Sacking the Cathedral

June 8, 2025

Welcome back to Revolutionary Restraint. Our last two essays were concerned with understanding the spirit which animates the modern left. We first established that the left, in the purest sense of the term, is an erosive force that breaks down all traditions. We further explained that the defining characteristic of modernity is the ascendency of the left and how, as modernity progressed, this ascendancy revealed itself more and more through the wave of revolutions through which society turned against traditional sources of authority in ever more radical ways. The full destructive potential of the ascendancy of the leftist forces first became clearly evident in the French Revolution with its tendency to turn on and devour its own leaders, but this potential was not fully realized until the urge to rebel against every sort of traditional authority began to, itself, become a sort of tradition, whose dogma, which demands rebellion against every form of authority (oppression), became crystallized in the theoretical framework developed by Marx and his followers. We then saw, through the writings of Mark Fisher, the disastrous consequences that the adoption of this dogma has had on the contemporary left. There we encountered a left shattered by the very principle that animates it, which is manifested in a plague of mental illness and dysfunction. Amongst the root causes of this plague is the left’s insistence on clinging to Marx’s dead end economic doctrines, even in the face of the clear historical victory of free market principles, which has crippled the left, leaving its faithful in a state of abject depression from which they can do nothing productive but try to distract themselves by any means possible, chief amongst them, endless self-destructive identitarian infighting. In the sorry state it is currently in, the left has little left to offer society. Indeed, if anything, society must be protected from its destructive influences. 

Having completed our survey of the left, we must now turn our attention to the contemporary right. For any brave leftists who are still with me, I feel obliged to warn you once again that this is not going to get any easier any time soon; far from it; it is going to have to get much worse before it has any hope of getting better. For one, a necessary first step, if we are to have any hope of finding solutions to the problems we face or even of having productive discussions to that end, is to admit that there are a number of serious and penetrating thinkers on the contemporary right. Indeed, it is not unreasonable to think that several figures on the right are quite likely to go down in history as some of the most important and penetrating thinkers of our time. Here the devotees of the left immediately face a barrier, as to admit this is tantamount to heresy which puts one in danger of accusations of fascism which, despite the left’s decline, still comes with its dangers of violent reprisals (cornered dogs tend to have the most vicious bite). But, as the left and right complement each other, it should come as no surprise that, as the left begins to run out of steam and consume itself, we should see a reinvigorated right begin to emerge. We can, no doubt, expect this resurgent right to provide us with some answers or, at least, some clues to the answers to some of the problems we face. This is not to endorse rightism, but merely to recognize the fact that left and right are complementary forces and that an excess in one necessitates a complementary reaction in the other. At the same time, we must recognize that there is a certain danger of that reaction being too great, leading to an excess on the right which must be avoided at all costs. Our goal must be to reestablish harmony between left and right, not to favor the advantage of one or the other. What makes the left particularly dangerous at this point in time is that their doctrine has hardened into a dogma which holds its adherents back from seeing the real cause of their frustrations and renders them incapable of pursuing any realistic or lasting solutions. They can only resort to ever more bizarre and decadent displays, lashing out violently when all else fails. 

In order to move forward, we must first move back for a moment. We must retrace our steps to CCRU, that group of thinkers at Warwick University with whom Fisher cut his teeth back in the 90s. One of his peers and, indeed, one of the dominant figures in CCRU was a philosopher by the name of Nick Land. Land, in many ways, was a bit of an odd ball from the very beginning. His early works were fairly normal or, at least, they conformed more or less to conventional academic standards (there is, perhaps, a significant number of people for whom subjects such as Kant, capital, and incest might not qualify as normal). Soon he began experimenting with increasingly radical writing styles. Captivated by the worlds of science fiction from the beginning, he began to incorporate elements of fiction into his own writing, eventually arriving at a concept he refers to as “hyperstition” which can roughly be understood as a sort of superstition that becomes so powerful that it makes itself true. One later essay, “A Ziigothic X-Coda”, pushes the stylistic limitations of the philosophical essay to the extremes,  written in a highly creative language that gives the impression of being that of a highly intelligent computer program gone haywire. From the beginning, Land offered a unique view which to distinguish him from his CCRU collaborators. Amongst his formative influences was the radical French thinker Bataille, whose philosophy was the inspiration for an early book with the telling title The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism. Whereas his peers remained more or less committed to leftist ends and sensibilities, seeing accelerationism as a possible means of pursuing those ends, Land’s accelerationism was never too tied to such hopes. On the contrary, there is a certain pessimistic and even anti-humanistic streak to Land’s thought. The bleakness of Land’s view is closely connected to a recurring fixation with the theme of artificial intelligence and its implications for humanity. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s characterization of capitalism as the unnameable thing which all traditional societies tried, in vain, to keep at bay, Land sees artificial intelligence as the ultimate and inevitable realization of that unnameable thing. Land sees artificial intelligence as, essentially, the next major step on the evolutionary ladder and he sees humanity’s greatest fulfilment as lying in bringing about these superior beings as quickly as possible, no matter the consequence to humans, even if it should mean our demise, for humans are not so special that we should , in our hubris, allow our potential demise to serve as reason to impede the advance of evolution, nor should we think that we can. It is this that causes Land to describe capital as an invasion by an alien god from the future. 

As time went on, Land drifted further and further from his CCRU and Warwick colleagues. Eventually, he resigned from his position at Warwick and relocated to China. There he was able to shake the last vestiges of his earlier associations with leftist thought and reemerge as one of the leading figures of the burgeoning neoreaction or dark enlightenment movement, which Land chronicled in a blog later to be published in the form of an essay titled The Dark Enlightenment. The responses of many on the left to Land’s transformation is a testament to the power of what Fisher calls the Vampires’ Castle (it strikes me now that I missed the perfect opportunity to share this song in the discussion of the Vampires’ Castle in the last post. Then again, perhaps, this one is even more appropriate. And one more just for the hell of it. Witch’s Castle, Vampires’ Castle, same thing, right?).They range from confusion, to betrayal, to pure rage. Some resort to slander, dismissing Land’s evolution as nothing more than the result of a drug fueled mental breakdown. Others simply levy the ever handy accusation of fascism as an excuse to avoid seriously engaging with him. But upon reading Land’s post-transformation works, I could not help but think that, surely, the rumours of Land’s drug induced psychosis in China had been greatly exaggerated. If anything, this work is far more lucid than his earlier work. More than that, I was immediately struck by the sense that Land would go down as one of the great political thinkers of our time. His identification and analysis of problems was penetrating and his solutions worthy of consideration. Anyone refusing to engage with these ideas was clearly doing themselves, as well as anyone they might engage in dialogue on such matters a massive disservice. Refusal on the part of leftists to deal with ideas that do not conform to their faith exemplifies the impediment that contemporary leftism poses to genuine progress and why one of the most crucial and immediate objectives must be to shatter the hegemony over popular culture that the left has enjoyed for some time now. As it turns out, the neoreaction movement has its own term for the apparatus which maintains the left’s cultural hegemony which they refer to as the “Cathedral.” This Cathedral functions in a similar manner to the Vampires’ Castle, but its scope is much broader, with its influence extending across all of society. The Vampires’ Castle is but a wing of the far grander Cathedral, through which the Cathedral has thoroughly subdued, domesticated, and rendered subservient the radical left. Identifying and explaining the operation of the Cathedral will be our primary goal in this essay. 

But first, let us try to say more definitely what the neoreaction or dark enlightenment movement actually is. In his Xenosystems Land describes neoreaction as follows

To translate “neoreaction” into “the new reaction is in no way objectionable. It is new, and open to novelty. Apprehended historically it dates back no more than a few years. The writings of Mencius Moldbug have been a critical catalyst. [On Moldbug, we will have much more to say shortly. Oh yes leftists, I warned you, it’s going to get much worse before there’s any chance of getting better.]

Neoreaction is also a species of reactionary political analysis, inheriting a deep suspicion of progress in its ideological usage. It accepts that the dominant sociopolitical order of the world has progressed solely on the condition that such advance, or relentless forward movement, is entirely stripped of moral endorsement, and is in fact bound to a primary association with worsening. The model is that of a progressive disease. 

The “neo-” of neoreaction is more than just a chronological marker, however. It introduces a distinctive idea, or abstract topic: that of a degenerative ratchet. 

The impulse to back out of something is already reactionary, but it is the combination of a critique of progress with a recognition that simple reversal is impossible that initiates neoreaction. In this respect, neoreaction is a specific discovery of the arrow of time, within the field of political philosophy. It learns, and then teaches, that the way to get out cannot be the way we got in. 

Whenever progressivism takes hold, a degenerative ratchet is set to work. It is unthinkable that any society could back out of the expansive franchise, the welfare state, macroeconomic policymaking, massively-extended regulatory bureaucracy, coercive-egalitarian secular religion, or entrenched globalist intervention. Each of these (inter-related) things are essentially irreversible. They give modern history a gradient. Given any two historical “snapshots,” one can tell immediately which is earlier and which later, by simply observing the extent to which any of these social factors have progressed. Leviathan does not shrink. 

So, neoreaction is a movement that is to be understood and defined primarily by what it is opposed to and what it is opposed to is the dominant sociopolitical order of the last century or so which, amongst other names, we might refer to as progressivism. Neoreactionaries do not deny that there has been a sort of progress over the last century or even that the progressives have been successful in realizing their stated goals, but they dispute that the victory of this progressive order represents anything approaching true moral progress and, instead, maintain that it has largely had a degenerative effect, doing more harm than good when all is said and done. They thus take up the cause of impeding the continued advance of twentieth century progressivism and to begin the dismantling of all that progressivism has achieved. Against the sheer momentum of the progressive degenerative ratchets, the neoreactionaries’ efforts often appear desperate and useless. Moreover, having positioned themselves against the dominant sociopolitical force, neoreactionary ends and values are frequent and easy targets to be distorted and maligned by progressivism’s propagandists. Neoreactionaries are painted as hopelessly backward and ignorant, rejecting all of the comforts and advancements of the modern age out of some irrational attachment to the past; an irrational attachment that all too often incites hatred, racism, and intolerance. To be sure, neoreaction, being a loose association of individuals and groups with similar political goals, but no true unifying doctrine or dogma, there are some neoreactionaries for whom such descriptions might be fitting, but it would be disingenuous to say that all neoreactionaries are steadfastly opposed to all sorts of progress. Indeed, neoreactionaries such as Land and Moldbug are quite fond of progress. But they attribute most of the improvements to society that have taken hold in the modern age more to progress in technological matters rather than any sort of progress in politics. If it is technological progress that concerns us then neither of these thinkers are reactionary at all. Land, in particular, would have to be considered a progressive in the extreme for his absolute commitment to technological progress no matter the consequences, even if it means that the technology we create ultimately comes to replace and exterminate us. Neoreaction is not merely an extreme conservatism that rejects all sorts of progress, it is strange constellation of ideologies which promote progress or reversion to varying degrees in varying matters but which are in large part in agreement that the progress that has been made over the last century, and which our leaders insist we must celebrate and work to further, has been progress in the wrong direction. 

