The analysis & comments of both Charles Justice & Peter Smith are clear-eyed & prescient. Both identify the contradictions evident in the pretensions of the political "Right," Fascism being the worse threat to reason & equality. The injunction affirmed by those becoming medical doctors, "First: Do no harm," should be embraced in the world of politics as well as in the world of medicine. Free-wheeling debate is one thing. The willingness to engage in exclusion and doing physical harm crosses the line of civilized debate, and derails possibilities of finding common ground. But few are able to adequately suppress their emotions while debating critical subjects, so as to allow reaching common ground. Which does not have to be complete & absolute; a partial accommodation beats none at all.
The unacknowledged element in this current debate (discussion?) which prevents reaching common ground is the absolutist framework within which the participants approach it. It's one ting to have the courage of one's convictions. It is quite another to reject all other opinions & interpretations point blank, most often a trait of the right than the left. Absolutism is more often wrong than right, no matter how earnestly argued. Nuances exist and can't automatically be declared nonexistent without ending the debate. Absolutism is often the enemy of finding common ground. Rarely is either side 100% correct. Such is life.
This turn of events seems to declare that our nation's original embrace of Jeffersonian Democracy was an error, not to be "corrected" by senselessly embracing a contrary ideology which appears to spell the end for said Democracy in favor of some misled authoritarianism disguised as its opposite. In short, a case of Democracy committing suicide by voluntarily submitting to its illiberal opposite. THAT CANNOT END WELL!
Active and uncompromising intervention by defenders of liberty seems the only way to save what our Forefathers arose in defense of: Democracy, with all voices heard; one person, one vote; adherence to egalitarianism without factional favoritism or supremacy.
The principle that assures all voices should be heard is valid right up to the point where it declares that destructive viewpoints ought to prevail, which would trash everything and pave the way for authoritarianism. The USA does not gain by becoming another Orban-style Tyranny-lite.
Thomas Jefferson would never have allowed it, nor should we. At such times it is vital to remain clear-eyed as to our principles in defense of our founding vision (clouded as it was at the time with embrace of slavery, the opposite of democracy) or, democracy for only the chosen few.
In short, quit the wavering and remain true to the principles that have vouchsafed our benevolent continuity so far. Once democracy is betrayed, chances of righting and restoring it are fraught indeed. Prime example: Germany, under the advent of Adolph Hitler they, and the world, got 7 years of "Sieg Heil" turmoil and wanton death. Intended to gain what? Aryan supremacy? It took the Free World to rescue Germany from itself. Not once, but twice in the same century.
To avoid political catastrophe, it is imperative that all of us embrace the tragic lessons of our recent past and act accordingly so as not to suffer a repeat of the pain, loss and agony endured from 1933 'til 1945, the pre-nuclear era, before our capacity to self-destruct beyond repair was attained. The stakes were high then. They are higher now. Earth is the only planet available to us. Defiling it with nuclear warfare means the death of all of us from radioactive dust and debris in the atmosphere, circling our planet. We call ourselves intelligent creatures. Shall we be intelligent enough to preserve ourselves FROM ourselves?
This is not guaranteed, judging from our past behaviors, including two world wars in one century; the establishment of concentration camps; in vivo, non-voluntary medical/surgical experimentation, etc. Our primitive selves too often overrule our civilized selves, causing gratuitous misery & pain. In the entire animal kingdom, we, humankind, are the only ones guilty of that. Yet WE are the intelligent ones? Contradictory logic.
This is a great summary - my one minor quibble would be whether those red-pilled anarcho bros are really so anarcho. Yarvin and others seem to lust after a strongman, just one that so happens to agree with their own program for society. They want monarchy or enlightened authority - that's what they think will stop the true anarchists, who are (in the garbled vision of the far right) indistinguishable from the liberal types who run "The Cathedral".
