Lee Kuan Yew died this week. Athelron has a sincere RIP. Nick Land chooses the word Greatness. Spandrell says a fond and clear-eyed Goodbye. Jim says, “Harry Lee was the greatest statesman of our age, but…” Only time will tell. Daniel Robinson has eulogy of sorts for LKY over at Social Matter. (More on that below.)
Also from Jim this week, some commentary regarding the Dire Statistic: Power laws in polygyny. And Racism Schmacism. Also this: explaining an Ever Purer Islam, which lies in stark contrast with the dingier, only so holy versions of it with which the West managed to get along reasonably well for so long. And Jim in his own comments drops an absolute gem:
Religions go off the rails when holiness brings power.
That’s going into the Memicon! Related Isegoria quotes Dalrymple saying:
Just as Trotsky did not believe in socialism in one country, so Qutb did not believe in Islam in one country…
Speaking of power, Donovan Greene has some spine-tingling excerpts in Select Quotes from Edward Bernays’s “Propaganda”. According to Nick Land, Emile Bruneau has taken Bernays’ mantle. Also from Donovan: Friday Frags—Emo-chick-pop-Donate-to-Bryce-Imma-Ex-Hedonist Edition.
Bryce kindly posts an excerpt from the first chapter of his forthcoming book The Origin of Social Order. It really is quite good, shaping up to be quite a #TeleologyBitchez manifesto. Bryce has revamped his Patreon with delicious new incentives. So go over and support the Whole Thing.
On his Backup Blog, Bryce also asks, “Why Aren’t Whites Imprisoned for Black Crime?” Give it time, Bryce. Give it time. Also, “No-Fault” divorce as a modern Monkey Trap for Homo Sapiens—too sapiens by half… apparently.
In view of his late uptick in blog traffic, Wasenlite offers a delightful introduction of himself, and, in so doing, articulates well many of the foundational principles of The Neoreaction. Also Wasenlite takes note of Ace of Spades divorce from the GOP. Here’s a beautiful little send up on “Safe space” discourse which amounts to the warm velvety nose of a camel with an IED strapped around his neck.
And this was just superb: Imperialism Together a tidy little Open Letter-style dialog with the open-minded avowed hater of imperialism, and how Progressivism fails to live up to its labeling. Also, The View from Yuggoth is an entertaining lecture for extra-terrestrials attempting to understand the Earth’s religions.
Nick Land catches Marc Faber in the act of insufficient enthusiasm about democracy. Also round 7,234 of failed American will-power (and brain-power) in the Middle East.
Sister Sarah was busy this week dropping thoughts on… well… thought: Those Few Patterns, Habit-Reinforcing Chemicals , and Sacred Objects. And then this big, semi-autobiographical piece on climbing The Mountain.
Speaking of thoughts about thoughts, Nydwracu jots down some Notes on Art. (Tho’ Wesley could benefit from the super secret wordpress twitter embed mojo: [tweeet XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX hide_thread="true"] ).
Empedocles drops part 3 in his excellent series Why Diversity Destroys Social Capital, in which he motivates the principle of “bridging” social capital between “historical kinds”. (See parts one and two.) This has been one of the best things going on in neoreactionary theory in recent weeks. Also it seems to interlace with the work Laliberte is attempting in The Origin of Social Order. Henry notices this good work as well.
This Week at Social Matter
Bryce Laliberte arrives on Monday with Religions Apart. He discusses the yawning chasm between the respective sets of a priori commitments of left and right, and how that may, even if rarely, be bridged.
On Tuesday, Henry Dampier talks about Shrugging Off the Burden of Common Culture. When no one owns something, the people ravage it:
People, particularly the leadership in the West, have turned away from the idea that they have a duty to uphold their cultural legacy. This frees up an enormous amount of time and effort, which most of them tend to fritter away and luxury and pop culture, most of which references nothing but itself and whatever is trendy at the moment. Many educated people have no connection to the history of their own culture or that of any other, despite the pretensions to a shallow sort of ‘multiculturalism’ which is rarely upheld in fact.
Mitchell Laurel delivers Part Two of his “A New American Foreign Policy” series. Whereas part one was a compelling argument for of America’s inexorable decline from global hegemony, this episode focuses on productive, mutually beneficial, efforts internationally for which America can hopefully utilize her still not inconsiderable power.
