Not much happened this week. If memory serves. Well, George H. W. Bush passed away. Anthony DeMarco asked, “Do spooks go to Heaven?” Not sure. May he rest in peace.
Over at American Greatness: The (disturbing) Reboot of Hillary Clinton, tacking toward center… apparently with less cackling. And the Weird World of California Conservatives. The venerable Victor Davis Hanson counts The Costs of Presidential Candor. And a few of the benefits. Angelo Codevilla asks: What Is Saudi Arabia to Us? By his accounting, absolutely nothing. And Pedro Gonzales looks at The Invaders and Their Allies, stateside allies mostly. It’s HLvM all the way down.
Let’s see… what else was going on?
Navigate…
Spandrell tackles the so-called China CRISPR babies stunt, which appears to have been carefully calibrated to kill support for CRISPR.
Aidan MacLear makes A Counterpoint to PA—specifically this (worthwhile) Thanksgiving post. Mmmm… Not takin’ sides on that one.
MacLear’s timely and jaunty Epitaph for an Intrepid Cuck was, however, unambiguously well-targeted.
I have very little sympathy for Mr. John Chau. I don’t know where he resides in America, but I guarantee that within a mile of his home, maybe within a thousand feet of his front door, there is a young man in deep crisis or a young woman on the brink of becoming a whore. Young people who are not Christians, or maybe they are bad Christians, whose lives would be bettered by a bit of old strong religion. Who would find some meaning and purpose; the joy of a family maybe, or the peace and humility of worship.Girl smoking.
But evangelizing the troubled youth that assuredly exist in his community is not glamorous. It wouldn’t get him on the news. It might even get him scorned and attacked for a lack of sufficient progressivism, were he to evangelize his local community. The money he spent on a plane ticket to the literal other end of the earth, so he could take bible-thumping selfies with a bunch of ungrateful primitives, could have paid the trade school tuition for a young Christian man contemplating suicide in the face of a hopeless future, could have sent a young heroin addict to the oil sands to get clean.
He does not ‘love his neighbor’ in any sense of the phrase. His trip to the other end of the earth is a display of contempt of his neighbors, or sheer stupid folly, if he thinks that they have already found God, and do not need His help.
You’re not really loving your neighbor if you have to fly 8000 miles to find new ones. MacLear earns an 
“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention for this one.
This week in Generative Anthropology, Adam delivers a helpful bit of philosophy underpinning originary social thinking: Naming, Origins and the Necessary Self-Referentiality of Social Order—complete with mind-blowing answers to common objections (the sort that have been in the back of my mind for years).
As soon as we move past the most primitive social orders, origins must become contentious, and if origins are as imperative as our hypothesis suggests, it is very hard to see how such contentions could be settled. The notion of legitimation by origins is fraught with seemingly unresolvable difficulties. What is the “real” origin of a social order? For most societies, the answer lies back in times covered by myths and legends; the problems for a social order whose founding is accompanied by comprehensive documentation may even be worse—what about contradictions in the founding documents, the hidden powers, interests and influences only partially registered in those documents? A documented founding can be studied, and new studies undermine the conclusions reached by the previous ones. And, moreover, what if the founding is dishonorable, or unacceptable in some way? Why should be obliged to look back to such an event to understand and justify what we decide now?
The problem with all of these objections is that they assume that the question is, origins or something else? But there is nothing else. Your critical, rationalistic, moralizing attack on revered origins has its own origins, in another, disciplinary, event. Whatever pact could be forged to reconcile the differing accounts of origins, or whatever act of subjugation could install one at the expense of others, also has an origin. Nothing is done without precedents.
So originary social thinking may very well be a myth, but a myth that explains the myth-making. Adam goes on to provide useful concrete examples. Essential reading for originary social theory noobs like me (and probably you). And Adam takes home an “Official” #NRx Best of the Week Award for his troubles.
Seriouslypleasedropit argues for the need to be Columbus, Not John Henry:
Modernity must be thought of as a maze, or an uncharted wilderness, rather than a simple mountain to be climbed. Simply forging ahead will quickly exhaust you. This was Moldbug’s greatest gift to conservatives: “If what you’re doing is not working… you should probably not do that thing.”
