Mencius Moldbug & NRx - Geeks for Monarchy

It should hardly come as a surprise to readers of this journal, nostalgic as it is, and replete with neocolonialist and anti-modernist sympathies, that the author is an avid reader of that brave breed of contemporary political thinkers who are gathered under the label Neoreactionary, or NRx for short. Chief among them is the character known, pseudanonymously, as Mencius Moldbug, who is perhaps - and it is no exaggeration - the only truly original political thinker of our times. It was the author's privilege to present a talk on the aforesaid thinkers, and Mr. Molbug in particular, at the Bendigo City Public Library as part of their Philosophy in the Library series, on the cold, rainswept evening of October 3rd last. This posting relives the presentation made that evening by way of the slideshow to which the author, as presenter, spoke. The talk, due to last an hour and intended to be introductory and accessible to the general public, went briefly as follows:

1. The presenter explained that he had had chosen to introduce an element of contemporary political philosophy to the series since political philosophy tends to be under-represented. Everyone bangs on about something called "ethics" in philosophy these days. Boring. There is, in fact, a whole 'Dark Enlightenment' of new poltical thought waiting to be discovered. 

2. A slide to sooth those made restless by a political topic. Ancient Alexandria and the great lighthouse, an emblem of Neoreaction. This too a means of taking the presentation back to ancient times...

3. The presenter declared his personal affinities and interests. He is, above all, a Platonist and is reading the NRx through the lens of Platonic political thought. Specifically, Plato (especially the Republic) gives a comprehensive critique of democracy, but where in contemporary thought can one find any serious engagement with that critique? The presenter has found kindred spirits in this regard among the Neoreactionaries. But, he wonders, are they just rehashing the arguments of Thrasymachus and co.? Do they go beyond the assertion that 'might makes right'? The presenter supposes that this is the central problem in Western political philosophy. Where do the NRx stand? 

4. A key slide that announces many themes. The quotable Mr. Nicholas Land points out that the evils of democracy were thoroughly understood in European classical antiquity and yet today it amounts to an unquestioned religious dogma. How did we get to this impasse? The presenter admits that he is especially interested in the notion that democracy is now a religious creed since religions - including secular ones - are among his areas of concern, both professionally and privately. Where philosophy veers off into religion is exactly his territory. 

5. Introducing the Neoreactionaries. They, like the present author, are bloggers. 

6. The main blog in question is - or was, since it is no longer a going concern - Mr. Molbug's 'Unqualified Reservations'. Recommended browsing. 

7. It all began with an unassuming blog post in 2007. Moldbug was fooling around in his garage one day and decided to invent a new political philosophy... 

8. The title 'Formalism' then required a little explanation. Mr. Moldbug took it from legal philosophy where the Formalists are mortal enemies of the Realists. The Realists (judicial activists) have been running amock in the US legal system since at least the 1960s. 

9. Moldbug has a keen interest in law and legal philosophy. (The point was made here that Plato encountered similar legal decay in Athens which, like the USA, became notoriously litigious.) 

10. A Molbugean principle. Limiting government is an invitation to an unlimited judiciary. Power, by its nature, is absolute. If you limit it in one area, another area will fill the void. 

11. So who is this character? No, Mencius Moldbug is not, in fact, his real name. Like many bloggers - including the present one - he writes under a playful pseudonymn. Real name: Curtis Yarvin. Computer geek. (Helpful voices in the audience pointed out here that once upon a time computer geeks were hairy leftists in sneakers. Moldbug is that new generation of anarcho-capitalist geeks firmly on the Right of the political spectrum. The social capital in Silicon Valley has moved.) 

12. Some intellectual biography. Moldbug began reading Ludwig von Mises, guru of the libertarian Austrian school of economics. But he ended up reading...

13. Thomas Caryle. This caused the presenter to digress with a brief life of Carlyle since these days virtually no one reads Carlyle or has even heard of him. Carlyle Revisited. The story was told of Mr. Carlyle's famous history of that great watershed the French Revolution... 

