This Week In Reaction (2016/05/15)

Social Pathologist is excellent here: The Left, White Nationalism and the 1488’ers.

As advertisers have long noted, positive associations with a product are far more effective in selling it than a logical explanation of its virtues. What has hampered the Right in its battles against the Left is the traditionalist anthropological fallacy which saw people as rational actors instead of cognitive misers. The Right, in trying to combat the Left, has perused a strategy a logically refuting through data and argument on the assumption that ideas will prevail.

He has a must read quote from Sam Francis about this. NRx makes no claim to primacy in observing this phenomenon. Slumlord continues:

The way to control the masses is not though the mind but through the primal limbic drives, and the Left, for all its talk of rationality, has recognised this fact, and pragmatically always concentrated its efforts on getting the proletariat to “feel the strength” of its arguments instead of logically assessing them. Hence the aim of the Left has been to positively align its objectives with positive limbic sensations and hence the importance of its ideas and its causes being cool, hip, compassionate and trendy are more than them being factually correct. And its approach, I believe, has gone a long way towards its triumph over conservatism. Conditioning, not argument, is the way to sway the masses.

Recognizing this fact, recognizing that this is always how the vast masses of human society (cognitive misers) have been governed, how shall the Right respond?

Jim has only two articles this week, but big ones. First up: Libertarianism.

Libertarianism works provided you have fences, and often enough you also need rentacops and vicious junk yard dogs to make libertarianism work. And it is the only thing that does work to make a modern economy function – apart from terror and mass murder, and terror and mass murder does not work nearly as well as libertarianism and fences.

So… a libertarianism for the owner and not the owned. Also from Jim: Shit tests are designed to be passed.

Atavisionary has a blast from the past in Star Trek: Voyager’s anti-false rape allegation episode. No really. And a pretty satisfying snarkfest with the entire Star Trek enterprise (har har!) while he’s at it. He sees this as inconsistent with Star Trek’s otherwise impeccable record of lefty bias. I’m not entirely sure about that, as I have a hard time recalling what the standard prog line was on “Always believe the putative rape victim” in 1998. But Seven of Nine was really beautiful doe.

Picking up where Landry leaves off (more on that below), Nick Land adds a healthy dose of poetic license War is God. Related (perhaps unintentionally): Giovanni Dannato takes a (not too distantly) futuristic view of secession in Neo-Tribal Mercantilism.

Also from Land, a cyber-security related Quote Note from John McAfee.

Reactionary Future has a brief head-shake at Liberal stupidity. We all deserve one of those every once in a while. And in another note, he considers the installation of Trumpenfürer as having Zero chance of success. Probably true, but the Cathedral has been burning the seed corn to stay warm for quite a while now.

RF also has a bit of analysis of Division of power zombies. More on that subject here.

Filed under Possibly Talking Past Each Other, RF takes Nick Land to task On Republicanism. Related: Constitutional Sovcorp… What? Not sure who in The Reaction is talking about that.

Finally, RF takes some excellent high-octane theory tracts from Mr. Scientism public in Normative, Punitive and Coercive states.

Speaking of languages, Nydwracu digs up Who doesn’t speak English at home? In America that is. Filed under Pictures Painting a Thousand Words: All you need to know about Sweden in one map. I won’t spoil it for ye. (But surprised to see Spanish so popular in Finland, though.)

Also in Nyd’s Notes: “That was disgusting! Osama is a freedom fighter!”, curated (I’m guessing) for the punch line:

what i have found over and over again is that teaching, research, and service are irrelevant in an academic career (research, for sure). the only real criterion of advancement is conformity.

In order to discover whether Marxism is suppressed or not in academia, Nydwracu must ask: What is Marxism? What he finds is interesting.

