Multiply the world population by 365 and it comes out as something significantly north of two trillion human days in which to make things happen. It has impressed me, then, to note that roughly 20% of the last year’s Gross Global Occurrence Volume has taken place in the comments threads of this blog. (I received an activity report from WordPress this evening that suggested I thank VXXC, fotrkd, Spandrell, and Thales in particular for being cranked-up comment monkeys.) Tack on the rest of the reactosphere, and what remains of the planet has been fighting over scraps (which we’ll get to later).

The first — tentative and unconvinced — post here went up in mid-February, so Outside in is a creature of 2013. There’s nothing remotely unusual about that. Other 2013 reactionary monster babies include Radish, Anarchopapist and Occam’s Razor (January); Habitable Worlds, The Reactivity Place, and Amos & Gromar (April); More Right (May); Theden (July); Handleshaus and The Legionnaire (August) … which is just to scoop from my regular reading list. The sheer quantity of explicitly reactionary writing has to have surged by at least an order of magnitude this year. This timeline (by Handle) sharpens the contours of the phenomenon (expanded to encompass the burgeoning new genre of excited anti-reactionary push-back). Even if many of the greatest Outer Right blogs preexisted this wave of dark energy, 2013 was surely the year in which Neoreaction really established itself as a thing.

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… why does the American MSM almost never mention tribes, except occasionally as an afterthought, and never speak about how countries like Libya are organized socially, and how that affects their politics? There are so many examples of this that it cannot simply be a coincidence. This is not the place to go into detail, but it comes down, I think, to a form of political correctness that tacitly prohibits any mention of what might be taken even to imply that Libyans (or Yemenis or Syrians or Egyptians, or Pashtuns, or…) might in some way be pre-modern, as we understand the term. (Actually, they’re less aptly described as pre-modern than simply as different, but lowest-common-denominator Enlightenment universalism is very bad at acknowledging the dignity of difference.) That kind of appellation is considered just this side of racist in the higher etiquette of American Enlightenment liberalism, deeply dented, as it has been, by the nonsense of anti-“Orientalism” regnant now for more than a generation in academe. Yes, it was at university where our elite press reporters and their august editors learned this stuff.

Some nonlinear cybergothic strangeness to accompany you during these long winter nights.

ADDED: Direct access to the Creepypasta Wiki.

Nobody familiar with contemporary Western societies can be intellectually challenged by the idea of a great dialectical resolution to the problem of liberalism. Coercion and liberty are fused in a political order that directs authority towards the maximization of choice without consequence. Stupidity is sacred, and neither tradition nor natural necessity has the right to inhibit it. Preserving the freedom to fathom the limits of dysfunction in every direction is the primary social obligation, with the full resources of Leviathan behind it. If that’s not exactly where we are, it will be soon.

Against this backdrop, Neoreaction emerges as a de-synthesizing impulse, splintering along multiple paths, but especially two. In reacting against authoritarian irresponsibility (or ‘anarcho-tyranny’) it tends to a restoration of the Old Antithesis: either hierarchical solidarity, or a ruthless dis-solidarity (and as it undoes the progressive dialectic, ‘either’ fragments into ‘both’ — separately). Only the state protected irresponsibility of resolved Left-liberalism is strictly intolerable, because that has been historically demonstrated to be an engine of degeneration. Neoreaction, initially conceived, is anything else.

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VXXC’s latest deserves some focused attention:

No enemies to the Right save Quisling.

(Hasn’t that principle already been tacitly accepted to a remarkable extent on the Outer Right? Never denounce anybody within hearing distance of a Left-controlled cultural institution. Among all the fracture and controversy ahead, it’s a guideline worth holding onto.)

If 2013 = aaaazzzz aaazzaazzazz aazz, what is 2014?

Has the hangover worn off yet? Then identify the pattern:

(Ibdhjad)
Aj, Baa, Caf, Dia, Et, Fam, God, Hagg, Ink, Jaeo, Kul, Los, Moan, Neom, Ohmga, Padbbha, Qush, Rakht, Sigol, Tactt, Umneo, Vfisz, Wumno, Xikkth, Yodtta, Ziltth.

Recognizing the Anglossic alphabetical names is far too rudimentary to count as a solution. The question is: What is the embedded numerical regularity?

The best way to demonstrate understanding, without revealing the key, is to submit alternative (but consistent) versions of any three consecutive signs.

Note: While Qabbalistic adepts get no credit for correct answers, well-crafted terms from any source will be appreciated. Furthermore, Outside in accepts no responsibility for any hazardous or harmful xenocosmic occurrences resulting from calculations associated with this quiz.

Whenever three-fourths of the public says government is the country’s biggest problem, that majority includes millions of non-ideological independents and moderates who just want to see American optimism and prosperity restored. They are more open to the conservative message now than they have been since 1980. So, don’t screw it up, Republicans.

They’ll screw it up.

It’s called the ‘canary’ in the coal mine, because everyone is waiting for it to be canned. After the Derbyshire whacking, Mark Steyn became the obvious follow up candidate. Are we approaching the final wheezy chirp? (What a truly repulsive piece of clotted cowardice that magazine is.)

ADDED: Not to forget the other prominent word crime story of the week (the Left eating its own).

ADDED: At NRO, a line in the sand? Also.

ADDED: Handle has some suggestions to make.

This is the Yule-hibernation edition of an open thread, based on the strong suspicion that even maintenance-level blogging is going to take a serious hit over the next several days. There are a number of things I’d like to do here really soon, including a semi-substantial Basilisk post, and a heavy-duty Machineries of Fate series, which would work its way systematically through the Trichotomy, treating the exercise as an opportunity to consolidate some structured ideas on the workings of time. There are also a number of increasingly desperate promises to be kept, not all of which are likely to be conveniently forgotten — a review of Bryce’s book, a response to insightful questions about the politics of accelerationism, and several lamentably incomplete series to crank-forward. Some kind of 2013 round-up has to take scheduling priority.

Instead of advancing these tasks right now, there’s a lot of unproductive shivering in front of the computer happening, with steady interference from a minor daemon that wants to hijack all residual cognitive function in order to write a phenomenology of extreme exhaustion (you can at least be thankful that isn’t going to fly).  It’s the dead of winter, after a truly extraordinary year, and the deep chatter in the basement is all about succumbing to replenishment mode for what looks like being a high-intensity 2014.

Retrospective and prospective analysis would be great to see, but you’re the Lords of Chaos, so whatever …