Happy New Year everyone. I trust your vacation days all expired and you’re back at work now where you can waste time reading my blog.
Well… results are in for Best Thing SoBL Read in 2014. And the award goes to… Bjørn Vosskriger for his epoch-making Social Matter essay Gentrification as Total War or “Triumph of the Williamsburg”. Excluded from consideration of course, were SoBL’s own best of 2014 (which may or may not taint Bjørn’s victory).
Let’s see…
Isegoria takes a look at his 2014 stats. That 6 of his 10 most viewed posts come from earlier years are a sign that he is near the top of some search results (I mean besides “Isegoria”). He deserves it. BTW, Isegoria apparently has been reading David Grossman’s On Killing and has excerpted a lot very thought-provoking stuff, e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. You might just wanna get the book.
NIO is really doing some fantastic, and too little sung, work. This week he started by delivering a great bit of neoreactionary synthesis in The Mafia, Endo-Imperialism, Endo-Colonialism And The Secular State. And then on Tuesday, he penned some perspicacious thoughts on religion and its role in healthy (and not-so-healthy) societies. Go read NIO. (Drat. Don’t know why he doesn’t have a Follow Button. It’s a wordpress blog fer heavens’ sakes.)
Mark Yuray catches Buzzfeed in the act of protesting too much and smacks them around for it. We reactionaries complain joke around a lot being completely mischaracterized by our enemies. But I’d say being misunderstood works to our advantage, on net. Generally speaking, we don’t misunderstand them. Also, here’s Yuray taking stock of 2014.
Well… As promised Bryce delivered: Religion, Coteleology, and the Gnonnic Eschaton, Part 1. For those keeping score, that is two (2) never before used words in the title alone. The essay serves as a start of an answer to both Nyan’s paganist protestations and NIO’s musings on Teleological Rationalism.
Speaking of rationalism, Nydwracu has some brief but profound thoughts on the runaway variety and how to escape it.
To be pwned is to be aligned with an institutional intelligence whose interests run opposite to yours—and where could this alignment come from but speech?
A sort of speech he likens brilliantly to Stump Oration. Generally speaking people act in interests of themselves and their identity group. Socially and psychologically healthy religion accepts such facts—these bits of natural revelation—and weaves them with divinely revealed truths to make a stronger whole. If some Stump Orator convinces you to adopt a long term strategy against self and group interests (i.e., maladaptive), you’ve probably been pwned.
Speaking of Bryce, he pointed out this PBS Newshour piece over at Land’s. It seems the idiosyncratic professor, Arthur Demarest, may be doing a little bit more noticing than is widely considered polite:
These strengths, and our civilization in general, have reached an apogee with the end of the apocalyptic threats of the Cold War and the end—or at least waning—of less successful, and ultimately less “just,” political and economic systems. At the turn of the 21st century we appear to be entering our greatest century, a golden age. The challenge that we face is similar to that of the Classic Maya civilization: we have set in motion a “runaway train” of success.
And…
However, this strength [i.e., “hyper-coherent” internationalism] is, again, one of the most common symptoms of impending collapse. Perturbations, even small ones, immediately radiate throughout the entire system. Today there are few, if any, refuges against international crises of any kind. Thus, our brilliant communication, information, and transport systems, which will be remembered as the hallmark of our age, are also a point of great fragility.
Jim’s got another diagram of The Trichotomy, which spawned a particularly entertaining set of comments (even for Jim). Also Sockpuppet Rapist which is a deeper look into the a female psyche than most are prepared to take.
This Week in Social Matter
In what I hope will be an increasingly regular occurrence, Mark Yuray contributes his second Social Matter essay: Thy Name is Social Alienation. Yes, individual decisions are to blame for all the ills of modernity. And yet… we keep making them, whereas people 50 or 100 years ago tended not to.
Henry Dampier’s regular Tuesday column on Facebook and the Destruction of Private Life. As usual, it is very perspicacious:
The key value of privacy, which tends to be lost amid all the technological babble about the concept, is that it makes social cooperation more feasible among people who disagree, share different tastes, or fundamental points of view.
The irony of this is that some of the people who are most in favor of destroying privacy are also the most in favor of encouraging ethnic and religious diversity, at least on the face of their rhetoric. These two goals bump into one another as countervailing forces.
Permitting the people to hold up a screen over their private life is what also makes it possible for them to cooperate effectively with people in the public sphere. To be studiously ignorant about the private beliefs and peccadillos of co-workers and others makes it possible to avoid more conflicts with them.
And, the zinger:
With more people living without a family life, they go to the public square to get their needs for social validation met. This doesn’t work so well, because strangers have no skin in the life of the atomized individual that only exists as an image on their screens.
(I just love that word “peccadillo”. My New Years’ Resolution shall be to use the word more often… in addition “to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid the things that lead me to sin”.)
Mr. Bennett reflects upon Social Matter’s 2014.
And from earlier today, Ash Milton delivers another absolute gem of a post: Political Antifragility: China and the West. He notes, “totalitarianism is a sign of increased fragility.” And Milton goes on to point out that “totalitarianism” is not quite the antonym to “democracy” that we were led to believe:
States which begin as liberal, democratic ones end up being captured by special interests as much as any other system. Its system of rights makes it exceptionally ripe for entryist strategies employed by private and ideological agents. Policy is not passed on the basis of true information, but on what the populace believes to be true information. Rent seeking increases as parts of the population can vote themselves some portion of wealth. The saving grace of liberal democracy is that rights to free speech still exist to a far enough extent that we may be able to overcome these structural weaknesses. For now, anyway.
Just a fantastic essay from Milton. RTWT.