Marxism today isn’t a school of thought at all; it’s an idiom, a set of shibboleths. Imagined Communities decisively refuted Marxism—but it was written in the Marxist idiom, so nobody minded. Tom Whyman laments the loss of a grand unifying national myth and glorifies directionless, irrational mass violence, but he does it in the Marxist idiom, so he’s not a fascist (read: Sorelian), which he is. In fact, some ex-Communists tell me that their former circles were OK with anything, so long as it came from someone who’s very highly educated. Someone who knows words. Someone who has the best words.

A religious tradition. Only one not constrained by an irreformable body of dogma.

Filed under Fun With Spreadsheets, Wes has more from his statistical sleuthing: Does the mystery model generalize?

E. Antony Gray has a thought: Borders. Also he is coordinating the Poetry & Prose Team over at Social Matter. More on that below

Sydney Trads have a nice quote up from Paul M. Weyrich and William S. Lind, “The Next Conservatism”, in which: “When it comes to our culture, it is too late to conserve. We have to restore.”

Spandrell shares some thoughts about Secession. Much commentary ensues. Also a brief note on Foragers and Farmers, and how we seem to be slowly drifting back into foraging, which is to be expected in civilization is failing, which it is.

Also from Spandrell, We need a new religion, Quatro. Yes. We know. Unfortunately, that’s not how religions work. New or old.

Empedocles, Darwinian Reactionary, has much anticipated Part Two to his series The Biosemantics of Self-Representation. He delves into all the ways we communicate without words (body language, facial expression, etc.). All of it has meaning, even if occasionally ambiguated. All of it has a purpose. Like dress for example:

Now, most attire does not possess descriptive and prescriptive force to the extent of these examples, but it does still have it to a degree. We all know that dressing as a punk or hippie means that the wearer is expressing certain social attitudes. Even something as seemingly bland as “business casual” is chock full of meanings….

Clothing that reveals too much cleavage, your back, your chest, your feet, your stomach or your underwear is not appropriate… Translation: I am of no sexual interest; do not behave in a sexual way towards me.

— Torn, dirty, or frayed clothing is unacceptable. All seams must be finished. Any clothing that has words, terms, or pictures that may be offensive to other employees is unacceptable. Clothing that has the company logo is encouraged. Translation: I am inoffensive; do not react emotionally to me.

— Inappropriate slacks or pants include jeans, sweatpants, exercise pants, Bermuda shorts, short shorts, shorts, bib overalls, leggings, and any spandex or other form-fitting pants such as people wear for biking. Translation: I have no relative class status; do not behave towards me as such

— Casual dresses and skirts, and skirts that are split at or below the knee are acceptable. Dress and skirt length should be at a length at which you can sit comfortably in public. Short, tight skirts that ride halfway up the thigh are inappropriate for work. Mini-skirts, skorts, sun dresses, beach dresses, and spaghetti-strap dresses are inappropriate for the office.

It is interesting that so much of business casual is about controlling how women dress. My guess is that this is to not produce jealousy among other women by showing oneself to have a higher SMV than the other women as well as producing attraction in men.

His “Length Aside Concerning ‘Asking for it'” is also a must read. As for dressing better?

Unless you are a total fashionista, I can pretty much guarantee that in their heart of hearts your boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife wishes you dressed better. Make them happy. We are always dressing from some audience so it might as well be the person you care most about. The feminist view that if a women dresses to please her man she has somehow violated her sacred autonomy is ridiculous and toxic to relationships. There is a prisoner’s dilemma in relationships where both parties wish they were with someone who dressed more attractively, but neither wants to cooperate, leaving both parties dissatisfied. As always in prisoner’s dilemmas, we wish to defect and have the benefit of cooperation. Feminists urge defect/defect. This is what defect/defect looks like:

You’ll have go there to see the photo. Empedocles takes home another: ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀.

We’ve been a little light on economics in the sphere lately, especially since the all but formal departure of Henry Dampier. Alrenous remedies this with a primer on Monetary Supply Fundamentals. This punchline gets at a lot of what’s wrong in the West.

