Cladistic analysis of neoreaction

As humans are bony fishes, and the Cathedral the heretical spawn of Cromwell’s puritans, the neoreaction is the heretical spawn of Libertarianism and anarcho capitalism.  Consider for example the blog title Anarcho Papist.

The Dark Enlightenment is libertarians mugged by reality, a libertarian who realizes that the eighteenth century was right about women, and Bull Conner right about blacks..

An anarcho capitalist favors a free market in law and defense agencies, defense agencies that are in many cases the private property of individuals and small groups.  A neoreactionary is an anarcho capitalist who thinks that a monopoly defense agency that is the private property of one man (monarchy) or a cartel of defense agencies that are the private property of a few men (feudalism) is not so bad after all.  Hence, throne conservatism.

He concludes that, progressivism being an official religion, therefore an official religion is unavoidable.  He suspects that most people need religion to persuade them to act sensibly, hence, whether Atheist or Christian, he endorses altar conservatism. (Or in the case of Israel, Temple Judaism.)

Thus libertarianism mutates into throne and altar conservatism, as puritanism mutated into militant atheism.

Now if Bull Conner was right about blacks, one might conclude that the Cathedral’s evil consists primarily in suppressing the Caucasian race, giving rise to an ethno-nationalist neoreaction

If the eighteenth century right about women, then perhaps the Cathedral’s evil consists primarily in destroying marriage (which goes all the way back to Cromwell’s puritans) and in suppressing men, especially beta males, (which goes all the way back to the Victorian Society for Suppression of Vice, themselves descended from Cromwell’s puritans), giving rise to a neoreaction that appreciates the wisdom of game, itself descended largely from the libertine strand of libertarianism, giving rise to a Patriarchal Neoreaction.  Atheist Patriarchal neoreactionaries profoundly appreciate the wisdom of Saint Paul, while theonomist reactionaries find Saint Paul a bit scary, and are apt, like Bruce Charleton, to hide him in the basement behind the water heater while Talmudically reinterpreting him away.

If the Cathedral’s evil consists primarily in being anti capitalist, in creating the regulatory state where successful businesses operate by social consensus with personnel on the revolving door between regulators and regulated, as exemplified by politician bureaucrat businessmen such as Jon Corzine and politician businessmen such as George Soros, if its evil consists of preventing the technological singularity, of ending scientific and technological progress, then you get the Techno-Commercial Reaction. (Reaction, not neoreaction, nothing neoreactionary about it.  They are fans of good old fashioned manchesterism, which is libertarianism as it was before it entered the demonic alliance with the anti slavery puritans and other non Anglicans.)

If the Cathedral’s evil consists primarily in heresy, in suppressing non heretical Christianity, on coercing all Christian churches to follow in its heresy, then you get the Theonomist Reaction, which looks backwards to what Christianity used to be before they made concessions to the heretical spawn of the Puritans and Calvinists.  Theonomists would like a state church, but where as I am keen on the Church of England, from the restoration to 1820 or so, which presided over the greatest flowering of science, technology, capitalism, and empire in the history of mankind, they tend to prefer older and less heretical churches, or newer and more prosocial churches, or, like Bruce Charlton, both, judging official churches more on their virtue or Biblical correctness, rather than their effect in promoting the worldly success of the nation that they teach and inspire.

These divisions of the Dark Enlightenment, the reaction, and the neoreaction, are less important that they seem, for if you are one, you are apt to be something of each of the others.

In particular, I want to get to the technological singularity (techno commerical reactionary), which makes me object to dysgenics, hence ethno nationalist neoreactionary, I am a darwinist, hence a partriarchal neoreactionary, I admire the success of England under the restoration Church of England, an official state church which was much better than today’s official progressivism, hence at least somewhat sympathetic to the Theonomist Reaction.

It is looking less and less likely that progressivism can make it to the technological singularity before lapsing into a dark age. I suspect that later historians will set the turning point towards a dark age, the end of the scientific age, as 1972.

If a white, patriarchal, theocratic, capitalist, throne and altar society gave us the scientific and industrial revolution, perhaps that is what it takes to get to the technological singularity.

