A lot
of smart people are raised without any particular religion. Perhaps
you are one of them. Or maybe you were raised religious as a child,
and have since opened your mind and left. (Since religious people
produce most of the children, you are more likely to fall into the
latter category.) In either case you may feel, consciously or
unconsciously, very reluctant to discard Progress—and
understandably so. After losing the purpose given to you by religion,
Progress has given you a reason to live. It’s centered your
thinking. The liberal way of seeing things has provided you with
immuno-responses against extreme ideologies—including racist,
anarchist, and violent ones. But you should be aware that there are
other sources of these benefits, even outside the Western tradition.
Buddhist meditation presupposes no metaphysical unprovables, and
trains your mind to quiet itself, which gives strong immunity against
ideas or memes run amok. Learning formal mathematics, as Plato asked
his disciples to do, can also give you more control of your thinking,
and gives you rational tools for contemplating the abstract realm of
ideas. You can learn prayer from the New Testament or from any Muslim
or Hindu. (There must be a reason prayer is so common in traditional,
that is, long-lived societies. In fact, its health benefits have even
been
measured.) Just as important is to read ancient, living texts,
also known as classics or great books. Being old is not enough. The
Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest texts that still
survive, but it is dead. It wasn’t passed down to us by monks
copying old crumbling manuscripts for generations. Rather, some
archaeologists found it on buried clay tablets; it’s almost
literally a fossil. Its myths no longer live on in the popular
consciousness, as do Homer’s Illiad and
Odyssey. There must be something more profound about the latter.
The Tao Te Ching is an even younger text, yet its impact has
been equally great. Personally, I prefer the Bible, as
interpreted by modern Christianity, as
my source of bedrock values. It’s my heritage. I was raised on it.
Reading it helped save me from endless, pointless, abyssal
philosophizing. It re-centered me.
Don’t
worry. Christianity may be an irrational germ, but it’s not a Bad
Germ. It’s a Good Germ.
We
used to all know this. Lacking all religion, that is atheism, used to
be seen as an unhealthy thing. The source of modern anxiety is really
Progressivism, which has given us an idol—material prosperity for
all—that we now hold as the greatest good in the world. Progress
has become our exclusive object of worship, to the neglect of older
and healthier ideals.
Having
materialistic idols is a common thing for powerful empires like ours.
The Romans, to a large extent, worshiped Rome itself. It deified its
emperors. The gods it had inherited from the Greeks its poets made
still more violent, selfish, capricious, and rapacious. It worshiped
them as idols, and even imported idolatrous cults from other nations.
Babylon, Sumeria, Egypt—all the same story. Worship became an
entertaining pastime; power itself (not even love, though this can
also become an idol) was often the primary object of admiration.
This is all part of the phenomenon conservative thinkers call
“decadence,” that is, the disintegration of culture, becoming
spoiled by one’s own success.
We
are indeed becoming spoiled by our own (temporary, materialistic)
success. There’s a reason the Bible warns against seeking wealth,
worshiping physical idols, and discarding spiritual tradition. When a
culture seeks wealth and worldly goods, and abolishes spirituality,
all its striving is thrown at things that are imperfect, fleeting,
unworthy, and often impossible for this world. Unless you have a
higher ideal you are quite simply setting your sights too low. You
get leaders who want nothing but money or power or fame. You get a
populace that is selfish and greedy rather than unselfish and
idealistic. You get cynicism rather than hope. There is a reason that
religions like Christianity have won out again and again. And that
reason is that they teach you to meditate on and strive toward the
ideal good, that is, the Good, that is, God. Read some Catholic
theology and see that God is not anything like an existing material
being, but is rather an immaterial, infinite, ultimate Ideal that
transcends all human experience. By praying to God, that is,
meditating on the Good (which is what even Plato, Confucius, Lao Tzu
and all the great philosophers taught) you center yourself in what
your instincts and your tradition have passed down to you as the best
way to be, whether you want to describe that goodness in terms of
evolution (for these doctrines are well-tested by evolution), or
material success (for the holy texts teach that goodness does tend to
bring prosperity), or in terms of Godliness itself, the last of which
is ultimately the best and least materialistic way to look at it.
