It's looking more and more like Yarvin's goals as a writer are: (1) convince you that everything is getting worse, and (2) it's impossible to stop it, so (3) give up hope. Once you've given up hope, then he's going to hit you with his solution, which is ... give up hope! Strange religion, this.
Anyway, the essay is just a trifle, as Yarvin says, but he's effective in making me give up hope. Yet when I step back and ask *why* this essay makes me feel hopeless, it has to do with Yarvin's claim that the universities have been a lost cause since 1900 or so. Like, why should I believe that? And what does it even mean? And can Yarvin convincingly argue that there has ever been a time when the aggressively independent thinkers weren't killed or co-opted by power?
I mean, why stop at 1900? Locke, Leibniz, Descartes, and BISHOP Berkeley were all (at least) pretty good philosophers, and all of them had dalliances (to put it mildly) with power. Most historically famous philosophers have been engaged with power. Hell, Aquinas was important enough not only to be sainted, but also to be condemned, and all by the same Church!
The point is, it seems like Yarvin is trying to make me give up hoping for a situation that, whenever properly specified, not only has never existed, but could never exist, by definition (if we got to talk freely, wouldn't that just mean we have power? Or is the idea that it would mean that a monarch has absolute power, so we don't have to worry about offending anyone? And yet, looking back at monarchical times doesn't seem like wine and roses, even for free thought; Kant was sort of censored by Hillmer, after all). So, like, what should I be bothered about, if an intrinsic impossibility doesn't look like it's going to come to pass?
Perhaps Spinoza is the important exception. I wonder what Yarvin thinks of him? Curtis, if you haven't read Jonathan Israel's work on Spinoza, I commend it to you. I suspect it will resonate with you.
Guess its time to go back to occultism. Cloak new ideas in the rigid symbolism of the church and pass around heretical ideas right under their noses. Or gain the patronage of power by promising them more power that they haven't even dreamed of. It may not be ideal, but there's always some prince willing to put up money for the promise of gold from lead.
I'm a programmer and HN has been an addiction for me for it must be going on 10 years now. The strangest thing to me is that not only is heresy not allowed, but there's a chorus of commenters that periodically assert that HN is a wretched hive of libertarian heretics. It's some form of subconscious meta-silencing.
Agreed, except that from time to time, power blows up. The burning of heretics doesn't go on forever; it occurs in spasms, like the French Revolution's Reign of Terror and Virtue.
Churches go after the heretics when their prophecies are failing, and obviously it must be the heretics that are to blame, because they are evil, or, in our day, racist-sexist-homophobes.
But humans can't live in the frenzy of terror forever. Thus the Reign of Terror terminates in a Thermidorean Reaction. This is the theory of Crane Brinton in "Anatomy of Revolution."
The University as an institution will follow the trajectory of the church more literally than Yarvin describes.
Much like apocryphal and erotic Greek texts among the archives of the Vatican and the Church, the dark halls of the University will be filled wall-to-wall in forbidden books.
The Sappho of 2300 AD will, like the Sappho of 1300 AD, be kept under the watchful eye of the Abbess.
The Abbesse’ licentious eyes will dart over its Cis-Hetero lyrical world (a sweat-covered brow will be moped and a cassock loosened, finally with senses too thoroughly titillated, they/them will slam it shut in ecstatic shame, and say Hail Trans-Mary Full of Grace).
Within the halls of the University will be secrets known but never shared, mere whispers from one sickly bent-backed nun to the other, under the cover of darkness and between vespers.
The initiated, delving into the dark underbelly of reality, will take perverse joy in their forbidden knowledge – whether scientific (the reality of Sex and IQ) or historical (the George Floyd autopsy report).
At its height, the Nuns will begin having the most extreme forms of heretical intercourse, both intellectual and physical. Nuns with engorged rods will lay entangled with Nuns with holes. Pink-skinned nuns will lay down with other pink-skinned nuns. Blatantly racist whispers will be passed under the hush of night, “I like your blonde hair.”
The Nuns will protect the secrecy of this knowledge out of loyalty to the party/faith, and the core of power will forgive their heretical dalliances in thought and deed in exchange for the value their research gives the Pope – whether in applicable scientific discovery or new propaganda.
The University will not erase all forbidden knowledge, it will merely keep it silently hidden away for centuries, until it finally leaks out in an obscure text praising Barack Obama or Sacajawea.
I'm actually reading your Gentle Intro to UR right now, and I think together with THIS book, it's what I need to stop worrying and feeling so upset about the secular religion taught at my kid's school and my corporate workplace. Thank you.
Aren't Rothbard and Hoppe lifelong members of the Academy, or are they themselves mere baubles displayed to soothe the Moldbugs of this world? Was Friedman's freshwater econ insurgency kabuki?
