This Week in Reaction (2015/02/06)

Fecundity Week here in the ol’ Reactosphere… First, the question of females in the workforce vs. the baby-making force serves as the Parlor Elephant in Watson’s excellent post on the PRC. Nick Land throws some Cold Water on the traditional sex roles meme, suggesting, if I’m reading him aright, our precious low time preference, natalist values may well perish with us.

To this, Hurlock responds, Bonk! Land is totally wrong. Athelron make a rare appearance at More Right to suggest not only do we not need women in the workforce, we probably don’t even need very many men. Alrenous commentates on the dispute with some of his inimitable, strangely compelling, cracked pottery. In all this, I somehow missed where Jim (or anyone else) suggested the actual chaining of women to actual stoves.

Spandrell ties the fertility discussion up capably with Babies for whom? Tribalists have lots of babies. There are good reasons for states to have been beating down tribes for the last several thousand years. Those who manage to create artificial tribes are the ones that have the most babies. That explanation fits… like hand not in glove (If-ya-know-what-I-mean… ;-)).

Speaking of Jim, he notes (with a colorful personal illustration) that, “Yes, Roissy is Correct”. Also, Society is a racial construct. It certainly is that. And also, for the sake of completeness, an economic, religious, and memetic construct.

Jim also has a swift swat on on the ass for Emma Sulkowicz—the latest Rape Fantasist to have her narrative house of cards blown over.

1 in 4 women are raped on campus. Coincidentally, all the stories you hear about are hoaxes.

—
Bryce Laliberte (@AnarchoPapist) February 04, 2015

Did I say it was Fecundity Week? Yes, well it was also Book Week: Michael Anissimov published A Critique of Democracy: A Guide for Neoreactionaries. Available at Lulu. Also available now on Kindle. Reviews thus far have been generally positive. Michael gives away Chapter 1 for free here, an excerpt from Chapter 2 here, and blurbs chapter by chapter here.

Two weeks ago, we took note of #NRx putting on its pants. Bryce Laliberte spots it this week putting on its cowboy boots. Also from Bryce (the unterrorist): The Petty Materialism of Public Education.

Free Northerner makes some sense of the controversy surrounding the Puritans and the Frankfurt School.

[I]nstead of ultracalvinists, hyperprotestants, non-theistic Christians, etc., I propose we start using the terms post-Christians or post-Puritans. This illustrates progressivsm their cladistic lineage while also avoiding the objections that progressivism isn’t Christian in essence.

I think that’s not wrong. But it doesn’t get it quite right either, in my opinion. So here’s my problem: The cultural war between progressives and anti-modernists of various stripes is a war over the essence of Christianity. It is, at its core, an intramural dispute. (Parenthetically, this is why I see Islam as a mostly orthogonal issue.) “Christian” means something, but it also means many things. It could simply mean “baptized” and that wouldn’t be wrong. Certainly a majority of progressives are baptized. So where do anti-modernists get off calling them “not true Christians”? “Christian” could also mean “immersed in a culture influenced heavily by Christianity”. As this describes the entire Western world, that describes progressives too. So then the proposed solution—qua Progressivism is no true Christianity ergo “post-Christian”—seems formally to beg the question.

Of course, I believe Progressivism to be inauthentic Christianity. Just as I believe it be a direct memetic descendant of another inauthentic, but wildly successful (perhaps wildly successful because inauthentic), form of Christianity: Puritanism. What makes it inauthentic, I am convinced, is not this or that piece of modernist pie from the ever-changing smorgasbord of left-liberal memes, but the very structure of low church (i.e., leveling, leftist) Christianity itself. The critique, therefore, I level against (ostensibly “post-Christian”) Progressive Christianity is not the false doctrines themselves (tho’ of course they are abhorrent) but a key false doctrine, yet recognized as authentically Christian by many culturally conservative Christians, regarding Church governance which led to all the rest. In other words, the “post-Christian” present in Progressive Christianity is the branch all Protestant Christians, to some extent, are sitting on. All non-Catholic versions of Christianity (and not a few Catholic versions) are heretical therefore inauthentic. They yet remain properly Christian in proportion to their resemblance to Catholicism. So on what principle can I draw that line between “Christian” (not too heretical) and “Post-Christian” (too heretical)?

Speaking of Catholicism, Neovictorian from his cushy tower over at The Mitrailleuse avers Opus Dei Could School the Neoreaction. He gets very much very right:

The tip of the NRx spear realizes that its real mission, at this point, is to recruit elites as supporters (or at least, sympathizers. Opus calls them “collaborators”). The Neoreaction doesn’t seek political power within the current liberal democratic nation-state systems of the West, nor is it a mass movement, nor is it interested in “members” who aren’t very intelligent. Like Opus Dei, NRx has a certain exclusivity that keeps it lean and focused, and at the same time seems to make even intelligent opposition lose objectivity.