4
With
that immuno-boost, if you absolutely refuse to call it a faith-boost,
we are ready to take an excursion into the ugliest, swampiest part of
our ideological jungle, get our hands mucky, and face down some petty
memetic demons. (All demons are petty by nature, being materialistic,
i.e. short-sighted. Lets put some glasses on them.)
Many
have come this way before, heretics fleeing the decayed Temple of
Progress, lacking sometimes even sword or shield or armor or
antibiotics to protect them. Among the most famous of these (at least
for the last 15 minutes or so) are the members of that infamous
excursion party known most commonly as “Neoreaction,” the “Dark
Enlightenment,” or the “Alt-Right.”
But
why do we care to follow their trail?
It leads through some excessively difficult and dangerous swamps: the
Bog of Biological Differences among Races and Sexes; the Marsh of
Memetic Frogs; the Haunted Ruins of Absolute Monarchy; the Fen of
Frustrated Fascism Fascination; etc.
We
care, well, because everybody seems to care, whether positively or
negatively. Hillary Clinton has found them important enough to
publicly denounce them. Meanwhile, the Alt-Right is recruiting stray
conservatives in droves, especially young nerds, and it’s got them
working on some huge projects. It’s trying to drain the whole
region, known collectively as the Swamp of Old-School, I Mean
Really-Old-School, I Mean Dead-and-Gone Fossil-Species Conservatism.
It’s been submerged for ages, but they might even succeed,
especially if that up-and-coming Conquistador, good old Donny “I
Didn’t Say That” Trump, becomes the next president and their
biggest sponsor.
Also:
there are some incredibly intelligent people on the Alt-Right. You
might even call them philosophers. Some of what they say is inspired
and even true. Some of it is merely partisan. Some of it is virulent.
I
hope you’ll forgive me that off-the-wall preface. I’m not sure
how else to summarize the meaning of such an uncentered movement.
I’d
like to give a fair assessment. Being fair is essential in this case
because fairness, as it so happens, is exactly what has been lacking
in how Progressives have been reacting to the Alt-Right, and vice
versa. Dialogue has broken down, and with it our ability to reliably
distinguish the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of these various
ideological organisms.
The
Alt-Right is not a unified movement. It includes everything from
atheistic neo-Nazis to fundamentalist Catholic monarchists to
apocalyptic ultra-capitalists. Some of them have said that what
unites them is an opposition to what they perceive as the
unconstitutional tyranny of political correctness. They just want the
freedom to be honest about their views about sex, race, and class.
Others have said that all that unites them is an opposition to
mainstream conservatism. But this can’t be right because that makes
me automatically Alt-Right, as well as this
guy, who rightly challenges the assertion. Because from what I
can tell the Alt-Right does have something more specific that unites
them. This common thread is the philosophy of Mencius Moldbug as
expounded on his blog Unqualified
Reservations. Moldbug believes that democracy is rotten to the
core, a brain parasite (he uses such terms) and that it should be
surgically removed so we can finally see the truth of absolute
monarchy, particularly of the Jacobite sort from 17th-century
England.
If
you’ve never heard of this before you’re going to wonder: Why
bother? It’s obviously crazy, right? Well, yes and no. There was a
time when Nietzsche was considered obviously crazy. But he’s had a
huge impact. Moldbug’s philosophizing is in fact so carefully
analytical and in a twisted way fun that you can’t help but hear
him through and try to figure him out. (Don’t believe me? CAUTION:
ingest at your own risk.
Moldbug’s
thesis includes the correct ideas that Progress is an illusion and
civilization is in decline. Such truths are dangerous for Westerners
who are unprepared for them. They are glaringly obvious if you think
about them at any great length. We’re destroying our environment,
we’re letting our culture decay, and we’re even letting our DNA
mutate out of control. The Temple of Progress is a temple to an
idol—our own success—and we know it’s not a real god because
it’s decaying before our eyes.