> BAP has gone so far as to compare the anti-male and anti-white rhetoric of the new left to the “extermination”-level anti-Tutsi propaganda that the shorter, phenotypically African Hutus in Rwanda deployed before massacring the more European-featured, taller Tutsis (never mind that the extermination of the Tutsis was possible only because they were a reviled minority
And how do they become a reviled minority? In part, by propaganda. It is much easier to treat other people like garbage if you convince yourself they're not quite people, or that none of their concerns are real and serious. Genocides and other patterns of systematic mistreatment start by and are justified by propaganda.
The woke left doesn't merely use rhetoric, they do practice outright open discrimination, too. In the modern West, if there's a "[demographic X] need not apply sign", it always points in one direction, and objections to said treatment are dismissed as invalid. If anyone did the same to any other demographic all hell would break loose.
Against which people is it permissible to say "X people are born into not being human", or if that's too much for our delicate sensibilities, "X people are born human but abused by their parents into [their skin color]"? There is exactly one acceptable target. The second one comes from an education professor's assigned reading, and if said professor assigned reading that described ANY other demographic in those terms, today's math assignment would be figuring out the arc he flies in as he's booted from his job. As is, he's preached that same shit for close to ten years and has a comfy post teaching our new teachers.
Against which demographic is it okay to say "be less [your skin color]?" Which criminals' skin color is emphasized in reporting, whose hidden, if the crime's reported on at all? Nobody bats an eye at "#killallmen", do the reverse and there'll be hell to pay. We have articles decrying that 1/4 of homeless people are women or that 11% of murdered journalists are women. These get published in all seriousness.
"[Skin color] is a condition one first acquires and then one *has*-a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which "[color]" people have a particular susceptibility. The condition is foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one's body, in one's mind, and in one's world. Parasitic [Skin color] renders its hosts' appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples. Once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate."
Yeah, we don't live in an actively racist society, no sir.
What exactly do you mean that nobody bats an eye at things like "killallmen"? Look at social media. Look at traditional media. Clearly statements such as that are hugely controversial and not just on the right. Often though these things are just used as cudgels to beat one side or the other. If the existence of a shocking and abhorrent fringe perspective is enough to push you in the opposite political direction, I can take you places that will guarantee you'll be a card-carrying anarchist in no time. And if you want a different and more nuanced perspective on the problems and rights of men check out Richard Reeves.
This was a great read, but I think it gets the causality wrong. Trump's arrival didn't change anything. I think rather his arrival was the *consequence* of terrible conservative intellectualism as captured by the stool example. The populist crazies of Trump and MAGA were a long time coming.
I.e. "Foreign policy hawks" is not a political position so why would that be a leg of the stool at all? Religious collectivists are on the same side of politics as secular collectivists, like communists. Their disagreements are purely superficial. So why would classic liberal types ally with them? May as well ally with some socialists over other socialists because of this or that technicality. Etc. In short, the conservative movement has been politically illiterate and utterly confused pretty much for decades. I think Trump and MAGA are a consequence of this. Not the cause. Basically, Reagan's three-legged stool was made of different size legs at odd angles and cannot be used for sitting.
Basically, if I was to sum it up: in the 60's conservatives had a clear choice to make: Either side with someone like Rand, advocating reason, individualism and rights-protecting gov OR side with Buckley and religious kooks. Conservatives made their choice and here we are.
Crazed religious and conspiracy crackpots ended the peaceful transition of power and nearly installed Trump as dictator, effectively nearly ending the United States itself.
I think until the conservative movement addressed the fundamental intellectual issues at the root of all this, categorically rejects religion from politics and embraces reason and a proper understanding of political theory, then I think much worse is still to come.
All of these mentioned right-wing collectivist groups and individuals need liberalism because if a time-machine can be innovated as a result of human creativity and progress, they can all travel back to 17th century
Too bad none of them include an "old fashioned" rah rah, can-do, "Prometheanism" in Bank Lindsey's conception. Or could that be a fifth kind? Ant-"Progressive" because Progressivism gets in the way of progress.
Yes. If anything this essay serves as proof of Yarvin’s observation that there is really only the “ruling class” (the Cathedral) and the opposition is “everyone else”. Once you start enumerating “everyone else” you realize that they are legion and each of them have legitimate objections to how power is wielded, yet have little hope of really capturing much power themselves.