In practice, we see the Fed reliably chooses to lower interest rates, causing another round of business investment in wealth-destroying activities. In the short term, money is delivered to productive individuals, who can support productive businesses, while in the long term the economy becomes even heavier with parasitic seedcorn-eating businesses. Official economics cannot distinguish between malinvestment causing malproduction, and real wealth increases, because their job is to justify whatever the Fed wanted to do anyway, meaning it’s their job to not understand reality.

Bad morals corrupt interest rates. For this article, the Committee awards an ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀. He has moar common sense economic observations in Effects of Price Fixing on Labour .

Mark Citadel completes his long-awaited review of Julius Evola’s Ride the Tiger.

Free Northerner explains The Geek/Nerd War.

Alf has accrued a few Regrets along the way. That he realizes it is so, and that they point him to higher purposes puts him in an elite echelon I think.

The man with open eyes knows he is very vulnerable. He must build something that he may call his own or else this monster of modernity will surely devour him.

Cambria Will Not Yield’s missive this week: Charity Never Faileth – In That Hope We Live. Despite the signs of the times, if necessary.

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This Week in Social Matter

Ryan Landry kicks off the week with a deusy: Unrestricted Warfare, If You Can Fund It. Warfare, by other means, has gotten a lot more complicated. And for all the vaunted power of the lead-standard, the US hasn’t really won an actual war since 1945. The classically understood “war”, fought with “lead” by “boots”, is becoming increasingly irrelevant—a distraction perhaps from the actual war, fought with, or perhaps in, “dollars”…

Reserve recycling alters the interest rates of your opponent, giving you leverage. The American economy, being based on finance, becomes susceptible to the lender on the margin just as much as it is dependent on the borrower on the margin for expansion. The Reserves become a weapon.

Thus…

There is no single battlefield.

And increasingly, Landry shows, the available “weapons” do not require the coordination of large state actors, Indeed, state actors may increasingly be seen as a hindrance. For the research, for the writing, and for kicking off a whole slew of thought around the sphere, Ryan Landry wins the top spot for this one: ☀☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Award☀☀.

Mark Yuray slides into his normal Tuesday slot with the prediction: Poland And Russia Will Fight For Control Of Europe. Poland is proving itself preternaturally resistant to the Foggy Bottom/Brussels Axis. What remains surprising is that this has not driven her into the arms of Russia. Yuray’s bet is that…

Weronika Szmajdzińska, Miss Poland 2015

Poland’s government has observed the geopolitical playing field and concluded that they do not need Russia to survive the EU/USG/Islamic onslaught. This is a momentous development in a world where the only three discernibly sovereign countries are Russia, China and the “International Community.” Poland may soon be the fourth sovereign country, or, to be more accurate, the “Visegrad Community” of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic may soon be the fourth sovereign country. The four have already done an outstanding job resisting EU directives, and Poland’s program of centralization and de-democratization was just a rehash of what Viktor Orban’s Fidesz has been doing in Hungary since 2011.

Yuray takes note of the sizeable Polish diaspora, and looks forward to a rising Visegrad Bloc led by Poland. Far-fetched? Check back when Eurabia is in a fuller swing to find out.

Landry is back on Wednesday with Weimerica Weekly—Episode 24—A Weimerican Epic. The spectacularly low agency exploits (or lack thereof) of “Bushie” take center stage as Landry explores the cultural artifacts that encourage and enable pathological behaviors and self-conceptions.

Sonja Sonnerström returns Thursday with an example 1,983 on how Sweden is committing suicide: Sweden Officially Protects Foreign Languages And Allows Its Own To Perish. Very sad.

Tom Barghest makes his long awaited return to the pages of Social Matter with Possibilities Of Intransigence—a review, and respectful critique, of the mind and work of the not very well-known Albert O. Hirschman. Intransigence is baked into the cake of democratic systems. For both progressive and reactionary alike (… but the pig will like it). Once essential, subtlety is today maligned, and replaced with the basest sloganeering. Who can risk appealing to the higher faculties of men when they must be herded to your side? Barghest earns yet another ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀ for his efforts here.

