Neoreactionary movement

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[[File:Moldbug.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Moldbug: the rotten insect named after an {{wpl|Mencius|ancient Chinese philospher}}]]
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{{cquote|Everything old is new again.|||Attributed to many, but perhaps inspired by Jonathan Swift's ''Political Lying''<ref>[https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/7/14/1871717/-Everything-Old-Is-New-Again-A-Voice-from-History Everything Old Is New Again — A Voice from History] by Wes Morgan (July 14, 2019 · 1:48 PM ) ''Daily Kos''.</ref>}}
{{cquote|'''Mrs. Reilly''': A [[king]]? You want a king?<BR>
'''Ignatius Reilly''': Oh, stop babbling at me!<BR>
'''Mrs. Reilly''': I never heard of nobody wanted a king.|||John Kennedy Toole, ''A Confederacy of Dunces''<ref name=dunces>''A Confederacy of Dunces'' by John Kennedy Toole (1980) Louisiana State University Press. {{isbn|0807106577}}.</ref>{{rp|184}}}}
The '''neoreactionary movement''' (''a.k.a.'' '''neoreaction''', '''NRx''', the '''Dark Enlightenment''') is a loosely-defined cluster of Internet-based [[political]] thinkers who wish to return society to forms of government older than liberal [[democracy]]. They generally present their views as a revival of the traditions of [[Western world|Western civilization]]. Unlike ordinary [[reactionaries]] who nostalgically view the past as the [[good old days]], neoreactionaries are [[futurist]]s who are more critical of the past; for example, by rejecting the ideals of the [[Enlightenment]] while supporting a type of neo-[[Feudalism|feudalistic]] view of what society should be ([[libertarianism]] ruled by [[authoritarianism]]).<ref name=tait>"Mencius Moldbug and Neoreaction" by Joshua Tait (2019) In: ''Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy'', edited by Mark Sedgwick. Oxford University Press. {{isbn|9780190877590}}. Pages 187-203.</ref>{{rp|188}} Along with rejecting the Enlightenment's ideals, the movement is [[Antihumanism|antihumanist]] and [[nihilist]]ic.<ref name=tait/>{{rp|188}}

Many in the current wave of neoreactionaries are former [[libertarianism|libertarians]] who had concluded that [[freedom]] and the [[free market]] were fundamentally incompatible with liberal democracy. '''Curtis Guy Yarvin''' {{lived|1973}} (more commonly known by his pen name 
Mendacious
 '''Mencius Moldbug'''), generally considered the founder of the current movement, describes his own journey as "from [[Ludwig von Mises|Mises]] to [[Thomas Carlyle|Carlyle]]" via [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]], an [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalist]] who pushed feudalism as his desired end-state.<ref>[http://www.unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/from-mises-to-carlyle-my-sick-journey.html From Mises to Carlyle: my sick journey to the dark side of the force] by Mencius Moldbug (4 February 2010) ''Unqualified Reservations''.</ref> It is an ideal belief system for ''soi-disant'' libertarians who realize that, regardless of the principles of freedom being the ostensible foundation of their ideology, they are unwilling to tolerate others' enjoyment of freedom.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140312150415/http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hallq/2014/02/when-libertarians-make-me-want-to-go-full-social-justice-warrior When Libertarians Make Me Want to Go Full Social Justice Warrior] by Chris Hallquistn (February 1, 2014) ''Patheos'' (archived from March 12, 2014).</ref>

Neoreactionaries are the latest in a long line of pseudo-intellectuals who somehow think ''their'' chosen authoritarian thugs wouldn't put ''them'' up against the wall (like [[Adolf Hitler#Night of the Long Knives|Hitler's Night of the Long Knives]] or [[Stalin]]'s [[Communist glossary#Party purges|party purges]]). Possibly they hope to use the [[Gish Gallop|sheer volume of words]] as a bulletproof shield<ref>[https://archive.ph/F1Fyt "the words are a bulletproof shield against insincere dabblers"] by Mike Anissimov (8:51 AM - 24 May 2014) ''Twitter'' (archived from 27 May 2014 14:21:17 UTC).</ref> or consider themselves too competent, virtuous, and useful to end up one of the serfs.

It would all seem to be [[bullshit]], though, because of what Joshua Tait calls "important tensions" within the [[ideology]] (specifically in Moldbug's writings), which could just as easily be ascribed to [[intellectual dishonesty]] from pushing unresolvably discordant ideas: futuristic libertarianism with monarchy/[[feudalism]], and [[social liberal]]ism on many issues but nonetheless antiprogressive.<ref name=tait/>{{rp|189}}

The movement ''was'' once largely insignificant and mostly an object of curiosity. It has attracted some of the pseudo-intellectual [[pseudostatistics]] quoting variety of [[racist]]s. It has helped serve as an ideological foundation for parts of the [[alt-right]], although members of that group typically shun the practice of reading. 

More recently, Yarvin has been credited with informing the [[worldview]] of US Vice President [[J. D. Vance]].<ref>[https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/18/jd-vance-world-view-sources-00168984 The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview] by Ian Ward (07/18/2024) ''Politico''.</ref> Vance was a close associate of [[Peter Thiel]], having worked for Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management as a "vulture capitalist" early in his career.<ref>[https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/trump-vp-pick-vance-19574814.php J.D. Vance’s journey from San Francisco ‘Never Trumper’ to VP pick] by Joe Garofoli & Shira Stein (July 15, 2024) ''San Francisco Chronicle''.</ref> Thiel has also funded Moldbug at one point,<ref name=blake/> and remains closely associated with Thiel as the "house political philosopher".<ref>[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets Inside the New Right, Where Peter Thiel Is Placing His Biggest Bets: They’re not MAGA. They’re not QAnon. Curtis Yarvin and the rising right are crafting a different strain of conservative politics.] by James Pogue (April 20, 2022) ''Vanity Fair''.</ref>

==History==
{{cquote|In short, Moldbug reads like an [[Dunning–Kruger effect|overconfident]] [[autodidact]]’s imitation of a {{wpl|Lewis H. Lapham|Lewis Lapham}} essay — if Lewis Lapham were a fascist teenage [[Dungeons & Dragons|Dungeon Master]].|||Corey Pein<ref>[https://thebaffler.com/latest/mouthbreathing-machiavellis Mouthbreathing Machiavellis Dream of a Silicon Reich] by Corey Pein (May 19, 2014) ''The Baffler''.</ref>}}

[[File:Scharlachs-visualizing-neoreaction.png|thumb|300px|An elaborate April 2013 map of the wider Dark Enlightenment categorized by theme, made by Scharlach of ''Habitable Worlds''.<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20130424060436/http://habitableworlds.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/visualizing-neoreaction/ Visualizing Neoreaction] by Scharlach (April 21, 2013) ''Habitable Worlds'' (archived from April 24, 2013).</ref> It is unlikely that more than half the people on this diagram would think they belong there, but the diagram has been propagated with approval in the neoreactionary blogosphere.]]

Mencius Moldbug (who by day is software engineer Curtis Yarvin) of the prolix ''Unqualified Reservations''<ref>[https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/ Unqualified Reservations]</ref> is generally considered the founder of neoreaction as we know it. He started as a commenter on the [[right-wing]] blog 2Blowhards, and his first ''Unqualified Reservations'' post, "A formalist manifesto", was originally a guest post there.<ref>[http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2007/04/_trial_version.html The Mencius Vision] (22 April 2007) ''2blowhards.com''.</ref>

The subculture started amongst the San Francisco Bay Area [[libertarianism|technolibertarian]] subculture, particularly including the [[transhumanism|transhumanists]] — Moldbug commented extensively on Overcoming Bias, the predecessor of [[LessWrong]]; Michael Anissimov worked at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (now MIRI), which runs LessWrong; and for a long time, LessWrong was the only place you'd see these ideas unless you tripped over a neoreactionary blog.

[[Eliezer Yudkowsky]], the founder of LessWrong, explicitly repudiated neoreaction,<ref>[http://lesswrong.com/lw/fh4/why_is_mencius_moldbug_so_popular_on_less_wrong/ Why is Mencius Moldbug so popular on Less Wrong? [Answer: He's not.]] (16 November 2012) ''LessWrong''.</ref> citing [[Scott Alexander]]'s Anti-Reactionary FAQ,<ref name=alexander>[https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/ The Anti-Reactionary FAQ] by Scott Alexander (20 October 2013) ''Slate Star Codex''.</ref> and has continued to emphasize that he wants nothing to do with these people.<ref>[http://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/post/142497361345/this-isnt-going-to-work-but-for-the-record-and 217 notes] by Eliezer Yudkowsy (8 April 2016) ''Tumblr''.</ref> The neoreactionaries took umbrage at this and left, many to the comments on Scott's blog. However, even as their ideas are of no importance to Yudkowsky's, his ideas remain important to the formation of theirs.{{efn|And, before he told them to go away, they put him on a "Heroes of the Dark Enlightenment" bootleg ''Magic: The Gathering'' card.<ref>[http://archive.ph/EoNzl 17. Heroes of the Dark Enlightenment] (2013) ''Radish Magazine'' (archived from 10 Jul 2014 13:05:49 UTC).</ref>}}

