This week we were introduced to the #MakeApp. Heartiste has a run down. Taylor Swift still looks purdy good in the “after” pic though…
This week in American Greatness… VDH notices the increasingly Salem-like atmosphere as America bounces From One Frenzy to the Next. “Brown Scare” anyone?
Let’s see… what else was going on?
Navigate…
Fritz Pendleton has gotten pretty regular at kicking off our week around here with Sunday Thoughts. Always brief and well composed. This week it’s libertarians… on the therapist’s couch.
When Spandrell is good, he’s very very good. As he is here in: Biological Leninism. He sees the emergency of the modern state largely as a tradeoff of ingrained loyalty in exchange for liberal efficiency. In the long run, we’re all dead after all…
With all the scientific advances of the last centuries, the 18th and 19th century intellectuals were just brimming with excitement with all the things they could get done. All those plans of social engineering. Utopia on earth! It just seemed so feasible. And yet they could never pull it off through the political process. They just couldn’t pull it off. The politicians and bureaucrats just weren’t loyal enough. Constant factionalism and infighting made any real reform impossible.
Until Leninism, that is.
Spandrell notes that what we call “Leninism” was mostly instituted by Stalin. But by any name, the Soviet Union—i.e., it’s ruling class—managed to get things done. A lot of things. And pretty efficiently.
In Communist countries pedigree was very important. You couldn’t get far in the party if you had any little kulak, noble or landowner ancestry. Only peasants and workers were trusted. Why? Because only peasants and workers could be trusted to be loyal. Rich people, or people with the inborn traits which lead to being rich, will always have status in any natural society. They will always do alright. That’s why they can be trusted; the stakes are never high for them. If anything they’d rather have more freedom to realize their talents. People of peasant stock though, they came from the dredges of society. They know very well that all they have was given to them by the party. And so they will be loyal to the death, because they know it, if the Communist regime falls, their status will fall as fast as a hammer in a well. And the same goes for everyone else, especially those ethnic minorities.
He sees Western progressivism as a variation on this script. Search “class struggle” and replace with “oppressed losers” of the gene pool… Biological Leninism. Putting the bought and paid for in charge, Lords of Misrule. Do RTWT! This earned the rare ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Silver Circle Award☀.
Neocolonial has a continuation of his study of Tasmania—Past and Present. He features generous quotations from Sir Charles du Cane, the Governor of Tasmania from 1869-74. He also notes:
Interestingly the rate of emigration to Tasmania dropped from about 2% of the local population a year to about 1% at the time of Federation, and from there to about 0.5% after the Second World War. The upshot of which is that we still retain a population that is 95% European origin, with all the advantages that confers.
Wink wink.
“Motherhood looks beautiful on you.” #YOFO
Alf has a new chapter out in The Orb of Covfefe: Part VI—An unexpected turn. Nigel Farage makes a significant appearance. And we are left yet again on the very edge of our squeaky desk chairs. Also there, some sharp social commentary: #metoo is societal meltdown. #MeToo is cultural insanity, of course. But since its victims are mostly those with actual power, and none of my friends have actual power, we might as well cheer it on… or at least grab some popcorn.
This Week in Generative Anthropology, Adam has some (actual) generative anthropology: Declarative Imaginary.
Something completely somewhat different from Imperial Energy this week: A discourse On Truth. With Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris making appearances. And the STEEL-cameralist Manifesto continues with Part 6A: STEEL-Reaction. This may be part “6A”, but it serves as an excellent primer to Neoreactionary history and philosophy and earned an ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀ from The Committee.
Sarah Perry is back with an interesting tour of (the little examined, and blithely unselfaware academic underbelly of) Folk Concepts. Folk concepts tend to be unscientific, and aside from driving some scientists made, this really ought not count against them.
Bartlett does not claim that folk concepts in botany are perfect or ideal. He merely argues that they are quite good for their purpose, including human linguistic and cognitive limitations, and that they remained more accurate and precise than the scientific state of the art for a long time.
