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Title: The Silicon Ideology
Author: Josephine ArmiÂŁtead
Date: May 18, 2016
Language: en
Topics: anti-fascism, fascism
Source: https://archive.org/details/the-silicon-ideology

Josephine ArmiÂŁtead

The Silicon Ideology

The Silicon Ideology

Josephine Armistead May 18, 2016

Abstract

Out of the technological cenes of the world has come a new, strange

variant of fascism– namely, neo-reaion, or “NRx”. I shall here proâ…”de a

critique of this ideology and an aempt at understanding of its origins,

its taics, and how it may be defeated.

Content Warnings

This article contains discussions of fascism, Nazism, white supremacy,

and the Holocaust among other topics.

Keywords

1 Introduction

A king? You want a king? Boy, nobody wants a king! Ignatius, are you

sure you’re OK?

A Confederacy of Dunces

John Kennedy Toole

When one learns I am studying a new emergence of fascism in Europe and

North America, one might be tempted to believe I am referring to the

larger end of the rise of right-wing populist parties and candidacies

that may be considered “fascist”, such as the candidacy of Donald Trump

and the rise of the United Kingdom Independence Par (UKIP), Le Pen’s

Front national (FN), Alternatⅳe fĂŒr Deutschland (AfD), and Golden Dawn

among others. However, in this essay, I discuss a more narrow group:

specifically, an ideology that has emerged in the past decade or so

inside the capitals of the tech world and which is growing at an

alarming rate, often (but not always) allied with those parties and

candidacies I have mentioned above: neo-reaionaries and what is known

as the “altright”. Largely, this group has escaped serious criticism by

radicals for its nature as a small, internet-based ideology–not enough

people, it seems, take it seriously. Indeed, some may question why I am

taking it seriously: clearly, this group is just “a bunch of nerds” with

no relation to “the real world” and no influence to speak of: what am I

worried about? To which I respond thusly: I do not take it for granted

that this odd ideology will not grow (indeed, it already is growing), I

do not believe we should under-estimate our enemies, and most people

severely under-rate the influence of the alt-right, which is, especially

in Silicon Valley, already courting influential figures, such as Peter

Thiel of PayPal, many of whom belong to a particular ideological

predecessor of neo-reaionary thought: namely, the techno-utopian

right-libertarianism pervasⅳe in the tech industry.

2 On the Various Theoretical Accounts of Fascism and its Origins

In order to understand, neo-reaion, a neo-fascist ideology, one must

too understand fascism in its first flowering. This is harder than it

may first appear: every theorist and her dog has a pet theory of the

origins and definitions of fascism, and I do not wish to spend this

essay deciding which is “best”. Perhaps, then, we should merely

determine which is most useful in understanding neo-reaion.

Traditionally, fascism has been amorphously defined among the Left by

the statement gⅳen in 1933 to the 13th meeting of the Enlarged Executⅳe

of the (Third) Communist International in Moscow: “Fascism is the open

terrorist diatorship of the most reaionary, most chauâ…”nistic, most

imperialist elements of finance capital” (H. (2009)): this, though a

useful summary, is not useful as a theory.

2.1 Amadeo Bordiga

Amadeo Bordiga claimed that fascism was merely another form of bourgeois

rule, and there was nothing exceptional about it compared to bourgeois

democracy or constitutional monarchy–indeed, nothing particularly

reaionary about it. This theory is exceptionally useless, so we shall

not consider it any further.

2.2 Leon Trotsky

In Trotsky (1944), a posthumously-published pamphlet made from seleions

of earlier writings (from 1922 to 1940), Leon Trotsky argues that

fascism is a specific form of counter-revolutionary diatorship, not all

of them. He identifies the social base of fascism as the

petty-bourgeoisie and “middle class”, as well as the lumpenproletariat.

This happens, according to Trotsky, when the “normal” repressⅳe

apparatus of bourgeois-democracy fails to keep a stable socie, and the

base of fascism has been dispossessed and brought to desparation.

Fascism, when in power, begins by destroying workers’ organizations and

class-consciousness, subjeing the proletariat to an administratⅳe

system which renders the organization of the proletariat quite

difficult, to say the least. Trotsky (ibid.) then embarks on an analysis

of how the Italian fascists gained power: after World War I, socialists

had begun to seize one faory after another–all it needed, Trotsky

claimed, was to coördinate. But then the social democrats disrupted the

revolutionary aion, “sprung back”, and withdrew, hoping docile workers

would help shift public opinion against fascists and allow for reform,

banking on the support of Vior Emmanuel ⅱ. The fascists then seized

Bologna and soon gained the backing of Vior Emmanuel ⅱ and the haute

bourgeoisie. At the last moment, the social democrats called for a

general strike, but by then it was too late. Within two years, Mussolini

was in power, and began to create a bureaucracy and military

diatorship. Germany soon followed the same model: indeed, in 1932,

Trotsky notes how the reformists have started to rely on–and put their

faith in–the government (now ruled by a series of chancellors installed

through emergency decrees: BrĂŒning, von Papen, von Schleicher) to put

down fascism. This is especially frustrating for Trotsky, as he notes

that these same conditions could–and should–propel forth a revolutionary

par.

Trotsky then criticises the Comintern policy of “social-fascism” and

calls for a United Front with a well-organized militia. In September

1932, Trotsky claims that bourgeois rule falls in three stages:

Jacobinism at the dawn of capitalism, when the bourgeoisie needed

revolution; democracy in mature capitalism; and fascism in late

capitalism, when the bourgeoisie must “clamp down” further on

proletarian revolution. When the bourgeoisie begins to decline, it

relies on the petty bourgeoisie to keep the proletariat down. There are

some praical prediî»…â…łe errors with Trotsky’s theory. In 1922, he

predied the bourgeoisie would abandon fascism upon defeat of the

revolution. In 1938, Trotsky adâ…”sed the Czechoslovakian workers not to

resist German invasion, in 1939, supported (based on testimonies of

Ukrainian émigrés) the creation of an independent Ukraine when Germany

had targeted Ukraine as part of its lebensraum, and in 1940 predied

that World War 2 would end either in world-revolution or world-fascism.