{{wpl|Nick Land||,}} an [[evil]] [[Nietzsche|Nietzschean]] [[British]] [[philosopher]] who blogs at ''Outside In'',<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130222041356/http://www.xenosystems.net/ Outside In]</ref> coined the term "Dark Enlightenment". He was the co-founder of the "Cybernetic Culture Research Unit", a genuinely fascinating "rogue unit" at Warwick University whose concerns primarily revolved around pounding techno and shedloads of pills;<ref>[http://energyflashbysimonreynolds.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/renegade-academia-cybernetic-culture.html Renegade Academia: The Cybernetic Culture Research Unit] by Simon Reynolds (November 3, 2009) ''Energy Flash''.</ref> after a particularly horrible bout of [[amphetamine]] [[psychosis]], he took a hard rightward turn and wrote the essay "The Dark Enlightenment." He later resigned from Warwick University after suspicions arose that he was dealing [[cannabis]] to students.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in] by Andy Beckett (11 May 2017 00.30 EDT) ''The Guardian''.</ref> He is an apostle of accelerationism, a movement that, in his view, seeks the "indefinite acceleration of [[capitalism]]".<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140217071439/http://darkecologies.com/2014/02/15/nick-land-on-williams-and-srnicek-accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/ Nick Land: On Williams and Srnicek #ACCELERATE MANIFESTO for an Accelerationist Politics] by S. C. Hickman (Feb. 15, 2014) ''Dark Ecologies'' (archived from February 17, 2014).</ref> He was an affiliate of The New Centre for Research and Practice,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20141227223347/http://thenewcentre.org/people/ People] ''The New Centre for Research and Practice'' (archived from December 27, 2014).</ref> until he was fired for [[Islamophobia|disparaging comments about Muslims]] and [[Xenophobia|immigrants]]. The organization said, "We decided to stop working with him because we believe we should all preserve our energies for fighting right-wing, white nationalist, alt-right ideologies and philosophies and their political consequences in actual life. We hope you will join us in this spirit."<ref>The New Centre, [https://www.facebook.com/thenewcentre/posts/statement-on-nick-land-several-years-back-the-new-centre-for-research-practice-r/644026572465531/ Statement on Nick Land], [[Facebook]], Mar. 29, 2017</ref>

Other significant participants include Michael Anissimov of ''More Right''.<ref>[http://archive.ph/www.moreright.net More Right] (archived copies).</ref> [[Vox Day]] was happy to be considered part of this movement in 2013,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140731124301/http://voxday.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/neoreactionary-space_27.html Neoreactionary space] by Vox Day (April 27, 2013) ''Vox Populi'' (archived from July 31, 2014).</ref> though he ridiculed the term "dark enlightenment" as media hype in 2014.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170521081305/http://voxday.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-phony-dark-enlightenment.html The phony Dark Enlightenment] by Vox Day (January 26, 2014) ''Vox Populi'' (archived from May 21, 2017).</ref>

The term "neo-reactionary" (with a hyphen) was used in passing by Moldbug in 2008,<ref>[http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/ol3-jacobite-history-of-world.html OL3: the Jacobite history of the world] by Mencius Moldbug (May 1, 2008) ''Unqualified Reservations''.</ref><ref>[http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/olx-simple-sovereign-bankruptcy.html OLX: a simple sovereign bankruptcy procedure] by Mencius Moldbug (June 19, 2008) ''Unqualified Reservations''.</ref> but was first used as a name for the movement as a whole by libertarian blogger Arnold Kling in July 2010.<ref>[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/07/the_neo-reactio.html The Neo-Reactionaries] by Arnold Kling (Jul 18 2010) ''EconLog''.</ref><ref>[https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted/ A formalist manifesto] by Mencius Moldbug (April 23, 2007) ''Unqualified Reservations''</ref> Kling's usage was quickly adopted by the subculture.

The movement came to the world's attention (outside the Bay Area and LessWrong) courtesy of a November 2013 ''TechCrunch'' article, "Geeks for Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries".<ref>[http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/22/geeks-for-monarchy/ Geeks for Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries] by Klint Finley (9:00 PM PST • November 22, 2013) ''TechCrunch''.</ref> Corey Pein suggests in ''The Baffler'' that neoreaction is an outgrowth of Silicon Valley [[Libertarianism#Techno-libertarians|techno-libertarianism]], citing statements by Peter Thiel,{{efn|A 2009 essay for the [[Cato Institute]] announced that Thiel "no longer believe(s) that freedom and democracy are compatible" and that votes for women or welfare recipients are incompatible with the sort of capitalism he desires: "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."<ref>[http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian The Education of a Libertarian] by Peter Thiel (April 13, 2009) ''Cato Unbound''.</ref>}} Patri Friedman, and Balaji Srinivasan that reflect neoreactionary ideas without using neoreactionary terminology;<ref>[https://thebaffler.com/latest/mouthbreathing-machiavellis Mouthbreathing Machiavellis Dream of a Silicon Reich] by Corey Pein (19 May 2014) ''The Baffler''.</ref> he concludes that neoreactionaries, and Silicon Valley libertarians in general, are overgrown manchildren with a crippling lack of self-awareness. Matthew Walther, at ''The American Spectator'', finds them "silly but not scary", a "harmless product of the Age of Twitter", and prescribes [[alcohol]], [[Fun:American football|football]], and P. G. Wodehouse.<ref>[https://spectator.org/the-dark-enlightenment-is-silly-not-scary/ The Dark Enlightenment is Silly, Not Scary] by Matthew Walther (Jan. 21, 2014) ''The American Spectator''. Presumably he means real, American, gridiron [[Fun:Football|football]]; soccer would only make them worse.</ref>

(The term "neo-reactionary" was also used by [[George Orwell]] in 1943<ref>[http://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/tribune/AsIPlease19431224.html As I Please] by George Orwell (24 December 1943) ''Tribune''.</ref> to refer to conservatives who felt that human nature was not perfectible and that any societal changes were not worth pursuing.)

==Forerunners==
{{cquote|But one day he would assume the task of editing these fragments of his mentality into a jigsaw puzzle of a very grand design; the completed puzzle would show literate men the disaster course that [[history]] had been taking for the [[Renaissance|past four centuries]].|||Ignatius Reilly, ''A Confederacy of Dunces''<ref name=dunces/>{{rp|26}}}}

===Early===
An early forerunner of neoreaction was the effort of ideologues in the [[The South|southern United States]] in the 1850s to justify [[slavery]]. This was later tagged the "reactionary enlightenment":<ref>''Political Thought in America: Conversations and Debates'' by Philip Abbott (2009) Waveland Press, 4<sup>th</sup> ed. {{isbn|1-57766-627-5}}.</ref>

{{quotebox|If the political task of the [[abolition]]ists was a difficult one, the burden facing the South was even more challenging. A stream of books, pamphlets, and editorials poured forth from Southern presses in response to abolitionist demands. Louis Hartz called this theoretical effort of the South to justify slavery the ''reactionary Enlightenment.'' […] Hartz was trying to convey the nature of the concerted effort on the part of Southern intellectuals to reexamine the entire nature of America as a liberal society based on the triumph of the [[Enlightenment]]. Hartz asks, "Had America suddenly produced, out of nowhere, a movement of reactionary feudalism?"

Southern writers began by seeking to find historical precedents that would justify slavery. Men like George Fitzhugh, Thomas R. Dew, and J. D. B. DeBow pointed to the existence of slavery in the [[Old Testament]], in Greek and [[Roman]] democracy, and under feudalism. In their search for models the Southern writers began to turn against modernity itself. They attacked the doctrine of individualism; they attacked [[John Locke|Locke]] and [[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson]]; they attacked capitalism; they attacked what they called free society itself.}}

Many neoreactionary positions — including the technophilic transhumanist crossover — are anticipated in the {{wpl|Manifesto of Futurism}} from 1908, particularly:

{{quotebox|8. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.

9. We want to glorify war — the only hygiene of the world — militarism, [[patriotism]], the destructive gesture of the [[anarchists]], the beautiful ideas which kill, and [[Misogyny|contempt for woman]].

10. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight [[morality]], [[Antifeminism|feminism]] and all opportunist and [[utilitarian]] cowardice.}}

Anissimov is a big fan<ref>[https://archive.ph/XgRh2#selection-121.0-121.21 Julius Evola Sequence] by Michael Anissimov (February 15, 2014) ''More Right'' (archived from 22 May 2015 12:34:41 UTC).</ref> of [[Italian]] 20<sup>th</sup>-century neo-[[fascist]] [[philosopher]] [[Julius Evola]].

According to Jeffrey Herf, "reactionary modernism" in the [[Weimar]] era was a similar movement, which he called a "technological [[romanticism]]"; its key feature was "great enthusiasm for modern [[technology]] with a rejection of the Enlightenment and the values and institutions of liberal democracy".<ref>''Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich'' by Jeffrey Herf (1984) Cambridge University Press. {{isbn|0521338336}}.</ref> This reactionary modernism enthusiastically endorsed technological ideas from telecommunications to [[eugenics]] while expressing disdain for democratic ideas and looking for a return to a rigid social order.