Science, according to scientists, needs more precision than folk ideas can lend. But too much of a good thing is…
The technological success story is common in hard science domains that are more in contact with the material world than the human social world. They are rare, however, in psychology and other social sciences. It’s rare that a psychological theory has cashed out technologically (and no, advertising is not a particularly strong example). Rather, ideas in psychology and the social sciences have achieved success in social reality: narrative success. Some psychological ideas, often paired with a memorable study or experiment, have become popular “folk concepts.” They successfully reproduce themselves, not in technological application, but in conversation: non-specialists use them to describe, explain, and predict the behavior and emotions of other people (and ourselves).
Ooh that’s an ice cold shiv, Mrs. Perry. Freud remains hugely influential everywhere… except in psychology. Because “folk concepts”. She snags an ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Silver Circle Award☀ for her masterful work here. (Is that mistressful?)
Giovanni Dannato has another excellent bit of analysis this week: Lebanon Predicts the Future USA. Of course, we’ve been saying The USA Cannot Balkanize for quite a while around here. The case of Lebanon, perched as it were upon the tripod of Christians, Sunnis, and Shiites, provides yet another example.
Hezbollah gives us a model of what the neo-tribal state might look like as the power of nation-states recedes. They are the de facto government in southern Lebanon while seemingly content to operate within the framework of a formally recognized nation-state. They get to have their own territory while still participating in a larger economic zone. They effectively carry out their own foreign policy as they maintain their special relationship with Iran while still participating in the national politics. Hezbollah gets to enjoy all the privileges of being a nation without the strategic liabilities of nationhood. They get the best of all worlds.
Late in the week, Billy Pratt offers a window into recent social history: Looks Blue, Tastes Red: Marilyn Manson and “Antichrist Superstar” (1996).
Right Scholarship returns with a brief note on his translation project: Listen to what the Chancellor has to say!
Some authors at Current Affairs take issue with the Trolley Problem, and Oliver Traldi takes issue with them over at Jacobite. In Trolleyer-Than-Thou, Traldi picks apart their arguments.
One of the strangest ideas in the essay is that ethics is easy but that the trolley problem is intended—as part of some weird neoliberal conspiracy of philosophers—to make it seem difficult. But what the authors actually say is that almost everybody in an introductory ethics class will agree on the right course of action in the trolley problem, and their examples of “easy” questions are in fact questions on which there is substantial disagreement—things like: “Are there any justifiable reasons for the existence of borders? Does capitalism unfairly exploit workers?” (Pleonasms like “justifiable reasons” and “unfairly exploit” really piss me off.) Of course, ethicists do spend plenty of time debating questions like these, coming up with arguments and objections and so forth. But why would a college course on ethical theory spend time on easy questions in ethics? Do college courses on number theory spend time adding two and two together? What is Current Affairs trying to turn philosophy into?“Spend your 20s actually changing the world.” #YOFO
Our authors, of course, want philosophers to stop trying to understand the world and instead to focus on changing it in their preferred fashions. Traldi earns an ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀ for his outstanding contribution here.
Nathan Duffy slips over to Jacobite as well to discuss The Asymmetric Meme Warfare Of “It’s Okay To Be White.” Duffy talks about meme warfare in general and one of the more brilliant memes in recent times.
And there it is: a massive coup in the meme wars. The only winning defense strategy available here would have been to ignore the provocation, but these sorts are pathological and can’t help themselves. And the meme warriors knew this. What distinguishes this meme campaign, and other successful ones like it, from those that fall flat, is the precise insight into the enemy’s psychology and the ability to exploit it.
Our friend, Alrenous offers some brief, but well aimed, thoughts on Rhetoric vs. Peasants.
Our other friend, Anatoly Karlin digs into some polling data on American attitudes toward Russia and finds… pretty much exactly what you would expect. Republicans are much more Russia friendly than Democrats, but not many people particularly like Putin personally.
Malcolm Pollack makes a case for Dangerous Game—very profitable game, if managed responsibly. Which is a lot easier to do if you’re making a profit.
