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Key Thinkers of the Radical Right

Page 34

by Mark Sedgwick (ed)


  “neocameralism.” By limiting politics to this narrow domain, Moldbug

  reasons it creates space for a libertarian paradise.37 Moldbug calls him-

  self a “Jacobite” and favors the restoration of the House of Stuart, but the

  details of his futurist monarchy are less important than the thrust toward

  the total privatization and authoritarianism.38

  Drawing on an implicit machine metaphor, he argues that society

  needs a “hard reset” not gradual political reform. But Moldbug’s strategy

  for the destroying the Cathedral further distinguishes him from other

  right- wing movements. He forbids neoreactionaries from engaging in any

  form of activism, “violent or harmless, legal or illegal, fashionable or des-

  picable.” Even voting is borderline. Instead, Moldbug advocates “the Steel

  Rule of Passivism.” He counsels readers that “since you believe others

  should be willing to accept the rule of the New Structure, over which

  they wield no power, you must be the first to make the great refusal.”39

  Moldbug’s rationale is that progressivism feeds on right- wing opposition.

  By remaining passive, neoreaction “starves” progressivism of a neces-

  sary enemy. Without a “loyal opposition,” “progressivism collapses into

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  sclerosis.” Eschewing politics also safeguards neoreaction from cooption

  by those attracted to power, “vaccinat[ing] itself against Hitler.”40

  Moldbug concedes that destroying progressivism is implausible. But

  he thinks that with the internet it is possible. He suggests the collapse of

  the Soviet Union as a model to follow. The sclerosis of the American gov-

  ernment and the disjuncture between power structures and political rhet-

  oric will naturally undermine confidence in the state. But indoctrinated

  Americans also needed a visible alternative. The neoreactionary’s task is to

  create a clear and obvious alternative or “Schelling Point.” The first steps

  are challenging the Cathedral intellectually and theorizing an alternative.

  Moldbug distills his plan into the mantra “Become worthy; Accept power;

  Rule.” Having begun the creation of the Schelling Point, in 2013 Moldbug

  drastically reduced his blogging and, after two years of silence, announced

  in April 2016 that Unqualified Reservations had “completed its mission.”41

  Harbinger and Archetype

  It can be difficult to gage the seriousness of Moldbug’s project. On the

  one hand, his droll tone and outlandish statements make it tempting to

  dismiss him as a prank. There is some evidence to this effect. The Kindle

  versions of his posts are published by the winkingly named TRO LLC.

  In one particular post, Moldbug discusses at length Daniel Defoe’s The

  Shortest Way with the Dissenters, a 1702 pamphlet that parodied Tory prop-

  aganda to discredit the Right.42 It is possible that Moldbug highlighted the

  pamphlet to indicate the reality of his blog.

  However, Moldbug should be taken seriously. Despite some outland-

  ishness, his core critiques and basic proposals are consistent, and his

  use of exaggeration is purposeful. Neoreaction treats taboo thought as

  liberation, and Moldbug’s use of comedy and transgression make sense

  within this framework. His real identity was revealed online around

  2012, and his tech work has occasionally suffered as a result. Two tech-

  expos disinvited him in 2015 and 2016 causing minor controversy, and

  Moldbug- Yarvin has since defended Unqualified Reservations under his

  own name.43

  Even if Yarvin had not done this, there would be reason to reckon with

  Moldbug. Regardless of his intent, Unqualified Reservations developed a

  dedicated following who read Moldbug seriously. Moldbug’s approach

  reflects the online turn toward absurdist memes and “trolling,” the act of

  inciting outrage by adopting provocative beliefs or actions. Simultaneously

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  Mencius Moldbug and Neoreaction

  199

  ironic and sincere, trolling makes it impossible to disentangle the se-

  rious from the intentionally provocative. If Moldbug is a prototroll, his

  blog is intended to challenge society and cause teeth- gnashing in main-

  stream publications like the Atlantic and the Nation. Most importantly,

  antiprogressive arguments resembling Moldbug’s have entered the public

  square. Moldbug was a harbinger of an antiprogressive trend most ap-

  parent in the 2016 presidential election.