This Week in Dampier
Henry Dampier’s Europeans: Over-Domesticated to Boost Tax Revenue is yet further meditation on what he’s dubbed “Millennial Grass Eaters”. This time, the view is through the Darwinian lens.
His message to Paul Graham, breathless signaler of non-xenophobia and acute sufferer of post hoc ergo propter hoc, is You Can Open a Satellite Office. Henry also suggests a format for eugenics toward which Catholic should have no principled objections:
So, the real solution is to encourage artificial selection for intelligence, which would mean discouraging the most intelligent women away from the work force and towards the nursery. After all, from one woman, you can only ever extract one life-time of white collar work, but if you put her to having children, you can get her to produce the equivalent of multiple life-times of productive work through the miracle of reproduction.
“Artificial selection for intelligence” would seem to be tantamount to selective courtship, but it sounds so much more sciency! I hope the term catches on.
Dampier offers an informative and entertaining review of an informative and entertaining book: Aaron Clarey’s Behind the Housing Crash.
That Coup York State of Mind takes a look at the propaganda war between two (at least) entrenched NYC interests: the NYPD who keep the city remarkably broken window-free and get very cushy retirements for it, and the left-liberal elites who are required to care deeply in public about the disparate impacts this style of policing creates.
On Tuesday, Henry shares some wisdom toward building more perfect and more permanent Neoreactive Web Resources.
In Oil Producers Caught in the Business Cycle casts some light on more unintended consequences of Dove Monetary Policy. I think they call this “malinvestment”.
A Big Ta-ta to 2014 and a not exactly carved in stone road map for young 2015.
Finally, from earlier today, several pounds of advice toward Better Reading Habits for Reactionaries. I confess I am a slow and easily distracted reader, neither of which have been improved by daily connection to the internet.
Elsewhere…
Welp. It’s official. The Indiegogo campaign ExposeCorruption.org failed to meet its (in retrospect too high) goal of $25k in 30 days. Much was learned in the process. Not least the serendipitous discovery of the indomitable Chuck C. Johnson‘s GotNews site, which appears to have its artillery trained on positions throughout the Cathedral. Pax vows to fight on. So say we all.
More great stuff from Watson this week… Social Signaling: Insanity and Controversy in which the cognitive reward circuitry of the Typical Brahmin Journalist is put under a microscope. How do the media keep being so wrong about facts that don’t fit The Narrative™?
Narrative über alles becomes the signal of divine status. That one can properly contort your arguments utilizing progressive memetics to prop up the narrative shows that you are a true believer. A true believer believes the narrative even in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. While some might rightfully point out that the narrative falls apart when the media picks examples which obviously run counter to the narrative in reality, this holy dissonance serves as a ratchet to tighten the edges of the Overton Window. Either one can accept reality as it is and be demonized by the Cathedral as unenlightened, or one can begin to adopt a mystic view of America.
Watson’s The Beast of Baylor Boulevard was a defiant bit of anti-modernist poetry. I especially fell in love with the line:
For in your blood and soil, you’ll find your exit within.
Neovictorian shows up again with an explanation of The Original Mitrailleuse and pertinent lessons from the Franco-Prussian War. I’m embarrassed to admit that I had not inquired into the origins of the term “mitrailleuse”, but I’m happy to have now learned it.
Filed under “Hopeful News”, Scharlach seems to be posting a bit more lately. This week he delivers Volver, or Christianity and the Degenerative Ratchet—in which he takes a not altogether sanguine view of the possibility to restore Christianity to its prior place. It depends, I suppose on what you mean by “Christianity”, what you mean by “restore”, and what you mean by “prior place”. A cleansing fire is, in the accounting of most who experience it, a catastrophe. It is nevertheless a perfectly natural and healthy thing.
I watched Fight Club for the first time on New Year’s Eve2. I tweeted about it a bit on Wednesday. But the tweet that summed it up well from my perspective was:
Speaking of Fight Club, Reactionary (née Objectivist) Tree has up some Thoughts on MGTOW. He comments on Milo’s Sexodus which almost made it to (relatively mainstreamish) Breitbart. I think Mr. Tree strikes the right balance here. We do not advocate men going their own way. It is as suicidal for society as all other modernist solutions. But we must understand the impulse to it and the perverse incentive structures that make it so widespread. We need better men. We need better incentive structures. We need both.
I liked this one from Bonald on the Atheist 10 Commandments a lot. It is quite interesting, and I think quite prescriptive, to note how far the 100% Authentic, Original (Accept No Substitutes), Un-messed Around-with 10 Commandments did not go in creating a philosophical or ethical system. Also, some more rules on efficient causality.
Bonald is a constant source of strength and comfort for Catholics living with our present set of less than perfectly stalwart Bishops. His makes a quick poke at Pope Francis Mau-Mauing his own Flak-catchers. Democracies tend to elect politicians, and even limiting the franchise to Cardinal Electors is not wholly immune from this effect. And also, lest we let cynicism carry us away, with reliance upon Bl. Cardinal Newman, a meditation on Faith in the Church.
Scott Alexander continues to push the limits in extreme cognitive dissonance as he scours the screeching, vile, vomitous mass that is feminism for precious jewels of wisdom and civility that he is convinced must somehow be there.
Filed under News-to-me: In Defense of Flogging—the news being a respectable, liberal journal can publish thoughts like this. Moskos also wrote an entire book on the subject.(HTs MPC.txt and Magus.)
Well that’s about all I got time fer, dear friends. This year, eat less junk food for the body and for the soul. And if I happen to fall into that latter category, then by all means please get some wholesome food for your soul and stop paying attention to me. Keep on reactin’! Til next week… this is TRP over and out!
It’s going to be a very interesting year, indeed!
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