Yes. In a way, it's almost a blueprint for Leftist success: knock off the sharpest of each of the four corners. Be a little more normie about celebrating America, while leaving room for social conservatives, be more circumspect about promoting liberal values abroad, avid excessive valorization of the exotic, cosmopolitan over traditional WASPisness.
Great article as usual. This 4 legged chair theory is great. I didn’t know that BAP liked using a Tutsi metaphor for USA. I know tucker Carlson has used the idea of Hutu/Tutsi coming to the USA a theme more than once.
The relationship between integralists and anarcho-bros calls to mind Salazar and Hitler. The former, a devout Catholic, believed the latter was a contemptible pagan - but that he was also preferable to Communism.
My impression is that much of the "new right" in it's glorification of masculinity, hard line Christianity, Donald Trump, and "the triumph of the will, and support of the January 6th insurrection, is inevitably heading for Fascism. Evidence is the deadly increase in mass murders in the U.S., which are inspired by right-wing rhetoric, and the creeping introduction of anti-semitism, white supremacist memes, such as "the great replacement theory", Trump's embrace of fascist militias, the wholesale acceptance of Trump's stolen election lie by the Republican party, and the list goes on. The thing about fascism is that violence, intimidation, and the spreading of conspiracy theories tend to crowd out the liberal order in favour of more violence, civil war and eventually Gotterdammerung. As for any kind of libertarianism, including Hayek, global warming, increasing inequality and the destructive populism that feeds on it, and the great biodiversity crisis have decisively refuted that train of thought. You don't have to be a Marxist to realize that letting capitalists do their thing without regulating them is driving humanity off a cliff.
The analysis & comments of both Charles Justice & Peter Smith are clear-eyed & prescient. Both identify the contradictions evident in the pretensions of the political "Right," Fascism being the worse threat to reason & equality. The injunction affirmed by those becoming medical doctors, "First: Do no harm," should be embraced in the world of politics as well as in the world of medicine. Free-wheeling debate is one thing. The willingness to engage in exclusion and doing physical harm crosses the line of civilized debate, and derails possibilities of finding common ground. But few are able to adequately suppress their emotions while debating critical subjects, so as to allow reaching common ground. Which does not have to be complete & absolute; a partial accommodation beats none at all.
The unacknowledged element in this current debate (discussion?) which prevents reaching common ground is the absolutist framework within which the participants approach it. It's one ting to have the courage of one's convictions. It is quite another to reject all other opinions & interpretations point blank, most often a trait of the right than the left. Absolutism is more often wrong than right, no matter how earnestly argued. Nuances exist and can't automatically be declared nonexistent without ending the debate. Absolutism is often the enemy of finding common ground. Rarely is either side 100% correct. Such is life.
This turn of events seems to declare that our nation's original embrace of Jeffersonian Democracy was an error, not to be "corrected" by senselessly embracing a contrary ideology which appears to spell the end for said Democracy in favor of some misled authoritarianism disguised as its opposite. In short, a case of Democracy committing suicide by voluntarily submitting to its illiberal opposite. THAT CANNOT END WELL!
Active and uncompromising intervention by defenders of liberty seems the only way to save what our Forefathers arose in defense of: Democracy, with all voices heard; one person, one vote; adherence to egalitarianism without factional favoritism or supremacy.
The principle that assures all voices should be heard is valid right up to the point where it declares that destructive viewpoints ought to prevail, which would trash everything and pave the way for authoritarianism. The USA does not gain by becoming another Orban-style Tyranny-lite.
Thomas Jefferson would never have allowed it, nor should we. At such times it is vital to remain clear-eyed as to our principles in defense of our founding vision (clouded as it was at the time with embrace of slavery, the opposite of democracy) or, democracy for only the chosen few.
