site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   27737 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

We finally hit reset, Mencius Moldbug had an unqualified podcast with the NYT. I can distinctly remember back in 2019 when the word NRx got you looked at with suspicion, now the guy who NRx has gone past, the pioneer is getting mainstream awareness. Moldbug is not the force he once was and his older stuff is where his talents lie but seeing him on NYT still makes me feel like that the horizon is indeed made of canvas.

This can also mean that Yarvin has sold out but I still find that highly unlikely, his views have influenced me a lot, a lot of you reading this too must feel this way. Will we have Nick Land next, will the thermidor continue? who knows, for now, Neo reaction arrives from the future.

This interviewer is intolerable. He keeps trying to make these sortof "dunks" or sarcastic remarks, but he just comes across as annoying.

Even if you're not interested in Moldbug, or listening to him, just seeing how bad this interview is is impressive.

The interviewer sounds too dumb for this but I wonder if it's performative, in an attempt to identify with the more typical NYT reader/listener who (e.g.) can't believe sacred cows are being questioned.

But I also realize Yarvin doesn't make his points too well, and this is also actually my normal experience with his writing? He mostly throws out controversial claims and only weakly justifies them. That makes him a fairly normal intellectual in that sense, though not what you expect from rat thinkers who argue against themselves to elucidate their points more.

Still, I had this sense he's doing a Motte and Bailey. He throws out a sensational claim like democracy sucks and dictatorships are effective but waters it down considerably when pushed a bit? Sure FDR asked for a ton of power but he still asked and he presumably got it within the framework of the democracy. Like, fine, but not exactly where I thought he was going with this.

This again may be the interviewers fault, though I think I am not alone in being frustrated by his writing in a way that I don't feel frustrated by the median rat writer.

I had a listen to the interview and didn't find myself feeling particularly illuminated - the interviewer in particular struck me as inadequate for this particular task.

There's a tension between two responsibilities an interviewer has, to be fair to him. On the one hand, an interviewer ought to invite their subject to articulate and reveal their perspective as clearly as possible. On the other hand, an interviewer ought to provoke and hold to account - an interviewer shouldn't be a pushover, but should judiciously apply pressure to draw out the challenges and contradictions of the subject's worldview.

Marchese, here, seemed inadequate to either task. He was unable to meaningfully engage with or critique much of what Yarvin said, and evidently was not familiar with the history Yarvin regularly alluded to, and rather than either get Yarvin to expand on genuinely interesting subjects or challenge Yarvin where his viewpoint is weak, Marchese came off as flailing around for attack lines. Several times, I thought, just as the conversation might be getting interesting, Marchese realised he was on weak ground and tried to pivot to a subject where he thought he could gotcha Yarvin.

It all just came off as very superficial to me. Marchese did not understand Yarvin's ideas very well and struggled to engage with them, especially when his prepared gotchas didn't land.

I'm not particularly on Yarvin's side as an intellectual, and there are plenty of effective ways to criticise him, but Marchese was just, well, bad.

Would any Yarvin fans mind sharing a favorite series of paragraphs that really exemplify his work? I could never get into him.

From "A Formalist Manifesto":

In my experience, most sensible people consider themselves “moderate,” “centrist,” “independent,” “unideological,” “pragmatic,” “apolitical,” etc. Considering the vast tragedies wrought by 20th-century politics, this attitude is quite understandable. It is also, in my opinion, responsible for most of the death and destruction in the world today.

Moderation is not an ideology. It is not an opinion. It is not a thought. It is an absence of thought. If you believe the status quo of 2007 is basically righteous, then you should believe the same thing if a time machine transported you to Vienna in 1907. But if you went around Vienna in 1907 saying that there should be a European Union, that Africans and Arabs should rule their own countries and even colonize Europe, that any form of government except parliamentary democracy is evil, that paper money is good for business, that all doctors should work for the State, etc., etc.—well, you could probably find people who agreed with you. They wouldn’t call themselves “moderates,” and nor would anyone else.

No, if you were a moderate in Vienna in 1907, you thought Franz Josef I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. So which is it? Hapsburgs, or Eurocrats? Pretty hard to split the difference on that one.

In other words, the problem with moderation is that the “center” is not fixed. It moves. And since it moves, and people being people, people will try to move it. This creates an incentive for violence—something we formalists try to avoid.

From "Castes of the United States":

Here’s my taxonomy of American castes. I’ve picked names from various historical cultures, hopefully without strong emotional associations for modern readers, for these castes. The implicit analogies these names create should be roughly accurate, but certainly not precise. I have ordered them alphabetically to avoid any implicit ranking.

