Social Matter

G. K. Chesterton—a reactionary hero of mine and someone I try my best to imitate when I write rambling essays about whatever old thing that happens to cross my mind—took his subtitles seriously. (Well, as seriously as he took anything.) In one of his articles, the one published in the London News the day before he died in fact, he wrote that “those who endure the heavy labour of reading a book might possibly endure that of reading the title-page of a book.” He was talking to literary critics in particular, whom he suggested “might solve many of their problems about what a book is, merely by discovering what it professes to be.”

I found that bit of advice particularly useful when I sat down to read and review Michael Anissimov’s A Critique of Democracy, the subtitle of which is A Guide for Neoreactionaries. (This book is what we in the business call a “slim, elegant volume,” clocking in at 129 pages in paperback. You could read it in a sitting if you have a few hours to spare, and you can get the e-book for a nominal $6.99, so I don’t know why you wouldn’t.) At first, a few of the characteristics of the book perplexed me. There is a rapid fire quality to some of the sections, for instance, and abrupt changes in approach between them. Anissimov will draw on a historical anecdote to illustrate a particular shortcoming of democratic politics. And then in the very next paragraph he’ll come at the problem not only from a different angle but from a different area of study as well, like the social sciences or evolutionary psychology. I suppose, being the slow-walking Southerner that I am, I expect critiques to elaborate slowly and steadily and with a certain level of stylistic ornamentation. But the Critique of Democracy seemed positively segmented, moving from one discrete mini-critique to another without much fanfare or ado.

This strategy makes perfect sense for a guidebook, though. If I’m lost in the woods and thumbing furiously through a survival manual, I don’t want to hear amusing stories from the author’s childhood or have to work my way through a couple paragraphs of aside. I want direct access to the necessary information, which is exactly what Anissimov provides. The very first chapter lays out in both extended and “sound bite” form the nine major strikes Anissimov will allege against democracy. The following chapters two through eight elaborate those points. Then the ninth and final chapter discusses what possible alternatives to democracy might exist. If you take this book as what it “professes to be,” then, it’s well structured and enviably efficient.

Some parts of Anissimov’s critique are more convincing than others, by my lights at least. The fourth chapter “Incentives in Democracy,” is one that I know I’ll revisit. It’s a thorough exploration of the ways in which the principles of democratic governance promote the exact sort of short-term, selfish thinking that you don’t want in your ruling class. And it brings to the table some insights that had never before crossed my mind. The chapter on “Wealth Issues,” by comparison, seems a little underdeveloped. The premise of that section, namely that wealthy inequality is not ipso facto an evil, rings absolutely true. But Anissimov seems to dismiss anti-wealth-inequality as propaganda or jealously (he elsewhere admits this chapter was a bit of a “rant”), giving no air time to more sophisticated arguments about how the particular character of contemporary wealth inequality exacerbates social pathologies, not to mention plays havoc with our already ailing political processes.

All in all, though, the book is exactly the tour de force it was intended to be. It covers tremendous ground. It shows an impressive command of disparate scholarly fields. And it contains a lot of trademark neoreactionary concerns: primate behavior, time preference, the importance of the cognitive elite, etc. It didn’t ever feel, however, like it was simply retreading old ground. It offers these essential “NRx” arguments with conviction and freshness. Anyone who wants to understand the dimensions of this philosophy (at least as it relates to politics) would be well served by giving this text a read through.

Anissimov’s writing is competent and functional. He rarely rises to poetry (which isn’t to say I didn’t like that “Darwinian coin” line), but he never muddies the waters, either. He makes his points out of straightforward language, with a matter-of-fact tone, and in an organized fashion. He even employs the royal “we” throughout, which lends to the proceedings that air of disinterested authority you’d expect from a serious proponent of monarchy. In short, Anissimov has a perfectly suitable style for a guidebook. He foregrounds the content and draws very little attention to himself as the author.

As far as I’m concerned, neoreactionary thought at its worst overemphasizes the ideological realm. It reifies Left and Right—or Progressive and Reactionary—in ways that obscure rather than uncover the etiologies of our contemporary neuroses. It reasons from the ideology to the facts on the ground, and it tends to lose a lot of nuance in the process. Neoreactionary thought at its best, on the other hand, works in the opposite direction. And when it does it’s certainly something to behold. It takes some pious platitude of our day—say “gender equality” or the myth of moral progress—and holds it up against the realities of history, of science, of human nature, exposing all of the myriad ways in which our understanding of these realities have to be truncated, distorted, or outright ignored in order to accommodate the demands of our official ideals. It exposes the inadequacies of current ideologies. It leads sacred cows ineluctably onto the kill floor.

Anissimov’s book, in this scheme, is certainly an example of neoreactionary thought at its best. He sets out to discredit idea of democracy, which as he points out is granted in these United States an almost religious devotion, and he goes after it with a gusto. I’d even call Critique a microcosm of the entire neoreactionary project: it’s a relentlessly intellectual attack aimed at an emotional soft spot on our collective psyche. As such, it fits the bill of a guide for aspiring reactionaries, both in content and as a model. I could even see it producing in non-reactionaries (of a sufficiently intellectual bent) that moment of aporia that’s crucial to the eventual rejection of the bromides of modernity. Purchase this book to bone up your budding anti-democratic sentiment, or for that friend in whom you’d like to see such sentiment take root. You’ll find it useful in the former application and at the very least amusing in the latter.