Well,
not exactly before our eyes, slowly, but Moldbug gives us photographs
of what the idol looked like at various points over the last two
centuries, citing little-read primary sources with vivid descriptions
of each stage of its decay. Proliferating Democratic freedoms, he
claims, have caused the bloodiest wars and revolutions, the increases
in crime, the dissolution of the family, the loss of sexual morality,
and the disappearance of civic consciousness. He gives us
decent-enough eyeglasses to see it. He’s a demon who’s
slightly-less short-sighted, and in the land of the short-sighted
demons, he’s king.
Horror
of horrors; our god is a mortal god. A dying god. Who is to blame?
Well, democracy for one, or so he says. It’s been a brain parasite
all along, spoiling the uneducated masses of voters with promises of
free goods (welfare, minimum wage, etc.) that pave a broad road to
totalitarian communist hell. The harder conservatives fight, it
seems, the farther left the nation moves. The conservatism of today
would have been the extreme liberalism of 50 years ago, and
unthinkably radical 150 years ago. But we’re no better off than we
were back then. No progress has occurred. Instead, politicians
promise more and more, government debt explodes, and we march
inexorably toward communism and social decadence. Every year
conservatives are forced to retreat and let age-old institutions,
such as marriage, decay. Every year divorce rates rise. Every year
faster-breeding immigrants pour over our borders, bringing their own
culture and diluting our own. And every year political correctness
renders it harder to protest. Despairing, self-mutilating his own
brain to get the democratic parasite out, Moldbug fled into the
swampy ruins of Anglo-American culture, leaving us his snarky trail
of clues, and now spends his days attempting to unearth, revive, and
polish up, for some reason, idols still older, more decayed, and more
primitive than Progress. Idols that were whipped by Progress before,
unfairly, and which now just need a second chance to show their true
potential. Class hierarchy. Nobility. Aristocracy. Divine Monarchy.
If we had only held true to these doctrines, the American and French
Revolutions, which essentially gave the power to rabble-rousers and
uneducated mobs the world-over, would never have happened. We need to
bring Absolute Monarchy back, he says.
But
was it ever even possible to stifle the budding power of the people?
Or was this force—whether entropic decay or true progress—a part
of the inevitable maturation of industrial society? I would lay my
bets on the latter. The obvious ridiculousness of attempting to
revive those dead idols is the main reason Moldbug’s sanest
supporters are Christians. His atheist followers have gone as morally
insane as he has, and so typically lack the eloquence for evangelism.
His Christian followers have naturally strong immune systems and are
thus stronger, more beneficial hosts and carriers. They get
that progress is pagan idol.
They move on. They
fare much better than poor
allergic Moldbug in the swamp. They can help him uncover the old
idols not to revive them, but as memories of a better time, as
promises of worldly goals more fulfilling than Progress, or simply as
warnings against idolatry. And the saner of his followers that are
non-Christians are philosophers, such as this
guy. These philosophers at least have the notion of Platonic good
to guide and protect them, if little else.
I
had a dream the other night that Freud had an affair with his own
daughter, and the two committed suicide together. When I woke I
realized I had a perfect allegory for the Alt-Right. It’s a reverse
Oedipal complex. Bring back patriarchy; marry your own father. His
whacked theories were respected enough in their day, sure, but they
were ultimately suicidal. To revive dead traditions rather than
learning about live ones is, in essence, a kind of cultural incest.
The
postmodern philosopher Nick Land is perhaps the most famous of
Moldbug’s followers. While his conclusions are more original, they
are for this reason even more mutated and tragically flawed. Land was
a philosophy lecturer at the University of Warwick for about a
decade, but also writes horror fiction and poetry, does performance
art, and dabbles in the occult and psychedelic drugs. His
essay, “The Dark Enlightenment,” starts, very reasonably,
with Moldbug’s insight that our civilization is not progressing but
decaying. After touching on the politically- and socially-corrupting
power of democracy, the ongoing breakdown of race relations, the
hollowing-out of the American “inner city,” and the resurrection
of white nationalism—all rightly identified as signs of this
decay—he concludes with a deeply vexing analysis of what kind of
future we might expect.