Finally, E. Antony Gray heads up a new creative team within the virtual offices of Social Matter. He announces the team’s existence with an original poem, in the inaugural Poetry & Prose column: Invocation.

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This Week in 28 Sherman

Over on the home blog, SoBL’s Monday Article is South Sudan: Africa Gotta Africa . He covers the a bit of the history and social dynamics that left the “nation” of South Sudan the basket case it is today. The nations of Dinka and Nuer, having lost common enemies with which to war, now war with each other for whatever first world table scraps fall to the floor.

On Tuesday, Landry draws some much deserved attention to Rhys Caerwin’s 4-part, award winning Civilization From Chaos Series, published last summer, which detailed the birth of the Russian Empire. It made the rounds here, of course, but if you haven’t given it a read, I too highly recommend it.

This Week in WW1 Pics: Maybe France Died at Verdun?

Heading into the weekend, SoBL has some observations on Generational Cycles.

I’ve always considered the true start to our crisis being the American Financial Crisis and election of a neophyte Marxist figurehead like Obama. Clock starts ticking from 2008.

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This Week in Kakistocracy

Porter engages in some polite You-Heard-it-Here-First (or 65th) in Clairvoyance or Cuckoldry: Only You Can Decide. He called for the nationalist/globalist realignment years ago, and finally it has come to pass.

Next, France is quite and overtly concerned about Doing De-Radicalization Right, because, you know, if you offend a radical, then that just makes it so much harder to, you know, “de-radicalize” him. Porter has his doubts about the plan, however:

I think history would support my thesis that de-radicalization centers are most effective when they are called “airports.” Though that’s one of those long liberal hedgerows, and so the French are casting off on the lengthy journey west from Austin. Can’t remove, repel, injure, or irritate. So why not try professional begging? By the way, are we sure de-radicalization isn’t islamaphobic?

Porter’s Kakistocracy Confirmation Cabal reads like a review (??) and a “My Aren’t You Surprised?” of The Confessions of Congressman X, a tell-all so damning (and yawn-inducing) that it could only be extracted with assurances of the anonymity of the mid-level functionary providing it. The truth will not be shocking his (or my) regular readers.

[B]ear in mind a less-mentioned aspect of fundraising: the parachute. Everyone understands that the role of constituents is to be harvested for votes and then go sulk while their interests are ignored. The role of donors is to write checks large enough to make legislators embrace sweet reason. Ahh, now I see your point! But beyond those primary responsibilities is the implied (or I presume more often explicit) safe landing for office holders that run aground.

The case study of Eric Cantor should prove a warning. When he was unceremoniously hounded out of office by his constituents, he had to make due on a cushy sinecure at Moelis, which barely left time for combing through trashcans in Culpeper.

Give your constituents the finger long enough, and you too could end up in a Wall Street board room subsisting on seven-figures. Harsh is infidelity’s judgement.

Finally, Look How Much You’ve Grown, Constitution, detailing the extraordinary lengths the Federal Courts will go to prevent Montana from enforcing the laws of United States.

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This Week in Evolutionist X

I’m always pleased when I see Evolutionist X use the phrase “part one”, because that means she’s been doing some serious research, more of which is to come. This happened this in New Frontiers of the Bronze Age Collapse (Pt. 1/3). This one was simply an introduction to the definition of bronze age, its essential characteristics, and the questions about its achievements that remain.

Part Two looks at the sudden and not well-explained collapse of Bronze Age civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean around 1200 BC. The “Sea Peoples” were the culprits. But where did they come from? She delves into some recent archeological evidence from Northern Germany (Tollense) of a battle of potentially Biblical proportions around 1250 BC. Humorous anecdote:

The Science article notes, hilariously, that prior to uncovering a bunch of skulls with arrowheads lodged in them and big, bashed-in holes, many archaeologists genuinely believed that real battles hadn’t occurred in the Bronze Age

Rousseauian myths die hard.

