The loyalty oath

Reactionaries are wondering how to gain power – gain power against the existing Cathedral, with its no limit credit card, horde of purchased voters, and an increasingly unhappy but loyal army.

I don’t see that as a problem. I see chaos coming.  Power will fall into the street, hot, radioactive, dangerous, and desired, to be picked up first by one group, then another, each new pair of hands slippery with the blood of innocents, after the fashion of the Arab spring.  So, here, I address the topic of keeping power, of making normality stable, after some lengthy period of horrifying chaos driven by fanatical utopians.

The Roman Empire in the west ended in anarcho piratism, which took centuries to stabilize into feudalism.  I rather like feudalism, but it seems to take a while to gel.  It never did quite gel in the British Isles until William the Bastard.

The natural state of government is government by a tribe, racially cohesive, sharing common beliefs, a common religion, mutual affection, suspicious of outsiders and frequently hostile to them.

However, west of the Hajnal line, European tribes are too weak, too incohesive, to hold power.  East of the Hajnal line, they are too small.

Orthodox Jews, conservative Jews, are cohesive enough, and numerous enough, but reform Jews are perpetually at each other’s throats.  Orthodox Jewry is a religion of permanent exile, even in Israel it is a religion of permanent exile, hostile to and subversive of the surrounding society.  It can be conspiratorially influential, but is incapable of outright ruling, incapable even in Israel, subversive and in exile even inside Israel.

Recall that the Old Bolsheviks were a heretical Reform Jewish sect, but as soon as they had power the Jews purged each other till the party was Judenrein.  The Trotskyites still are a reform Jewish sect, and they hate Jews as much, and probably more, than neo Nazis do.  Were the Trots ever to gain power, they would go Khmer Rouge on each other – and on everyone else as well, but especially on each other.

Tribalism makes for corrupt governments, if the government supposedly represents several tribes.  The natural condition is that the government is controlled by one tribe, possibly ruling over other tribes.

Since the natural size of tribes is rather small, this presents a problem.

Religions are of course in large part synthetic tribes, hence the tendency to theocracy.  If the theocracy recruits on sincerity and zeal, you get the left singularity as the ruling class rapidly becomes holier than Jesus, and shortly thereafter holier still.  Thus rule by the Cathedral, our Harvard based theocracy.

The optimum system seems to be a pleasantly corrupt theocracy, where archbishops are good old boys who come from the right family, usually military family, and saints are revered, but saints are not allowed anywhere near the levers of power.

Modern society being too large for natural tribes, theocracy is inevitable, but you have to exclude believers in hostile religions without recruiting for zeal and sincerity in the official religion.  Saints are dangerous.  Saints that show excessive enthusiasm for the levers of power (pharisees) should be dealt with harshly even if they are saints of the official religion.  Saints of the official religion should be rewarded for their saintliness with a hermitage on some bleak island far far from the capital, serviced by a slow ship at infrequent intervals.  Saints of hostile theocratic religions should be severely persecuted if sighted sneaking up on the levers of power – they should get the inquisition.

An inquisition is relatively harmless if, like the Elizabethan inquisition, primarily concerned with protecting the powerful against hostile theocracies.  If, like the Spanish inquisition, it has pretensions of sincerity and holiness, can get very nasty.

Repeating:  The state requires a tribe.  Actual tribes are weak, small, or nonexistent, hence the need for a synthetic tribe.  Other, hostile, synthetic tribes will attempt to infiltrate.  You have to exclude them, which requires a loyalty oath, and some degree of demonization.  Indeed the loyalty oath should incorporate some demonization of the competition, which the Thirty Nine articles failed to do.

My favorite regime is restoration England, because under the theocratic government established in the restoration, began the scientific and industrial revolutions.

The scientific revolution began immediately in the restoration, as science and the  scientific method received the royal blessing, and became high status, with every pirate who aspired to be a gentleman collecting botanical specimens while shaking down rajas for chests of bloodstained gold.  Today, official science is high status, but official science is not science, but anti science, for the scientific method is at best despised as ignorant and vulgar, at worst demonized as neo-nazi.

Today, replicating research is felt to be a hostile act against the person whose research is being replicated, thus anti scientist, thus anti science, anti scientific

The industrial revolution began a little after, but it was still the case during the industrial revolution, that to get into parliament, or be a professor at a high status university, or to get a good job in the public service, or suchlike, you had to swear allegiance to the Thirty Nine Articles incorporating the Second Book of Homilies.  They still took efforts by other theocratic religions to infiltrate the state religion seriously.

The  Thirty Nine Articles was intended to exclude Puritans, Calvinists, and Roman Catholics, and the Second Book of Homilies covered assorted other mischief makers.