In the Brahmin caste, status among both men and women is defined by scholarly achievement, success in an intellectual profession, or position of civic responsibility. The highest-status Brahmins are artists and scientists, but Brahmins can also be doctors or lawyers, although it is much better to be a doctor than a lawyer, and much better to be a lawyer than a dentist (a trade which was perhaps once Brahmin, but is now definitely Vaisya). Ideally, as a Brahmin, if you are a doctor you should be primarily concerned with caring for the poor; if you are a lawyer, your practice should focus on civil liberties and social justice—cardiology and corporate law are slightly de trop. An increasing number of young Brahmins consider themselves “activists” and work for “nonprofits” or “NGOs,” lending some credence to the theory that the Brahmins are our ruling or governing caste. Entry into the Brahmin caste is conferred almost entirely by first-tier university admissions, although getting into Harvard doesn’t mean you don’t still need to make something of yourself.

In the Dalit caste, status among men is defined by power, wealth and sexual success, among women by attractiveness and popularity. The favored occupation of Dalit men is crime, preferably of the organized variety. However, Dalit criminals are not generally psychopathic; they perceive crime as guerrilla warfare against an unjust society. Dalit women may support themselves by crime, welfare (which they consider a right), or payments from men. Both male and female Dalits may occasionally support themselves by conventional employment, but this is usually in jobs that other castes (except Helots) would consider demeaning, and Dalits share this association. The Dalit caste is not monolithic; it is divided into a number of ethnic subcastes, such as African-American, Mexican, etc. A few white Dalits exist, notably in the Appalachians. There is little or no solidarity between the various Dalit ethnicities.

The Helot caste is an imported peasant caste, originating primarily in rural Central America. Status among Helot men is conferred primarily by hard work, money and power. Status among Helot women is conferred by attractiveness, motherhood, and association with successful men. The Helot value system does not seem to be sustainable in the US, and the children of Helots tend to grow up as Dalits. New Helots, however, can always be imported to replace them.

The Optimate caste has to be mentioned, because it was until quite recently the US’s ruling caste. It is not clear, however, that the Optimate value system still exists in any meaningful sense, and if it does it is decaying rapidly, with most young Optimates becoming Brahmins. However, status among any men and women who do still follow the Optimate way is conferred by birth, breeding and personal character, with wealth serving as a prerequisite but not a mark of actual distinction. The Bible of the Optimate caste is, of course, the Social Register.

The Vaisya caste is the most difficult to define. It’s tempting to say that a Vaisya is anyone who is not a Brahmin, Dalit, Helot or Optimate. Status among Vaisya men is conferred by productive employment, generally defined in monetary terms; by a successful family life; and by participation in church or other formal social groups. Status among Vaisya women is conferred by attractiveness, motherhood, and social participation, with an increasing number of Vaisya women entering the labor force, typically in unintellectual white-collar jobs.

From "The Magic of Symmetric Sovereignty":

However, one way to evaluate a political design is to consider its worst possible result. The worst possible result of symmetric (“totalitarian”) sovereignty is an evil dictator who takes over the world and decides to torture and murder everyone in it, replacing us with his gesticulating, mustachioed clones.

Okay. I’ll admit that this is not a desirable result (unless I get to be the evil dictator, in which case I at least need to start working on my mustache). So let’s modify this slightly and instead look for the worst possible rational result. That is, let’s assume that the dictator is not evil but simply amoral, omnipotent, and avaricious.

One easy way to construct this thought-experiment is to imagine the dictator isn’t even human. He is an alien. His name is Fnargl. Fnargl came to Earth for one thing: gold. His goal is to dominate the planet for a thousand years, the so-called “Thousand-Year Fnarg,” and then depart in his Fnargship with as much gold as possible. Other than this Fnargl has no other feelings. He’s concerned with humans about the way you and I are concerned with bacteria.

You might think we humans, a plucky bunch, would say “screw you, Fnargl!” and not give him any gold at all. But there are two problems with this. One, Fnargl is invulnerable—he cannot be harmed by any human weapon. Two, he has the power to kill any human or humans, anywhere at any time, just by snapping his fingers.

Other than this he has no other powers. He can’t even walk—he needs to be carried, as if he was the Empress of India. (Fnargl actually has a striking physical resemblance to Jabba the Hutt.) But with invulnerability and the power of death, it’s a pretty simple matter for Fnargl to get himself set up as Secretary-General of the United Nations. And in the Thousand-Year Fnarg, the UN is no mere sinecure for alcoholic African kleptocrats. It is an absolute global superstate. Its only purpose is Fnargl’s goal—gold. And lots of it.

In other words, Fnargl is a revenue maximizer. The question is: what are his policies? What does he order us, his loyal subjects, to do?

The obvious option is to make us all slaves in the gold mines. Otherwise—blam. Instant death. Slacking off, I see? That’s a demerit. Another four and you know what happens. Now dig! Dig! (Perhaps some readers have seen Blazing Saddles.)

