@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.

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).

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 …

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).

“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. …”

There’s some kind of counter-factual retro-futurist irony going on here that I’m not remotely getting:

Somebody needs to write a dystopian SF novel about a near future in which the neo-reactionaries have won.

— Steven Shaviro (@shaviro) December 15, 2014

ADDED: (The Peripheral, end Chapter 79, The Jackpot, page 322) Also cited by Erebus, in comments below, with spoilers removed.

“What about China?”
The Wheelie Boy’s tablet creaked faintly, raising the angle of its camera. “They’d had a head start,” he said.
“At what?”
“At how the world would work, after the jackpot. This,” and the tablet creaked again, surveying the mother’s lawn, “is still ostensibly a democracy. A majority of empowered survivors, considering the jackpot, and no doubt their own positions, wanted none of that. Blamed it, in fact.”
“Who runs it, then?”
“Oligarchs, corporations, neomonarchists. Hereditary monarchies provided conveniently familiar armatures. Essentially feudal, according to its critics. Such as they are.”
“The King of England?”
“The City of London,” he said. “The Guilds of the City. In alliance with people like Lev’s father. Enabled by people like Lowbeer.”
“The whole world’s funny?” She remembered Lowbeer saying that.
“The klept,” he said, misunderstanding her, “isn’t funny at all.”

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.

The twin pillars of industrial modernity (i.e. of capitalism) are trustless institutions. Natural science is experimental because it is distrustful, and thus demonstrative. It raises the classical demand for proof to a higher level of empirical skepticism, by extending distrust even to rational constructions, in cases where they cannot be critically tested against an experimental criterion. Only pure mathematics, and the most scrupulously formalized logical propositions, escape this demand for replicable evidence. The ultimate ground of the natural scientific enterprise is the presupposition that scientists should in no case be trusted, except through their reproducible results. Anything that requires belief is not science, but something else. Similarly, the market mechanism is an incarnation of trustless social organization. Caveat emptor. Capitalists, like scientists, exist to be distrusted. Whatever of their works cannot survive testing to destruction in the market place deservedly perish. Reputation, in its modern version, has to be produced through demonstration.

Prior to its demotic ruination — through positive trust in the people — distinctively modern republican governance was similarly founded in distrust. As formulated by John Adams (1772): “There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.” It has not been an excess of distrust that has brought this sage recommendation to nought.

For those seeking higher authority, Psalm 118:8-9 (ESV): “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.” (My usual fanatical trust in the KJV betrayed me on this occasion.)

An appeal for trust is a reliably fatal failure mode for all public institutions. Trustless transaction is the future, and its name is Bitcoin. The deep cultural momentum is already familiar. Total depravity is the key to world historical predestination, and it is routed through the blockchain.

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.

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.

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.”

Much of this analysis — down to its grimmest conclusions — is highly compelling, even when abstracted from the flow of Hood’s vigorous prose. The proposed remedy, however, is by far its weakest component.

To make a choice among Gods, is that not the final expression of liberalism, and therefore of degenerated Christianity? If we have learnt anything from the manifold failures of multiculturalism, it is that religious freedom is downstream of religion. ‘Freedom of conscience’ lies at the furthest remove from a genuinely secular conception, if any such thing is even possible. If it now seems imaginable to shop for different gods, it is because of the way a distinctive religious tradition has worked out. If political considerations seem to occupy a position of meta-religious authority, the descent has been deeper still. Choice is internal to religion, even if the decayed image of religion serves to obscure this fundamental fact. Contemporary Occidental paganism remains dissident Christianity. There is no decision that could alter that.

As Hood himself states: The very fact that I frame this identity as a “choice” is itself proof of decadence — a vibrant metaphysics simply is and has nothing to do with a rational actor listing pros and cons. Ironically, those who profess the Old Gods are weakened because what they profess is so obviously new and a product of innovation and modernity. Few would even call it a real faith that actually expresses literal belief in personalized divinities. […] The new pagan cults that preach fanaticism and virility owe too much to reason and deconstruction.

A God that is not the very principle of destiny is no God at all. Are we, then, destined to rediscover the Old North European Gods? The impossibility of answering such a question with confident affirmation says everything necessary about it. The Old Gods manifestly failed against the challenge of the new One. There is no reason at all to suspect that this outcome has been rescinded by the subsequent calamities befalling the new faith.

Religions are providential. They are units of fate. The claims they make far exceed rational controversy or personal decision, in the abyss of their decadence no less than at the apex of their flourishing. If Christian Modernity is a process of escalating nihilism, as Nietzsche conceived it to be, it is nevertheless a road without turn-offs, that can only be followed to the end.

ADDED: Second long (italicized) quote has been grafted in, thanks to Irving (in comments below), who pointed out its clearly indispensable relevance to the topic. Just in case it is not already obvious, the Hood essay is a superbly crafted masterpiece — its quality only enhanced by its supple self-ironization. It deserves to be a landmark reference whenever this question re-arises, as it will continually do.

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

Zhe can't pay tuition bills But Whitey's on a comet Just cleaning up these mocha spills While Whitey's on a comet

— Surviving Babel (@SurvivingBabel) November 13, 2014

You know, the Patriarchy's filled with mirth Cause Whitey's on a comet There's a gender pay gap here on Earth But Whitey's on a comet

— Surviving Babel (@SurvivingBabel) November 13, 2014

Why is it I can't compete? Cause Whitey's on a comet? The War on Womyn has me beat And now Whitey's on a comet

— Surviving Babel (@SurvivingBabel) November 13, 2014

Straight white males deny us voice They want to kill us and our choice Just read our blogs, tweets, and columns

— Surviving Babel (@SurvivingBabel) November 13, 2014

And you'll learn what are the true problems Someone insulted a POC With Whitey on a comet

— Surviving Babel (@SurvivingBabel) November 13, 2014

Celebrating this, with reference to this (to labor the obvious). In decayed modernity, mere technical competence is a political provocation. Any resources not devoted to the Cathedral agenda counts as a win.