When I was in college (coincidentally Brown - same as Yarvin) it was standard-issue campus leftism, not even the edgy stuff, to talk about how Good The Health Care Was In Cuba. I was disturbed that so many nice kids from, like, Scarsdale, could casually embrace a communist dictatorship because doing so scratched some ideological itch (or generously, because they found some second-order aspect of it appealing.) But they did, and being an "Actually Castro Is Good" person was never seen even as a remote impediment to an illustrious career at Goldman Sachs or advising the Vice President or anything.
This is a lot of what's happening in the Trump 2.0 era. Campus-conservative types sense a brief and thrilling opening to experience some of the "Cathedral" privileges they so coveted, but were reserved exclusively for the other side. First among these is the privilege to toy subversively with ideas outside the Overton Window in "your direction" while remaining in polite society. Unlike the left's "long march through the institutions," conservatives sense they need to speed-run the whole thing, so it's a bit less organic and more overt.
Anyway, I highly doubt any non-trivial portion of Yarvin's influence comes from actual believers in absolute monarchy or whatever. His "Cathedral" observations on the other, as the author reluctantly admits (with unnecessary caveats), were powerful, acute and exactly the right diagnosis for the institutional abrogations of last decade. As those begin to correct themselves I think we'll see less interest in bizarre alternatives.
I've always thought the young men who talk about the Good Healthcare in Cuba are performing a form of badass machismo in whole or in part to impress the young women in their circle.
Decoding the Gurus is a sharp, engaging podcast hosted by Australian psychologist Matt Browne and Irish anthropologist Chris Kavanagh, who critically analyze influential public intellectuals and online contrarians with a blend of academic insight and dry wit.
This is their description of their take-down of the erstwhile Mencius Moldbug:
In this long-anticipated episode, Matt and Chris venture into the peculiar world of Curtis Yarvin—a reactionary blogger, tech entrepreneur, and self-proclaimed monarchist. Known to his early followers by the pseudonym "Mencius Moldbug," Yarvin has become a prominent figure in the "dark enlightenment" and neo-reactionary circles. Some have even hailed him as an "intellectual powerhouse" of the modern far-right, with endorsements from influential figures like Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance.
But what is Curtis really all about? In this episode, the decoders revisit the Triggernometry swamp to examine the political insights unearthed by the hard-nosed journalists Konstantin and Francis during their ferocious intellectual exchange with Yarvin.
Prepare for thrilling revelations, including the historical figures and movements Yarvin has catalogued in his encyclopedic memory, his pick for the best Elizabethan monarch, and the surprising number of non-monarchs he believes are secretly running monarchical regimes. True to form, Yarvin’s rhetorical style is nothing if not meandering. So get ready for a whirlwind tour through his "mind palace," exploring topics like Soviet Russia, Elizabethan England, Shakespearean conspiracy theories, and a fantasy world of reactionary and techno-libertarian musings—not to mention the obligatory lab-leak narratives.
Is Yarvin an edgy intellectual, a provocative contrarian, or just a verbose windbag with run-of-the-mill conspiratorial takes and a moody teenager's perspective on history? Matt and Chris tackle these questions, striving to decode Yarvin’s vision for society—and hoping, against all odds, that he might in the end just answer a single question.
On one hand, this is a well-written exposition and rebuttal of Yarvin’s views. On the other hand, “Media personality makes a living by saying false, inflammatory things,” is, unfortunately, no longer news.
“False, inflammatory things” is not actually that helpful as a description, since it could be applied to probably most social media content. This is a well-written exposition of a purveyor of an exceptionally extreme ideology, who at least has the ear of the Vice President, and whom many of never heard of. The irony in all this is that Donald Trump could never have come to power except through a democratic election—only pop culture could raise up such a person, whose sole talent is being an entertainer.
Yarvin appears to be building a structure that it still a bit shaky and in need of more stabilizing struts, but based on a very solid foundation:
"...that America and other Western democracies in the 21st century have already reached a state of soft totalitarianism: rule by a hegemonic elite of federal bureaucracy, academia, and liberal media—what he calls “the Cathedral”—either squashes or neutralizes political and cultural challenges."
The solution to the problem he identifies is quite a puzzle as there are trade-offs for every other style of governance. However, I applaud him for giving it a go... to start the needed dialog with some provocative ideas.
My personal view is not that democracy is dead... having run its course. My view is that democracy has been significantly corrupted by the greed of Wall Street and the media it owns. The destructive tendency from the collective drift of human fear, hate, immoral behavior are the reasons for our great religions to project and enforce a code of culture that calmed the masses. As we have grown more secular, our media had been the replacement calming tonic to the alternative sea of turmoil that would otherwise ensue. Remember, we would turn on the news to listen to our trusted national TV news anchors explain things in rational terms and calm us down. Our newspapers, although prone to the sensational headline, would cover the stories in a way that helped readers to gain control of their otherwise over-heated emotions.