Neoreaction can alternatively be termed the dark enlightenment. Land writes of the significance of that designation for the movement in his work of the same name, 

Enlightenment is not only a state, but an event, and a process. As the designation for an historical episode, concentrated in northern Europe during the 18th century. It is a leading candidate for the ‘true name’ of modernity, capturing its origin and essence (‘Renaissance’ and ‘Industrial Revolution’ are others). Between ‘enlightenment’ and ‘progressive enlightenment’ there is only an elusive difference, because illumination takes time – and feeds on itself, because enlightenment is self-confirming, its revelations ‘self-evident’, and because a retrograde, or reactionary, ‘dark enlightenment’ amounts almost to intrinsic contradiction. To become enlightened, in this historical sense, is to recognize, and then to pursue, a guiding light. 

There were ages of darkness, and then enlightenment came. Clearly, advance has demonstrated itself, offering not only improvement, but also a model. Furthermore, unlike a renaissance, there is no need for an enlightenment to recall what was lost, or to emphasize the attractions of return. The elementary acknowledgement of enlightenment is already Whig history in miniature. 

Once certain enlightened truths have been found self-evident, there can be no turning back, and conservatism is pre-emptively condemned – predestined – to paradox. F.A. Hayek, who refused to describe himself as a conservative, famously settled instead upon the term ‘Old Whig’, which – like ‘classical liberal’ (or the still more melancholy ‘remnant) – accepts that progress isn’t what it used to be. What could an Old Whig be, if not a reactionary progressive? And what on earth is that? 

Of course, plenty of people already think they know what reactionary modernism looks like, and amidst the current collapse back into the 1930s their concerns are only likely to grow. Basically, it’s what the ‘F’ word is for, at least in its progressive usage. A flight from democracy under these circumstances conforms so perfectly to expectations that it eludes specific recognition, appearing merely as an atavism, or confirmation of dire repetition. 

Still, something is happening, and it is – at least in part – something else. One milestone was the April 2009 discussion hosted at Cato Unbound among libertarian thinkers (including Patri Friedman and Peter Thiel) in which disillusionment with the direction and possibilities of democratic politics was expressed with unusual forthrightness. Thiel summarized the trend bluntly: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

So, according to Land, enlightenment, even more so than renaissance, is the true name of modernity because enlightenment indicates a tendency to totally unimpeded progress, without any need whatsoever to return or dwell upon what came before. Enlightenment demands no loyalty or attachment to tradition, but only the continued pursuit of progress. The dark enlightenment is not, necessarily, any more attached to tradition and no less committed to continual progress than the enlightenment proper. What divides these two movements is the dark enlightenment’s insistence that not all progress is made equal and that the sort of progress the enlightenment has made should be actively resisted in favor of progress in some other direction. Dark enlightenment is a conviction that the prevailing form of enlightenment, somewhere along the way, settled upon pursuing the wrong guiding light and that we must correct course by replacing that guiding light with a more appropriate one. Of course, fixated on their own guiding light, the devotees of the prevailing enlightenment are unable to see the light that emanates from any other source, thus any other proposed source of enlightenment must necessarily appear to them as dark, an escape into evil and darkness. It is for this reason that the “F word”, fascism, carries so much power. There was one significant attempt at replacing the prevailing enlightenment with another guiding light in recent history. That attempt gave rise to profound darkness and evil. As a result it has become easy to convince the world that any attempt to tear us away from our fixation on the prevailing guiding light must necessarily cast us into darkness and bring about unspeakable evils. Every possible alternative to the prevailing order must be looked on with suspicion as just another form of fascism, or, more specifically, Nazism, to be resisted at all costs. 

Land’s appeals to Hayek and the Cato Unbound discussion give an indication of the intellectual background out of which the dark enlightenment, or at least the iteration of dark enlightenment that Land champions, has emerged. In particular, dark enlightenment, as Land represents it, is heavily influenced by right libertarianism and the Austrian economic tradition, traditions from which Revolutionary Restraint can also trace its descent. It thus becomes impossible to deny that neoreaction and dark enlightenment may be fairly regarded as cousins to Revolutionary Restraint with whom they share a common political and intellectual genealogy. Just how strong the relationship is between neoreaction and the ideas that will be advanced here remains to be seen. There is certainly a great deal of overlap between my own starting assumptions and ultimate ends and those of the neoreactionary movement, but perhaps it will only be possible to see how much common ground remains between us and the neoreactionaries by moving forward and letting the chips fall where they may. When all is said and done, the final judgement shall belong to the audience and, more importantly, history. For now, let us call attention to a substantial difference between how I and the broader neoreactionary movement relate to our shared influence from libertarian and Austrian thinkers. Whereas many neoreactionaries have abandoned the hope of achieving a truly stateless society, coming to see it as hopelessly immature and impractical, I have not yet abandoned the hope that statelessness is an achievable goal, even if it is not a possibility in the immediate future. More than that, the state is founded on violence, and all violence, at its core, is morally abhorrent, therefore it is a moral imperative that the state one day be completely eliminated. Still, I must admit that neoreactionaries are not without merit in their accusation that traditional anarcho-capitalist rhetoric has a tendency to be somewhat immature and impractical. Far too many anarcho-capitalists demand immediate revolution with little regard for the complexity of the current situation. A stateless society may well be possible, but it must emerge at the right time from the correct conditions. It is a goal that must be approached strategically, with the utmost patience and concern for the reality of the situation in which we find ourselves. For now we will adopt an attitude that recognizes and, to some extent, makes peace with the fact that the state is a current reality and that in the pursuit of our goals we must work within the infrastructure established by the state. However, in all of our interactions with the state, we must recognize its eventual abolition as our ultimate goal and, whenever possible, make steps toward that goal, while avoiding at all costs any actions that might impede the eventual realization of that goal. 

At any rate, by zeroing in on Thiel’s conclusion that freedom and democracy are not compatible, Land highlights a defining theme that distinguishes neoreactionaries from older Austrians and libertarians. To be sure, that freedom and democracy are not synonymous is hardly a new observation in Austrian and libertarian circles. On the contrary, thinkers in our tradition have been well aware of this distinction for generations and many have even taken the time to point out that the two can often come into tension with one another. What is new is the claim that democracy and freedom are not only distinct from one another, but that they are incompatible. Though past libertarians may have been more than willing to highlight how democracy might come into conflict with liberty, they were reluctant to condemn democracy and declare it totally incompatible with freedom. Some of this reluctance was almost certainly the result of genuine faith in democracy. Living at the height of the democratic age, against the backdrop of centuries of monarchy and feudalism, it is hard to imagine that there were not some libertarian thinkers who shared the faith of their peers that democracy was a true liberating force. Even if democracy might encourage anti-liberty sentiments from time to time, libertarians, by and large, refused to see any conflict with liberty as somehow inherent to the nature of democracy, at least, not any more than such a conflict is inherent to the nature of government in general. Even if there were some libertarians with harsher views of democracy, in the face of the overwhelming democratic sentiments of the last century, most libertarians were not willing to choose this as the hill on which to die and, thus, relatively little energy was spent on the conflict between liberty and democracy. But now, as the promises of peace and prosperity offered by the post-World War II order begin to fade, the major dogmas of that order become increasingly susceptible to questioning. It now becomes safe to question the relation between democracy and liberty again and, increasingly, there are those who dare to answer that they are incompatible. One such voice is that of Mencius Moldbug, the pen name of Curtis Yarvin, a computer scientist turned political philosopher, typically seen as one of the founding fathers of the neoreactionary movement. Like Thiel,with whom he is reported to enjoy a rather closer relationship, Moldbug is heavily influenced by Austrian and libertarian thought, but when it comes to criticizing democracy, Moldbug is even harsher and unrestrained than Thiel. As Land explains in The Dark Enlightenment, 

His awakening into neo-reaction comes with the (Hobbesian) recognition that sovereignty cannot be eliminated, caged, or controlled. Anarcho-capitalist utopias can never condense out of science fiction, divided powers flow back together like a shattered Terminator, and constitutions have exactly as much real authority as a sovereign interpretative power allows them to have. The state isn’t going anywhere because – to those who run it – it’s worth far too much to give up, and as the concentrated instantiation of sovereignty in society, nobody can make it do anything. If the state cannot be eliminated, Moldbug argues, at least it can be cured of democracy (or systematic and degenerative bad government)…

This antidemocratic sentiment is amongst the defining features of the neoreactionary movement. Though neoreactionaries have diverse values and goals, amongst the central convictions that serve to unite them is the conviction that democracy is not an efficient or viable means of pursuing their ends. As the post-war dogma still holds considerable sway with large swaths of the population, such anti-democratic sentiments are capable of inspiring intense fear and extreme responses. Many people cling to the idea that the freedom they enjoy is tied directly to democratic government, making them willing to fight to the death against any perceived threat to democracy under the delusion that they are defending their own freedom. And to be sure, there are many whose antidemocratic sentiments are paired with tyrannical desires, but, as we shall see as we examine neoreactionary claims in more detail, democratic sentiments and tyrannical desires are not necessarily mutually exclusive either and, indeed, their coexistence is far more common than popular opinion is typically willing to admit. The brand of neoreaction promoted by Moldbug, Thiel, and their allies serves as a further reminder that opposition to democracy is not necessarily inconsistent with a genuine love of liberty. In this light, we might understand the neoreactionary movement, in part, as a response to the failures of conventional libertarians to bring about change by utilizing the mechanisms of the very institutions they hope to change. Neoreactionaries not only dismiss the idealism of those libertarians who would like to realize a properly stateless society as unrealistic, but also the strategies of those more pragmatic and measured libertarians who appeal to principles and values related to governance supposedly shared by their opponents as suicidally impractical, as their opponents repeatedly demonstrate a willingness to throw all principles out the window if it means achieving their own special goals. The result is a vicious double standard that cripples all libertarian efforts as their opponents continue to demand that they strictly observe all principles of governance, ever ready to throw a fit and accuse them of hypocrisy should they even suggest abandoning such principles for a moment. In response, neoreactionaries have in large part abandoned all such principles, showing less concern for how precisely government functions and more concern for the ultimate results it achieves. In the context of the United States this means that in contrast to conventional libertarians who have traditionally allied themselves with the Constitution, neoreactionaries, even if sympathetic to the thought of America’s Founding Fathers, have come to see commitment to the principles laid out in the Constitution as a burden to achieving their goals that only allows their opponents to work unchecked and expedite their erosion of the sort of society the Founders had hoped to achieve. We will have to save more detailed analysis of the problem of democracy for our next piece. 

