Philosophy Mencius Moldbug and Neo-Reaction: A Gentle Introduction

[The Name of Love]

Below, I've linked to a blog post written by Dave Donovan aka The Distributist, a Catholic with NRx sympathies. I highly recommend you check out this twelve-part essay, as well as his organization here.

So, to summarize this essay: Dave introduces the ideas of one Curtis Yavin, aka Mencius Moldbug, the infamous NRx blogger. Moldbug's ideas are very unique and deserve a lot more academic attention than I see they're getting.

To summarize: Moldbug believes that most societies (barring totalitarian ones like North Korea) live under something he calls "the Cathedral," a reigning consensus among societal elites: intellectuals, journalists and other information disseminators, NGO members, corporate boardrooms, and politicians. This is not a malign conspiracy, but a healthy and natural way of organizing society. The problem is that our current Cathedral is actively malign and in many ways irrational. It is out of touch with what is true, good, and beautiful, and as a result, it's leading our civilization towards collapse. This civilizational entropy too is a natural part of the life cycles of human societies. Our current decay is being masked by technological and scientific progress, by the consumeristic culture, and by constant propaganda about "progress" perpetrated by both the Left and the Right. The solution to the problem is to create an alternative cathedral, a right-wing counter-culture, through peaceful means that will allow us to seamlessly replace the current Cathedral when it goes belly-up.

For the full picture, here's the link.

 

[ShieldWife]

I remember him from a few years back when the “Dark Enlightenment” became a thing and then faded into obscurity. Kind of a cool name for a far right movement, it made us seem like Sith Lords (or Ladies) or Death Eaters. It’s a more badass name than the Alt-Right, if a bit LARPy.

A lot of Yarvin’s ideas are appealing to me and most of the ones that I don't agree with are still interesting and worthy of consideration. A few seem a bit wacky, but that always seems to be the case with people who think outside of the box.

I’m reading the articles that you linked and maybe later I can give more detailed reply regarding certain claims or polices Yarvin advocates.

 

[Deleted member]

To quote from @Mia Koro 's post elsewhere in this forum:

I very much enjoyed that write-up on Neoreaction (and the refuting FAQs). I think we share with many Neoreactionaries the broad spirit of Julius Evola's assertion that: "My principles are only those that before the French Revolution every well-born person considered healthy and normal." As Punch Card Girl noted, however, many soi-disant Neoreactionaries don't actually appear to take that commitment very seriously (M. Moldbug's bizarrely discordant dreams of a quasi-libertarian corporate state being a perfect example; I can think of nothing more emblematic of the Enlightenment revolutionary tendencies of the bourgeois nouveaux riches). In general, it seems to me that we are less political than Neoreactionaries, for one thing. They seem to spend an awful lot of time talking about reform of the state and, while this is necessary, we are primarily a religious rather than a political movement, guided by Our Lady's teaching: "Change that within you and the world without will change. But seek to change the world, and all of essence will remain the same" (Teachings 2:24). In this respect, while admitting sympathies with some aspects of the Neoreaction, I tend to see myself as closer to Catholic Integralists on this account, simply because they also tend to understand political reform as primarily derivative of spiritual and religious renewal (which is not to say that there aren't real and important effects in the other direction also). Coming back to the question of "things being perfect on their own level" that I mentioned before, I would say that there is, in general, a greater appreciation in Filianic circles than in most Neoreactionary content I have seen that solutions for the present time will of necessity be adapted and appear distinct from those of the past. We recognize a set of basic, timeless principles that we believe can be discerned in all the great civilizations of history, but the challenge is seen less as imitating their forms and more as discovering living forms that can capture at present the same spirit. In that respect, I would say that we have a greater sympathy with, say, (very limited and specific aspects of) Italian Futurism and other similar movements than anyone in the Neoreaction would be likely to admit to. The previously discussed "Art Neo" is an example of this. One could imitate medieval art, but it would be inauthentic. To the extent that Art Deco can reveal the spiritual principles of material forms in a manner spiritually akin to, but aesthetically distinct from, medieval art, it provides an opportunity to rediscover the timeless forms through a style appropriate to an age of machines.

