The Very Best of Last Week in Reaction (2016/03/06)

Lacey Von Erich illustrates the chokeslam on Sarita (2009)

Last week’s This Week in Reaction is up over at Social Matter. There were many good articles. Too many, in fact, to even include on this list. Those considered “official” award-winning were as follows:

Honorable Mentions:

Reactionary Future: The Iron Law of Rebellious Tools. RF sets down in one place and articulately this key formulation that has been developing in neoreactionary political theory for many years: viz., “that successful rebellion is always, without exception, a mere tool of someone already in a position of power”.

Mark Citadel: Trust Fund Debauchery. Closely related, quite by accident, to RF’s “Iron Law” article, Citadel produces a case study on Edward T. Hall III— bourgeois bohemian by birth, erstwhile common man spokes-sympathizer by choice—and adds a superb bit of historical and contextual analysis.

James A. Donald: Trump and social class. A Secret Service agent’s “choke-slam” of a press photographer at a Trump rally provides a teachable moment for Jim to reiterate Neoreaction’s current working view of caste relations within the liberal West, and also entertain us, both at the same time.

Porter: Eyes Opening in the Dark. A psychological short story based on a real-life tragedy of the unintended consequences variety.

Evolutionist X: Adoption as Genetic Strategy? Americans, Indians, and the Mongols (part 1), part 2, and part 3. (That’s 3 of at least 5 parts.) A series exploring just about everything about the practice of adoption. Could it be a genetic strategy? If not, why the heck is it so common and widespread?

Bonald: Pope Francis and the Western temptation to gnostic suicide. A fisking of Pope Francis’ expectedly incoherent musings on the ethnic crises of the West coupled with excellent commentary on how Western minds have become so muddled about the matter.

Malcolm Pollack: The Marshmallow Test. A compact and supremely poignant essay on the phenomenon of rising time preferences and how that plays out (quite badly) society-wide.

The Top Spot:

Mark Christensen: The State Reborn: Abandoning A Liberal Mythology. Liberalism seems anything but these days. How did advocacy for individual freedom morph into this totalitarian monster that we know liberalism as today? Christensen traces the roots of that transformation, drinking deeply at the brook of (literally fascist) fascism along the way.