Before we get too carried away with ourselves it is important to emphasize once again that neoreaction is not a monolithic movement, but a diverse collection of individuals with a wide array of backgrounds and aspirations unified only in their agreement that the political order that currently prevails in the West is not working and must be opposed and replaced by something else. It would be a mistake to think that every self-identified neoreactionary is a disillusioned libertarian with a foundation in Austrian economics whose primary concern is the flourishing of human freedom. While traditional libertarians might find quite a bit of common ground with some neoreactionaries, there are no doubt others with whom they would be at irreconcilable odds. In Xenosystems, Land explains the situation, noting that there are at least three principle factions within the neoreactionary movement, 

As neoreactionary perspectives are systematized, they tend to fall into a trichotomous pattern of dissensus. This, ironically, is something that can be agreed. The Trichotomy, or neoreactionary triad, is determined by divergent identifications of the Western tradition that the Cathedral primarily suppresses: Christian, Caucasian, or Capitalist. My preferred terms for the resultant neoreactionary strains are, respectively, the Theonomists; the Ethno-Nationalist; and the Techno-Commercial. These labels are intended to be accurate, neutral descriptions without intrinsic polemical baggage. 

Of these three factions, it is the techno-commercialists who carry the strongest and most obvious influence from Austrian economics. Consequently, it is with the techno-commercialist neoreactionaries that our greatest sympathies lie. Animated by a profoundly realist understanding of economics, techno-commercialism is not only the most pragmatic strain of neoreactionary thought, but also the most amenable to traditional libertarianism. Still, techno-commercialists are prone to significant deviation from principles that traditional libertarians would not be willing to abandon. The techno-commercialist obsession with unceasing economic growth and technological advancement is prone to become excessive. If liberty threatens to undermine the order required to achieve such progress, the techno-commercialist is not necessarily averse to employing tyrannical means to achieve his ends. Moreover, in its most excessive iterations, techno-commercialism flirts dangerously with anti-humanist sentiments, taking technological progress as the highest possible end, to be pursued no matter the consequences, even if it means that humans are to eventually be destroyed or replaced by the technology they create. 

We also have strong grounds for sympathizing with the theonomist branch of neoreaction, as it is the position of Revolutionary Restraint that God exists and that God is the source of all Good. This being the case it might even come as a surprise that we should have deeper sympathies to the techno-commercialists than to the theonomists. But theonomists have a tendency to become overly dogmatic. They find some tradition or denomination to follow and become totally absorbed in that doctrine, refusing to consider any opposing views seriously and, often, coming to see those who disagree with their chosen dogmas as dangerous heretics to be treated with suspicion, if not as outright hostility. As a result, theonomists are far too inclined to support oppressive, tyrannical measures in order to achieve the sort of society they believe their faith demands, thus making theonomism a considerable threat to liberty. Moreover, theonomists that have accepted one dogma can often find themselves locked in bitter conflict with theonomists who have accepted some other dogma. Still, in some sense, we might embrace the theonomist label insofar as it is the position of Revolutionary Restraint that God’s law commands us to oppose any and all forms of tyranny and to embrace and preserve human liberty, even if that means that some might use that liberty to turn away from God. To summarize our position in broad strokes; we are techno-commercialists in that we believe that there is good reason to hope that technology has the potential to bring about a better world and that allowing the unfettered operation of the free market is essential to realizing such technological advancements. However, at the same time we admit that technology also carries the potential to do considerable damage and, perhaps, to even completely annihilate human society as we know it. And though we are not theonomists insofar as we steadfastly affirm the right to religious freedom and believe in a firm separation between religion and the civil law, we are theonomists insofar as we believe that there is a Divine Law to which God calls on all of us to adhere and that through acting in the market in accordance with this Law we might maximize the chances that human society be improved by technology rather than destroyed. 

The neoreactionary faction for which we shall have the least sympathy, if any at all, is the ethno-nationalist faction. The ethno-nationalists replace the allegiance to dogma which characterizes the theonomists with an allegiance to ethnicity. As divisive and destructive as theonomism can be when competing factions emerge, it should come as no surprise that ethno-nationalism is far more destructive, for though there are often very real consequences at stakes in the conflict between competing dogmas, ultimately, whether a person assents to or denies one dogma or another, it all comes down to a matter of personal choice, thus the possibility is at least left open that such conflicts might be resolved peacefully; on the other hand, whether or not there is anything to ethno-nationalist’s claims of racial and ethnic differences, such divisions are ultimately based on real and unalterable characteristics, thus making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to realize any peaceful means of mending these divides. Further, it would seem that agreement on the sorts of profound matters which theology deals with should make for a far more profound binding force than superficial features such as skin color. To be sure, the most abysmal neoreactionary factions are those who prioritize a combination of theonomist and ethno-nationalist concerns.

Ethno-nationalism all too often takes grotesque and useless forms, descending into irrational hatred, cruelty, and violence. As far as I am concerned, ethno-nationalism is a useless, perverted waste of time that can only make things worse. The idea that people of different ethnic backgrounds cannot freely coexist is absurd and I have no patience for any proposal to forcibly segregate people on such grounds. This is one point on which I will not negotiate. I have enjoyed friendships with people from many diverse ethnic backgrounds over the course of my life. More than that, I am a white man who fell in love with a black woman of Haitian descent; our children are mixed race; the people who I love more than anything else in this world are not, strictly speaking, of my own ethnic background. Of course, then again, what is my ethnic background? Am I just white, or should we get more specific and mention where my ancestors came from? All white people are not the same, after all. But my ancestors came here from many different places. I have the clearest picture of my ancestry on my paternal grandmother’s side. She was full blooded French and research by other family members has suggested that her family originally came from Burgundy, France and descended from the fur trapper, explorer, and diplomat Nicolas Perrot, who settled in Quebec in the seventeenth century. On the other hand, my grandfather was full blooded Irish, but we have little knowledge of his family beyond a generation or two before him. We are not even sure what part of Ireland his family came from or the names of those who immigrated to America. At any rate, though there might be some superficial connections between France and Ireland due to a shared Catholic and Celtic heritage, it is hard not to see that there are considerable differences between French and Irish culture and, anyone familiar with history knows, that while France has traditionally been seen as one of the richest cultural centers in Europe, Ireland has more often than not been seen as a backward and savage place at the very edge of European society. I know the least about my maternal grandmother’s other than that she was mostly French as well with a bit of Scottish thrown in, so there is a shared Gaelic legacy with Ireland there I suppose and perhaps a shared hatred of the English (there is apparently a long standing legend that our Scottish side were direct descendants of King Robert the Bruce, but I don’t put much weight on that). Finally, my maternal grandfather throws the greatest wrench in my supposed status as white, or even European, having been full blooded Lebanese. So, if ethnic harmony is impossible and all ethnicities are destined to forever be at irreconcilable conflict with one another, then it would seem that I could never be at harmony with myself as my very being would be plagued by irreconcilable oppositions at its very core. But things seem even more complicated when I realize that I don’t have the slightest idea of my ancestors’ histories in the countries from which they came to America. For all I know, some of them may have even been recent immigrants to those countries, so it seems rather hopeless to arrive at any concrete answer as to my ethnicity. How far back do we have to go anyway? If we go back far enough, we are all probably from the same region, so are we not all of the same ultimate ethnicity? At the end of the day, I sense no such irreconcilable conflict within myself. I acknowledge and appreciate the history of my ancestors, but I do not see myself as belonging essentially to any of their ethnicities or cultures. If someone demands I provide such an answer, I prefer to go back as far as possible and count my ethnicity and culture as, essentially, human. However unwelcome anecdotal evidence might be in formal arguments, I cannot deny the fact that my own personal experiences prove that harmonious and meaningful relationships between people of diverse backgrounds are absolutely possible and I will never abandon this hope. 

That being said, charity demands we admit that ethno-nationalism is not entirely irrational and without some understandable motivations with which we might even admit a degree of sympathy. Though we reject all aspects of ethno-nationalism which try to paint one group as inherently superior to another, we can admit that every race, ethnicity, and cultural tradition has positive elements that deserve not only to be preserved, but celebrated. The diversity of ethnic and cultural traditions that humans have developed adds beauty and flavor to the world and provides an invaluable window into what it fundamentally means to be human. There is no inherent fault in the desire to preserve and celebrate the traditions from which one hails. On the contrary, it is largely a natural and admirable impulse which, for the sake of preserving the wide array of cultural treasures our ancestors have handed down to us, should be encouraged. Indeed, we will even go so far as to admit that white ethno-nationalist complaints surrounding the asymmetries in prevailing attitudes toward white pride movements as opposed to any other sort of racial pride movements are not entirely without merit. Whites certainly should not be made to feel that they are somehow morally defective simply for wishing to take pride in their heritage, especially at a time when people of every other background are being actively encouraged to celebrate their own heritage. 

However, we must be cognizant of the fact that so long as this impulse to celebrate tradition remains active, there is always the chance of it becoming excessive, leading to blatant racism and separatist movements. Such movements are certainly unfortunate, and though Revolutionary Restraint stands steadfastly against them, we also admit there is little we can practically, or morally, do to counter them. Respect for freedom of conscience and association demands we recognize people’s right to look down on others and to avoid interacting with those they look down on, even if we find the reasons for doing so ridiculous or morally abhorrent. So long as these people do not resort to violent means to express their cultural pride or to remove themselves from the influence of other cultures, we must respect their right to live and think as they do, and even to provide them the opportunity to remove themselves from the wider, more diverse community. (No doubt, Kinky was aiming for irony, but in inverting the meaning to refer to military service in Vietnam, he reveals that reserving the right to refuse service can be a powerful tool for change, as well as hate, which must be preserved in all cases as a means of dissipating tension and avoiding conflict.) To be sure, exposure to outside influences can certainly be an erosive force to any ethnic or cultural tradition, causing it to adapt and evolve to its surroundings, perhaps abandoning some of its own elements, while adopting foreign elements. While we might lament the old days, the fact of the matter is that this is the very process by which traditions emerge, evolve, and survive. Just as every tradition has its positive aspects that should be held on to, every tradition also has its negative aspects that must be transformed in order to create a better life for the adherents of the tradition, and interaction and exchange with people of other traditions is crucial to this process. If some people demand racial or cultural purity, that is their right to do so, but also, most likely, their ultimate loss as they inevitably hold themselves back from the shared progress of the broader human community. More importantly racial purists must never be allowed to hold the reins of political power. 

Demands to turn America into an ethnostate are particularly preposterous. America is a vast territory that has never been home to a monolithic culture. Even before colonization, American was home to a diverse multitude of native cultures. With colonization, this diversity only became more intense as people from every corner of the world were eventually to call America home. It is not clear in the slightest to what cultural group America would rightfully belong. There is a common thread in ethnocentric thinking that holds that those who are not of the preferred race should go back to where they came from, as removing people from their traditional homelands was a terrible mistake. But then why should people of the ethnicity preferred by such ethnocentrists not also go back to where they came from rather than laying claim to America? Of course, the great irony is that most of those homelands did not do particularly well at maintaining purity there and, even if they had, many Americans would find themselves in a similar situation to myself; too impure to qualify to relocate to the racially pure homeland they dream of.

Ethno-nationalists, seeing people of different backgrounds as naturally at irreconcilable odds with one another, often advocate for a sort of neo-tribalism. They think that as a result of these differences, it is best for people of different backgrounds to live separately from one another, and to stick together in solidarity with those with whom they share a common background. From a practical standpoint, we must admit that this perspective is not without a degree of merit and even wisdom. Politics is an inherently tribal activity and there is some advantage for those with common values and ends to remain in solidarity with one another in political matters. That being said, we reject all forms of tribalism that are founded in racial differences. Instead, we suggest a tribalism established on an ideological basis. People should organize on the basis of shared values and ends in an effort to defend those values and pursue those ends. In particular, Revolutionary Restraint proposes the formation of a tribe centered around the ideals of liberty, prosperity, the celebration of humanity and the treasures of all cultural traditions, and the shared exploration of the deeper meanings of human existence. 

