Moving at the Speed of Dark

David Brin – scientist, author, hippy, and rebel scum – decided to take on the Neoreactionary movement in this post from last November, 2013.  I only recently became aware of it thanks to commenter Ramram, but nonetheless it provides a fascinating look into what qualifies as a mind, over there on the left-hand side of the aisle… the sinistra side of the aisle… as well as providing an excellent opportunity to demonstrate right-wing mental dexterity.

I first read Brin’s writing around the age of fourteen, specifically his collection of short-stories and essays titled Otherness, which he conveniently mentions in the above article.  The book’s eponymous essay is an edited transcript of a speech he gave at a Science Fiction convention years ago, and represents a stance he still clings to.  While Otherness has long since disappeared from my library, that essay in particular remains clear in my mind

Credit where credit’s due, Mr Brin: it was your left-wing braggadocio which broke me away from the multi-culti, Gene Roddenberry ideal, and led me to seriously start questioning the schizophrenic reality which you Boomers handed to my generation.

“Otherness” is Brin’s label for the Liberal multi-cult.  During his speech he praises Equality™, talking about how the Evolved Human knows that all cultures are equal – including the cultures who’d happily destroy the Otherness!  Peace and love, for the cannibals, too!  Such delicious, self-aware irony!  Even the sheer mention of the fact that Islam might not be the friendly Religion of Peace the apologists declare, rose the ire of an old-woman in the audience (whom I can only presume was a single-mother and divorcée); “How dare you criticize those irreligious moors?” she asked, “You with your Western Imperialism, you cis-gendered male!”

“But don’t you see?” he asked in delight, “You’re an Otherness too!  Diversity is our strength!”

Now lest you think my memory is failing in my dotage, or that I suffer from some childhood neuroses, I’ll quote what he had to say about Otherness in the article which we’re analyzing:

In our case, western [sic] civilization has raised many generations steeped in memes of suspicion of authority and questioning the home-and-familiar, one of the most unusual things that any culture ever preached to its own offspring!  I appraise this reflex favorably in my essay and book Otherness.  These memes are what led to so many successive self-improvement campaigns, from constitutionalism to elimination of slavery. They led us hippies – for example – to march against horrid assumptions that all other generations took for granted — wasteful and inherently impractical superstitions like racism, sexism and environmental blindness.

Here we see the poisonous seed of the Leftoid mind: hatred of the normal, hatred of the Good.

Often the Left couches its attacks on the West in terms of the West failing to live up to its ideals.  We’re told that back in the 50s husbands used to beat their wives, attacking homosexuals was a team sport, and socially-approved-of child-rape ran rampant.  The Leftist arrives to soothe the burns of the Evil Patriachy, that “order of old and evil”, by rejecting the illigitimate authority wielded by men, business owners, and royalty. “Hierarchy is abuse!” they shout, implying that they’re going to bring us true noblesse oblige.

The alternative-right, the manosphere, and the neoreactionary movement – all of us Crazy Critics of the left – grew out of the careful consideration and note-comparison which the Internet has allowed. “Say, buddy,” we said, under a pseudonym on some BBS, “You ever noticed that chicks say they like nice guys, but always date the jerks?  That every problem the Liberals try and solve only gets worse?  That aside from the growth in technology, the 50s seems like a much better time to be alive?”

“The 50s?”

“I mean the 1750s, of course.”

For the past ten, twenty years we’ve been running a fine-toothed comb over the reality presented to us, and detangling the knots one by one, only to realize in retrospect that the answer had been thrown in our face at the very beginning: the Left’s foundational myth is a love a contradiction, schizophrenia, and the Great Elder Cthulu.

I’m reminded of Mencius’s essays on how Dawkins got pwned, where he demonstrates that modern Liberalism is nothing but secularized Christianity.