John Glanton shows up Thursday with a serif font in his back pocket in A Note on the Manosphere. This is a sphere in which, amid the dross of hedonic get laid quick schemes, Glanton finds some gold. He is particular worth in Jack Donovan’s work:
Perhaps the cleverest part of [Donovan’s] scheme is how he posits masculinity as a sort of technology for survival in the uncertain, dangerous conditions that obtained for much of human history. He talks about the “tactical virtues” of masculinity. This move is profoundly anti-feminist…. He’s arguing that masculine virtues like strength and courage are not just good but necessary, that they’re the means by which human tribes stake and maintain “perimeters” against the chaos beyond…. This is, of course, a more rhetorically effective and a more philosophically coherent rebuttal to the Hannah Rosins of the world than one can manage by whining about unfair feminism is or how it’s gone “too far” these days. It’s a legitimately reactionary stance.
Daniel Robinson finishes up the week with Seeds of England—a deep meditation on Englishness and its affect on Lee Kuan Yew, as well as the entire world.
And this, smoldering hot from the byte forge, Ascending the Tower’s first ever Deleted Scenes Episode. For connoiseurs of urbane and civilized silliness everywhere.
This Week in Henry Dampier
Over the weekend, Henry highlights the must-see BBC documentary Roger Scruton’s “Why Beauty Matters”. He also has some encouraged and encouraging words for Localized Neoreaction with some praise, well-deserved, for Skyagusta and Neocolonial.
On Monday, Henry asks Can The Queer Bubble Be Popped? Therein, he traces how acceptance of, or at least plausible suppression of one’s natural gag reflexes for, increasingly extreme applications of Cultural Marxism, becomes the currency of the elite and therefore power. The fish rots from the head.
Next, M. Dampier tells us Why No One Wants To Be A Patriarch. This is a deep meditation on incentives and how they’ve been turned over multiple centuries against traditional patriarchal relations.
Men lost the right to use legal force against their wives and children in stages. In the early 19th century, laws against wife battery made it into law in the US and the UK. These regulations were further tightened, and have continued to be tightened, up until and including the Violence Against Women Act.
When most modern, educated, well-bred people tend to think of this trend, they tend to feel good about it. It seems entirely reasonable. After all, only low-class people beat their wives and children.
It’s been Massachusetts Über Alles for a very long time.
Next, Henry notes that Soft People Attract Crime.
Outside the position of strength, moaning about your martyrs just advertises that your group is easy pickings.
Thursday brings a book review of Martin van Creveld’s Equality: The Impossible Quest.
Henry closes out the week talking about meritocracy and its perverse effects on the social order. One of the problems of strict meritocracy is that it creates an elite who believe, deep down inside, that they are worthy of it. Coupled with a complementary error of heartfelt belief in neurological uniformity and “level playing fields”, the beneficiary of meritocratic largesse will deem himself worthy purely by the sweat of his own very hard work. This creates a class of elites composed almost entirely of ignorant twats, whose only idea of social worth is for everyone to be like them.
This Week in 28 Sherman
SoBL starts out the week by floating a really, REALLY Big Idea™ with Carving an Exit—A Thede Union. I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around it all yet.
Then, continuing on the them of “Carving an Exit”, SoBL wonders whether notoriously discriminatory NYC co-op Rules might be applied elsewhere. This is so you can “craft your suburb or exurb appropriately to defend your territory.”
On Tuesday, he reviews two decent books about sports for guys who like sports in The Modern World, Boomers and Hockey.
On Wednesday, SoBL points out how the grey (with growing white spots) market of pot distribution is begging for a bank that isn’t allergic to the stuff.
Finally, some hard-hitting investigative journalism on Snorg Tees Girlz.
This Week in A House With No Child
In other news: the real winner of the Iraq War finally stands up. Also, In Case It Wasn’t Obvious: Betrayal of the Minsk Accords and the Ukraine.
On Sunday, Mitchell helpfully highlights 6 Problems with Natsocs among others.
Monday brings some thoughts on The Utility of Asymmetric Armies—asymmetric in the sense that non-state actors present a difficult target to nuke.
Mitchell says The Serbs Have a Tough Choice to Make regarding “membership” in “the West”. He characterizes Serbia as “much like the Russia of 2000, with the bulk of the Elite turned towards Altanticist vassalage, but a sizable minority elite still struggling against the tide.” Also on Tuesday: CSIS (Canadian CIA?) At It Again—the “it” being fellating American elites.
On Wednesday, he says regrettably that Just As Predicted! The Ukraine Is Disintegrating, as it starts to look like the Somalia of Europe.
Here are 5 ways, among many, that America is Hysterical. Mitchell makes remarkable (and remarkably dire) predictions about America’s near future.