  Donald Trump and his surrogates sounded neoreactionary notes in

  their condemnation of progressivism and the media. According to Politico,

  the Breitbart executive chairman and Trump advisor Steve Bannon read

  and admired Moldbug’s work, which confirmed Bannon’s conviction that

  liberal technocrats were destroying “Western Civilization.” Though criti-

  cism of progressivism and liberal media bias have long histories in main-

  stream conservatism, Trump and Moldbug are distinct for their tone, use

  of alternative media types, and disrespect for prevailing norms.

  But neoreaction is also at odds with some of conservatism’s core

  tenets. Moldbug’s philosophy is hyperindividualistic, thoroughly deraci-

  nated from the regional, national, and religious identities conservatives

  traditionally emphasize. He rejects patriotism, constitutionalism, and

  populism. Most of the conservative Right venerates a narrow vision of

  America’s political tradition utterly distinct from Moldbug’s vision of cor-

  porate feudalism.

  Moldbug’s relationship with white nationalism is also thorny. He is

  “not exactly allergic to” white nationalist writers and accepts racialist

  claims about “human biodiversity” but disavows it for political reasons.

  While racialist thought may be “a sensible description of a general

  problem,” it suggests erroneous solutions. White nationalism is mis-

  guided because it emphasizes race rather than intelligence. More im-

  portantly, identitarian politics are flawed because they are democratic

  and counterproductive because they energize the Left.44 Neoreactionaries

  have distanced themselves from the Alt Right and white- identity politics.

  Nick Land, another neoreactionary thinker, says he does not “think the

  Alt- Right (in America) is very serious.”45 Privately, however, Moldbug has

  suggested that this distancing is a tactical consideration. In a message

  to Milo Yiannopoulos, then a Breitbart reporter, on how to relate to neo-

  Nazis, Moldbug counseled Yiannopoulos to “deal with them the way some

  perfectly tailored high- communist NYT reporter handles a herd of greasy

  anarchist hippies. Patronizing contempt.” Although disdainful of the neo-

  Nazi Right, Moldbug sees them as a part of a broad right- wing assault on

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  E M E R G E N T T H I N K E R S

  the Left. Neoreaction’s dismissal of neo- Nazism is cultural and tactical,

  but not entirely ideological. “The liberal doesn’t purge the communist

  because he hates communism,” Moldbug told Yiannopoulos. He purges

  them “because the communist is a public embarrassment to
him.” Neo-

  Nazis are losers “and losers rub off.”46

  Where Moldbug has been most influential is among radical libertarians

  and in burgeoning online subcultures. His overt anti- democracy is a de-

  parture for American libertarianism but has a small but growing influ-

  ence, especially following the 2008 financial crisis. Prominent libertarian

  investors Balaji Srinivasan and Peter Thiel have echoed Neoreactionary

  themes about seceding from the US for tech- CEO dictatorships.

  Moldbug’s relationship with the investor- entrepreneur Thiel is his

  most important connection. Thiel has considerable influence within

  mainstream and libertarian circles. He was seriously considered for a cab-

  inet position in the Trump White House, sits on the boards of several

  major companies, including Facebook, and is a majority shareholder in

  Palantir, a major intelligence contractor. Thiel invested in Yarvin’s tech

  company and wrote while recommending Unqualified Reservations, that

  he “no longer believe[s] that freedom and democracy are compatible.”47 In

  2016 Moldbug privately boasted that he had been “coaching Thiel” who is

  “fully enlightened” but “plays it very carefully.”48 Moldbug exemplifies an

  important trend in radical libertarianism: a grim view of contemporary

  society but supreme confidence in technology and the private sector to

  supersede traditional politics.

