The NightWatch newsletter comes over the transom in the wee hours every night. From today’s edition: Special comment for new analysts. It always is wise to investigate as many versions of a story as are available. Each adds something to the reconstruction of what happened. The open source coverage of the chemical attack at Khan […]
The world is in an uproar about the apparent gas attack in Syria. Western nations, and the Western media, have blamed Bashar al-Assad. The Russians say their man Assad didn’t do it; that a conventional bombing strike against a rebel storehouse must have released toxic substances that were to be used in chemical weapons. I […]
This from our e-pal Bill Keezer just now: California Senate OKs statewide illegal immigrant sanctuary bill Educated readers will recall that United States history already includes some examples of such “nullification”; for fans of peace and order, or of the Union as presently constituted, the precedent is not particularly encouraging. Leaving that aside, however, one […]
“The teacher asked once what did we talk about when we talked about happiness. And then one student said that happiness is what happens when you go to bed on the hottest night of the summer, a night so hot you can’t even wear a tee-shirt and you sleep on top of the sheets instead […]
It’s been a busy few days, with little time to write. (Nor, to tell the truth, have I had much I’ve wanted to say.) I spent the weekend playing music with friends, which is a much healthier pastime than brooding on the great sucking vortex that forms the current, crepuscular era of Western culture and […]
March 31, 2017 – 11:49 pm
Evola: Indeed, no one can ignore the deep crisis of the ”˜rationalising’ of existence attempted by bourgeois culture, given the many examples of the emerging of the irrational or ”˜elemental’ (in the sense of the elemental character of a force of nature) through the fissures of this culture on every level. Today, with the return […]
March 30, 2017 – 10:43 pm
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve been reading The Outline of History, published in 1920 by H. G. Wells. I’m still at it — I tend to have several books going at once, and this two-volume item is about 1,200 pages long. I’ve just read the brief entry on the conquests of Timurlane […]
March 29, 2017 – 10:46 am
Well, there you are, then.
Over at Social Matter, William Fitzgerald has posted this excellent analysis of the Gulenist movement’s role in last year’s coup attempt in Turkey. If you have any interest in this sort of thing you should make sure you read it.
If you’re like me, you may be feeling “out of step” because you’ve been having trouble adopting the Progressive way of thinking about things. You have to watch everything you say in public, and your maladjusted belief system may have cost you friendships, or even your job! Have you found that despite all this, no […]
Here we have a perfect example of what the late (and greatly missed) Lawrence Auster called the Unprincipled Exception: Hijab becomes symbol of resistance, feminism in the age of Trump The Muslim hijab as a symbol of Western-style feminism? Could anything be more obviously absurd? Clearly, then, absurdity doesn’t matter here: this is nothing more […]
Sturdy class structures, although they may diminish individual opportunity, keep superior genes, when they arise, within each class. In doing so, then, they strengthen classes at every level. High social mobility, by contrast, tends to “boil off” superior individuals, who, when they are given the opportunity to do so, move up and out — taking […]
In his latest column, Patrick Buchanan weighs in on the Trump/Russia story. The propaganda war is ablaze: the MSM would have you believe that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to interfere with the election — although nobody has ever produced, or even claimed, that there is any evidence of collusion for this purpose (beyond […]
Earlier this month we posted an interview with the Daily Mail reporter Katie Hopkins. In that interview, Ms. Hopkins described for Tucker Carlson what she had found on a recent trip to Sweden. Here is an opinion piece from Ms. Hopkins on yesterday’s attack in London.
We’ve heard an awful lot about how the election of Donald Trump has emboldened and “enabled” hate-filled right-wingers to express themselves with vandalism and assault. In particular there’s been a rash of swastika-scrawling, and of bomb-threats against Jewish centers. When these things happen, we on the dissident Right simply wait, knowing that the odds are […]
“Periodic sackings are part and parcel of living in a major city.” – Honorius, 410 A.D.
