Before beginning, I will say I’m already familiar with ReactionaryFuture’s(RF) work on Neoabsolutism and his falling out(and re-embracing?) of NRx. I am not new to his ideas nor those of Adam’s GA(Generative Anthropology) blog. Having been a lurker for some years on their reddit page. Anyone who is also familiar with the posts on there might notice I have taken some ideas from people like Different_T. And I find it unfortunate that he had to delete his old account. Though his posts still remain if one can remember where he left them.

To make RF’s case in the shortest terms. His position can be summarized as having noticed that liberalism has been a big mistake; rather its axioms are imaginary. Because the ‘power of the people’ as it were, never existed at all. Rather it was at the behest of the sovereigns; the monarchs, the aristocrats, the oligarchs, the ‘top heads’ if you will. Who controlled society and moved it into the position we have it now. Further understanding and explanations for this can be found in this post and this one.

Taking a look at RF’s post where he takes his stand against Curt Doolittle. He makes a point of how Doolittle is not working with any humans at all in his writings:

“The best way to see what I am getting at, is to kind of mentally squint your eyes and not pay attention to the minutia and the details that are put forward by Doolittle, but try and get a overall impression of what he is saying, at which point it is fairly clear that he is not even remotely talking about humans of any kind. A good rule of thumb I am finding with all thought linked to the western tradition, and especially liberalism, is to assume they are not talking about humans, and there is no real outside, nor barrier to everyone doing whatever they really want regardless of the overall direction of things. In this instance such things as anarcho-capitalism are fine and dandy, as are wild universal statements purporting to apply to all individuals despite being the product of a specific society from a specific point in time (England/ Scotland in the 17th centrury.)”

In another post, RF examines how the Cathedral(a term from Moldbug’s blog) must create and enforce the state of affairs we find ourselves in:

“When we get to “economic democracy” we can again see this state enforced anarcho-capitalism on display as the report states on p37: “economic democracy is realized through a fluid and mobile social structure which permits maximum individual freedom of choice and action. This requires practical equality of opportunity for all individuals to pursue the vocation of profession of their choice, to change jobs, to move from place to place, and to advance in their chosen career according to their capabilities.” Whereas the self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist has drunk deeply of the cool aid and convinced himself of the possibility of non-state enforced individualism anarchism, the progressive in the form of Gaither is under no illusion that this state of affairs must be enforced.”

Though these two points by themselves don’t highlight much. We can take a look at RF’s continuation blog on what Neoabsolutism, if it was in power, would begin to do with the UK. With context, it appears similar to what Moldbug thought of in applying the treatment of denazification to America:

“Treatment X is McCarthyism, which failed. Treatment Y is denazification, which succeeded.” “The point is not the accuracy of McCarthy’s charges, but the actual effectiveness of his actual purge. There is no doubt that many Communists and other progressives, across a fairly wide cross-section of American institutions, not entirely sparing even the most elite, were purged as a result of McCarthyism. In that sense, the purge succeeded. The tumor regressed.” “So we’re going to have to go all the way and look at a purge which actually worked. Fortunately, we have already discussed this period of history: denazification. Get your Persilscheine now! Here at UR we have a practically pathological obsession with the practice of history through primary sources. There is no better primary source on denazification than the original bureaucratic directive under which it was conducted – the notorious JCS 1067.” “If you replace “militarist” with “environmentalist,” etc, I think you get a rough but reasonable description of the sort of purge which would be needed to actually cure USG and its many tentacles of the insanity we’ve been looking at. Basically, denazification is so far beyond McCarthyism, it isn’t even slightly fucking funny. It’s the nerve gas – a real, proper cleansing. No, sir, you won’t find any bedbugs when you move back in to this building! Sir, we’ve given it the complete treatment!”

This brings up a question. If RF’s solution is all too familiarly found in Moldbug’s 2009 post. What connection do they both have?

RF has in the past accused the NRx, techno-commercialists, accelerationists, et al. of construing, twisting, and making Moldbug fit into what they wish he was actually saying. A sort of Telephone Game with every iteration being more bizarre than the last. In his own words:

“Such an understanding makes a great deal of the theorizing and linked concepts to the proclaimed Neoreactionary community that has arisen post Moldbug seem at best, perplexing, and at worst a complete contradiction. Although this contradiction is actually present in the Unqualifed Reservation blog which can really be split into roughly two sections– pre-2009, and post-2009, with the pre-2009 being deeply flawed.”