Finally in Part Three Evolutionist X gets down to brass tacks in examining the various explanations for the widespread, nearly simultaneous collapse of Bronze Age civilizations. Her money is on the advance (and overuse) of warmaking technology. In any case, another superb series from Mrs. X and an obvious ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀.

She doesn’t let up, either. On Friday, she jumps into The evolution of fraud.

[J]ust as predator and prey evolve in tandem, the prey developing new strategies to outwit predators, and predators in turn developing new strategies to defeat the prey’s new strategies. So also with fraud; animals who detect frauds out-compete those who are successfully deceived.

What’s true of coral and milk snakes, as well as octopi, is true a fortiori among the children of men. And no discussion of adaptations of fraud would complete without adaptations to detect it and root it out. And the metabolic costs of doing so.

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This Week in West Coast Reactionaries

Testis Gratus comes to WCR this week with A Lesson on Love. Love, in the Christian Theological sense, is neither passion nor sentiment, but only willing that which is good for another. Which permits Christians to love their enemies completely without letting them rape the Christians’ wives.

Gratuitous picture of girl in field

When this definition is contemplated, it can be seen that love is not especially extreme, and to be loving is the default state of what most people would call a good person. If you are loving, you want what is best for people. With regards to Christianity, Christians are called to will for both the temporal good of another person as well as their attainment of heaven. It is not hard to have a basic outward attitude of love with this interpretation. The loving outlook on Muslim migrants in Europe, for example, would be to desire for them to return home and build up their own countries. That is ultimately what is best for them and their people. Personal and civilizational suicide being seen as love only works for feel good “Christians” whose view of love is wholly warped. There is nothing traitorous about loving the enemy, outsider, or foreigner. Love does not mean giving all that you own to the invader.

Cygnus X writes In Defense of Mystery Religion.

Adam Wallace opines on The Nebulous Nature of the Online Right.

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This Week around The Orthosphere

Filed under Reality Made Illegal, Matt Briggs has Man Ordered To Treat Daughter As Boy. From the near USG outpost of Canada. Also musings on A New Kind Of University.

On the W. M. Brigss Podcast this week: Lucky You! All About Luck. And down at The Stream, Briggs has: Evolutionary Psychologists Claim Religion Is Explained By Energy Use. Seriously. Neoreaction makes substantial hay from evolutionary psychology, but the tendency of the discipline to create just-so stories like this one is well known. Making “efficient use of energy” seems nearly tantamount to this contrivance otherwise known as Civilization, the arrival of which happens to correlate with the emergence of mature systematic religions. Hardly anything to be embarrassed about. Indeed something scientists in particular should be grateful for, because foraging is difficult for the nearsighted. And Briggs is spot on here:

Baumard claims his theory could “explain the gradual decline of moralising religion in wealthier parts of the world.” As more “become affluent and adopt a slow strategy, the need to morally condemn fast strategies decreases, and with it the benefit of holding religious beliefs that justify doing so” and thus “Christianity and other moralising religions could eventually vanish.”

Yet moral condemnation has scarcely vanished. Just try saying a man wearing a dress and calling himself a woman is a man and listen to the chorus of angry denouncements. No doubt some budding evolutionary psychologist could explain that as well. But it will be mere story telling, not science.

As I have often said, we suffer not from too little moralizing religion, but from a gross excess of it. Not even public restrooms are safe anymore. Also, inspired by a ((((victory dance)))), Briggs declares The Culture Wars Are Over: Reality Routed, Lunatics Victorious. Which of course does not imply there isn’t well-entrenched ground to which realists may retreat.

Over at Imaginative Conservative, this was pretty good: The Poverty of Liberal Economics. Eva Brann has more and more On Socrates.

Also there, they have a “Timeless Essay” from Russell Kirk from 1982 on The Promises and Perils of Christian Politics. Mostly the perils. From Kirk to Richard Weaver: The Conservatism of Piety.