But wait: this can’t be right. Even mine slaves need to eat. Someone needs to make our porridge. And our shovels. And, actually, we’ll be a lot more productive if instead of shovels, we use backhoes. And who makes those? And…

We quickly realize that the best way for Fnargl to maximize gold production is simply to run a normal human economy, and tax it (in gold, natch). In other words, Fnargl has exactly the same goal as most human governments in history. His prosperity is the amount of gold he collects in tax, which has to be exacted in some way from the human economy. Taxation must depend in some way on the ability to pay, so the more prosperous we are, the more prosperous Fnargl is.

Fnargl’s interests, in fact, turn out to be oddly well-aligned with ours. Anything that makes Fnargl richer has to make us richer, and vice versa.

For example, it’s in Fnargl’s interest to run a fair and effective legal system, because humans are more productive when their energies aren’t going into squabbling with each other. It’s even in Fnargl’s interest to have a fair legal process that defines exactly when he will snap his fingers and stop your heart, because humans are more productive when they’re not worried about dropping dead.

And it is in his interest to run an orderly taxation system in which tax rates are known in advance, and Fnargl doesn’t just seize whatever, whenever, to feed his prodigious gold jones. Because humans are more productive when they can plan for the future, etc. Of course, toward the end of the Thousand-Year Fnarg, this incentive will begin to diminish—ha ha. But let’s assume Fnargl has only just arrived.

Other questions are easy to answer. For example, will Fnargl allow freedom of the press? But why wouldn’t he? What can the press do to Fnargl? As Bismarck put it: “they say what they want, I do what I want.” But Bismarck didn’t really mean it. Fnargl does.

In general, Fnargl has no reason at all to impose any artificial restriction on his subjects. He will impose laws only in order to prevent violence, which reduces gold production. He has no interest at all in “victimless crimes.” Since he can define failure to pay one’s tax as theft from him, Fnargl, the Vast And Pungent One, it turns out that he operates a very normal system of law.

It turns out that, except for the 30–40% of our economic output that disappears into his gold stash, Fnargl is actually an ideal ruler. Far from being “totalitarian,” the Fnargocracy is if anything remarkably libertarian. Does Fnargl mind if you light up a jay? Not in the slightest.

From "Friction in Theory and Practice":

Conflict exists whenever two men (or women) want the same thing, but only one can have it. Economists call this a scarce resource. Scarce resources are everywhere. My car, for example, is a scarce resource.

Uncertainty exists whenever it is difficult to predict the outcome of a conflict. For example, you might want my car. (This is only because you haven’t seen it.) But it has an ignition lock and I have the title, and the full military power of the United States is on my side. (This is only because it doesn’t know me.) So it’s easy for both of us to predict that your chance of obtaining my car without my consent is quite small.

But if we lived in, say, Gaza City, things might be different. For example, suppose you were an adherent of the People’s Front of Gaza, an extremist terrorist gang, whereas I paid dues only to the peaceful, moderate and democratic Gazan Popular Front. If the former rose up and drove the latter into the sea, it’s certainly possible that there might be someone you could speak to on the subject of “my” car.

And it’s quite possible that I would feel the need to accept this fait accompli. In which case, although there was friction between the PFG and the GPF, there is none between us. The car is now yours, as once it was mine. Nothing says we can’t be perfectly civil about it.

However, it’s also possible that I might have a cousin—or two—in the PFG. And if any such uncertainty exists, the result is friction: we both expend effort toward resolving the conflict in our respective directions. We may expend some ammunition as well. Or we may just expend time, vocal cords, bribes, and innumerable cups of tea. In any case, this labor is unproductive by any conceivable definition of productivity.

In theory, it’s important to distinguish between uncertainty, which is incalculable risk, and probability, which is calculable. For example, if both of us could agree on a probability of the car’s eventual disposition—let’s say 70% for me, 30% for you—we’d find it easy to compromise. 30% of a car is not so useful, but we could agree to have it appraised and I could give you 30% of the market price. (Of course, this would be a contribution to the victorious people of Gaza, not a mere bribe, kickback or shakedown.)

But calculable probabilities are pretty rare in practice. (Prediction markets can help with this, but bear in mind that a market price is just an average opinion, not a magic 8-ball. Nonetheless, I always wonder why some brave soul hasn’t set up prediction markets for judicial decisions.)

In a frictional conflict, both sides may estimate a probability. But since uncertainty exists, there is no reason for their calculations to match, and so no reason for their respective estimates of success to sum to 100%. It’s only human nature to overstate one’s own chances. And in conflicts between organizations—such as states, companies, or even People’s Fronts—it is almost inevitable. So the joint expected value can be, and typically is, 150%, 180%, etc. Leaving a lot of room for noble sacrifice.

