ISIS Beheadings: Red Pill View

Ok, let's think about these recent beheadings by ISIS.

In past months, ISIS has been kicking ass and taking names, and it seems that no-one can stop them in the Middle East. The only people that could stop them are America and America's allies, the NATO countries. But the citizens of the US are war weary. They are tired of all the fighting. They really don't want to send more troops to the Middle East. They are trying to bring the troops home and let the Arabs fight it out.

So what does ISIS decide to do? Do they keep consolidating power and building their caliphate, as the proclaim is their goal? Do they keep working, hoping that the US and “the allies of America” will keep ignoring them and let them grow?

No. They produce not one, but three videos of high production quality which are directed at America, and then its allies, of horrific beheadings of innocent Americans and Brits. The victims are clear non-combatants, journos and aid workers. They are actually taunting the West.

From CNN: “The latest killing, ISIS said, was ‘a message to the allies of America’ -- a direct challenge to the United States.”

Now, put your thinking caps on here. If you are ISIS, what could you possibly have to gain by antagonizing America and its allies? Absolutely nothing. The smartest play is to keep the West mollified and hope they stay on the sidelines.

America's response has been exactly what you would expect it to be: they're sending in troops and bombing ISIS. A coalition is building. The West has been roused to war again. Who could have predicted this response? Well, pretty much anyone, really. Does it really make sense that ISIS would do this and send America and Britain nice neat videos, basically begging the allies to come in and attack them?

No. It doesn't. It doesn't make a damn bit of sense... not if you really are ISIS.

Taking the Red Pill = Learning to spot a pattern, the pattern of mind control. It is noticing mind control as fundamental to modern systems.
— Butch Legolas (@PoseidonAwoke) September 14, 2014

Association is Exit

I believe that what I have been trying to address in the last few posts with the phrase 'group ethics' and 'group reason' is related to the idea of 'informal institutions'. We are surrounded by informal norms of behavior, which we could call informal contract. For example, when you enter a restaurant you do not sign a contract with the proprietor that you will pay for the meal after you have eaten it, but everyone understands that there is a norm of behavior which we can conceptualize as an informal contract.

Though religions have some very definite rules and order to them, they are not formalized logically into a legally legible format. They are legally informal. We see this in 'Sharia Courts', where an official translates Islamic belief into legalism, which can then produce a definitive decision and course of action. Similarly, Catholic leadership interprets Scripture into official positions or policy.

The 'Separation of Church and State' doctrine was originally formulated to keep the government from attempting to control the informal institutions of the church, whereby it would control both the formal legal framework and the informal belief system. Among the Moderns, it is often misconstrued to mean that the informal institutions of contract known as the church should have no influence on the formal legal institution (the state), but this appears to be absurd to me. Obviously, the dominant ethny within a state will have need to translate its informal institutions of contract (religious belief) into the formal legal contractual system.

This seems to be the system as it has worked in the past: the group, through thousands/millions of interactions over thousands/millions of lifetimes, formulate heuristics and dicta which are opaque yet functional, then those opaque dicta are translated into a format that is legible to the formal legal system, then the larger legal system can cooperate using the clearly formulated rules. So we see a process for fuzzy logic leading to formal logic. This is Church influencing State. I believe that this is how common law came into being. I believe it would be fair to think of common law as crowdsourced law.

Obviously, if we see the formulation of religious beliefs and opaque dicta as inter-generational risk management heuristics, as rules of behavior which have been crash-tested in the real world, then allowing the State to formulate legal rules based on a single human's intellectual capabilities, and then forcing those rules on the group system, would circumvent the very crash-testing (debugging process) that generates those beliefs and dicta. Yet, here we are. With an elite religious organization, the Progressives, formulating laws through limited human intellects (individual intellects) then forcing those laws on the populace, completely circumventing the crowdsourcing mechanism. This is the central planning of ethics. Mises rightly found that communism cannot work because it lacks the pricing mechanism, which acts as a sort of nervous system to coordinate production, which is why central planning of an economy is impossible. There are too many interactions to calculate centrally, the calculation must be distributed into a crowdsourced multi-node computational network known as 'the market'. Yet Libertarians seem to agree that central planning of social organization is possible, neglecting that there are simply too many interactions to account for by a central authority.

Crowdsourcing is a form of 'group reason'. A groups norms of behavior, informal institutions, and religious beliefs are 'group ethics' produced by 'group reason', and can be viewed as crowdsourced. The failure of the Moderns' system is in abandoning the debugging process offered by group ethics, in favor of completely theoretical individual reason transmitted from a central authority.

Perhaps, what we need is the ability to formulate the rules of group interactions. This is a very difficult fuzzy logic problem, one that must be solved, or at a minimum articulated. If we can find the rules of the group-reason/group-ethic/group-cooperation system, perhaps we can then overcome the current notion that the opaque dicta of the group are not arbitrary or ad hoc or blindly reigning traditional custom as Rothbard holds, but are instead incredibly valuable, crash-tested, crowdsourced survival tools.

Is there a single signal, similar to the pricing mechanism, which must be allowed to function freely if we wish to have a functional society? I have an intuition that this signal is association. Individuals decide whether or not to associate with one another. The society then organizes itself into functional groups. All societies are comprised of various group associations based on any number of factors: religious, economic, racial, etc. Multiculturalism, diversity, and race- and gender-based quotas are rejections of free association, they are forced integration, forced association. Free association is not voice, it is exit. It is therefore not dialectical.