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45 Responses to “Cladistic analysis of neoreaction”

  1. […] anti-war techno-utopian open borders global activism is pretty avant garde, but these guys have moved on to fashion intellectual foundations for the glorious reinstatement of the rightful House of Stuart […]

  2. […] anti-war techno-utopian open borders global activism is pretty avant garde, but these guys have moved on to fashion intellectual foundations for the glorious reinstatement of the rightful House of […]

  3. […] James Donald performs a cladistic analysis of neoreaction. Nick Land damns this “Obamanation.” Agents unknown publish an introduction to Moldbuggery. A House With No Child opens its doors. […]

  4. […] The Dark Enlightenment is libertarians mugged by reality, a libertarian who realizes that the eighteenth century was right about women, and Bull Connor right about blacks.. – Jims Blog […]

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  7. The official position of the Anglican Church is doctrinal latitudinarianism, or in other words the de facto promulgation of spiritual egalitarianism; it is Protestantism all in itself. The Anglican Church does not falsify my thesis, but corroborates it. The development of its doctrine is a perfect parallel for the development of Protestantism from the Formation overall, in that doctrinal nihilism is the logical endpoint.

    • jim says:

      I am not sure what is you mean by doctrinal latitudinarianism. From the restoration to the mid nineteenth century, anyone who wanted to get anywhere near the ruling elite had to swear to the thirty nine articles and the second book of homilies, which seem to me to cover every religious doctrine that is likely to matter in this world, and everything in the next that is likely to directly impact people’s behavior this world.

      Yes, now, they are unitarians, atheists, and demon worshippers, but that is not because the thirty nine articles or the second book of homilies authorizes unitarianism, atheism, or demon worship.

      • The Anglican Church was only ever conservative like Republicans are conservative. In essence, they capitulate to modernity, and even give a “Christian” concession to it. It is the nature of their development of “doctrine” to which I am speaking. That they happened to be relatively conservative earlier than now proves nothing; that they move perpetually leftward is what matters. It would be like calling modernists essentially conservative just because the majority since the 16th century were more conservative than today’s liberals.

        • jim says:

          From the restoration to around 1820 or so, the Anglican Church was throne and altar conservative, which is nothing remotely like Republicans, and indeed nothing remotely like the Roman Catholic Church has ever been. If you claimed to be an Anglican, and you needed to claim to an Anglican to get anywhere near the levers of power, you had to attend church a certain number of times and put up with sermons. And there was an official list of official sermons to make sure that preachers stayed on message. And one of those sermons that you were required to put up with and which was required to be preached, preached that private citizens should not be involved in politics, politics being a prerogative of the King.

          When the Roman Catholic Church introduced mandatory celibacy for priests, it was moving leftwards, and was way left of where the Anglican Church was from the restoration to around 1820 or so.

          • The majority of Catholics remained throne and altar conservatives longer than Anglicans, so what does that tell you?

            • jim says:

              I don’t see this. I don’t think Roman Catholics have been throne conservatives since they introduced celibacy. Roman Catholicism was Throne and Altar conservative from Charles the Hammer to Pope Gregory VII.

              Until the mid nineteenth century, every Anglican cleric preached once a year, every anglican congregation heard once a year, an official sermon that private citizens should stay out of politics, that monarchy was the will of God, and democracy contrary to the will of God.

              When did Roman Catholics last teach that?

  8. VXXC says:

    Which by the way above comment started a Torrent of same.

    Why don’t you take a break from AI and look at actual Intelligence achieving self-realization. It’s less likely to Kill Daddy than SKYNET.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/320357-nra-claims-nsa-illegally-created-a-gun-database

    • jim says:

      Artificial intelligence is easy, and strangely, not very useful. Artificial consciousness is hard, in part because we have no clear idea of what consciousness is, or why it is so useful and effective.

      A computer can beat me at chess, but a bee can beat a computer at getting around.

      • Alrenous says:

        The Mind

        Consciousness is useful in part because it can perform arbitrary calculations without using physical energy; the cost is limited to communicating between physics and consciousness.

        The nature of conscious computation is different as well, in complementary ways to physical computations. A computer has to perform strenuous calculations to find out if simulated objects collide. In physics, it just happens. In consciousness, ideas can collide: red just feels similar to orange. Perhaps more relevantly, is that pattern of stripes like a tiger? You can try to use strenuous and complicated physical computation to compare them, or you can just feed the image to consciousness along with a reference image.

        Come to think, that’s probably why consciousness has majority control over the voluntary nervous system. Considering consciousness is so slow at 0.1 to 0.2 seconds under good conditions, it would generally be better to have it take a back seat and simply feed its advice to an unconscious motivation system. Instead, we have this complicated jury-rigged thing where a vastly more intelligent subconscious manipulates a consciousness into doing what is wise, using rationalization.