From "Democracy as a Historical Phenomenon":

Under legarchy, the sovorg exercises internal control as an extension of the judicial system which keeps residents secure from each other. It simply adds a class of offenses which are crimes against the sovorg itself, without any other direct victim. For example, you may not train your paramilitary militia in the Sierras. You may not keep a cache of automatic weapons in your basement. If you are in a crowd and the police order you to disperse, you must do so.

Violating any of these restrictions cannot be described as a tort against any person. They are pure infringements on your personal freedom. They may even be arbitrary and inexplicable. However, as long as they are at least predictable, their impact on a reasonable customer is minimal. Every city in the world has the death penalty for stepping in front of a bus. How do we live with this draconian, irrational, and instantly enforced rule? By not violating it. Most of us never give the matter a second thought.

From An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives, Chapter 3:

Let’s start with the obvious. A reactionary—i.e., a right-winger—is someone who believes in order, stability, and security. All of which he treats as synonyms.

Think, as a progressive, about the simplicity of this proposition. It is so stupid as to be almost mindless. What is the purpose of government? Why do we have government, rather than nothing? Because the alternative is Corner Man.

Note that Corner Man has his own philosophy of government. He exercises sovereignty. That’s his corner. (“Metro [the Las Vegas PD] can’t even get me off this ---- corner.”) Indeed, he has much the same relationship to the government that you and I know and love, that Henry VIII had to the Pope. And how did he acquire his corner? “I’ve been on this ---- corner for ten ---- years.” In legal theory this is called adverse possession, which is more or less how the Tudors acquired their little island.

Of course, we reactionaries are not fans of Corner Man, largely because his claim to the corner is contested by a superior authority which will prevail in any serious conflict. Why does he attack the blue PT Cruiser? Is it because he’s on crack? Perhaps, but perhaps it’s also because the driver owes allegiance to the other side of the conflict—“Metro”—and neither has nor would acknowledge Corner Man’s authority. For example, she has not paid him any taxes, fees, or rents for the privilege of positioning her vehicle on his (so-called) territory.

One synonym for reactionary is legitimist. When the legitimist asks whether Corner Man really owns his corner, he is not asking whether Corner Man should own his corner. He asks whether Corner Man does own his corner. And his answer is “no.” He prefers the claim of “Metro,” not (or not just) because “Metro” is not in the habit of getting loaded and bashing the holy heck out of random peoples’ cars, but because “Metro” and Corner Man have conflicting claims, and in the end, the former is almost certain to win.

And when he asks whether the Bourbons are the legitimate rulers of France or the Stuarts of England, he is not asking whether (a) the Bourbon or Stuart family has some hereditary biological property that makes their scions ideal for the job (midichlorians, perhaps), or (b) the Bourbon or Stuart will suffer intolerably as a result of being deprived of the throne, or even (c) the Bourbon or Stuart families obtained their original claims fairly and squarely. At least, not if he has any sense. None of these arguments is even close to viable.

Thus, the order that the rational reactionary seeks to preserve and/or restore is arbitrary. Perhaps it can be justified on some moral basis. But probably not. It is good simply because it is order, and the alternative to order is violence at worst and politics at best. If the Bourbons do not rule France, someone will—Robespierre, or Napoleon, or Corner Man.

And from An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives, Chapter 10:

In fact, let’s whale on UR’s favorite crash-test dummy, Professor Burke, for a little while here. As I’ve said, this man (an assistant professor at Swarthmore) is my current case study for the fundamentally and irreparably evil character of the Cathedral. He comes across as a perfectly nice guy, of course, and I suspect that’s exactly what he is. So was Albert Speer, who once wrote that you can’t expect to recognize the Devil when he puts his hand on your shoulder.

You probably think it’s excessive to compare Burke to Speer. Oh, no. Think again:

The really major thing, I think, is that the Soweto uprising of 1976 and subsequent campaigns to make South Africa’s townships “ungovernable” put the apartheid regime under what proved to be unbearable pressure, largely on the pure grounds of resource limitations. The apartheid state simply couldn’t cope in the end with the demands that ungovernability put upon it, even when it put up a pretty good show of having everything under a tight authoritarian lid. Few of us saw this clearly in 1986–87 precisely because the state was putting on such a good performance, but underneath, the leadership was increasingly seeing collapse as inevitable.

Let’s review what led to ungovernability. The vast majority of the population without any vote or democratic outlet. An authoritarian state that legally defined almost all dissent as terrorism and gave itself entitlement to retaliate against dissent with imprisonment, torture, and murder. A state which routinely censored all media. A state which ignored property rights of most of its citizens. In short, a state which was in every respect the antithesis of liberalism, in which there was literally no avenue for democratic or liberal protest for the vast majority of its citizens.