  Moldbug is perhaps best understood as an online archetype. Especially

  with the growth of social media and the availability of video technology,

  many right- wing activists have adeptly harnessed the web to create and

  propagate their philosophies. The unprecedented platform of the internet

  provides a space and audience for their world- historical theories. What

  Moldbug captured in his verbose posts was a growing sense of social

  frustration among mostly white, middle- class males resentful of dimin-

  ished economic and social fortunes in a diverse, economically slowing,

  post– Third Wave feminist society. This frustration manifests itself as

  misanthropic superiority. Unqualified Reservations was the “highbrow”

  predecessor and later companion to the transgressive anti- “politically cor-

  rect” metapolitics of nebulous online communities like 4chan and / pol/ .

  Moldbug represents a new type of thinker inseparable from the internet.

  Moldbug was among the first of this new type of digital ideologue, but he

  is far from the last.

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  Mencius Moldbug and Neoreaction

  201

  Notes

  1. Mencius Moldbug, “A Formalist Manifesto,” Unqualified Reservations (blog)

  (hereafter UR), April 23, 2007, http:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/

  2007/ 04/ formalist- manifesto- originally- posted.html. Moldbug’s identity is now public knowledge, but his blog posts are cited as he posted them under

  his nom de web.

  2. Justine Alexandra Roberts Tunney, introduction to A Gentle Introduction to

  Unqualified Reservations, by Mencius Moldbug (New York: TRO LLC, 2009), vii.

  3. www.socialmatter.net.

  4. Mark Lilla, The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction (New York: New York

  Review of Books, 2016), ix– xxi.

  5. Angela Nagle, Kill All Normies: The Online Culture Wars from Tumblr and 4chan to

  the Alt- Right and Trump (Washington, DC: Zero Books, 2017).

  6. Mencius Moldbug, “How I Stopped Believing in Democracy,” UR, Jan 31, 2008,

  http:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2008/ 01/ how- i- stopped- believing-

  in- democracy.html.

  7. SMPY at JHU Precollege Newsletter, no. 10, Sept 1, 1988, 2. Found at https://

  digital.library.unt.edu/ ark:/ 67531/ metadc268929/ m1/ 2/ ; Curtis Yarvin, Richard Bukowski, and Thomas Anderson, “Anonymous RPC: Low- Latency Protection

  in a 64- Bit Address Space,” in Proc. Of the 1993 Summer Usenix Conference, 175–

  186, June 1993.

  8. Paulina Borsook, Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian

  Culture of High Tech (New York: PublicAffairs, 2000), 3.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Mencius Moldbug, “OL8: A Reset is Not a Revolution,” UR, June 5, 2009, http://

  unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2008/ 06/ ol8- reset- is- not- revolution.

  html.

  11. George Hawley, Rightwing Critics of American Conservatism (Lawrence: University

  of Kansas Press, 2016), 145– 178; George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual

  Movement in America since 1945 (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2006), 497– 499.

  12. Mencius Moldbug, “From Mises to Carlyle: My Sick Journey to the Dark Side

  of the Force,” UR, February 4, 2010, https:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.

  com/ 2010/ 02/ from- mises- to- carlyle- my- sick- journey.html.

  13. Hans- Hermann Hoppe, Democracy—

  The God That Failed: The Economics

  and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order (New Brunswick,

  NJ: Transaction, 2002).

  14. Mencius Moldbug, “OLXII: What Is to be Done?,” UR, July 2, 2008, http://

  unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2008/ 07/ olxii- what- is- to- be- done.html.

  15. James Burnham, The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom (New York: John

  Day, 1943).

  16. Moldbug, “From Mises to Carlyle.”

  20

  202

  E M E R G E N T T H I N K E R S

  17. Mencius Moldbug, “A Gentle Introduction (part 4),” UR, January 29, 2009.

  http:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2009/ 01/ gentle- introduction- to-

  unqualified_ 29.html.

  18. Mencius Moldbug, “OLXIV: Rules for Reactionaries,” UR, July 17, 2008, http://

  unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2008/ 07/ .

  19. Mencius Moldbug, “OL9: How to Uninstall a Cathedral,” UR, June 12, 2008,

  https:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2008/ 06/ ol9- how- to- uninstall-

  cathedral.html.

  20. For example, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, or Judith Butler.

  21. Andrew Hartman, A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars

  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 113.