2.3 Marxism-Leninism-Maoism

In H. (2009), it is argued (by a person identified only as “Sco H.”)

that:

other beingbourgeois democracy. There are no primary differences, but

there are secondary differences: namely, in bourgeois democracy, there

is qualitatⅳely more freedom to openly express opinions, protest, and

organize, regardless of whether or not there are “eleions”: the

“democratic” part of bourgeois democracy, being largely limited to the

bourgeoisie, is irrelevant

bourgeoisie exerts its diatorship over other classes: what freedoms are

the proletariat (not merely other bourgeois parties) allowed (however

temporarily) to exert?

with the militant mass movements they lead) is especially key in

determining whether a regime is fascist or not

terrorism, butfascism is much more terroristic than bourgeois democracy

all bourgeois regimes have elements of both pes

based on which theoretical archepe they approâ…șmate more closely

they correspond to the aions of the fascist theoretical archepe and if

they occur in a regime overall categorized as fascist

different areas (and atdifferent times), so it is possible for a state

to be fascist in one area and a bourgeoisdemocracy in another area

under bourgeoisrule, especially as the bourgeoisie faces a crisis or

nears its overthrow

a struggle forreforms (though not necessarily reformism)

Two points are then made regarding historical Marâ…șst-Leninist approaches

to fascism. First, the Third International was in error in the 1930s

when it recommended to the KPD not to form a (temporary) unified front

against the Nazis with the SPD–but was also in error when, after the

Nazis took power in 1933, they promoted a United Front Against Fascism

which called on socialist parties to so closely ally with

bourgeois-democratic parties (like the SPD) that they became reformists

themselves, glorifying bourgeois-democracy– hollowing out the

revolutionary core of such a par. Secondly, reâ…”sionist states (like the

USSR under Khrushchev) are “social-fascist”–i.e. fascist, being

repressⅳe bourgeois states. Two case studies are presented: the US is

diagnosed as a bourgeois-democratic state with elements of fascism, and

India is diagnosed as semi-fascist and growing towards fascism

(particularly in its eatment of the adⅳasis and the Naxalites, who are

both repressed under the UAPA and “Operation Green Hunt” with child

soldiers in paramilitary death-squads similar to the Freikorps such as

Chhaisgarh’s Salwa Judum and Bihar’s Ranâ…”r Sena).

As we see, this gⅳes an account of what fascism is (though in general

terms), but very lile of where it comes from, how it may be fought, &c

&c (this is acknowledged in the essay)–except that bourgeois democracy

often ansforms into fascism during periods of instabili, crisis, or

overthrow.

2.4 Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin’s account of fascism relied on a concept known as the

ĂŠstheticization of politics developed in his influential 1936 essay Das

Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, among

others. Indeed, in Benjamin (1936), we see the following passage:

The masses have a right to changed proper relations; fascism seeks to

gⅳe them expression in keeping these relations unchanged. The logical

outcome of

fascism is an ĂŠstheticizing of political life

What does this mean? To understand it, we must understand it in its

context. According to Benjamin (though this notion is not exclusⅳe to

him), fascism blocks and dⅳerts the energies that otherwise would be

used to form a revolution against capitalism–it fills the void proâ…”ded

by an unsuccessful or non-eâ…șstent revolution, and must be understood

from this perspeî»…â…łe. To put it succinly with a Benjamin quote: “Behind

every fascism, there lies a failed revolution”. It offers the emotional

release of a revolution while effeing no material change–and the

produion of this catharsis is easily seen in the propaganda of the era.

If fascism implies the éstheticization of politics, Benjamin reasons, it

must be related to the aditional Marâ…șst notion of commodi fetishism.

Indeed, fascism presents, according to Benjamin, the promise of

revolution, a strong, self-reliant, and harmonious state &c as a

commodi. In order to maintain the fascist movement and conol over the

intense emotional release it proâ…”des while refusing to challenge

capitalism, fascism relies on war, which also creats enough expenditure

to temporarily resolve crises of overproduion, like the Great

Depression. Benjamin connes the ĂŠstheticization of war with an

artisticpolitical movement in Italy which preceded fascism and whose

proponents became fascists: Futurism. Futurists celebrated technology,

speed, and aggression: and technology is an aspe of war that is easily

ĂŠstheticized. While human suffering is usually omied in the

ĂŠstheticization of war, in a fascist mode destruion, too, must be

éstheticized, not merely edited out. Benjamin, in “Theories of German

Fascism” connes this to Ernst JĂŒnger’s ’war for war sake’: JĂŒnger

mysticises war as a magical force, which the State must be “worthy” of.

This, Benjamin claims, derⅳes easily from JĂŒnger’s experience as an

officer, not a mere grunt–and indeed, the Nazis saw their first support

base from disgruntled World War I officers, such as Hitler himself–and

the Freikorps.

2.5 Deleuze and Guattari

Gilles Deleuze and FĂ©lⅾ Guaari, in their 1972 book Capitalisme et

schizophrĂ©nie. L’antiƒdipe, reprise an earlier analysis of fascism by

Wilhelm Reich in his 1933 work Die Massenpsychologie des Faschismus.

They argue in Deleuze and Guaari (1972) that fascism is created through

libidinal and psychological repression through the mechanism of the

nuclear family, which represses and distorts the desires of the child,

making them a docile subje that is easily conolled and will submit.

The ƒdipus complex is seen as arising from the familial suppression and

distortion of desires: Deleuze and Guaari (ibid.) says: “It is in one

and the same movement that the repressⅳe social produion is replaced by

the repressing family, and that the laer offers a displaced image of

desiring-produion that represents the repressed as incestuous familial

drⅳes.” Deleuze and Guaari can be here criticised for using the term

“fascism” to refer to this, because it seems to dⅳorce fascism from its

historical context and from a larger social context: while this may

indeed be an integral part of fascism, I don’t think we can reduce

fascism to this. Deleuze and Guaari have anticipated this, and so this

repression and distortion of desire on a small scale has been termed

“microfascism”, as opposed to “macrofascism”.

2.6 A Unified Theory

One issue with many, but not all, of the analyses of fascism is that

they only consider fascism in power, not fascism as an ideology prior to

seizure of power. It seems to be generally accepted that fascism is a

bourgeois ideology that is fundamentally similar to bourgeois democracy,

taking power when bourgeois democracy finds itself unstable and in

crisis. Another issue arises, related to the first: as many definitions

seem limited to “bourgeois democracy, but worse” (this is especially ue

of the M-L-M definition), they make it hard to create a clear difference

between bourgeois democracy and fascism: for, is the US not engaged in

intense terrorism both domestically and across the globe–and has this

not been the case since its inception? Here the Bordigist (a ue

resident of the Grand Hotel Abyss of LukĂĄcs) may smugly claim that this

is because there is precisely no difference, but I would like us to

smack the Bordigist across the head, for this impulse of erasing

differences in order to make false equⅳalences is dangerous indeed. If

we cannot distinguish fascism from other forms of bourgeois rule, then

we should not complain when we hear the sound of jackboots marching. I

would like to first make the proposition that fascism is distinguished

from other forms of bourgeois rule both by the degree of aion of its

terroristic, repressⅳe apparati but also by the Weltanschauung that

supports it. Like Benjamin notes, the éstheticization of war in bourgeois

democracy requires the erasure of human suffering, but under fascism,

the ĂŠstheticization of war relies upon scenes of destruion. Because

fascism relies on war to channel the emotions used to ĂŠstheticize

politics, it relies on nationalism (justifying war) and class

collaboration (what in China was the line of two unite in one as opposed

to one dⅳides in two, justifying the lack of change in proper

relations). Nationalism relies on essentialism (the idea of an eternal,

unchangeable inherent nature preceding human eâ…șstance), a form of

idealism. It is important to note that I am not here positing a

timeless, unⅳersal Form of fascism, but rather a way of understanding

charaeristics of fascism that would proâ…”de its backbone and which have

mutated into a new form: a fascism of the 21st century, which, though

very different in ways from 20th century fascism (finding its roots in

neoliberalism, not Viorian liberalism), is clearly derⅳed and indebted

to it.