By way of Isegoria… Good guys with guns saving lives; Elon Musk is not a robot sent from the future to save humanity, contrary to popular opinion; and more on the bicameral mind: Consciousness began when the gods stopped speaking.
Finally, this week in Cambria Will Not Yield… The Moral Vision.
This Week in Jim Donald
An abbreviated week from Jim with only one post, but it is on an important subject for us all: how to lose weight. Definitly RTWT on this one, as there’s a recipe for gravy that made my mouth water a good bit.
Real men eat meat and fat, and salt the hell out of it.
…
Fat makes you full. Carbs make you hungry.
It is not calories in calories out that makes you fat. It is insulin that makes you fat, causes heart attacks, high blood pressure, etc. Type one diabetics don’t get fat except that they take insulin. Snacking, and especially snacking food containing carbs, keeps your insulin continually high, and causes you to become addicted to high insulin.
There is more to it than that, of course, but not as much more as you might think. Commenter Zach helpfully added another piece of the puzzle:
Do not underestimate the simple egg. Go bonkers.
Eat meat, fat, and eggs instead of carbs and you are well on your way to dropping the excess pounds. Add in lifting with some explosive cardio (sprinting is good) and you are going to be more physically capable than 99% of soy boys right there. For further guidance, see the wonderful site set up by Michael Goldstein, just eat meat.
This Week in Social Matter
The Myth series has moved (permanently I think) to Sunday at Social Matter. And it’s taken on a new name: “Myths for a New Tomorrow”. And… it’s taken on narration from the vocally talented (and Erse pronunciation expert) Marcus Wolfe—skills on display in this week’s Bricriu’s Feast And The War Of Words Of The Women Of Ulster.
For Monday, Luke Wesson returns with an excellent historical survey on The Role Of Asabiyyah And ‘Place’ In The Rise And Fall Of The Safavid Empire. He notes:
Long lost are the mechanisms that make these groups not only rule over ashes, but build empires. What is forgotten is that to build a successful order, a männerbund and founding myth are necessary, but not sufficient. All important nodes within the network must also be aware and recognize the use of the myth, as well as their place within the network.
The key to Savafid success was not a personality cult, which of necessity dies with the founder, but a cult built up around the founding myth:
The strength of this Order and its myth was tested by the deaths of three consecutive leaders. The deaths in combat did not even slow the movement down, as by this point the propaganda of the head of the Order had shifted to making him almost a living god. The key to this movement’s vitality was an inner circle of seven Sufi Safavids known as the ahl-I ikhtisas. Historian Vladimir Minorsky described the Safavids as the single party of a totalitarian state; these specific men were akin to Lenin’s Politburo. Asabiyyah was so strong in the qizilbash that prior to their ascension to power, other local warlords would take advantage of their fighting elan in a mercenary capacity.
These were the men who kept the dream alive when the Safavids were stuck with just a seven-year-old as the coming leader. The future Shah Ismail bode his time and wrote inspirational poems and letters to the qizilbash, only to emerge at the young age of 12 in 1499 to take his kingdom. He would be crowned in 1501 at 14. Any adult with a seven-year-old son knows that a seven-year-old is not writing inspirational letters to grown men to bring them to a fever pitch for killing and dying. Any adult knows that a twelve-year-old, even a physically mature twelve-year-old, is not the main physical reason for victory.
Ismail was a Schelling point.
And there’s much, much more. Excellent work again from Mr. Wesson. The Committee thanks him with the coveted ☀☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Award☀☀.
This week’s Myth of the 20th Century podcast is Episode 44: Cycles In History—The Fourth Turning. Mesmerizing, if unfalsifiable, theory. Even more mesmerizing historical literacy from The Panel.
Finally, this week for Saturday Poetry & Prose, Richard Taylor is here for the second time in as many months with some newly minted verse: Therycion (The Last Spartan).