It's looking more and more like Yarvin's goals as a writer are: (1) convince you that everything is getting worse, and (2) it's impossible to stop it, so (3) give up hope. Once you've given up hope, then he's going to hit you with his solution, which is ... give up hope! Strange religion, this.
Anyway, the essay is just a trifle, as Yarvin says, but he's effective in making me give up hope. Yet when I step back and ask *why* this essay makes me feel hopeless, it has to do with Yarvin's claim that the universities have been a lost cause since 1900 or so. Like, why should I believe that? And what does it even mean? And can Yarvin convincingly argue that there has ever been a time when the aggressively independent thinkers weren't killed or co-opted by power?
I mean, why stop at 1900? Locke, Leibniz, Descartes, and BISHOP Berkeley were all (at least) pretty good philosophers, and all of them had dalliances (to put it mildly) with power. Most historically famous philosophers have been engaged with power. Hell, Aquinas was important enough not only to be sainted, but also to be condemned, and all by the same Church!
The point is, it seems like Yarvin is trying to make me give up hoping for a situation that, whenever properly specified, not only has never existed, but could never exist, by definition (if we got to talk freely, wouldn't that just mean we have power? Or is the idea that it would mean that a monarch has absolute power, so we don't have to worry about offending anyone? And yet, looking back at monarchical times doesn't seem like wine and roses, even for free thought; Kant was sort of censored by Hillmer, after all). So, like, what should I be bothered about, if an intrinsic impossibility doesn't look like it's going to come to pass?
Perhaps Spinoza is the important exception. I wonder what Yarvin thinks of him? Curtis, if you haven't read Jonathan Israel's work on Spinoza, I commend it to you. I suspect it will resonate with you.
Guess its time to go back to occultism. Cloak new ideas in the rigid symbolism of the church and pass around heretical ideas right under their noses. Or gain the patronage of power by promising them more power that they haven't even dreamed of. It may not be ideal, but there's always some prince willing to put up money for the promise of gold from lead.
:whistle: Red card to Yarvin! Illegal heresy.
I'm a programmer and HN has been an addiction for me for it must be going on 10 years now. The strangest thing to me is that not only is heresy not allowed, but there's a chorus of commenters that periodically assert that HN is a wretched hive of libertarian heretics. It's some form of subconscious meta-silencing.
Agreed, except that from time to time, power blows up. The burning of heretics doesn't go on forever; it occurs in spasms, like the French Revolution's Reign of Terror and Virtue.
Churches go after the heretics when their prophecies are failing, and obviously it must be the heretics that are to blame, because they are evil, or, in our day, racist-sexist-homophobes.
But humans can't live in the frenzy of terror forever. Thus the Reign of Terror terminates in a Thermidorean Reaction. This is the theory of Crane Brinton in "Anatomy of Revolution."
based and graypill
The University as an institution will follow the trajectory of the church more literally than Yarvin describes.
Much like apocryphal and erotic Greek texts among the archives of the Vatican and the Church, the dark halls of the University will be filled wall-to-wall in forbidden books.
The Sappho of 2300 AD will, like the Sappho of 1300 AD, be kept under the watchful eye of the Abbess.
The Abbesse’ licentious eyes will dart over its Cis-Hetero lyrical world (a sweat-covered brow will be moped and a cassock loosened, finally with senses too thoroughly titillated, they/them will slam it shut in ecstatic shame, and say Hail Trans-Mary Full of Grace).
Within the halls of the University will be secrets known but never shared, mere whispers from one sickly bent-backed nun to the other, under the cover of darkness and between vespers.
The initiated, delving into the dark underbelly of reality, will take perverse joy in their forbidden knowledge – whether scientific (the reality of Sex and IQ) or historical (the George Floyd autopsy report).
At its height, the Nuns will begin having the most extreme forms of heretical intercourse, both intellectual and physical. Nuns with engorged rods will lay entangled with Nuns with holes. Pink-skinned nuns will lay down with other pink-skinned nuns. Blatantly racist whispers will be passed under the hush of night, “I like your blonde hair.”
The Nuns will protect the secrecy of this knowledge out of loyalty to the party/faith, and the core of power will forgive their heretical dalliances in thought and deed in exchange for the value their research gives the Pope – whether in applicable scientific discovery or new propaganda.
The University will not erase all forbidden knowledge, it will merely keep it silently hidden away for centuries, until it finally leaks out in an obscure text praising Barack Obama or Sacajawea.
Curtis, I seem to recall you telling Michael Malice on his podcast that you were optimistic for the future.
I'm actually reading your Gentle Intro to UR right now, and I think together with THIS book, it's what I need to stop worrying and feeling so upset about the secular religion taught at my kid's school and my corporate workplace. Thank you.
Aren't Rothbard and Hoppe lifelong members of the Academy, or are they themselves mere baubles displayed to soothe the Moldbugs of this world? Was Friedman's freshwater econ insurgency kabuki?