This Week in Reaction (2015/02/13)

Sarah Perry Awareness Week this week…

Mrs. Perry asks What is Ritual? I’m sorry, maybe I’m too easily impressed, but I cannot exaggerate how good—how important—this piece is. She looks at human ritual from the perspective of evolutionary biology. Ritual is sacrifice. At the very least, time is involved. The more costly the sacrifice, the more trustworthy the devotion. Secondly, sacrifice induces mental states relevant socially, i.e., that benefit the group. I cannot summarize the piece adequately. Ritual is all merely signaling. But that signaling may be more fundamental to the psychology of human interaction than language itself. Nothing in human culture is mere.

What is the opposite of ritual? Defecation[.]

No greater indictment upon modernity’s hyper-rationalization could scarcely be uttered in so few words. My alarm bells are going off throughout the piece. As a protestant I learned the mental habits of demystifying Christianity: Bread and wine are mere symbols of Christ’s body and blood; the church, a mere gathering of believers. The effort of modernity to demystify the universe has been largely successful. And in the process, it has stolen much of what it means to be human. RTWT. Twice.

Sarah contributes a related short piece Why Ritual? And I missed this Quartz piece from back in July (HT Bryce). Chimps throw poop. Sarah Perry throws exquisitely crafted, delicious red pills into mainstream brains. Hey guys, throw less poops, pls.

Did I mention Sarah Perry has a book out Every Cradle Is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide? Buy it.

Let’s see… what else this week?

Oh… Mark Yuray makes a contribution to the Teleology (Bitchez!) Neoreactionary Seminar by asking What is Order? Very good work. Also excellent comments section.

Butch Leghorn says Neoreaction is not so much a school as it an entire culture. I think that’s all well and good, but I wouldn’t say it is a natural culture in which one ought, or even could live. More like a workplace culture that has certain things to accomplish day-to-day, and one of those things is to help contend for your own natural culture.

Then, in Fixing America (which is the thing we’re not interested in), Butch likens Neoreaction to not so much a culture as a conservator or curator of culture. I like this picture much better. The accidents of Western Civilization (like certain ideas and states and institutions) are of less concern, but the essence of Western Civilization is the thing that must be conserved.

My beautiful Waifu

Antidem talks about why he talks about anime. Or rather why he doesn’t not talk about it. It’s also a reason that some of us like to talk about sports or entertainment. And bitching and moaning about the likes of others is not very masculine. Nor, in fact, is it very reactionary.

Hurlock opens the door of his new wordpress digs with an extensive review of Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. He really lets Burke do a lot of the talking. Excellent work. Also some early notes on Kingship and Law.

Nick Land says Trust Webs are going to be the way governance gets done in the Internet Epoch. I suppose he’s right, at least for certain values of “governance” and certain values of “Epoch”. Also from Land, Kill the Chicken—Guardian excerpts and select thoughts on the Greek “Far Left” Syriza party’s game of chicken with the Eurozone. Especially loved this tidbit:

Because if it’s bad and dangerous for Syriza to succeed inside the euro, it would be disastrous for it to succeed outside the euro.

Sausage being made-n-all that… One does wonder, however, in these days of universal leftist hegemony, what does “Far Left” even mean anymore? 50% more unicorns?? This too from Land, Darwin always to your right. Maybe. But I’m leery of substituting models for reality. Reality doesn’t care about your models. I think it would be an equivalently “just-so” story to say, “Reality is always to your right.” I’m all about dat… Confession of Ignorance.

Bryce Laliberte pens a short, readable piece Against Social Policy—or Macroeconomic Widgets as the case may be:

We are overly focused on what can be quantified, to the point that our study of society is constrained by a methodological quantificationism: if it can’t be measured with the usual tools of statistical analysis, it must be unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Initially these tools were developed merely to help measure the world around us, but then the causality was reversed and sold as snake oil to democratic entrepreneurs. GDP is most useful as a measure when society is not being reorganized to boost GDP. The same goes for every tool in the economist’s and sociologist’s backpocket.

Neoreaction is clearly many things, depending upon your vantage point, but a reclamation of the social sciences is one of them.

Scharlach has some fun with Gnonic theologizing. I really doubt we’ll make it to 2114 for full Greco-Brasil-ification, but I think his basic point still stands: There’s always gonna be someone trying to pull up the ladder.