At the heart of Religious belief is the Divine Mystery; that thing that cannot be known, that cannot be believed in.  There is only Faith: the moral decision to choose Righteousness.  Generally this is a topic I avoid, since the state of our theological conversations have devolved to the point of Reefer Madness, but to put it simply: I completely agree with Atheists: I don’t believe in that God either (and the Spanish Inquisition nods in approval).  The Divine Mystery isn’t in snake handling, or speaking in tongues – it’s in Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem.

To vastly oversimplify it: Math has proven that Math can’t prove Math.  And if Math can’t prove Math, then nothing can prove Math.  You’re now left with a moral choice: either you choose Faith that Math is True, or you become a post-modernist arguing that “2+2=4” is a social construct.  Both are valid responses – though in the case of the latter, we might need to Draw and Quarter you.

Quite frankly, it’s probably best if you don’t think about this too much.

The Liberals, in their Secularization of Christianity, have dragged the Absolute down to the level of the Objective; instead of the Divine Mystery, they have the Objective Contradiction – and along with it, an infectious unravelling.

Brin’s Otherness approaches as a friend, offering to relieve you of the abuses which The System imposed upon you – “Hey, teachers!  Leave those kids alone!” – but far too late, you realize that you’ve fallen into another system, a system which rejects Natural Law, a system which rejects Logic, one which controls you by never admitting control.  Surrounded by a host of Starspawn birthed from Cthulu’s loins, you’re free to choose any of the choices which they’ve (conveniently) already chosen for you: destroy yourself by destroying others.  No more slavery!  Now you get to choose alienation, pornography, video games, and Equality™.

ͼ-Ѻ-ͽ

Cthulu Worshipers are a strange lot.  They embrace the most painful forms of suicide which Man can devise, leaping gladly into the bosom of torture and misery – and yet they can still feel fear.

In Brin’s case, there’s a thread of stark, existential terror in his writing – take note of the following passage:

Till now, the Enlightenment had several things going for it: like the fact that it works.

For three hundred years, in realms as diverse as science, wealth-creation, error-avoidance, innovation, justice and happiness, it has outperformed all previous societies combined. But that is not the secret sauce. Its key trick, above all, was a very strong mythology of egalitarianism, individualism, pragmatism and liberality —

— the ideal of a level and fair playing field, in which good ideas should win out over bad ones, without interference by stodgy or biased authorities. Adam Smith taught us — and the American Founders instituted — ways to benefit from arenas of competition in which no single person’s (or narrow cabal’s) delusions may reign — but instead products, policies, theories and justice are wrangled, tested and refined in four great arenas — markets, democracy, science and courts — where avoidance of criticism or error-discovery is difficult, even impossible over the long run.

They never worked perfectly and were always under attack by cheaters.  Still, these accountability arenas are the only systems that ever penetrated our species’s penchant for delusion in any systematic way.

Did you see it, dear reader?  His ideology just retrogressed by almost 200 years!  A dyed-in-the-wool leftist, who supports multiculturalism, white guilt, and socialism, just wrote something that belongs on a Libertarian blog.

Don’t misunderstand, I’m not trying to attack libertarianism – us Neoreactionaries like libertarians, the same way we like it when husbands refrain from beating their wives. “Free markets?  Low taxes?  Wonderful!  Except the last time we tried it, we wound up with Obama.” Libertarianism is considered right-wing nowadays, but back around the French Revolution is was a thoroughly Left-Wing ideal – which is precisely why Brin is suddenly advocating it.

Retrogressing to childhood is a common response to terror, after all.

Ideologically, this is a desperate last salvo: “Please, can’t you guys just be conservatives?  Look, we’ll give you some tax credits – then we can keep playing this Left Vs Right game, where the left always wins!”

He’s begging us to play his game, because we’ve started playing our own.

ͼ-Ѻ-ͽ

Don’t mistake his terror for understanding; it’s purely an instinctive response.  No different from how you curled into a ball and sucked your thumb after watching The Phantom Menace.