Mises' critique of central planning of the market and the price signal was devastating. Neoreaction needs a similar (simple, clear and explicit) critique of central planning of society. The importance of exit is noted in the Reactionary Consensus: the right of exit must be guaranteed. However, this seems like an aside to me. I am coming to the conclusion that exit must be a central tenet, and it must be realized that free association is exit. The resulting conclusion of the numerous *-realisms listed in the Consensus is that exit/association/dis-association must be a top priority for the efficient self-organization of any flourishing society. It is through association/dis-association that individuals move from non-functional or sub-optimal groups to functional groups. I have an intuition that it is the action of the association/dis-association mechanism through which the individuals of a group form a group consensus of norms and behavior which then become beliefs and informal contract, and is the foundation of group reason and group ethics.

On Rothbard's Natural Law vs Positive Law

In my last post on Obscurant Libertarianism and Group Ethics, I made the case that Rothbardian/libertarian/liberal ethics are parasitic in nature. I wanted to take a closer look at Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty to make the case more clearly.

Apparently, Hurlock disagreed with my analysis.

@_Hurlock_ You'll prolly understand me better in my next post. More detail (and snark). :-)
— Butch Legolas (@PoseidonAwoke) August 22, 2014

As promised, here is a snarky take, followed by some more serious commentary.

[begin snark]

In The Ethics of Liberty, ch. 3, Rothbard writes:

IF, THEN, THE NATURAL law is discovered by reason from “the basic inclinations of human nature . . . absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places,” it follows that the natural law provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place.

Wait a second. I completely agree with this. What's going on here? I think man has a nature, and that man will act according to that nature as if it is a law. Natural law sounds all right to me.

The natural law is, in essence, a profoundly “radical” ethic, for it holds the existing status quo, which might grossly violate natural law, up to the unsparing and unyielding light of reason. In the realm of politics or State action, the natural law presents man with a set of norms which may well be radically critical of existing positive law imposed by the State. At this point, we need only stress that the very existence of a natural law discoverable by reason is a potentially powerful threat to the status quo and a standing reproach to the reign of blindly traditional custom or the arbitrary will of the State apparatus.

Hmm. Ok. I'm a totally radical dude, so a radical ethic sounds cool. And who doesn't love freaking Nature?

So natural law is radical, meaning it will not uphold the status quo, because the status quo might grossly violate natural law? Well, violation is like rape: the status quo is raping Nature?! Not on my watch, bro! So status quo = bad and radical natural law = good. Got it.

And positive law, meaning that decreed by the ruler(s), is going to get its ass kicked by reason showing us natural law. Not just positive law but also the reign of blindly traditional custom. So, the tradition and custom are reigning? Who else reigns? Well, kings reign, don't they? Wait now, this is America! We hate kings! I'm having an emotional response to that word reign which lets me know that traditional custom probably sucks as bad as kings do. Not only is it reigning, but it is reigning blindly. Holy crap! Blind reigning is way worse than just reigning. Uggh, I can tell I'm totally going to hate traditional custom already. Thank God I have Rothbard here to help me figure this out.

In fact, the legal principles of any society can be established in three alternate ways: (a) by following the traditional custom of the tribe or community; (b) by obeying the arbitrary, ad hoc will of those who rule the State apparatus; or (c) by the use of man’s reason in discovering the natural law—in short, by slavish conformity to custom, by arbitrary whim, or by use of man’s reason. These are essentially the only possible ways for establishing positive law. Here we may simply affirm that the latter method is at once the most appropriate for man at his most nobly and fully human, and the most potentially “revolutionary” vis-à-vis any given status quo.

So we have a) traditional custom, b) arbitrary law, or c) reason. Well, I already have a bad feeling about traditional custom, because it is reigning blindly and that sounds really crappy. And arbitrary law means they are just pulling this shit out of their ass, and I know that sucks. Then there is reason which sounds awfully smart, and I'm a smart guy. All the girls who wouldn't go to prom with me and who copied off my homework thought I was smart. And reason is noble? Well, hell, count me in, Murray! Reason it is.

While natural-law theory has often been used erroneously in defense of the political status quo, its radical and “revolutionary” implications were brilliantly understood by the great Catholic libertarian historian Lord Acton. Acton saw clearly that the deep flaw in the ancient Greek—and their later followers’—conception of natural law political philosophy was to identify politics and morals, and then to place the supreme social moral agent in the State. From Plato and Aristotle, the State’s proclaimed supremacy was founded in their view that “morality was distinguished from religion and politics from morals; and in religion, morality, and politics there was only one legislator and one authority.”

Wow. So some assholes have been using natural law to erroneously defend the status quo? Well, I guess I can shorten that in my mind to defending the status quo is erroneous, right? I learned earlier that the status quo is like raping Nature, and raping Nature is obviously erroneous. So, obviously, natural law will not lead me to defend the status quo, because I'm noble and I'm going to use my reason, dammit

Now, Acton says the Greeks had a deep flaw, not just a flaw, but a deep one because they put the supreme social moral agent (whatever that is) in the State. And the State claimed that there was only one legislator and one authority. Who could this one legislator be? Let's come back to that.

Next, Rothbard quotes John Wild:

the philosophy of natural law defends the rational dignity of the human individual and his right and duty to criticize by word and deed any existent institution or social structure in terms of those universal moral principles which can be apprehended by the individual intellect alone.

So, true natural law defends the rational dignity of the individual. Rational. Individual. And these universal moral principles which can be apprehended by the individual intellect alone. Man this is deep. I'm an individual, and I'm smart. Who would be against the rational dignity of the human individual? Only someone stupid, I'm sure, like those old Greek philosophers. Muh Liberty!!!!

[end snark]

Let's look at some trickery here. Rothbard uses overloaded words and negatively cast phrases such as blindly reigning and slavish conformity. He uses unsubstantiated aspersions against the Greek philosophers, claiming a deep flaw, with no real analysis of that deep flaw except to associate it with the State, which he has thoroughly maligned by this point in the book. He has used words like noble and dignity when speaking of reason and rationality, painting them with an emotional context.