Let’s review what ungovernability consisted of. Refusal to cooperate with any institution controlled directly or indirectly by the national government. So leaving school, refusing to pay any rents or fees assessed by governmental bodies, refusal to comply with orders from authorities no matter how routine those orders might be, and an embrace of violent resistance to the state and any perceived agents of the state. Making large areas of the country “no-go” areas for civil authorities unless they were accompanied by strong military forces. Murder or threat of murder of suspected collaborators.

As I said, I think it worked. I think it was justified not just because it worked but because there were no other alternatives. The apartheid state and the National Party spent twenty years steadily crushing all other avenues for political change and rewriting the laws and constitution of South Africa so as to define itself as the permanent and unchanging ruler of South Africa.

That’s right. Our sweet, jocular D&D-playing history professor has just endorsed the practice of putting car tires full of gasoline around his fellow humans’ necks, then lighting them afire. I wonder how many d6 of damage that attack does?

It’s tempting to say that a Vaisya is anyone who is not a Brahmin, Dalit, Helot or Optimate.

So I suppose the notion that America has her own Kshatriya caste is something he neglects to even mention?

A world where the natural warrior-elite of the USA (whoever that is, and even if it even exists) re-emerges and becomes a functioning warrior-elite would not be a world a Jewish nerd like Yarvin wants to live in.

One thing I noticed about reading the "American Castes" essay when it first came out is that it was an obvious oversimplification (in the same way that the 4+1 caste model of the original Hindu caste system is a massive oversimplification of the various jatis and varnas). There are a number of groups that don't fit into Yarvin's 5 castes, and the career military (and in particular people from multi-generational military families) - as opposed to people doing a short stint and expecting to get out after 4-8 years, who remain in their original caste - is one of the more obvious ones (unless they are Optimates by birth). There is definitely a hereditary officer corps in the American military, but it isn't where most officers come from. I don't know enough to comment on whether it could be a functioning warrior-elite in the future.

A world where the natural warrior-elite of the USA (whoever that is, and even if it even exists) re-emerges and becomes a functioning warrior-elite would not be a world a Jewish nerd like Yarvin wants to live in.

Why not? Are you assuming he has direct political ambitions?

I am noticing that Yarvin has achieved high social status by being good at being a Jewish nerd in a society run by philosemitic merchant elites, and that warrior elites are generally unsympathetic to nerds and Jews.

warrior elites are generally unsympathetic to nerds and Jews.

The most common predictors of hardcore antisemitism in the 21st century are (1) religion (particularly Islam but to some extent traditionalist Catholicism) and (2) political opinions on Israel/Palestine (strongly tied to 1) and - among whites - white nationalism, neither of which have much to do with whether someone is a ‘warrior elite’.

Jewish far rightists have always had to contend with the fact that there are many antisemites on the far right. Nevertheless, they are not required to be performatively anti-Jewish or opposed to Jewish identity the way that Jewish devout pro-Palestinian activists have to. With the exception of Unz, who really does hate himself, most far-right Jews aren’t antisemitic, and most (BAP and Moldbug includes) are quietly proud of being of Jewish descent.

and that warrior elites are generally unsympathetic to nerds and Jews.

I come from the only place where this system existed overtly, the warrior always needs a good priest to jutify and give mandate of heaven. Chandragupta Maurya happened due to Kautilya. Yarvin is a mischling.

So what, specifically, do you expect them to do? Take away his IT loicense? His blogging loicense?

I am not a Yarvin fan, but I'd offer this:

It’s not news that I believe the Cathedral is evil. And since it’s 2008, you’d expect evil to have not only a name, but a blog. And sure enough it does. Evil’s name is Timothy Burke, he is a professor of history (specializing in southern Africa) at Swarthmore, and his blog is Easily Distracted.

The great thing about Professor Burke is that he appears to have a conscience. Almost every post in his blog can be understood as a kind of rhetorical struggle to repress some inner pang of doubt. He is the Good German par excellence. When people of this mindset found themselves in the Third Reich, they were “moderate Nazis.” In Czechoslovakia or Poland they “worked within the system.” Professor Burke is nowhere near being a dissident, but there is a dissident inside him. He doesn’t like it, not at all. He stabs it with his steely knives. He can check out any time. But he can never leave. His position is a high one, and not easy to get.

The entire blog is characterized—indeed it could serve as a type specimen for—the quality that Nabokov called poshlost. Simply an embarrassment of riches. I am saddened by the fact that, as a new parent, I cannot devour the whole thing. But as a case study, I have selected this. The whole post is a treat, but I am especially tickled by the line:

I am drawn to procedural liberalism because I live in worlds that are highly procedural and my skills and training are adapted to manipulating procedural outcomes.