While saying all this it finally dawned on me; I may have finally settled on a definite answer to the question of my ethnic identity; Ethnically, I am fundamentally an American and my tribe is the American Tribe. And what does it mean to be a member of the American Tribe? First, and most importantly, I believe it means recognizing and celebrating the shared history and humanity that unites all people; it means celebrating the fact that so many wildly different cultures are able to coexist and intermingle. That we live in a place where, if we so choose, we could enjoy soup dumplings and succulent peking duck in Chinatown one day and tapas at a Spanish bar the next, or where we might listen to the soothing sounds of the sitar (speaking of sitar, here’s my favorite Ravi Shankar album, though he might be disappointed to know it might be my favorite album to trip to) just as well as we might tap our feet to an Irish fiddle tune is a fact that far too many of us take for granted (Perhaps not quite traditional or even fully Irish, but hands down the best Irish band ever.) (I firmly believe that both food and music have the potential to play significant roles in fostering mutual respect and admiration between different peoples. Alliance and communion have been cemented with food, drink, and feasting throughout human history. And as Schopenhauer says, “Music… is so completely and profoundly understood by [man] in his innermost being as an entirely universal language, whose distinctness surpasses even that of the world of perception itself…” Music, thus, perhaps carries the greatest potential of all human inventions of bringing people of vastly different backgrounds into communication with one another. American music already stands as a testament to this with its rich musical traditions that were initially born primarily from the blending of elements from the musical traditions of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Africa, as well as some Spanish, French, Caribbean and other influences. These disparate influence came together time and again, giving rise to a multitude of regional traditions that continued to spur innovation by influencing one another, eventually giving rise to the familiar genres of blues, country, jazz, and, ultimately, rock and roll, which, today, continue to push boundaries, incorporating ever more diverse influences. Moreover, this impulse for musical syncretism has already managed to spread to many other areas of the world. One of my favorite examples of this continued effort to blend disparate musical traditions is a phenomenon we might call Chinese bluegrass. Who can listen to this blending of Chinese and American instruments and musical styles and not hear the essences of these two great civilizations in direct communication with one another? Does it not inspire hope that these two great peoples might engage in further collaboration to bring even greater works of beauty into the world? A couple of other examples worth mentioning of similar phenomena include the work of the legendary guitarist John McLaughlin, most notably his work with Shakti, blending traditional Indian music and jazz, as well as this remarkable blending of traditional Spanish and Indian music by Anoushka Shankar.) The weaving together of so many rich threads from so many diverse cultures surely represents one of the great peaks of the human experience. While we all may come from incredibly diverse backgrounds, if we go back far enough, we will find that we are all, even the natives, the descendants of immigrants in this land. And though we all may have come from very different places in the more immediate past, if we go back even further, we will find that we all ultimately shared a homeland from which our descendants ventured forth in order to establish the rich diversity of cultures which have populated the earth throughout the course of history. This is not to deny differences between different groups of people or to say that we are all exactly the same. Much the opposite. It is to recognize that despite our common origin, we have all taken very different paths resulting in a multitude of unique stories and diverse ways of looking at and interacting with the world. Yet it is to, at the same time, recognize that despite the diverse paths our ancestors took, all of our lineages maintained a common destiny to reunite in that most remote land we now know as America. Though we may not have always succeeded at coexisting harmoniously or living up to the ideals which we have set for ourselves, when we have succeeded at overcoming our differences we have proven capable of uniting to create one of the most beautiful and industrious civilizations the world has ever seen and those principles that we have set at our foundation are supremely worthy of our efforts to realize them ever more perfectly. The true American Spirit must be said to be that of the free and harmonious coexistence of all the peoples of the earth. If there is an American ethnicity, then it consists in the synthesis of all cultural and religious traditions. Perhaps the true American is one who rejects no ethnicity, but rather actively searches for reasons to celebrate each ethnicity, lamenting only that he does not bear a more direct connection to the positive qualities he identifies. If the Old World wishes to segregate itself on the basis of nation, religion, or any other categorization that is their prerogative. I, as an American, have no stake in the policies of the Old World. All that concerns me is that the right of all Americans to do what they will with whom they will remains uninfringed. Let those who oppose this go back to whatever Old World nation will have them. Of course, I seriously doubt that maintaining absolute purity is viable even in the Old World. As population grows and trade increases the intermingling of cultures and ethnicities is inevitable and is already par for the course in a great many regions of the Old World. The Old World too must learn to live with this reality. Perhaps it is America’s task to serve as the example that shall lead the entire world into a more harmonious future. Those who dismiss America as an extension of Europe or the West miss the mark. But neither is America the East. America is truly exceptional. It is the point where East and West meet, where East becomes West and West becomes East and both become synthesized into a singular coherent whole. It is for this reason that America stands as the greatest candidate for the birthplace of a properly planetary thinking with the potential for uniting humanity across the globe and beyond it. If American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny are to remain viable notions they must not be attached the state or propelled by any sort of aggression or military imperialism, but by a sort of cultural and spiritual imperialism with the aim of uniting the entire world into a properly human culture which embraces our rich history and the freedom of all people to continue to contribute to that shared heritage. 

Of course, all of this is much easier said than done. As much as this might sound like some hippy pipe dream, I fully recognize that achieving such harmony even in America, let alone across the world, is a monumentally difficult task with a multitude of perilous impediments blocking the way to its achievement. I do not expect people to suddenly, as if by some miracle, decide to come together, hold hands and sing kumbaya, as much as I’m fond of such quaint hopefulness. (But, come on man, is it really so bad to just want to lay down our swords and shields down by the riverside and study war no more? How do you listen to a song like that and not want to do all you can to make it a reality? Even gives me a bit of a soft spot for an old commie like Pete Seeger. Also, just have to point out that Sonny Terry was probably the coolest harmonica player ever. If you’re feeling the gospel spirit, check out his takes on Ezekiel Saw The Wheel and Old Time Religion with Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston.) I fully understand that this will be a messy process, even in America, that will take time and considerable effort. We must learn to approach people of different backgrounds with mutual respect and a genuine desire to understand one another. We must also be prepared to have difficult discussions and to learn how to both deliver criticisms delicately and to receive them with humility; a good sense of humor will likely go a long way in this regard. But perhaps my earlier suggestion that all those opposed to the uniting of all peoples return to whatever Old World nation will take them was a bit hyperbolic. We must be prepared for this to be a drawn out process with many setbacks along the way and we thus must always preserve the absolute right to freedom of association so that there is always room for retreat until cooler heads can prevail, even if this might, from time to time, lead to some communities effectively segregating themselves. However, we must not tolerate those who would actively do violence or sow division between groups, and we must never allow any faction that would impose segregation by force to hold power. This is a process that must be allowed to play out organically with no interference from the state other than to ensure that the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and property are preserved for all while it plays out. 

(To be sure, my position here, especially my advocacy for religious syncretism, is likely to land me in hot water with a good number of theonomists who regard any attempt to combine the particular religious tradition they endorse with any other as a perverse and unforgivable heresy. While I do not want to get too distracted with deeper theological issues here, this is a significant enough point to warrant some of our attention now. Besides, a little theological aside can be a great breath of fresh air in the midst of dense political discussion. First of all, from the perspective of monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, there is and can only be but a single true God who is imbued with every perfection to the greatest degree possible. Any other being is necessarily deficient of such perfection in some way and is not worthy of the title of “God.” Nonetheless, across the earth and throughout the ages humans have seen fit to worship a multitude of beings, some of which fall far short of absolute perfection, as gods. It needs to be asked, what exactly are these beings that so many have seen fitting to treat with such reverence and why have people seen fit to treat them with so much awe and respect. There is, of course, the simple, sceptical answer that these are no beings at all, but simply fabrications of peoples’ imaginations, with no real, independent existence at all, but this is also the least interesting and least satisfying way to approach this issue. The widespread belief in a multitude of such beings that can be observed around the world, along with the complex, taxing, and sometimes drastic ends to which such beliefs can propel people make the explanation that all of this has absolutely no cause whatsoever, supremely unsatisfying, therefore we will set this explanation to the side for the time being. If these beings are real, then they are either beneficent or wicked. If the former is the case, perhaps they are appointed by God to their stations, or perhaps they are even the True God Itself, hidden behind a mask, through which people might become acquainted with limited aspects of God in accord with what they are prepared for. If this is the case, as such lesser gods can be understood as so many pieces of God, then clearly we must not discard them, but, rather, determine how to bring them together in the proper arrangement so as to, effectively, reconstruct God. Alternatively, of course, these beings might be little more than deceivers; demons who have fooled humanity into believing them divine and worthy of honor. But even if all such supposed gods prove to be demonic, there still may be good reason to pursue religious syncretism. For instance, incorporating even false gods into our system of belief might help us to avoid being deceived by those false gods, and developing an understanding of how such false gods are able to deceive people into believing they are divine might help us to form a more perfect conception of the divine itself. More substantially, if we are to follow several strands of theological thought, perhaps most notably, that of St. Origen of Alexandria (yes, I think the canonization of Origen is long over due, even if it seems unlikely that the Church shall never correct this tremendous oversight), all of God’s creatures, even Satan himself, have the potential of being saved in the end. Moreover, it would seem that, in the best of all possible worlds, all of God’s creatures would realize their potential for salvation, and as humans might be said to stand at an intermediary point, as a bridge between the angels, demons, and God, it would seem that if anyone is to have the task of ministering to such beings to achieve their salvation the task would necessarily fall to humans. And as it seems reasonable that we ought to try to bring about the best possible world we can, it would seem that humans have a moral obligation to facilitate the salvation of beings such as demons, gods, and the rest. Thus if universal salvation is ever to be accomplished in accord with God’s plan, religious syncretism must play a significant role, so that humans might lead those beings that once served as the gods of their nations to salvation. Only then may we be completely free of their corrupting influence. But this is only a quick sketch of some thoughts on these topics. Obviously much more will have to be said about this as we go.)

Though the immense divides between the various factions of neoreactionary thought might appear, at first, as a weakness for the neoreactionary movement, as it turns out, this is actually the neoreactionary movement’s greatest strength as it motivates one of the central principles which makes neoreaction’s approach to politics such an appealing alternative to the status quo, a principle which Land refers to as exit, which he opposes to the principle of voice. As he explains, continuing after the last quote cited from The Dark Enlightenment, 

In August 2011, Michael Lind posted a democratic riposte at Salon, digging up some impressively malodorous dirt, and concluding:

The dread of democracy by libertarians and classical liberals is justified. Libertarianism really is incompatible with democracy. Most libertarians have made it clear which of the two they prefer. The only question that remains to be settled is why anyone should pay attention to libertarians. 

