Hello everybody. I swore off this forum for the time being, yet I drop by now to deliver to you the following link:
http://www.vocativ.com/12-2013/dark-enlightenment-creepy-internet-movement-youd-better-take-seriously/They are on to us.
They know exactly who we are and what we stand for. It's something that many of you already knew, but it being stated in such explicit terms on a hack website such as this seems unprecedented. It seems as though they are no longer content with ignoring us, but are now beginning the process of making the masses aware of us and anathematizing us.
To summarize the article, it sets out to define "us" - everybody who is against modern society and traces its abominations at least as far back as the so-called "Enlightenment" - as a sinister cult. The hack author chose to make us analogous to the "Sith" - the representation of "Evil" (I put quotation marks around it because I doubt the representation is orthodox/correct) in the Star Wars films. I want to alert you right away to the contempt that these men have for the masses and how that contempt is manifested throughout this article, and that by choosing to explain something to the masses in such a childish way, referring to a pop-culture production, is their way of sneering at their audience.
The Dark Enlightenment: The Creepy Internet Movement You’d Better Take Seriously
They may believe in the Dark Side of the Force, but these Sith Lords aren't joking around.
Blossoming on the Internet like a fetid rose, a mysterious new political movement has generated a serious and not un-terrifying critique of modern society. Its members are loud and growing in number, and they demand nothing less than the elimination of the democratic system. Mostly white, male and angry, they lie in wait for the imminent collapse of civilization.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Dark Enlightenment. The Empire is striking back.
Right away you can see the mocking and intentionally puerile tone of the article. It serves two purposes: to explain things in a way that their audience, which they contemn, can understand, and to make us look similarly childish. More important than the tone of the article, however, is the choice of words.
"The Dark Enlightenment". I already sense an aura of gnosticism in the article. They are referring here to the 17-18th century "Enlightenment" (they will refer to it explicitly later in the article), which we all know was but the setting of the sun on Christian Europe and the beginning of the dusk of liberalism and modernism; which they want to maintain was the start of a great new era when "man finally threw off the shackles of religious superstition and embraced science and reason, ushering in an age of technological advancement and human flourishing".
"The Creepy Internet Movement You'd Better Take Seriously". The use of "creepy" and "you'd better take seriously" are part of the hip, vapid tone of the article that is used to address its popular audience. "Internet Movement" is a way of discrediting us as slovenly hobbyists who are divorced from reality, something that I've noticed, during my short interval here, that the resident
ggreg likes to insist on (excuse me for that snide remark
ggreg, but I am only anticipating a response from you).
They are setting up the Form, the Gnosis, the Geist of our entire position. They are twisting it and implanting it in the minds of men as the truth, which is largely how, I believe, Satan operates. They are going to make us a sinister but obscure presence, that is the mind-reality that they are going to sow into the "collective consciousness" (again, here is the gnosticism). Just as they've made the word "muslim" mean "terrorist" and "misogynist" and "fundamentalist" in said "collective consciousness", they are going to make us "creepy internet cult" - at least for the time being; perhaps they will have to invent a more different image for us if we become more of a threat to
them.
"Blossoming on the Internet like a fetid rose". This tickles my sense as well. It brings Rosicrucianism to the mind.
Their knowledge is the beautiful and true rose,
ours is the fetid. I can be accused of drawing comparisons and allusions that aren't there, but I would always err on the side of extreme vigilance on these matters.
"Its members are loud and growing in number, and they demand nothing less than the elimination of the democratic system. Mostly white, male and angry, they lie in wait for the imminent collapse of civilization." This serves to brand us with the title of
extremist. "White, male and angry" serves to cast us as being "racist" and having "psychological
issues". The indoctrination process is well under way . . .
Much as Christianity grew out of the cult-sodden ferment of the Roman-occupied Middle East, the Dark Enlightenment has sprouted from the hyper-anxious anti-liberalism precincts in the darker recesses of the Internet.
So we’ve dug deep into the Web, where the movement lurks. We’ve talked online to its philosopher king, Nick Land, and we’ve conversed with his faceless adherents.