“Manipulating procedural outcomes.” My entire post—maybe even my entire blog—reduced to three words. If you want to know how you are governed, this is it: you are governed by manipulating procedural outcomes. It’s perfect. It belongs on someone’s tomb.

That was, to me, a penetrating insight and an encapsulation of exceptional utility.

Political problems and division arises from insufficient concentration of political power, not too much of it.

Very Confucian -- the emperor exists to have all the political power not to actually exercise it but to permanently put to rest all power disputes.

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.

-The Analects, Book 1, Part 2

Very symbolic.

Yeah, in a nutshell. The emperor has all the power, but he also, because he has all the power and because the position is hereditary, has the incentives pointed squarely in the direction of keeping the nation in good shape. A peaceful and prosperous empire makes the imperial family rich and secures their positions. Looting the country, imposing bad ideas on the citizens, destroying the commons, etc. would tend to reduce the peace and prosperity, make the imperial family worse off, and put them in a precarious position because if things get bad enough, there will be a revolution.

I think this is probably where Yarvin and Confucianism part ways a bit. Yarvin is very much power for functional sake: his monarch does things. Confucius was more symbolic -- the emperor sits on the throne just to sit on it, he's not meant to actively do things.

I don’t think Confucius is “anti-power-use”. The system works by those above treating those below as beloved children, while those below treat those above like loving parents. It’s a reciprocal approach to human society that recognizes the natural hierarchical nature of human society and uses it to promote harmony. I owe the emperor my loyalty, he owes me to think about the welfare of us peasants when making decisions. Of course all of this would mean nothing if the only decisions made are symbolic. If the prince im to obey only chooses between Yellow robes or blue robes, there’s no reason not to obey. Obeying decisions that you agree with or that don’t matter, I’d hardly think it matters. Why would you need to focus obedience around a system where no one makes consequential decisions? Obedience is easy when the decisions don’t matter. When the decisions do matter, that’s where obedience counts for something. If you decide to force people to move, that takes obedience. Telling you to paint th3 houses green less so.

Yarvin is basically a historian and has a lot of interesting insights on the past. He also turns his analysis on the present and comes up with interesting ideas there as well.

However he often veers into recommendations on how to fix things, and I think he's less qualified on that point.

He also grew up as a State Department brat, which gives him a lot of knowledge about how things actually operate in high level government.

I think that "castes of the united states" and "the bdh-ov conflict" represent a decent model for understanding the current political conflicts in the US. In a better world undergrad polsci students would be expected to read them.

https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/castes-of-united-states/

https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/bdh-ov-conflict_07/

Also he's much less verbose in interviews. I'd suggest watching his interviews with Michael Malice, but that's a decent time commitment.

He is very verbose. If you want a quicker intro into NRx, check out truthinaworldoflies.com on the Wayback Machine. I would recommend an open letter to an open-minded progressive. The entire book is really good, and here is a quote by him I really like.

If you accept Dr. Watson’s fallback position, his intellectual Torres Vedras—as Professor Gates does—the Cathedral is already a goner. Its defeat is not a matter for further research. It is a matter of freshman philosophy. The Cathedral has chosen to fortify, not as a minor outpost but as its central keep, the position of not-A and not-B (actually, since not-A or not-B would suffice, the typical insistence on both is a classic sign of a weak position). Its belief in the statistical uniformity of the human brain across all subpopulations presently living is absolute. It has put all its chips on this one.

And the evidence for its position is really not much stronger than the evidence for the Holy Trinity. In fact, the Holy Trinity has a big advantage: there may be no evidence for it, but at least there is none against it. There is plenty of evidence against human neurological uniformity. The question is simply what standard of proof you apply. By the standards that most of us apply to most questions of fact, the answer is already obvious—and has been for at least thirty years. If not a hundred.

This is really good for 2008, 16 years is a long time. His work led to Nick Land writing the Dark Enlightenment and Xenosystems, Spandrell writing BioLeninism and IQ Shredders, Jim Donald writing Blog.reaction.la, fosetti, hestia society, the evolution of Jims blog into sub branches like truthinaworldoflies.com written by a long time dutch commetor there named Alf and Setting the record straight by Aidan Maclear. Passage press, Mytery Grove, Imperium Press, Amazon all have at least Moldbug if not land.

He is verbose but very much worth reading. NRx is now hard to differentiate from Rx or reaction, what makes them neo afterall beyond Lands CCRU transhumanism ideas. I have not seen many explicit differences, maybe I need to start reading this stuff properly again this time around, have not in a while.

I dunno why people say he's so verbose. He's really not except for a few of his essays. The amount of writing he does is less than required of a typical humanities undergrad ; same for the amount of effort to read him compared to college assigned reading. The verbosity of the prose itself is not that much different from other writing in an academic setting or even many op-eds, such as from the New Yorker. I think so many people's attention spans are fried.