Lind and the ‘neo-reactionaries’ seem to be in broad agreement that democracy is not only (or even) a system, but rather a vector, with an unmistakable direction. Democracy and ‘progressive democracy’ are synonymous, and indistinguishable from the expansion of the state. Whilst ‘extreme right-wing’ governments havel, on rare occasions, momentarily arrested this process, its reversal lies beyond the bounds of democratic possibility. Since winning elections is overwhelmingly a matter of vote buying, and society’s informational organs (education and media) are no more resistant to bribery than the electorate, a thrifty politician is simply an incompetent politician, and the democratic variant of Darwinism quickly eliminates such misfits from the gene pool. This is a reality that the left applauds, the establishment right grumpily accepts, and the libertarian right has ineffectively railed against. Increasingly, however, libertarians have ceased to care whether anyone is ‘pay[ing them] attention’ – they have been looking for something else entirely: an exit. 

It is a structural inevitability voice is drowned out in democracy, and according to Lind it should be. Ever more libertarians are likely to agree. ‘Voice’ is democracy itself, in its historically dominant, Rousseauistic strain. It models the state as a representation of popular will, and making oneself heard means more politics. If voting as the mass self-expression of politically empowered peoples is a nightmare engulfing the world, adding to the hubbub doesn’t help. Even more than Equality-vs-Liberty, Voice-vs-Exit is the rising alternative, and libertarians are opting for voiceless flight. Patri Friedman remarks: “we think that free exit is so important that we’ve called it the only Universal Human Right.” 

In Xenosystems, he writes, 

Neoreactionary sociopolitical solutions are ultimately Exit-based. In every case, exit is to be defended against voice. No society or social institution which permits free exit is open to any further politically efficient criticism, except that which systematic exit selection itself applies. Given the absence of tyranny (i.e., free exit), all forms of protest and rebellion are to be considered leftist perversions, without entitlement to social protection of any kind. Government, of whatever traditional or experimental form, is legitimated from the outside – through exit pressure – rather than internally, through responsiveness to popular agitation. The conversion of political voice into exit-orientation (for instance, revolution into secessionism), is the principal characteristic of neoreactionary strategy. 

From the Perspective of this blog, no premises beyond these – however widely endorsed within neoreaction – are truly basic, or defining. Resolution of elaborate disputes is ultimately referred to dynamic geography, rather than dialectic. It is the Outside, working through fragmentation, that rules, and no other authority has standing. 

Later he writes, 

1. Exit is a scale-free concept. It can be applied rigorously to extreme cases of sociopolitical separation, from secession to extraterrestrial escapes. Yet these radical examples do not define it. Its essence is the commercial relation, which necessarily involves a non-transaction option. Exit means: take it or leave it (but don’t haggle). It is thus, at whatever scale of expression, the concrete social implementation of freedom as an operational principle. 
2. As a philosophical stance, Exit is antidialectical. That is to say it is the insistence of an option against argument, especially refusing the idea of necessary political discussion (a notion which, if accepted, guarantees progression to the left). Let’s spatialize our disagreement is an alternative to resolution in time. Conversations can be prisons. No one is owed a hearing. 
3. In regards to cultural cladistics, it can scarcely be denied that Exit has a Protestant lineage. Its theological associations are intense, and stimulating. 
4. Exit asymmetries have been by far the most decisive generators of spontaneous anti-socialist ideology. The iconic meaning of the Berlin Wall needs no further elucidation. The implicit irony is that people flee towards Exit, and if this is only possible virtually, it metamorphoses automatically into delegitimation of the inhibitory regime. (Socialism is Exit-suppresive by definition.)
5. Exit is an option, which does not require execution for its effectiveness. The case for Exit is not an argument for flight, but a (non-dialectical) defense of the opportunity for flight. Where Exit most fully flourishes, it is employed the least. 
6. Exit is the alternative to voice. It is defended with extremity in order to mute voice with comparable extremity. To moderate the case for Exit si implicitly to make a case for voice. (Those who cannot exit a deal will predictably demand to haggle over it.)
7. Exit is the primary Social Darwinian weapon. To blunt it is to welcome entropy to your hearth. 

Here at Revolutionary Restraint we, despite admitting great admiration for the principle of voice, shall adopt this prioritization of exit over voice with the realization that so long as exit remains an option, we can always escape to a region where more voice is permitted, but if exit is not an option, when voice fails the only alternative left is violence. It is the position of Revolutionary Restraint that exit provides a viable strategy for realizing statelessness. Moreover, we maintain that the framework of tribalism has the potential of providing a social infrastructure conducive to facilitating strategic exit. Admittedly, these ideas may appear vague or even incredibly bizarre, but at this point vagueness and strangeness are both unavoidable. It will take time to properly detail exactly what this strategy will look like in practice, and, no doubt, it will be necessary to modify the particulars in response to evolving circumstances. 

Having outlined the major factions of neoreaction and having made it clear where our sympathies, and lack thereof, lie, it would seem that it has now come time to say what unites neoreaction, for no movement can be defined by its differences alone. It should, perhaps, come as no surprise that neoreactionaries’ strongest agreements are on the matter of what they mutually oppose. And what neoreactionaries oppose above all is what Moldbug has called the Cathedral. He explains the term in his Patchwork: A Political System for the 21st Century, 

The institutionalist voter votes not because she believes government policies should be decided at the ballot box, but because she believes they shouldn’t. 

Rather, she believes that government policies should be determined by a set of official and quasiofficial agencies which have earned her trust permanently and completely, the way a good Catholic trusts the Vatican. Following the analogy, here at UR we refer to this meta-institution as the Cathedral. The Cathedral consists of the educational organs: public schools, the universities and the press. Its spires are the Ivy League and the New York Times, whose faculty and news desk respectively are endowed with an almost pure connection to the Inner Light – lesser institutions, of course, following their lead. 

So, the Cathedral, put simply, is the constellation of educational, media, and political organizations that work together to advance a common ideology and narrative which serves to reinforce their power and maintain their stranglehold over society. (I suppose this song has some relevance here, at least it finishes off the harmonies we started with Neil Young and the Vampires’ Castle, but perhaps the best attempt to conceptualize what Moldbug calls the Cathedral is Frank Zappa’s description of it as “the slime oozing out of your TV set.” At any rate, I suspect Land would at least appreciate the vaguely Lovecraftian nature of this description.) Now, at this point, there may be those ready to scream conspiracy. We have democratic elections and we are free to choose our own leaders. Surely it is absurd to think that there is some secret cabal of elites with such unchecked authority. But Moldbug addresses such concerns as he continues. 

It is not that the institutionalist voter does not believe in democracy. She does believe in democracy. She believes passionately in democracy. But her democracy is very different from the democracy of her mortal enemy, the populist. 

To the institutionalist, the way democracy works is that democracy depends on the educated voter. The voter is to be educated by institutionalists, of course, because institutionalists are right. Some level of ignorance and recalcitrance can be expected, and there will always be dissent, but through this cycle of education and election we are always advancing into the future. The reason we have elected officials is not so that they can manage the government, a task which must of course be left to the experts (who are institutionalists, of course). Rather, officials such as the President are essentially educational figures, participating in a public discourse in which the “bully pulpit” – an oddly revealing term – delivers further education. In turn, by electing a good President, the voters demonstrate the depth of their educated wisdom. Und so weiter.

Note the function of populist and tribal voters in the institutionalists mind. The populist electorate supplies the boogeyman. The fear of a populist takeover, which is theoretically always a possibility and has even happened once or twice in history (e.g. Nazi Germany), can keep even the most jaded of institutionalist voters coming back to the polls. Even though it never seems to actually happen. Moreover, the populists are barraged by a flood of institutionalist messages more or less from birth to death. They are naturally resistant, but the programming wears them down over time. Meanwhile, the tribals, who are votes for rent, will always support the institutionalist bloc (and may even make up a majority of their support, though at certain levels this becomes dangerous). Their votes are guaranteed in exchange for permanent government programs, administered by institutionalists, that render them dependent on the Cathedral’s rule for their lives and livelihoods. As for the institution itself – the Cathedral – it is, except in its majestic extent and intricacy, not unusual by any historical standard. The Cathedral is a selective aristocracy, which is more or less the way China was run for about 2500 years. It is also the way the Soviet Union was run, the way the Catholic Church was run, the way China today is run, and the way Nazi Germany probably would have been run if we still had a Nazi Germany to kick around. As in all these institutions, rank and place in it is in high demand, and those who rise to the top are men and women of no mean capacity. 

So, the Cathedral champions democracy, but within very specific parameters. It expects voters to be raised and educated in the Cathedral and to have internalized and deeply intertwined Cathedral values with their very being. The Cathedral, thus, expects the results of every, or at least the vast majority of elections, to end up in its favor. In the rare instances when election results are out of step with the goals of the Cathedral, it typically only represents a momentary setback whose effects can be mitigated through the efforts of Cathedral loyalists who remain in positions of influence throughout society. In the event that elections threaten results radically opposed to Cathedral interests, the Cathedral has no qualms about intervening in the democratic process through such actions as banning opposition parties, or throwing out election results entirely, as recent events in Germany and Romania, respectively, have demonstrated. Thus, it is a very peculiar sort of democracy that the Cathedral promotes; a democracy which guarantees the Cathedral’s unchallenged status as a permanent aristocracy. Unsurprisingly, the grip that the Cathedral has on the political process has severe consequences. Moldbug continues, 

However, there is just one little problem: the Cathedral is not responsible. At least, if it is responsible, we cannot detect any mechanism by which it is responsible.

What compels the Cathedral to devise and promulgate good and effective policies rather than evil or counterproductive ones? If there is an answer to this question, I cannot discern it. If there is an external or internal mechanism which can correct any errors which may occur in the Cathedral – for example, a completely corrupt and meretricious field of learning, a discipline of institutionalized crackpottery, as Lysenko created in Russia. I cannot find it. 

I cannot even identify some reserved power which can remove the Cathedral if it goes completely off the rails. Certainly nothing short of a titanic populist explosion or a military coup can dislodge institutionalism for good. The first cure may be worse than the disease, and the second is a complete unknown and shows no signs of being a real possibility. And while the Cathedral’s energumens, levels one and two in concert, hold their lock on power, it is free to go as far off the rails as it wants. 

Thus, there is no responsibility. The chain of guardians stretches up to Harvard, where it is tied to nothing and is guarded by itself. Consider the possibility, for example, that the people we call “economists” in fact know nothing at all about economics. Is this farfetched? After October 2008, can we call this farfetched? And if it isn’t, what other worms are in your brain?