Having mentioned Futurism, however, it is important to note the great gulf between us and the Neoreaction, Futurism, Integralism and any similar movement in that we do not regard the primacy of a male-dominated sphere of "public affairs" in social prestige as being Traditional, but rather view it as a Guenonian "inversion" of Tradition (possibly the oldest and best-established inversion, but a deviation from the natural, divinely ordered state of human affairs nonetheless). The results of this are far-reaching and go well beyond simply viewing God as feminine or according a primacy to women in royal succession. This is linked with a belief that the domestic sphere is, in fact, primary and that the public sphere should be subsidiary to it, that the household (and not the individual) is the basic unit of society, that cottage industry and freehold farming are both of importance as spiritual disciplines and as backbones of the economic and political stability and self-sufficiency of the society, etc. "House church" isn't just a necessary mode of organization for us as a small, geographically-scattered group, but a reflection of very deep principles that see association of the archetypal role of mother with both divine and human authority as the original and natural corollary of the idea of the state as an extended form of the household found (in patriarchalized versions) in Greek, Chinese, and other classical thought.

I would deeply adore an effort to answer that, though I can only wish, and won't presume to request.

 

[The Name of Love]

I would deeply adore an effort to answer that, though I can only wish, and won't presume to request.

I don’t really think that Dave Donovan would disagree with anything Mia wrote about the family being the unit of society. That’s something that Catholicism teaches too. This is why Dave doesn’t focus on Moldbug’s Neocameralism and instead focuses on Moldbug’s strategy of passive resistance, giving it a Benedict Option spin. We are to build up reactionary communities that cannot be easily destroyed by the Cathedral, so that when civilization does collapse, we will be ready to step in. Dave is, in many ways, represents a Christianization of Moldbug.

I highly recommend you read his gentle introduction that I linked to, or at least read the last part.

 

[ShieldWife]

I would agree with one fundamental idea - what Yarvin calls the Cathedral basically does exist and it is ruthlessly controlled by the far left. They took the long march through the institutions and closed and locked the door behind them.

I also believe that they are so militantly intolerant and protective of that power that they aren’t going to let anyone moderate or right leaning into the echelons of power unless said person’s job is to undermine right leaning movements.

So the only way to fight this top down leftism is from the bottom up in a purely grass roots way. Right wing women need to have big families, they need to home school their children, they need to keep their kids away from TV sets and eventually, if at all possible, universities. That is the only chance conservatism has in the Western world.

 

[ShieldWife]

Alright, I’ve read Dave Donovan’s 12 part essay and I agree with almost all of it. It’s a bit of an oversimplification, but then again any brief description of large scale phenomena generally has to be.

I think instead of describing left wing degeneration as a breakdown of rules, I would describe it as a triumph of parasites over contributors. Because for a society to function, it’s participants have to work not only for their own benefit but must contribute to society as well. The natural social entropy is for people who make minimal contributions to society, or who in fact are yet drains on society, to overtake those who contribute. As the essay describes, this is going to be a natural tendency like entropy, because contributors use a high percentage of their effort and energies for the benefit of society and have less ability to fight for their own interests, while the takers have no such disadvantage and can even receive the resources of the contributors to use in advocating for their interests.

I’m not sure if I agree with Yarvin’s plan to fix things. Then again, Donovan sees that as Yarvin’s weak point too. That is often the case when people make accurate criticisms of large scale societal problems. They can identify the problem but have trouble with a solution.

 

[Deleted member]

Almost inevitably, large scale social dysfunction is solved only by a crisis making reform possible. History shows this uncounted times. In short, civilisation in the west needs a very major crisis to make change possible. I really think only global warming realistically provides this, as a stressor which threatens to collapse the standard of living.

 

[The Name of Love]

Almost inevitably, large scale social dysfunction is solved only by a crisis making reform possible. History shows this uncounted times. In short, civilisation in the west needs a very major crisis to make change possible. I really think only global warming realistically provides this, as a stressor which threatens to collapse the standard of living.

Too bad global warming is a hoax designed to get us so fearful that we give our money to rent-seeking, hypocritical elites.

 

[Deleted member]

Too bad global warming is a hoax designed to get us so fearful that we give our money to rent-seeking, hypocritical elites.

I disagree with this quite strongly. I see, from a position of access to the necessary data, irrefutable proof of a warming process, but I also see it essentially as a mechanism by which natural creation brings about the end of inverted bongo civilisation through a natural process. The specific proofs should be discussed elsewhere. The critique however disputes with the Greens the idea that technology is at fault. Technology is simply technology. What is at fault is the immorality of technological civilisation, which makes the use of technology in ways that destroy the moral order of our relationship with creation inevitable, and therefore our destruction (as a civilisation) by consequence of the constraints of creation also inevitable.