Rothbard has given the reader a false choice between tradition/custom, positive law, and reason. By creating this false choice, the reader is led to believe that the first two are not reasonable. A smart human, and libertarians tend to be smart, will be drawn to this argument of individual reason.

Rothbard also associated a negatively contextualized organization, the State, with tradition/custom and positive law. What is the State? Up until very recently, the State would have been an ethno-state of high-trust corporate-minded Europeans. It would have been an organization of genetically related humans who have banded together for survival in a barbarous world. In short, it would have been a group of human whose relationship is very much informed by a group ethos, genetic similarity, and of responsibility to one another. But Rothbard continually paints this group organizational structure negatively, as a parasite on the individual.

Here is the essential legerdemain: Rothbard asserts that the individual intellect alone upholds natural law, and that the forms of group reason, custom/tradition and positive law, do not uphold natural law. That's right, group reason, reason which has been contextualized within a group relationship. He makes the assertion about individual reason and neglects the existence of group reason. He makes the individualistic argument here, and if you're not paying attention then you won't even know that the group ethic argument even exists. Pretty sneaky, Rothbard. In the preceding post, I assert that the group relationship is fundamental to human existence, as almost no individuals can exist without a host group. How much can one human brain ascertain? Is it truly reasonable to assert that a single human can be wiser than a multiplicity of humans reasoning through timelines of thousands of years?

Rather than viewing tradition/custom as blindly reigning, is it not more reasonable to view them as open source code which has been tested by thousands of run-time executions? If humans are thinking machines, then aren't our beliefs much like uncompiled code? Each individual then processes the code and acts based on it. Every individual actor is like an object instance interacting with other object instances. As these objects interact, the code can produce beneficial, neutral or negative results. Negative results can be viewed as bugs which need to be identified and removed.

To put it more simply, is it not more reasonable to view tradition/custom as the combined reason of thousands/millions of humans over thousands/millions of lifetimes of interactions? Is Rothbard really making the assertion that a single human brain, over a single lifetime, can asses the complex workings of an entire civilization and calculate the correct workings of interactions? Pure hubris. I call bullshit, dear libertarians. Is it possible that those combined intellects could reach conclusions that a single human mind cannot comprehend? Most assuredly. But in that case it is not the tradition/custom that is blind, it is the individual reason who cannot fathom the depths of the tradition/custom. Yet, Rothbard attributes the blindness not to the individual human mind, but to the opaque inter-generational risk management heuristic. Very nice, Rothbard, exceedingly cunning inversion.

Now, back to the solitary legislator of the Greeks. Who is that? Well, Gnon, of course. Natural law is the only law, that comes from a single source: Nature's God, or Nature. But Rothbard hides the fact that the Greeks were defending natural law. But why? Because they were defending natural law as it is ascertained through a group of human minds over time, which is not individualistic and therefore not liberal. The Greeks were processing natural law in the correct context: the group context. To place the supreme moral social agent in the State could be rephrased as the survival of the group is paramount. It is the group that matters most, and morality and ethics must be considered within a group context. Rothbard has attempted to obscure the fact that the Greeks were thinking of the group, and to paint that perspective as unreasonable, simply because it cannot be ascertained by an individual intellect alone. He paints the failure of the individual to understand opaque dicta as a failing of the group institution. This exposes the false choice: either tradition/custom or reason; excluding the possibility that tradition/custom is group reason.

By looking solely through the lens of the individual, Rothbard intentionally impugns the reasoning ability of group - reason which is tested through thousands/millions of run-time interactions to produce groups which are obviously capable of surviving or else they would not have survived. This allows for parasitic ethics, childish ethics, where the actions of the group which have created a working system can be criticized through a single tiny mind's reason. It allows completely untested theory to override proven, working systems. It places individual reason as greater than group reason. That is insanity. That is Liberté. That is libertarianism.

Obscurant Libertarianism and Group Ethics

I agree with Curt Doolittle that libertarianism is obscurant and dishonest. From the start libertarianism as a project intended to create a form of capitalism that was as liberal as possible. This project required the libertarians to rewrite history from the perspective of the individual, hiding group roles and responsibilities; thus the obscurant and dishonest nature of libertarianism.

Liberalism is individualism. Who has Liberty? Why, the individual, of course. There is no such thing as 'group liberty'. If anything, membership in a group comes with concomitant obligations to that group, which would not mean 'liberty'. Each individual has been liberated from the group. The individual is the primary unit, and all theories are built upon that solitary unit. I express this as '1'. Then I can express egalitarianism as '1=1', and universalism as '1=1=1=1...'. Liberalism is individualism and it is the fundamental building block of leftist thought. Some say that egalitarianism is leftism, and individualism is liberalism. Either way, egalitarianism flows from liberalism. The idea of Liberty and the individual are inseparable. In liberalism, the individual is greater than the group.

This is the fundamental lie of the left: the concept that the individual is greater than the group. On its face it is absurd. What individual can live without the group? Almost zero domesticated humans in America would last any time at all if everyone else in the world disappeared. We owe our lives to group cooperation. Can a mother just drop a baby in the forest and expect it to live? This is where Rothbardian libertarianism breaks down. From Ethics of Liberty, ch. 14:

There remains, however, the difficult case of children. The right of self-ownership by each man has been established for adults, for natural self-owners who must use their minds to select and pursue their ends. On the other hand, it is clear that a newborn babe is in no natural sense an existing self-owner, but rather a potential self-owner.[1] But this poses a difficult problem: for when, or in what way, does a growing child acquire his natural right to liberty and self-ownership? Gradually, or all at once? At what age? And what criteria do we set forth for this shift or transition?