You'll notice that they subtly begin to attack Christianity here. That continues in the article. Apparently Christianity grew out of the pagan cults of Rome. No, it didn't grow out of the tradition of the House of Israel passed down by the prophets, and no, it wasn't intensely against Roman idolatry from the very beginning - it was itself, apparently, a product of such heathenry. They also are beginning to link "us" - all those that are against modernism and modern society - as being of a Christian strain, and of course they are right.
"in the darker recesses of the Internet". The use of dark/light symbolism continues. Of course, what they call light we call dark, and what they call dark we call light. I will interject with my own voice here to declare that their light is of Lucifer, and ours is of the true God, and that when they, by implication, call our God
darkness they are blaspheming horribly. Of course, this blasphemy is planted in the article very subtly - something that is done
everywhere in popular culture - in order to seduce their audience to sin without them realizing it.
"We’ve talked online to its philosopher king, Nick Land, and we’ve conversed with his faceless adherents." The use of "philosopher king" interests me (at this point you can see that I'm interested in just about everything in this article, and I think you ought to be also). It's a reference to Plato, who is not very far removed from gnosticism. Nick Land is a British Philosopher whose work I am not aware of, but I do not think it is that important that we know it. It'll be revealed later in the article just who we, these "faceless adherents", are. I also wonder how they chose to converse with these faceless ones. Perhaps by forum shilling?
Curiously, they have under this paragraph a diagram linking various subsections of our "movement" together, and the names associated with them. I see this as a kind of nod to us, saying, "we are tracking you very closely". I doubt that this forum has or that this very thread will slip under their radar.
Here’s a quick FAQ sheet on the nascent movement:
What is the Dark Enlightenment? As the term suggests, the Dark Enlightenment is an ideological analysis of modern democracy that harshly rejects the vision of the 18th century European Enlightenment—a period punctuated by the development of empirical science, the rise of humanist values and the first outburst of revolutionary democratic reform. In contrast, the Dark Enlightenment advocates an autocratic and neo-monarchical society. Its belief system is unapologetically reactionary, almost feudal.
The many bloggers who constitute the movement style themselves as “Dark Lords of the Sith,” self-described fearless truth-tellers, who—mixing their cinematic metaphors—offer Matrix-evocative “red pills” of awakening in the form of sulfurous conclusions about the state of the world. Indeed, questioning the prevailing Western narrative is typically a Dark Enlightenment writer’s modus operandi, skewering the values of the liberal establishment.
"As the term suggests, the Dark Enlightenment is an ideological analysis of modern democracy that harshly rejects the vision of the 18th century European Enlightenment". Personally, I don't think the term suggests that at all. To me it suggests gnosticism, but I suppose we ought grant them the right to define their own terms. "Harshly rejects" - how indecent of us, to be
harsh and to
reject.
"a period punctuated by the development of empirical science, the rise of humanist values and the first outburst of revolutionary democratic reform." The valorizing of their false creed. I note in particular their using the term "revolutionary" as a term of praise, quite common but I do not think it is universal among the popular media. It does confirm a suspicion of mine that they are now fermenting a revolutionary mindset among the masses, similar to how they did in the 60s to begin the "sɛҳuąƖ revolution". I wonder what they are up to . . .
"the Dark Enlightenment advocates an autocratic and neo-monarchical society. Its belief system is unapologetically reactionary, almost feudal." Oh stop, you're making me blush. "
Almost feudal", hahaha.
"The many bloggers who constitute the movement style themselves as “Dark Lords of the Sith,” self-described fearless truth-tellers, who—mixing their cinematic metaphors—offer Matrix-evocative “red pills” of awakening in the form of sulfurous conclusions about the state of the world." OK, I do go to 4chan - NOT a place I recommend by any means, at least not eight tenths of it - and in one of its sections, "/pol/ - politically incorrect", the use of the term "redpill" is ubiquitous and is used to describe something that reveals the truth about society (its domination by a Jєωιѕн elite, most commonly), and somebody that is "redpilled" is somebody who is awakened to this truth(s) (I will note, in defence of /pol/, that it is not entirely Hitlerian. There was a thread just yesterday whose topic was, "Jesus Christ is the ultimate redpill".) It is indeed a reference to the film
The Matrix, where the main character is forced to choose between a redpill which will wake him up to reality, and a bluepill which will make him forget that he ever had to make the choice and that will allow him to remain in his fantasyland (hence, on /pol/, somebody that is "bluepilled" is your typical liberal that accepts the status quo presented in the media). However, I have never seen anybody style themselves as "Dark Lords of the Sith", so I do not know whether that is the article's author's own invention or not, though I would guess that it is.