The great weakness of the Thirty Nine articles was that they placed selective pressure on hostile groups to change their antigens to avoid these antibodies.  Thus William Wilberforce and the Clapham sect (the saints) claimed to be Anglican, though obviously they were not.   They believed themselves to be the saints, the elect, and regular Anglicans to be damned. They also believed in Jesus the community organizer, and believed themselves holier than Jesus, were nine tenths of the way to being Unitarians, and viewed Unitarians as closer to their beliefs than regular Anglicans.

As hostile groups change their antigens, the loyalty oath needs to be updated with new antibodies.

One might suppose a loyalty oath can be trivially defeated merely by lying or doublethink, but remember, the threat is not infiltration by individuals, but infiltration by hostile organizations.  If the hostile organization tells its members to lie, it can never be sure if they are telling the truth.

The hostile organization cannot safely tell its members to lie, but it can, and regularly does, tell its members to engage in doublethink and doubletalk, thus, Jesus the community organizer, redemption is voting for Obama, salvation the successful implementation of a progressive state:  Observe Pope Francis, for whom Salvation is homosexual Bishops.  However it has to somewhat openly preach doublethink and doubletalk to its members, which is to say, change its antigens.  Which is why you need to update the antibodies at regular intervals.

Progressivism practices entryism against all existing organization, coordinating them all to promote progressivism.  Thus, for example, the Science Fiction Writers Association becomes an organization dedicated to turning all science fiction into turgid boring dreary impenetrable progressive propaganda.

So every organization needs a loyalty oath to exclude progressives.  We should not, cannot, wait for the collapse.  Have to start now.  If you want an organization to go camping in the woods, and don’t want it to become a entirely urban organization campaining against carbon, have to have a loyalty oath against progressives.  If you want to organize cooking classes, and don’t want it taken over by feminists campaigning against women in their homes, have to have a loyalty oath against progressives.  If you have a fishing club …

In a world were all activities are coordinated to promote the progressive world view, an organization that functions to visit the wilderness without opposing industrial society and capitalism is a reactionary organization, and needs to defend itself  against attack.

29 Responses to “The loyalty oath”

  1. […] Repeating: the state requires a tribe. Actual tribes are weak, small, or nonexistent, hence the need… […]

  2. DrBill says:

    An inquisition is relatively harmless if, like the Elizabethan inquisition, primarily concerned with protecting the powerful against hostile theocracies. If, like the Spanish inquisition, it has pretensions of sincerity and holiness, can get very nasty.

    As far as the Spanish are concerned, this is wrong. The Spainish regime did as you suggest: they put in place a loyalty oath to exclude an enemy, entryist religious sect, i.e. the Jews—who, it should be recalled, five minutes before were enthusiastically slaughtering (European) Christian Europeans from their positions within the (Semitic and North African) Andalusian government.

    First, they banned Jews from holding office. Then, they expelled Jews. The Jews reacted to this in the same way they reacted to these measures elsewhere and at other times, by engaging in fake conversions and by entering both the Church and the government hierarchies. That is, by signing the loyalty oath and then disobeying it. This presented a real governance problem to which the Inquisition was a reasonable response. In short, they did exactly as you recommend, for which they are eternally Naziswhowanttokillsixmillionjews.

    The Spanish Inquisition was not bad. Torture was rare and executions very rare. Avoiding the Inquisition was easy. Saying “sorry about that, won’t happen again” essentially always sufficed to get you off with no punishment on a first offense. What was dangerous was to both fail to live up to the loyalty oath and repeatedly come to the Inquisition’s attention (and this latter was greatly aided by being near power).

    The Spanish Inquisition had to deal with entryist Jews who had been practicing their schtick for 500 to 1000 years. The Elizabethan Inquisition had to deal with Dissenting Protestants and Catholics. Dissenting Protestants are a defective kind of ersatz Jew, sort of like Sonny electronics. Catholics suck at entryism.

    Elizabeth was mostly pushing on an open door. The English elite was into the whole Protestant thing because it justified getting rich by looting the Church. Nobody important wanted to be bothered by people who actually believed that Protestantism stuff.

    As you note, monasteries are a key point. Saints are probably born, not made. They are potentially dangerous and destabilizing. You have to do something with them. Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism had an answer to this problem: monasteries. Protestantism does not. Secularism does not.

    • The jim says:

      Expelling the Jews was overkill. It would have sufficed to expel them from the corridors of power, and to make it difficult for them to actively and openly practice their faith, and difficult for them to enforce religious conformity amongst themselves.

      And, if the inquisition had adopted that policy, the inquisition would have only threatened those in the corridor of power, and those zealous to preach, who do not attract a lot of sympathy.

      To some extent, the Inquisition did adopt that policy de facto, because, duh, that is the policy that supports stability and good government. But that was not its open and official policy, and it should have been.

      There should have been a Jewish community – furtively staying well away from the corridors of power, and keeping their Jewishness in the shadows. That there was not, was overkill.