This Week in Kakistocracy
First up this week, Porter contrasts the attitudes of two European nations in Paddies and Poles. Sadly, cuckoldry has been an Irish tradition since Joyce. And the Polish are making a good show of (populist) resistance. But there’s always another interested power:
The death bloc simply can not have a pro-European union on its border. The conflicts and contradictions become too obvious to paper over with customary threats and platitudes…
…That’s why Visegrad/Three Seas are going to experience ever increasing hostility unless and until they succumb…
…And when all those don’t work, tanks usually do—as Czechs and Hungarians can both bitterly attest.
Then, a little more on Ex Post Facto Morality, featuring AL Franken:
Unfortunately, not even the smarmiest jews can see how the future will indict yesterday’s behavior tomorrow. And thus the liberal trawling net that was intended to catch and drown conservatives, has instead brought this bug-eyed creature leering into the flashbulbs.
When that photo was taken, Franken probably imagined it would paint him positively as a virile sexually mischievous rake… But previous standards are irrelevant for previous behavior. We judge yesterday by the rules of today. That’s why Robert E. Lee became evil about a year ago. But tomorrow will have new mores again, so perhaps the general will reform his conduct going forward.
Finally, Porter channels the spirit of Gnon, arguing that Low Delusion is the Highest IQ. Simply put, it doesn’t matter how smart or capable you are if you deny reality in a maladaptive way…
From a raw capability standpoint, white America could have taken Mexico’s most choice real estate like a Baja Peninsula from a baby. Instead it is the once-paradise of California (and everywhere to its east) that is rapidly changing hands. Never has relative incompetence been so formidable.
The point has, of course, been made before, but The Committee were forced to bestow ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀ for the sheer force and style of his rhetoric.
This Week in Evolutionist X
Evolutionist X has pared back her output to two usually scheduled posts per week. Motherhood and wifing take precedence I presume. For Monday, she kicks off the week with Two Exciting Papers on African Genetics. It’s high on genetics geekery, of course, but Africa is a genetically interesting—i.e., diverse in the real sense of the term—continent.
And for Anthropology Friday™, a sociological study of Outlaw Biker Gangs proceeds apace with excerpts from No Angel by Jay Dobyns.
This Week at Thermidor Mag
Opening the week at our sister publication Thermidor, Walter Devereux combs through the recently declassified files on Martin Luther King, Jr. Not all of the accusations leveled against Mr. King are well-supported, and those which are were known before the documents were released, but details are always valuable.
Nathan Duffy, THOT Patroller, examines contemporary sexual ethics in Sola Consensio and Elizabeth Bruenig. Ms. Bruening plays word games to disguise her embrace of liberated sexuality.
Meanwhile, she coyly leaves herself room to claim she is still within the bounds of Christian sexual orthodoxy. She might, for instance, claim that the only times the conditions of both “consent” and “good for the other person” are ever met is in the context of marriage. But, in playing hide-the-ball with the specific, concrete solution of Christian marriage, and exchanging it for people’s own fallen guesstimates of what constitutes “good”, she effectively gives the culture a scorpion when it asked for (or at least needs) a fish. Desiring to engage in a hot topic of conversation among her lively Beltway interlocutors, and fearful that “lol go to (and get married in) church” would be seen as dogmatic, regressive or—heaven forbid—fundamentalist, she avoids these heinous accusations by not even mentioning the elephant in the room.Yeah. Well… repentant ones.
This week, the Europa Weekly podcast covers Faust and the Overmen.
Jake Bowyer says Bye-Bye, Bobby Mugabe. Bowyer revisits the fall of Rhodesia and Mugabeís achievements as president of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe has managed to maintain power for so long despite this egregious corruption simply by employing the oldest trick in post-colonial Africa: spewing anti-white invectives. In 2000, Mugabe attempted to purge all white farmers from Zimbabwe by directing thugs to beat them up or murder them. Mugabe claimed that his government was merely taking back what had been “stolen” by Europeans in the 19th century. Mugabe then doubled down by saying that his government would exonerate all those black Zimbabweans found guilty of murdering white farmers. While this proved disastrous for Zimbabwe’s economy (Mugabe’s government even had to ask some white farmers to return), other Afro-Marxist nations, most notably South Africa, have copied it with shocking alacrity.