In short, quit the wavering and remain true to the principles that have vouchsafed our benevolent continuity so far. Once democracy is betrayed, chances of righting and restoring it are fraught indeed. Prime example: Germany, under the advent of Adolph Hitler they, and the world, got 7 years of "Sieg Heil" turmoil and wanton death. Intended to gain what? Aryan supremacy? It took the Free World to rescue Germany from itself. Not once, but twice in the same century.
To avoid political catastrophe, it is imperative that all of us embrace the tragic lessons of our recent past and act accordingly so as not to suffer a repeat of the pain, loss and agony endured from 1933 'til 1945, the pre-nuclear era, before our capacity to self-destruct beyond repair was attained. The stakes were high then. They are higher now. Earth is the only planet available to us. Defiling it with nuclear warfare means the death of all of us from radioactive dust and debris in the atmosphere, circling our planet. We call ourselves intelligent creatures. Shall we be intelligent enough to preserve ourselves FROM ourselves?
This is not guaranteed, judging from our past behaviors, including two world wars in one century; the establishment of concentration camps; in vivo, non-voluntary medical/surgical experimentation, etc. Our primitive selves too often overrule our civilized selves, causing gratuitous misery & pain. In the entire animal kingdom, we, humankind, are the only ones guilty of that. Yet WE are the intelligent ones? Contradictory logic.
This is a great summary - my one minor quibble would be whether those red-pilled anarcho bros are really so anarcho. Yarvin and others seem to lust after a strongman, just one that so happens to agree with their own program for society. They want monarchy or enlightened authority - that's what they think will stop the true anarchists, who are (in the garbled vision of the far right) indistinguishable from the liberal types who run "The Cathedral".
> BAP has gone so far as to compare the anti-male and anti-white rhetoric of the new left to the “extermination”-level anti-Tutsi propaganda that the shorter, phenotypically African Hutus in Rwanda deployed before massacring the more European-featured, taller Tutsis (never mind that the extermination of the Tutsis was possible only because they were a reviled minority
And how do they become a reviled minority? In part, by propaganda. It is much easier to treat other people like garbage if you convince yourself they're not quite people, or that none of their concerns are real and serious. Genocides and other patterns of systematic mistreatment start by and are justified by propaganda.
The woke left doesn't merely use rhetoric, they do practice outright open discrimination, too. In the modern West, if there's a "[demographic X] need not apply sign", it always points in one direction, and objections to said treatment are dismissed as invalid. If anyone did the same to any other demographic all hell would break loose.
Against which people is it permissible to say "X people are born into not being human", or if that's too much for our delicate sensibilities, "X people are born human but abused by their parents into [their skin color]"? There is exactly one acceptable target. The second one comes from an education professor's assigned reading, and if said professor assigned reading that described ANY other demographic in those terms, today's math assignment would be figuring out the arc he flies in as he's booted from his job. As is, he's preached that same shit for close to ten years and has a comfy post teaching our new teachers.
Against which demographic is it okay to say "be less [your skin color]?" Which criminals' skin color is emphasized in reporting, whose hidden, if the crime's reported on at all? Nobody bats an eye at "#killallmen", do the reverse and there'll be hell to pay. We have articles decrying that 1/4 of homeless people are women or that 11% of murdered journalists are women. These get published in all seriousness.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34039063/
Hello, academic journal:
"[Skin color] is a condition one first acquires and then one *has*-a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which "[color]" people have a particular susceptibility. The condition is foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one's body, in one's mind, and in one's world. Parasitic [Skin color] renders its hosts' appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples. Once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate."
Yeah, we don't live in an actively racist society, no sir.
What exactly do you mean that nobody bats an eye at things like "killallmen"? Look at social media. Look at traditional media. Clearly statements such as that are hugely controversial and not just on the right. Often though these things are just used as cudgels to beat one side or the other. If the existence of a shocking and abhorrent fringe perspective is enough to push you in the opposite political direction, I can take you places that will guarantee you'll be a card-carrying anarchist in no time. And if you want a different and more nuanced perspective on the problems and rights of men check out Richard Reeves.