Option
(1), according to Nick Land, is “Modernity 2.0.” He thinks China
would be most likely to form the center of a second spurt of global
modernization. Option (2) is what he calls “Postmodernity.” He
calls this future “a new dark age, in which Malthusian limits
brutally re-impose themselves.” Option (3) is a “Western
Renaissance,” in which the West reboots its traditional power
structures—just as Moldbug himself suggests—leading to a renewal
of civilization.
What
strikes me most about these options is that they are non-options.
Options (1) and (3) reduce to the suggestion that some new political
idol replace that of Progress. Land’s discussion makes it clear
that he sees the best such idol as some form of libertarianism, or
monarchy, or libertarian-monarchy. I guess he’s just helping
Moldbug polish off another fossilized monument to Absolute Hierarchy.
Option (2), while perhaps the most realistic, is presented as a form
of nihilism and thus vanishes as a possibility. But in reality,
Option (2) is inevitable, and this is why we need an abstract notion
of good and not a materialistic one. We need to be ready to face the
next Dark Age with as much integrity as we can muster, as the
Christians did when Rome fell. It is lacking an abstract Good or God
that dooms Land to the realm of politics-for-politics’-sake.
Nick
Land’s anti-spirituality becomes most glaringly clear at the tail
end of his conclusion, when he considers humanity’s coming ability
to engineer its own DNA. Since it is inbred groups of organisms that
tend to evolve most quickly, he concludes that some small, incestuous
group of cybernetically-engineered humans will achieve a superiority
to the rest of humanity so vast that all other racial differences
will be rendered non-existent by comparison.
The
image is terrifying, but the prospect vanishingly unlikely. We have
enough trouble as it is engineering a decent dairy cow. It is hard
enough to educate children, let alone build their DNA from scratch.
But
the image itself, and the assumptions behind it, and the fact that so
many are buying it—here we might say that Nick Land has succeeded
in mastering the art of horror, if it can be called an art. For what
could be more horrifying than the rise of a new civilization built
around the worship of a new master race? We know that he is not
talking about a morally superior
race. Morality precludes setting
oneself up as god. No, he is talking about a demoniacally
superior race—a
politically and
economically superior
race. He is talking about deifying greed itself.
What
more appropriate climax could the Cult of Progress ask for? We now
have philosophers attempting to set up idols whose materialism is so
naked it can be called (forgive me but the accusation must be made)
pornographic. We are seeing the height of perversity. It pains me to
foretell that in our decadence we may yet see higher. As Land himself
exultingly proclaims, “a time of monsters is approaching.”
There
are, of course, already the neo-Nazis and neo-fascists. Like Land and
Moldbug, they tend to be atheists. Catholicism has managed to
cure many
of these. Still, such extremists are rare, and the last thing I want
to do is help destroy dialogue between progressives and conservatives
by focusing on the worst aspects of either. When Trump is derided as
a fascist or Nazi, this is guilt by association. It’s pure
rhetoric; it’s irrational. Among progressives are corporations
destroying the biosphere for profit and using propaganda and lobbyism
to cover their tracks. But most progressives don’t condone this
behavior and it shouldn’t be assumed that they do. Likewise, we
should assume that the vast majority of conservatives would fight as
hard as anyone to prevent a neo-fascist revolution from taking hold.
The
dialogue between left and right has largely degenerated into mere
name-calling. If we fail to heal this divide, we hasten the day when
confrontations become—for lack of any other mode—violent.
I wonder if this outcome is somehow unavoidable. Even if it is, if
only a few of us can discuss our disagreements sanely, maybe we can
help revive a philosophical ecosystem, at least in patchwork, whose
seeds can blossom and help renew our culture after the dust settles.
Despite
the fame of Moldbug and Land, I think the most interesting
reactionary insights can be found among the Christian Alt-Right. They
represent, at least, a faint possibility of reconciliation on the
basis of shared moral values. I’m going to focus on a group blog,
“The Orthosphere” which has served as the hub for this school of
thinking for several years. (For an overview spanning several blogs,
go
here.)
There
is good here, but also plenty that is bad and ugly.
Good?