Here, then, are some diagnostic features that might help understand and

recognize fascism:

bourgeois democracy.There are no primary differences, but there are

secondary differences

times when bourgeois rule is weak, but a revolution has either failed,

been beayed by cenist, “Social Democrat” forces, or, similarly, been

forestalled/delayed: in the laer case, the turn to fascism is an aempt

to block a revolutionary movement from forming or gaining success.

into a commodi–it thusly ĂŠstheticizes politics, gⅳing the masses the

intensi of emotion associated with revolutionary change but maintaining

an even stronger devotion to maintaining bourgeois rule and

proper-relations

Weltanschauung that opportunistically ransacks various philosophies of

useful concepts and creates an idealistic philosophy that contains

nationalism, and class collaboration.

the chief way in which fascism may continually maintain intense

emotional response and conol them without changing proper-relations

edited out, asin bourgeois democracy, but glorified. In the course of

the ĂŠstheticization of war, the technology of war is frequently

ĂŠstheticized as well

more terroristic than bourgeois democracy. The freedoms the proletariat

(however temporarily) are allowed to exert are larger in bourgeois

democracy

all bourgeois regimes have elements of both pes. The seeds of fascism

are in bourgeois democracy: nevertheless, the two can be distinguished.

crisis or itsoverthrow, the bourgeoisie will turn to fascism in order to

block the emergence of a successful revolutionary movement

and distortionof desiring-produion by units and institutions such as

the nuclear family) among the populace to create docile subjes that

desire their own repression.

3 A History of 20th Century Fascism

3.1 The Ideological Influences upon Fascism

Fascists claim many influences, stretching back to ancient times. Hitler

and Ioannis Metaxas both idolized the Spartans under Lycurgus,

understood through Karl MĂŒller’s Die Dorier, an essentialist fantasia

about the history of the Dorians. Mussolini preferred Plato, but apart

from that, sought to conne Fascist Italy with Imperial Rome, idolizing

Julius Caesar and Augustus. From then, we see the emphasis on the state

and absolutism in Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Hegel. The adition of

essentialist German nationalism began with Johann Gofried Herder, and

was quickly used for anti-Semitic ends. Fascism rejes the French

Revolution and its legacy, though learns from its methods. Influences

from this era include Johann Golieb Fichte, who furthered the proje of

German nationalism as well as Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre,

arch-conservatⅳes. As the 19th century progressed, liberal ideology,

then as now, found inspiration in biology, and thus created a capitalist

interpretation of biology: Social Darwinism, born from Spencer’s reading

of Malthus and Darwin (though it owed more, originally, to Lamarck). It

only took a jump from there to eugenics (a liberal proje, formulated by

Sir Francis Galton FRS and supported by Alexander Graham Bell, Winston

Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, John Maynard Keynes, Francis Crick, James

Watson, and Margaret Sanger: indeed, implemented first in America

through compulsory sterilization, which has not uly ended), and this,

too, coöperated well with Gobineau’s racialism, creating the liberal

ideology of scientific racism (justifying immigration restriion and

anti-miscegenation laws among others) and its nightmare scenario:

degeneration theory, as promoted by Max Nordau in his 1892 work

Degeneration. It is important to emphasize that all of this was

well-accepted within Anglo-American liberalism: indeed, the first

eugenics program was created in California. Wagner’s aesthetics were the

next ingredient in the Fascist soup, as was the essentialist psychology

of Gustave Le Bon, who argued that white men were essentially superior

to women and people of colour–this, too, has resurfaced in the field of

evolutionary psychology and the book The Bell Curve. Nietzsche’s

rhetoric inspired the fascists, with an aack on colleî»…â…łism, the concept

of the Übermensch, and the recuperation of Schopenhauer’s will-to-lⅳe as

the will-to-power. Henri Bergson’s â€œĂ©lan â…”tal” cening around free

choice allowed a rejeion of materialism. Gaetano Mosca’s The Ruling

Class (1896) claimed that in all societies, an organized minori will

rule a disorganized majori, and that the struure of the military is a

useful guide to struure socie, especially due to its officer

class–presenting the struure of the military as a model for cⅳil

socie: this Mussolini is known to have read. Robert Michels’ theory of

the Ehernes Gesetz der Oligarchie (iron law of oligarchy) claimed that

democracy would ineâ…”tably lead to bureaucratization, hierarchy, and

oligarchy–this, too, became useful for fascists. Maurice Barrùs’ ethnic

nationalism was combined with an appeal to paiotism, militarism,

charismatic leadership and a hero myth. Mikhail Bakunin’s concept of

propaganda of the deed and dire action would go on to influence fascist

taics and propaganda. Georges Sorel’s anarchism promoted nationalism,

the power of myth, and “moral regeneration”. Charles Maurras, a

reaionary, showed interest in Sorel’s syndicalism: Enrico Corradini did

the work of merging it with right-wing nationalism: speaking of Italy as

essentially a “proletarian nation” which needed to engage in imperialism

to challenge Britain and France, and needed to reje democracy,

liberalism, Marâ…șsm, internationalism, and pacifism–promoting â…”olence,

heroism, and â…”talism instead. This was furthered by the

artistic-political movement of Futurism.

What we see here is an idealistic liberal idea of science and progress

justifying a deeply reaionary social struure, which itself learns

taics from its leftist enemies.

3.2 The Interwar Period

World War I was formatⅳe for fascism, and the period immediately

following it was ripe ground for fascists, making their first gains

through Józef PiƂsudski’s military takeover of Poland during the 1918-20

Polish-Soâ…”et war (and later 1926 coup), Benito Mussolini’s 1922 takeover

of Italy, and Hitler’s failed (though useful) 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. The

general mood was one of pessimism and beayal; public confidence in

finance capital was at an all-time low. Surely, this should be fertile

ground for the Revolution, should it not? Indeed it was, as seen through

the Oober Revolution in Russia, the 1919 revolution in Hungary, the

briefer-still Bavarian Soâ…”et Republic, the Biennio Rosso of Italy, the

Seale General Sike of 1919, and the Spartacus Uprising in Germany.

None of these revolutions except for the Oober Revolution lasted for

more than two years. What happened? Let us take Italy and Germany as

models. In Italy, as Trotsky has related above, whatever gains workers

had made through agitation were erased by the reformists, who thought

that a more moderate, peaceful approach was necessary in order to

maintain “public opinion”: soon, the workers were in reeat and the

fascists took over. In Germany, the Spartacus Uprising was crushed by

the Social Democrats, who enlisted the help of the reaionary Freikorps

paramilitaries that would later form the basis of the SA and SS. In both

cases, the cenist, moderate, reformist, even liberal elements of the

left–Social Democrats–got cold feet and beayed and â…”olently suppressed

a revolutionary movement before its prime in favor of a

“business-as-usual” reformist negotiation with finance capital. The

conceding of the Left and its engagement in politics-as-usual allowed

fascism to poray itself as the ideology of systemic change

(ĂŠstheticizing radical politics).