In [[France]], after the [[Dreyfus affair]], {{wpl|Charles Maurras||,}} taking inspiration from thinkers and scholars such as the positivist [[Auguste Comte]] and Frédéric Le Play and basing on his strong [[nationalism]], came to support a [[corporatism|corporatist]] society (based on [[corporation]]s, not businesses but groups such as provinces and guilds), where the [[Catholic Church]] would give moral guidance (Maurras was himself [[agnostic]] until the last days of his life) and whose head would be the king, basing this on history, which was for him a guide for his "organising [[empiricism]]", to describe [[monarchy]] as the form of government which made [[France]] great and the [[Reformation]] and the Enlightenment as the forces responsible for weakening the country because of their insistence on the individual rather than tradition.<ref>''Nationalism, Positivism and Catholicism: The Politics of Charles Maurras and French Catholics 1890–1914'' by Michael Sutton (2002) Cambridge University Press. {{isbn|0521893402}}.</ref> From the 1890s, various Catholic thinkers had been advancing [[distributism]], a similar but more moderate corporatist doctrine. They were generally less right-wing, but still conservative overall.

In opposition to these reactionary ideas, {{wpl|Julien Benda||,}} in his 1927 book ''The Treason of the Intellectuals'', attacked those intellectuals who betrayed their intellectual vocation to become advocates of ultra-nationalism and the adversaries of intellectual liberalism; its lament that "our age is indeed the age of the ''intellectual organization of political hatreds''" foreshadows what happened in the 1930s when fascism rose up against Enlightenment values.<ref>[https://newcriterion.com/issues/1992/12/the-treason-of-the-intellectuals-ldquothe-undoing-of-thoughtrdquo The treason of the intellectuals & "The Undoing of Thought"] by by Roger Kimball (December 1992) ''The New Criterion''.</ref>

===Recent===
In some ways, neoreaction flows out of the {{wpl|The Californian Ideology|"Californian ideology"|:}} a blend of [[hippies|countercultural]] ideas from the 1960s with libertarianism and {{wpl|techno-utopianism||.}}<ref>''[http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/17/the-californian-ideology-2/ ''The Californian Ideology''] by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron (1995) ''The HRC Archive''.</ref> 

In the Francophone world, the thought of {{wpl|Guillaume Faye}} also anticipates neoreaction in several particulars. Faye calls his ideas ''archeofuturism''; this "calls for 'the re-emergence of archaic configurations' – 'pre-modern, inegalitarian, and non-humanist'" and advocates traditional [[spirituality]] and concepts of sovereignty while hoping for a technological utopia. This, by Faye's reckoning, is the only way to defeat "the American party", which he continues to identify with egalitarianism and democracy.<ref>[http://www.counter-currents.com/2010/09/foreword-to-archeofuturism/ Foreword to Guillaume Faye’s Archeofuturism] by Michael O'Mara (2010) ''Countercurrents''.</ref> (Faye wrote in 1999, so he had the opportunity to acquaint himself well enough with recent U.S. history to know better.) Faye also spoke at a conference hosted by the [[white supremacist]] magazine ''[[American Renaissance]]''.

==Writing style==
[[File:Dark Enlightenment flag.svg|thumb|right|165px|The Dark Enlightenment flag —  uncharacteristically concise]]
The main thing neoreactionaries do is blog. One common feature of the movement is a long-winded — ''ridiculously'' long-winded — and oblique prose style, eager to show off its mastery of historical trivia; it seems more {{wpl|Miniver Cheevy|poetry}}{{efn|name=slobo}} than politics at times. This is [[right-wing]] politics taken to an extreme: [[radical]], deliberately "transgressive" posturing in obscurantist prose. The formulated utilitarian view of human life that is reflected in the writings of neoreactionaries is anticipated by [[sociologist]]s [[Theodor Adorno]] and Max Horkheimer of the [[Frankfurt School]] in their text ''Dialectic of Enlightenment'', holding that the elevation of reason over other human values tends to treat people as a means to an end, and elevates [[Progress]] to an unquestioned good.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/dialectic-of-enlightenment-max-horkheimer-theodor-w.-adorno-1972 Theodor W. Adorno: 2. Dialectic of Enlightenment] by Lambert Zuidervaart (2015) ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''.</ref><ref>[https://monoskop.org/images/2/27/Horkheimer_Max_Adorno_Theodor_W_Dialectic_of_Enlightenment_Philosophical_Fragments.pdf Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments] by Max Horkheimer & Theodor Adorno (2002) Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-3632-4.</ref>

For example, Moldbug responded to [[Richard Dawkins]]' book ''[[The God Delusion]]'' by writing a seven-part sequence of posts in September 2007, totaling 37,941 words, in which he conclusively proved, step by step, thread by thread, detail by detail, that Dawkins was, for all his protestations of [[atheism]], in fact… a [[cultural Christian]]!<ref>[https://gist.github.com/jart/b73868081a5e1a1c5cf0 How Dawkins got pwnd] by Mencius Moldbug (c. Sep 2007) ''GitHub Gist''.</ref> Dawkins stated the same thing in December 2007 in four words: "I'm a cultural Christian".<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7136682.stm Dawkins: I'm a cultural Christian] (Last Updated: Monday, 10 December 2007, 14:43 GMT) ''BBC''.</ref> (No doubt provoked by Moldbug's stirring [[rhetoric]].) Moldbug's central thesis was a sort of [[genetic fallacy]] on steroids, where he thought that if he could show a modern idea descended from a particular idea hundreds of years earlier, it could be treated as substantially the same.

Moldbug's early "The magic of symmetric sovereignty" (19 May 2007)<ref>[https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/magic-of-symmetric-sovereignty/ The magic of symmetric sovereignty] by Mencius Moldbug (May 19, 2007) ''Unqualified Reservations ''.</ref> is short, comprehensible, and gets its point across in 1,666 words, rather than barely getting started in that much space. Its thesis is that [[totalitarian]] sovereignty would work well if it were unassailably secure. His arguments are made of [[handwave]]s and holes, but the interesting bit is the libertarian-style thinking, in which all the hard bits of politics and why humans are complicated are handwaved away because he wants so much for his reasoning to reach his desired conclusion. If something looks like an insufficiently-explained logical leap, don't assume he'll get around to properly explaining himself later. Much as per Yudkowsky's style on Overcoming Bias and LessWrong, the apparent references lead to references leading to references, and hardly ever resolve to clear and well-supported substantiation.

Despite the pretensions of being a philosopher, Moldbug is not beyond committing egregious [[fallacies]]. In a 2011 column, he committed the [[balance fallacy]] by equating [[Nelson Mandela]] with [[Anders Behring Breivik]]:<ref>[https://archive.ph/9VrE2#selection-1375.0-1387.0 Right-wing terrorism as folk activism] by Mencius Moldbug (July 23, 2011) ''Unqualified Reservations'' (archived from 16 Mar 2019 01:09:48 UTC).</ref>
{{cquote|Anders Behring Breivik made [[war]] on [[communist]] [[Norway]], just as Max Manus made war on [[fascist]] Norway, just as [[Osama bin Laden]] made war on imperial [[America]], just as Nelson Mandela made war on apartheid South Africa. Terrorism is the normal mode of warfare in our delightful post-[[WWII]] utopia.}}
This is a woefully stupid statement. Breivik did not commit war; he was an 'army' of one. Here Moldbug falsely calls modern Norway communist when it is, in [[reality]], a democratic [[Monarchy#Constitutional monarchy|constitutional monarchy]]. Moldbug also neglects to say that Apartheid South Africa was an [[ethnocracy]] that brutally oppressed the majority black population.

After early-period commenters kept calling out his ridiculous misuse of basic terms and glaring factual errors, Moldbug adopted his better-known style, in which he spends a few thousand words redefining English to make his striking theses (''e.g.'', "America is a communist country"<ref>[http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/technology-communism-and-brown-scare.html Technology, communism and the Brown Scare] by Mencius Moldbug (13 September 2013) ''Unqualified Reservations''.</ref>) less transparently ludicrous.

Later neoreactionaries write similarly, assuming a certain background cloud of assumptions [[Gish Gallop|they never quite get around to fully backing up.]] Actual checkable claims frequently turn out on inspection to be completely wrong (per Scott Alexander's Anti-Reactionary FAQ.<ref name=alexander/>)

==Positions==
[[File:Pol cultural Marxism conspiracy flowchart.jpg |thumb|300px|A diagram [https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/38570562/ posted to 4chan /pol/] outlining the origins and effects of [[Cultural Marxism]], ''i.e.'' [[International Jewish conspiracy|the Jews did it]]. This was [https://archive.today/vJD8F reposted with approval] on neoreactionary blog More Right as "Infographic of the Cathedral", though with the bit about Jews trimmed. Curiously absent: [[The Beatles]].]]
{{cquote|This city [New Orleans] is famous for its [[Gambling|gamblers]], [[prostitutes]], [[Exhibitionism and voyeurism|exhibitionists]], [[anti-Christ]]s, [[alcoholic]]s, [[sodomite]]s, drug addicts, fetishists, [[Onanism|onanists]], [[Pornography|pornographers]], frauds, jades, litterbugs, and [[lesbians]], all of whom are only too well protected by graft.|||Ignatius Reilly, ''A Confederacy of Dunces''<ref name=dunces/>{{rp|3}}}}

Hostility to modernity and democracy is the main point of agreement among neoreactionaries. Moldbug writes that:<ref>[https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2008/05/ol3-jacobite-history-of-world/ An Open Letter to Progressives, pt. 3: The Jacobite history of the world] by Mencius Moldbug (May 1, 2008) ''Unqualified Reservations''</ref>
{{cquote|a reactionary is a believer in order, stability, and security. All of which he treats as synonyms … Thus, the order that the [[rational]] reactionary seeks to preserve and/or restore is arbitrary. Perhaps it can be justified on some moral basis. But probably not. It is good simply because it is order, and the alternative to order is violence at worst and politics at best. If the Bourbons do not rule France, someone will.|||Robespierre, or [[Napoleon]], or Corner Man.}}

Moldbug's fondness for 'order' seems oddly timid and disconcerting in a wannabe [[edgelord]] drawn to [[white nationalism]] for its "transgressive" qualities; if order is all that important, it raises the question 'what's wrong with the order we already have?'