Clearly, a child is a member of a group. He is not a 'self-owner', he lives only through the host group. Rothbard does backflips in this section of the book to maintain the absurd notion of a self-owning individual, rather than a member of a group. All of his arguments revolve around self-ownership. For Rothbard, abortion is sanctioned 'because a mother’s will is inalienable, and she cannot legitimately be enslaved into carrying and having a baby against her will.' But if the mother is actually not simply an individual, if she is also a member of a group, then wouldn't the rights of the group come into play? If that group is a family, then wouldn't the father have rights and claims on the baby as well? Isn't every member of a group, in some way 'enslaved' to that group, if he wishes to maintain membership, especially when exclusion from the group means certain death in a barbarous world? Avoiding Rothbard's obscurant negativism and rephrasing positively: isn't every member of the group positively obligated to act responsibly to the other members of the host group? Wouldn't the wishes of a father in a family have a significant impact on a mother's choice to abort her baby? Not in Rothbard's individualistic world, the low-trust world we now seem to inhabit. Rothbard's ethics allow individuals to soak up all the benefits that come with being allowed membership in a host group, while shirking all responsibility to that host group. Rothbardian ethics are therefore parasitic.

When I look at the Dark Enlightenment I see individualism replaced with the 'groupism' or group ethics, or at least group-centered thought. Tribes and thedes are groups. HBD deals with the genetics at a population level, drawing inferences to individual behavior based on relationships to groups. Ethno-Nationalists are occupied with the survival of the ethny - the genetically related group. Traditionalists and Patriarchs study the 'liberation' of females from group ethics and responsibilities to the group. PUA's descend on these 'liberated' females like jackals, enjoying the decline of high-trust group ethics and the necessary libertinism that follows.

It appears to me that just as libertarians re-conceptualized economics and capitalism through the lens of the individual, it should be a project of the DE to re-conceptualize them through the lens of the group and group ethics. I believe that this is what Curt Doolittle is doing with his Propertarianism. I think he is working to correct the libertarian head-fake of the individual as the primary economic actor, rebuilding economic theory with the previously hidden responsibility to the group. I believe that it is the goal of libertarianism to obscure group ethics, groupism, and to replace it with a parasitic/individualistic/liberal system of ethics. No man is an island. The individual exists only through cooperation with the group, the individual therefore owes the group something: to repay the social capital that is extended by that group.

This is not to say that individuals do not exist and that granting individuals a certain amount of 'liberty' is non-optimal. It appears that in the West we tend to be liberal and to grant autonomy and that this has been successful at times. There are benefits to this approach. However, there must be a balance. Certainly, group ethics should not be obscured by or subordinated to individual ethics. That is insanity. That is libertarianism.

Religion, tradition, patriarchy, and ethno-nationalism are all concerned with group-ethics, and an understanding that the liberty/rights/autonomy of any individual within a group comes with responsibilities to that host group, and that it is the survival and flourishing of the host group that is paramount.

I am not a philosopher, nor am I as erudite as many in the DE: I would be grateful for any insights as to how classical philosophers viewed group ethics and their relationship to individual ethics.

On Progress, Lightbulbs and Neoreactionaries

How many neoreactionaries does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

TakisMichel (is that French?) has a snarky response for us. Cool story, bro.

The thrust of the snipe is that neoreaction is backward, rejecting progress, such as the lightbulb. How stupid of us! Surely, we deserve to be mocked with the very archetype of technological progress, the lightbulb, which is now the ubiquitous icon of the new idea. Of course, his error has been identified in countless other arguments: conflation of political progress with technological progress. Been there, done that.

This led me to a better question: How does one determine what progress is true and good and what is political/ideological falsehood? The best test is: a test. We simply take the progress for a test drive and see if it runs, breaks down or explodes.

Thalidomide babies

If we approach the prospect wisely, then we will understand that as with any new invention, progress can be dangerous. So, we need brave explorers who are willing to risk life and limb to explore the possibilities of progress. We need those who are willing to sail a ship into the unknown. We also need to understand the dangers inherent in the process.

I'm sure TakisMichel would advocate that government agencies such as the FDA oversee the progress of new foods such as Aspartame or drugs such as Thalidomide.  Does dear TakisMichel suggest that we throw caution to the winds and run headlong into the Utopia promised us by the manufacturers of Thalidomide? Or should we take a more conservative approach? Might it not be best to test our progress on a few? Wouldn't it be wise for us to forbid mass distribution until the progress has proven itself?

Yet we see cheerleaders for progress such as TakisMichel mocking Neoreaction for advocating a conservative approach. His head is too filled with dreams of progress to understand that a species such as ours needs a method to transmit information across generations to warn of past dangers which destroyed populations. It needs a method which does not necessarily scientifically understand the workings of those dangers, but can transmit a safeguard against them. It needs an intergenerational risk management heuristic: a method which is opaque yet functional.

We have these intergenerational risk management heuristics: religion and tradition, aka conservatism. When group A dives headlong into progress and group B remains relatively static, sometimes group A receives a competitive advantage and advances beyond group B. Sometimes this happens successively, so group B picks up the pace of progress. Then comes the Black Swan. Death. Destruction. Deformity. How does your progress look now, TM?

After the Black Swan, we can see the wisdom of group B's conservatism. The result is that the faithful, those slow to change, survive. We can then see that respect for the past, for tradition, for religion, provides a competitive advantage that is only realized after the Black Swan.

What then is the appropriate attitude towards progress? I say allow it - for a few. Allow the dreamers to dream and the explorers to roam. Allow experimentation. Allow progress, but take it for a test drive first. What we cannot do is allow progress to spread unchecked throughout a population, society or civilization. We must acknowledge the dangers inherent in progress. We must be aware that progress may invite a forgotten Black Swan. And we should be extremely cautious of progress which is forbidden by religion or tradition, as it is very likely to invite the Black Swan.

