This one earns its ‘moron’ status strictly at the point of consumption. At the point of delivery it is by no means unintelligent, and is in fact strategically adept (if crude). Its cynicism approaches the sublime. (By “they” is meant the “us” of NRx.)

@DurrutiOvercloc @YakovPettersson Yeah, they seem to have been the most successful at rebranding fascism for libertarians.

— William Gillies (@williamrgillies) December 31, 2014

The only way this doesn’t consolidate massively in 2015 is for NRx to fall off a cliff.

Jim:

Progressivism wears the religions it has devoured like a monster that dresses itself in the skins of people it has eaten. It has consumed Judaism, Christianity, and most of Islam, though the worst and most harmful religion, Islam, still lives and is fighting back. The martial Christianity of Charles the Hammer would serve our civilization well. The pragmatic, realistic, and cynical Christianity of restoration Anglicanism would serve our civilization very well, though it proved vulnerable to people whose beliefs were dangerously sincere, being reluctant to martyr them properly for reasons of mere pragmatism. Counter Reformation Catholicism would serve our civilization well. But none of these live, and their revival is unlikely.

(It links right through to one of the most substantial discussions that will be unfolding in 2015.)

ADDED: The Church of Perpetual Life

ADDED: Yuray’s take (and quality comments).

There has to be a shot of horror in there, but I’m not going to lock onto it in time. (Next Yule, it’s a firm date.) “Santa Claus, Claws of Satan. Saint Nick, Old Nick. Coincidence? I don’t think so.” — yes, but that’s far too familiar to work, without a twist.

The hook, beside the obvious reversals (a sack full of children, the lashed-elf sweat shop bunker deep in the polar ice) is the peculiarity of the Santa Claus myth — which is designed to be disbelieved, as a kind of modern rite-of-passage. There’s a side to this worthy of affirmation. Discarding attractive wish-fulfillment myths is a cultural achievement whose massive generalization is long overdue. ‘Santa Claus’ as the idiot god of beneficent unreality is the proto-deity of every lunacy advanced modernity has been subjected to. There’s also another side …

“Santa won’t save us.” If that was something people really grew out of before voting age, there wouldn’t be a left-of-center political party remaining anywhere in the world. This suggests something very different is going on. A ritualized social training in disbelief seems ominously unprecedented, so one naturally wonders about the religious formation that commands this recently innovated power. If there is a disbelief that would set us free, the modern ceremony of Yule — celebrating the occult death of Santa at the Golgotha of secularism — doesn’t seem to be it. On the contrary, it represents a populist version of the Jacobin-Enlightenment Cult of Reason, symbolically purging infantile superstition to be reborn into an approved state of adult consciousness. The Death of Santa is mystery initiation into the New Church. Santa died to redeem humanity from the sins of attachment to Medieval unreason, and every year this sacrifice is ritualistically re-enacted to recall the new covenant. (Go on, tell me this isn’t the narrative.)

Someone ought to write a story about it …

(Open thread, stuff, links …)

The Operation is being relocated to New Zealand for a couple of weeks, beginning tomorrow, so there is almost certain to be some disruption in the days ahead. I’m definitely aiming to keep some flow going, with year round-up posts a feature, but chaotic meandering is likely to reach unprecedented levels.

As for the week behind us, NBS’s esential reacto-round-up now has a This Week in Dampier sub-section. Among those highlights, hard and soft money posts, some Gruber contrarianism, and a valuable note on the Bezos effect. Anarcho-papist is another production maelstrom, who requires statistical sampling, in this case substantial input into the left (or ‘demotist‘) singularity and deep state discussions. Scharlach reflects on the state’s monopoly of violence. Nyan recommends escape from local noise. Ash Milton provides a useful introduction to the ENR. Anti-Dem discusses tolerance. SoBL suggests a deal (background). Some posts stretch glib summarization. “Everything is broken” (back-story). Was enlightened.

There’s clearly a stimulating engagement with propertarianism to be had (and this post is especially helpful for orientation). NIO recommendations on game theory and spontaneous order (1, 2). Soapjackal wants us all to spend more time here.

Gallic ‘neo-reactionnaires’ (who aren’t, of course, us) have also been making waves. Has Putin failed? (Venezuela certainly has.) Sony hack weirdness. Deep State ‘action’.

Troll hunters.

Hanson on the deep ideo-politics of plasticity. Defending Leo Strauss (in the lamest possible way). In praise of monarchy. Rage (and hate). TAC on neoconservative and bleeding-heart liberal suckage.

Gates and Shockley (Dampier comments). “Mr. Gates may see Shockley’s experience as a warning: If he cares about his reputation he better keep his mouth shut.” White worries. Eco-miscegeny. Anatoly Karlin reminds us of his fascinating Indian IQ posts (1, 2, 3).