Land, by contrast, shows no such timidity and instead seems to wish to move ahead full tilt into realms of existential horror where humans lose their human qualities at the nexus of [[eugenics|genetic engineering]] and [[artificial intelligence|AI interfaces]].

Still, it seems that for both writers, the chief attraction of white nationalism is that it is the [[political correctness|least polite]] form of politics, one of the few that retains its potency ''pour épater les [[bourgeois]]''. That, and being massive racists.

The fondness for the deliberate transgression of social norms is difficult to reconcile with the authoritarian polities these writers profess to admire.<ref name=Sandifer>''Neoreaction a Basilisk: Essays On and Around the Alt-Right'' by Elizabeth Sandifer (2017) Eruditorum Press, 2017.</ref>

Echoing traditional libertarian concerns, they assert that democracies are necessarily less financially stable than autocracies in general and monarchies in particular: that a king will be "[[fiscal responsibility|fiscally responsible]]" because the king has a property interest in the kingdom. The ideal model would appear to have been to make [[Steve Jobs]] the king of [[California]] as if Silicon Valley were a model that could be applied to the rest of the world.<ref name=Sandifer/> The actual {{wpl|James I of England|history}} {{wpl|Charles I of England|of kings}} {{wpl|Louis XV of France|would seem}} {{wpl|Ludwig II of Bavaria|to be rich}} {{wpl|Charles II of Spain|in counterexamples|.}} But so it goes.

Another common position, shared by Moldbug and Land, is hostility to empathy as a factor in political philosophy. This, too, is a reflection of their shared libertarian roots, with its reverence for property and markets as [[law|legalistic]] constructions and their shared preference for the airy abstraction of computer code over human relationships. A lack of, and direct hostility to, empathy is a defining characteristic of alt-right groups in general — e.g., [[Gamergate]].<ref name=Sandifer/> The hostility to empathy is evidence of neoreactionaries' misunderstanding of Boethius,<ref name=cirilla/>{{rp|144}} the main intermediary between [[classical antiquity]] and the [[Middle Ages]]. Just as Ignatius Reilly misunderstood Boethius, so neoreactionaries and Reilly are like the fool who thought himself wise:<ref name=cirilla/>{{rp|147}}
{{cquote|Without Boethian empathy toward the failures of other or recourse to the Boethian rationale for some measure of hope in life, his writing is thus unsurprisingly unproductive in spawning much more consolation than the solace that he is surrounded by a confederacy of dunces, unable to quite fathom the core joke of the Menippean hero's journey — that he was the fool, who thought himself wise.|||Anthony G. Cirilla<ref name=cirilla/>{{rp|147}}}}

While the various figures in the neoreactionary scene may partake of its tropes to varying degrees, their not-entirely-consistent broad themes include:
{{collist|3|
* [[Radical traditionalism]]
* Political [[authoritarianism]]{{efn|name=slobo|Moldbug actually wrote an homage to [[Serbian]] [[war criminal]] Slobodan Milošević, a fittingly poetic atrocity:<ref>[https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2010/12/homage-to-slobodan-milosevic/ Homage to Slobodan Milosevic] by Mencius Moldbug (December 8, 2010) ''Unqualified Reservations''</ref>
{{cquote|Slobo! Once an apparatchik,<BR>Bad economist in Warsaw tweed,<BR>A star planner and a rising star,<BR>As temples came down you met<BR>Your chance. “No one will dare<BR>To beat you anymore!” And there<BR>Emerged a great roar; and backs<BR>Once bent indeed uncrooked; and<BR>The international community<BR>Grew wonderfully displeased.<BR>… }}
}}
** A desire to return to [[monarchy]], [[aristocracy]], and/or feudalism
** An admiration of [[fascism]]
* Ethnic [[nationalism]], usually [[white nationalism|white]] or (less commonly) Asian
** [[Racialism]] (usually framed as "race realism" or "human biodiversity")
** A belief in [[biological determinism]]
** A belief that [[ethnicity|ethnic uniformity]] increases {{wpl|social capital}}
** Frequently, though not always, [[anti-Semitism]]
* Hostility to [[feminism]], [[multiculturalism]], and [[progressivism]] in all its forms, especially [[democracy]] and [[equality]]; in their metaphor, the "Cathedral"
** [[Appeal to nature|Normative]] arguments based on [[evolutionary psychology]]
** [[Pick-up artist]] jargon
** [[Men's rights activism]]
* [[Austrian School]] of [[economics]]
** Old-time [[social Darwinism]]
** Many are former [[Ron Paul]] supporters
* [[Traditionalist Catholicism]], often
** Or a more secularized [[cultural Christian]]ity
** Or the occasional [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox Christianity]] adherent
** Alternatively, some form of [[neopaganism]], [[Satanism]], or occultist [[woo]] of the [[Julius Evola]] variety (e.g., [[Davis Aurini]])
** Or a religious view that sees [[singularitarianism|the Singularity]] as [[God]]. This dovetails with transhumanism below. See also [[Roko's basilisk]].
* [[Transhumanism]] and other technological [[utopia]]s (the odd idea out)
}}

Michael Anissimov proposes the following six tenets as the core beliefs of neoreaction:
{{cquote|
# People are not equal. They never will be. We reject equality in all its forms.
# Right is right and left is wrong.
# Hierarchy is basically a good idea.
# [[Kinder, Küche, Kirche|Traditional sex roles]] are basically a good idea.
# Libertarianism is retarded.
# Democracy is irredeemably flawed and we need to do away with it.<ref>[https://archive.ph/Tysuy Principles of Reactionary Thought] by Michael Anissimov (Dec. 13, 2013) ''More Right'' (archived from 12 Jul 2014 17:00:39 UTC).</ref>}}

Dalibor Rohac, a mainstream libertarian ([[Cato Institute]], [[American Enterprise Institute]]), finds the neoreactionary movement frightening based on its anti-immigration rhetoric, distrust of democracy, rejection of [[egalitarianism]], love for [[dictator]]s ([[Vladimir Putin]] in particular), and distrust of capitalism.<ref>[https://www.cato.org/commentary/europes-neoreaction-scarier-you-think# Europe’s Neoreaction Is Scarier than You Think: European neoreaction–with which the American variety shares much of its intellectual pedigree–is patently insane, well‐​resourced, and increasingly powerful.] by Dalibor Rohac (August 6, 2014) ''Cato Institute''.</ref>

===The Cathedral===
Moldbug's idea of "the Cathedral" is a recurring theme; it is a "distributed [[conspiracy theory|conspiracy]]", one that treats feminism, democracy, and other "progressive" causes, and the general [[worldview]] of educated [[Westerner]]s as the current world's version of an [[state religion|established church]]:<ref>[https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified/ A gentle introduction to Unqualified Reservations] by Mencius Moldbug (January 8, 2009) ''Unqualified Reservations''</ref>

{{cquote|And the left is the party of the educational organs, at whose head is the press and universities. This is our 20<sup>th</sup>-century version of the established church. Here at UR, we sometimes call it the Cathedral — although it is essential to note that, unlike an ordinary organization, it has no central administrator. No, this will not make it easier to deal with.}}

Even if there's something like this that you could be persuaded to see, it's hard to imagine a proper conspiracy without conspirators. What Moldbug describes looks more like a [[culture]]: a broadly shared set of associated social values embodied in shared institutions, symbols, and practices. If you are reading this, you probably live there. This is what he's against.

===Transhumanism===
{{main|Transhumanism}}
One of these ideas is not like the others. This one comes from neoreaction's links to the Bay Area transhumanist subculture. This is why neoreactionaries showed up on LessWrong.