Today we are even more secular and our media has shifted from being the calming tonic, to being the instigator and perpetrator of rampant fear, hate, anger and anxiety. This serves to corrupt democracy in that the voters are made irrational, and for example like in Canada, will vote for another liberal to replace the previous liberal they disliked and sent packing, because their media feeds caused them to rage with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
We have met the real threat to democracy, and it is our professional managerial class-owned and controlled mainstream media.
The appeal of the anti-democratic thinkers is that the changes to our society through mass immigration and globalization over the last few decades have been so profound, it seems all but impossible to put things right within a democratic system. Our only hope of returning to some sense of normalcy might be some sort of sovereign leader.
Most of us but not all of us, apparently, have come a long way in our thinking since that day at Runnymede, June 15, 1215. Admittedly the agreement did not last very long; however, it was the beginning of the end of absolute monarchy.
I am quite familiar with the ideas of ultra-conservative and hard right European thinkers before and after the French revolution. Let’s put it this way, it shows that Yarvin is American because a lot of the contradictions in his thinking have been resolved by European thinkers he obviously does not know or understand. “Resolved” does not mean by the way that the result is appealing, only that it is coherent. Yarvin’s totally ahistorical view of monarchy is a good example of an approach which reminds one of Tesla engineers: ignore everything everybody else discovered and start from scratch, a method which produced epic failures and that sits very uneasily with what conservatism and monarchy are actually about. But I guess it’s hard for a valley kid whose interaction with the world is mostly channeled through a screen to see that.
This reminds me of Charles Maurras, the far-right royalist writer behind the Action Francaise movement in early 20th century France. He pioneered the hybrid of modern dictatorship and traditional monarchy spread through it alternative media (his own far right newspaper) and thuggery (the camelots du roi "militia"). In a real sense he kept the far right going on the fringe of the Third Republic then helped it build in the '30s and pave the way for Vichy.
But he was very pro-Catholic and anti-capitalist, so the comparison is not exact. It would be interesting to see a well-informed comparison.
Perhaps it is time for all of us to recognize that our attempt at democracy, as expected, is failing, AND IT TIME TO RESTORE OUR REPUBLIC! Thank you Benjamin Franklin.
When I was in college (coincidentally Brown - same as Yarvin) it was standard-issue campus leftism, not even the edgy stuff, to talk about how Good The Health Care Was In Cuba. I was disturbed that so many nice kids from, like, Scarsdale, could casually embrace a communist dictatorship because doing so scratched some ideological itch (or generously, because they found some second-order aspect of it appealing.) But they did, and being an "Actually Castro Is Good" person was never seen even as a remote impediment to an illustrious career at Goldman Sachs or advising the Vice President or anything.
This is a lot of what's happening in the Trump 2.0 era. Campus-conservative types sense a brief and thrilling opening to experience some of the "Cathedral" privileges they so coveted, but were reserved exclusively for the other side. First among these is the privilege to toy subversively with ideas outside the Overton Window in "your direction" while remaining in polite society. Unlike the left's "long march through the institutions," conservatives sense they need to speed-run the whole thing, so it's a bit less organic and more overt.
Anyway, I highly doubt any non-trivial portion of Yarvin's influence comes from actual believers in absolute monarchy or whatever. His "Cathedral" observations on the other, as the author reluctantly admits (with unnecessary caveats), were powerful, acute and exactly the right diagnosis for the institutional abrogations of last decade. As those begin to correct themselves I think we'll see less interest in bizarre alternatives.
Quality comment
I've always thought the young men who talk about the Good Healthcare in Cuba are performing a form of badass machismo in whole or in part to impress the young women in their circle.
For a more extensive and comprehensive critique of the notorious poseur Curtis Yarvin, listen to Episode 117 of the Decoding the Gurus podcast, "Curtis Yarvin: The Edgelord's Guide to Monarchy 40K." https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/curtis-yarvin-the-edgelords-guide-to-monarchy-40k
Decoding the Gurus is a sharp, engaging podcast hosted by Australian psychologist Matt Browne and Irish anthropologist Chris Kavanagh, who critically analyze influential public intellectuals and online contrarians with a blend of academic insight and dry wit.
This is their description of their take-down of the erstwhile Mencius Moldbug:
=======================================================================
In this long-anticipated episode, Matt and Chris venture into the peculiar world of Curtis Yarvin—a reactionary blogger, tech entrepreneur, and self-proclaimed monarchist. Known to his early followers by the pseudonym "Mencius Moldbug," Yarvin has become a prominent figure in the "dark enlightenment" and neo-reactionary circles. Some have even hailed him as an "intellectual powerhouse" of the modern far-right, with endorsements from influential figures like Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance.