Alrenous offers some notes on Weapon Cryto-lock Design.

Michael Anissimov says there’s No Such Thing as Too Much Rationality. Maybe not. But there probably is such a thing as too much maximization of expected utility.

GK Chesterton with cigarette

In We Call It Tradition, Ash Milton has neoreaction sit down to a heart-to-heart talk with GK Chesterton. Yes, culture is a collective human construction. Yes, it is theoretically possible for collective action to remake any culture. It is also theoretically possible for a jar full of dropped quarters to all land on edge. Collective human constructions, like culture, change the constructions of humans. What is an everyday occurrence at the level of the individual human soul, say a commitment to a reformed life, may be practically impossible to achieve collectively by mere human effort. Systems that depend on God to reform people collectively, e.g., progressivism, are inherently fragile systems. Who knows? We might get lucky. But in the meantime we should aim to build systems that work for what people are, and not so much what they should be. Also on Ash’s home blog: Excerpts from the Latter Day Pamphlets: No II (part 1 here). (Dang, reading that Carlyle, one could be forgiven for thinking the paragraph break was a 20th century invention.)

This Week in Social Matter

Part 2 of SB’s and my conversation with Antidem in Ascending the Tower: Episode II is up.

Mark Yuray makes a great amount of fun of the rather wild proposition of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin: Autist. Well, maybe he’s just a really, really, really high functioning one. Being anti-American—in the conservative “we-don’t-need-no-stinking-liberal-values” sense—is now apparently sufficient proof of mental illness or instability. Pay no attention to that nerd with the clipboard.

Henry Dampier tells us Why Big Families Are An Advantage. It’s like having a social trust printing press in your basement. A rather expensive printing press, but still…

Reed Perry paints The Dismal Ecology of Immigration. The constant browbeating by the Anglophone media notwithstanding, America’s environmental track record is actually quite good. Especially compared to the sort of people with whom Americans (of the real American variety) are rapidly being replaced.

It’s good to see John Glanton back in his Thursday slot with Straight Shots and the Prayer Breakfast. Glanton’s aim, as usual, is quite true:

The most obvious joke of this scene, of course, is that you have the President of the United States of America lecturing listeners on what is and is not morally acceptable to kill over, even though for the past few decades we seem to have been bombing foreigners at the drop of a hat. The joke is that Obama himself is the undisputed champion of the drone strike, a true heavyweight. And that he has racked up quite the non-combatant bodycount in his Middle East misadventures, his Nobel Peace Prize notwithstanding. There’s also, hell, the fact that we murder approximately one million of our own unborn per annum in this country, and people like Obama look on that practice approvingly, framing it as a victory for womankind. So here he is, strolling back from the altars of Moloch, drenched to the elbows in the blood of the innocent, just chomping at the bit to morally edify you with his theory on the righteous kill.

And finally on Friday, Ash Milton talks about The Enthedening of Media Spin in the wake of the murder of of 3 Muslim students in North Carolina earlier this week.

This Week in Dampier

Last Saturday, Henry Dampier expounds upon The Striver Marriage or marriage as a signal that one has “arrived” instead of its more traditional role as a first step on the way to getting “there”.

On Sunday, Henry brings us American Empire On the Brink? He talks about the incoherence and insufficient deference of foreign allies that belie an end to American global hegemony sooner rather than later. I think it cannot come too soon, as Americans seem to suffer more from the pattern of extend and pretend far more than we benefit from USG’s supposed status.

In Jargon of the Spergs, Henry talks about how the use of big words is no substitute for actual erudition:

Since the only criteria for appearing thoughtful is to use the stylish jargon, you wind up with a lot of parrot-humans with colorful feathers that are good at repeating the terms taught them by their trainers, but not good at producing useful thought. These writers exist to repeat the consensus of their superiors, but are incapable of helping their superiors to make better decisions, because all their focus is on repeating the magic language which justifies one political policy or another.

Exosemantic gang signs serve a purpose, and always have, but understanding and communicating how things really work isn’t one of them.

Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, 1994

Next up, The Progressive Labor Theology, which being implemented, serves merely to assuage Brahmin consciences by shunting insufficiently enlightened labor practices to places out of sight, out of mind.

