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Not Your Grandfather's Conservatism

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Friday

6

March 2015

7

COMMENTS

Russia Is Not Our Saviour

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cossack

In this article, I want to refute the idea that Russia’s positioning as the defender of traditional values makes it an ally of Western restoration. In particular, similarities between the philosophy of Dugin (4PT) and Western criticisms of progressive Universalism don’t change the fact that the former goes hand in hand with Russia’s geopolitical interests. This is not to say that we must attack Russia as a foe. Nor is it to say that Russian and Western interests are always and forever irreconcilable. But it is to say that Western interests are distinct from Russian ones, and when there is a choice […]

Friday

27

February 2015

18

COMMENTS

The Crab and the Bear: On Alexander Dugin

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dugin1

I first heard the name Alexander Dugin around the time that “neo-Eurasianism” was first being noticed by the online alternative Right.The Russian Question had been brought up by figures on the European New Right. An example is Guillaume Faye and his vision of a European civilization “from Lisbon to Vladivostok”. Dugin fascinates many on the Right because he has gone beyond theory. A man who can both have a conference with Alain de Benoist and also claim to influence minds in the Kremlin has outdone every Western critic of global liberalism. These days even the Western media wants to know […]

Friday

6

February 2015

20

COMMENTS

Don’t Get Too Bearish On America

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He's not finished yet.

There’s a certain current of thought, which runs across parts of both the Left and Right, that enjoys proclaiming the Death Of America. Its proponents often come from contradictory and conflicting backgrounds. Anarcho-communists and anarcho-capitalists; nationalists and libertarians; opponents of Western imperialism and proponents of Chinese, Russian, and Islamic imperialism. The general thesis is usually fairly similar: the things that made America great – capitalist power, superpower status, oppression of the Third World, religious values, or what have you –  are disappearing. Massive debt, geopolitical shifts, and/or demographic transformation will cause America to shrink its global reach even as it […]

Friday

9

January 2015

2

COMMENTS

#JeSuisCharlie Won’t Save Free Speech

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The horrific attacks on Charlie Hebdo  have brought forth a defence of free expression from politicians, journalists, and ordinary citizens. But the outpouring of support is an exception in a broader pattern of events. The French President tries to call for a national unity that seems little more than a distant memory. Satirists across Europe convey their shock and grief – but everyone is rightfully nervous about republishing the Muhammad cartoons which put Charlie Hebdo on the radical Islamist death list. As Foreign Policy magazine and Reason.com have both pointed out, we are not all Charlie Hebdo, and not a few Western outlets […]

Friday

2

January 2015

9

COMMENTS

Political Antifragility: China and the West

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Al-Jazeera English’s Head to Head program recently featured a debate with Dr. Zhang Weiwei, renowned expert on the Chinese model of development and professor of international relations. It’s not the strongest of debates; AJE host Mehdi Hasan leaps from point to point and doesn’t grant Weiwei much opportunity to address the worldview and grand strategy of the Chinese State. As a result, Weiwei comes off looking weak at points. I’d encourage watching it anyway in addition to Eric Li’s fuller exploration of these topics. Hasan also seems to assume that the results of Chinese democracy would be good and desirable ones, ignoring […]

Saturday

20

December 2014

3

COMMENTS

An Introduction to the European New Right

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When I first came upon neoreaction, the bulk of my information on the political tradition of the non-libertarian, non-conservative Right had come from the scholars of the Nouvelle Droite. I expected to find many others who had come from similar intellectual backgrounds, but surprisingly this was not the case. Most seem to have made their way to neoreaction from progressive or libertarian backgrounds, with some who journeyed here from mainstream conservatism just to even things out. While there is some awareness of European New Right (ENR) authors, for the most part they don’t seem to have gained as much prominence here […]

Friday

17

October 2014

3

COMMENTS

Ignoble Lies

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The noble lie. The concept was formulated by Plato in his Republic. He describes a myth which would be told to the Republic’s citizens. Its people were born of the Earth and should care for it as their mother; the gods used gold, silver, brass and iron when they created people. This is why people differ in their abilities. Everyone should achieve the potential they were born with. But people mix, and so we might see a golden child born to a silver or brass father, or a silver child born to a golden one. The myth contains a prophecy […]

Friday

19

September 2014

4

COMMENTS

A Faith By Any Other Name

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My last article got a variety of responses, but one in particular stood out because it was so fundamental: what exactly do I mean by religion? Specifically, the confusion seems to be about what defines religion’s role in a society. Without understanding this, it’s hard to see why I claim that religion is a necessary phenomenon. I’d like to begin by proposing the following: in any society, religion’s role is to make truth-claims which result in certain actions being considered right and good, and others being considered wrong and bad. Questioning the common religion is considered subversive (or at least something […]

Friday

5

September 2014

1

COMMENTS

The Necessity of Religion

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Who was responsible for the deaths of those who perished in the camps of the Third Reich? Don’t worry, it’s not a trick question where I’ll end up claiming atheists caused Nazism. It stands as I wrote it. So let’s try and answer it. Was it Hitler? One would think so…to an extent. But one man could never have acted on such a scale alone. Surely there is some responsibility to be shared around. Other top Third Reich officials? Again, presumably. But many of those never personally killed a single individual. So…guards? Soldiers? The engineers who designed the camps to begin 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 […]