14. And how John Stuart Mill's housemaid burned the only copy in a famous mishap. 

15. So famous, in fact, that here the incident is shown in a contemporary Japanese illustration. Stoic and Scottish, though, Carlyle sat down and wrote it again. 

16. This deserved a few juicy quotes from the Scottish sage, such as this one. The Carlylean prose style in action. 

17. And this one.

* * * 

18. Cut to Edmund Burke who also gave us an account of the French Revolution. The point here was that Moldbug and the Neoreactionaries are not Burkeans. In fact, they're not a lot of things. Let us list a few...

19. They are not Neocons. That's for sure. 

20. And nor are they Cuckservatives - those miserable political cuckolds of the contemporary Right who are happy to have Whigs screw their wives and daughters and take whatever they want as long as they - the Cucks - can have the money. The bogus Right. 

21. And they are not patriots either. There is a big assortment of odd characters on the political Right. In Leftist fantasies they are all the same (because Leftists are all the same, since Leftism by definition is collectivist.) The Right is characterised by great diversity. 

22. There are the libertarians. Moldbug started out as a libertarian but, as we will see, grew out of it. 

23. There are also the so-called 'National Conservatives' of various sorts. Big in Japan. Big in most places, in fact. But NRx is not that either. 

24. And they are not neo-Nazis, no matter what their critics might say. From the NRx viewpoint Nazism was, well, National Socialism, and in that a socialism like any other. 

25. At this point the presenter considered it wise to remind the audience of Godwin's Law. Whigs live in strange little bubbles. If they ever encounter an idea from outside that bubble their first instinct is to cry, "Nazi!" and to consider the argument done. But no, NRx is not Nazism either and has little or nothing in common with Nazism. 

26. Is it, then, Traditionalism? That, the presenter explained, is perhaps nearer the mark, although not quite. Some NRxers like reading Julius Evolva, it is true. Yet the NRx are against "universalism" - something to which many 'Traditionalists' are prone. 

27. Then is it, someone asked, Alt Right? Well, yes, more or less. Alt Right being a broad designation for a wide range of ideas on the political Right that are NOT Burkean, Neocon, Cuckservative or any of the others. The Alt Right is otherwise known as the Real Right - as opposed to the compliant gutless mainstream New World Order Right that has been a total disaster in conservative politics over the last two generations or so. It is not inaccurate to characterise the Neoreactionaries as Alt Right, of a sort. 

28. By now, after twenty-seven slides, the audience was visibly restless. What exactly is a Neoreactionary anyway? they wwere eager to know. 

29. The presenter showed them the lighthouse at Alexandria again. 

30. And then a map of the so-called 'Dark Enlightenment'. This confused everyone but it did at least get across the idea that Neoreaction is diverse. (Hot topics such as Human Biological Diversity were avoided during this exposition.)

31. So, a quote from Mencius again. What does he want? Government that is (a) extremely small, (b) extremely efficient and (c) extremely strong. As distinct from what libertarians typically want.  Remember - he started life as a libertarian but turned into a Neoreactionary when he grew up and read Carlyle.

32. A further account of what Neoreactionaries want. A future among the stars. 

33. Some examples. The XVIIIth C. tradition of enlightened absolutism of Frederick the Great and such XXth C. examples as Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai. The return of the City State. 

34. Supplemented by a nice quote from Nick Land. 

35. And then the presenter drew attention to the last part of the Nick Land quotation. What is Neoreaction? What do they propose? What sort of world do they envisage? Mr. Land spells it out here.

* * *  

36. The presenter then provided a quick display of cat memes to underline key NRx themes. Every Philosophy in the Library lecture, he believes, requires a cat meme interlude. (For some in the audience, this was the highlight of the whole evening.)  

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41. For more information, the presenter directed attendees to the Hestia Society, NRx front group. (There was some discussion of the motto 'The only morality is civilization'. Hobbsean, what?) 