In this
article J.M. Smith of the Orthosphere draws parallels between the
modern world and Biblical Babylon, where the Hebrews, like us, faced
the challenge of not becoming corrupted by the “delectable fruits”
of civilization. This single article speaks volumes of the continued
relevance of the Bible. (If you're interested in a Good theistic website, but employing a scientific, evolutionary viewpoint, try Anonymous Conservative.)
Bad?
In Bonald’s
manifesto, the authoritarian beliefs of the movement are honestly
stated in their full absurdity. “For the citizens of a ‘moralized’
society, all the major aspects of existence are colored by ideas of
duty, loyalty, and status. ... Neighbors become countrymen; power
becomes authority ...” This is a very Moldbug-like way of
understanding politics. Power becomes authority.
According to Moldbug, the depraved essence of democracy is a bending
of authority to the spoiled wishes of the people. He concludes that
authority must always be taken as absolute. Power becomes authority?
This is simply another way of stating the formula that Plato’s
Republic was written
to destroy: Might makes right. Such
a formula can accomplish nothing better than
rigidification—ultimately fossilization. The essential question of
politics is not what power can
do but what it should
do. To glorify power itself—whose naked image is Absolute
Monarchy—is the poisonous formula that transforms monarchy,
oligarchy, and democracy alike into tyranny. We should never define
morality as authority or hierarchy or even good government. This is a
materialistic, empty, and dangerous reversal. What we should always
strive to do, rather, is give authority to what is moral, wise, and
good. First, do what is right. Authority will come of its own accord.
Let’s not make of it a new idol.
Ugly?
Many articles in the Orthosphere and elsewhere use rhetoric like
this: “the
future of religious liberty under an administration of vindictive
social justice warriors.” SJW (social justice warrior) is the
label reactionaries like to use to throw discredit on anyone who uses
labels like “racist” to discredit others. It’s nothing more
than tit-for-tat name calling. This, more than anything else, is
causing the split that is dividing the web into mutually-exclusive
domains, each allergic to the other.
This
is the trivial state of the dialogue. I’ve been accused of being
sexist for criticizing Hillary. I’ve been accused of giving the
presidency to “Hitler” for refusing to vote for her, even by
intelligent people who I have a great deal of respect for. At the
same time I’ve been called a “cuck” by equally intelligent
reactionaries when they find out I believe in God and democracy.
Atheists on the both the left and right have told me I’m holding on
to dead ideas.
The
truth is, these ideas are nowhere near dead. Nearly a third of the
global population is Christian, and this percentage is projected to
remain steady for the next four decades. And most Christians are of
the most traditional sort, Catholic.
Catholic
theology is an interesting system of philosophies to read about, and
I find it healthier than much else I can find in conservative
literature. Catholicism has a way of respecting and absorbing
everything from classical Pagan philosophy to the findings of modern
science. The most frequent objections I hear to taking Catholicism
seriously are not very serious. (1) “It has perverted priests.”
But no man-made institution lacks crooked members, even in
leadership. Humans are fallible. This is another case of guilt by
association. (2) “It’s about fear and guilt.” But this is a
good thing. People need fear and guilt as much as they need hope and
love. One should be
afraid of sinning. One should feel
bad when one does wrong. This is called learning. One should also
hope to do the right thing, and have faith that right action will
have the best outcome. As long as we are fallible mortals we need
these emotions to guide us. Absolute freedom from guilt is freedom to
harm yourself, your children, and your neighbor. The word “sin,”
before it was ridiculed by modern atheists, simply meant “error.”
Is no error to be avoided, then? A fitting formula for producing the
modern age.
The
Alt-Right, it seems, has absolutely nothing good to say about
democracy—it is the ruin of civilization. But some of the best
defenses of democracy come from Catholic thinkers. G.K. Chesterton, a
Catholic writer who published books through World War I and the rise
of Nazism, believed that democracy was—while flawed—a better
application of Jesus’ teachings of compassion than either Fascism
or Communism. He was a
vocal opponent of both eugenics—the breeding of a better
race—and Aryan Nationalism—the championing of a master race.
