I’ve been lurking around the NeoReactionary (NR)/Dark Enlightenment/Red Pill sector for some time, reading, reflecting, throwing an occasional comment at some of the leading sites, but not taking things too seriously. NeoReaction has been a sort of intellectual entertainment, stimulating and fun but not a passion, ever since the 2012 U.S. elections convinced me, finally, that collectivists really do have a working majority in America and that the Peepul, bless their hearts, have been on average dumbed down enough that the condition is permanent.
Rand really did have a Lens; Wesley Mouch is running the economy, and, God help us, Mr. Thompson has been Head of State for the past five years.
NR has been getting some “mainstream” play recently, but the latest hit piece, at a tech blog of Britain’s Telegraph, has precipitated this entry, this blog, and the end of lurking for me, via a serendipitous synchronicity; for whatever reason, out of the great wide world web, the author has chosen as a link to the text of Nick Land’s The Dark Enlightenment my old Tumblr page, which I haven’t used much for over 18 months–in fact the last entry, on Dec. 13, 2012, was The Dark Enlightenment. That was shocking enough, weird enough, in the older sense of the word, to get me to write this.
You can see from the title of the blog that I’ll be taking a different angle to NR from anything else I’ve seen (yet), and the blog needs links to the Giants in the field and various other Important Resources, but for now, thrown together in a rush before I gotta go to work, here it is.
(NOTE–I’ve been using the NeoVictorian handle for well over 10 years, a long, long time before I’d heard the term “NeoReaction.” Call it more serendipity.)
BAM. POW. OOF!
Sanity in The Diamond Age 
congratulations on finally getting a blog. I don’t have one because I’m a coward 🙂
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“They also serve who only stand and wait.”
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As someone who, like you, has read the material of neoreactionaries as a form of entertainment, while being sympathetic to some of their views while also being vocally opposed to much of what is being pushed by what NRs call the “cathedral”, I’m becoming increasingly turned off by the movement.
I don’t know about you, but it sadly seems to have become awfully self aggrandizing to me, which is ironically one of the aspects I’ve hated about progressivism. NRs have done well in their attempts at slaying the “sacred cows” of progressivism but it seems they have now given birth to their own sacred cows. This in turn is poised to unleash a race to the top (or race to the bottom) to see who can prove themselves to be more neoreactionary than the next person. In short, I fear some egotistical quest for ideological purity is blinding in this community, and making them appear petty and absurd to outsiders.
In the big picture, I don’t see this movement having long term prospects, and may actually serve to strengthen “the cathedral” rather than chip away at it by repulsing those who would otherwise be inclined to oppose much of what progressives are peddling. Just my two schillings worth and I mean it respectfully, I look forward to what else you’ll be posting.
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The NR has a lot of very bright young men full of piss and vinegar. Sure, some of it may come off as aggrandizement, but it seems fit and healthy–so far. This blog is going to be oriented toward the practical means of taking power and or forming a state. That’s where the hard part comes and the true colors show. We’ll see who’s up for that…
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Pingback: Emotion, Neoreaction, and the Hearts of Men | The Legionnaire
Props on the name and styling of the blog.
I absolutely adored the Neo Victorians in The Diamond Age.
I’ve wondered if Stephenson harbors reactionary sentiments since
reading the monologue on hypocrisy in TDA. However
Cryptonomicon dispels that notion.
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Thank you. Give the thrust of the blog, I will of course be expounding on NR and TDA in detail, so I’ll save that for later…
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Welcome aboard.
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