Also, turning away briefly from global affairs, Mitchell takes a look at local ones in the struggle between Natural Proprietors and Birds of Passage at the street level.
In another sign of America’s fantastic decline, Everyone and their Dog joined the AIIB—even America. Breaking: Further Proof The New Egypt Has Joined Eurasia.
This Week… Elsewhere
Well… Woo hoo! Greg Allmain returns to Theden to shame and guffaw at The Laughable Hypocrisy of Jamelle Bouie.
Atavisionary goes casual misogynist all over the ass of NYT puff piece on Miss Lewinsky. Also iNotRacist. LOL.
Count Ø-face breaks his vow of silence with a review of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. I had not heard of the author or the novel, but apparently it’s a masterpiece of Soviet-era satire. The Count seems to have liked it a lot, giving it a: Ø Thumbs Up—recommended for reactionary readers.
The Week in Drama® begins with Duck going duck all over the ass of Certified Big Talker Genophilia. The latter turns out to be a girl, which explains just about all one needs to know. And in what for some is the biggest news in… like… ever: /duck/ closes its doors. On his non-drama blog, Dante asks Is HP Lovecraft truly Neoreactionary?
Hail (to You) examines the Ancestry of Hillary Clinton. A lot of Welsh plus lot of Anglish and no DAR blood. 100% Pure Striver.
Nydwracu jots down some notes on Viking marriage customs.
CWNY publishes a gem this week: Hallowed Be Thy Name. A taste:
When you look at all the satanic forces arrayed against white people, samizdat publications such as mine seem more futile than Don Quixote’s legendary tilting at windmills, but I liken such windmill-tilting to prayer: It often seems futile and hopeless, but something inside of us tells us that it is not.
Bonald catches the otherwise good and holy Pope Leo XIII Appeasing the Left with a lesson: Never appease the Left.
It’s always a mistake to think the Church should stand above arguments over whether the civilization she founded should be destroyed or preserved, i.e. that she should avoid being Left or Right. The Church is a Rightist organization, obviously, because preserving the Christian principles of hierarchy and duty is the definition of the Right. The Left never, ever reciprocates gestures of conciliation. When it senses weakness, it strikes. It’s painful to admit it, but this really should have been obvious even in 1891.
Amen! +
In Science Denialist® News, Matt Briggs has co-authored a new paper Climate Consensus and ‘Misinformation’. Consensus is quickly becoming the last refuge of scoundrels and charlatans. Also, I love that word: agnotology. Also from Briggs, a rather encouraging report on the First Ever Men’s Conference of the Archdiocese of New York. And this too: Sustainability: Higher Education’s New Fundamentalism. College presidents are apparently falling over each other to express an altogether monochromatic devotion to Official Science.
Reactionary Tree takes on the laudable (but futile) notion that America’s Founding Fathers Established a Republic Not a Democracy. Yeah, well, that and three dollars can buy you a conversation about racial togetherness at Starbucks. (Well, I guess Uncle Shlomo cancelled that programme due to overwhelming popularity, but you still can get the coffee.)
In a similar vein, Free Northerner shows why The Centre Doesn’t Exist. (Gotta luv that Canuck spellinge.) This is why the “centrist”, aka., the “moderate”, is the absolute worst and most contemptible enemy of political sanity. Also some thoughts on whether an artificial superintelligence would be destined to be King. Aside from the categorical impossibility of artificial superintelligence, I’d be inclined to say, “Of course!”
Neovictorian reblogs Al Fin Russia, Living With a Secret Corpse, Pretends Not to Notice as “a counterwieght for those in the Neoreaction who admire Putin and Russia for not being pussified, decadent and atheistic.”
Isegoria asks Are Psychedelics The Wonder Drug We’ve Been Waiting For? They’ve certainly piqued my interest.
Kakistocracy presses a full court fisking of a British pro-immigration spam-bot.
Mr. Roach notices the gap widening between reality and what may be noticed in polite society in Spontaneous Combustion. Also on America’s habit of Playing Referee.
I mentioned Henry’s mentioning it above, but Tasmanian @ne0colonial has started a blog Neocolonial, in which he mostly takes bullet-pointed notes. But he takes a lot of them and they are pretty good. His notes this week on Sovereignty & Fealty reflect some fairly deep neoreactionary thinking. For example:
Nationalism is to fealty as welfare is to charity; the restraining relationship does not exist.
Also notes on Crafting Heritage and Deriving a Civic Metric.
Welp. That’s all I got time fer. Keep on Reactin’! Till next week… TRP, over and out!
Nick on The Daily Shoah? Whoa!
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