Where does the term Dark Enlightenment come from? Inspired by the pugnacious writings of Mencius Moldbug, the prolific blogger who serves as the movement’s unofficial center of gravity, the neologism is the creation of philosopher Nick Land. In 2012, Land wrote an impressively thorough manifesto titled simply The Dark Enlightenment, which boldly articulates the movement’s central thesis: “For the hardcore neo-reactionaries, democracy is not merely doomed, it is doom itself. Fleeing it approaches an ultimate imperative.” The essay continues, ”[Neo-reaction] conceives the dynamics of democratization as fundamentally degenerative: systematically consolidating and exacerbating private vices, resentments, and deficiencies until they reach the level of collective criminality and comprehensive social corruption.” No, this isn’t your grandpa’s conservatism. (Unless your grandpa was General Franco.)
OK, so this term is not of the author's own invention, yet I still would not retract my earlier statements because of the way he fixates on this particular term which must be quite obscure as it's the first time I've come across it.
As for Mr. Moldbug? Yes, he does exist, and no, that is not his real name. (That would be Curtis Yarvin.) You can find plenty of photos and video that docuмent his many conference appearances. Mostly, though, Moldbug—who lives in the San Francisco area and works in the software industry—blogs and blogs and blogs.
Underneath this paragraph is a peculiar picture of a typical card from a trading card game.
It says the following:
Nick Land
- a picture showing a bearded man in strange clothing performing some kind of magic or spell -
Techno-Futurist Xeno-Philosopher
"Where the progressive enlightenment sees political ideals, the Dark enlightenment sees appetites. It accepts that governments are made out of people, and that they will eat well. Setting its expectations as low as reasonably possible, it seeks only to spare civilization from frenzied, ruinous, gluttonous debauch. How can the sovereign power be prevented - or at least dissuaded - from devouring society? It consistently finds democratic 'solutions' risible, at best."
Ability: Shadow Out of Time Forges occult pact between past & future, tradition & innovation. Target is erased from time.
Clearly this Nick Land is not of us, even if the article misrepresents him to an extent. He seems like your typical false prophet - mixing a truth (that modern society is wicked) with a lie (that the solution is some secular rearrangement of power among the establishment and not a return to spiritual truths, i.e. Christianity). That they portray him as occult is worthy of notice.
What do they believe? Post-red pill awakening, liberal progressivism is seen as a state religion, an unquestioned humanist ideology that determines all outcomes and silences dissenters through dismissal. It’s a worldview generated and sustained by the mechanisms of the system itself. Moldbug has given that system the ecclesiastical label of the Cathedral. Seeing the Cathedral for what it is marks the first step to becoming darkly enlightened.
What is the Cathedral? According to Land and Moldbug, the Cathedral is a complex ideology network built atop the university system, the media (run and operated by graduates of the former) and employees of the bureaucracy, all of whom grow ever more dependent on the perpetuation of the Cathedral. The leveling mechanisms of democracy—with its race-to-the-bottom vote begging (buying) and illusions of social empowerment—remove any possibility of inventive political solutions, or, eventually, rational analysis. Inside the Cathedral, any questioning of democracy’s legitimacy is sacrilege. Before long, apostates will find penance by buying indulgences (like, say, Obamacare), whether they like it or not.
Another trading card for the man Moldbug. It details his proud "reactionaryism" (reactionary is a term that nobody of the truth ought use, in my opinion, not even ironically or defiantly in spite of fact that its propaganda term used by the liberals / progressivists). He also points to Carlyle as his man, his source of truth and tradition. Carlyle is no Messiah, so clearly this man is another false prophet.