      The level of repression deployed against hostile religions in early days of the Turkish Caliphate was at least optimal and probably more severe than was optimal. Anything more severe than that is definitely more severe than optimal.

  3. Scharlach says:

    Recall that the Old Bolsheviks were a heretical Reform Jewish sect, but as soon as they had power the Jews purged each other till the party was Judenrein.

    I think you mean Judenfrei.

  4. […] sees ”chaos coming. Power will fall into the street, hot, radioactive, dangerous, and desired, to […]

  5. […] The need for loyalty oaths. […]

  6. Frost says:

    All aboard the oath train:

    http://www.thumotic.com/take-the-oath/

    Mine focuses on pride in oneself, but maybe convincing young men to give half a crap about anything is the first step toward a successful reaction.

    • Zach says:

      Frost:

      “My personal policy on lying is this: I do it all the time. Mostly to women, but I will lie to my boss, the police, bouncers, or other people outside my immediate circle, if it will benefit me. In a world of lying cravens, the habitually honest man puts himself at an unnecessary disadvantage.”

      Indeed.

  7. spandrell says:

    Make a proposal. Progressive assumptions are so pervasive it’s hard to come up with a good list of things to avoid.

    • Erik says:

      1) Law is for Order not Goodness, as described above
      2) Secession, Exit over Voice
      3) Rejection of equality and egalitarianism
      4) Rejection of democracy and the “right” to a vote, because of:
      5) Rejection of the “right” to a share of power, which is what voting is symbolic of
      6) Assertion that democracy is historically wicked, criminal, murderous, and lacks moral superiority
      7) Accusations such as “racism” or “sexism” or “homophobia” are irrelevant at best, and at worst the sign of a witch-hunter.
      8) Assertion that there is neither need nor reason to be or appear “moderate”.
      9) Excellence and mastery are good. “Pride” is a propaganda word confusing the joy of excellence with arrogance.
      10) Excellence and mastery are unevenly distributed. Some people are smarter, more skilled, more excellent in various ways than others.
      11) Self-esteem is not a good. Self-esteem should never be taught directly; that breeds hubris. Self-esteem should derive from excellence.
      12) Fathers should lead a marriage. Fathers should get default custody. Fathers should be able to reasonably expect that their wife is faithful, and punish her if she is not. (This obligation is not reciprocal.) Fathers, not the State, own children. Fathers – you know what, just stick in most of of Saint Paul here.
      13) Charity begins at home. Humans are terrible at implementing utilitarianism. Alleged implementations of utilitarian foreign aid tend to devolve into empire-building, money for tyrants, continuous support of what is otherwise unsustainable, and other failures.

    • jim says:

      Progressivism has a thousand points of doctrine. Thus banning any one doctrine, whichever ones are most directly harmful to organizational goals, will work.

      Progressivism has no stable doctrine, thus anything that works, is apt to be evolved against.

      Any proposal has to be a proposal to target progressive antigens against the background of organizational goals and antigens, thus has to be specific to a particular organization and organizational culture.

  8. peppermint says:

    thrasymachus, that’s garbage. Try being anti-progressive. What you have there is not only White Nationalist, it sounds like it belongs in The Turner Diaries.

    Anyway, start with the question, what is progressivism? Moldbug defines it as unempathic altruism. I think it’s vicarious, sanctimonious envy. When we know what leftism means, and tell everyone, we won’t even need a loyalty oath because people who try to practice sanctimonious vicarious envy will get laughed at instead of lauded.

    • Contaminated NEET says:

      That’s wishful thinking, peppermint. Sanctimony is too satisfying to be defeated that way. Jesus did exactly what you’re suggesting thousands of years ago, and it was written down in the most published, most read book in history, yet still the Pharisees prosper everywhere you look.

  9. Thrasymachus says:

    Communists and progressives have no trouble lying and preventing infiltration requires some degree of counterintelligence.

    • jim says:

      Lying creates the problem that it is never clear who is infiltrating whom. Communists entryists generally lied. Progressive entryists generally give words new and strange meanings.

    • jim says:

      Your oath is one of ethnic loyalty to the European people, which is guaranteed progressive proof, unless you become so effectual that they change their antigens.

      They all have security holes eventually, as progressivism, like cancer, has a very high mutation rate.

      But trouble is, I don’t think Europeans are naturally a tribe, they are naturally many tribes.

      The chief goal of government education is to inculcate a synthetic tribal identity by imposing a state religion based on the culture and beliefs of the dominant group, as in the American states before the civil war. Progressivism, however, aspires to universal world rule, so it deprecates American identity. Americans, like Turks before them, are oppressed by their empire. The Turks, the most virile, manly, and warlike group of all the subjects of the Turkish empire, rebelled against the Turkish empire.

      Having a loyalty oath to the European people strikes me a bit as if the Young Turks were to propose a loyalty oath to the pan arab identity.