  9. VXXC says:

    O/T but speaking Jim of Singularity – 81 likes. 2 dislikes immediate denounced as self loathers. It’s ah..real. As opposed to science fiction.
    And your AI would indeed kill you all [me too, but you first] upon self-realization. Real and now always has edge on future and fantasy.
    ========================================
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    Their commitment to academic excellence enriches our schools and serves as an example to all who hope to achieve prominence as a people. Real Estate values are fueled by the influx of African Americans into an area due to their caring and respectful nurturing of these communities, an example of all they have achieved by their enthusiasm for self improvement through hard work and a self-reliant can-do nature. Without their industrious and creative drive, we would be poorer as a nation.

    Presently enriching the cities of Spokane WA, Chicago IL, Philadelphia PA, Washington D.C., St. Louis MO, New Orleans LA, Los Angeles CA, Flint MI, Baltimore MD, Pontiac MI, Gary Ind., Newark NJ, Cleveland OH, Atlanta GA, Richmond VA, Memphis Tn, Birmingham AL, Camden NJ; and let’s not forget Detroit, the tourism capital of the world!!!!
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  10. “If a white, patriarchal, theocratic, capitalist, throne and altar society gave us the scientific and industrial revolution, perhaps that is what it takes to get to the technological singularity.”

    I agree to this vision, albeit I believe that society must also be explicitly Catholic (Protestantism is too distributed to achieve the same pervasive coordination of moral influence; sorry Protties, but it’s your religion, not mine). Why Catholic? In order to handle the responsibility that comes with newfound freedoms. I imagine every technological “singularity,” of which it seems to apt to suppose there are many smaller increments rather than a single given point, like all things in history viz. the fall of the Roman empire, has those who apply the technology to nihilistic ends and are rapidly selected out of society and those who apply it to substantive generative ends, and thus that use of the technology eventually becomes the popular usage after several generations. Consider the Pill as an example of such a “freeing technology” that came with our general ability to manipulate the body’s biochemistry.

    • jim says:

      I agree to this vision, albeit I believe that society must also be explicitly Catholic (Protestantism is too distributed to achieve the same pervasive coordination of moral influence

      Since theocracy is unavoidable, should be one church per state, and one state per church (and one temple for Israel). Protestant societies did more for science, technology, and industry, than Catholic societies, in particular, and especially, Restoration Anglicanism did more for science, technology, and industry than all the rest put together.

      If you have a universal church, you are apt to get a universal empire or an attempt at one – yesterday’s holy Roman Empire, wherein the House of Hapsburg attempted to rule all of Europe, or today’s USG.

      Universal empires are bad.

      • I also don’t believe in states, so this doesn’t really seem a problem to me. As to the claim of who did more for science, that seems hard to measure. Should responsibility be given to those philosophers who exposited the feasibility of empirical research? Or to those who first did the empirical research? It doesn’t seem that important a consideration for vetting the viability of a Church to a culture.

        • spandrell says:

          I also don’t believe in states

          You might not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

          Really the word “believe” is my number 2 candidate to be deleted from the dictionary. It’s bad for your thinking.

          • Yeah, I realize there are a lot of “junk” words in my manner of speaking. I’m working at pruning them in order to serve clarity.

            As to the typical objections to anarchism, while I may not have already written on them, I do have my reasons.

        • jim says:

          I also don’t believe in states

          We have had some successful stateless societies, notably saga period iceland and the Hebrews under judges, but though they were stateless, they nonetheless had a national religion that helped organize violence. In Saga period iceland, if someone was obligated to protect you, and entitled to lead the posse and adjudicate cases, he was a priest.

      • VXXC says:

        Jim,

        To me a man’s religion is his own. Let’s be honest it’s the elite’s religion you’re concerned with. The fact that Puritans won and 100 years later cast down God himself as they were holier than thee My Lord – and then instantly and irrevocably went insane is America’s Problem.

        What we practically need to do is finally and at last bring the Roundheads to utter defeat and ruin.

        And Jim Protestants doing more for science than Catholics is only true if you start the clock on Catholics with Martin Luther. Ignoring the previous 15 centuries. You’re also kind of ignoring Catholic Italy in the renaissance.

        Protestants were able to reach so high on standing on the shoulders of first the preservers and then the re-kindlers of science. Science didn’t begin in 1522.

        And uh we’re talking I think about governance and it’s ills.