Some neoreactionaries will attempt to reconcile transhumanism and [[singularitarianism]] with taking the rest of society back several hundred years. The case made by Anissimov, who also takes [[Roko's basilisk]] seriously,<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20150330121104/http://www.xenosystems.net/in-the-mouth-of-madness/#comment-31161 In the Mouth of Madness] reply by Michael Anissimov (December 17<sup>th</sup>, 2013) ''Outside In''. "People are being foolish by not taking the basilisk idea seriously."</ref> comes down to open, unapologetic [[elitism]], arguing that transhumanism and the Singularity are the logical conclusions of various emerging technologies but that the "common people" are too driven by narrow-minded self-interest to use them responsibly, and that the end result of "unrestrained technological power in the hands of the masses" would be not merely the collapse of civilization but quite possibly the extinction of the human race. Therefore, a new [[aristocracy]] should be created to restrict the use of these advanced technologies to a privileged elite because they are the only ones who can be trusted to use them for the betterment of society.<ref>[http://archive.ph/20150214101923/www.moreright.net/reconciling-transhumanismand-neoreaction/ Reconciling Transhumanism and Neoreaction] by Michael Anissimov (23 May 2013) ''MoreRight'' (archived from 14 Feb 2015 10:19:23 UTC).</ref>

Nick Land, meanwhile, comes to it from the opposite direction, seeing democracy, egalitarianism, human rights, and everything else described above as "the Cathedral" as inhibiting progress towards the Singularity. Land's journey to neoreaction came about largely after spending time living in [[China]], during which he grew enamored of its totalitarian, technocratic system and came to see it as more efficient and dynamic than liberal democracy, praising Deng Xiaoping and [[Singapore]]'s [[Lee Kuan Yew]] as among the great leaders of the modern age.<ref>[https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/11/20882005/accelerationism-white-supremacy-christchurch Accelerationism: the obscure idea inspiring white supremacist killers around the world.] by Zack Beauchamp (Updated Nov 18, 2019, 9:15am EST ) ''Vox''.</ref>

Despite Yudkowsky rejecting neoreaction, MIRI's goal closely resembles the neoreactionary goal: a single sovereign Friendly artificial intelligence ruling human space for all time for the good of all.<ref>[http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Coherent_Extrapolated_Volition Coherent Extrapolated Volition] ''LessWrong wiki''.</ref>

In Moldbug's proposal — a world divided up into libertarian anarcho-monarchies, informed by pickup-artist patter (the world made [[Gorean|''Gor'']]!), among many little autonomous princedoms governed by kings, aristocrats, or dictators — you may have trouble placing bets about how long the [[Internet]] would hold up. If 300 baud was good enough for [[Jesus Christ]]…

===Racialism and racism===
{{main|1=Racialism|3=Racism}}
In 2008, Yarvin (as Mencius Moldbug) posted his racialist musings in lengthy replies to a libertarian blogger, including:<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130812042830/http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/02/09/nationalist-moral-chauvinism/ Nationalist Moral Chauvinism] by Will Wilkinson (February 9, 2008). Yarvin's reply of February 11, 2008 at 8:55 pm. Archived from August 12, 2013).</ref>
{{cquote|I have no doubt that a good human breeder could turn Australian aboriginals into Ashkenazi Jews in twenty or thirty generations. Belyaev’s work with the silver foxes is impressive. Unfortunately, I don’t expect to live that long. So my feeling is that there needs to be a fence between me and all populations of wild hominids – as much for their benefit as mine.}}

Yarvin has also argued that [[African Americans]] were better off with [[slavery]].<ref>[https://thereconstructionera.com/curtis-yarvin-historian-for-tech-bros-says-blacks-were-better-off-with-slavery/ Curtis Yarvin “Historian” for Tech Bros Says Blacks Were Better Off With Slavery] by Patrick Young (January 19, 2025) ''The Reconstruction Era''.</ref>

==Achievements==
{{cquote|My stringent attitude toward sex intrigued her; in a sense, I became another project of sorts. I did, however, succeed in thwarting her every attempt to assail the castle of my body and mind.|||Ignatius Reilly, ''A Confederacy of Dunces''<ref name=dunces/>{{rp|108}}}}
{{cquote|Don’t get involved with someone just because you’re [[Flame war|impressed by how creatively they insult people]]. They will turn that skill on you.|||Yarvin's ex-girlfriend<ref name=kofman/>}}

The movement has a proud history of great achievements, such as lengthy blog posts, even longer blog posts, and, occasionally, tweets. (More Right used to have an ongoing series on Neoreactionary Accomplishments;{{efn |name=achievements|It was put up in mid-May 2015,<ref>[https://archive.ph/yR3ye “Neoreactionary Accomplishments” Series] by Michael Anissimov (May 16, 2015) ''More Right'' (archived from 20 May 2015 03:07:06 UTC).</ref> and taken down by June 21, 2015.<ref>[https://archive.ph/OXt9n This is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?] ''More Right'' (archived from 21 Jun 2015 20:07:10 UTC).</ref>}} parts one to six listed blogging, parts seven to ten listed blogging about hypothetical governance structures: "intellectual accomplishments are real even though stupid people don’t understand them.") They also argue amongst themselves on [[Tumblr]]. There is the occasional [[schism]], purge,{{efn|In "Trannygate",<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140712180445/http://www.xenosystems.net/disconnection/ Disconnection] (May 30, 2014) ''Outside In'' (archived from July 12, 2014).</ref> Anissimov attempts purge of Justine Tunney, who has consistently disclaimed the label "neoreactionary"<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20190706035638/https://twitter.com/JustineTunney/status/624046721648185344 I'm not a neoreactionary. Never have been. Proof: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9703134] by Justine Tunney (7:41 PM - 22 Jul 2015) ''Twitter'' (archived from July 6, 2019).</ref> Anissimov pontificates without saying who he's talking about,<ref>[https://archive.ph/XMb9Q The Purpose of Reactionaries] by Michael Anissimov (May 27, 2014) ''More Right'' (archived from 6 Jun 2014 00:54:38 UTC).</ref> now he says who he's talking about.<ref>[https://archive.ph/1TKz6 The Kind of People Who Should Be Nowhere Near Neoreaction] by Michael Anissimov (June 2, 2014) ''More Right'' (archived from 12 Jul 2014 17:02:01 UTC).</ref> Others don't buy it.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140604162609/http://nickbsteves.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/strictures-upon-anissimovs-the-purpose-of-reactionaries/ Strictures Upon Anissimov’s “The Purpose of Reactionaries”] by Nick B. Steves (2014/05/28) ''The Reactivity Place'' (archived from June 4, 2014).</ref><ref>[https://archive.ph/QywsS The Final Word on #Trannygate] by Nick B. Steves (2014/05/31) ''The Reactivity Place'' (archived from 28 Aug 2014 19:22:39 UTC).</ref><ref>[https://archive.ph/HMsiz Pushback on “The Purpose of Reactionaries” and Social Conservatism] by Nyan Sandwich (May 30, 2014) ''More Right'' (archived from 12 Jul 2014 17:00:23 UTC).</ref>}} warning of entryists,<ref>[https://tteclod.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/a-response-to-entryism/ A Response to (the Accusations of) Entryism] (March 29, 2015) ''tteclod''.</ref> and claim of ''true'' neoreaction.<ref>[https://archive.ph/zU4cv Official Statement on the Leadership of NRx] 'Hestia Society'' (archived from 23 May 2015 19:50:44 UTC). Purge of Anissimov and claims ownership of "neoreaction".</ref>

The excessive verbiage of the movement is reminiscent of Ignatius Reilly's "dozens of Big Chief tablets", of which "Ignatius thought smugly that on their yellowed pages and wide-ruled lines were the seeds of a magnificent study in comparative history."<ref name=dunces/>{{rp|26}} In the case of Reilly, at least, this amounts to a kind of mental [[masturbation]] that is hard to distinguish from the physical act.<ref name=cirilla>"Dunces and Dialogue: Ignatius J. Riley's Menippean Misreadings and Onanistic Annotations of Boethian Philosophy" by Anthony G. Cirilla (2020) In: ''Theology and Geometry: Essays on John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces'', edited by Leslie Marsh. Lexington Books. ISBN 1498585477. pp. 141-158.</ref>{{rp|147}}

Some of Moldbug's proposals — unsurprisingly — sound like a computer programmer reducing people to objects who have no agency, quirks, or independent motivations,<ref name=tait/>{{rp|188}} then announcing, 'I solved that intractable problem!' When next to no one is taking Moldbug seriously, it amounts to mental masturbation. A case in point is Moldbug's plan for world peace.<ref name=whirrledpeas>[https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2008/05/ol5-shortest-way-to-world-peace/ An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives. Chapter 5: The Shortest Way to World Peace] by Mencius Moldbug (May 15, 2008) ''Unqualifed Reservations''</ref>
{{cquote|My proposal is the most obvious one imaginable. Perhaps this is why I’ve never heard anyone propose it. It can be expressed in one sentence. Are you ready? Here we go. The US should recognize the independence and sovereignty of every government on earth, and respect it according to the principles of classical international law.}}
Elsewhere in his vast explanation of his simplistic idea, Moldbug basically announces, hey, I'm smart ("From a semiotic perspective ([[Credentialism|I didn’t go to Brown for nothing, kids]])…"), and I can baffle you with my [[sesquipedalianism]] (e.g., "Empsonian edge") and [[Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur]] (e.g., "''uti possidetis juris'')!<ref name=whirrledpeas/>

==Whitewashing== 
In 2019, Yarvin lost interest in political blogging and now fatuously claims that he was merely interested in getting people to read old books and was not doing politics<ref>[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarvin_developer_of_urbit_ama/d1dbk7h?context=1 I'm Curtis Yarvin, developer of Urbit. AMA.] r/IAmA (c. 2019) ''Reddit''.</ref> — while elsewhere ''in the very same discussion'', not disputing having written in 2007 that he'd sat down in his garage and decided to come up with a new ideology, or the question's fawning suggestion that Moldbug had "succeeded" (presumably referring to [[Donald Trump]]).