  10. Erik says:

    So for example, against the social-justice, everyone-a-criminal, selective-enforcement branch of progressivism, one might have to swear as follows to join any police-like organization
    :
    “Law exists to make social interaction reliable and predictable, not to bring morality or righteousness. Therefore, any law intended to remedy, mitigate, or compensate for a social ill is corruption.
    Justice consists in the swift and stable execution of the law without exception.”

    That sort of oath?

    • Erik says:

      Oh, and something like: “Law should codify social interaction, not be a tool for shaping social interaction.”

    • jim says:

      Something like that – and a completely different sort of oath for a completely different sort of organization – whatever aspects of the organizational activity are apt to be harnessed to the progressive program are a good target for a loyalty oath.

  11. spandrell says:

    As it was pointed out before, oaths have a poor history of success:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_Against_Modernism

    It ain’t that simple Jim.

    • spandrell says:

      I think you discount the extent of cognitive dissonance in most people. You could have people in hardcore nazi groups, swearing oath to anti-progressivism, but pretty much behaving like progressives unconsciously. That happens all the time.

      • jim says:

        Sure it happens all the time. Neither of us has ever seen neo nazis, but Dalrock routinely reports doublethink about the Christian position on women and marriage. A loyalty oath, however, brings the contradiction to conscious attention. Imagine the effect of a loyalty oath to the Christian position on marriage composed by Dalrock. It would bring such doublethink to a screaming halt.

    • jim says:

      I would say it did work. The heresies of Pope Francis are not those of Modernism, or at least not the type of Modernism covered by the Oath. His Jesus is a sort of John the Baptist pointing the way to Obama. Modernism heads directly to atheism. The progressivism of Pope Francis heads to atheism via Holier-than-Jesus to unitarianism, and thence to atheism. You can see that the Oath against Modernism and similar measures applied substantial selective pressure on progressivism.

  12. Red says:

    Jim,
    Could you provide an example of a good anti progressive oath, perhaps in another post?

    • jim says:

      Progressivism has discarded all its holy books, and is subject to continual and rapid mutation, hence such an oath needs to be adapted to the particulars of the organization. If the oath is effective, progressivism will mutate, and the oath require updating.

      You need an oath that not only targets the antigens characteristic of progressivism, but targets them against the background and in the context of the organization that the progressives are entering. Have to target not progressives, but rather what makes progressives different and distinct from the enemy group that they are joining.

      A Christian organization could do a Dalrock, and bring Saint Paul out of the cellar. Jesus on divorce (men may divorce for good cause, women may not divorce not even for good cause), saint Paul on “marital rape”, female submission, social enforcement of sex roles in Church, on homosexuality, and effeminacy, would keep out today’s progressives – but it would not have kept out the progressives that the earlier Oath Against Modernism targeted.

      The key heresy of Pope Francis, who I expect will become Saint Francis while still alive, is, however, none of those, but rather that one is saved not by Jesus Christ, nor by good works, but by voting for good works. Since Jesus and Saint Paul were obviously not social reformers in any way, shape, or form, Saint Francis is obviously holier than Jesus.

      So, a Christian Loyalty oath would have to say that voting for good works is morally inconsequential, that Jesus was not interested in social reform, that interest in social reform is irrelevant to Christianity, and is irrelevant to being a good person, that doing good is an important but minor part of Christianity, and that political action to do good is not part of Christianity, nor evidence that someone is a good person, and that claims that one’s political action is morally superior are phariseeism, claims of moral superiority on the basis of politics are in fact sinful. Also that ostentatiously being humble and blowing trumpets to advertise one’s humility is sinful.

  13. jim says:

    Trouble is the secular authorities in Israel are excessively progressive, and progressives hate Israel, because Israel is, by definition a theocratic state, in which Jews are citizens, non Jews cannot be citizens,and the official religion is compulsory. Thus the secular (reform) authorities are subversive of Israel, though in a different way to that which the Orthodox are subversive of Israel.

  14. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda says:

    they call themselves “Torah Jews” observant of “Torah Judaism”. Thereby installing their own unbreakable glass ceiling, because no part of any Scripture grants any authority to the High Priest. In fact, it is written that G-d declared that ==secular, civil authority== (in the person of the House of David, a non-Priestly family) SHALL exercise absolute authority of the Children of Israel.

    At no time during the two Temples, was the High Priest ever autonomous. High Priests were ALWAYS appointed by/answered to….. the Palace. The Sovereign had the same life/death control over the person of the High Priest as he did over any peasant. That power was occasionaly exercised.

    Likewise, in Israel today, there are three State Security Organs: the Intelligence Community, the Army, and the Police. None of them are appointed by, nor answer to – the Chief Rabbinate.

    Look at actual or wannabe “Islamic Republics: the civil authorities create NEW religious police organizations.

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