I think so many people's attention spans are fried.

Yes and mine is terrible in particular, need to work on it more actively.

When I saw that this interview happened, I expected it to be strong evidence in favor of the “vibe shift”. However, it’s clear that interviewer did not want this to be a neutral way to showcase Yarvin’s ideas for the audience to weigh dispassionately.

He is clearly made psychologically uncomfortable by being asked to step outside of the progressive liberal frame, even as a thought experiment; he says more than once, “I can’t believe I’m even arguing this…” He also seems determined to smear Yarvin with the taint of racism and sexism; he brings up out-of-context quotes about slavery from over a decade ago, which have nothing to do with the supposed focus of the interview.

He also appears to have been instructed to optimize for brevity and for saving the reader from having to do any homework; any time Yarvin tries to go on one of his deep history tangents to support his argument, the interviewer accuses him of obfuscating. This means that the reader learns very little about Yarvin’s actual reasons for believing what he does. (The interviewer even at one point attempts to insinuate that Yarvin’s whole ideology is simply a manifestation of his insecure personality.)

I think this interview is a huge waste, and is only interesting insofar as it’s a small step in the right direction that the NYT even published it at all.

I agree with you that it's annoying how the interviewer acts like certain political positions are obviously right rather than being willing to engage in a more dispassionate debate about them. To be fair, though, Yarvin frequently does the same thing in his writing and speaking. Indeed, part of why he is popular is because he uses many effective emotional and stylistic rhetorical techniques instead of just writing dull dry dissertations. And part of why he is often criticized even by people who are sympathetic to his worldview is that all too often, he jumps from one statement to another one that does not necessarily follow from what he said before and uses rhetorical flourishes to cover up the non-sequitur.

Also, to be fair to the interviewer, if you come into the interview knowing nothing about Yarvin's thought, I would say that Yarvin's views on slavery from years ago are actually pretty useful to know about. For one thing, they are one of the aspects of his thought that is most different from the typical NYT reader's thought, so it is worthwhile to draw attention to the issue so that the reader has a rough idea of what Yarvin is about. For another thing, claiming that the black slaves were better off under slavery is one of the easiest Yarvin ideas to critique even from a purely logical point of view, so critiquing it is a good way to show an example of some of the strengths and weaknesses of Yarvin's worldview in general. Do I think that Yarvin genuinely believes that the blacks were better under slavery? Not really. And I say this as someone who has read probably more than half of everything that he has ever written for public consumption. I think he believes that it is somewhat true that blacks were better off, in some ways, under slavery, but he does not really believe deep down that they were better off. When he claims that they were, it is because he wants to do a bit of very typical Yarvin trolling, plus he wants to poke at conventional wisdom in order to get people thinking more deeply. I think it would be fair to believe that when Yarvin says that blacks were better off under slavery, this is just a bit of a rhetorical flourish which covers the fact that he what he really probably thinks is that whites were better off when blacks were in slavery.

That said, all this doesn't mean that I think this is a good interview. I am referring to the printed version, I have not seen any video of it. The interviewer either deliberately or accidentally fails to talk to Yarvin in depth about the actually most interesting and useful aspects of Yarvin's thought.

It's hard for me to take Yarvin seriously after the whole Dark elf thing.

Because of the idea itself, or because of the cheesy Tolkien metaphor he wrapped it in?

I didn't like it because he clearly isn't actually very familiar with Tolkien but insisted on making a tortured analogy put of it anyways. "Dark elves" are a Norse mythology thing, not a Tolkien thing.

Tolkien doesn't use the term "dark elf" from what I recall, but he has plenty of morally dark, morally ambiguous, and/or rebellious elf characters who could be characterized as "dark elves". In Tolkien, there is no race of dark elves, but then, in Yarvin's metaphor there also isn't. When he talks about "dark elves", he more or less means elites who defect from the blue tribe consensus, he's not talking about a race or ethnic group.

He does. There is a single character, Eöl, who is known as the Dark Elf, and a broader category, the Moriquendi (lit. 'Elves of Darkness' or 'Dark Elves').

In neither case does Tolkien mean anything like Dark Elves or Drow in the modern, D&D-influenced sense. The Moriquendi are merely those elves who never went to Valinor and saw the light of the Two Trees. (Those are the Calaquendi, or Elves of Light.) But there is no implied biological distinction, and certainly no moral distinction. For instance, Legolas is a Moriquendi, despite being probably the most famous example of the later Wood Elf archetype. The vast majority of elves are Moriquendi.

I wouldn't say Tolkien has Dark Elves in the D&D sense of an elven kindred who are evil. Tolkien is generally quite careful to avoid elves like that - there are plenty of morally flawed elves, but elves never side with Morgoth or Sauron, ever.