Mugabe was apparently fond of travel: we wish him a speedy trip to the infernal reaches.
Alex Nicholson points out the obvious—and therefore scrupulously ignored in the West—reality in I For One Welcome Our Han Overlords.
China’s population is something like 1.3 billion, maybe as high as 1.5 billion. The nation is about 90% Han Chinese, with various other East Asian minorities, Tibetans and a smattering of Uighurs to fill out the remaining 10%. The Han themselves are hardly monolithic but they are an ethnic group of deep patriotism, and when provoked, menacing chauvinism. The Han are also a talented people—you can look up the HBD numbers—with a record of achievement stretching back into the bronze age. A good way to conceptualize the antiquity of the Chinese race is to imagine that Hellenic civilization survived in a populous and geographically dispersed form into the present day. That’s how old and rooted they are.
The Middle Kingdom is rising while the West goes under. Not our preferred state of affairs, but one with which we must grapple nonetheless. Nicholson earns a first (IIRC) ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀.
Finally, Richard Carroll offers an introduction to the Eighth Sage of Greece, Sappho.
This Week Around The Orthosphere
American Dad has an interesting olio of Stuff I have learned blogging in the manosphere. We’ll charitably assume that his suspicion of anonymity is rooted entirely in the fact that he hasn’t become unemployable because some journalist made national news out of some unfashionable thing he might have said. If you’re a dad, you stay employed. It’s what you do.
Kristor reveals another of the Philosophical Skeleton Keys: The Logical & Ontological Priority of Wholes to Their Parts. Relatedly, he poses Marriage as an Ontological Real.
As wholes are ontologically prior to their parts, so is a marriage ontologically prior to the husband and wife who together constitute it.
Richard Cocks reviews The Gift—(by) Marcel Mauss and René Girard, which studies the ethics of reciprocity in giftgiving. Then he eviscerates materialism in The Sacred is Indispensable—An Argument for the Existence of God.
J. M. Smith writes about loyalty to the Logos, or Patriotic Cosmopolitanism. Then he asks, Is Peer Review Mostly Butt Sniffing? The very question implies a certain answer.
Bonald considers whether barbarism is superior to civilization when Civilization means saying no to the poor. Of course, the poor will always be with us, even if we tried to give them all the wealth of the world. They’d just spend it all on Newports and Schlitz Malt Liquor.
Matt Briggs reviews a book by Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky, Why Only Us: Language and Evolution. Short answer: Men speak and animals make noise. Then, reporting on the Military front, Army Recruits Bipolars, the Depressed, Druggies & Self-Mutilators. And of course, egalitarianism of sin, journal editors resigning over colonialism, journal articles being withdrawn over threats of violence, and the end of radio (for real this time), all in this week’s Insanity & Doom Update XII.
Also at Briggs, Ianto Watt continues his wonderfully informative new project, The True Power Behind Russia & The Coming Church, Part II.
Jim Kalb poignantly asks, Does Catholic political idealism make sense? In a word, well…
None of the proposals seem practically workable, and their progression suggests that the effort to propose Catholic solutions to social problems has steadily lost seriousness. People who want politics to be Catholic look at our public life, notice how anti-Catholic it has become, and either redefine Catholicism out of recognition or take refuge in fantasy.
Mark Richardson shares a speech delivered by the Inspirational Orbán, which is literally about making Europe and Hungary Great Again.
Bruce Charlton laments The insanity of Blake as co-opted by radical Leftist atheists!
William Wildblood ponders the geographical significance of Albion Set Apart.
Sometimes when I have travelled in certain parts of Britain I have felt this connection to the otherworld. This is particularly the case in the West Country and the Highlands of Scotland though I am not saying it is restricted to those places. That is just my experience. Nor am I saying it is restricted to Great Britain. Of course it’s not. Everywhere has places like that. But when we talk of Albion this is what we mean. A connection to higher dimensions of being within the country. And it is by aligning ourselves with the spirit behind these places that we can help to bring Albion back into the outer world. Reawaken the sleeping Arthur you might say.