Destroy the Old World cultural revolution poster

The flip side of allowing progress for a few, is that we should warn against progress for the many, and we should forbid progress to be forced on the many. We should fight to maintain continuity, to preserve our traditions and our religion. But this is exactly the problem with totalitarian liberals: in their hubris they will allow nothing to be conserved. They will allow no pockets of religion, tradition and conservatism to remain without being attacked. They foolishly destroy the pockets of resistance, destroying those who will function as the seeds of a future repopulation after the Black Swan. They force progress.

Chinese man endures
Struggle Session
prior to execution

Here is the rub TakisMichel: no-one forced everyone to switch from lamps to lightbulbs. No-one forced all expecting mothers to ingest Thalidomide. Progress is best when it is adopted slowly, after centuries or millennia of contained experimentation. If liberals would just go live their own progress without forcing it on the rest of us, then the danger could be contained. Unfortunately, liberalism now rules the West, as it did the East, with an iron fist. Cultural Revolution, Struggle Sessions, and Purges abound.


TakisMichel probably isn't even aware that modern Western progress is crushing the fertility of those who adopt it. He probably has no idea that modernity is a death cult, celebrating sodomy, infanticide and masturbation - with predictable results: no children, no future. His group, which is rushing headlong into progress is dying, but the anti-progressive Muslim population doubled in the last two decades and is set to double again in the next two decades. How are they doing it? Through rejection of Western progress.

I doubt he has any clue that cities like Singapore have turned into IQ shredders, that these technologically advanced, economic dynamos are actually eating the genes which produce the high IQ men that are needed to build technology. Ah, progress.

So, please feel free to wallow in your self-congratulatory mockery of all conservatism, religion and tradition, TakisMichel. You deserve it: Progressives have won. Progressives are in complete political control. Progressives like you can pretend that you are in Heaven as you serve as a walking dildos: having sex without ever fulfilling your biological reproductive function. The Progressive Utopia is a graveyard. Thankfully, there are some of us who will reject the death cult. Obviously whatever genes drive the Progressive's suicidal trajectory deserve to die just as their ideals and values will die when they do (having not reproduced and not supported a tradition), while those who are most religious, traditional and conservative will reproduce to create the lives that will shape the future. It's a delicious irony: Darwin always wins. Enjoy it while you can.

Is Neoreaction Right-Brahmin Signaling?

This blog has moved. 

I cordially invite you to read this post at its new home at
https://poseidonawoke.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/is-neoreaction-right-brahmin-signaling/



There has been some great work on Theden.tv. As their name denotes, they show a lot of interest in classes and distinguishing markers between thedes. In The American Question, Aaron Jacob draws a distinction between the northeast liberals, whom we label Brahmins, and the working-class industrialists whom we label Vaisyas. Though, I think Theden may prefer the term Kulak.

Jacobs produces 'the cowboy' as the archetype for the Vaisyas: a strong, independent, industrious, trustworthy, pragmatic man with maybe a little dirt under his nails. I think he's right on target.

For the northeast Brahmin he gives us 'the activist' archetype. I think that this is close, but I would substitute 'the abolitionist', which is a more specific type of activist. For example, John Greenleaf Whittier, a fireside poet from Haverhill, Massachusetts. This type of man is intellectual and godly, concerned with souls and righteousness, who would probably never be caught dead with dirt under his nails or worrying about making a payroll. Of course, all his concern with righteousness is simply status signaling. I think that it is fitting that the progressive Brahmin archetype is clearly Protestant, as it is clear in Neoreactionary circles that progressivism is hyper-Protestantism, it is the memetic descendent of Protestantism.

The Divine Signal and Progressivism

Why do we use the term Brahmin? Because it signals not only high status but evokes godliness or holiness. In my opinion, the favorite game of the Progressive is "Holier Than Thou", where proggies attempt to signal status via one-upsmanship of affiliation with victim classes. I just wrote a post called #YesAllWhiteWomen about White feminists being outdone by intersectional feminists, where I assert that particular game of musical chairs is running out of seats for White women to claim victim status. Keep that in mind.

So let me clarify a distinction between Brahmin and Vaisyas: Brahmin are intellectual and holy, while Vaisyas are industrious and worldly. This is an essential element of the status signal: to be preoccupied with this world is low-brow, to be preoccupied with the spirit is high-brow. Sure you can be rich and have a high status, but if you are still preoccupied with your wealth then you are nouveau riche, the next step up in status is to signal that you are now preoccupied with your soul (or some ideological equivalent) and that is currently signaled through philanthropy. Donate the funds for a new wing of the Social Justice department at Harvard and you've sent a strong signal.

In the recent Baffler article about Mouthbreathing Machiavellis, one of Cory Pein's best lines is "Yarvin’s most toxic arguments come snugly wrapped in purple prose and coded language." Sick burn, bro. Yet, it's very true. Moldbug (yes, I'll use that name) is signalling 'anti-left' which is of course 'toxic' to Pein, but I'm more concerned with the wrapper of 'purple prose and coded language'. Why is Moldbug's prose so purple? What was the encoding process that he applied to his toxic arguments? Perhaps the Slate-star Codex can help us decode Moldbug.

Scott Alexander, who posts on Slate-star Codex  is famous in Neoreactionary orbits for mounting one of the best intellectual defenses against NRx: the Anti-Reactionary FAQ. He recently caught my attention with his assertion that The Right is the New Left and what I call the Parable of the Togas. This is an excellent analysis of status signaling between classes.

If some intellectuals no longer need to worry about being mistaken for fundies, that frees them to finally breath a sigh of relief and start making fun of Mrs. Grundy again. And that means they’ve got to become conservatives, or libertarians, or anything, anything at all, except for leftists.

So far it is just a few early adopters – the intellectual equivalent of the very trendy people who start wearing some outrageous fashion and no one knows if it is going to catch on or whether they will be soundly mocked for it.