But the alternative is not passiveness, either. It is exploration.
We fully agree!
Social Pathologist offers perspective on some news from Down Under: The Victorian State Election.
Neovictorian has a (rave) review of The Brave and the Bold, Volume 3 of “The Hidden Truth”.
Giovanni Dannato builds upon the Bio-Leninism concept, introducing Bio-Mercantilism.
As the dissident model of human society becomes the new orthodoxy it is inevitable that we see the emergence of Bio-Mercantilism. Like a bunch of mid-90s elementary school kids trading baseball cards and pogs, all nations will try to dump their rejects and steal the best as a matter of normal policy.
America has lately been doing a lot of both: Average San Francisco rentals are $3700/month, and you’ll have to navigate around the human feces outside your door. Fortunately, there’s an app for that. Dannato snags an “Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention for his work here.
It’s been a blessing to have Titus Cincinnatus back at regular posting. This week he makes The Case for Bringing Big Tech under First Amendment Regulation and how best to do that. He’s not arguing for “free speech” in principle, but free speech while it remains an ostensible principle.
Despite all of the burbling about “Russians hacking the election,” the fact remains that Big Tech companies have a nearly infinite capacity to jigger the results of elections in the directions they want, merely by selectively controlling the flow of information. This is exactly what they’ve been doing for the past two years, ever since Trump surprised them by running a surprisingly effective social media strategy that likely contributed a great deal to his ability to do an end run around traditional mainstream media gatekeeping efforts, and ultimately winning the election in 2016. Again, while I don’t believe in democracy and elections, I do believe that if you have to have them, then they should be done properly and correctly. This means not allowing Google or Facebook to suppress literally half the information available to be considered by the voting public on progressive-defined “fake news” grounds.Courtesy of Baron Zach.
Big Tech companies are public utilities and simply have to be regulated as such. This too was an “Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention.
Shylock Holmes offers a scary thought experiment: War-gaming the Chinese Nuclear Option with US Treasuries. Sure it’s them biting off their own nose to spite the Americans’ face, but America’s face might get really, really spited.
Over at Alf’s the Orb of Covfefe saga continues with Part XIV—A tough pickle. Who is this mysterious Australian?
Jacobite prints up speech given by Jeff Deist of the Ludwig von Mises Institute delivered at this year’s meeting of the Property and Freedom Society entitled Against the Zeitgeist. Deist criticizes libertarians who are indistinguishable from the Progressives they allegedly oppose.
By way of Isegoria… The New York Times picks up signal in a world full of noise, namely, Shane Parrish’s Farnam Street. A “Good Guy with a Gun” Story: It was the Holy Spirit calling the demon out of the church. Maxwell’s Equations called into question as A diode for magnetic fields opens up a lot of new possibilities. He links Fritz Pendleton’s award-winning essay last week: He was a Bonapartist two decades before Bonaparte. As well as Billy Pratt’s: Not every lesson can be taught explicitly. (I think Isegoria may be reading me!!) Finally, Consider buying N95 masks before an outbreak.
Finally, this week from Cambria Will Not Yield, Lo! He Abhors Not the Virgin’s Womb.
This Week in Social Matter
Crickets…
This Week in Human Biodiversity
Greg Cochrane imagines a Brave New World in which all the fashionable social theories were true.
Evolutionist X kicks off the week with too many tabs open on her computer. Her problem, your advantage: Links to Migration-Related Studies, with attendant commentary.
Next up, a social theory article: Why is community dead: In which I blame colleges. Social theory, is after all, a branch of biology. Or at least it should be. Mrs. X is often at her best when she rants—and this is a rant. A really good one. In the olden days, that you can read about in… books…
…it is easy to see how someone could meet their sweetheart at 16, become a functioning member of society at 18, get a job, put a down payment on a house, get married by 20 or 22 and start having children.
Today, people go to college.
Forget your high school sweetheart: you’re never going to see her again.
After college, people typically move again, because the job they’ve spent 4 years training for often isn’t in the same city as their college.