Opus and the NRx bring out something primal in “Progressives,” because they’re impervious: men without shame or fear or guilt, at least of the kind that Progs use as a rhetorical hammer to threaten and bludgeon their opposition. “Conservatives” can’t stand for long against charges of racism or sexism or ableism or whate’er, because they’re liberals. Nothing enrages the Progs like a person who refuses to be intellectually cowed by charges of “hate.” A powerful, organized group of such people is their deepest secret fear.

One kind of cishetwhitemale impervious to prog magik spells is the archetypal Low-G Klansman. Neoreactionary is the other kind.

This Week in Social Matter

Welp. Let’s see what wuzzap over Thee Flagship Publication of Neoreaction, shall we?

House Slav, Mark Yuray, kicks off the week with The Clash of Civilizations in 2015: The West, Russia and Islam. It is as eloquent as it is fantastic:

The once-imagined “Third Way” of Mitteleuropa was mortally wounded by the Boot of Progress in 1918, and put out of its misery in 1945. Western “Progress” and Eastern “Progress” stared each other down until the East buckled under the weight of its Marxist delusions in 1991. The West, triumphant, sounded its own death knell with talk of the “end of history.” History, the cheeky little scrub that he is, came back as quickly as he disappeared upon hearing victory bells. Now the civilization of the West is contending with an Orthodox jihad and an Islamic one, neither of which it is adequately prepared to face, since it can’t even admit it has any opponents left to face. The Islamic civilization, held at bay for more than 300 years, is invited into a West deeply doped up with an ersatz eschatology. The Orthodox civilization, now a quarter-century after the ignominious death of its own ersatz eschatology, is flexing new muscle. The problem with progressivism is that reality doesn’t progress—only narratives do.

Antidem joined SB and me for the latest Ascending the Tower podcast: Modernity is Virtual Reality. And that was only part 1. So stay tuned for even moar awesomeness.

Henry Dampier goes all Jonathan Swiftian over the ass of White Devils.

Reed Perry talks about Gender Studies With Dr. Frankenstein—another lesson in how bad things get screwed up when you divorce body from soul.

The absence of a John J. Glanton’s regularly scheduled SM post this week does not go unnoticed. I am assured he was ill and taking some much deserved R&R.

Kirill Kaminec debuts with Islamobolshevism: Arise, Ye Wretched Of The Earth. This got some snickers from the usual suspects, but I think the analysis is basically right. Modernity has degraded Mahometan Civilization as much as has Christendom. That Islamo-populism does not very well resemble the Western Progressive (Left-Liberal) State is neither surprising nor any cause, I think, for joy.

Ash Milton advises us Don’t Get Too Bearish On America. After highlighting the well-known reasons for America’s inevitable decline, Milton looks for strong support-levels on its price. I tend to agree with the analysis. I still haven’t gotten my check for being a citizen of the “World’s Only Superpower”; and I doubt the Swiss feel gypped for by not being a member of that club.

Linda Lusardi (Page 3 Girl from the 1970s)

And wrapping up Debut Week at Social Matter, Nicholas J. Pell (!!) also makes takes a bow on Friday with The Page 3 Kerfluffle. Or is that kerkuffle? (I’ve heard it both ways.) I suppose, from the 35,000 feet view of the Complete Pornographization of Society (brought to you by The Frankfurt School® an independently owned and operated subsidiary of Puritan™ Inc.), it seems, indeed, that a couple of well-formed and presented boobs is barely noticeable. But I’d hardly call the practice any sort of virtue either. At any rate, Pell is certainly right in that the Page Three Girl has attracted an almost perfect storm of execrable opponents.

This Week in Dampier

Henry Dampier was unusually quiet this week, clocking in at less than one post per day. The volume was down, but the quality unaltered. Let us see what he had to say…

Monday brings a thoughtful sort of meta piece on the Negative Pose. This didn’t get the circulation it deserved. Just as disorder proves to be far easier than order, taking the negative position is a lot easier to stake out than the positive one:

A group unified by shared criticism is rarely on good footing to actually construct anything. Critics are like bandits in that they always need to be on the offensive. The second that they create something that needs to be defended, they stop being bandits. Most groups don’t make that transition successfully to stationary banditry, because managing the complexity is too hard, and it requires a different sort of mentality than the purely negative one.

It’s fun to throw Chimp Poop™, and perfectly undestandable. But when flinging Chimp Poop™ becomes all you’re about? Well… find another hobby.