Dalrock touches on some of Disney’s more effective brainwashing techniques in its movie Frozen, noting that for certain adult viewers Missing the point is hard work.
Donal Graeme responds to Dalrock, in a clarifying manner, by asking How Hard Is It To Miss The Point?
As an adult Mr. Wax is picking up the (apparent) deeper message of the story. Namely that “letting go” is a disaster of an idea. This deeper message is not surface level—it requires analysis. Maybe not a lot, but analysis nonetheless. And it also requires a certain level of critical viewing skill as well. Guess what kids don’t have? Yeah, that. The problem is that the toxic message is surface level. This is what children are picking up—especially through the music.
This Week in Arts & Letters
At City Journal, Anne Hendershott looks at how they’re Taking the Catholic Out of Catholic Universities—except for a handful of them. Mark Krikorian and Jason Richwine collaborate on Taking English Seriously. A fair skeptical review of former NPR exec and Clinton 96 campaign worker Ken Stern’s Republican Like Me: How I Left the Liberal Bubble and Learned to Love the Right. Just enough love morally signal “good liberal” apparently. “Ideological tourism” indeed. And Claire Berlinski reports on Paris’ success with car-free pedestrian zones—they’re not too bad in NYC either, only too few.
Speaking of NYC, City Journal also has up a review of Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1918, which were the first 20 years after consolidation of the megacity.
On the home blog, Richard Carroll continues with Plato’s Dialogues: Gorgias. Also, from the (perhaps hypothetical) reader mailbag: Which Translation of The Analects Should I Read?
Chris Gale explains Why I left Auckland… degentrification of course. He alerts us to a worthy-sounding movie project The Fall—Live Kickstarter. Inspired, apparently by a few of our links last week, Gale notes how Babylon is the Thot of this day. Inspiring: Deus Vult. A couple of poems from Edward Taylor. And the obligatory Sunday Sonnet from the pen of Hilaire Belloc.
Over at Logos Club, Kaiter Enless makes the case for Christopher Cantwell: Political Prisoner. whether you agree with Cantwell or not, that is what it is. As well from Enless, an original music composition: That Man Is Dangerous.
Finally at Imaginative Conservative, there’s a Richard Weaver essay: Up From Liberalism. A review of Crime and Punishment, which Goodman calls A Timeless Psychological Masterpiece. Brad Birzer on The Mysterious Origins of the Roman Republic. Related: The Sons of Remus and the Question of Western Identity.
Also there, analysis (and embedded media) of Robert Schumann’s Enigmatic Violin Concerto. Hey, well at least it wasn’t viola. Dean Abbott praises The Glorious Inefficiency of Local Bookstores—while supplies last of course. And Jacoby Sommer chronicles The Mystery of the Sea Peoples: A Warning for the West.
This Week in the Outer Left
A lot of interesting material this week in the Outer Left, and not so much outrage porn. All things considered, a pretty comfy week.
As per usual, The Baffler makes an appearance in the “sorta right, but for all the wrong reasons” column, explaining how education reform ate the Democratic party. Apparently, education reform of the charter schools variety is pretty popular among a particular set of techie and hedge fund billionaires who donate to the Democrats. The Baffler is having none of that, alleging that charter schools don’t really help kids, but mostly they just want to protect the teachers’ unions.
So now, as America ponders the mounting economic disequlibriums that gave rise to the Trump insurgency, concerned plutocrats can all agree on one key article of faith: what is holding back the poor and minority children who figure so prominently in the glossy brochures of charter school advocates is not the legacy of racist housing policy or mass incarceration or a tax system that hoovers up an ever growing share of income into the pockets of the wealthy, but schoolteachers and their unions.
So close, and yet… so far. Somewhat right, schooling gimmicks aren’t going to drastically change outcomes for populations that tend to have lower average IQs, but that’s because of, ya know, the lower average IQs. Official Social Matter policy, however, is that teacher unions must be treated as an armed outpost of the Cathedral and smashed accordingly.
Craig Hickman has much to be mad at in his Dark Sayings Among the Dead. As do we. He takes it with an elegant stride, as do we. And he has superb aesthetics.