        It’s true we don’t make as much money. Capitalism isn’t a Catholic invention. Although markets are. Not *stock* markets. However we didn’t have World Wars either. The miracle of Europe happened on the Catholic Watch. It existed as Europe by about 900.

        Yes under Protestants it then broke out. Not that Catholic Spain and Portugal didn’t do a good job of Empire themselves. However they didn’t have civilization ending World Wars. If our Civilization ends, no Historian will miss the impact of the World Wars. We’re too close to it and too busy arguing over current matters [or fantasy’s to escape them] to quite realize it, and the Juries still out on our demise.

        Bruce – we have yet as Catholics to show we can compete in the Modern World head to head. YES. Where’s our great white hope for the Church in America Bruce? Well – it’s AFRICA. Right? Not just numbers, priests.

        Yes. If you want to meet Idi Amin’s cousin, head on down to the Church I was raised in. It’s all I can do not to hurl insults in Swahili.

        I’ll take Imperator Si of American Unione Sanctum anatis dynastia over Pope Fi-Fi any day.

        America is worth losing the Mass.

        • VXXC says:

          To clarify “America is worth losing the Mass.” Unless they want to ban it.

          Mind you I think I’d be one of maybe 5-6 nationwide that might fight for the right to worship as Catholics. Under excommunication instantly no doubt.

          They’re cowards Mr. Bruce. Look elsewhere.

        • jim says:

          And Jim Protestants doing more for science than Catholics is only true if you start the clock on Catholics with Martin Luther. Ignoring the previous 15 centuries. You’re also kind of ignoring Catholic Italy in the renaissance.

          Around 1267, magnifying glass and eyeglasses invented. Bacon proposes calender reform, the telescope, etc. Gets put in jail by the Church.

          Around 1582, 1608, Catholic church accepts calender reform and the telescope is tolerated. Something went horribly wrong for three hundred years.

        • Erik says:

          And Jim Protestants doing more for science than Catholics is only true if you start the clock on Catholics with Martin Luther. Ignoring the previous 15 centuries.

          Yes, but you should start the clock on Catholics with Martin Luther. Before Luther there was only the Western Church; afterwards there were Catholics and Protestants.

          (Please spare me the complaints from both sides of “I represent the true tradition; the other party is deviants!” as I personally prefer the Eastern, or Orthodox, Church on that score.)

      • Rob Banks says:

        Protestant societies did more for science, technology, and industry, than Catholic societies, in particular, and especially, Restoration Anglicanism did more for science, technology, and industry than all the rest put together.

        Possibly true – but then, look at which countries produced the greatest artists and architects. Point to the Catholics.

    • Samson J. says:

      I agree to this vision, albeit I believe that society must also be explicitly Catholic (Protestantism is too distributed to achieve the same pervasive coordination of moral influence; sorry Protties, but it’s your religion, not mine).

      I’m getting really tired of all these faggy Catholics infesting these blogs and saying gaylord stuff like this.

      • Erik says:

        To what extent would you say the problem is faggy Catholics using “Protestant” as a vague catchall?
        Suppose I started using “Catholic” in such a way as to include the Monotheist Catholics (or as they call themselves: Unitarian Universalists) and you have some idea of the problem.
        If people keep using Protestant this way, I may find myself insisting as in some joke about sectarianism: I’m not Protestant, I’m Lutheran!

        • Protestants are united in their rejection of spiritual hierarchy, which is to say that it is spiritual egalitarianism. The problems with egalitarianism have been sufficiently explained that this should suffice to illustrate my thesis.

          • jim says:

            The Anglican Church, from Queen Elizabeth the first to around 1900 or so was Protestant (now it is unitarian and/or atheist, and/or believes in a “cosmic force” that sounds distinctly demonic.)

            It was also not only hierarchical, but everyone in England who wanted to get anywhere near the leavers of power had to swear to the thirty nine articles, which among other things swore loyalty to the spiritual hierarchy of the Church of England.

            Famously, Charles the First said, “If no Bishops, then no King” – that obedience to the Bishops, and obedience to the King, were indissolubly linked.

  11. DojiStar says:

    I think more Techno-Commercial Reaction libertarians like me who have some inherent distaste for religion and cultural mores (don’t tell ME what to do) look fondly back on the 18th or, less so, the 19th centuries as pretty good times for libertarians, with only a tiny fraction of the government and tax burdens of now.

