist idiot" then at least there's something to work with there.
That certainly was not my intent. If he is a monarchist and not a white nationalist Groyper type, then he is not alt-right and I was incorrect in my recollection.
He's Jewish but many of the early people who would go on to be called "alt-right" overlapped with his audience. I think this comes from Richard Spencer's old site publishing (or re-publishing?) some of his early articles.
He basically advocates for any royal line to sieze back power or be restored to power, the method doesn't matter too much. He specifically names the princes of Lichtenstein as an unbroken chain of power than has been very successful.
Obviously Lichtenstein is like 50 people or whatever, so scale definitely plays a factor there as to why they are still monarchist. This also was a 2008 essay and I have not read any more of his work. This is not what I find interesting though. It's his diagnosis, not his prescription, that lights my mind afire.
Really, I would describe him as right of the alt-right. A true reactionary who wants to roll back every progressive victory which is quite the statement when he's also positing that America beating England was a success of the progressives. It's hard to refute that though when you look into exactly who the "Dissenters" were and what their religion and ideology was. You look over the list of sects of who they were and it's a list of the original settlers of America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Dissenters
When you read what a Tory from the 1700's had to say about the Dissenters, it's basically the same thing you would hear from conservatives about progressives today if perhaps even more violent.
https://books.google.com/books?id=yCoLAAAAIAAJ&printsec=titlepage&client=safari&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=How%20just%20will%20such%20&f=false (PG. 142-143 gives a good enough picture)
You can call these ideas idiocy if you want, but to me it seems to be an accurate description of the political and religious factions which fought in the American Revolutionary War that I had a very whitewashed understanding of. Really, I was under the impression that most of early americans were hyper-capitalistic hyper-religious libertarians of some sort, but only the religious part seems to hold up when contrasted with historical documents. Every one of his sources that I've cracked open, I've found that he wasn't distorting their words. I haven't read all his sources, as they are many, but every single one I checked to make sure he wasn't bullshitting me was just literal and direct quotations.
Really, just read pg142-143 and tell me if you think if it is a conservative ranting about progressives destroying his country and faith. To me this is a very persuasive argument for why we view progressives as religious, because they always have been. It simply seems to add up that advocating for a religion outside of the church of england and for the destruction of the monarchy would probably be the definition of progressivism in 1700's England.
He coined the term "The Cathedral", and is the best descriptor of the religious nature of the elites we're facing.