As his essay progresses, he pats himself on the back for being such a wonderful hippy, and then chastizes us (while loving us, and promoting our diversity) for being the anti-hippy hippies that he thinks we are:

To an extent, this is a core element of the Enlightenment’s healthy process of advancement and renewal. Heaven forbid that the young stop getting in their elders’ faces, confronting their mistakes.  But T-cells that go screeching through the body looking for mistakes are not always right! And many a sanctimonious twit of both right and left conveys more heat than light.  More noise than value.

In this case of the neo-reactionaries, you have a cult of ingratitude that should incur at least a burden of scholarly proof.

They do not get to call themselves rebels!  We and our Enlightenment are the revolutionaries, still, beating down the repeated, clawing assaults of oligarchists from all sides, some of whom called themselves “communists,” but always prescribing the same, boring pyramid of power.

Did you think that comment about “rebel scum” at the beginning of this piece was an insult?  Brin is proud of his disloyalty!  How dare we claim to be as destructive as his generation!

Which just goes to show how little he understands us.

Us Neoreactionaries are Patriots; we’re followers of Natural Law, and we believe in order; futhermore, we are eager to rebuild what Brin’s ilk have destroyed.  The Freedom which we pursue isn’t freedom from responsibility – it’s the Freedom we find in self discipline.  Our Rights aren’t a list of positive prescriptions laid out by the UN – it’s our Right to speak the Truth, and suffer our Just Deserts joyously.

Cthulu’s Cultists might hold all the cards, but they’ve forgotten how to play.  It’s we who are building an engine…

…and it’s a fearsome engine, indeed.

Leo M.J. Aurini

Trained as a Historian at McMaster University, and as an Infantry soldier in the Canadian Forces, I'm a Scholar, Author, Film Maker, and a God fearing Catholic, who loves women for their illogical nature.

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28 Responses

  1. Ranley says:

    Fantastic post dude. Very wittily written without overdoing it as well. Off topic, but you very briefly made reference to the Spanish Inquisition (a favorite of the Brin types), I am agnostic on the details of the Inquisition, but if you have the time and inclination, check out an unheard point of view on the matter (Catholic source, author now deceased):

    http://www.crisismagazine.com/2003/the-truth-about-the-spanish-inquisition-2

    And as far as peace with cannibals…..OK, so long as they stay home.

  2. Kristophr says:

    2+2=4 is a deep psychological construct, Mr. Aurini.

    But it is a damned useful construct, and I will continue to use it until something better comes along.

    Oh, and thanx for posting earlier hints at the Dark Enlightenment, you bastard. I may never be able to crawl out of this rabbit hole.

  3. Bob Wallace says:

    I consider the mind of the leftist to be the mind of a monster – only they don’t know it and therefore will certainly reject the label.

  4. JDAM says:

    I’ve stopped giving leftists the benefit of the doubt. They are not my intellectual or moral equals of any kind, to any degree. Their ideas are the stuff of self-annihilation, Hell bent sending civilization into oblivion. I’ll have no part of it.

    Good work on this one, Aurini. Clear, concise, and damning to the extreme.

  5. Aurini says:

    @Ranley

    There was a post on Alternative Right some time back, about the reality underlying the Spanish Inquisition (turns out they were far more lenient than civil courts were at the time, and their primary enemy was traitorous, irreligious Moors).

    If anybody knows the link I’m talking about, I’d GREATLY appreciate it; I’ve been looking for it for some time now, and my Google-fu has failed me.

  6. finndistan says:

    Leftist writes to commie forum on facebook, and that friends’ post pops up in my page. I get curious and here is the gist of it:

    “Found invitation leaflets to a nationalist organization (he, like me is an immigrant, and like me, produces), and tore them down”

    “Is there a stronger way to stop these organizations from meeting?”
    “When they get the power they will forcibly stop freedom of speech, so how can we stop them?”
    “I am asking for my local comrades’ guidance. Can I go to the courts? Or can I organize a protest? Maybe the town council can ban these meetings?”

    Not a joke…

    Recently another gem popped up about like him, all his friends are well off (means paying 40+%tax… theft) and we don’t understand the poor. So we should get rid of all the materialism, and that everyone should be equal paid.