Why pay attention to a niche movement of political extremists who pine for the good old days of European feudalism? Because these guys mean business. The Dark Enlightenment’s desire to raze the democratic edifice of modern civilization opens the movement to darker and more subversive views. Nowhere is this more evident than its focus on human biodiversity, or HBD in insider parlance.
What is HBD? Human biodiversity is the rejection of the “blank state” of human nature. Creepily obsessed with statistics that demonstrate IQ differences between the races, the darkly enlightened see social hierarchies as determined not by culture or opportunity but by the cold, hard destiny embedded in DNA. One blogger calls it “The Voldemort View” (adding Harry Potter to the Star Wars/Matrix mix), claiming that, “mean differences in group IQs are the most likely explanation for the academic achievement gap in racial and SES [socioeconomic status] groups.”
Another card, this time for the "HBD chick". The cards show succintly how they are branding us with a manufactured image.
Cue the adherents of The Bell Curve, eugenics enthusiasts, believers in white supremacy and sympathizers of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. In the Dark Enlightenment, we seem to have stumbled across a place where pseudo-intellectually grounded racism is flourishing in a way it hasn’t since before World War II.
In our discussion, Land was explicit in his view on this: ”HBD, broadly conceived, is simply a fact. It is roughly as questionable, on intellectual grounds, as biological evolution or the heliocentric model of the solar system. No one who takes the trouble to educate themselves on the subject with even a minimum of intellectual integrity can doubt that.”
Unsurprisingly, the Dark Lords of the Sith despise modernity’s preoccupation with “equality,” viewing it as a triumph of democratic ideology over science.
Did I mention that almost all of the darkly enlightened are white men?
Is this fascism? Desire for genetically determined ruling classes, distrust of popular democratic reform, distaste for the aesthetic standards of mass culture, and nausea over the political correctness of modern life—the Dark Enlightenment does have all the markings of a true neo-fascist movement. It’s here that the dangers of the Dark Enlightenment are hard to dismiss.
We are racists, we hate equality! Aren't we such damnable heretics?
Why am I saying "we"? You'll see soon.
I asked Land the fascism question, specifically. His response was illuminating: “The Dark Enlightenment is the only cultural space promising an intelligent discussion of fascism today. Even though this discussion remains very germinal, the best fascist and anti-fascist arguments are to be found within its environs.” But he adds, “Speaking entirely personally, I think the DE is the only coherent antidote to fascist thinking presently available.” While he didn’t articulate how an anti-democratic, racially charged, anti-modern, authoritarian political movement could be, in any way, anti-fascist, he’s a bright enough guy. I’m sure he has an answer.
What is their blind spot? My immersion into the hermetic truths of the Sith Lords left me wondering what exactly they saw as so disastrous about modern society. The world is richer, healthier, less poor, less violent, and able to access more information than ever before. Even in the developed West, in America, the very Vatican of The Cathedral, poverty and economic turbulence cause less death and suffering than they did only decades ago. And Europe, despite its recent near-economic collapse and massive unemployment, looks more like a comfortable, retired continent than a truly suffering one. None of which is to deny or minimize the problems of modern society. It’s only to suggest that the solution may not be a return to monarchy and rigid racial castes. Anyone read much about how great things were in 14th century Europe?
Could the Dark Enlightenment become a major political movement? Probably not. To acquire momentum in the real world, the systems of modern democratic capitalism would have to suffer a blow far more damaging than any received so far. If it does, the members of the Dark Enlightenment believe they will be in position to take over.
For now, though, the Dark Enlightenment will remain an archipelago of diverse worldviews—Catholic fundamentalism, xenophobic ethno-Nationalism, techno-singulatarian futurism, neofascism—united mostly by their disavowal of modernity. And maybe a little alienation. White alpha-males aren’t what they used to be.
But if the movement is diffuse and barely organized, its members are smart and riled up. And it’s no coincidence that Dark Enlightenment advocates would be the ones to rule (again) should their philosophy become dominant.
"While he didn’t articulate how an anti-democratic, racially charged, anti-modern, authoritarian political movement could be, in any way, anti-fascist, he’s a bright enough guy." More indoctrination, branding us ith those scarewords.
