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Mike Stroud's avatar

Linker, this is the most excellent take-down of a figure you have done since I started reading and posting. There is not a g-----n thing new about Yarvin or his ideas; the beliefs are as old as the Ancients. It is only because of our laughable, constipated educational system, from Kindergarten on up, that we as a people do not have sufficient historical and philosophical knowledge of pre-modern times to set off our b------t detectors. We also do not have the moral/spiritual cojones to call Gnosticism for what it is, not a harmless, personal belief system such as the "New Age" of the late 20th century, but a direct threat to the very freedom (First Amendment) that, ironically, allows its enthusiasts (few as they are) to indulge in their preferred beliefs; in other words, it is, under the conditions of existence, self-undermining.

You have put your finger precisely on the appeal and engine of Gnosticism: ego. As such, you have done a far better service than early conservative movement figures such as Eric Voegelin, who used the concept to smear basically anything he and his National Review intellectual kinfolk did not like and thus rendered any potential serious critique inherent in his viewpoints as self-interested and thus dismissible, to demonstrate how specious it is--and further its incompatibility with both republican self-government and either conservative or liberal Christianity, be it Catholic, Protestant, or Eastern Orthodox. Are the likes of Deneen, Ahmari, and Vermeule paying any attention to Yarvin's opposition to not only liberalism, but also his de facto rejection of even humane conservative (NOT fundamentalist) Christian anthropology (e.g., Augustine, Luther, Kierkegaard)? If they are not, that means that they are theological illiterates and do not have any more business dictating what Americans should think any more than Yarvin does.

To close, I am sure Voegelin would be rolling around in his grave if he knew what uses his animus against Gnosticism were being put to. Then again, it has been the trajectory of conservatism to trade in its moral and intellectual integrity for popular assent--it has basically lost its soul and has a decreasing resemblance to its origins in opposition to instability and mob rule. Of course Yarvin is not a "conservative;" he is a reactionary who wants to destroy everything in sight and rule himself. Hopefully some elements of the Right will wake up out of their Trumpist/DeSantian slumber and see this charlatan for what he is.

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James Ackerman's avatar

I honestly don't think Shapiro, Crowder, Walsh, Yarvin, Bannon, et. al. understand they don't win because of some insidious power acting against them. They don't win because "the people" either A) Don't like what they're selling or B) Don't like them because they're pretentious, sanctimonious hypocrites who rarely if ever reflect the values they espouse. Fact is their model of governance is unpopular because it's a batsh*t model of governance. Nothing they say or do is gonna change that and plenty of people recognize them for the hucksters they are.

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