The Very Best of Last Week in Reaction (2017/04/23)

Policeman with drawn revolvers keep protesters at bay from the administration building at San Francisco State on December 5, 1968. Photo: UPI

Last week’s TWiR is finally up at Social Matter. It was a quiet week, but jam packed with high quality articles. The following made The Committee’s list for awards…

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Honorable Mentions:

Spandrell: The Economics of Democracy have Stopped Working. Unfortunately, Trump’s ability to drain the swamp seems severely constrained. Fortunately, this proves Moldbug (and Spandrell and Neoreaction) right. Let’s analyze a fairly clear-headed video about political power, which still contains some cognitive biases in need of unbiasing.

Neocolonial: Deconflation: Bullying. There are two kinds of “bullying”: informal group policing (salutary) and actual bullying (psychotic). The left attempts to conflate both types into the latter. Neocolonial deconflates.

James A. Donald: Violence, repression, and freedom. A typical Jimian broad sweeping ramble touching many key points of Neoreactionary philosophy on the necessity of an official (and not insane) state religion to crowd out unofficial (and insane) ones, and the essential power game of calling our warriors “heroes” or “baby-killers”.

Ryan Landry: Geographic Apartheid In California Exists To Entrench The One-Party State. Steep gradients in housing costs have replaced color lines to protect wealthy liberal whites from accusations of racism as well as the consequences of their own actions. But whites (and browns) out in the “provinces” aren’t quite so lucky.

Quincy T. Latham: Minor Note on Gramsci. A major note on Gramsci for those who, like Latham up til just a few months ago, never thought he’d be worth reading.

J. M. Smith: A Barefoot Boy on Earth Day, 1970. A beautiful and superbly constructed personal reflection on growing up and learning stuff about the world.

Cecil Landsdowne: Why Exemptions only for the Religious? At Sydney Trads Landsdowne offers crisp reasoning about why pitting the “rights” of gays to “marry” against the rights of religious conscience to avoid blessing (or baking cakes for) such unions is an error in principle and in fact plays right into the hands of the progressive zeitgeist.

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The Silver Circle:

Michael Perilloux: The Strategy Of A Thousand Statesmen. The only solution to US Government dysfunction is replacement. The only way to do that is to have a better alternative to current USG. Perilloux estimates that a coalition of 1000 (give or take) highly talented, truly reactionary statesmen is what we’d need to plausibly replace current USG: A practical application of “become worthy”.

Quincy T. Latham: You Can’t Get There From Here. Latham delves into the creation of a new political order: how to build, and what to build upon, and the advantages of how formal vs. informal power.

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… And the Winner Is:

Lawrence Glarus: (4-part series) The Real History Of The San Francisco State University Student Strikes From 1968-1969 Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. A 22,000 word, heavily referenced, documentary deep dive into the real history of the San Francisco State College (now University) student strike, which according the history books was totally awesome because of the creation of the Ethnic Studies Department (Studdeez). The Antiversity—social sciences done right—now knows better.