So, now that we understand the Cathedral as a de facto aristocracy consisting in a network of politicians, academics, and media professionals whose concerted efforts serve to manipulate public opinion and assure that democratic processes produce results consistent with the ends of the Cathedral, we must ask, why does the Cathedral exist? What ends does it pursue? In what does it believe? The Cathedral is so named by Moldbug, because like a proper cathedral, its fundamental purpose is to spread a religious doctrine. And what religious doctrine does the Cathedral seek to spread? Perhaps Moldbug’s most interesting attempt at answering that question can be found in his How Dawkins Got Pwnd. There he latches on to what biologist Richard Dawkins refers to as “Einsteinian Religion”, a term Dawkins uses to describe the system of beliefs he subscribes to. Amongst the central tenets of this Einsteinian Religion are fierce commitment to democracy, secularism, and a belief in the fundamental equality of all humans. Moldbug, taking his cue from biology and Dawkins own theory of memetics, attempts to approach systems of belief as though they were viruses infecting the minds of those who profess them. Zeroing in on Einsteinian religion, Moldbug comes to see it as but one specimen amongst many of a much larger species of thought which he refers to as Universalism. This Universalist virus is one in a long line of specimens in a lineage that reaches into the distant past, ultimately descending from Abrahamic religion. Worse still, according to Moldbug, this mind virus is parasitic. He writes, 

If a tradition causes its hosts to make miscalculations that compromise their personal goals, it exhibits Misesian morbidity. If it causes its hosts to act in ways that compromise their genes’ reproductive interests, it exhibits Darwinian morbidity. If subscribing to the tradition is individually advantageous or neutral (defectors are rewarded, or at least unpunished) but collectively harmful, the tradition is parasitic. If subscribing is individually disadvantageous but collectively beneficial, the tradition is altruistic. If it is both individually and collectively benign, it is symbiotic. If it is both individually and collectively harmful, it is malignant. Each of these labels can be applied to either Misesian or Darwinian  morbidity. A theme that is arational, but does not exhibit either Misesian or Darwinian morbidity, is trivially morbid. 

Thus, one might translate the part of Professor Dawkins’ argument I agree with as the claim that the God theme is arational, because the variant in which “God” interacts with earthly affairs is mundane and fallacious (being unsubstantiated and unfalsifiable), and the variant in which “God” does not interact with earthly affairs is metaphysical. At least in the latter form, I see the God theme as trivially morbid. Professor Dawkins disagrees – he associates various Misesian and Darwinian morbidities, parasitic and malignant, with various historical variants of the God theme. I see this as the result of confusing theme and haplotheme. 

My counterargument is that Professor Dawkins’ “Einsteinian religion” is the most successful modern-day tradition in the Christian clade, that it includes many arational themes, and that this tradition, evaluated as a whole, exhibits Misesian parasitic morbidity and Darwinian malignant morbidity. Therefore, I believe it needs to be terminated with extreme prejudice. I am relatively unconcerned about other Christian traditions, as I consider them of negligible present-day political power and therefore negligible collective morbidity – though, of course, this situation could always change. 

Fortified by this doxology, let’s get back to demonstrating pwnage. 

Our first essential claim is that the concept of nontheistic Christianity is not, as most readers would probably assume at first glance, self-contradictory or meaningless. This is very easy to see. In the biological analogy, nontheistic Christianity is a  phrase in the same class as flightless bird or bipedal tetrapod. The adjective in this phrase is morphological, the noun is taxonomic. There is no contradiction at all. 

Moldbug continues, 

In my opinion, the only sensible way to classify traditions – as with species – is by ancestral structure. While the existence of introgression and the absence of reproductive isolation makes it technically impossible to construct a precise cladogram of human traditional history, we can certainly produce sensible approximations. Note that perhaps an even better analogy is to languages and linguistic history, in which cladistic classification is commonplace. 

So: Professor Dawkins is an atheist. But – as his writing makes plain – atheism is not the only theme in his personal kernel. Professor Dawkins believes in many other things. He labels the tradition to which he subscribes as Einsteinian religion. Since no one else has used this label, he is entitled to define Einsteinian religion – perhaps we can just call it einsteinism – as whatever he wants. And he has. 

My observation is that Einsteinism exhibits many synapomorphies with Christianity. For example, it appears that Professor Dawkins believes in the fair distribution of goods, the futility of violence, the universal brotherhood of man, and the reification of community. These might be labeled as the themes of Rawlsianism, pacificism, fraternism and communalism. 

Finally, Modbug concludes, 

My belief is that Professor Dawkins is not just a Christian atheist. He is a Protestant atheist. And he is not just a Protestant atheist. He is a Calvinist atheist. And he is not just a Calvinist atheist. He is an Anglo-Calvinist atheist. In other words, he can also be described as a Puritan atheist, a Dissenter atheist, a Nonconformist atheist, an Evangelical atheist, etc., etc.

This cladistic taxonomy traces Professor Dawkins’ intellectual ancestry back about 400 years, to the era of the English Civil War. Except of course for the atheism theme, Professor Dawkins’ kernel is a remarkable match for the Ranter, Leveller, Digger, Quaker, Fifth Monarchist, or any of the more extreme English Dissenter traditions that flourished during the Cromwellian interregnum. 

Frankly, these dudes were freaks. Maniacal fanatics. Any mainstream English thinker of the 17th, 18th or 19th century, informed that this tradition (or its modern descendant) is now the planet’s dominant Christian denomination, would regard this as a sign of imminent apocalypse. If you’re sure they’re wrong, you’re more sure than me. 

Fortunately, Cromwell himself was comparatively moderate. The extreme ultra-Puritan sects never got a solid lock on power under the protectorate. Even more fortunately, Cromwell got old and died, and Cromwellism died with him. Lawful government was restored to Great Britain, as was the Church of England, and Dissenters became a marginal fringe again. And frankly, a damned good riddance it was. 

However, you can’t keep a good parasite down. A community of Puritans fled to America and founded the theocratic colonies of New England. After its military victories in the American Rebellion and the War of Secession, American Puritanism was well on the way to world domination. Its victories in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War confirmed its global hegemony. All legitimate mainstream thought on Earth today is descended from the American Puritans, and through them the English Dissenters. 

Of course, the tradition evolved over time. Its theology took significant steps toward modern secularism in the form of Unitarianism, which deleted the Trinity and other points of Calvinist doctrine, and especially under Transcendentalism, which elided the nasty idea of hell and declared that God loves everyone. Many of Professor Dawkins’ reveries about Einsteinian pantheistic natural grandeur are reminiscent of Emerson, who was trained as a Unitarian minister. During and after the War of Secession, New England Christianity established a cozy relationship with the Federal government, which it has continued to the present day, under labels such as liberalism and progressivism. 

Moldbug’s genealogical work is quite impressive. His attempts to link liberalism and progressivism to Anglo-Calvinist radical Protestantism is convincing and well supported by evidence. That liberal progressivism is an atheistic, secular form of Christianity truly isn’t as absurd as it might seem at first glance. Indeed, if you look closely enough, it is apparent that many progressives are desperate to preserve Christ as a figurehead of their movement. For them, Christ is no longer the virgin born, miracle working, Son of God, but a mere mortal who acts as little more than a moral exemplar. Indeed, it would seem that many progressives have come to believe that by understanding Christ in this way, they are the true heirs of the Christian tradition as is evidenced by their frequent confidence that they are living up to Christ’s example far better than their theistic cousins. This leads us to an important observation which we must keep in mind. Just because we can regard progressive liberals as part of the Christian tradition, it does not follow that they necessarily have any affinity for any other group within the Christian tradition. Indeed, it is not uncommon for progressives to show extreme contempt for other Christian groups, particularly those that have preceded them. This is because progressives, being infected by the latest iteration of the virus, are instinctively hostile to anachronistic strains of the virus which merely waste valuable resources and threaten the continued progression of the infection. As Land explains, 

Ironically, then, the world’s regnant Universalist democratic-egalitarian faith is a particular or peculiar cult that has broken out, along identifiable historical and geographical pathways, with an epidemic virulence that is disguised as progressive global enlightenment. The route that it has taken, through England and New England, Reformation and Revolution, is recorded by an accumulation of traits that provide abundant material for irony, and for lower varieties of comedy. The unmasking of the modern ‘liberal’ intellectual or ‘open-minded’ media ‘truth-teller’ as a pale, fervent, narrowly doctrinaire puritan, recognizably descended from the species of witch-burning zealots, is reliably – and irresistibly – entertaining. 

Yet, as the Cathedral extends and tightens its grip upon everything, everywhere, in accordance with its divine mandate, the response it triggers is only atypically humorous. More commonly, when unable to exact humble compliance, it encounters inarticulate rage, or at least uncomprehending, smoldering resentment, as befits the imposition of parochial cultural dogmas, still wrapped in the trappings of a specific, alien pedigree, even as they earnestly confess to universal rationality. 

Consider, for instance, the most famous words of America’s Declaration of Independence. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights […]’ Could it be honestly maintained that to submit, scrupulously and sincerely, to such ‘self-evident’ truths amounts to anything other than an act of religious re-confirmation or conversion? Or denied that, in these words, reason and evidence are explicitly set aside, to make room for principles of faith? Could anything be less scientific than such a declaration, or more indifferent to the criteria of genuinely universal reasoning? How could anybody who was not already a believer be expected to consent to such assumptions? 

That the founding statement of the democratic-republican creed should be formulated as a statement of pure (and doctrinally recognizable) faith is information of sorts, but it is not yet irony. The irony begins with the fact that among the elites of today’s Cathedral, these words of the Declaration of Independence (as well as many others) would be found – almost universally – to be quaintly suggestive at best, perhaps vaguely embarrassing, and most certainly incapable of supporting literal assent. Even amongst libertarian-slanted conservatives, a firm commitment to ‘natural rights’ is unlikely to proceed confidently and emphatically to their divine origination. For modern ‘liberals’, believers in the rights-bestowing (or entitlement) State, such archaic ideas are not only absurdly dated, but positively obstructive. For that reason, they are associated less with revered predecessors than with the retarded, fundamentalist thinking of political enemies. Sophisticates of the Cathedral core understand, as Hegel did, that God is no more than deep government apprehended by infants, and as such a waste of faith (that bureaucrats could put to better use). 

Since the Cathedral has ascended to global supremacy, it no longer has need for Founding Fathers, who awkwardly recall its parochial ancestry, and impede its transnational public relations. Rather, it seeks perpetual re-invigoration through their denigration. The phenomenon of the ‘New Atheism’, with its transparent progressive affiliations, attests abundantly to this. Paleo-puritanism must be derided in order for neo-puritanism to flourish – the meme is dead, long live the meme. 

While all of the strains in the Universalist virus’ ancestry might have been parasitic, the degenerative features of the virus could not be too pronounced, as high morbidity early on would have inhibited its ability to spread. Fortunately for the virus, its ancestors were able to position themselves in just the right place at just the right time in order to seize the reins of mass media, the most effective tool for the dissemination of mind virus to have ever existed, laying the groundwork on which the Cathedral as it exists today was to be built. With its successful proliferation in human populations across the globe through the Cathedral apparatus, the virus was at last in a position to begin revealing some of its more morbid features. The mask of progress for the sake of human dignity was peeled off to reveal the true, grotesque face of degeneration for the sake of the uninhibited exercise of the basest impulses of the will. Now, those early iterations of the virus appeared too conservative. They became impediments to the degenerative mutations that had developed in more recent generations. The full force of the Cathedral was turned against them and, in a rapacious frenzy, the most recent strains of Universalism began to devour those that birthed them. Thus, not only are anti-Universalists in danger from the Cathedral, but so too are Universalists whose Universalism is not yet sufficiently developed (or deteriorated, depending on perspective) for those Universalists currently in command of the Cathedral. There is a diverse multitude, then, whose very existence depends on overcoming the destructive forces of the Cathedral. But how is this to be done?