But what is Curtis really all about? In this episode, the decoders revisit the Triggernometry swamp to examine the political insights unearthed by the hard-nosed journalists Konstantin and Francis during their ferocious intellectual exchange with Yarvin.
Prepare for thrilling revelations, including the historical figures and movements Yarvin has catalogued in his encyclopedic memory, his pick for the best Elizabethan monarch, and the surprising number of non-monarchs he believes are secretly running monarchical regimes. True to form, Yarvin’s rhetorical style is nothing if not meandering. So get ready for a whirlwind tour through his "mind palace," exploring topics like Soviet Russia, Elizabethan England, Shakespearean conspiracy theories, and a fantasy world of reactionary and techno-libertarian musings—not to mention the obligatory lab-leak narratives.
Is Yarvin an edgy intellectual, a provocative contrarian, or just a verbose windbag with run-of-the-mill conspiratorial takes and a moody teenager's perspective on history? Matt and Chris tackle these questions, striving to decode Yarvin’s vision for society—and hoping, against all odds, that he might in the end just answer a single question.
On one hand, this is a well-written exposition and rebuttal of Yarvin’s views. On the other hand, “Media personality makes a living by saying false, inflammatory things,” is, unfortunately, no longer news.
“False, inflammatory things” is not actually that helpful as a description, since it could be applied to probably most social media content. This is a well-written exposition of a purveyor of an exceptionally extreme ideology, who at least has the ear of the Vice President, and whom many of never heard of. The irony in all this is that Donald Trump could never have come to power except through a democratic election—only pop culture could raise up such a person, whose sole talent is being an entertainer.
Yarvin appears to be building a structure that it still a bit shaky and in need of more stabilizing struts, but based on a very solid foundation:
"...that America and other Western democracies in the 21st century have already reached a state of soft totalitarianism: rule by a hegemonic elite of federal bureaucracy, academia, and liberal media—what he calls “the Cathedral”—either squashes or neutralizes political and cultural challenges."
The solution to the problem he identifies is quite a puzzle as there are trade-offs for every other style of governance. However, I applaud him for giving it a go... to start the needed dialog with some provocative ideas.
My personal view is not that democracy is dead... having run its course. My view is that democracy has been significantly corrupted by the greed of Wall Street and the media it owns. The destructive tendency from the collective drift of human fear, hate, immoral behavior are the reasons for our great religions to project and enforce a code of culture that calmed the masses. As we have grown more secular, our media had been the replacement calming tonic to the alternative sea of turmoil that would otherwise ensue. Remember, we would turn on the news to listen to our trusted national TV news anchors explain things in rational terms and calm us down. Our newspapers, although prone to the sensational headline, would cover the stories in a way that helped readers to gain control of their otherwise over-heated emotions.
Today we are even more secular and our media has shifted from being the calming tonic, to being the instigator and perpetrator of rampant fear, hate, anger and anxiety. This serves to corrupt democracy in that the voters are made irrational, and for example like in Canada, will vote for another liberal to replace the previous liberal they disliked and sent packing, because their media feeds caused them to rage with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
We have met the real threat to democracy, and it is our professional managerial class-owned and controlled mainstream media.
The appeal of the anti-democratic thinkers is that the changes to our society through mass immigration and globalization over the last few decades have been so profound, it seems all but impossible to put things right within a democratic system. Our only hope of returning to some sense of normalcy might be some sort of sovereign leader.
Most of us but not all of us, apparently, have come a long way in our thinking since that day at Runnymede, June 15, 1215. Admittedly the agreement did not last very long; however, it was the beginning of the end of absolute monarchy.
I am quite familiar with the ideas of ultra-conservative and hard right European thinkers before and after the French revolution. Let’s put it this way, it shows that Yarvin is American because a lot of the contradictions in his thinking have been resolved by European thinkers he obviously does not know or understand. “Resolved” does not mean by the way that the result is appealing, only that it is coherent. Yarvin’s totally ahistorical view of monarchy is a good example of an approach which reminds one of Tesla engineers: ignore everything everybody else discovered and start from scratch, a method which produced epic failures and that sits very uneasily with what conservatism and monarchy are actually about. But I guess it’s hard for a valley kid whose interaction with the world is mostly channeled through a screen to see that.
This reminds me of Charles Maurras, the far-right royalist writer behind the Action Francaise movement in early 20th century France. He pioneered the hybrid of modern dictatorship and traditional monarchy spread through it alternative media (his own far right newspaper) and thuggery (the camelots du roi "militia"). In a real sense he kept the far right going on the fringe of the Third Republic then helped it build in the '30s and pave the way for Vichy.
But he was very pro-Catholic and anti-capitalist, so the comparison is not exact. It would be interesting to see a well-informed comparison.
Perhaps it is time for all of us to recognize that our attempt at democracy, as expected, is failing, AND IT TIME TO RESTORE OUR REPUBLIC! Thank you Benjamin Franklin.