If you’re going to sign up for Audible, then do it through Henry’s link so he can get five bucks. The dude is book chomping machine, by the way.

Dampier takes look at Novorussian Propaganda vs. American Propaganda.

In Thursday’s book review, Henry talks about Jack Donovan’s The Way of Men. And Jack himself stops by to say hey and thank Henry in the combox.

And for Financial Friday (haven’t checked whether that’s actually a thing on his blog or not), Henry speculates on What Fuels Speculation. Basically, speculation is where they hide the inflation. (cf. macroeconomic metrics which are more thermostat than thermometer)

And this, just squeezing under the stone door, links to some videos of Roger Scruton on Beauty and Consolation.

This Week Son of Brock Landers

SoBL thinks Moar Quantitative Easing is coming in Groundwork for New QE. The global race to the bottom, featuring everyone except Switzerland, has not been going well for the US Federal Reserve. Nick Land takes note here.

Next, he does some hypothesizing on Gulen’s US Residence. Like an alcoholic, USG is learning to function better even with BACs that would floor lesser dipsomaniacs:

The USG might be insane, but they have learned over the years from some failures on how to better cover their tracks when installing puppets. Hell, they have refined the Bay of Pigs “Air Cover + native ground crews trained by the US and allies” to run much better operations in North Africa and the Middle East. That is not societal progress but more a sign of technological progress. There is mystery to Gulen’s American residence, but if we think cynical enough, it makes sense. The USG runs a Godfather racket, not a true Empire, so we all have to imagine the talks and threats as such, “Nice leadership role you have there Erdogan, be a shame if we had to replace you. Oh who would we send? Why… our man Gulen.”

In Who Won the Divorce? SoBL reminds us that to keep an accurate tally, you’ve got to keep watching for years afterward.

Finally, Football is THE Men’s Game:

Football allows every man to compete. Fast guys, strong guys, smart guys, agile guys all have a job. A fat friend who doesn’t run well can still be a lineman and knock you down. A fast skinny friend afraid of contact can still play wide receiver or defensive back. Strong guys who are just a step slower than your fast friends can still play a variety of positions. Skinny or fat, short or tall, it does not matter. You can always put a game together with as few as 4 guys, and the more the merrier.

Reggie White, at prayer with a Viking

I know many reactionaries are rightly concerned with <insert hated social trend> affecting professional sports, and they’re not entirely wrong. But I think the knee-jerk, burn it all down response to which some are tempted isn’t the right approach either. Sports, qua ritualized martial conflict, is an important part of our Western heritage. There’s a reason money pours into them, and it’s not all just luxury box posing. Yes, the Cathedral has gotten its hooks into pro sports as well. But that’s no reason to give up on them. Let Neoreaction contend for the true soul of sports, just as it contends, where it can, for every other aspect of civilization. Football is the civilized men’s game. (But I like baseball an awful lot too.)

This Week Elsewhere

Jim on Greece. Jim on Ukraine.

In #SRx news, Skyagusta has a helpful piece up: Southern Reaction: A Primer:

Throughout the West, Rightism is experiencing a renaissance of sorts as increasing numbers of people of all walks of life grow tired of excessive Progressivism and comprehend its ultimately destructive social tendencies. Neoreaction is one such product of the wider disenchantment; but what of the Southerners of an intellectual or philosophical bent who long for a return to the traditional Southern way of life? Southern Reaction should be the proper place for them, a group which could theoretically maximize their intellectual talents. Natural aristocracies are composed of those types of people, and we’ll most certainly need them if our struggle is to bear lasting fruit.

I hope Skyagusta is not offended by my thinking of #SRx as the Southern Branch of #NRx.

Bruce Charlton has a pretty compelling theory regarding genius in How—and Why—Genius is Group Selected: Massive Cultural Amplification. If true, however, the news would be mostly bad:

In summary, genius is an unstable product of nations.

A nation with conditions that produce many geniuses may find itself undermined both by the success of its good geniuses (because such is the amplification effect on genius, that useful innovations are difficult to keep secret, and tend to spread from the originating group to that group’s enemies); and by its bad geniuses.

Genius may, for a while, lead to more genius – by group selection. But sooner or later, the massive amplification effect of genius is likely to destabilize and destroy the system that engendered it; or else the fitness-reducing effect of genius alleles will tend towards genetic extinction.

