A Long-ago Week in Reaction

[Ed. This was supposed to be published in January, but it has a pretty picture in it, so I thought it would be worthwhile to publish anyway.]

Jim is absolutely superb in an expansive theory of power, demotism, and lies. My take on it is that when reactionaries complain of “demotism”, what we’re really complaining about—what really unites the category of “demotic” states—is not so much the “power” the people have, which in all cases is small, but the lengths those in power will go to to preserve the lies about the nature of their government.

The North Korean regime is based on lies, since it claims its right to rule comes from the will of the people. Therefore, the North Korean regime needs an elaborate apparatus of thought control.

The US regime is based on lies, since it claims its right to rule comes from the will of the people. Therefore, the US regime needs an elaborate apparatus of thought control, and, as the US goes ever further left, that apparatus becomes ever more oppressive.

The Dubai regime is based on an obvious truth: that Dubai is a monarchy, and that his Highness Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is the rightful monarch.

KFB has gotten us up through the month of October in completed his 2013 Anti-Progress Report.

Isegoria quotes Chesterton at length in commentary on how the Catholic Church is often thought to be the enemy of new ideas. More often than not, it turns out, most ideas are not terribly new and, of the truly new ones, the Church has been the friend of more than She gets credit for. He adds:

I’m reminded of Anomaly UK’s point that the brightest minds of half the world spent about a thousand years thinking from a Catholic perspective and Walter Miller’s example, in A Canticle for Leibowitz, of the post-apocalyptic Catholic church as a source of great practical wisdom, with established methods for steering flawed human beings toward productive behaviors—not unlike the Overcoming Bias and Less Wrong crowds, but more experienced.

Bryce posts part 4 of his Comprehensive Introduction to Cathedralsim. One does wonder at what point “comprehensive” begins to militate against “introduction”, but no worries, it’s a great series however no matter haw many parts the “introduction” takes. See also Bryce’s deliberately opaque thoughts on what 2014 may bring. Funding is a problem. Sounds like its time to set up a Foundation. I think we should name it something very high sounding and not at all connotative of Reaction’s radical intentions.

The Adventures of David Brin: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Lzlloolooozllzzzollz!

Son of Brock Landers has a plethora of perspicacious posts up this week: thoughts on gold, voice, and exit; how if Zero Hedge actually were an asset of Vladimir Putin it really couldn’t serve his (presumed) interests any better; a link-heavy overview of Geopolitics, wherein his skepticism of China’s actual openness to having its own Jewish minority nearly equals mine. The Chinese are pretty serious about doing in Africa what Western empires gave up on. Lacking white racial guilt, they just may. Also some musings on belly dancing and would-be belly dancers. I too am a fan of the art, and concur that it is best when the belly is least. Don’t miss Barak Obama–Mythical Hero-God:

President Obama is a wonderful media created myth. As a man, he is relatively boring. As a political figure in the hands of the US media for low information dum-dums, he is a mythical figure of amazing abilities with outrageous feats of strength.

Who needs revisionist history when we have revisionist 24-hour news?