* * * 

42. Turning now to a few salient NRx themes. First, Moldbug's notion of the 'Cathedral' = The Whig Establishment. 

43. A quote from Land to further the point.

44. And - to the delight of some in the audience, and the shock of others - a few slides illustrating Mencius Moldbug's deep hostility to universities and academics. (It became clear that this is a matter near to the presenter's heart. Moldbug, in his opinion - having spent a quarter of a century in academia - is on the money here.)

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* * * 

51. By now the lecture is obviously running over time, so it is necessary to truncate the final section. The presenter offered several key themes of classical Moldbuggery. The first, and least contentious perhaps, is that social and political decay has been masked by technological change. NRx is a geek philosophy by geeks for geeks, and geeks should know. As the social fabric frays around us we stare at our iPhones and give it no regard. Waves of technological advancement mask political decline. This must be even more obvious in hi-tech Europe. 

52. Secondly, a key theme in Moldbug is the Puritan genealogy of Leftism. The presenter observed here - by the way - that is very different to the old Right where it was the Jews who were the bad guys. There is no anti-semitism in Moldbug - indeed, he's Jewish! On his reading of history (very astute and intelligent) the Whigs go back to Calvin. The presenter is enthused by this idea and again thinks that Moldbug is on the money. Leftists are Puritans. Leftism is a puritan religious cult. 

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59. And finally, a point of political philosophy certainly worth discussing. What is worse, weak or strong government? We remember that Plato's guardians are given absolute power. But doesn't absolute power corrupt absolutely? A potent theme in Moldbugean thought is that, on the contrary, it is weak governments that commit heinous acts. When a government feels threatened they round up their enemies and put them in concentration camps. Or they fail to act when action is needed, such as weak democratic governments that lack the fortitude to address debt. Plato was right about this too. Democracy floats in a sea of debt because no one will vote for necessary austerities. It thus becomes a orelude for tyranny. Better to have strong government that can act when action is warranted. This, again, is where NRx parts company with libertarians. 

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* * * 

The presenter went a full twenty minutes over time and hardly scratched the surface. There was, however, some lively discussion afterwards and the next day in another venue. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Sifting through Steiner

Rudolf Steiner

Reading the great Germanic polymath, Rudolf Steiner, is, by any measure, a challenging experience. His formal literary output is prodigious and includes a very healthy array of weighty philosophical tomes, most of them written early in his career, while the collection of transcripts of his lectures – covering the first two decades of the XXth century up to his death in 1925 – is truly vast and spans an astounding spread of topics. His complete works run to some twenty or more volumes. So in terms of sheer quantity, the boast of having “read Steiner” is a feat in itself. Reading even ten percent of Steiner is a task of several years, at least. More to the point, though, the content is especially challenging on several levels. Herr Dr Steiner is perhaps best described as an “esoteric philosopher” - to put it kindly - and much of his thinking is very esoteric indeed. Ordinary, unsuspecting folk are likely to encounter Dr Steiner through his education movement (Steiner or Waldorf Schools) or perhaps through alternative medicine (Anthroposophical Medicine) or organic farming (biodynamic agriculture) or curative homes for handicapped children, or one of many branches of the arts, or sundry cultural initiatives that are extensions of Steiner’s work, but when they first open up a book by Steiner, or more likely wade into some of his lecture transcripts, they are confronted by an intellectual world that is not only unusual or even eccentric but is, frankly, bizarre. Steiner has been, and remains, a very influential figure in modern European culture, but the intellectual foundations of his influence are strange and dense and obscure and, for most, inaccessible.

