by Brett Stevens on February 27, 2015

Privately we can say more than we can in public. While this statement has always been true, the degree of its application has varied. For example, now we live in an age where most anything truthful must be said in private, because people are sensitive to appearance more than reality through the mechanism of democracy.

The first assault of democracy is categorical/rational logic. It uses logical tokens as if they were reality, and argues from that point, instead of using logical tokens descriptively. The result creates a tangent that heads straight out into space, with people “educated” above their station spouting off logically-correct assessments that clash with reality in every way.

Under this assault, we expect that ideas segregate themselves to their own little categories and do not leave. For that reason, if we say we are “anti-democracy,” we do not expect democratic thought in ourselves. This illusion is what allows entryism, which more properly is called assimilation, or the tendency of a generic larger pattern to absorb any breakaway smaller entities.

Such has been the problem with post-leftist movements: all of them get assimilated because the leftist ideal of equality interacts with the human mind at such a basic level. “Equality” signals that the individual is sovereign in his choices, and therefore picks only what flatters him.

Neoreaction built up a good head of steam but has run into stagnation lately because much of its growth has been hijacked by the usual tendencies. These did not start out that way, but became that way because of the nature of preaching to an audience. That is, to make money via blogs and books one must generate an audience and get them fascinated by a repetitive message, which promptly walks right into the trap of pandering to what flatters them.

For this reason, conservatism cannot exist without a hierarchy based on ability toward leadership, which is a skill rooted in philosophical judgment. Otherwise, it gets assimilated by the great prole revolt based on selling products, votes or personality to people. Its surface appearance has value because it is “different” and can be used to brand a personality as distinctive, so it becomes popular, but through that process, it gets normed to the standard for the age.

If you wonder why all efforts to rise above the democratic standard fail, it is because it forces all entrants to pitch their materials to the approval of other people. Those people then approve what flatters them, at least as soon as the fledgling movement reaches critical mass, and opportunists arise who see a chance for personal advancement in pitching to those people. This then changes the nature of the movement and humbles it to the norm.

I have now seen this process happen with a half-dozen movements — artistic, social, and political — and it follows the same pattern every time. The only way to escape it is to early on appoint leaders not by popularity but by competence. Neoreaction eschewed that unpopular tactic, and therefore, it has ended up creating its own internal advertising market and distorting its truth to fit that market.

In this, it mirrors in parallel the same complaints that afflict mainstream conservatives, who bend their ideas to fit both “working within the system” including its inevitable compromise and pandering to the voters, who inevitably do not want to hear that the voters are too incompetent to make most if not all decisions, and yet it is true. Until we fix this fundamental fracture, nothing can be done to reverse decline.

Tags: #nrx, conservatism, monarchism, neoreaction, new right, white nationalism

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