  22. Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation

  of American Politics (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).

  23. Mencius Moldbug, “OL5: The Shortest Way to World Peace,” UR, May 15,

  2008, http:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2008/ 05/ ol5- shortest- way-

  to- world- peace.html; “A Gentle Introduction (part 3),” UR, January 22, 2009,

  http:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2009/ 01/ gentle- introduction- to-

  unqualified_ 22.html.

  24. Hawley, Rightwing Critics, 67– 70.

  25. Mencius Moldbug, “Why I Am Not a White Nationalist,” UR, November 22,

  2007, http:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2007/ 11/ why- i- am- not-

  white- nationalist.html.

  26. Mencius Moldbug, “A Gentle Introduction (part 4),” UR, January 29, 2009,

  http:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2009/ 01/ .

  27. Hartman, War for the Soul of America, 113– 114.

  28. Nagle, Kill All Normies, 28– 39.

  29. Ibid., 86– 100.

  30. Mencius Moldbug, “OL7: The Ugly Truth about Government,” UR, May 29,

  2008, http:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.c
om/ 2008/ 05.

  31. Moldbug, “A Gentle Introduction (part 1).”

  32. Moldbug, “A Gentle Introduction (part 7),” UR, March 5, 2009, http:// unqualified-

  reservations.blogspot.com/ 2009/ 03/ gentle- introduction- to- unqualified.html.

  33. Moldbug, “A Gentle Introduction (part 6),” UR, February 19, 2009, http://

  unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2009/ 02/ gentle- introduction- to-

  unqualified_ 19.html.; “OL8.”

  34. Moldbug, “A Formalist Manifesto.”

  35. Moldbug, “A Gentle Introduction (part 4).”

  36. Moldbug, “OL4: Dr Johnson’s Hypothesis,” UR, May 8, 2008, http:// unqualified-

  reservations.blogspot.com/ 2008/ 05/ ol4- dr- johnsons- hypothesis.html.

  37. Moldbug, “How Dawkins Got Pwned [ sic] (part 6),” UR, November 1, 2007,

  http:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2007/ 11/ how- dawkins- got-

  pwned- part- 6.html.

  203

  Mencius Moldbug and Neoreaction

  203

  38. Moldbug, “OL8.” (see n8)

  39. Moldbug, “A Gentle Introduction (part 9a),” UR, September 3, 2009, https://

  unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2009/ 09/ gentle- introduction- to-

  unqualified.html.

  40. Ibid.

  41. Moldbug, “Coda,” UR, April 18, 2016, http:// unqualified- reservations.blogspot.

  com/ 2016/ 04/ .

  42. Moldbug, “OL5: The Shortest Way to World Peace,” UR, May 15, 2008, http://

  unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/ 2008/ 05/ ol5- shortest- way- to- world-

  peace.html.”

  43. Curtis Yarvin, “Why You Should Come to LambdaConf Anyway,” Medium,

  March 27, 2016, https:// medium.com/ @curtis.yarvin/ why- you- should- come- to-

  lambdaconf- anyway- 35ff8cd4fb9d.

  44. Ibid.

  45. George Hawley, Making Sense of the Alt- Right (New York: Columbia University

  Press, 2017), 45– 50.

  46. Joseph Bernstein, “Alt- White: How the Breitbart Machine Laundered Racist Hate,”

  BuzzFeedNews, October 5, 2017, https:// www.buzzfeed.com/ josephbernstein/

  heres- how- breitbart- and- milo- smuggled- white- nationalism?utm_ term=.

  ptROyy5xq#.kcGyRRPNv.

  47. Peter Thiel, “The Education of a Libertarian,” Cato Unbound, April 13,

  2009,

  https:// www.cato- unbound.org/ 2009/ 04/ 13/ peter- thiel/ education-

  libertarian; Corey Pein, “Mouthbreathing Machiavelli’s Dream of a Silicon Reich,” Baffler, May 19, 2014, https:// thebaffler.com/ latest/ mouthbreathing-

 

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