In the estimation of the present writer, who is unashamedly interested in things that are out of phase, this is something that recommends him. There are surely few thinkers who are quite so out of phase, so at odds with the pedestrian and the standard, the accepted and the prevalent, as Rudolf Steiner. Reading Steiner will certainly twist one’s world-view out of a settled complacency and remove one from the dry, comforting world of familiar ideas. His capacity to step out of the structures of modern, materialist, scientistic thought and to see the world through a very different paradigm is one of his great accomplishments, and something that betokens his genius. It is for this that the present writer has ventured into Steiner’s works at regular intervals over a period of some thirty or so years. Let it be clear: Steiner is certainly worth reading. There is really no one quite like him. He is an outstanding figure. One does not throw around the epithet “genius” too often, but there can be no question that Steiner was a genius, a man of quite extraordinary intellect, a figure of rare brilliance.

For all of that, however, he is a mixed bag. On the one hand his work is based on the very sound foundations of high German philosophy and a deep, penetrating acquaintance with the natural sciences. He made a significant contribution to epistemology in his doctoral thesis, later published as ‘The Philosophy of Freedom’. He was deeply conversant with Hegel, Kant, Schopenhauer, Schelling – the whole crew. He met Nietzche in person. As a young man – recognized for his brilliance – he was appointed as editor of the natural scientific works of Goethe. Independent of these studies, he shows remarkably original insights into an impressive range of fields in both the sciences and the arts: medicine, architecture, dance, music, sculpture, astronomy, painting, pedagogy. One can read volumes of Steiner without once encountering anything derivative.

On the other hand, much – but not all – of Steiner is infected with a highly eccentric strain of theosophical thinking even murkier and more unwholesome than that of Madam Blavatsky. This, moreover, rests not upon the foundations of Dr Steiner’s unquestionable intellectual gifts but upon loose and reckless claims of seership and “clairvoyance” and “the investigations of spiritual science”. Wedded to Steiner’s considerable and unique corpus of scientific and philosophical insight is a vast theosophical construction – dubbed ‘Anthroposophy’ – complete with Atlanteans, epochs, ages, reincarnation and complex hierarchies of spiritual beings. Further, in contrast to Blatavskean theosophy, this construction has had grafted onto it a strangely gnostic Christianity, a veritable casserole of old heresies and a host of new ones which, again, have as their sole authority Steiner’s claim to be a seer with direct access to the spiritual realms. The entire ensemble is decidedly fantastic, to say the least. This is not to say that, even then, his genius does not sometimes shine through. As baroque concoctions of gnostic Christo-theosophy go, Anthroposophy is intriguing and unusually cogent, but it is, all the same, a relic of an age when the Theosophical Society, theosophical occultism and clairvoyance were intellectual fashions. To contemporary readers this aspect of Steiner now seems unaccountably bizarre. Side by side with his brilliant philosophical and scientific insights one encounters an outlandish theosophical superstructure that goes well beyond the borders of credulity. There is the genius on the one hand, and the theosophical crank on the other. Steiner made a serious miscalculation. On the one hand he was far ahead of his time. He is now seen, rightly, as a visionary pioneer of organic farming, alternative medicine, holistic education, and much else. But he supposed that the theosophy that had become popular and respectable through the Theosophical Society was a path to the future. For a clairvoyant he showed a notable lack of foresight into the coming drift of the age. In fact, theosophy came and went as an intellectual movement and today seems spent and archaic. Steiner married his philosophy and science to it, and today that decision serves him ill.

‘Married’, in fact, is the right word in this context. One must ask, as did some of his contemporaries, how such an astute and brilliant mind as Steiner’s ever became entangled with the spiritizualizing gibberish of theosophy? The present author has pondered this question many times. Steiner’s works are replete with startling insight. There is no greater exponent of the Goethean sciences. One is surprised and delighted again and again by his understanding of nature, his capacity to think ‘outside the square’, as the saying goes. But then, it is all marred by the theosophy – or Anthroposophy – by which he frames it. How did this happen? How did such a sublime body of thought become so enmeshed in a web of theosophical nonsense? To read Steiner one must confront this problem. The gems are mired in a mountain of dross. How did this happen? What went wrong?