"My immersion into the hermetic truths of the Sith Lords . . .". Just pointing out the use of "hermetic" here, they view US as a gnostic cult, when it is OUR claim that we are the ones fighting against the gnostic cults like Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ that dominate society. They are inverting the truth.
"The world is richer, healthier, less poor, less violent, and able to access more information than ever before. Even in the developed West, in America, the very Vatican of The Cathedral, poverty and economic turbulence cause less death and suffering than they did only decades ago." No mention of the decline of religion and culture in general.
"And Europe, despite its recent near-economic collapse and massive unemployment, looks more like a comfortable, retired continent than a truly suffering one." Lol.
"It’s only to suggest that the solution may not be a return to monarchy and rigid racial castes. Anyone read much about how great things were in 14th century Europe?". They do not mention that there was more to the 14th century than feudalism, such as the Catholic Church.
"For now, though, the Dark Enlightenment will remain an archipelago of diverse worldviews—Catholic fundamentalism, xenophobic ethno-Nationalism, techno-singulatarian futurism, neofascism—united mostly by their disavowal of modernity. And maybe a little alienation. White alpha-males aren’t what they used to be." They you go folks, "Catholic fundamentalism", you've been named and shamed! That's what the media is going to be referring to you as in the upcoming years! Of course, our views are us just being upset white guys and have no basis in reality. Oh the white man, always the demon - will he ever stop with his raping and his pillaging and his genocides? As you can see also, we're being lumped in with a bunch of false prophets / secularists who have a tenuous association with us in that we both despise modernism.
What’s the verdict? In the end, the Dark Enlightenment should be taken seriously at least by anyone interested in contemporary political thought; its beliefs are reasonably argued and its leading writers can be an engrossing read. And it is becoming increasingly evident that major structural reform, maybe radical in nature, could be what America requires if it is to continue to flourish in the 21st century.
Still, something essential is always left out of the neoreactionary equation. Universal equality and classical democracy are not synonymous with an all-purpose, lowest-common-denominator leveling of mankind. Rather, they speak only to an existential fairness in which each of us has the right to value, direct and make meaning of our own lives.
May the Force be with you.
It's nice that they flatter us at the end, after a bout of mockery.
"Universal equality and classical democracy are not synonymous with an all-purpose, lowest-common-denominator leveling of mankind. Rather, they speak only to an existential fairness in which each of us has the right to value, direct and make meaning of our own lives." Existential fairness? They are wondrously clever in inventing obfuscating terminology. It's a particular irony that use the term "leveling" (which is from Kierkegaard) and contrast it with "existential" (which is also from Kierkegaard, so I do not see how they ought to oppose/contrast one and other). "Direct and make meaning of our own lives", or, as Aleister Crowley puts it, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Existentialism is now a dated philosophy that is not, nor has it ever been, a satisfying philosophy at all, and that the establishment is trying still to use it as a palliative medicine for the weary, nihilistic, purposeless youths who sorely need religion but have been told that religion is dumb and behind the times, is very
cruel.
"May the Force be with you." And God bless you, heathen.
Here's the picture they have at the bottom of the article.
Quite gnostic.
I can definitely see how one could think that this is just one independent websites excursion into a corner of the internet, and that it has no bearing on wider society. However, I think that would be naive. These things don't start cropping up by accident. I'm sure that in the near future there we will be referenced in popular culture.
Well, that concludes folks. They are on to us, they know that we are here. They are stitching us together with atheists and materialists, but that's all part of their plan to stifle us, to get us arguing with others who are foreign to our cause in every way but the superificial way that we are all "anti-modern".
Divide & Conquer. Well, this ought not to worry us one bit, because we do not put our trust in the media or in the political or finanical establishment "coming to their senses". We know that Satan is the god of this world and will continue to be worshipped by those
up there, those that Satan himself has enthroned. We put our trust in Christ, in his Judgement. We know that his Judgement is coming, and that those that worshipped the beast will be forced to worship at our knees once their persecution of us in this life has come to an end.
Behold, I will make them of the ѕуηαgσgυє of Satan, which say they are Jєωs, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.
Topic: They are on to us. (Read 2095 times)