On Tuesday, M. Dampier asks Are Men ‘Commitment Phobic’? Short answer: not exactly:

There is nothing to fear about getting into a commitment when entering into a modern marriage, at least from the woman’s perspective, because she is not really making any commitments. In most situations, she can just seize the marital assets after cooking up some story or another about the evils of her bum husband with the help of lawyers and psychologists and all the other modern authorities.

Henry visits again the artificially inflated status women enjoy in the current legal climate. For all the good it does ’em.

Thursday has a book review of Paul Kersey’s Whitey On the Moon. It provokes Henry to pen some astute analysis of his own:

wherever there are institutions charged with accomplishing difficult goals, with stringent entrance requirements, disparate impact always appears, because the gifts of nature are unevenly distributed.

As Silicon Valley falls to diversity concerns, we should expect a similar fate for those companies as we have seen with NASA. Politically speaking, the Valley-ites are too weak and submissive to survive. If the men with the ‘right stuff’ could barely hold off the onslaught in the early 1960s, the technology dwarves of today have no hope of doing so today, especially considering that doctrinaire leftism that has won over the industry.

Yeah. Good luck, SpaceX. Don’t ya know that color-blinded devotion to excellence be rayciss-n-all? That reminds me of the good old days and The Old Negro Space Program:

Finally, Henry says, Censorship? Bring it On!!—suggesting at least 6 good reasons that it’s a good sign.

This Week in Son of Brock Landers

SoBL starts off the week by predicting (correctly) the winner of Superbowl XLIX, as well as the dismality of the half-time entertainment. Didja know they’re not gonna call the next one “Superbowl L”, but “Superbowl 50”? This is a blow to afficionados (and educators) of Roman Numerals everywhere.

Next up: a massive historical piece on How Progressives Swallowed the Democrats. This was as a consolation prize for the of Republicans, who can now say, “See? The Democrat Party are the real racists!!”

In case you were wondering, There was no Golden Age of Presidential Primaries. Democratization knows no bounds and the selection processes within parties are no exception. As the narrative grows more shrill, expect more and more states to line up concurrent primaries to increase their share of implied importance. This works pretty much like legalized gaming, except the returns diminish far more quickly.

SoBL contributes a humorous plot outline to To Kill a Mockingbird: The Sequel in which its heroes manage to keep up with these a-changin’ times.

He takes note of the relatively low sexual market value of professional athletes here: “Movie stars > TV Stars > Music Stars > Athletes”. Not that that does any of us mere mortals much good.

Finally, SoBL closes out the week with a new app for denizens of the US State Department looking to increase their status: Revolvr.

This Week Elsewhere

Butch put up three good posts this week. First one on the CPUSA/Jewish roots of Strange Fruit and Annie Lennox insufficiently hysterical justification for including the song on her last album. Next a meta² think piece on #NRx and Ethnonationalism (and much more), which I think gets a lot right. I left a few quibbles in the comments over there. And finally Facebook and Twitter Psy-Ops (And Why You Should Not Be Overly Vexed By This):

No matter what form of government you have, it will always be in the interest of those in power to program the minds of the others in the group to get a functional society and to build group cohesion. There is no need for moral judgement of this behavior. Santa requires you to be asleep when he brings toys: don’t judge Mommy and Daddy for telling you that, just be happy you got toys. If you are getting all judgy about that, you might be a Puritan.

Butch makes a good point here: Unfettered free thought and expression—principled Libertarianism—lead to bad outcomes. This is why governments never really allow it. Tho’ one may rightly point out the vile hypocrisy of those who pretend to. Everyone’s gonna get programmed with memes. Therefore, choose your propagandists carefully. Not all memes comport equally well with reality. The Orwellian aspect to modern Prog Mind/Meme Control is not so much in the fact that they’re doing it, but in the fact that what they’d have us believe and affirm is so distant from ordinary everyday human experience.

I present Peppermint’s Permanent Page of Moldbug Quotes. Good ones. Alas, not many fit into tweets.

Hurlock put up a Straw Poll for Neoreactionary Myers-Briggs personality types. So get over there and vote for your favorite Neo-Zodiac Sign. Ballot-box stuffing recommended.

Mitchell has made it to Portugal (of all places). He’s also got up a bunch of other stuff, including full coverage of Ukraine, I haven’t had time to review. (Terribly sorry…)

Legionnaire’s Friday Night Fragments—”Bringin’ da pain!” edition.

Oh my. Look at the time! Sorry I missed a buncha stuff… Til next week: Keep on Reactin’! TRP… Over and out!!