The answer is that he was swept along by two fashions of his day. One was the theory of evolution, which he embraced enthusiastically and of which he then gave an extended spiritual interpretation. Many other people of his day did the same, but perhaps none so thoroughly and comprehensively as Steiner. In much of his writings, and even more so in his lecture transcripts, everything is seen through the lens of evolution. It is evolution this and evolution that. The other fashion, as already noted, was theosophy, but it is important to note that his embrace of this took a particularly personal form. His second wife, Maria von Sivers, was a keen theosophist, and a key member of the German Theosophical Society. When he met her not only did he find a new companion – and one who actively assisted his work in many fields – but he also found a ready-made audience for his ideas. By his own account, his inclinations towards the spiritual were longstanding and deep. He claims that his clairvoyant powers were ripe at an early age. But, frustratingly, it was a dimension of himself about which he had to keep silent for fear of ridicule and misunderstanding. As it was, Goethe’s scientific theories were ridiculed by hard-nosed materialists. Steiner found it difficult to find an intellectual forum in which he could discuss them and be taken seriously. Maria von Sivers solved this difficulty for him. She inducted him into the Theosophical Society and there he found a receptive audience. For theosophy it was a coup. He was surely the most significant intellectual to ever join that organization. He did so in his search for an audience and – what must not be overlooked - for the love of a woman. 

The Theosophical Society, indeed, was full of intelligent, or if not intelligent then wealthy and important women. Much of its success in the sociological context of the late Victorian era and early XXth century was in that it provided a forum for women to engage with the discussion and digestion of the flood of new ideas exposed by the broader (but male-dominated) Orientalist movement. It was at an early encounter at one of Steiner’s public lectures that the then Frauline von Sivers asked him a question about the possibility of developing a fully esoteric understanding of Christianity. Steiner took to this task and eventually married the woman who had suggested it to him. With Maria von Sivers, he also married theosophy and all that it entailed, and thereafter the nature and tenor of his work changed dramatically. He openly declared his seership, quickly rose to be leader of the German Theosophical Society and gathered a following of sympathetic devotees. At length, he, Frau Steiner and his followers, split from the Theosophical Society proper – the catalyst being the Krishnamurti affair – and formed their own esoteric school, the overtly Christian Anthroposophical Society with its headquarters in Dornach in Switzerland. 

Dr Rudolf and Frau Maria Steiner 

In order to read Herr Dr Steiner today one must be aware of this background. In his early works one encounters the philosophical Steiner, then deeply embedded in the German philosophical tradition. One also encounters the Steiner who was the young genius who edited the natural scientific section of the Goethe archives. Both of these strands – philosophical and natural scientific – continue to be developed throughout his later work. He remained an unsurpassed master of German phenomenology and Goethean science. But beyond a certain date – the early years of the XXth century – it is important to realize that he is writing for and speaking to a different audience, and his outlook is now intermingled with his own idiosyncretic (and increasingly Christocentric) version of theosophy. Thereafter, he attempts a fusion, a grand amalgam, of these various influences – Schopenhauer meets Goethe meets Blavatsky meets the gnostic Jesus. 

Dr Steiner with a model of his first Goetheanum.

The first Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland. Steiner's masterpiece. The wooden building was destroyed by arson by German nationalists. 

