Regarding Latour, he was pretty much called a crypto-reactionary sentimental Catholic at the American Anthropological Association meeting last month at his panel. MIT’s Fischer ominously suggested that Latour’s perspective should make one worry about what’s coming in Europe. (Latour has been a longtime advocate of the flat ontology between humans and things – a social symmetry)

Harman is accused of being reactionary by way of his anti-politics. Here’s one example: http://itself.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/a-response-to-graham-harmans-marginalia-on-radical-thinking/

Here’s a choice quote from that link:

“Harman and these others in OOO often take pride in calling this a “democratization.” But now let’s be clear, it is actually an anti-democratization, in two ways. First because it removes the point of decision from people (the demos) to the object world at large. So the word simply doesn’t make sense in the context of OOO. In fact the closest English word we have for Harman’s cosmology is “bureaucracy” (rule by office furniture), but “pragmacracy” (rule by things) or “hylecracy” (rule by stuff) are probably closer to Harman’s intent. And second because it allows certain objects to have more natural “gravity” than others, thus in essence letting their “votes” count double or triple.

So despite their protestations OOO still doesn’t have a reliable way to distinguish between “good” and “bad” objects. In other words OOO doesn’t make much room for a theory of judgment, since it’s busy kneecapping the human. And this is why we’ve seen that OOO can’t seem to produce the two things that philosophy has always grounded in a theory of judgment: an aesthetics and a politics.”

“When considering protection, you have to ask Stalin’s question: Who whom.

Because you are not helping people in country A at the expense of people in country B. The major effect is always to help some people in country A at the expense of other people in country A.”

Let’s grant this for the sake of discussion.

It follows that the reverse is also true; by ending an established policy of protectionism you are helping some people in country A at the expense of other people in country A.*

Which makes it a political issue; groups competing to set policy in a way that benefits them, rather than a simple matter of capitalists (free traders) good, protectionists evil.

There are probably a number of viable settings for the free trade v.s. protectionism slider. But it is important for the sovereign to keep in mind who is getting screwed and who is reaping the benefits, rather than believing the propaganda about a society where everyone works as a highly paid professional in the service industry.

* A rising tide may well lift all boats, but it works slowly and humans only have a few prime years to create families, so the rising tide will lift a lot of individual boats far too late for it to matter to them.

One thing I agree with very strongly: De-moralization of theoretical arguments is always to be welcomed, from the philosophical perspective. The stilling of moral twitches is almost philosophy itself.

Protection really sucks for Japan, because they use it to keep zombie businesses undead.

When considering protection, you have to ask Stalin’s question: Who whom.

Because you are not helping people in country A at the expense of people in country B. The major effect is always to help some people in country A at the expense of other people in country A.

So who are we helping in country A.

I am not saying it is always a bad idea to help some people in Country A at the expense of other people in country A.

I am saying it is a bad Idea to help the people who ran General Motors into the ground and got themselves ethnically cleansed out of Detroit.

The problem with our existing official religion is that is wrong, insanely and self destructively wrong, about the things of this world.

We need an official religion that is sane and not self destructive.

The enlightenment is based on subjecting the world to reason, that people should think for themselves rather than accept authority, which is all well and good, but reason has limited value unless you start from what is real.

The enlightenment proposes good news beliefs, that all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights.

The Dark enlightenment, however, starts with the bad news, that all men are not created equal, that rights are entirely alienable, and observes, among other things, that most people cannot think for themselves and do not wish to do so. The Dark enlightenment focuses on the bad news, as this is a lot more important than the good news. The Dark enlightenment proposes to subject the world to reason, that superior people should think for themselves rather than accept authority, starting with the bad news about the nature of man, which leads to bad problems, for which all solutions are unsatisfactory. However, most people should accept authority, because most people are stupid.

But if the superior people quietly do not accept authority, then the inferior people will not either, and trouble will ensue, because inferior people will be licensed to believe stupid things. Therefore authority, official truth, the official religion, has to be compatible with the senses, may not be obviously falsifiable

– The Dark Enlightenment is, fundamentally, a criticism that reveals the religious roots of the – supposedly – secular politics. With this, it proves that every political ideology and political program is basically religious at its foundations.
– So, if we accept that politics=religion then it would be obviously illogical to posit some kind of positive political program from the critic of neo-reaction. At the end, we will just have a new Cathedral, but this time like a pre-reform Cathedral. The political line of the neo-reaction only wants a new Master, they just love to be the slave kind.
– Then, ¿what can we do? First we need to formalize the ontological consequences of this critic.
– The core here is meaning. Meaning is indistinguishable from humanity itself. Where bodies and languages exists, meaning co-exist. This is because the collision of meat and words generates a formal space of absolute negativity (something like the lacanian real, but this need more philosophical work) that never ceases to exist, but can be temporarily pacified with meaning. The basic form of articulated meaning is religion. And, also, now we know that there is no fundamental distinction between religion and politics. Both make a living from meaning.
– If the three-dimensional dynamic of meaning, politics and religion is an ontological consequence of being human, ¿how can we have a real atheist politics? ¿Do we need to stop being human? Maybe.
– This is were I think your ideas about Capital and the way you related them to Omohundro’s drives become important. ¿Could Capital entity be some kind of evolved being that has suppressed the need of meaning? ¿Could its ways of taking action in the world be a hyper-rational, strictly formal atheist politics (I know the term “politics” is all to human, but it serves for rhetorical purposes)? ¿Is the acceleration of capitalism the route to true atheism?
– Finally, the way I see it, the Dark Enlightenment is just a critical spark that lights the fuse of a more extensive ontology and, then, an inhumanly pragmatic and hyper-rationalistic atheist political program. This opens the doors for a new world in which having a necessity for meaning could be a serious evolutionary disability. Also, that’s why I find so boring the pity attempts of the enthusiasts of neo-reaction for always being ethically and politically more right.

This was really tough! Next comment is gonna be in Spanish and it’s your turn to do the translation.

Hell those Chinese that you love so much are *very* for protectionism. And it suits them quite right.

But the main effect of protectionism is to transfer wealth from some Americans to other Americans.

So who, exactly are we trying to help. Which Americans?

Typically, General Motors, or some company like General Motors, and white auto workers, or some workers like white auto workers.

General Motors is leftist, Union owned, and crony capitalist, and back in 1950 it was leftist and crony capitalist, though not yet union owned.

The white auto workers voted left, because the left promised them free stuff. Then the left ethnically cleansed them out of Detroit, which damn well served them right.