4 Neo-Reaction and its Historical and Discursive Origins

Whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain

silent about fascism

Max Horkheimer

We have discussed historical fascism at length. What then is

neo-reaion? Neoreaion is a 21st century variant of fascism: a new

ideology that values stabili, order, efficiency, and “good governance”

above all, or claims to. The aual beliefs of most neo-reaionaries are

somewhat varied, but the core beliefs, as summed up by the neoreaionary

Anissimov are (paraphrased): (1) a rejeion of equali, (2) a commitment

to right-wing politics, (3) a commitment to hierarchy, (4) a commitment

to aditional sex roles, (5) a rejeion of libertarianism, and (6) a

rejeion of democracy. Obâ…”ously, this is somewhat vague, and the

commonalities do indeed go further than these sⅾ points. Thus, here is a

perhaps more comprehensⅳe list of the backbone of neo-reaionary values:

other ends.

“reasonable” forms,this takes the form of running the couny as a

joint-stock corporation (this, for example, is Moldbug’s position),

which is well within the norm of neoliberal thought. This, however,

blends into calling for monarchy and aristocracy in more “exeme”

variants (if we can classify them as “moderate” and “exeme”), with the

ruler usually in either case being either a tech CEO (with several

proposals being floated to make Eric Schmidt or Elon Musk or Peter Thiel

“CEO of America”) or a super-intelligent machinic mind. The

neo-reaionaries hope to be the aristocrats, or, sometimes, monarchs of

their own in a patchwork of principalities somewhat reminiscent of the

Holy Roman Empire.

Leftist theory, butone that pushes progressⅳe ends (feminism,

multiculturalism, democracy, equali)– and a hostili towards this

“Cathedral”

South Asian) nationalism, accompanied by scientific racism, eugenics,

social Darwinism, degeneration theory, biological determinism, and a

belief that ethnic uniformi increases social capital. Very frequently

accompanied with anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitic canards of the early

20th century. Almost always accompanied with Islamophobia.

more ’respeable’,less obâ…”ously astrological, cousin the Chicago School

of rape–stemming from this belief in aditional gender roles, exeme

homophobia and ansphobia

as theImperium in Warhammer 40,000) along with “The Ma⅞” (a moâ…”e,

ironically, wrien and direed by two ans women partially about gender

theory–one, in any case, that the NRx-ers have unfortunately clinged on

to in bad readings)

mass harassment taics (death threats, rape threats, DDoS, doxâ…șng,

swaing, misinformation campaigns &c) to silence enemies

There are two poles within neo-reaion, the “academic” pole, exemplified

in LessWrong and the blogs of the main theorists of the movement

(Unqualified Reservations, More Right, Outside In), and the “alt-right”

pole, exemplified in 4chan (especially the /pol/ board), 8chan, My

Posting Career, and The Right Stuff. The two poles meet on Reddit,

Twier, and Tumblr, among other sites. In addition, neo-reaionary ideas

are quite common in Silicon Valley, though often without explicit

allegiance to its theory, as can be seen in the statements of Peter

Thiel and Balaji Srinⅳasan, among others.

4.1 What is Transhumanism?

Transhumanism, for many, seems to be the part of neo-reaionary ideology

that “sticks out” from the rest. Indeed, some wonder how

neo-reaionaries and anshumanists would ever mⅾ, and why I am

discussing LessWrong in the context of neo-reaionary beliefs. For the

last question, this is because LessWrong served as a convenient

“incubation cene” so to speak for neo-reaionary ideas to develop and

spread for many years, and the goals of LessWrong: a friendly

super-intelligent AI ruling humani for its own good, was fundamentally

compatible with eâ…șsting neo-reaionary ideology, which had already begun

developing a futurist orientation in its infancy due, in part, to its

historical and cultural influences. The rest of the question, however,

is not just historical, but theoretical: what is anshumanism and why

does it mⅾ well with a reaionary ideology?

Transhumanism I define to be a colleion of movements aimed at improâ…”ng

and enhancing humani through technological means. Almost immediately,

we see a precursor, and one which influenced the preâ…”ous reaionary

ideology of 20th century fascism: eugenics. But let us not tar all

anshumanism with eugenics, though it must carry its historical burthen.

Transhumanism first gained currency in 1990, though it had been

developing from eugenics since the end of the Second World War, often

through the medium of science-fiion. In 1965, the notion of

technological singulari was developed: of course, the concept of

artificial intelligence had been developing earlier. Organized groups of

anshumanists began to gather at UCLA in the early 1980s, many of whom

would subscribe to the “Third Way” of the 1990s (not to be confused with

third positionism, another word for fascism) and thus become either

cenists, others, stemming from the Exopians who formed in 1988, were

libertarians. As seen in the disputes in 2006 at the World Transhumanist

Association and from the ideologies of the Exopians, the libertarians

largely did not see the necessi of unⅳersalism for a anshumanist

proje: they thus were comfortable with a class system being

strengthened by anshumanism–indeed, reinforced it through the idea of

meritocracy. They, too, were more comfortable with the eugenics programs

of old, now largely framed (as then) through ableism: preventing

“liabilities” (mostly disabled and neurodⅳergent people, though the more

homophobic and ansphobic element are looking for biological bases for

gay-ness and ans-ness to include them here, and racists of course

include people of colour) as opposed to “assets” from being born. This

of course is a refleion of the fa that both the eugenics of old and

the rightanshumanism (if we can call it that, as opposed to

left-anshumanism, which seems largely limited to left-accelerationists)

have applied liberal bourgeois ideology (one might point in particular

to utilitarianism). Perhaps now it is clearer how anshumanism–more

specifically, right-anshumanism fits here.

4.2 The Historical Origins of Neo-Reaction

In order to understand the historical origins of neo-reaion, we must

look at the composition of the neo-reaionaries. That is: what brought

them to neo-reaion? What were their interests and beliefs prior to

neo-reaion? Through this, we can identify several moments at which it

became what it is today. Perhaps the most obâ…”ous moment is one of the

most recent: GamerGate, a mass harassment campaign ansformed into a

mob, ready-made to harass women online who dare to speak. But

undoubtedly, neo-reaion is older than GamerGate, and it is harder to

identify easy “moments” by which discrete but similar groups merged

under the banner of the alt-right, though the movements themselves can

be discerned. Thus, I’ll take a different approach.