Over at Jacobin they have an interview with Estonian director, Terje Toomistu, about her recent documentary, Soviet Hippies. As is their wont, Jacobin goes fishing for the particular political implications they want to find in everything, but come up with very little. RTWT for a peek into a subculture on the other side of the Iron Curtain that sounds like it was strictly superior to hippies in the West.
And, filling out the “just interesting unknown history” category this week is The Awl with a brief history of Prussian blue. The color, not whatever weird usage of the phrase you are thinking of. It really is a majestically beautiful color, and Katy Kelleher does an able job telling the story and fighting what may prove a quixotic battle for the traditional name to be retained.Ideologically speaking, there was certainly this idealization of the West as the “free world,” and to a lesser degree, an idealization of the free market…. because they associated the market with good music and good jeans. It wasn’t that they were in favor of capitalism per se, they just had an idealized notion of freedom of consumption.
This is the story of a blue most common, and most beloved. A blue that Thoreau thought needed to be Americanized, like Freedom fries. It’s the color of waves and stamps and too many paintings to count. It’s an accidental pigment, a happenstance color, and an antidote for heavy metal poisoning. Meet my sweetheart, Prussian blue.
This Week… Elsewhere
Reluctant Reactionary takes a look at Pre-Globalism of populism of William Jennings Bryan. Also there, a look behind the scenes at decaying white towns: A purpose beyond race and identity. The plight of Amerikaners has been ushered in by forces quite beyond the usual scapegoats suspects. This Committee really like this piece and gave it an ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀.
TUJ keeps abreast Nork developments: A North Korean Defector Indirectly Confirms a Coup is Possible. Imperial Energy has a (classic Menciian) response: Rulers Only Become Tyrants When They Do Not Have Enough Power.
AMK’s coincidence detector goes off yet again. Also there: a worthwhile critique on absolutism.
Over at Zeroth Position, an interesting case study of Liberty in Minecraft. And then Nullus Maximus goes there: Should Libertarians Support Ethnic Nationalism? But you always knew those libertarians were natzees deep down inside, didn’t you? But seriously, it’s a fine—if scrupulously libertarian—piece. The answer, of course, is that true believers in private property must defend the right of private owners to band together in culturally and ethnically homogeneous patches, and to employ a sheriff to squelch speech they don’t approve of. And build a church at their collective expense who will symbolically crown the absolute monarch whom they’ll hire to defend their patch with lethal (non-aggressive) violence. Joking aside, this article earned an ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀.
Capable discussion of the theism faultline in the Dissident Right over at Faith & Heritage: The Alt Right Won’t Win with Atheism. It’s probably not a stretch to say that America’s founders already tried that.
Zach Kraine has some pretty astute commentary on The liberal “socialist”, with which I cannot find much to disagree. He concludes, “This is liberalism’s winter, and let’s hope that spring delivers a new paradigm for Western Civilization.” A new paradigm other than savannah-dwelling barbarism, that is. May it be so!
Al Fin looks at Russian Demographics in How Long Does It Take to Grow a 20 Year Old in Russia? Russia’s current baby bust seems to be an artifact of the last one.
Unorthodoxy applauds the (political) wisdom of Eliminating SALT Deductions. As a New Jersey resident, all I can say is, “Ouch!” Also, Unorthodoxy reads David Brooks so.. You Don’t Have To.
Nishiki Prestige brings us what is cybernetics: a gentile introduction as his offering this week. It gets… trippy real fast, just the way we like it.
If you have ever wondered “what is a bugman?”, Meta-Nomad has you covered. I could not possibly do it justice with a mere exceprt, so RTWT.
That’s all we had time for, folks. Many thanks to you stopping by. As always, heartfelt gratitude for my based TWiR staff: David Grant, Egon Maistre, Aidan MacLear, and Hans def Fiedler, you guys are the best! Keep on reactin! Til next week: NBS… Over and out!!
The post This Week In Reaction (2017/11/19) appeared first on Social Matter.