This [[Red herring|misdirection]]/[[doublethink]] might have something to do with having launched a quixotic startup, Tlon, developing a system called Urbit to "compete with the internet", and his infamous views — which he has conspicuously neither taken down nor repudiated<ref>[https://archive.ph/OOxyC#selection-2033.0-2033.43 I'm Curtis Yarvin, developer of Urbit. AMA.] (c. 2019) ''Reddit'' (archived from 21 Feb 2021 07:53:18 UTC).</ref> — are hanging over his startup like a radioactive anvil of his own forging.{{efn|The company name, Tlon, was taken from the Jorge Luis Borges short story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". The story describes a [[secret society]] that creates a new world, Tlön, that eventually takes over everything else.<ref name=tseng/><ref>{{wpa|Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius}}</ref>}} It does not help matters for Tlon that Urbit was described in a sympathetic review as being "complicated for even the most seasoned of functional programmers",<ref>[https://reason.com/2016/06/21/can-urbit-transform-the-internet/ Can Urbit Reboot Computing? Urbit seeks to distill computing into its lightest and purest possible form, leaving the user in control of more processes than previously afforded.] by Andrea O'Sullivan (6.21.2016 12:00 AM) ''Reason''.</ref> indicating that after {{age|2013}} years,<ref name=urbit>{{wpa|Urbit}}</ref> Urbit is not likely to even reach [[Linux]] or BitTorrent levels of popularity. In other words, Tlon appears to have been [[wingnut welfare]] for Yarvin, paid for by his broligarch buddy Peter Thiel.<ref name=urbit/>

Yarvin was disinvited from one technical conference in 2015 after someone brought his odious views to the organizers' attention.<ref>[https://s3.amazonaws.com/sl-notes/yarvin.txt Curtis Yarvin submitted a talk in the Strange Loop 2015 Call for Presentations. …]</ref> In 2016, after his talk proposal was accepted at the functional programming conference LambdaConf, via a blinded (i.e., anonymizing) review process, two sub-conferences canceled in protest,<ref>[http://typelevel.org/blog/2016/03/24/typelevel-boulder.html The Typelevel Summit in Boulder is Cancelled] (Mar 24, 2016) ''Typelevel''.</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160303002241/http://www.jonprl.org/prlconf.html Structural and Behavioral Foundations of Programming Languages] ''PRlConf'' (archived from March 3, 2016).</ref> sponsors pulled out,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160321025225/http://lambdaconf.us/ Lambda Conf] (archived from March 21, 2016). Seven sponsors listed.</ref><ref>[http://archive.ph/DzSoH Lambda Conf] (archived from March 26, 2016). One sponsor listed.</ref> and speakers withdrew.

However, he doesn't have much interest in keeping up the pretense for very long — in a [[Reddit]] Ask Me Anything session, when asked why communist software developers were not socially shunned like him, he responded that it is not hard to see who really has power in society.<ref>[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4bxf6f/im_curtis_yarvin_developer_of_urbit_ama/d1dctlz?context=1 I'm Curtis Yarvin, developer of Urbit. AMA.] r/IAmA (c. 2019) ''Reddit''.</ref> Yes, that's right, according to his Cathedral theory, the commies won the [[Cold War]] — due to [[cultural Marxism]] — and America is now "a communist country".<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20161228194724/https://medium.com/@curtis.yarvin/how-to-respond-to-hostile-media-inquiries-2ce34b7ba8a6 How to respond to hostile media inquiries] by Curtis Yarvin (March 31, 2016) ''Medium'' (archived from December 28, 2016).</ref>

LambdaConf itself has become a rallying point for the alt-right, with a fundraiser organized by ClarkHat of the totally neutral Status:451 (which is not a neoreactionary blog, it just posts articles promoting neoreaction<ref>[http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/indiegogo-campaign-funding-tech-conference-white-nationalist.html Citing 'Open Society,' Racist Programmer's Allies Raise $20K on Indiegogo: After a backlash against a speaker's racist views cost LamdbaConf several sponsors, allies responded with a surge of crowdfunding support. The snowballing controversy pits advocates of diversity in tech against those who demand unfettered free expression.] by Tess Townsend (Apr 5, 2016) ''Inc.''</ref>) and pushed heavily by the totally neutral [[Eric S. Raymond]],<ref>[http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7095 This may be the week the SJWs lost it all] by esr (2016-04-03) ''Armed and Dangerous''.</ref> premised on a completely unevidenced [[backstab myth]] that activist [[social justice warrior|SJWs]] forced the original sponsor pullout. John deGoes of LambdaConf refused to provide evidence of this claim without payment for his time,<ref>[https://archive.ph/ln1at given @jdegoes was unable to present *any* evidence of claimed SJW attacks on Lambdaconf sponsors when asked, confusion is order of the day] by RationalWiki (5:06 AM - 23 May 2017) ''Twitter''. In response to John De Goes' tweet, "Pay me for my time and I'll give you tweets proving sponsors were attacked. Otherwise do your own research." (archived from 23 May 2017 12:39:49 UTC).</ref> despite having already been [[Affinity fraud#Right-wing mail order fraud|funded handsomely based on it]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170728132438/https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/save-lambdaconf-and-an-open-society--3 Save LambdaConf …and an open society] ''Indiegogo'' (archived from July 28, 2017).</ref> Of course, almost none of these new fans care about functional programming, and 348 actual functional programmers, including leading lights of FP, have repudiated them<ref>[https://statement-on-lambdaconf.github.io/ Statement on LambdaConf 2016] (April 8<sup>th</sup>, 2016) ''GitHub''.</ref> (and were then attacked by [[Vox Day]] and Eric Raymond<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170211185038/http://www.dailydot.com/unclick/list-of-social-justice-warriors There’s a blacklist of social justice warriors, and I can’t believe I'm not on it] by Peter Bd (Feb 29, 2020, 8:45 am) ''Daily Dot''.</ref>). DeGoes also explained his views on "diversity" with a post that can only be described as Social Justice [[Time Cube]], in which he attempts to derive "inclusivity" from first principles, including made-up [[jargon]] and explanatory diagrams.<ref>[http://degoes.net/articles/lambdaconf-conclusion Final Statement on the LambdaConf Controversy] by John A De Goes (April 11, 2016).</ref> For LambdaConf 2017, they invited truly neutral [[Red Pill]] [[MRA]] Ed Latimore,<ref>[http://meta.plasm.us/posts/2020/07/25/response-to-john-de-goes/ Response to John De Goes] by Travis Brown (July 25, 2020).</ref> not to talk about functional programming but who will "will inspire you to conquer your fears… of learning FP, & maybe living too!"<ref>[https://archive.ph/wip/0xG5y λc17 Keynote: In his professional speaking debut, @edlatimore will inspire you to conquer your fears… of learning FP, & maybe living too!] by ''Lambda Conference'' (12:21 PM · Mar 2, 2017) ''Twitter'' (archived from 20 Jun 2021 20:44:47 UTC).</ref>

Yarvin finally left Urbit in 2019, leaving Tlon to try to recover its reputation and paper over the fact of its creator, but Yarvin still has a substantial financial stake in the company as well as a substantial amount of address space on Urbit.<ref name=tseng>[http://distributedweb.care/posts/who-owns-the-stars/ Who Owns the Stars: The Trouble with Urbit] by Francis Tseng (2019) ''Distributed Web''.</ref>

==Alt-right==
{{main|Alt-right}}
The "alt-right" mob is the less intellectual end of neoreactionary discourse and is delighted to be so. These are the people who have wholeheartedly embraced overt racism, misogyny, [[neo-Nazi]] affectations, [[bullying]], and [[trolling]] of [[4chan|chan culture]] as a lifestyle. You'll find them on [[/pol/]], My Posting Career, or [[The Right Stuff]]; they were a sizable fraction of [[Gamergate]]'s more radical and uncouth sections. They also popularized "cuckservative" as a term of abuse for those on the right who are deemed not racist enough.

The label originated with [[Richard Spencer]]'s white nationalist magazine/blog ''[[Alternative Right]]'', nicknamed "AltRight".

Their advantages over the Moldbuggian strain are shorter blog posts and an actual sense of humor (such as it is). Whether they're primarily neoreactionaries who are into [[white nationalism]] or white nationalists dressing their ideas up with neoreactionary jargon is probably a distinction without a difference. They tend to think that neoreactionaries use too many words and aren't keen on Yarvin being [[Jewish]].

The term has become more generally used for Trump supporters who think [[swastika]]s are good; in this context, it's just a hip name for white supremacists.