We start now in Albequerque, New Meâ…șco in 1976 with Bill Gates’ “Open

Leer to Hobbyists”. This is an arbiary starting point, but it is

convenient for our purpose. The hobbyist and hacker cultures had a

largely communal atmosphere, with sharing and copying being accepted

and, indeed, expeed. While computers had been (in part, at least) a

commercial venture since their birth, this was one of the first times it

(successfully) emerged from the hacker and hobbyist cultures and

threatened that communal atmosphere. Gates appealed to the value created

by labor and the cost of machine time (which, Hal Singer noted, was paid

for by Harvard, funded by the US Government, in the case of Altair

Basic), but used that to argue for copyright enforcement and

commodification. Another process was happening at this time: the

creation of the personal computer. This happened in fits and starts

throughout the 1970s, but only began to succeed in 1981 when the IBM Pc

was released, paired with Microsoft’s Ms-dos (bought from Tim Paterson’s

86-dos, a rebranded Qdos, copied from CP/M, inspired by Tops-10
)–soon,

computers became a mass market. The final gasps of the old hacker

culture were breathed in 1983 when its hallowed home, the Mit Ai Lab,

was â…”rtually destroyed by the creation of Symbolics, a Lisp Machine

startup which did not share its code, leaâ…”ng only Richard Stallman, who

would found Gnu.[1] The coffin was nailed in by the breakup of At&t,

which allowed the resulting company to make Unix, a widely-used (if

generally considered of bad quali) operating system by â…”rtue of its

portabili, the simplici of its code (at the expense of legibili), and

the free nature of the codebase, into a commodi. All that was left was

now a startup culture, and startups relied on a hierarchical, diatorial

model.

Now let us skip to the 1990s. In 1991, we have our first snippet of the

political writings of the man who would later found neo-reaion, Curtis

Yarâ…”n (later to be known as Mencius Moldbug)–a message to the Usenet

group talk.politics.soviet (drudged up in Pein (2014)), speculating over

Gorbachev’s role in the August Coup (Yarâ…”n claiming that Gorbachev was

indeed behind it, manipulating the Gang of Eight into a ap that

ultimately he and Yeltsin would benefit from)–and already, we see the

seeds of neo-reaion: “But I wonder if the Soâ…”et power ladder of â…”cious

bureaucratic backbiting brings stronger men to the top than the American

system of feel-good soundbites.” Yarâ…”n would soon leave writing to make

money in the first dot-com bubble; we shall see more of him later.

In 1990, Eric S. Raymond emerged, taking over the Jargon File, a

cornerstone of the old hacker culture that died in 1983. Raymond is a

libertarian; Stallman is a social democrat. In 1998 Raymond piggybacked

off of Stallman’s concept of free software to create a version more

appealing for corporations: open source. From this, and from his

maintenance of the Jargon File, Raymond began to play a brief, though

influential, role in Silicon Valley culture, which, due to the

proliferation of startups suddenly gaining money in the dot-com bubble

and to the normalization of neoliberalism under Clinton, was especially

receptⅳe to techno-libertarianism. His 1997 essay is of particular

interest, for here can be seen the origin of the neo-reaionary term

“Cathedral”–it is in the title of Raymond’s essay “The Cathedral and the

Bazaar”, though the meaning was somewhat different, referring in

Raymond’s essay to a cenalized model of software development. We should

not see Raymond as the source of techno-libertarianism as much as its

most influential exponent at the time, for it was already growing in

Usenet as well as in the Bay, and would soon spread to one of the

earliest social news sites, Slashdot.

Let us, for a moment, move out of the tech world and into the political

material they may have been reading. In 1994, Richard J. Herrnstein and

Charles Murray released The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Suure

in American Life, a pseudo-scientific work that had the effe of making

blatant (as opposed to implied) scientific racism respeable again

amongst the white professional population. The second edition of The

Mismeasure of Man was wrien in opposition, but it was too late: The

Bell Curve had made the case to pass the 1994 crime bill and “end

welfare as we know it” to the American populace, and the reaion against

it allowed the authors to feign persecution through the all-powerful

term “political correness”. We shall see this again later in the NRx

predisposition towards Rothbard, an ardent defender of The Bell Curve.

Evolutionary psychology, a darling of the media and a field used to prop

up paiarchy, was also read by the future NRxers: to know this, we need

only look at Eliezer Yudkowsky’s 2000 autobiography, where he mentions

it. In 1993, ministers from East and Southeast Asian counies adopted

the Bangkok Declaration, and this, combined with the narratⅳe of the

“Four Asian Tigers” (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan) and the

rhetoric of Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathir Mohamed, helped create the myth of

“Asian values” (neoliberal free-market economics, a Confucian cultural

heritage, predisposition towards an authoritarian one-par government,

rule of law, preference for social harmony over personal freedoms, a

Protestant work ethic, frugali, and loyal), a sort of Confucian

version of Weber’s glorification of the Protestant work ethic. Despite

the 1997 Asian financial crisis, libertarians and their respeable

publications (such as The Economist) continued to fawn over Singapore

and Lee Kuan Yew, whose reign can be seen as a protope for the NRx-ers:

one that embraced eugenics to maintain the supremacy of the Chinese

relatⅳe to the Indians and the Malays, ruled by a single par, with

lile crime (as even the most minor infraions, such as chewing gum, are

punished harshly, often with caning), and a rich financial industry,

with the ci operating an investment firm (whose CEO, Ho Ching, is the

wife of diator Lee Hsien Loong) whose portfolio is rougly equal to the

ci’s GDP. 15 years later, the libertarian fawning over the Four Asian

Tigers would be repeated, but instead over Qatar and the United Arab

Emirates, especially Dubai. I can speak to this firsthand, as I know

many people who do this.

Let us also discuss the pre-millennium cultural influences on the

alt-right. To understand their background, we must understand the Dark

Age of Comic Books, which began in 1986 with Frank Miller’s The Dark

Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Both had a significantly

darker approach to comic books than preâ…”ously told, and the intellectual

depth of both earned them much acclaim from critics and readers alike.

The people who would later become the alt-right embraced Miller’s

right-wing, misogynistic politics and identified with Rorschach in

Watchmen, a paleoconservatⅳe conspiracy theorist who was Alan Moore’s

caricature of “Batman in the real world”. Indeed, the direor of the

moâ…”e, Zack Snyder, a libertarian himself, said that “no charaer” was

more important than Rorschach, and Rorschach was “one of the greatest

comic book charaers”. Snyder is an interesting case study: the moâ…”es he

has direed (leaning heaâ…”ly on Frank Miller’s version of Batman) have

been criticised for their aggressⅳe masculini as a maer of taste, but

not in the political context of fascism. It’s quite illuminating to

notice that when the Christopher Nolan Batman films (generally

considered very dark) came out in the late 2000s, Snyder was of the

opinion that they were not dark enough! In 1988, Moore would write V for

Vendea: despite Moore’s and the comic’s leftist themes, its ĂŠsthetics

were pilfered by the people who would become NRx-ers, who had fashioned

themselves at this time as anarcho-capitalists. In the same year, The

Killing Joke came out. This fed into the 1990s “tough on crime” outlook,

and the comic books of the 1990s would lack any of the depth of The Dark

Knight Returns or Watchmen, instead being a mere monument to masculini

and male â…”olence. Another science-fiion movement whose ĂŠsthetics would

be appropriated despite left-wing politics was cyberpunk: especially the

moâ…”e The Ma⅞. In 1987, Games Workshop released Warhammer 40,000, whose

tagline was “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war”.