One tempting answer is that those threatened by the Cathedral should attempt to combat its influence by erecting a sort of Counter-Cathedral to oppose the influence of the Cathedral at every turn. The problem with such a solution lies in the fact that those who stand opposed to the Cathedral are necessarily a highly diverse and fragmented group. There is little that the various anti-Cathedral factions can agree on other than their opposition to the Cathedral, so any anti-Cathedral would struggle and, in all likelihood, completely fail to create a unified and coherent message that can be translated into practical action. Neoreaction, by its very nature, can never become a single, monolithic movement. It will never be able to mount a united front against the Cathedral. It would seem, then, that the only alternative is a strategy of death by a thousand paper cuts. The various factions of neoreaction must come to terms with the fact that they are not likely to ever be truly unified with one another, at least not in the short term, and that there is a very high likelihood that conflicts, at times intensely bitter, will arise between factions. Though there is perhaps nothing that we can do to avoid such conflicts, we can at least encourage neoreactionaries of all flavors to take adequate consideration of the situation in their approach to conflict. To begin with, neoreactionaries must recognize that whatever conflicts they might have with other neoreactionary factions and however bitter those conflicts might be, their most powerful and unrelenting enemy will always be the Cathedral and they, therefore, ought to invest the bulk of their efforts toward combating the Cathedral and making strategic alliances with one another to the disadvantage of the Cathedral. Though the various factions are free to pursue whatever conflicts might arise in whatever manner they see fit, they ought to always be mindful of the broader effects of their decisions, and never take actions that are likely to improve the strategic position of the Cathedral. Until the Cathedral is fully dismantled, once and for all, resolving the differences within neoreaction will have to take a back seat for all neoreactionary factions, lest there be no neoreactionaries to reconcile at all. But perhaps we can kill two birds with one stone and settle these differences, or at least dissipate the tensions the produce, in the very process of combatting the Cathedral.

At this point, it seems high time that I made a confession, if it was not already abundantly obvious. I am infected with a strain of the Universalist virus. I have been, perhaps, for all of my life, and I honestly have no desire to seek treatment for it. In particular, I seem to be infected by a relatively antiquated strain of the virus which, though certainly having undergone some mutations, produces symptoms which suggest it is likely a direct descendant of the strains that infected the Founding Fathers. Moreover, I am quite content to be infected with this virus of the mind and am not in want of a cure. I even feel fortunate to have been infected with this particular strain, as it seems that it has given me immense resistance to the more developed and degenerative strains of the virus that proliferate today. Amongst the symptoms that this virus induces is an undying faith in those self-evident, unalienable rights, with which all men are endowed by our Creator, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, outlined in the United States’ Declaration of Independence. The realization and preservation of these rights for all people shall always be amongst my top priorities. 

That being said, the virus with which I am infected also induces severe nausea at even the thought of dogma. Though I am quite convinced of the moral truth of the Founders’ assertion that these universal rights exist, I also believe it is of the utmost importance that we attempt to justify the assertion and scrutinize it from every angle imaginable. This is a theme that we shall return to from time to time as the opportunity presents itself. 

There is of course another dogma stated in that famous passage of the Declaration of Independence; that all men are created equal: this is a dogma of which I am far more suspicious. Given the immense diversity that the human race exhibits, it is hard to take literally any claim that people are truly created equal in every respect. Even if we refine the claim to more narrow parameters, for instance, to say that all people are created morally equal, I am still somewhat suspicious. It certainly seems within the realm of possibility that different people might be born with different capacities for good and evil, though life experience no doubt certainly plays some role in the expression of these capacities.That being said, we have no grounds for treating anyone morally differently until they have demonstrated behavior that justifies that treatment. All people must be afforded their basic rights until they demonstrate reasons for which they cannot be trusted with them. Still, I can’t deny that there is a certain optimism in this dogma which makes me wish it were true. Perhaps we might adopt this optimism in a somewhat modified form as a worthy end to be achieved, even if it is not, at present possible, though this hope must never be prioritized over the preservation of liberty. We must note that there is a significant segment of the neroeactionary community that is excessively preoccupied with disputing the notion that all men are created equal, with a significant focus on race. While Revolutionary Restraint does not deny the right of others to look into these matters, they do not particularly interest us here, and we will not pay them much mind. It is the position of Revolutionary Restraint that whatever results these efforts might produce will never be sufficient justification for sweeping policies that assume necessary moral differences on the basis of race. We firmly believe that all people must be judged as individuals and never on the basis of race. We will likely have reason to justify this at greater length at some later time, but for now this assertion of principles shall suffice. 

And, as I noted above, there are certain ways in which the virus with which I am infected has mutated so as to make me far more radical than the Founders in certain regards. For instance, whereas the Founders saw government as a necessary evil and were content to merely put limits on government, I am not content with accepting any evil simply because it is necessary. I firmly believe we must actively work to eliminate those conditions that make the evil of government necessary, so that we need not tolerate any sort of evil whatsoever. That being said, I am still capable of recognizing the Constitution of the United States as, perhaps, the greatest work of political genius the world has yet to see and, as I am a gradualist in the matter of the abolition of the state, so long as the state remains a reality and until a better system can be devised, I shall remain a steadfast Constitutionalist. Whereas many neoreactionaries have come to see the Constitution as an impediment that must be tossed aside in order to restore sanity to government, it shall be our position that insisting on strict adherence to the Constitution is the best strategy for as long as we must interact with the state. That being said, we are also realists. We recognize that not everyone shares our lofty view of the Constitution and that many are more than willing to use and abuse it, applying it inconsistently, in order to get their way. We fully admit that there may come a time (if, of course, it has not arrived already) wherein the Constitution may prove totally incapable of affecting any positive policies whatsoever. We therefore anticipate the possibility and, indeed, likelihood, that Constitutionalism will catastrophically fail, resulting in a situation in which it will be necessary to sever all associations with the state abruptly, rather than a gradual and ordered dismantling of the state. We therefore encourage preparation for such an eventuality through the formation of associations of like minded individuals that may fill the void left by the state in areas such as mutual defense and justice, should association with the state should no longer be a viable option. (“Say you want to change the Constitution, well, you know, we all want to change your head.” A true statement of Revolutionary Restraint. Funny, because “Come Together” (right now) is far too accelerationist for our liking

Moldbug notes, 

As a term of technical theology, universalism also has a specific, although now much-disused, meaning: the belief that everyone is saved, and no one will go to Hell. Fortunately, Universalists in my sense of the word are certainly universalists in this sense – i.e. they don’t believe in Hell, and they do believe that every human is essentially good.

Though universalism, in its theological sense, might be much overlooked today, I sorely regret to inform Mr. Moldbug that it is not completely dead yet. As I indicated earlier, I am highly sympathetic to the universalist theology put forth by St. Origen, who argued that it was at least possible that all created beings, including Satan himself, would be reconciled to God in the end. Indeed, I take this position much further than Origen seems to have been willing. Not only do I recognize the possibility of the final salvation of all created beings, I regard this as an absolute necessity for the fulfillment of God’s Will. That being said, I cannot claim to be a theological universalist in the complete sense indicated by Moldbug. For one, I am not entirely convinced that there is no such place as Hell, or something like it, and, more importantly, I am not of the mind that all people are essentially good, at least at the present moment, and that it is highly likely that many people will fail to achieve salvation immediately after this lifetime. Rather, I suspect that many will have to undergo some sort of purificatory process, whether that means spending time in a place like Hell or Purgatory, or, as Origen considered, through a process of metempsychosis or palingenesis, I am not entirely sure. Such an approach to theological universalism is significant in that it allows us to maintain a belief in God and his Divine Plan and, thus, to benefit from the peace of mind that comes along with the reassurance that all will be made right in the end, while simultaneously maintaining a belief in a completely open future in which all possibilities have an actual potentiality of becoming real. There is no need to assume that any individual or even our world as a whole will be saved, we may well fail in this world, only to have to attempt the process again in another. Thus there is no need to choose between pessimism and optimism; rather we must oscillate between a supreme and absolute optimism for the long term and a strong degree of pessimism for the short term. (We can agree with Tom Waits, everything goes to hell anyway, because misery is the river of the world and we can chalk it all up to God being away on business. But the point of that business is to ensure that eventually we will be able to say that there is very much kind about man.) Such a framework is also useful for syncretic purposes. It allows us to admit a degree of truth in all religious traditions, even the ultimate essential goodness of false gods and demons, and to begin the work of trying to reconcile doctrines into a coherent whole. This, of course, cannot be accomplished simply by haphazardly forcing the elements of different traditions together into an amorphous monstrosity. Rather, this process must be accomplished through considerable care and patience with active input from representatives of all traditions to ensure that no essential traditions are obscured or muddled together in unacceptable ways. (We most certainly don’t want to just turn into a bunch of fucking goobacks. A good sense of humor, particularly of the blue variety, is likely to also play a vital role in the process of syncretization and South Park is without one of the most vital sources of such humor available.)  It must be an organic process and not one to be accomplished through any sort of top down commands. Indeed, it may not even be feasible to syncretize all traditions in one fell swoop. Rather, it may be necessary to approach syncretism in small incremental steps. For instance, if we, for the time being, consider the syncretization of just the five major world religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, it may not make sense to try to find common ground between all of the religions all at once. Rather, it might be more effective to explore Judeo-Christian syncretism separately from Judeo-Islam syncretism or Hindu-Buddhist syncretism, and each of these separately from Judeo-Hindu syncretism and Christian-Buddhist syncretism and so on. Once these intermediate stages of syncretism are established, the path to a higher syncretism might become easier to discern. For instance, if Judeo-Hindu, Judeo-Buddhist, and Hindu-Buddhist syncretisms were already achieved, it might become clearer, by syncretising these, how a Judeo-Hindu-Buddhist syncretism might be achieved. Obviously, in practice, this practice must include, not just the five major world religions, but all currently living religions, as well as going beyond religion to account for things like cultural differences. Fortunately, tradition has already handed down to us considerable efforts in the direction of the syncretization of various traditions. We need not take on this task blindly or entirely from scratch. 