In fairness we should note that while it is often difficult to disentangle this remarkable all-encompassing assemblage, the idea of freedom prevails throughout, and his work in various fields of the sciences and the arts is, in theory at least, independent of Anthroposophy. He was not a polemicist. He seems to have appreciated that some people might want the Goethe without the theosophical frame. He offers his ideas no-strings-attached. One does not need to be an Anthroposophist dedicated to nurturing the fifth post-Atlantean epoch to see the good sense in many of his ideas about teaching and pedagogy. Nor does one need to be anticipating the reappearance of the Christ-Being in the etheric realm to take advantage of biodynamic agriculture. In the best instances, Steiner kept his Anthroposophy and his Goethe somewhat separate. The agriculture course he gave to farmers, and his astronomy course, are examples. Both masterpieces of Goethean science, they are relatively free of clap-trap. In other cases, though, readers need to carefully separate the inter-mingled strands in order to disinfect his works of the material directed at an audience with a theosophical world-view. One needs to remove Frau Steiner, that is to say. To be frank, women of the Theosophical era often led very able men astray. Even today, perfectly sensible men can be intellectually hobbled by New Age women appealing to the supposed feminine virtue of intuition against the allegedly hardened masculinity of reason. In order to read Steiner it is necessary to divorce him from Maria von Sivers and imagine where he may have taken his genius if he had not married a theosophist. This, and some compensations for the over-played spiritual Darwinism. It is not always easy.  It requires judicious reading. One might need to mentally edit out every second paragraph. It is what makes reading Steiner such a challenge. 

STEINER'S BLACKBOARD DRAWINGS

In almost all cases, though, it is a challenge worth undertaking. Let us reiterate: Rudolf Steiner was a man of exceptional talents who has made a remarkable contribution to modern European culture. He planted valuable seeds. He was not a hack or a charlatan. It is a great pity - arguably one of the intellectual tragedies of the modern era - that he became entangled with the pseudo-spirituality of theosophy. He is a much diminished figure for this. But then, what else could he have done? Such a man, so out of phase but with so much to offer, needs to find a receptive audience somewhere if he is not to waste away in lonely obscurity. And who can blame a man for hitching his wagon to a supportive woman? And, in any case, it is surprising how often it is rewarding to persist with even the most bizarre of Steiner's utterances, to suspend disbelief, and follow his line of insight to its conclusion. The present writer can remember many occasions where his response to reading Steiner was to marvel at what an unexpected and downright weird yet strangely fresh and compelling point of view Steiner presented. Even the bizarre in Steiner makes its mark. 

Much of his scientific work is an extended extrapolation of traditional cosmology seen through the illuminating lens of modern science and deserves particular attention. At the core of it is his conception of the 'threefold man' which has its roots in Plato and other ancient and venerable traditions but which Herr Dr Steiner explores deep into the physical constitution of the human body. Indeed, this is the most impressive aspect of Steiner: while Jung and countless others proposed a bridge between modern science and spirituality in psychology - on the basis of a confusion of psyche and pneuma - Steiner found it rather in biology. This is a great accomplishment in itself, and this alone makes Steiner worth reading. The Steiner perspective is inherently alchemical in this respect. The physical sciences, the study of matter and life, is the place of the spirit. But readers must expect to have to sift Steiner's words as they go. It can be frustrating. Why does he pollute his genius with this rot? one keeps asking. The important thing is not to be put off by the task of sorting the wheat from the chaff. The wheat, when you locate it, is exceptionally high grade. 

One further point of appreciation. We live, according to Steiner, in what he calls a "consciousness soul age" and our spiritual constitution is quite different today than how it was in the past. This follows from his account of the 'evolution of consciousness'. Accordingly, yesterday's solutions will no longer suffice for tomorrow. This is rather over-cooked in much of Steiner, but the present writer has come to appreciate the wisdom of this general proposition much more than in the past. This is especially so in response to the raging popularity of what we might call 'neo-shamanism' and more generally 'neo-primitivism' in alternative spirituality circles today. See a previous post on this issue, 'The Primitive is not the Primordial', here. The spectacle of modern people taking up the primitive mode as a 'path' is a symptom of troubling times. Steiner, at least, knew that much. We cannot go back to a lost past. Modern man is made of very different stuff to the Stone Age shaman. The 'consciousness soul' of modern man - an entirely new arrangement of inside and outside - is a mode in itself, and a legitimate spirituality must find meaning in it. In this present age many paths which served people well in the past are closed or dead ends or else are full of specters and demons. We can only marched forwards, come what may. We cannot evade the consequences of the 'consciousness soul'. There is no way back. 

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black