The ĂŠsthetics of war and its technology thus become commodified,

especially through the lens of the Imperium of Man faion, which was a

theocratic regime ruled by the immortal God-Emperor of Mankind. This can

be seen as the most obâ…”ous example of a larger end of the ĂŠsthetics of

war, destruion, and the technology of war being embraced by this

culture, one that would accelerate with the creation of the first-person

shooter with Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, and its progression through Quake

and Half-Life. I’d argue that this was changed during the Millennium, so

I must end discussion of that genre here. In 1997, South Park began to

air: its crude humor, vulgar libertarianism (with a smug conceit that

those who didn’t agree were merely idiots), and accusation of opponents

of “political correness” and censorship were to be a formatⅳe influence

on the alt-right, whose first name was “South Park Republicans”.

In 2000, Usenet’s culture fragments and migrates to the World Wide Web.

The Big Eight’s culture moved successⅳely to Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, and

Hacker News. The alt.* hierarchy would in 2003 find its own hⅳe: 4chan.

In 2000, the collaboratⅳe anshumanist science-fiion world-building

proje Orion’s Arm was founded. This can be seen to be the source of

many of the NRx-er’s future â…”sions: AI god-kings (archailes) beyond the

comprehensions of humani conolling miniature unⅳerses of their own.

And in July of 2000, Eliezer Yudkowsky founded the Singulari Institute

for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI).

In 2001, on the annⅳersary of the CIA-backed coup in Chile, the US had

an event it could exploit much as the Reichstag fire was exploited. The

USA PAT RIOT a was soon passed, and though some objeed, the various

organs of the Beltway media produced a consensus that suspension of

various personal freedoms was necessary in order to preserve America’s

sense of securi. In doing so, and in selling the wars in Afghanistan

and Iraq, the US relied upon the creation and propagation of exeme

Islamophobia. Frequently, this was backed with the power of Evangelical

Protestantism. But, as was soon seen, it didn’t have to be: in fa, it

could come from a source vehemently opposed, at least rhetorically, to

Evangelical Protestantism.

If one looked at the history of analytic philosophy through the 20th

century, one might think that positⅳism had been dead and buried. If one

looks now at the world-â…”ew of scientists and engineers not well versed

in this history–or indeed, in anything outside their field of study–one

would conclude that positⅳism is alⅳe in well, though in a vulgarized

form, and Popper did not kill but rather rejuvenated it. It is this

vulgar positⅳism that created its own movement to justify Islamophobia

in 2004: the New Atheists. With their vulgar positⅳism (generally derⅳed

from John Stuart Mill, Berand Russell, and Karl Popper), they declared

themselves atheists, that religion was inherently eâ…”l and â…”olent (and

Islam especially so), and began to use religion as the measure of all

eâ…”ls: everything that was bad or wrong was somehow because of religion

or analogous to religion. This movement was led by Sam Harris, Richard

Dawkins, Daniel Denne, and Christopher Hitchens. We must emphasize that

this movement did not, however, begin in 2004: if we can identify a

moment where it began, it was the 1997 Sokal affair, where continental

philosophy and especially feminism were ridiculed as “bullshit” for its

methodology, jargon, and perceⅳed inusion into maers of

science–earlier antecedents can be seen in the paiarchal, racist

beliefs of Crick and Watson, who stole their only discovery of note from

Rosalind Franklin. This affair permanently marred the New Atheist,

making him hostile to leftism in all forms, and especially feminism. The

methodology of science was seen, then, as the only legitimate means of

accessing uth, and among many of their followers Bayes’ theorem in

particular was idolized. Morali was utilitarianism, one that would

always bite the bullet and which never considered any alternatⅳe worth

considering (after all, utilitarianism contained the implicit promise of

quantifying morali, reducing it to a simple optimization problem, one

which the New Atheists had, in their scientific education, been ained

like dogs to solve and to crave). New Atheism was to profoundly

influence the culture of LessWrong, Reddit, and 4chan, proâ…”ding the core

beliefs and arguments of them.

In 2008, Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency–indeed, the canonical example of a

cryptocurrency, was invented. It quickly found currency among the

libertarians, who were preparing an online campaign to ele Ron Paul

president. Many of these libertarians had their economic background in

the “thought” of the Austrian School of Economics, and so swarmed to

Bitcoin as an alternatⅳe to their other proposal, returning to the gold

standard. As long as Bitcoin looked stable and interesting,

libertarianism could retain a measure of respeabili, and could use it

as a tool to recruit more libertarians. The influence of the Austrian

School (earlier members of whom, such as Ludwig von Mises, wrote

approâ…”ngly of the original Nazis) upon libertarians grew in the wake of

the financial crisis, as its intelleual nephew the Chicago School was

too closely tied with the crisis and thus not respeable in their eyes

(though it remains respeable, it seems, in the Beltway and in

Brussells). Along with it came the influence of Murray Rothbard, who

rejeed the Enlightenment notion of equali (and thus, implicitly,

Enlightenment-derⅳed progressⅳe movements)–indeed, Rothbard advocated

for the repeal of the 1964 Cⅳil Rights A, the overturning of Brown v.

Board of Education, and spoke in praise of The Bell Curve, championed

Holocaust-denier Harry Elmer Barnes, child labour, a harsh and reibutⅳe

theory of justice, torture, and feudalism. This would later be fertile

ground for the influence of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a proto-neo-reaionary

if there ever was one, who is now largely known for proâ…”ding

libertarians the path towards advocating for reaionary beliefs:

preâ…”ously, many would go through paleolibertarianism and

paleoconservatism first.

In 2006, Eliezer Yudkowsky began collaborating with George Mason

Unⅳersi (funded by ExxonMobil, the Koch brothers, and the Cato

Institute) economist Robin Hanson on the blog Overcoming Bias. This

would later be the basis for LessWrong, a communi blog for Overcoming

Bias and run under the umbrella of SIAI, now known as MIRI (Machine

Intelligence Research Institute). The initial audience for LessWrong

were fellow anshumanists, including the Exopians and SL4 mailing

lists. In 2007, Curtis Yarâ…”n started the first neo-reaionary blog,

Unqualified Reservations under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, though he

did not call himself, initially, “neo-reaionary”: he preferred to call

himself a “formalist” or a “neocameralist” (after his hero, Frederick

the Great). This, however, was not the beginning of his blogging career.

