Social Matter

Not Your Grandfather's Conservatism

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Yearly Archive: 2014

Thursday

4

September 2014

20

COMMENTS

Why I’m Not a Neoreactionary

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I was going to kick off this post with all manner of unkind caricatures of my fellow travellers on the Right. Was going to call them all sorts of names: D&D nerds, Quixotes, hipsters, crypto-libertarians. The works. But then I decided trafficking in such obvious hyperboles for the shock value of it was beneath my dignity as a contributor to an august and venerable publication like Social Matter. And besides, even though I’m relatively new to the scene and I haven’t exactly made it through the canon, the neoreactionaries I’ve interacted with are to a man good guys. It turns […]

Wednesday

3

September 2014

5

COMMENTS

Sucker Of The Summer: Timothy Stanley

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How curious it is that Timothy Stanley popped up on so many of “our” radars with his evenhanded biography of Pat Buchanan back in 2012. Dr. Stanley even wrote a little piece for Takimag designed to boost sales, and James Kirkpatrick of Vdare gave it a (measuredly) positive review. A conservative, Catholic, British historian who seemed to have a soft spot for Pat Buchanan – what wasn’t there to like? Next thing I knew he had only clichéd and left-y things to say about the “Dark Enlightenment” back when everyone and their mom was writing about us. The winning line […]

Wednesday

3

September 2014

4

COMMENTS

Rotherham: Holiness And Stuff British People Like

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Alternative title. Rotherham: There Still Is No Such Thing As Cultural Marxism. Alternative title. The Brits Are A Holy People. The Brits are a holy people. In fact, you will not find a holier people. Modern feminism emerged from Britain, spurred on by J.S. Mill. Universal rights. Poor laws. Tolerance. Equality. Individualism. The Magna Carta. No More Taxes, King John. Liberalism. Liberalism. Liberalism, again. Britain was fertile soil for the development of natural rights, and although their philosophical roots precede John Locke and are brilliantly expounded by the Salamanca School, the scholastics in Spain, the Spanish were not the sort […]

Tuesday

2

September 2014

3

COMMENTS

A Public Beauty Deficit

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When you travel in European cities that are older than modernity, and contrast them with modern cities, the difference in both scale and in public decoration is stark. In modern cities, the trend is to have no recognizable human features to any of the buildings or public decorations. Where there is representational art, it tends to be fractured like a Soviet collage, in Socialist-Realist style (especially if it dates to the New Deal era), or intentionally mimicking the primitive art styles of African or Native American art. What’s absent from modernist cities (and the interiors of modern homes) is, with […]

Saturday

30

August 2014

1

COMMENTS

The Signalling Caliph: Neoreaction, Iraq, And The Islamic State

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Following the Vice documentary on life under the Islamic State, lots of questions are being asked regarding the propaganda being put out by the servants of Caliph Ibrahim, particularly since it is considered some of the most sophisticated promotion of radical Islamism ever seen. I want to talk about how neoreaction may be better placed to understand the recent propaganda campaigns since it is generally more aware of the divide which lies between the progressive mindset (in both its left and ostensibly right wing manifestations) and, well, pretty much everyone else in the world. Specifically, this awareness gives us clarity in understanding what […]

Thursday

28

August 2014

3

COMMENTS

About the Decay of Bourgeois Values

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‘Rape culture’ is a concept in contemporary feminism that states that it’s a culture in which women are taught to avoid situations in which they might be raped, instead of a culture that primarily concerns itself with training men to stop being sexually aggressive. One reason why this argument has become so popular (other than all the government money dedicated to advancing it) is that this basic position is part of what makes civilization distinct. Civilized men are civilized because they observe a sophisticated etiquette regulating their sexual behavior, usually codified in law. Tribal cultures without written law still have […]

Wednesday

27

August 2014

1

COMMENTS

Sic Semper (Anarcho) Tyrannis.

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The rule of law obtains in fewer and fewer arenas of American life and for thinner and thinner strata of the population. It’s receding. Rule of law doesn’t leave behind a vacuum as it recedes, though. We have various replacement schemes already taking hold: rule of corporate interest, rule of the bureaucrat, rule of mob outrage, rule of judicial fiat, executive order, selective enforcement, and so on. The sites at which these schemes contend are chaotic. Sometimes these upheavals produce dramatic blooms of jurdicial topsy-turviness. Our Internal Revenue Service, for instance, decides to adhere to even the most microscopic detail […]

Tuesday

26

August 2014

10

COMMENTS

A Practical Handbook For Deconstruction

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The point of the guide is to provide an onslaught of material efficiently packaged. Each one of these modules can be expanded out into multiple essays—books, even, but they’re sufficient for brutal effectiveness. Apply liberally. Some of them are more serious than others. Some are just plain ridiculous—don’t begrudge me my fun. I expect not to be called out on my failure to pass the ideological turing test on some of the modules, mostly because (1) I understand I didn’t pass, and (2) the purpose of not passing is because deconstruction on multiple levels is possible, given that your opponent […]

Monday

25

August 2014

0

COMMENTS

The Ruins Of Atlantis

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This was a place and time of prosperity It was no wrong to extend all equal charity The people traded, exchanged, and played Never thinking their age just numbered days   The city first grew within a golden wall And though initially its towers were small Soon kings paid homage from all around Not even a starving beggar to be found   The people styled themselves gods of this world Masters of fate, rulers of all powers unfurled They bought into the crafty serpent’s lie Forsaking the task of pushing back the tide   The ocean grew and soon broke […]

Friday

22

August 2014

7

COMMENTS

The Beauty Bubble

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In the occidental world today, beauty is perhaps more concentrated than it has ever been anywhere in all of human history.  That is to say, large swaths of the most beautiful women, at the peak of their nubile physical allure and residual fertility, take pilgrimages to cities and universities which densely cluster their beauty for a select group of men. For previous generations, especially before the last century, beauty was much differently allocated.  Without urbanization and quick transportation, people mostly stayed put.  A well-reputed, successful man would pick from the handful of beautiful women in his town or village.  The […]