Are you familiar with Moldbug's Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives? This is a wonderful piece where Moldbug soars about through history and culture, splashing purple over his prose and mocking leftism. I think Alexander has nailed it. Moldbug was an early adopter who began peacocking Neoreaction, an outrageous fashion which advertised his higher status. In this letter, Moldbug mocks both Progressives and Conservatives, clearly signaling that he is standing in another location on the grid. He is elite, intellectual and concerned with the soul of society, the soul of the West.

Neoreaction Signaling

Let's take a moment to look at the signals of Neoreaction. As Moldbug is mocking leftists, he is praising good governance. He quotes Carlyle as he disparages democracy as mob rule and pines for the aristocracy. He speaks highly of civilization and kvetches about its decline, drawing a distinction between technological progress and political progress, with the former being positive for civilization and the latter being an entropic destruction of social technologies such as patriarchy. Another colorful character in Neoreaction is Bryce Laliberte, the AnarchoPapist, who wrote a book titled What is Neoreaction? References to the Pope abound in Neoreaction, this is a signal. Why does Laliberte write his Neoreactionary blog in such clinically dry language? This is a signal: it's intellectual and not intended for mass consumption. On the other hand, if you follow AnarchoPapist on Twitter, then you'll get the hip Bryce. Let me give you a quick taste:

How to manage a Revolution? First rule: Dress better than the competition. Second rule: Dress better than the competition.
— Bryce Laliberte (@AnarchoPapist) June 3, 2014

Third rule: Don't talk like a fag. Fourth rule: Don't care if someone says you talk like a fag.
— Bryce Laliberte (@AnarchoPapist) June 3, 2014

Ok. So we have some Neoreactionary signals: anti-left, pro-civilization, pro-intellectural, pro-technological progress, pro-aristocracy, pro-Pope, pro-dressing-well, anti-talking-like-fags. The signals are quite elitist. The Neoreactionaries make no attempts to connect the proletariat, asserting that the plebes simply don't have the intellectual firepower to follow NRx.

We see a preoccupation not only with 'high class' signaling, but with divinity. There are a lot of Catholics in NRx, and this is an interesting contrast to the Protestant memetic progenitor of progressivism: still Christian but a different flavor. Pein writes, "Some are atheists, while others affect obscure orthodox beliefs [...]." I agree, Corey, there is a nebulous divine signal coming from within Neoreaction. What can it mean?

Laliberte wrote a response post to Alexander's Right is the New Left, entitled Neoreaction is Hipster. He's thinking about the signaling of Neoreaction, how it is edgy and intellectual, how they don't talk like fags. They're cool, man. Unlike 'conservatives'. Hey, Bryce, what's the difference between reaction and Neoreaction?

@PoseidonAwoke NRx is hipster, reaction is fogey.
— Bryce Laliberte (@AnarchoPapist) June 5, 2014

Reaction wasn't fashionable, but Neoreaction is fashionable. That's a signal.

Perhaps this clip will help us understand why NRx is signalling to 'open-minded progressives' aka 'cool people'. They're signaling to cool people because of Mrs. Grundy. If you don't know who Mrs. Grundy is, go back to the Right is the New Left. Do you remember Corinne from Survivor Caramoan? Well, Corinne loves her gays!



From that clip you can see that Corinne is definitely the wrong kind of white people. But she's sending the Progressive pro-gay signal loud and clear, she's obviously a SWPL, right? What gives? She treats 'the gays' as accessories, merely using them as props to signal her status. Corinne is Mrs. Grundy. She's the type of woman with whom the cool people do not want to be confused. As a quick aside, in my personal experience I am seeing intelligent gays turning against this type of person. There are more gays in Neoreaction than I expected. I suspect Corinne has something to do with this phenomenon. What to do? How is an open-minded progressive keep from being mistaken for Mrs. Grundy? Well, you have to send the right signals.

Neoreaction versus the Dark Enlightenment, White Nationalism and Conservatism

The Dark Enlightenment is basically a superset of ideas that surrounds NRx. The DE is concerned with truth, and is in some ways a reaction against the lies spun by our current society. For example, Human Biodiversity is concerned with genetic truth and the PUAs concerned with evolutionary psychology's truth (and how to use it to get laid). The concerns of the DE are mostly intellectual, which mostly keeps them fairly elite, but they do not necessarily share NRx's 'holy' or 'high class' status signaling. Much of the DE are technical Vaisyas, with a little dirt under their nails, or white tape holding their black-rimmed glasses together. They are not concerned with the soul.

Moldbug wrote "It should be obvious that, although I am not a white nationalist, I am not exactly allergic to the stuff. Maybe this doesn't need defending. But I feel the urge to defend it anyway." Why does Moldbug need to defend it? I think it's because white nationalists in the past have generally been the wrong kind of white people. Though white nationalism has been growing more intellectual, they are perceived as southern rednecks, not high-brow intellectuals. To the Brahmin, they definitely have dirt under their nails. Most of those 'rednecks' might be religious, but most Brahmin probably think they engage in peasant customs like snake handling and speaking in tongues.

I recently had a discussion with Brett Stevens from Amerika blog, about the distinction between conservatives and NRx. I think that probably the biggest difference is that 'conservatism' is for the Vaisyas. Conservatism is reaction for fogeys. It tends to attract the working and management classes, rather than elite intellectuals.

In short, the rest of the DE, white nationalism and conservatism do not share the same set of signals that NRx does, and one of the missing signals is that of divinity, godliness, holiness.

The Divine Signal and Neoreaction

Why did Moldbug address his missive to open-minded progressives? Why is he signaling to progressives? Why is his prose so purple? Why is Neoreaction so elitist, intellectual and religious? Because they are signalling to a specific group of progressives, the Brahmin. The Brahmin are intellectual and 'holy', and they are the elite. Or maybe he's signaling to the hipsters and hoping that they will get the attention of the Brahmin. Or maybe hipsters are young Brahmin who have yet to rise through the ranks of full Brahmin-hood.