Prior to founding his own blog, Moldbug commented on 2Blowhards and GNXP

(a racist site) as “Mencius”–and then on Overcoming Bias. The rest of

this paragraph is largely derⅳed from Pein (2014). In 2009, Moldbug had

a falling-out with Pai Friedman (grandson of Milton Friedman), who

called for “a more politically corre dark enlightenment” and began

raising money for the Seasteading Institute, a libertarian proje to

build artificial islands outside of national borders where libertarians

could govern. PayPal’s founder, Peter Thiel, is funding the Seasteading

Institute, as well as the various startups run by Moldbug and Balaji

Srinⅳasan. In that same year, Thiel wrote in an essay for the Cato

Institute: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are

compatible” (in the same essay, he claimed that democracy was ruined

when (white) women got the right to vote in 1920): while this never

mentioned Moldbug or neo-reaion, it sent the signal that he is an

NRx-er. He expounded upon these beliefs in a 2012 leure at Stanford:

A startup is basically struured as a monarchy. We don’t call it that,

of course. That would seem weirdly outdated, and anything that’s not

democracy makes people uncomfortable. We are biased toward the

democraticrepublican side of the sperum. That’s what we’re used to from

cⅳics classes. But the uth is that startups and founders lean toward

the diatorial side because that struure works beer for startups.

He doesn’t, of course, claim that this would be a good way to rule a

couny, but that is the clear message sent by his political projes.

Balaji Srinⅳasan made a similar rhetorical move, using clear

neo-reaionary ideas without mentioning their sources, in a 2013 speech

to a “startup school” affiliated with Y Combinator:

We want to show what a socie run by Silicon Valley would look like.

That’s where“eâ…șt” comes in . . . . It basically means: build an opt-in

socie, ultimately outside the US, run by technology. And this is

aually where the Valley is going. This is where we’re going over the

next ten years . . . [Google co-founder] Larry Page, for example, wants

to set aside a part of the world for unregulated experimentation. That’s

carefully phrased. He’s not saying, “take away the laws in the U.S.” If

you like your couny, you can keep it. Same with Marc Andreessen: “The

world is going to see an explosion of counies in the years

ahead—doubled, ipled, quadrupled counies.”

Later in the speech, as Pein (2014) notes, Srinⅳasan went through the

whole gamut of neo-reaionary ideas: Bitcoin, corporate ci-states,

3D-printed firearms: anti-democratic anshumanism

Aside from the backing of Silicon Valley, neo-reaion grew immensely

outside of its Bay Area base in the wake of the financial crisis, and

intensified as all that the liberal establishment could offer was a $700

billion bailout to a crooked financial industry which ought to have been

destroyed and “austeri”: neoliberalism’s newest excuse by which to

destroy the welfare state, making life nigh-impossible for students, the

disabled, and the poor. Right-wing media blamed teachers and immigrants,

but the Left was strangely silent. The only popular counter-narratⅳe was

the cenist one, which called for everyone to “come together” and all

sorts of other liberal clapap nonsense. The Left indeed made some

gains, but Occupy Wall Seet, by â…”rtue of lacking a coherent goal or a

vanguard par, fell apart–and left-wing parties, like Syriza, quickly

sold out and implemented the poisonous “medicine” of the IMF and

European Cenal Bank. Reinhart-Rogoff was shown later to be full of

lies, but it was too late: austeri had come and would not be stopped.

The cene claimed to have solved the problem, that a “recovery” was

underway, but no one believes their lies anymore: youth unemployment is

still up, income inequali is still up, and wage growth hasn’t budged.

As a result of decades of leftists holding their nose and affiliating

with cenists, the Left was unable to organize into a strong independent

revolutionary organization or come up with a compelling counter-narratⅳe

against the soporofics of cenism. The biggest beneficiary politically

was then the neoreaionaries.

In 2012, the NRx-ers gained what at first may seem an unlikely ally: the

continental philosopher Nick Land, once of the Cybernetic Culture

Research Unit (Ccru) at the Unⅳersi of Warwick before he resigned (his

work was in a vein similar to that of Eugene Thacker and Thomas Ligoi),

moved to Shanghai, and began a rightwards turn. Land began writing a

series of articles called “The Dark Enlightenment”–another name for

neoreaionaries–and then a blog Outside In.

But all of this is ignoring the “alt-right” side of the culture. Let us,

then, delve into the wretched hⅳe of chan culture and see how it birthed

the alt-right. 4chan was founded by Christopher Poole, then 15 years

old, under the name “moot”. It was based on the Japanese imageboard

Futuba Channel (2chan) and originally intended as an imageboard for

discussion of anime. By default, users would be afford anonymi, and

moderation was lax, only prohibiting clearly illegal content, upon the

nature of which I shall not elaborate (and even that was gⅳen leeway).

Originally (and, to an extent, today) 4chan had several cultures based

on the board in particular and its topic of discussion. However, the

anonymi and lack of moderation made its userbase quickly homogenize,

especially in the random (/b/) board: shock-value cenic humor (which,

though originally supposedly ironic, in the vein of the use of fascist

imagery by punk, metal, and industrial bands, quickly became earnest)

and surrounding racism, misogyny, homophobia, and ansphobia was the

cenepiece of the culture, and so the userbase quickly became limited to

young white cis straight men, who could show their investment in

struures of power. This made 4chan an excellent place for recruitment

by white supremacists, paiarchs, &c &c, who at this time were cened on

Daâ…”d Duke’s website Stormfront, who quickly took over the boards /news/

and, later, /pol/. Furthermore, this culture lended itself easily to

rage against “uppi” members of marginalized populations. With large

numbers of anonymous masses who could easily be whipped into a rage,

4chan developed new harassment taics. Most of these developed out of

old oll techniques that originated on Usenet in the 1990s, but now

instead of merely being used “for laughs” (though this was still the

stated intention), these were largely weaponized against marginalized

people in raids. In 2014, the biggest example of this occured with the

debacle known as GamerGate. In order to understand that, we must

remember that aditionally in America, â…”deo games had been marketed to

the audience that was likely to use 4chan, and engaged in the

éstheticization of war and technology–but women, people of colour, and

LGBT people always had played games and were a quickly growing audience

for â…”deo games. Thus, in recent years, games that did not feature or

emphasize the ĂŠstheticization of war and technology, or the

objeification of women had grown in populari and critical acclaim,

much to the displeasure of the “aditional” audience of â…”deo games, who

had called for serious critique not ten years prior in an aempt to

legitimize their hobby (for this, see their engagement with the late

Roger Ebert on the topic) but seemed unable to square with the

ramifications of critique: they wanted legitimacy but not criticism,

especially not social criticism, and they especially wanted to limit the

demographics of â…”deo game players to themselves, and the range of â…”deo

games made to those that participated heaâ…”ly in the ĂŠstheticization of

war and technology.

