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.