The Very Best of Last Week in Reaction (2016/05/08)

And doun his hand he launcheth to the clifte

In hope for to fynde there a yifte.

And whan this sike man felte this frere

Aboute his tuwel grope there and heere,

Amydde his hand he leet the frere a fart;

Last week’s review is finally up over at Social Matter. A lot of good stuff. A lot of awards given out and they went as follows. Everyone get your politeclap.gif out…

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Honorable Mentions:

James A. Donald: (related pair) “The Summoner’s tale” and Formalism. The former is rant with various well-worn prescriptions for social order against the backdrop of Chaucer’s Summoners Tale, in which the Friar, the Summoner, and the Pardoner compete for status. By the end it becomes apparent what Jim is really reaching for is Menciian Formalism: things should be called what they are, so that expectations are clear, which he articulates concisely, with examples, in the sequel.

Dividualist: Getting Status Right. A superb bit of neoreactionary social theory. He looks at both kinds of status and how modernist ideology eats away at them.

Social Pathologist: Human Nature and Political Society. Also a great contribution to NRx social theory: it is inefficient, i.e., “expensive”, to try to impose social rules that do not intuitively fit the vast majority of people in a society. It makes everyone miserable, costs a lot of money, and ultimately weakens societies vis-a-vis better adjusted competitors.

Froude Society: O, She was, the Mother of All Battles. Nice bit of research and analysis on the relatively recent history of the Middle East.

Sarah Perry: Dares, Costly Signals, and Psychopaths. A whole lot here. Mrs. Perry introduces theories about dares and their usefulness in social life. If a person refuses steadfastly to take dares, or completes them too coldly and easily, you may have a psychopath on your hands.

Mark Citadel: London Has Fallen. Timely observations about the election the Muslim Sadiq Khan, not a particularly liberal one at that, for mayor of London, and what it portends.

Evolutionist X: Helplessness and Power. A really fine meditation on how the program to make everyone equal amounts to suppression or abrogation of human agency and ultimately makes almost everyone miserable.

P. T. Carlo: David Brooks: Pundit of the Last Men. A fantastic exposé on Brooks and the danger he presents to authentic conservatism.

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… And the Winner Is:

Mark Christensen: The Reactionary Ethos And The Forging Of Elites: A Response To Ross Douthat. Douthat’s recent articles about Reaction romanticize the aesthetic sense of various reactionaries whilst eschewing certain reactionary views about the world that have become unfashionable (and unutterable in polite society). Christensen shows that the aesthetic Douthat so wistfully respects is inextricably bound up with, and indeed proceeds from, the essence of reactionary realism. He says a lot, and he says it perfectly.