Influenced by Chesterton was Tolkien, who issued a formal protest
when Germany demanded his genealogical records before he could
publish the Hobbit there.
Chesterton, Tolkien, and Lewis, the great conservative Christian
philosophers of the 20th
century, all opposed extreme reactionary thinking and defended—Lewis
and Tolkien in the trenches, all three in word—the right of
democracy against authoritarianism.
The
ideal of democracy has influenced almost every government and
national leader in the world. It is a living
ideal, if imperfect. Its previous rivals, Communism and Fascism,
squashed and sterilized their respective philosophical ecosystems—a
poisonous, incestuous, and ultimately fatal strategy. Free speech is
a healthy symbiont that allows for the most reasonable and vital
ideas to thrive. For as much ridicule as the Alt-Right pours on
political correctness, the Alt-Right’s ultimate goal is a new,
sterilized form of PC, entirely under the control of the state.
Molbug demands a new University, what he calls the “Antiversity”
devoted to “pure truth.” It’s the word “pure” that’s
dangerous here—a term for sterile.
What
is healthy about political correctness is that it opposes stereotype.
But as it is used today, it often abuses stereotype,
as sometimes with the terms “racism” and “sexism.” Such terms
have lost their original, correct meaning: one who withholds
opportunities from others or abuses others on the basis of race or
sex. Mere unconscious bias for or against shouldn’t count—then
we’d be talking “thought crime.” Nor is discrimination simply
any comment that could possibility lead to bias—then we destroy
free speech. Used in these ways, we end up with such a broad
definition of discrimination that all conservatism becomes classed as
racist. Consider the reaction to the Hispanic woman who told the news
camera that she supported Trump’s plan to build a wall between the
U.S. and Mexico. Conservatives immediately applauded her because they
felt that now they could express this idea without being accused of
racism. Liberals, nevertheless, were appalled and reflexively
scrambled for terms like “self-discrimination” or
“indoctrination” to explain the anomaly. In this way the notion
of discrimination is stretched so thin—so stereotyped—that most
conservatives have trouble taking it seriously any more.
“Conservative” and “discriminatory” become synonymous. And
this is bad. We need these notions to be different. We need a notion
of conservatism that means tradition, respect for the past, and
respect for values. This is what conservatism is for. But we also
need to be able to criticize people for discrimination, racism, and
sexism. In other words, we need political
correctness. And we need this to be distinct from liberalism, which
is not simply “the stifling of free speech” as reactionaries
would have it, but the right to bring new points of view into the
discussion, especially minority points of view. If we begin
suppressing all liberalism we suppress, along with it, most of the
stories and insights coming from non-whites and non-males. In
allowing these stories to be heard and acted on, however, we should
not at the same time exclude white males from all discussions of race
and sex. It doesn’t matter that white males tend to be richer and
more powerful. So do Jews, and even more so. Neither should be
excluded from having their say.
Dialogue
absolutely must be possible, or the foundation of freedom that our
country was built upon will be destroyed. When that is lost, all is
lost. Violence will be the result.
I
propose we start using the term over-generalization. It’s
politically neutral. When a liberal says or implies that
conservatives are automatically bigots, it’s over-generalization.
When a reactionary says or implies that the left is a bunch of social
justice fanatics, it’s over-generalization. Over-generalization is
bad, whether it comes from the left or the right. And this is why I
will hear what you have to say, whether you’re Hispanic, Jewish,
female, Alt-Right, atheist, liberal, or black. And I will try not to
criticize you based on generalized stereotypes of any of these
groups. And if I make a bad joke or a Freudian slip that reveals
bias, I trust you will laugh it off, maybe call me out, and move on.
I trust that you will not demonize me and never listen to me or my
kind again. Because such demonization is the road to war.
The
term “cuckservative” should be banned. Also, the terms “fascist,”
“nazi,” and “racist” should never be used except to describe
those tiny minorities to which they strictly apply. Guilt by
association must stop.
If
you are unthinking toward your opponents, they will be equally
unthinking and vicious toward you. If you are generous to them, you
will have a better chance of being heard out yourself.