==Kidding/not kidding==
{{main|Just a joke}}
There is some evidence that Moldbug was just writing a [[satire]] in his ''Unqualified Reservations'' — his frequently humorous tone, his former use of the joke publisher name "[[Troll|TRO LLC]]", and his citation of the anti-[[Tory]] pamphlet by Daniel Defoe ''The Shortest Way with the Dissenters''.<ref name=tait/>{{rp|198}} However, this should all be viewed as a deflection because of the money trail from [[Austrian school]] libertarian Peter Thiel to Curtis Yarvin.<ref name=urbit/> Appropriately enough for neoreactionaries, the idea of 'Is it a joke or not?' does appear throughout the Middle Ages.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20240429053227/https://www.historyextra.com/membership/kiddingnot-kidding-a-medieval-sense-of-humour/ Kidding/not kidding: a medieval sense of humour] by Jamie Kreiner (March 23, 2016 at 8:33 am) ''History Extra, BBC'' (archived from April 29, 2024).</ref>

===2021 coup===
When the [[2021 U.S. Capitol riot]] was no more than a twinkle in the eye of [[Trumpism|Trump World]], post-Moldbug Yarvin posited the idea of a [[coup]] on November 8, 2020, the day after the election was called for [[Joe Biden]] by news organizations. Yarvin's description vaguely followed what was to follow: fake electors, ignoring the will of Congress and the Supreme Court, then calling the military out against the civilian institutions.<ref>[https://graymirror.substack.com/p/reflections-on-the-late-election Reflections on the late election] by Curtis Yarvin (Nov 8, 2020) ''Gray Mirror''.</ref>

==In popular culture==
===''A Confederacy of Dunces''===
[[File:Confederacy of dunces cover.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Ignatius J. Reilly, an important forerunner of the movement.]]
{{cquote|What I want is a good, strong monarchy with a tasteful and decent king who has some knowledge of [[theology]] and geometry and to cultivate a Rich Inner Life.|||Ignatius Reilly, ''A Confederacy of Dunces''<ref name=dunces/>{{rp|185}}}}

Ignatius J. Reilly, the protagonist of the novel ''A Confederacy of Dunces'' by John Kennedy Toole, fully anticipated the modern neoreactionary blogger by fifty years. Down to the fondness for {{wpl|Boethius||}}<ref name=dunces/>{{rp|27,137,139,163,219,232,247,251-252,254-255,282}}<ref>[http://docshare02.docshare.tips/files/30564/305643889.pdf A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations] Mencius Moldbug (2009).</ref>{{rp|273-274}} and his traditionalist Catholicism:
{{cquote|Some poor white from [[Mississippi]] told the dean that I was a [[Propaganda|propagandist]] for the [[Pope]], which was patently untrue. I do not support the current Pope. He does not at all fit my concept of a good, authoritarian Pope. Actually, I am opposed to the [[Moral relativism|relativism]] of modern Catholicism quite violently.|||Ignatius Reilly, ''A Confederacy of Dunces''<ref name=dunces/>{{rp|45}}}}
Sometimes, history ''starts'' as a farce. It's a fantastic novel that fully lives up to the hype. Neoreactionaries don't find it ''funny'' at ''all''. You'll enjoy it.

And reading ''Unqualified Reservations'' in sequence with ''A Confederacy of Dunces'', one can see why Moldbug, in particular, does not enjoy the retroactive skewering that he received from ''Dunces'' before he was even born.<ref>[https://archive.ph/wip/bHBwL Also Moldbug writes like Ignatius P Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces] by Jeremy McLellan (12:07 PM · Jul 1, 2018) ''Twitter'' (archived from 21 Jun 2021 04:33:49 UTC).</ref>
{{sbs|title=1|Mencius Moldbug (born 1973):|Ignatius Reilly (written prior to 1969):<ref>{{wpa|John Kennedy Toole}}</ref>}}

{{sbs|1="And even if barbarism ''does'' steepen its pace, the consolations of Boethius remain available."<ref>[https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/11/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified/ Chapter 11: The New Structure] by ''Mencius Moldbug'' (November 19, 2009) ''A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations''</ref>
|2="Then you must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age. Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course."<ref name=dunces/>{{rp|219}}}}

{{sbs|1="The other day I was tinkering around in my garage and I decided to build a new ideology."<ref>[https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted/ A Formalist Manifesto] by ''Mencius Moldbug'' (April 23, 2007) ''Unqualified Reservations''</ref>
|2=“I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”<ref name=dunces/>{{rp|6}}}}

But a skewering of Moldbug can even be found in Boethius' ''The Consolation of Philosophy'', written c. 524 CE, regarding the [[Dunning–Kruger effect|philosopher who thought himself wise]]:<ref name=cirilla/>{{rp|142-143}}<ref>''The Consolation of Philosophy'' by Boethius, translated by Victor Watts (1999) Penguin Books. Revised edition. {{isbn|0140447806}}.</ref>{{rp|42-43}}
{{cquote|'You, however, don't know how to act uprightly except with an [[Populism|eye to popular favour and empty reputation]]. You ignore those excellent qualties, a good conscience and virtue, and pursue your reward in the common gossip of people. Listen while I tell you how cleverly someone once ridiculed the shallowness of this kind of conceit. A certain man once made a virulent attack on another man for falsely assuming the title of philosopher more in order to satisfy his overweening pride than to practise virtue, and added that he would accept that the title was justified if the man could suffer attacks upon him with patience and composure. For a time he did assume patience and after accepting the insults asked with a sneer whether the other now agreed that he was a philosopher. "I would," came the reply, "if you had not spoken."'}}

===''Sovereign''===
''Sovereign'' by {{wpl|April Daniels (author)|April Daniels|,}} the sequel to her first book, ''Dreadnought'', is a young adult superhero novel in which the titular super-villain is an explicitly neoreactionary billionaire in the vein of {{wpl|Richard Branson||.}}<ref>''Sovereign'' by April Daniels (2017) Diversion Books. {{isbn|1682308243}}.</ref> His master plan involves controlling who has superpowers to (re)establish what he sees as the ‘natural’ social order. Needless to say, said order features Sovereign as the eternal god-king, wearing a literal crown and sitting on a literal throne aboard his personal [[Seastead]], ''Cynosure''{{efn|''Cynosure'' is probably a reference to Moldbug's sinecure from Peter Thiel.<ref name=blake>[https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23373795/curtis-yarvin-neoreaction-redpill-moldbug Curtis Yarvin wants American democracy toppled. He has some prominent Republican fans. The New Right blogger has been cited by Blake Masters and J.D. Vance. What exactly is he advocating?] by Andrew Prokop (Oct 24, 2022, 2:00 AM PDT) ''Vox''.</ref>}} — which is itself crowned with a trio of skyscrapers, one of which is called ''Moldbug Tower.''

===''The Corporation Wars''===
''The Corporation Wars'' trilogy by {{wpl|Ken MacLeod|Ken MacLeod}} has (among other things) left accelerationists (Axel) and neoreactionaries (Rax) fighting [[Insurgency|insurgencies]] against each other in the immediate future on an [[Earth]] wrecked by [[climate change]] and technological progress, as well as in the far future around a [[star]] being colonized by robots (that can only be piloted with [[Mind uploading|uploaded human minds]]). Admittedly MacLeod doesn't spend that much time looking at neoreactionary ideas (or left-accelerationists, for that matter); the books instead spend much more time focusing on concepts like [[alien]]/[[artificial intelligence]] or the possibilities unlocked by simulating human [[consciousness]].

==In real life==
===Pontificators on parade===
[[File:Charles Samuel, La Fortune (1894), KBS-FRB 03.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Spin, Fortuna! Now it's time for a movie.]]
{{cquote|When Fortuna spins you downward, go out to a movie and get more out of life.|||Ignatius Reilly, ''A Confederacy of Dunces''<ref name=dunces/>{{rp|48}}}}
Stung by accusations that they are spending their lives doing for words what [[Bitcoin]] does for electricity,{{efn |name=achievements}} Nyan Sandwich of 
MoreRight
 The Future Primaeval organized an in-person meetup group called Phalanx, a "[[Manosphere|reactionary fraternity for the cultivation of masculine virtue]] and the development of social and moral capital."<ref>[https://archive.is/68kdF Introducing Phalanx] by Nyan Sandwich (19 October 2014) ''More Right'' (archived from April 14, 2015).</ref> (A previous version of the announcement apparently<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20141104051137/http://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/193575.html The EntitleMen: techno-libertarian right wing sockpuppets of silicon valley] (Oct. 29<sup>th</sup>, 2014 05:54 pm) ''graydon2'' (archived from November 4, 2014).</ref> also proposed to "[[Pick-up artist|practice game]]", but this was deleted.) The plan was "not to directly engage, but to become strong and worthy", so we're sure this would have been just fine and accept Nyan's assurance<ref>[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/01/links-for-november-2014/#comment-156169 "Aware. Not going to let slimy fascists monopolize all the good semniotic{{sic}} real estate."] by Nyan Sandwich (November 3, 2014 at 2:29 am) ''Slate Star Codex''.</ref> that any {{wpl|Falange|unfortunate naming coincidences}} are nothing to worry about.

[[File:LD50 Neoreactionary.jpg|thumb|left|165px|Still image of an exhibit from the LD<sub>50</sub> show titled "[[Manosphere glossary#Black pill|The Black Pill]]" by Brett Stevens]]
In 2016, a little-known London art gallery called LD<sub>50</sub> (presumably named after the [[Median lethal dose|toxicology measurement of the same name]]) held an exhibition and series of talks that didn't so much inquire into neoreactionary and alt-right thought as provide a [[propaganda]] platform for its adherents.<ref name='vice-ld50'>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170221082614/http://i-d.vice.com/en_gb/article/dalston-art-gallery-accused-of-promoting-fascism Dalston art gallery accused of promoting fascism] by Felix Petty (20 February 2017, 5:15am) ''Vice''.</ref> Indeed, one exhibit consisted of nothing but videos of neoreactionary literature read out by avatars — ranting crudely disguised as art? The events were organized in secret, according to one of the speakers, Brett Stevens, a far-right [[Islamophobe]] who had been quoted by [[terrorist]] [[Anders Breivik]] in his manifesto and who subsequently praised Breivik as "brave" after the latter murdered 77 Norwegians, mostly young [[social democrat]]s, in cold blood.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/22/art-gallery-criticised-over-neo-nazi-artwork-and-hosting-racist-speakers Art gallery criticised over neo-Nazi artwork and hosting racist speakers] by Hannah Ellis-Petersen (22 Feb 2017 02.00 EST) ''The Guardian''.</ref><ref name='vice-ld50'/> The poorly-attended events probably led to far more protesters visiting the gallery, when anti-fascist locals subsequently found out about them, than actual attendees.