This was a great read, but I think it gets the causality wrong. Trump's arrival didn't change anything. I think rather his arrival was the *consequence* of terrible conservative intellectualism as captured by the stool example. The populist crazies of Trump and MAGA were a long time coming.
I.e. "Foreign policy hawks" is not a political position so why would that be a leg of the stool at all? Religious collectivists are on the same side of politics as secular collectivists, like communists. Their disagreements are purely superficial. So why would classic liberal types ally with them? May as well ally with some socialists over other socialists because of this or that technicality. Etc. In short, the conservative movement has been politically illiterate and utterly confused pretty much for decades. I think Trump and MAGA are a consequence of this. Not the cause. Basically, Reagan's three-legged stool was made of different size legs at odd angles and cannot be used for sitting.
Basically, if I was to sum it up: in the 60's conservatives had a clear choice to make: Either side with someone like Rand, advocating reason, individualism and rights-protecting gov OR side with Buckley and religious kooks. Conservatives made their choice and here we are.
Crazed religious and conspiracy crackpots ended the peaceful transition of power and nearly installed Trump as dictator, effectively nearly ending the United States itself.
I think until the conservative movement addressed the fundamental intellectual issues at the root of all this, categorically rejects religion from politics and embraces reason and a proper understanding of political theory, then I think much worse is still to come.
All of these mentioned right-wing collectivist groups and individuals need liberalism because if a time-machine can be innovated as a result of human creativity and progress, they can all travel back to 17th century
People who seek for "a better past" often end up in brutal behaviours and false expectations. Like in ex-Yugoslavia during the 1990s
Too bad none of them include an "old fashioned" rah rah, can-do, "Prometheanism" in Bank Lindsey's conception. Or could that be a fifth kind? Ant-"Progressive" because Progressivism gets in the way of progress.
You left trads
Yeah I guess normie Christian Republicans who just want to grill don’t really exist anymore?
Very well said. There is much to admire about each of these factions.
Yes. If anything this essay serves as proof of Yarvin’s observation that there is really only the “ruling class” (the Cathedral) and the opposition is “everyone else”. Once you start enumerating “everyone else” you realize that they are legion and each of them have legitimate objections to how power is wielded, yet have little hope of really capturing much power themselves.
Yes. In a way, it's almost a blueprint for Leftist success: knock off the sharpest of each of the four corners. Be a little more normie about celebrating America, while leaving room for social conservatives, be more circumspect about promoting liberal values abroad, avid excessive valorization of the exotic, cosmopolitan over traditional WASPisness.
Great article as usual. This 4 legged chair theory is great. I didn’t know that BAP liked using a Tutsi metaphor for USA. I know tucker Carlson has used the idea of Hutu/Tutsi coming to the USA a theme more than once.
The relationship between integralists and anarcho-bros calls to mind Salazar and Hitler. The former, a devout Catholic, believed the latter was a contemptible pagan - but that he was also preferable to Communism.
Sanity jumps in: Indeed, anyste, or nearly any syste, is preferable to Communism.
Just ask anyone who lived east of the Elbe between 1949 adn 1991.
My impression is that much of the "new right" in it's glorification of masculinity, hard line Christianity, Donald Trump, and "the triumph of the will, and support of the January 6th insurrection, is inevitably heading for Fascism. Evidence is the deadly increase in mass murders in the U.S., which are inspired by right-wing rhetoric, and the creeping introduction of anti-semitism, white supremacist memes, such as "the great replacement theory", Trump's embrace of fascist militias, the wholesale acceptance of Trump's stolen election lie by the Republican party, and the list goes on. The thing about fascism is that violence, intimidation, and the spreading of conspiracy theories tend to crowd out the liberal order in favour of more violence, civil war and eventually Gotterdammerung. As for any kind of libertarianism, including Hayek, global warming, increasing inequality and the destructive populism that feeds on it, and the great biodiversity crisis have decisively refuted that train of thought. You don't have to be a Marxist to realize that letting capitalists do their thing without regulating them is driving humanity off a cliff.