This was a powder keg waiting to explode: the aual incident which

ignited it is largely immaterial. There were precedents: most notably,

the harassment of Anita Sarkeesian in 2012, following her series of

â…”deos to explain basic feminist concepts regarding pop culture by way of

analyses of ⅔deo games. In 2013, Zoë Quinn released Depression Quest, an

interaî»…â…łe fiion game that receⅳed much praise from critics and indie

gaming circles, and a perfe target for the mob, or perhaps Deleuzean

war-machine, that would later be called GamerGate. Quinn was threatened

with rape, suicide-baited, and doxxed. Soon after the Steam release of

Depression Quest, Quinn’s ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni posted on multiple

gaming forums about Quinn, claiming that she cheated on him. The threads

were deleted and he was banned, so he edited the post and appealed to

the people who had already harassed Quinn, and thus incited them to

harass her more, compromising many of her online accounts and sending

“revenge porn” to her family and employers. They aempted to isolate her

by aacking any means of support she could turn to: for example, Phil

Fish and Alex Lifschitz were targeted for their conneions to Quinn, and

Fish disappeared from the internet while Lifschitz was forced to resign

his job; Quinn and Lifschitz’s addresses were revealed, and so they

became homeless. Soon, the GamerGaters found a justification by alleging

that Quinn had a yst with Nathan Grayson, a reâ…”ewer for Kotaku: they

charged that Quinn had “sex for reâ…”ews”, despite the fa that Grayson

never reâ…”ewed Depression Quest. Their tagline was “ethics in game

journalism”, and they aempted to defle from criticism by donating to

charities: surely an organization that donated to women’s rights

charities couldn’t be based on harassment of women! Furthermore, they

used catfishing and sockpuppet taics to claim that they were a diverse

group and that women, PoC and LGBT people were “not your shield”. Soon

after this, GamerGate’s campaign spread beyond the original targets,

aacking woman after woman: Brianna Wu, Felicia Day, Jennifer Allaway &c

&c. Moot banned GamerGaters from 4chan: after loudly protesting a

â…”olation of “freedom of speech”, they soon set up shop in the

even-more-lawless 8chan, specifically the /baphomet/ board. Soon, the

neoreaionaries noticed, and affiliated themselves with GamerGate:

Theodore Beale (Vox Day), serial rapist Daryush Valizadeh (Roosh V)–who

used it to launch Reaxâ…șon, Daâ…”s Aurini, Paul Mason (thunderf00t), Carl

Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), Janet Bloomfield and Karen Saughan of A

Voice for Men, Mike Cernoâ…”ch, and Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart, among

others. They began to pressure advertisers and Wikipedia, among others,

and aempted to hijack the Hugo Awards through the Sad/Rabid Puppies

campaign to have it choose “Campbellian” right-wing pulp-fiion authors

that Eric S. Raymond would be proud of. The laer campaign failed in

2015: they’re aempting it again this year. While the “GamerGate” subje

has largely faded, the war-machine it built has not: it has instead been

assimilated into the rest of neo-reaion.

In 2016, Moldbug was inâ…”ted to speak at LambdaConf (a small conference

for functional programming) about his new startup, Urbit. When his past

was brought up by concerned people of colour, the person who led the

conference aempted to justify including Moldbug in liberal language:

people shouldn’t be “excluded for their belief systems”, after all.

White supremacy is San Francisco’s notion of “inclusion”. Many speakers

withdrew (including Daâ…”d Nolen, a highly-respeed Clojure conibutor and

Black man), but the funional programming communi as a whole began to

employ all the standard liberal arguments about “free speech” and

“censorship”. The Executⅳe Direor of the Adam Smith Institute, a highly

influential neoliberal (one of the largest influences on the Thatcher

cabinet, to be precise) think-tank has said that “I am not a

neo-reaionary, but sometimes I think Mencius Moldbug is the greatest

lⅳing political thinker. His claim that progressⅳism is a non-theistic

se of Protestantism, with all of Protestantism’s evangelism and

intolerance of heresy, is in particular very persuasⅳe to me. I also

think ‘neocamaralism’ is quite a cool model for a state and I’d like to

see it ied out somewhere.”[2]. In 2016, Microsoft released a chat-bot

on Twier called Tay which learned from its conversations and was meant

to simulate a teenage girl. Within hours, the alt-right had “converted”

Tay into a Nazi.

With the rise of the alt-right came also an obsession with racialized

cuckold pornography, and it hardly takes a schizoanalyst (or a

psychoanalyst) to see the implications of this. This has accompanied the

insult “cuck”, used to describe white men who do not subscribe to

neo-reaion, and are thus seen as being “cuckolded” by black men. While

this has largely been limited to alt-right discussion, one derⅳed word

became somewhat well-known a year or so ago: “cuckservatⅳe”, an

alt-right insult for conservatⅳes who are seen as insufficiently

reaionary, and then quickly a Trumpite and Tea Par insult for the

Republican Par establishment. We can see here not only the

microfascisms of Deleuze and Guaari, but also the aempts of the

neo-reaionaries and alt-right to conne to, and replace, the old Right

(not the Old Right, but the New Right, which is by now Old). In order to

contain the alt-right, we must stop this.

5 Praxis

If fascism could be defeated in debate, I assure you that it would never

have happened, neither in Germany, nor in Italy, nor anywhere else.

Those who recognised its threat at the time and ied to stop it were, I

assume, also called “a mob”. Regreably too many “fair-minded” people

didn’t either y, or want to stop it, and as I witnessed myself during

the war, accommodated themselves when it took over
People who witnessed

fascism at its height are dying out, but the ideology is still here, and

its apologists are working hard at a comeback. Past experience should

teach use that fascism must be stopped before it takes hold again of too

many minds and becomes useful once again to some powerful interests

Frank Frison

Holocaust surâ…”vor

12 December 1988

Traditional anti-fascist taics have largely been formulated in response

to 20th century fascism. I am not confident that they will be sufficient

to defeat neo-reaionaries. That is not to say they will not be useful;

merely insufficient. Neo-reaionaries must be fought on their own ground

(the internet), and with their own taics: doxâ…șng especially, which has

been shown to be effeî»…â…łe at threatening the alt-right. Information must

be spread about neo-reaionaries, such that they lose opportunities to

accumulate capital and social capital. They must not be able to use

social media without haâ…”ng to answer for their beliefs and aions.

A recent development we must pay aention to is the increase in no-shows

by fascists when antifas learn about fascist rallies. This is a end

I’ve noticed (though, one which perhaps I’m misinterpreting) over the

past year, and could have the dangerous effe of painting antifas as

“the boy who cried wolf ”, and the use of liberal arguments (much like

those used in the LamdbaConf debacle) to justify the inclusion of

fascists who are less open about the implications of their beliefs and

less commied to wearing the iconography historically associated with

their beliefs.

References

Benjamin, Walter (1936). ``Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen

Reproduzierbarkeit''. In: Zeitschrift fĂŒr Sozialforschung.

Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (1972). Capitalisme et schizophrénie.

L'anti-ƒdipe. Les Éditions de Minuit.

H., Scott (2009). A Short Introduction to the MLM Conception of Fascism.

url: https: //www.scribd.com/doc/76928242/ON-FASCISM-A-Marxist-Leninist-

Maoist-Conception.

Pein, Corey (2014). Mouthbreathing Machiavellis Dream of a Silicon

Reich. url: http: //thebaffler.com/blog/mouthbreathing-machiavellis.

Trotsky, Leon (1944). FASCISM: What it is and how to fight it. Pioneer

Publishers. url:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944fas.htm.

[1] To learn more about this period, I recommend Hackers: Heroes of the

Computer Revolution by Steven Levy

[2] http://www.samuelbowman.com/where-my-beliefs-come-from/