But where was Moldbug at really? Depending on who you ask, you will get many different answers. Let’s look at what he has to say in his 2010 post ‘From Mises to Carlyle: my sick journey to the dark side of the force:’

“I, and others like me, want to live and should be able to live in a liberal regime of spontaneous order, which is not planned from above but emerges through the natural, uncontrolled interaction of free human atoms.”

This of course stands at contrast to what RF says, and he attempts to correct this in his post ‘Spontaneous order does not exist.’ Maybe Moldbug’s position has changed since then. So we can look at his AMA on reddit and see again:

“Likewise, it is not in the abstract a problem to move a bunch of Syrians to Belgium, because Syrians are human beings and human beings are easy to govern. It may not be the world’s best idea, but it is not an obvious disaster. However, with the present system of government, I’m a lot less enthusiastic. Belgians, and more generally today’s First World populations, basically need no government at all — and our governments have lived down to this challenge.”

This is not a problem for RF, as he sees Moldbug as something to be surpassed. To take Moldbug’s research in ‘Imperium in Imperio’ and push it towards its ultimate conclusion:

“One thing you should note having read them, if you didn’t the first time around, is that patchwork has one central feature which has been ripped out, or plain ignored, by almost everyone who has read it, and that is the utter total control of the governments that make up the patchwork. In fact, it is repeated, constantly. This itself deserves repeating – this entire concept rest upon patchwork being comprised of governmental entities which are in no way constrained by anyone, or anything, but their own imperatives.”

Moldbug’s position then, is really just misunderstood absolutism. That despite all the contradictory signals Moldbug has given out. He would firmly be in the camp of an absolute sovereign/government to reign over America. RF even makes the case that:

“Over at the GAblog, Adam has made some very interesting observations regarding the various Alt Right programs, and comes to conclusion (which seems correct) that in effect, all of these programs are calling for absolutist governance. Of course, the modern liberal state by setting the political options allowable by modernity has refused this option by default, so of course they cannot articulate it properly. Instead, it comes out garbled and in the form of a plea for actual governance, without an idea of how it is to be pursued.”

This leads to the conclusion of two models of governance and all of us being reduced to communists if we do not have the idea of an absolute government in mind. It is similar to Moldbug’s, but also against RF’s thoughts, on what the political wings meant:

“Right represents peace, order and security; left represents war, anarchy and crime.”

This brings a feeling of déjà vu from one of those 1-D political spectrum/sliders; Where there is freedom on one side and authoritarianism in the other(with the likes of anarcho-capitalists ticking towards freedom to the max). In this case, RF sees liberal governance/bad governance/anarcho-tyranny on one side and monarchical governance/good governance/absolutism on the other. With RF of course seeing to tick that slider towards absolutism as much as he can. Or rather, keeping that slider at its furthest there by ‘securing’ governance. So that it can never tick towards the other way again.

Though some oddities stand out. One being that no one is inherently an ‘absolutist’ or thinks of ‘absolutism.’ Some don’t even understand the terminology. Maybe RF would make the case that if they did understand it, they would come to the same conclusion as he does. Meaning that the Roman Republic, the Athenian Democracy, the Constitutional Monarchies, etc. were all working with radically flawed assumptions which as Moldbug put it would lead to ‘war, anarchy, and crime.’ Going further with this means the Monarchs of Europe who led it to its current situation were completely wrong, weak, or stupid.

Nevertheless, these sorts of humans who don’t understand what RF is going on about seemingly keep popping up. And despite all the great examples which RF has made a clear-cut case in support of an absolute authority, just never quite come to the same conclusion. The meaning I’m getting across in short, is the humanity which reasons through Imperium in Imperio, does not in fact exist.

Since there is no such thing as a born absolutist. They must be created, and if there are those who disobey what the absolute sovereign commands. Who would continue to do their own things in disregard to the sovereign. They are on their way to recreate Imperium in Imperio. And Imperium in Imperio, in a secure absolutist government, cannot be tolerated.

There is much more to say about this, and the relation of Neoabsolutism to Liberalism and all the other facets of ideas that have been buried throughout history. A good note to end on is what Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, a close friend of Maximilien Robespierre, had to say on dealing with France’s internal strife:

“Since the French people have manifested its will, all that is opposed to it is outside the sovereign; all that is outside the sovereign is the enemy.”