    So… what will be the incentive for a person to become a neurosurgeon, instead of a lifeguard at the beach? Crickets…

    So what will happen when men will as nature intended want to breed with the better looking women, and those women will want to have something for it, in a land of ewalitee?

    I might be wrong in my ideals, and thinking, but at least I am not delusional.

    for me what opened my eyes were not the evils I read about, it was when a humanist environmentalist, eqwalist leftard told me about the 50 million dead in Russia during the Soviet times, without flinching an eye, with a steadfast sure voice,

    “It was the necessity for a succesfull system change”

    Humanity’s enemies are many; but lefties are on the top of the pyramid.

  7. Aurini says:

    I’ll have to read it later to confirm – but if nothing else, you folks have provided me with two excellent articles along the same lines; thank you.

    Certainly puts it in perspective, don’t it? The “Great Evils” of the Catholic Church seem to have more in common with mob mentality and Obamanauts, than they have to do with “Religious Superstition.”

    Compare: the Catholic Church keeps craziness in check, versus the Enlightened Communist Atheists, who ride craziness like a wave…

    Really; must we argue Brin’s claim when the theological foundation of his thinking show such massive cracks?

  8. benny says:

    Whether you believe in god or not is irrelevant, surely you can understand the utility of god. God the perfect omnipotent being is the greatest invention of mankind, it’s a nonsense to discuss morals as without god they don’t exist, there is no objective truth EVERY action is simply subjective. God was created to protect man from himself, religion to protect him from the promiscuous woman from whom he will be destroyed. Religion simply means to bind, a cohesive society where everyone plays by the same rules is stronger, and those who have the best rules (best religion) win. Small government is only possible under a theocracy/monarchy (a monarchy is just a theocracy with more glitz), big government just means big sister, marxism is just feminism, the war of the sexes is the greatest war ever waged, religion provides the peace treaty that allows society to advance, rip up the rule book if you like, sell your civilisation for the price of a cheap lay, but remember the wages of sin are death.

  9. Jose C Silva says:

    Aurini: have you read Niall Ferguson’s “Civilization: the West and the rest” and “The great degeneration”?

    Despite a carefully constructed politically correct wrapper (Ferguson is ensconced in the warm bosom of academe, after all), deep down he makes many important points that fit with, and support the foundations of the Dark Enlightenment.

    (With Ferguson you can get 90% of his point from videos on YouTube, but I prefer reading the book and getting the 10% deemed most inappropriate for politically correct company…)

    Cheers,
    JCS

  10. Sean says:

    Your discussion of the response to the issue of Math being unable to define itself, and the twinned responses of Faith and Apathy, reminds me of Ovid’s line: “It is convenient to believe that gods exist. Therefore, let us believe in them.” Even a theocracy is far preferable to the Autumnal orgy of eating and mating that we are experiencing right now.

    Re video games: are you saying they are intrinsically bad? I can see how some are, like the mindless FPSs and sports games, but what about RPGs, games which you can approach less as “this is me being awesome,” and more as “this is the story of a character I have created.” Does role-playing in video games beat the trap? Can it be an acceptable catharsis and outlet from the stress of life? You don’t condemn reading novels for pleasure. Or does even role-playing a character play into the addictive trap of false achievement that the Cathedral has created?

  11. @Sean I know you didn’t ask me, but I feel compelled to address your question. We got chicken and egg here. Correlation alone does not establish causality. Causality requires direction from A->B and there may be a C causing both A and B.

    My frame of interpretation is evolution evaluated by rationalism. I think masturbation, pornography, video games, etc. are–like it or not–adaptive coping strategies to deal with the removal of opportunities for men. To what extent a man does not live up to his real world potential playing video games vs. a man plays video games for his lack of real world opportunity. Is said man by playing video games instead of pursuing real world achievement for exogenous or endogenous reasons?