So forget all of your college friends: chances are you’ll never see any of them again, either.
Now you’re living in a strange city, full of strangers. You know no one. You are part of no clubs. No civic organizations. You feel no connection to anyone.
“Isn’t diversity great?” someone crows over kebabs, and you think “Hey, at least those Muslims over there have each other to talk to.” Soon you find yourself envying the Hispanics. They have a community. You have a bar.
Or worse. Mrs. X earns an “Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention for her troubles.
Answering the call for guest authors, Monsieur le Baron takes the wheel on Friday for an insightful, and legitimately anthropological, Ethnography of the SWPL.
By way of Audacious Epigone… Democracy dying in darkness, just not the way WaPo thinks. And Fidelity is a straight thing. More the other way around, I’d imagine.
This Week Around The Orthosphere
Relatively light week around The Orthosphere. J.M. Smith tackles the tricky question of who is culpable When You have Conquer’d my Yet Maiden Bed.
Kristor writes briefly on sin, pride, How We Inherit & Propagate the Fall; & How We Can Begin to Stop.
Matt Briggs reports on the next incremental step in the suppression of Christianity when Jews Tell Christians & Muslims To Put Trigger Warnings on Bible & Koran. And the survey results are in. 1 out of 4 Biostatisticians: They Asked Us To Lie!
That’s the wrong headline, though. It should read ìOut of the three of four who chose to answer, one out of four biostatisticians admitted being asked to commit fraud.î How many biostatisticians committed fraud they do not say. Smart money says at least one.
Next, Briggs rehearses some counterarguments to What Lousy Philosophy Tells Us About Belief In Global Warming. Last but not least, we’re presented with gender biased student evaluations, professors suing over their students’ gender, and the (unsurprising) relationship between homosexuality and child molestation, all in this week’s Insanity & Doom Update LXIX—Don’t You Call Me Sir Edition
Oz Conservative Mark Richardson updates us on the political demographics of Australia, asking Where to Libs?, and more importantly, “How to Trads?” Then it’s a sad example of Yet more feminist regret when a 50 year old childless woman regrets following her mother’s advice to focus on her career.
Over at Albion Awakening, William Wildblood asksWhat is the primary cause of the decline of Western civilisation?, suggesting that disordered compassion is a principal culprit.
Cologero provides yet another fine exposé on the human soul with Psychic Distortion.
And by way of Faith & Heritage, Christian Societies Cultivate a Natural Aversion to “Diversity”—certain kinds of Christian at any rate.
This Week in Arts & Letters
Chris Gale returns to old favorite John Donne on Sunday, who is trying to give up on Stella to become an honest married man. And Sydney on Saturday, along with Gale’s own musings on love.
At the Imaginative Conservative, the political thought of Edgar Allan Poe. If you’ve never heard of an author’s politics, he probably wasn’t a liberal. T.S. Eliot’s The Cultivation of Christmas Trees. Donald Devine brings us the very based Voegelin’s Takedown of Locke. Patrick Whalen on Warfare in Epic Poetry. Alexander Zubatov notes that we have civilization backwardsUnthinking Leaders, Frenzied Citizens. An excellent essay and surprisingly reactionary.
At City Journal, Naomi Riley on the bizarre and absurd practices of Family Courts. Apparently Cashless Establishments are Racist. And a rather confused take on the French riots: Vandals or Militants?
Cheshire Ocelot Richard Carroll reposts an old review, of the Vietnam novel The Things They Carried at The American Sun, sort of a successor to Thermidor.
At the Logos Club, Kaiter Enless with the now-usual futurism and transhumanism news: Brain to Brain Communication Achieved. And Views on Genomic Engineering in the US. But this is felt as a very who/whom issue. It’s not that the technology is evil, but would you trust the doctors of Weimerica to do it? And would you trust that the kids of right-wing dissidents like yourself aren’t “accidentally” sterilized in the process? For posterity, Enless lays out Compendium of Data Dominionism. Part 1, Google. And the Chinese doctor who claims to have modified human embryos with CRISPR is under investigation. See: Spandrell’s take.