Speaking of genius, Mitchell Laurel has some apposite remarks on Delusion And The Hunger For Power (Portuguese edition here).

Intelligence and analytic ability are extremely useful tools but they are contingent on objective input knowledge in the first place. When the nature of all impressions are distorted by the lens of destructive passion there can be no transition of objective impressions to the intellectual faculties. Everything instead takes a tint according to the shade of the lens that should not be there. In practice such people can be even more delusional, for their hidden natures utilize subtler means to conceal themselves. Their personality appears cohesive and they hide it well, but the self-delusion common to man nevertheless permeates their whole being. A most frightening prospect.

Also this week as always, Mitchell is all over the Ukrainian Novorussian US-Russian staredown like a cheap suit. (That’s the good kind of “cheap suit” by the way.)

Over at Isegoria, I found this very interesting. Apparently students in honor’s classes value being seen to want free SAT prep more than they value the prep itself; and kids in non-honor’s classes have it precisely the other way around. It is not clear whether this tells us more about “peer pressure” or the accuracy of racial stereotypes.

Bonald asks What was the real story of the last hundred years?

Also from Bonald over at The Orthosphere: What is Science? (Cross-posted at his place.) It’s a reflection from teaching an astronomy survey course for non-science majors, and it is really excellent:

I do hope to stimulate in [these non-science majors], at least a bit, a “scientific sense” of noticing contingent patterns in the world. Simply noticing a regularity about the world, not taking it for granted but asking why it should be as it is, is a great achievement. Sometimes the implications of an everyday fact are profound, an example being how we now regard the fact that the sky is dark at night as evidence that the universe is not static and infinitely old. It’s exhilarating to think that other great clues about the cosmos might still be staring us in the face, waiting for us to notice. Even if one just shrugs and says “I’m sure there’s some explanation for that”, this sort of noticing is a distinct way of appreciating the world, complimentary to the aesthetic sense fostered by a regular humanities class.

What wonders indeed! Every layer of magic explained, it seems, reveals two more hitherto unguessed at.

Speaking of s-s-science, Kristor’s The Proper Terminus of Any Science is a weighty but worthwhile read over at The Orthosphere.

Speaking of The Orthosphere Dr. Bill commentates there on the rather surprising case of John McAdams. Surprising because, if Marquette (In the Jesuit Tradition) University can fire McAdams in this weak a case, any university can fire anyone for any reason whatsoever. Now tenure is a pretty stupid method of protecting a pretty stupid ideal, viz., “academic freedom”. The utility of this parable lies only in showing the vile hypocrisy of left as it now rapidly strips the altars of all with which it clothed itself during its ascent to power. We’ll know better next time than to treat leftists like principled, well-intentioned brokers, right?

Legionnaire has some fun with neoreactionary MBTI-types. As long as it’s fun and not faux insight, I’m okay with that. Also, he tells his own tale of educational poor fit in How to survive the Public School Archipelago.

Mark Citadel pens The Utopian Scientists in which he expresses more than a little aggravation with transhumanist “science”. I’ve said my bit about that but never well and in one place, but suffice it to say I consider transhumanist to be a category error. Also, by way of Mark, The Exoteric & Esoteric Paths of Gornahoor.

Speaking of Turkish politics, Oriental Neoreactionary (yes, that’s a thing apparently) brings us Fingers and the Sharia. Interesting. I don’t know quite what to make of it.

Free Northerner dumps a giant dose of reactionary sex-realism from Chesterton on Men and Women.

Ted Colt has some apposite remarks the State of Men. Good ones. He doesn’t like “passivism” though. I don’t like the thing he doesn’t like either. But I don’t think that’s what Phalanx means by the word “passivism”.

Welp… apparently all you have to do to “get” a “thread” on /duck is wonder about it publicly:

((TFW there's no /duck/ threads abt me...)) http://t.co/IqyOoLk2Uw

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Nick Bismuth Steves (@Nick_B_Steves) February 11, 2015

And within minutes it shall appear. All in all, the “Soapjackals” were pretty nice to me… Too nice… which makes one wonder still… hmmm… what are they not telling me? …

Well, that’s all I have time for and this is totally late. Happy Valentines Day! Be like St. Valentine and be a holy martyr for Christ!! Keep on Reactin’! Til next week… TRP, over and out!