    There is surely less sex service and sincere support availabe from the modern Western woman. There is surely less economic opportunity for the productive. Nature will break and build societal systems at her pleasure. We are the environment of each other, and we are trapped in a stable evolutionary state of decline. I think there is more shame in going to work and having nothing to show for it but aid to parasites than in staying in Mom’s basement and playing WoW. Unfortunately, behavioral conditioning is a bitch. We become what we do. I find the social outlet here in the ‘Sphere to be a lifeline but not a life. It is what it is. What we have now is to enjoy the decline and perhaps position ourselves for when SHTF.

  12. Glenfilthie says:

    Brin fancies himself an intellect as most lefties do. Nowadays an interest in SF is pretty much the hallmark of an idiot as is an affinity for liberal ideologies.

    As an old fart that was shushed into silence my moral and intellectual superiors such as Brin – it makes my soul soar to see younger and better men standing up to him and his ilk.

    Men like Brin have been educated beyond their intellects.

  13. Sean says:

    @ ‘Reality Doug: I suppose. Producing nothing may be better than not producing for parasites. Then again, when enough people get tired of producing for parasites, you get revolution.

  14. Glenfilthie says:

    Hey Aurini – is your ‘Broken Roads’ novel available on Kobo?

  15. Why is there a very high corelation to scifi writers and being total pathetic beta males? I dont ask this in jest, I myself write scifi and to see this trash like the guy you are talking about, and others like scalzi etc, IDK where it comes from.

  16. Sean says:

    Davis, I’m not sure if you are familiar with it, but “The Dark Enlightenment” by Nick Land seems to suggest that white nationalism is always doomed to sink into neo-Nazism. He also posits that the current course of liberal democracy could could trigger a transformation of white nationalism from “an irritant” to “dangerous,” especially if the white nationalists are proven right. “There is exactly one degree of separation between white nationalism and evil. And that degree is Hitler.”

    Is he right? And more importantly, why do people espouse these ideas, if they inevitably lead to neo-Nazism? I’m particularly baffled why Jack Donovan supports white nationalism, especially if it will lead people to a belief system under which his life would be forfeit?

  17. Hey man, I have a deep question for you, I hope you answer, I see you were an Infantry solider, what is your idea/thoughts on joining the military in general given the whole manosphere bent? I think about it a lot, the ideals it holds etc, but on the other hand it essentially DEFENDS the evils our society is generating – how could I in good fate join that?

  18. Sean says:

    I should note that Land was quoting from Mencious Moldbug, so that may have something to do with it.

  19. evilwhitemalempire says:

    Idolatry of the Nietzschean ubermensch or superman — the figure every geek supposes himself to be — oppressed and kept from his natural place on-top by jealous mobs of bullies, like those who oppressed him on the playground. Where every young nerd (myself included) muttered: “just you wait till I come into my powers!”
    From Ayn Rand to Harry Potter to Star Wars to Orson Scott Card, how many mythologies have catered to that fantasy, in all its voluptuous, masturbatory solipsism?
    ——————————————–
    I like how liberal males can detect the most subtle of (PERSECUTION INDUCED) male ego stroking while being thoroughly blind to the female (DIVINE RIGHT OF VAGINA) solipsism on display the western world over.

  20. ramram says:

    @Sean

    Nationalism is a very natural instinct in men, which triggers whenever “your people” are considered to be in danger. Ignorance to the wellbeing of your kin is simply not beneficial from evolutionary standpoint. The problem starts when you mix nationalism with leftist ideologies, eg. Socialism. Abandoning moral principles, honor and relativisation of truth is what sooner or later leads to tragedy:
    Nazi or rather National Socialism (NSDAP – National Socialistic Labour Party of Germany) and Communism really differ only in who was considered to be a kin – Nation or Class.
    So in this dangerous mix the Catalyst is not really Nationalism but Socialism (or leftism in general) but you won’t hear it anywhere in the media.

  21. ramram says:

    @Sean ctd

    Unfortunately large proportion (if not majority) of people considering themselves Nationalists (white or other) are socialistic, so one could say Moldbug may be right.