In the Right is the New Left, Scott Alexander wrote "the project of creating something that is both anti-leftist enough to serve as a fashion statement but reality-based enough not to be dumb is still going on." In my opinion, that is Neoreaction in a nutshell. The Dark Enlightenment is the new reality in general, Neoreaction is the anti-left signalling to the Brahmin, being merged with the reality of the greater DE.

You see, the Brahmin are elite, intellectual and concerned with matters of the spirit, or at least appearing to be concerned with the spirit. The moral imperatives of progressivism is a defining characteristic of the modern Brahmin. Those elements of the signal must always be intact. Alexander lets us know we have some work to do: we must also engage in reality. We need a new morality which embraces reality.

The modern elite is crowded with gauche newly rich technologists, such as Peter Thiel. These elite are very much concerned with worldly affairs. There was hope that Thiel would 'get' Neoreaction. Pein's article above does a good job of explaining why. But it seems that there is a problem with Peter Thiel. What's the problem with Peter Thiel? He's a 'social idiot' who doesn't get the social signals; he's more focused on the business, too preoccupied with worldly matters. He's missed the divine signal, that's the problem with him. We need more Brahmins to start signaling this new outrageous fashion known as Neoreaction.

Thiel is intellectual and elite, but he's missing the holy signal. I think that Neoreaction is a signal to the intellectual elite that there is a new formulation of morality which is actually an old formulation. The way I read it, it is Moldbug's signal that rather than playing "Holier than Thou", the elite should be playing "Noblesse oblige".

Noblesse oblige is the idea that the elite, persons of high status, have an obligation to fulfill social responsibilities, with one such responsibility being leadership of one's people. Can you guess how the game is played? In Holier than Thou, the goal is to follow the little people into their hovels and give them a crust of bread. In Noblesse oblige, the goal is to provide a grand vision of the future and lead the lower ranks to greater heights. In the former, you show how you are not above the masses, in the latter you demonstrate how far above the masses you are.

For example, Branjelina going to Africa to stomp around in hyena dung and get bitten by tsetse flies to bring home a black-baby-fashion-accessory, that would be Holier than Thou. It does nothing to raise anyone, except for a maybe couple of children. It does not point to a solution, but instead wallows in a problem. It does nothing to build civilization, to move us into a brighter future. It is the assertion that it is noble to be poor. The paradox of Holier than Thou is that you must show that it is noble to be poor without actually being, you know, poor.

Neoreaction offers the Brahmin the ability to exchange a worn-out signal of divine status, for an older and better one: nobility.

What is nobility? Obviously it is something that the Reign of Terror and Bolshevik revolutions did their best to obliterate. Often, nobility is hereditary, and often it is divine, such as the divine right of kings. Nobility is hereditary because, as the HBDers will tell you, most all behaviors in humans are hereditary. It is divine because it is natural, it is embedded in the DNA. It is a gift from God: either you've hit the genetic jackpot or you haven't. What is the aristocracy? It is the class of the nobles who have solidified their positions. Nobility and divinity are closely related conceptually.

In Neoreaction, if you are rich then you have a responsibility to be noble. Everyone can be poor, but not everyone can be noble. Nobility signals not only an elite status but a divine one. Peter Thiel has shown that he is elite, but not that he is noble. Nobility entails obligation to lead the lower ranks, a rightist social obligation every bit as powerful as the leftist obligations such as social justice. The nobility espoused by NRx is not selfish, it is concerned with society, but not just any society: a civilized society, a high-trust society, a beautiful and flourishing society, a Western society. If you do not signal that the Brahmin should lead and improve the lives of the Vaisyas and thereby the rest of the society, then you are not signaling Neoreaction.

@PoseidonAwoke Not entirely wrong. I'd add a)signals often interp'd by Vaisyas as hostile; b)#Nrx actual hostile to Vaisya should be purged.
— Nicholas B Stevenson (@Nick_B_Steves) June 5, 2014

You don't need to be a Brahmin to be a Neoreactionary, you can be a Vaisya who just wants the Brahmin to wake up to their true moral responsibility to society, to increase civilization and human flourishing.

The Parable of the Toga and the Signal Shift

When Alexander writes that Right is the New Left, I think he means that the divine status signal of nobility, the divine status signal of the Ancien Régime, is now the replacement for the faux-pro-populist, worn out, leftist divine status signal: constant preoccupation with the poor and other victim groups. Perhaps we are at the turning of an age. Perhaps the Myth of Equality has finally worn itself threadbare and is beyond mending. Or perhaps Mrs. Grundy is simply insufferable and must be mocked.

In my #YesAllWhiteWomen post, I wonder how long white feminists will be content to ride in the back of the victim bus now that the intersectional feminists are hogging all the seats up front. What's the point of engaging in feminism when you can't score status points for it? Maybe it's time for a few of those white feminists to take off the toga pura and try on the toga praetexta. You'll look good in purple.

Recently the 29 Pitfalls of Working with White People was published. One of the pitfalls is that White people "10. Expect to be appreciated by people of color for working against racism." That's right White anti-racists: You are no longer to be awarded status points for your anti-racist activities. You are now actively mocked for being an anti-racist. I think we have a purple toga in your size.

Did Adam Corolla emit the signal? He recently wrote of the rich, "They’re better than poor people. They just are". That's right, rich White liberals, you can never be black and you don't want to be poor, but you can be noble. You can just be better. Did you know that 'corolla' means 'little crown' in Latin? Fitting. Purple toga coming your way, Mr. Corolla.