As Weaver viewed it, the “fearful descent” of the modern age had been precipitated by “nominalism,” which was a rejection of the Platonic-Christian heritage, and the for­midable task of restoration rested upon the capacity of the West to rediscover the verities inherent in that heritage. In the American setting, Weaver looked upon the South­ern legacy as uniquely valuable in provid­ing the philosophical base needed for the imposing work of revitalization.

Dalrock takes up the Red Herring of “what if there’s no man to lead of preach?”. And slices its head off.

Bonald visits Berkeley, and contemplates a Camile Paglia on academic free speech, and then has a moment of (formalist) genius: Free speech cannot be given:

Students at UM Sit-In, December 1966

Those radicals did right to fight for their own freedom of speech and theirs alone. Did you expect them to do all the fighting and then hand the prize to everyone out of sheer generosity? No matter how generous they might be, the thing cannot be done. No one can give you freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is something that each belief must claim for itself. The belief must prove that its adherents will endure and inflict suffering for its sake. It must prove itself ineradicable, a fact of life that must be accommodated. Only when it has thus proven itself worthy is it even possible for the wider world to grant it the freedom to express itself.

No freedom whatsoever can be granted, except that which may be taken and protected by someone with sufficient power to do so. Expecting a freedom to be granted is the disposition of a slave. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The Committee confirms an ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀.

Bonald also reviews Dugin’s The Fourth Political Theory. Which is a very valuable contribution coming from his Catholic Legitimist perspective. Bonald faults Dugin for attempting to combat modernism with too much modernism. Traditionalists do not fault liberalism for failing to live up to liberal principles, but for being liberalism, i.e., founded upon fashionable lies.

Chris Gale gets this exactly right: Shame is beyond its expiry date.

If mercy is a right, not an act of grace, then one is shameless. And if someone who is shameless tries to use guilt as a lever, one feels manipulated.

If mercy is a right, then it is an obligation upon another, and therefore not an act of grace. Nor, in fact, mercy, but simply injustice. And he’s right… people start getting pissed. Hopefully they can do something useful with that. Chris also runs with a couple of big Mutterings from Jim, in this case on sex and religion.

Cato the Younger rehabilitates the memory of Stalin: Stalinism, Subversion and Progressivism. Basically he, like Cromwell, put an end to a left holiness spiral. This far left and no further, or yer dead.

Oz Conservatives highlights a new play of the Melbourne Theatre Company in The descent of culture. Sounds like the most embarrassing bit of religious agitprop since A Thief in the Night.

At The Orthosphere (Proper), Kristor chimes in with Minimum Wage or Minimum Insanity? He outs himself as economically literate and a dyed-in-the-wool Christian non-socialist.

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This Week… Elsewhere

Unorthodoxy asks Why Hasn’t Hollywood Made Social Justice Cannibals? Well, we did have The Killing Fields, but it’s a very good question. (That site was designed for RSS consumption alone, you’ll have to scroll way down to see the actual article.)

Gratuitous picture of girl with owl

Eventually the protagonist is accused and as in the Cultural Revolution there is public shaming and he/she is headed towards a painful death. But in the last moment he wins the mob, accuses his close friend/sidekick who has helped him stay alive to this point. In the end, he is laughing maniacally as he chops up his friend for being a counterrevolutionary, just like he was 5 minutes ago. The afterword is text explaining the events of Wuxuan. Everything you have seen really happened, only the place and context changed. Then cut to the worst videos of SJWs protesting on campus. Fade to black.

Dude. That’s brilliant! Now about that template…

Real Gary attended a Trump rally and reports on having been In The Presence of a Great Man. Or is that… great theater? Or, given our present situation, is there really much of a difference?

Donal Graeme has some good advice on Masculine Monday:

Learn how to say “No” to women…. Your life will become so much better for it.

And, dare I say, so will the lives of most of the women who are part of it.

Dissident Right is definitely reading from the same playbook as NRx in Social Entropy & Authoritarianism. He highlights and analyzes some of the salient features of Pinochet’s regime. Especially, the measured used of violence in stemming the natural entropy that effects nations.