Having admitted and elaborated upon these universalistic sympathies, it now becomes necessary to explain how this universalism, which we might tentatively refer to as Tribal Universalism, may be distinguished from the Universalism of the Cathedral. The distinction between these two forms of Universalism can, perhaps, be most succinctly summed up in the fact that whereas the Universalists of the Cathedral take a top down approach to Universalism, for the Tribal Universalist, Universalism must be achieved from the bottom up. While both the Cathedral and the Tribe accept a set of universal principles and regard universal assent to those principles as essential to bringing about the best possible world, they pursue their goals in very different ways. The Cathedral takes for granted, not only that its universal principles are true, but that, consequently, all people will choose to assent to its principles and, thus, the Cathedral acts as though all do assent to its principles. On the other hand, the Tribe takes a more practical position, recognizing that the simple fact that its principles are true in no way guarantees that those outside the Tribe will accept those principles or act in accordance with them. The Tribe, then, is primarily concerned with maintaining a safe environment for those who already assent to its principles to live in accordance with those principles, while defending them from the influence of those who reject those principles. Thus, when the Tribe encounters others that do not ascribe to its principles, it is not compelled to take any action beyond what might be necessary to defend itself and preserve its principles within the Tribe, whereas, when the Cathedral encounters such people, it is repulsed, and instinctively attempts to spread its influence through persuasion, manipulation, and even force. The Tribe is opposed to all attempts to impose its principles on others. Indeed, as the Tribe holds freedom of conscience as one of its central principles, any attempt to impose the Tribe’s principles on the unwilling would necessarily undermine those very principles. Moreover, the Tribe would rather count amongst its members those that freely assent to its principles under their own will than those subjugated and brow-beaten into submission, for a coalition of the willing is far stronger than an army of slaves. Whereas Cathedral Universalism is impatient and demands immediate assent to its principles, Tribal Universalism recognizes the realization of its principles as a gradual, evolutionary process, and resolves to simply make the best of the ride along the way. 

Moreover, whereas the Cathedral acts as a monolith to which all schism is anathema, the Tribe not only admits to, but embraces, its tendency toward schism and fragmentation as an essential strength. The Tribe recognizes that though there may be a universal objective truth to which we must all assent, working out precisely what that truth is, and then convincing all people to act in accordance with that truth, is a difficult task that may take considerable time and result in mistakes along the way. For this reason Tribal Universalism, at its broadest level, does not concern itself too much with ideological purity, but rather with identifying common ground on which to build. Thus, at the outset, we must attempt to identify the principles that will sit at the heart of Tribal Universalism. These principles must be capable of uniting all Tribal Universalists, thus they must be principles that can be assented to on the broadest possible basis. As the absolute minimum requirement for any number of people to peacefully coexist is a mutual recognition and respect for the rights to life, liberty, and property, we shall adopt respect for these rights as the heart of Tribal Universalist ideology, and recognition of all people’s unalienable rights to these goods shall stand as the absolute minimum requirement for one to be counted as a member of the Tribe. 

That being said, it is necessary to recognize that agreeing that we should not murder, assault, rape, or rob our fellow man is a rather low bar. There is room for a multitude of substantial disagreements even between people who can agree to these points. For one, and perhaps least problematically, there is substantial room for deviation in lifestyles and interests within the bounds of such limits. The manner in which a devout Presbyterian chooses to live his life within such bounds is likely to be quite different from the manner in which a devout practitioner of the Shinto religion might choose to live his. At times, it might be possible for people who make radically different lifestyle choices to tolerate one another and peacefully live alongside one another. In other instances, such differences might breed hatred and resentment and lead to an irreconcilable rift between such people, in which case some sort of separation might be necessary to preserve the peace and prevent tensions from giving way into a more serious conflict. Thus, it may prove necessary for the Tribe of Universalism to fracture into still smaller tribes, which may, at times, find it necessary to exercise the principle of exit in order to preserve traditions and ways of life, while at the same time ensuring that life, liberty, and property are also preserved. Thus, we might expect to find within the Tribe of Universalists various tribes of Christian Universalists, Muslim Universalists, White Universalists, Black Universalists, and so on and so forth. That being said, it is necessary to recognize that no religious, ethnic, and cultural group is a monolith. While some Presbyterians might not like living next to Shintoists, and vice versa, we are also likely to find many Presbyterians and Shintoists who take no issue with one another whatsoever, and who might even enjoy each other’s presence. Moreover, there might be some amongst the ranks of either faith that genuinely hope for the possibility of fully overcoming their differences. In other words, Tribal Universalism can be split, more or less, into two major tribes which we might call the Segregationists, denoting all those who accept for moral or political reasons that they must refrain from infringing on the persons or property of others, but who, nonetheless, believe for some reason or another, that it is best to maintain some degree of separation on ethnic, cultural, or religious grounds, and the Integrationists, denoting all those who believe that integration between all groups is desirable and who resolve to actively pursue that goal as far as possible. Between the two extreme positions of absolute Segregationism and absolute Integrationism, there are, of course, a multitude of possible intermediate positions. There may be some Segregationists who favor the absolute isolation of their favored group from all other groups, while others might be willing to tolerate certain degrees of contact with other groups. Likewise, there may be some Integrationists who favor the immediate integration of all peoples, while there may be others who take a more limited or gradual view. For instance, some might favor the integration of all Abrahamic faiths, but reject efforts to integrate Abrahamic and Dharmic faiths with one another. Likewise, some might favor the eventual integration of all traditions, but they might have reason for thinking that the task must be accomplished gradually, in stages. Thus, the Segregationists and Integrationists must fracture into still more tribes. Thus we can expect to find tribes of Integrationist Christians and Segregationist Christians, Integrationist Jews and Segregationist Jews, and other such tribes of other faiths to develop. Of course, the existence of Segregationist Christian tribes and Integrationist Christian tribes, does not preclude the possibility of simply Christian tribes arising to unite all Christians, whether Segregationist or Integrationist, and to navigate whatever disputes might have occasion to arise between the two camps. But, in addition to single faith tribes, we might also expect multi-faith tribes to arise as well. For instance, particularly fierce believers in the possibility of Christian and Muslim integration, might come together to form a Christo-Islamic tribe, or Jews and Buddhists to create a Judeo-Buddhist tribe. Such tribes might prove incredibly useful for resolving disputes that might arise between members of two or more pure faith tribes and it is easy to see how they might help the Integrationist progress, for once strong Christo-Islamic and Judeo-Buddhist syntheses are achieved, we might begin on the task of synthesizing the syntheses so that Christo-Islamic-Judeo-Buddhism might be realized after only two steps. 

Though we encourage integration to take place organically, from the ground up, those of us who regard integration as an ultimately desirable goal should not be ashamed to state this goal openly. In addition to these limited syncretic tribes, we must not be afraid to jump the gun a bit and form truly Universalist tribes in the full theological sense. Of course, even those amongst tribes that commit themselves to Universalism in this full theological sense might not be immune to schism. We can imagine diverse points of view leading to diverse solutions to the problems associated with uniting all of humanity. Indeed, though we might say that the idea that all people should be saved is a sort of theological view, we can expect some to arrive at this view from an atheistic perspective. Again, here we must happily welcome schism among theological universalists, so long as they remain committed to universalist principles in the more limited, civil sense, in their conduct with one another. Perhaps the greatest point of criticism that can be levied against Unitarian Universalism is its eminent agreeableness which prevents it from expressing any clear and definite doctrine at all. Universalists must not be afraid of making definite proclamations of doctrine and vigorously criticising those they disagree with through the use of their own judgment, rather, they must be encouraged to do so, for only through rigorous pursuit of the truth can the Universalist project ever be successful. And though all of the diverse universalists need not like each other, if they take their task of uniting all of humanity seriously, they must welcome some degree of open dialogue with one another and, in order to lend weight to the idea that it is possible for all of humanity to come together, in their dialogues with one another, these universalists must hold themselves to the highest standards of civility, humility, and respect. In their early stages, these universalist tribes might look something like a church. In place of traditional clergy, they would be founded by philosophers with universalistic ambitions, dedicated to researching and working out solutions to the multitude of issues involved in achieving universalist ends, and responsible for educating the wider community in such matters. Such “churches” would be free to compete with one another for followers, gradually weaving their roots throughout communities. Though initially the functions of these organizations would be relatively limited, prioritizing, above all, educational services and efforts aimed at fostering a sense of community, over time, as the state, whether through strategic dismantling, or catastrophic failure, begins to recede, they might begin to take on new responsibility, filling vital vacuums left by the absence of the state, for instance, organizing mutual defense and adjudication of disputes. Indeed, with their commitment both to a universal recognition of life, liberty, and property, as well the ultimate equality of all people, such organizations might find themselves particularly well positioned to resolve conflicts, particularly between parties of different backgrounds, and to gain honor and respect by demonstrating an ability to relieve tensions by exercising impeccable impartiality in all matters. 

Thus, we can imagine a network of tribes within tribes developing, presiding over separate, but, at times, overlapping spheres. And at the heart of this network, the lifeblood that sustains each and every tribe is the individual. He must be free to associate with and join with whatever tribes he sees fit and will accept him so that the system is subject to true market principles. Thus a man might be a member of as many tribes as he so chooses so long as none of those tribes excludes another. It is the individual who has the ultimate power to decide the relative size and strength of the tribes, how they shall combine or fragment, and which shall prevail in the end. And, indeed, the individual is the ultimate end of this whole process. The ultimate end of the most robustly universalist tribes must be the production of upstanding, morally sound individuals capable of governing themselves. We might liken this structure to that of Freemasonry; basic Universalism and commitment to the principles of life, liberty, and property, corresponding to the basic degrees of the Craft, and each of the various tribes into which the overarching Universalist Tribes splinters into corresponding to the various Appendant Masonic Bodies. Of course, the associations between these various tribes would be looser and far less formal than what prevails in between the Blue Lodge and its various appendant bodies. This entire process might be likened to the lines of Empedocles’ poem that read, 

And never do they cease from change continual,

At one time all uniting into one from Love, 

While at another each is torn apart by hate-filled Strife. 

And here we can identify yet another principle that might qualify as an essential maxim of the Universalist Tribe: In all of our interactions, once our respect for life, liberty, and property is satisfied, we must seek to maximize Love while minimizing Strife. However, we must not neglect the reality of Strife and recognize that trying to force Love to grow in unsuitable ground is likely to increase Strife. (This pair of Johnny Winter tunes seem appropriately representative of those dual principles of Love and Strife.) In this way Tribal Universalism can be said to be properly catholic in a manner in which neither the Catholic Church nor the Universalism of the Cathedral never could be. There are of course other complexities and complications in this model that deserve to be worked out. For instance, there are certain to be disagreements along other dimensions, such as on questions of what constitutes just and proportional punishment, or how to view certain marginal cases. We will almost certainly have occasion to consider such concerns at some later date, but for now, the sketch we have so far given should suffice to paint a picture for the reader of what we have in mind. It shall be the task of these tribes to overcome their differences, and like so many barbarian hordes to unite to lay siege to and sack the Cathedral and carry away its treasures so that it can no longer fund its relentless campaigns against so many diverse enemies. 

Let us stop and rest here. It made sense to begin our discussion of neoreaction with a discussion of the Cathedral, given its centrality to neoreactionary thought, as well as because it flowed naturally from our discussion of the Vampires’ Castle in our previous installment. However, this has, perhaps, forced us to get a bit ahead of ourselves by beginning to sketch a solution to the problem of democracy before adequately establishing that there is a problem with democracy. In our next installment, we will continue our examination of the neoreactionary movement by turning our attention to the notion of sovereignty. We will analyze neoreactionary complaints about democracy and explore their alternatives in greater detail, before offering our own interpretation of and solution to the problem of sovereignty and elaborating the role this tribal structure we have sketched here might have in achieving that solution.