Literati Squadristi provides some intellectual background on Sagan’s Scientists—or rather the lack thereof.
And Chris Morgan provides Four Prose Poems, which apparently is a thing.
This Week in the Outer Left
Cyborg Nomade reviews manifold ideological dimensions and the various spectra that have been proposed over the years.
Craig Hickman has changed the name of his blog to “Break the Code”, explained by an essential Neal Stephenson quote he’s helpfully added. His top notch aesthetics remain top notch. Hickman has a sweeping indictment of The Hedonistic Imperative: The Seduction of Hypercapitalism. He talks about how wrong mid-century radicals were about sex-drugs-n-rock-n-roll bringing down capitalism. Couldn’t have been wronger in fact. Strong stuff. A taste:
Seduction no longer a passion is now demanded; seduction becomes exchange value, serving circulation, a commodity without an object, a consumer of simulated objects. The seducer was an imposter stripped of control allowing herself to be seduced, one who seeks to please has already succumbed; thus a culture can be based on symbolic equilibrium of seduction. Hypercapitalism as the seduction of seduction: the game of repetition and death played out in simulated circulation of desire without an object. We are all living in the hyperworld now. The violence (e.g. of sacrifice) trapped in its own artifice has ended along with the universe where everything can be seduced, now the universe is all production, forces, Law, liberation, sexuality as objective function and ultimate finality, a cryptological artifact that has succumbed to its own secret message.Courtesy of S. C. Hickman
This one impressed The Committee quite a lot, who bestowed an “Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention.
Hickman also offers a two part manual on Edmund Berger: On Art and Revolutionary Transformation in the Age of Blockchain, Part 2 and a review of the case for Techno-Optimism: A Future Worth Living In? We at Social Matter are techno-bullish, provided social technology can keep pace with the material, which has certainly not been the case in the last 150 years. Human souls have some catching up to do.
This Week in Liberalism Besieged
It was a busy week for Arnold Kling, who, giving a skeptical answer to the question, ìWould forecasting tournaments reduce polarization?” Also discusses the time-to-learn effect and the science slowdown, the church vs. the clan, Economics, History, and Contingency, and whether speed bankruptcy will finally become policy. He even finds time to pen a careful discussion of what gets expensive and why.
And Heterodox Academy does a nice job on their podcast Half Hour of Heterodoxy. Not least because they edit it down to about 36 minutes. This week they feature Tania Reynolds on Men as Stereotypical Perpetrators of Harm.
This Week… Elsewhere
Dennis Dale offers perceptive comments on falling American life expectancy: Suicide Watch. Genocide Declared on White Males: Women and Minorities Hardest Hit.
Grey Enlightenment would likes to see more De-motivational talks.
Al Fin takes a break from China bearishness with a bearish view on Russia: Putin’s Legacy: An Infrastructure Like No Other—well, maybe like DRC. And the his case against higher education is a good one: Don’t Burn Universities to the Ground; Put them Under the Dome! Or turn them into shoe companies.
Myth of the 20th Century podcast this week covers Israel’s Military Industrial Complex. These guys never cease to amaze me with how (seemingly effortlessly) well-informed they are.
By way of Jr. Ganymede, a study in Norway suggests we’re getting dumber, at about 7 points/generation. Similar results for the UK. Not enough fish, researchers hypothesize. My guess… not enough fat.
Global cooling has become a hot topic… Heartiste, for one, welcomes it. I don’t welcome the eugenics so much as its effects. Plus, ¡Science! chips away at the liberal psychological edifice: The Talk Down.
This week Ace has a letter from a satisfied reader and great song from Switchfoot: “Hoping that he’s bent for more than arguments and failed attempts to fly…”
Clamavi de Profundis gives us a seasonal production: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. Also check out their special from last year—We Three Kings—and their Christmas Medley.
Welp, that’s about all we had time for. This is coming out later than expected. We apologize for any inconvenience. The tardiness was entirely on me. The entirely punctual TWiR Staff—David Grant, Hans der Fiedler, and Aidan MacLear—deserve many thanks! Have a blessed Advent. Keep on reactin! Til next week: NBS… Over and out!!
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