Whites are projected to be a minority in the USA by about 2040. An April 2014 Association for Psychological Science report shows that as whites learn this fact they shift more 'conservative'. Maybe fear of a brown America is playing a role here, it may be that White self-interest is a factor. It might just be getting harder to feign complete disinterest in worldly safety and security by gallantly stepping aside for third-world immigrants.

Maybe gays are getting tired of being props and accessories in progressive status displays. They are not flocking to the courthouses to get married, but that doesn't matter to proggies playing Holier than Thou pushing for 'marriage equality' because it was never about 'gay rights', it was always about status signaling. I'm sure they are aware of how detestable are people like Survivor Corinne.

Then there's The Prussian. It's obvious to all the cool kids that this fedora-wearing anti-racist white knight is terminally un-hip. He is so clearly of the faux-intellectual passe-hipster stripe. That's the kind of people you want to be associated with, dear fashionable open-minded progressives? He is Mrs. Grundy: a white-toga follower lamely attempting to signal his status. Uh, Purple toga, Mr. Alexander?

The leftist utopia has arrived and it sucks. Rich white liberals used to be able to signal status by bravely helping 'the oppressed', but now 'the oppressed' want all the attention for themselves. Even Mrs. Grundy has caught onto the game, feigning indifference to self-interest, which is far too easy to do in a generous welfare state. The system is so obviously broken. Elite capitalists are growing in wealth and have no social responsibility to lead the lower ranks, and are instead working to increase the poor, displaying a complete lack of stewardship of Western civilization... just as the progressives have taught them, after all, isn't being poor the most noble of states? Is it time to shame the elite for their lack of nobility?

Perhaps it's time for a shift in the view of what is morality. A signal that can't be so easily counterfeited. A signal that protects civilization and society, one that leads to human flourishing. It's time for a return of nobility. Plus, it is so fun to mock Mrs. Grundy.

My Nephew Calculates His Religion

The interwebs are awash with little quiz games that allow you to enter some data points about your personality and determine which Pope or Star Wars character you are. Then you can spend a few moments trying on that character as an identity, like wearing that blonde mullet wig in the Halloween store in late-October. We do this daily, exhibiting Palahniuk's Ikea nesting instinct as we thumb through magazines on the toilet and contemplate what kind of dinnerware expresses our true inner self.

We live in a world of à la carte identity. It's an all you can eat buffet, where you can fill your plate and eat until you're about to explode. Would you like a mint? It's way-fur theen! Want to be a Goth and wear Doc Martins and listen to the Cure? Well, it's not 1986 anymore, so you better update to Emo and skinny jeans. Want to be a man-hating, grrl power 4-year-college lesbian? Just through the dorm room door on your left, the one with the Pussy Riot poster. Don't worry, you can call it 'experimentation' when the urge to wear a sparkling Vera Wang gets too overwhelming.

So as my sister and I shared a couple of cold beers next to a cool green North Carolina lake, relaxing in the shade of 80 foot hardwoods on a magnificent Memorial Day weekend, it didn't surprise me when she told me that my 14-year-old nephew had begun questioning the Christian tradition. He'd met a nice Jewish girl in his Southern suburban school and she had filled his youthful imagination with the wonders of the 'chosen people'. He thought he might even convert. A waverunner towing a kid on a tube buzzes past. I lean back and take a long swig of the barley water, you don't say?

I think this is common in our era. We live in atomized isolation from our ancestors. Our identities are marketed to us. We whites are deracinated, convincing ourselves that we 'don't see color'. So, my young nephew thinks that choosing his religion will be like taking a personality quiz. He'll just visit a few sites, answer a few innocuous questions and beep boop bop out pops the religion that best suits his personality. It's smart. It's scientistic.

He's been trained that he can simply buy every other part of his identity, like buying a new car or a laptop. He'll just use the handy-dandy online feature comparison chart. Compare this feature here, that attribute there; he will just think real hard and calculate his religion. He'll be a smart shopper.

Well, my sister had already told my father, who is an avid amateur Bible scholar, church elder and Bible-school teacher, that young nephew needed grandfatherly advice. Dad had explain to his grandson why he should buy himself a nice Christian tradition. Look at this brilliant theology here, that historical evidence there.

I was having none of it. When I got the kid alone, I had a couple of thoughts to share. My line of thinking went like this. You are born to your religion, it is the religion of your family. If you have parents of mixed religion, or no religion, then that's just a crying shame. My nephew does not have this problem. One of his grandfathers I've already described, on the other side of the family, his great uncle is a practicing minister, and his great-grandfather was a minister. His family has deep Christian roots. Sure he can choose to convert to Judaism, and the family will still love him, but his grandfathers will know that he has betrayed them. They'll take it like men, but it will break their hearts to see him a Jew and his children being raised as Jews.

You see, when you're calculating your religion, the calculation has nothing to do with your personality. It's not like picking out a new iPhone case. It is a social calculation, calculating the tensions on the web of your family members. You calculate the force it will exert on the family structure. Will you strengthen the family or weaken it? Will you signal fidelity to blood, or will you signal division? Do you think the men will respect your brave decision to convert, or do you think they'll wonder what the hell is wrong with you?

In then end, I told him that no-one can tell him what to do with his life. But if he wanted to give his family the middle finger, then converting to Judaism was the perfect way to do it. Maybe that's what he wants. Maybe he wants to rebel. Maybe he wants to test the love of his family. Or maybe somebody just needed to point out that he does not exist in a vacuum, and that his religion is a part of his family identity and that he should be a man and display some loyalty to the clan and not let some girl convince him to throw away hundreds of years of family tradition. Maybe he needs to figure out if he really loves his grandfathers. There's no need for feature comparisons, or theological debates, or historical analysis. There is only blood and kin. That is all he needs to know. Honor thy father and mother.

Oh, look, I think it's time to put the burgers on the grill.

We'll see what the boy does.