===Neo-feudalist examples===
A precedent for this seemingly-heterogenous neo-feudalist mixture of libertarianism and authoritarianism was the libertarian right's support for [[Augusto Pinochet]]'s murderous [[dictatorship]] in [[Chile]].<ref name=tait/>{{rp|197}}

Yarvin has embraced [[Libertarian paradise#Dubai|Dubai]]'s authoritarian-feudalist model for semi-independent states-with-states.<ref>[https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/urs-plan-to-fix-iraq/ 
UR’s plan to fix Iraq] by Mencius Moldbug (May 16, 2007) ''Unqualified Reservations''.</ref>

More recently, [[Russia]] has resembled a neo-feudalist state, in which [[Vladimir Putin]] is the state [[autocrat]] controlling [[oligarch]]s who run corporate fiefdoms.<ref>[https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/russia-neofeudal-capitalism-putin-by-anders-aslund-2017-04 Russia’s Neo-Feudal Capitalism] by Anders Åslund (Apr 27, 2017) ''Project Syndicate''.</ref> Dissent to this scheme has been repressed by state-sponsored assassinations,<ref>[https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russian-assassinations-send-chilling-message-of-impunity/ Russian assassinations send chilling message of impunity] by Doug Klain (Mar 12, 2020) ''Atlantic Council''.</ref> violence,<ref>[https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/12/14/fsb-team-of-chemical-weapon-experts-implicated-in-alexey-navalny-novichok-poisoning/ FSB Team of Chemical Weapon Experts Implicated in Alexey Navalny Novichok Poisoning] (December 14, 2020) ''Bellingcat''.</ref> prison, and exile.<ref>{{wpa|Alexei Navalny}}</ref><ref>{{wpa|Mikhail Khodorkovsky}}</ref> Russian neo-feudalism has perpetuated so-called 'legal nihilism', i.e., opposition to the [[rule of law]] at all levels of society.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20150309110328/https://media.law.wisc.edu/m/gcxmt/hendley_nihilism.pdf Who Are the Legal Nihilists in Russia?] by Kathryn Hendley (2012) ''Post-Soviet Affairs'' 28(2):149–186. doi:0.2747/1060-586X.28.2.149.</ref> Unsurprisingly, neoreactionaries have embraced [[Putinism]].<ref>[http://www.leapleapleap.com/2015/06/bears-will-never-steal-your-car-reacting-to-the-neoreactionaries/ Bears Will Never Steal Your Car: Reacting To The Neoreactionaries] by Matthew Shen Goodman (June 9, 2015) ''Leap''.</ref>

In 2025, Yarvin has also endorsed other repressive countries:<ref name=kofman>[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-profile Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America: The reactionary blogger’s call for a monarch to rule the country once seemed like a joke. Now the right is ready to bend the knee.] by Ava Kofman (June 2, 2025) ''The New Yorker''.</ref>
*Rwanda, which under autocratic President Paul Kagame has "suppressed political dissent through pervasive surveillance, intimidation, arbitrary detention, torture, and renditions or suspected assassinations of exiled dissidents."<ref>[https://freedomhouse.org/country/rwanda Rwanda] ''Freedom House''.</ref>
*China, which has committed the [[Uyghur genocide]], despite Yarvin falsely claiming<ref>[https://www.cecc.gov/freedom-of-expression-in-china-a-privilege-not-a-right Freedom of Expression in China: A Privilege, Not a Right] ''Congressional-Executive Commission on China''.</ref> that in China, "you can think and pretty much say whatever you want."
*[[El Salvador]], which under President Najib Bukele runs a series of [[concentration camps]] known as CECOT,<ref>[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/trump-deportations-el-salvador/682267/ Trump’s Salvadoran Gulag: To be deported, one does not need to be a drug dealer or a terrorist; apparently, having tattoos and being Venezuelan is enough.] by Adam Serwer (April 2, 2025) ''The Atlantic''.</ref> which have become a dumping ground for Trump's extrajudicial renditions of people he doesn't like.<ref>[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/trump-deportations-el-salvador/682267/ Trump’s Salvadoran Gulag: To be deported, one does not need to be a drug dealer or a terrorist; apparently, having tattoos and being Venezuelan is enough.] by Adam Serwer (April 2, 2025) ''The Atlantic''.</ref>

==See also==
{{collist|2|
*[[Alt-right]]
*[[Chronicles (magazine)|''Chronicles'' magazine]]
*[[Fascism]]
*[[Free State Project]]
*[[Futurism]]
*[[Manosphere]]
*[[Might is Right]]
*[[Proud Boys]] — [[terrorist]] organization, founded by [[Gavin McInnes]], that claims to be simply a "Western chauvinist fraternity"
*[[Radical traditionalism]]
*[[Reactionary]]
*[[Essay:Abrechnung mit Reaktion]], by [[User:Smerdis of Tlön|Smerdis of Tlön]]
}}

==External links==
;The primary sources
*[https://www.unqualified-reservations.org Unqualified Reservations] by Mencius Moldbug
*[http://www.thedarkenlightenment.com/the-dark-enlightenment-by-nick-land/ The Dark Enlightenment] by Nick Land

;LessWrong on neoreaction
[[Scott Alexander]] has written extensive examinations of neoreaction, as he knows a lot of the players personally. These include:
*[http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-in-an-enormous-planet-sized-nutshell/ Reactionary Philosophy in an Enormous Planet Sized Nutshell] &mdash; an honest attempt to describe neoreactionary beliefs sympathetically
*[http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/10/20/the-anti-reactionary-faq/ The Anti-Reactionary FAQ] by [[Scott Alexander]], generally regarded as the definitive takedown

;Other discussions
*[https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/22/geeks-for-monarchy/ Geeks for Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries], by Klint Finley.
*[http://www.theamericanconservative.com/millman/monarchists-neo-reactionaries-and-neo-fascism/ Monarchists, Neo-Reactionaries, and Neo-Fascism]. Noah Millman, at ''The American Conservative''.
*[http://theweek.com/article/index/254690/why-are-us-conservatives-so-obsessed-with-monarchies Why are U.S. conservatives so obsessed with monarchies?]. Matt K. Lewis, at ''The Week''.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20140306041703/http://www.vocativ.com/culture/uncategorized/dark-enlightenment-creepy-internet-movement-youd-better-take-seriously The Dark Enlightenment: The Creepy Internet Movement You’d Better Take Seriously]. Matt Sigl, at ''vocativ''.
*[https://spectator.org/the-dark-enlightenment-is-silly-not-scary/ The Dark Enlightenment Is Silly Not Scary]. Matthew Walther, at ''Spectator''.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20150216000131/http://xenophobe.net/2015/02/13/neoreactionary-miracles-on-ice Neoreactionary Miracles on Ice], by B.W. Rabbit (a bizarre neoreactionary fantasy about establishing a [[utopia]] in 
cloud cuckoo land
 [[Antarctica]])
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20140919231557/http://mitrailleuse.net/2014/09/03/towards-a-neoreactionary-aesthetic Toward a Neoreactionary Aesthetic], by E. Antony Grey.
*[http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/neoreactionaries.html Thoughts on the Neoreactionaries], by Noah Smith.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20170719220106/http://www.thedailybeast.com/web/20170719220106/http://www.thedailybeast.com/occupying-the-throne-justine-tunney-neoreactionaries-and-the-new-1 Occupying the Throne: Justine Tunney, Neoreactionaries, and the New 1%], by Arthur Chu.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20150929182253/http://www.theawl.com/2015/09/good-luck-to-human-kind "The Darkness Before The Right"], by Park McDonald.
*[http://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11434098/alt-right-explained Alt-Right Explained] by Vox.
*[https://antifascistnews.net/category/alternative-right/ Alternative Right] by antifascistnews.net

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note|2|80%}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}
[[Category:Authoritarianism]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theories]]
[[Category:Engineer woo]]
[[Category:Eugenics supporters]]
[[Category:Fascism]]
[[Category:Homophobia]]
[[Category:Internet kooks]]
[[Category:LessWrong]]
[[Category:Libertarians]]
[[Category:Machismo]]
[[Category:Men's rights movement]]
[[Category:Political movements]]
[[Category:Racialism]]
[[Category:Racists]]
[[Category:Sexism]]
[[Category:Social degeneration]]
[[Category:Thielsphere]]
[[Category:Transphobia]]

Categories: Authoritarianism, Conspiracy theories, Engineer woo, Eugenics supporters, Fascism, Homophobia, Internet kooks, LessWrong, Libertarians, Machismo, Men's rights movement, Political movements, Racialism, Racists, Sexism, Social degeneration, Thielsphere, Transphobia