Gibson now using the ‘N-‘ word:

“I’ve been making fun of the singularity since I first encountered the idea,” he says. “What you get in The Peripheral is a really fucked-up singularity. It’s like a half-assed singularity coupled with that kind of neoreactionary, dark enlightenment shit. …”

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Every public institution of any value is based on distrust.

That’s an elementary proposition, as far as this blog is concerned. It’s worth stating nakedly, since it is probably less obvious to others. That much follows from it is unlikely to be controversial, even among those who find it less than compelling, or simply repulsive.

One major source of obscurity is the category of ‘high trust cultures’ — with which neoreactionaries tend naturally to identify. There is plenty to puzzle over here, admittedly. This post will make no serious effort to even scratch the surface of the questions that arise. Instead, it contends that the culture primarily commended for its trustfulness has been conspicuously innovative in the development of trustless institutions. These begin with the foundations of Occidental reason, and especially the rigorous criterion of logical and mathematical proof. A proof substitutes for trust. In place of a simple declaration, it presents (a demanded) demonstration. The compliant response to radical distrust has epitomized Western conceptions of rationality since classical antiquity.

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SoBL on the Running Man prophecy:

Here is the set up: 2017, world economy has collapsed, natural resources, food and oil are tapped, America had an economic cataclysm, the Big One hit California, a totalitarian police state (Cadre) exists with heavy security at airports, cultural activity is heavily censored except for the broadcast reality competition game shows. Most of America seems to live in squalid, third world conditions, there are political prisoners mixed in with regular prisoners, there are re-education camps, heavily armed helicopters are used to pacify rioters, but there is also a small number of people living a decent life with nice apartments, travel options, and spiffy clothes. There is a play on patriotism. Los Angeles has shiny towers and plenty of squalor with armed police members everywhere, resembling a Brazilian city. That is pretty horrifyingly close to today.

(Open thread, links …)

It has been difficult to keep up with Henry Dampier recently, on feminist predictions, discount slaves, incoherent elites, brittanus americanus, globalization and war … and more, and more, and more (plus some genuinely useful advice). This blog is not among those immediately assuming the explanation lies in methamphetamine. Category theorizing. Yuray is digging up some authoritative support for the restoration of Latin. Meta-fragmentation. Hawk politics. No enemies to the left. Greetings! Unity (I don’t get it) — this seems to be related. The basic dissymmetry. Reliable nets.

Paleao-reaction goes mainstream.

Casual Marxism. Curricular Satanism. General Gruberism.

Malthusian mechanics (in pre-industrial England). Escaping the Malthusian trap. Evolution of culture, chain-letters, dark nets, and the (ancient) Egyptian state. Predation games. Killer apes. Genetic ontology. Shrinking brains. Social media hooks. Hmmmm.

Amerika on The Peripheral. Troll points. Auto-cannibalization watch (1, 2, 3). Sound convictions.

British decay in context. East Asia does it better, Japan notably excepted. Hold the fix. Peak delusions. McCloskey on Piketty.

Uses of racism. Race in your face. Villains of Ferguson. Last gasps. Amnesty and disillusionment.

Weekly golden oldies.

That’s roughly Gregory Hood’s title, for an article making the case for a return to paganism. As his point of departure, Hood examines, unflinchingly, the indications of an Occidental desire for enslavement or destruction by Islam. “It’s a kind of ethical exhaustion — liberal Whites are weary of the moral responsibility of existence and survival.” (The diagnosis seems hideously plausible to me.)

Islam is Nature’s solution. Like the Architect from The Matrix Reloaded, it is Nature’s way of saying that “There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept.” It is stultifying, depressing, and tyrannical. It is an enemy of real culture, with the most militant variations smashing the tombs and shrines not only of other religious traditions, but of their own. Modern Wahhabism is funded by Western decadence, enabled by Western weakness, in many ways a product of Western postmodernism and self-hatred. […] And lest what I say be misunderstood, it is obviously, laughably, and comically false. It is sustained by the protective cordon it has created around criticism. Yet believing that a pedophiliac illiterate transcribed the literal word of God still makes more sense than believing all men are created equal. Islam’s refusal to allow critical analysis of itself is a sign of strength, not weakness.

Islam is the first term in Hood’s tetralemma. It’s the executioners blade for a civilization that has lost all cosmic purchase upon existence. A disgusting way to die, begged for by the broken, in the end (which is already) — because at least it’s a way to die.

The remaining three terms entertained by Hood are the “god of our grandfathers, the White Christ upon whose image the West was built” which “is dying”, faithless liberalism (including modern Christianity), and paganism. Among these options, he declares, “The Old Gods are my own choice.”

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(This has been a UF (2.1) theme up to now, but what’s the point of schizophrenia without zig-zags?)

Someone insulted a POC With Whitey on a comet They didn't use the pronoun zhe And Whitey's on a comet

— Surviving Babel (@SurvivingBabel) November 13, 2014

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