 

[ShieldWife]

I neither accept nor reject the hypothesis of manmade global warming, though it does seem to me that both the Democrats and moderate Republicans who claim to believe in impending catastrophic global warming govern in a way which is contrary to this belief. I don't think that even if global warming and is that it will have catastrophic effects on Western civilization directly. The West is too rich and is already in the cooler parts of the world. We wont have Water World or Venus. Parts of the Third World, Africa especially, may suffer. I have noticed that recently the phrase "global warming" has been replaced with "climate change" which is weaselly beyond belief - it basically allows any weather phenomenon it be used as evidence.

The more likely calamity that I think is fast approaching is a demographic one, as First World nations are being flooded by hostile immigrants who are not assimilating and are largely incompatible with Western Civilization. Once they reach a critical mass, the Western host nations will essentially cease to be. Is that a catastrophe that can set things right? Is it a catastrophe that can even be recovered from? I don't know the answer to either of those questions.

 

[The Name of Love]

I disagree with this quite strongly. I see, from a position of access to the necessary data, irrefutable proof of a warming process, but I also see it essentially as a mechanism by which natural creation brings about the end of inverted bongo civilisation through a natural process. The specific proofs should be discussed elsewhere. The critique however disputes with the Greens the idea that technology is at fault. Technology is simply technology. What is at fault is the immorality of technological civilisation, which makes the use of technology in ways that destroy the moral order of our relationship with creation inevitable, and therefore our destruction (as a civilisation) by consequence of the constraints of creation also inevitable.

Here's the thing.

Is the Earth warming? Yes.

Is it going to cause an apocalyptic catastrophe? No.

If there's not going to be an apocalyptic catastrophe, then there's no point in fear-mongering about the average temperature of the Earth going up a small fraction of a degree within the next one hundred years.

 

[Sol Zagato]

Too bad global warming is a hoax designed to get us so fearful that we give our money to rent-seeking, hypocritical elites.

I neither accept nor reject the hypothesis of manmade global warming, though it does seem to me that both the Democrats and moderate Republicans who claim to believe in impending catastrophic global warming govern in a way which is contrary to this belief. I don't think that even if global warming and is that it will have catastrophic effects on Western civilization directly. The West is too rich and is already in the cooler parts of the world. We wont have Water World or Venus. Parts of the Third World, Africa especially, may suffer. I have noticed that recently the phrase "global warming" has been replaced with "climate change" which is weaselly beyond belief - it basically allows any weather phenomenon it be used as evidence.

The more likely calamity that I think is fast approaching is a demographic one, as First World nations are being flooded by hostile immigrants who are not assimilating and are largely incompatible with Western Civilization. Once they reach a critical mass, the Western host nations will essentially cease to be. Is that a catastrophe that can set things right? Is it a catastrophe that can even be recovered from? I don't know the answer to either of those questions.

I would put it like this.

Climate scientists are definitely lying their asses off (Ref. Mann, and all the other incidents I've read about). And even when they're not doing that, they're chucking out modeling papers; generally speaking, modeling papers are some of the most unreliable scientific papers we get. They're also chasing grants. You don't get grants for showing nothing significant is going on. Specifically in their area, you don't get grants for contradicting the anthropogenic global warming paradigm. There's a lot of under-reported motivated reasoning in Science today, and they've got more than their fair share.

But.

Just because they're lying and jazzing things up, and downplaying past climate change. Just because they're backed by transparent political agendas (which I honestly believe was originally just "Fuck OPEC"). Just because we know the historic CO2 levels lagged rather than lead climate change. Just because none of their previous models have been accurate. Just because they changed "Global Warming" to Climate Change", so almost no matter what happens they can claim to be right. Just because they were also lying about the Ozone hole and CFCs.

Just because these things are happening, doesn't mean they're wrong. I think there's a very good chance institutionally corrupt, problem-plagued climate science could be onto something that we need to take into account.


edit: aaand this is continuing a derail and I should just crosspost it in the Environment thread.

 

[Deleted member]

Here's the thing.

Is the Earth warming? Yes.

Is it going to cause an apocalyptic catastrophe? No.

If there's not going to be an apocalyptic catastrophe, then there's no point in fear-mongering about the average temperature of the Earth going up a small fraction of a degree within the next one hundred years.

It doesn't need to be apocalyptic (and it won't be) to cause the collapse of modern internationalist civilisation.

 

[Scottty]

The whole "climate change" scam is not really what Yavin/Moldbug's thesis is about though.

 

[Deleted member]

I can see the bronze age collapse coming down the pike through this confluence of events; I know they don’t look at it that way, but Herbertean deep ecology is basically part of my philosophy. Environmental factors provide reinforcement to social factors and vice-versa. This is an inevitable consequence of human life.

Sometime next week I will start a thread devoted to that and we can talk about it there. I am still on business travel and can’t go into the subject at length.