One of the central tenets of the AltRight/Reactosphere is that traditional values are not accidental. They are social adaptations that provide efficient solutions to complex societal issues. Civilizations are, despite what they may seem, rather fragile. Once those traditional values and societal institutions are abandoned and subverted, the corruptible nature of humanity takes over. Like a paper wadded into a ball, it can never be made back into what it once was; however, it can be approximated, and this is the role that violence plays.

Of course, the more violence one is willing and able to bring to bear on behalf of the social order, the less it will ever need to be used. “Authoritarian” is simply a government that does not pretend to get so-called consent, from the so-called people.

Not one for braggadocio, Reactionary Ferret shows How I’m More Tolerant Than a Leftist. Tolerant… properly speaking that is.

That, my friends, is the definition of tolerance. I put up with your dumbassery without attempting to stab you or dox you or “swat” you.

Also at the Ferret’s Den (or whatever they call the things that ferrets live in): The Egalitarian vs. The Hierarch.

I wish I could figure out where I heard of Delta Kyklos and why I followed him. At any rate I’m glad I did. This week he considers the auto-genocide of European peoples in Types of Destruction. It is, I think, masterful.

One of the distinguishing marks of suicide is that suicide opens up possibilities. To be long-lasting is a design constraint. Living in the present, unconstrained by the duties owed to the future, increases the number of things that can be done. The branch that supports the man with the saw can thus be sawn off. “There is no future”: you are now free to be excessive, impious, extravagant, transgressive, sinful, wasteful. Note the similarity with: “There is no God. Everything is permitted.” (Dostoevsky).

In the West, it is the institution of marriage that most unambiguously exhibits this mark. Traditional marriage is uniform, indissoluble, lifelong, and children-oriented. Today’s marriages are diverse and reflect the desires and whims of present-oriented individuals. Gay marriage is just the tip of it.

If the West is being destroyed, which it is, how to characterize it? Genocide is a wildly popular meme? And true, under expansive definitions of genocide. Expansive enough to impugn the West for the “genocide” of stone age peoples of the 20th century, or the Spaniards’ mastery over the Aztec and Maya. “Crimes” for which Western peoples owe no apology. Those who claim genocide on these terms play the victim. The victim of whom? Clearly their betters. “Suicide” is the better match. And while suicide is the more morally reprehensible crime, at least it doesn’t deny the agency of Western peoples. And also… not a foregone conclusion:

Genocide by suicide is a rather unreliable method: what if the genos refuses? What if people just want to have children and be traditional? What if people pass the fitness test?

For his work here, Delta Kyklos takes home an ☀“Official” #NRx Best of the Week Honorable Mention☀.

This is a pretty amazing waste of social capital: Obama and His Trannie Bathroom Push.

Knight of Númenor says: Do not wait for the Church to ‘save the world (especially the Occident)’. Do it yourself. Amen to that. The Church has no special charism to save the (temporal) world. It is in the business of saving souls. And unless it has the cooperation of the temporal sovereign, that’s an uphill battle. This is what the “We Need New Religion” crowd and the “We Need to Uncuck the Pope” crowd don’t understand: They wish for a totalizing religion that operates beyond the bounds of religion’s natural competency. They’re looking to religion for One Kewl Trick to Save the [Insert Temporal Point of Social Order]. If you need religion to teach you common sense, if you need religion to usurp the power of the sovereign, you’re asking for a religion to do too much. You’ve got an eschaton and you want a religion to get about imanentizing it. It’s going to go badly. Religion is a part of this balanced breakfast for social order. Not the entire breakfast.

Giovanni Alighieri engages in a bit of Song of Fire and Ice geekery What Westeros Can Teach Us. With applications to the real world, of course.

That’s all folks. Hope you had a great week. Please join the Social Matter Forum if you’ve got something to get off your chest. Keep on reactin’! Til next week… NBS, over and out!!