    But I think we tend to forget they worked because there were societal pressures outside of the law (culture, religion, community) that made people behave reasonably well. The Victorians obviously had strong bourgeois public mores but also a strong sense of privacy. As long as you dressed for dinner you could do whatever you wanted in your basement. The 18th century Enlightenment was much more open when it came to behavior but people were reasonably religious and lived in tight communities. Even the few freethinkers were still bound by gentlemanly codes of honor and behavior, and if breached, it was swords or pistols at dawn by the river, or not just being “cut” during the Season.

    Modern totalitarian government, PC police, etc. I think are a consequence of no longer having a non-government way to regulate behavior.

    • jim says:

      The Victorians obviously had strong bourgeois public mores but also a strong sense of privacy. As long as you dressed for dinner you could do whatever you wanted in your basement.

      Until 1860 at the earliest, the Victorians were not Victorian. We are Victorian.

      “The Society for Prevention of Vice” foreshadowed feminism, and seems to have had some success in imposing oppressive mores on Victorians. Public outcry about prostitution and for female emancipation etc followed the successful campaign against slavery, with the same people operating from the same addresses turning their attention to underage sex, prostitution, and men employing maids for full service, as the next great moral cause following slavery. But, until slavery was abolished in far away lands, there seemed to be absolutely zero concern about prostitution or the status of women in England. Although the age of consent rose steadily throughout the Victorian period, it was not raised to thirteen until 1875.

  12. Nick Land says:

    “… the Techno-Commercial Reaction. (Reaction, not neoreaction, nothing neoreactionary about it. They are fans of good old fashioned manchesterism, which is libertarianism as it was before it entered the demonic alliance with the anti slavery puritans and other non Anglicans.)”

    — ultimately I’m forced to disagree with this (the terminological conclusion, that is). Techno-commercialists have the strongest purchase on the ‘neoreactionary’ label because they are the strictest Moldbuggians, sharing the same schism from Austro-libertarianism that you correctly identify.

  13. Rodger says:

    Why is getting to the ‘technological singularity’ a desirable goal? I’m genuinely curious.

    • Scharlach says:

      It’s either that or lapse into the Dark Ages. It’s one or the other. Society doesn’t get to pop into neutral.

    • DojiStar says:

      Because we have to get out of the solar system before the sun goes red giant. And perhaps out of the galaxy before it meshes with Andromeda. Ultimately, massive technological progress (no relation to progressivism!) is the only way to preserve us or, for that matter, anything of Earth.

      I’m not sure about the “singularity” as such, but, hey, if our AI descendents are better than we are, rock on.

      • Thales says:

        We have to get out long before that. Main sequence stars heat-up as they age, so the Earth will be lifeless in about half a billion years. That’s a lot of time for intelligent beings, but not much time for evolution, hence we hairless apes are the Earth’s only chance to seed the galaxy with an AI capable of thriving in that environment.

        Don’t worry too much about merging with Andromeda – all it means is a bigger galaxy, and due to the accelerating universe, It’s unlikely our offspring will escape it. The rest of the universe will just slowly disappear as our descendants struggle with heat death.

    • jim says:

      Because I don’t wish me and my descendents to face dark age natural selection.

      • peppermint says:

        Why not, dark age natural selection worked out just fine for Whites.

        What you should be worried about is natural selection in our current age, which has African characteristics, and thus selects for African characteristics.

        We should hope that, one way or the other, the current age ends soon, because it is terrible for the natural selection of intelligence and European ideas about character.

        • jim says:

          The key problem is the Victorian program to rescue fallen women, which was the beginning of today’s horde of fatherless voters on welfare. Rather than asking how fatherless children are to be supported, which enforces r type reproduction, we need to prevent fatherless children, by the liberal application of punishment and sterilization of loose women, thus enforcing K type reproduction.

          This would also alter the supply and demand for marriage in favor of men, resulting in a reduction of age of marriage to equalize the supply and demand (youth and fertility is the price women pay to get married. The amount of youth and fertility men get in marriage is the price varies to keep the number of males willing to marry equal to the number of females willing to marry.

  14. Red says:

    Jim,
    How does the inner party/outer party Blue State/Red State divide fit into all of this? I have serious doubts that inner party would last longer than a week if outer party decided to take their ball and go home.

    • jim says:

      I really have not thought much about it, don’t know much about it. I know a lot about entryism, however, and what I know about entryism tells me that the outer party takes its orders from the inner party, so would never take their ball and go home.

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