At any rate, none of this makes Yarvin's fantasy metaphor any less cringeworthy, though I suppose that is an aesthetic judgement, so make of it what you will.

elves never side with Morgoth

I mean, there was Maeglin, son of Eol, but he was also horribly tortured to encourage his betrayal, so I suppose that could be considered a bit of an extenuating circumstance.

I kneel before superior Tolkien knowledge.

Speaking of Tolkien knowledge, I find it interesting that /r/tolkienfans is one of the few subreddits I can think of that is relatively free from Reddit-ism. Perhaps in some way, one can give partial credit to the old Professor for that.

I don’t think he was attempting to channel Tolkien with that; I think he was going more for Dungeons & Dragons, which notably has an iconic faction of dark (in both the physical and moral senses) elves. Although, as others have pointed out, the metaphor still wouldn’t work in D&D, as the Drow are not some secret subversive faction exerting influence on the high elves behind the scenes; they’re a totally separate culture, who live underground and kidnap people (including other elves) to feed to their spider goddess.

Taken as its own metaphor shorn of any attempt to fit it into another mythos, though, I think Yarvin’s dark elf thing is evocative and effective enough.

In D&D, drow are evil by culture anyway, not inherently evil. Good drow were prominent as far back as Drizz'zt was introduced, which is 1988.

I only recommend his blog before the substack. What is the dark elf thing?

Here's the link to Yarvin in NYT.

In a sense this is just the continuation of his normalization after he got on Tucker's show (back when that was part of Fox News). I wouldn't read too much into it.

What's interesting is how past NRX the right wing is today. Most dissident rightists accept much of what Moldbug says, and it's even accepted dogma up to the vice president elect, but almost none of them consider themselves part of a NRX movement or anything like that. And most of the ones that did at any point have since moved on.

Yarvin has managed to become a sort of instrumental toolbox of ideas lying around waiting to be picked up by any would be counter-elite, and this seemed to have worked. And yet very few of the people who did pick up his toolbox take him seriously, despite using the tools.

He reminds me of Julius Evola in that way.

My grandfather used to say that there's no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care about getting the credit.

How would he know?

He's the guy who actually discovered nuclear fission. But you probably haven't heard of him.

Yarvin, for all his faults, at least doesn't base his thought on always telling people what they want to hear. Some of his ideas, such as 1) Trump probably won't accomplish much, 2) the system is more likely to be changed by blue/gray tribe elites defecting than by populist right-wing revolution, and 3) even if the right wins, they should forgive the left and treat them decently rather than trying to seek vengeance... make him unpalatable to the more passionate and radical type of modern right-wing intellectual who believes in a glorious right-wing uprising that sweeps all before it.

I haven't caught up with him in a while -- do you have link for (3)?

I don't have a single specific link for (3). It's scattered over a number of his essays and interviews, from what I recall. His basic point, as best as I can phrase it, is that the left is largely just normies who have been doing what normies always do, which is to follow the dictates of whatever regime is currently in power. The key is that Yarvin doesn't view this as a bad thing. After all, as a monarchist, he on some level likes the idea of normies following whatever regime is currently in power. Hence his politics is focused on a revolution among the elites, rather than on a populist revolution. He doesn't really want the masses to rise up, and he probably doesn't think that they are capable of it in any case. He is more focused on getting the masses a new set of masters. He thinks that if a new regime takes power, it should make sure to lock the previous regime out of any important positions of political influence, but other than that it should also treat the previous regime's foot-soldiers decently and not try to get revenge on them. He often brings up the example of the Allied de-Nazification of Germany. Basically, the Allies made it illegal to be a Nazi, but for the most part they did not persecute minor Nazi officials, they kind of just let them continue to be part of society, they just made sure that they could not reconstitute something like Nazism. Yarvin has a similar vision for if a regime that is different from today's regime takes power in the US. He would take political action to prevent the former regime from reconstituting itself, but for the most part he would not persecute the former regime's foot soldiers.

Note: I do not agree with all of Yarvin's points, I am just trying to do as best of a job as I can to present his thoughts accurately.

Yep. From chapter 8: a reset is not a revolution

First, the existing government must be thoroughly lustrated. There is no point in trying to debug or reform it. There is certainly no need for individual purges, McCarthy-style, or for Fragebogen and Persilscheine à la 1945. Except for the security forces and essential technical personnel, all employees should be thanked for their service, asked to submit contact information so that they can be hired as temporary consultants if the new administration finds it necessary, and discharged with no hard feelings, an amnesty for any crimes they may have committed in government service, and a pension sufficient to retire.

The whole chapter is good. I forgot the feeling of reading the original UR posts, like a breath mint for the brain.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats