Dark Enlightenment

The Dark Enlightenment, or the neoreactionary movement (also simply neoreaction; abbreviated NRx by proponents), is an anti-democratic and reactionary movement that broadly rejects egalitarianism and Whig historiography.[1][2] The movement favors a return to older societal constructs and forms of government, including support for monarchism and traditional gender roles, coupled with a libertarian or otherwise conservative approach to economics.[3] Some critics have labeled the movement as "neo-fascist".[2][4]

A 2013 TechCrunch article describes "neoreactionaries" as a term applied to, and sometimes a self-description of, an informal "community of bloggers" and political theorists who have been active since the 2000s.[5] Steve Sailer and Hans-Hermann Hoppe are described as "contemporary forerunners" of the movement, and neoreactionaries are also said to draw influence from philosophers such as Thomas Carlyle and Julius Evola.[5]

The Dark Enlightenment is considered an early school of thought in the alt-right.[6]

Etymology

In 2007 and 2008, American computer scientist Curtis Yarvin, writing under the nom de plume Mencius Moldbug, articulated what would develop into Dark Enlightenment thinking. Yarvin's theories were later the subject of English author and philosopher Nick Land, who first coined the term "Dark Enlightenment" in his essay of the same name.[7] The term "Dark Enlightenment" is a play-on-words for the knowledge supposedly gained from the Enlightenment and lost during the Dark Ages.[2][3][5][8]

Yarvin first used the term "neo-reactionary" as an adjective in this context.[9][10] He had originally called his ideology "formalism",[11] but Arnold Kling used the term "The Neo-Reactionaries" as a noun in July 2010 to describe Moldbug and fellows and the term was quickly adopted by the subculture.[5][12]

George Orwell also used the term "neo-reactionary" in 1943, in an As I Please column for Tribune.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Pein, Corey (May 19, 2014). "Mouthbreathing Machiavellis Dream of a Silicon Reich". The Baffler. Archived from the original on February 9, 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 Bartlett, Jamie (20 January 2014). "Meet The Dark Enlightenment: sophisticated neo-fascism that's spreading fast on the net". The Daily Telegraph.
  3. 1 2 Walther, Matthew (January 23, 2014). "The Dark Enlightenment Is Silly Not Scary". The American Spectator. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  4. ↑ Sigl, Matt (2 December 2013). "The Dark Enlightenment: The Creepy Internet Movement You'd Better Take Seriously". Vocativ. Archived from the original on 17 December 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Finley, Klint (22 November 2013). "Geeks for Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries". TechCrunch.
  6. ↑ Gray, Rosie (28 December 2015). "How 2015 Fueled The Rise Of The Freewheeling, White Nationalist Alt Right Movement". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2016-08-09.
  7. ↑ Land, Nick. "The Dark Enlightenment".
  8. ↑ Phillips, Jon (Fall 2014). "Troublesome Sources". Southern Poverty Law Center.
  9. ↑ Moldbug, Mencius (May 1, 2008). "OL3: the Jacobite history of the world". Unqualified Reservations.
  10. ↑ Moldbug, Mencius (June 19, 2008). "OLX: a simple sovereign bankruptcy procedure". Unqualified Reservations.
  11. ↑ Moldbug, Mencius (23 April 2007). "A formalist manifesto". Unqualified Reservations. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  12. ↑ Kling, Arnold (18 July 2010). "The Neo-Reactionaries". EconLog. Library of Economics and Liberty. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  13. ↑ Orwell, George (24 December 1943). "As I Please". Tribune.

External links

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