    What’s interesting though is that democracy by definition creates “kin struggles” and as a corollary it always leads to more socialism.

    So in fact you could say that with Nationalism in the democratic system one always ends up with National Socialism.

  22. Aurini says:

    @Glen
    The book’s DRM free, so it should work on everything. I had it up on the Kobo site for a while, but it didn’t appear in search results (searching the full title got you Harry Potter first, and my novel in 20th place), and being on the Amazon Lending Library required short-term exclusivity.

    I’ll try and get it back up on the Kobo site by Monday, but the Amazon version should work without incident.

    @Sean
    I’m not trying to demonized videogames, any more than being anti-alcoholic or anti-drug addict means I’m against those things, either.

    The reason I bring it up is because I see a lot of “men” who obsess over video games, building their identity off of them, rather than simply enjoying them, and having real-world accomplishments.

    Back when I played D&D we had an in-house rule: you needed to be at least 25% as cool as your D&D character, or you weren’t allowed to play.

    @EK
    I loved my time in the military, and I strongly recommend it for any young man who’s considering it. There are a host of opportunities in the army which the civilian world will never offer you.

    That said – YES it’s potentially quite dangerous. If you’re thinking about combat arms, and you’re an intellectual (as I know you are), you should really consider going Officer – but be ready to give it your all. No excuses. My great regret is that I went non-com.

    @Sean
    I forget where I read it, but there was a good argument that things are currently prone to doing a 180 flip; from zero racism amongst the upper-middle class, to extreme racism. I *really* hope this doesn’t happen – which is why I speak frankly about race, while also opening my arms to those of other races.

    The race-baiting Jesse Jacksons and SPLCs of the world are the ones who are driving us towards a potential race war – an extremely bloody one. This would be incredibly shameful, and I hope that we can work together to avert it. Race Realism, and a celebration of ACTUAL diversity – not lies and manipulations.

  23. Sean says:

    Thanks for the clarification, Davis! I was a little confused, having seen your excellent video on Bioshock: Infinite, and your encouragement to buy it. For me, I was never able to get into role-playing until I stopped looking at my characters as self-inserts. When I actually bothered to come up with original characters and treat them as distinct from myself, I really got into role-playing. But I still have a soft spot for playing slightly uptight paladins!

    On a more serious note, a race war would be catastrophic. Not only because of the loss of life, but because it would still serve the SPLC-types’ agenda: confirming that whites want to hurt black people, regardless of context. It would be a sad conclusion to a long, sad story. Especially considering that there could be a happy ending to race relations here in the New World.

  24. Aurini says:

    @Sean
    Heck, I play a Paladin in Call of Cthulu. ;)

  25. Why are we even thinking in terms of race relations? In a free market there are only human relations, individual relations. Determining goodness in terms of demographics implies an institutional solution, and institutional solutions that persist indefinitely corrupt everything they touch.

  26. peppermint says:

    blah blah religion is based on a mystery blah blah Gödel’s incompleteness theorem ho-hum.

    Catholics hold as a doctrine that the existence of God can be known through reason; just no one has figured it out yet. Catholics further believe that the Lamb of God was sacrificed to save you from your sin if only you trust in Him and keep His commandments; the sacraments (such as marriage, currently under the biggest pressure in the public sphere) exist to help you.

    Why do I need to explain this to you? Don’t we live in a “Judeo-Christian” culture, infused with these values? But no, you have to say that it’s an obscurantist cult, and then hold up your own petty obscurantist spirituality based on reading spirituality into a theorem as the equal of the product of a thousand years of the greatest minds of Europe.

    You want to talk about 1750? You can criticize their religion – Froude in The Bow of Ulysses has an argument with an American bishop; Carlyle accuses the Church of having gone crazy in chapter 8: Jesuitism of The Latter-Day Pamphlets, after defending the Church as “the lungs of Europe” in IIRC chapter 4.

  27. Bhruic says:

    “Cthulu”
    4 times, at least you’re consistent.

    “is was”
    “is a love a”
    Huh?

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