Well, here is something quite remarkable for our time: an actual “conversation about race” in which two people, with completely incommensurable axioms and worldviews, discuss the topic for a full hour without shouting each other down, or resorting to violence. (Astonishingly, there isn’t even any mention of Hitler.) The interlocutors are Jared Taylor, of American […]
I was saddened yesterday to hear that Chuck Berry had died. (He was 90, and so it was bound to happen soon, but it was a jolt nevertheless.) He was a majestic, and majestically stationary, feature of my generation’s musical landscape. He was always there, a great peak on its eastern horizon, and the shadow […]
March 17, 2017 – 11:03 pm
We’ve devoted some space lately to the mutated and camouflaged religion (and not just any religion!) that goes by the name of Progressivism. (Once you’ve spotted it, you can’t un-see it; it’s as plain as this owl.) But why the camo in the first place? Moldbug explains: The question is: why? How did we fall […]
The strategic-security situation has been a neglected topic here for a while. Time to catch up a little. One of the most septic, and possibly most infectious, areas of conflict at the moment is Yemen, the site of a deepening proxy war between Islam’s major players. The nation is completely dysfunctional, with almost no chance […]
The political right is aboil over the latest judicial interference with President Trump’s efforts temporarily to restrict immigration from dangerous and unstable Muslim territories. The question is framed in terms of a heated battle for sovereignty in America, with the sense that the judiciary — which is to say, individual judges, with nothing to check […]
William Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, having read my own recent item on William Deresciewicz’s article about Progressivism-as-religion, has just offered a post expressing his disagreement. Bill writes: It is true that leftism is like a religion in certain key respects. But if one thing is like another it does not follow that the first is […]
Just ran across this: a study of hand-grip strength showed that 95% of males are stronger than 90% of females. The abstract: Hand-grip strength has been identified as one limiting factor for manual lifting and carrying loads. To obtain epidemiologically relevant hand-grip strength data for pre-employment screening, we determined maximal isometric hand-grip strength in 1,654 […]
March 14, 2017 – 12:43 pm
The insight that modern Progressivism is best understood as a religion (especially in the concentrated form it takes in the college campuses from which it emanates to the broader society) seems suddenly to be en vogue. (We reactionary types have been hammering this point for years, so it’s nice to see the truth prevail a […]
March 11, 2017 – 10:00 pm
In order correctly to understand the modern Left, it’s important to recognize it as a secularized religion. Tracing the development of this religion, from its origins in Protestantism, then Puritanism, then through its many transmutations in America — from sixteenth-century Massachusetts, through its northern and western Protestant expansion, through the “Awakenings” of the seventeenth and […]
“The ordinary man prefers easy ways so long as they may be followed, and is almost willfully heedless whether they end at last in a cul-de-sac.” — H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, p. 359
Here‘s Christina Hoff Sommers on the widespread and persistent myth of the sexist “wage gap”.
There is a fascinating spin war taking place over possible government surveillance of the Trump campaign. According to multiple sources, including the New York Times, there were wiretaps, and there were also at least two applications for surveillance to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts — one in June that was refused, and one […]
Roger Scruton, speaking of the evolutionary origins of human morality: “Morality is like a field of flowers beneath which the corpses are piled in a thousand layers.”
Here is an interview of Daily Mail reporter Katie Hopkins by Tucker Carlson. Ms. Hopkins describes her recent trip to Sweden. By the way, speaking of Sweden and Tucker Carlson, here’s John Derbyshire’s understanding of Donald Trump’s recent “last night in Sweden” remark that set off such a commotion: It happened that Tucker Carlson over […]
Okay, enough doom and gloom. Here’s a picture of my grandson Liam, who is, if I am not mistaken, the cutest child that ever lived. Ladies?
Following on our earlier post — and with thanks to our commenter Jason for the link — here are Charles Murray’s own remarks on having been assaulted by a violent leftist mob at Middlebury College last week. We read (the item refers to Professor Allison Stanger, who had invited Mr. Murray for an interview, and […]
We offer a hat-tip to Nick Land for exhuming this two-year-old passage from John Glanton at Social Matter: You have to admire the Left for its clarity of vision. It has identified its enemies, and it does what it can to drive them from the field. The recent fireworks in Indiana are a perfect illustration. […]
John Derbyshire’s been asking: why is Russia our enemy? I’ve wondered too: A more enlightened worldview would see Russia ”” a great Christian nation, and one that has made priceless contributions to the treasure-store of Western civilization ”” as a natural ally in these perilous times. We have much in common, including ancient, existential enemies […]
We’ve been hearing a lot about how the election of Donald Trump has brought a lot of haters out into the open. As Mr. Trump himself might say: so true. Here’s a thing that happened two days ago: MIDDLEBURY ”” Middlebury College Professor Allison Stanger was injured by protesters Thursday evening as she was […]
I’m sure you all have it marked on your calendars, but my birthday’s coming up in April. (I’ll be 61!) If you still don’t know what to get me, have a look here.
In a heartwarming opinion piece today at the New York Times, Thomas Edsall laments the internet’s toxic effect on what it calls “democracy” — a term that, if I understand the piece correctly, is to be defined as a political system in which two political parties, and a few other “dominant organizations” (here, the Times […]
February 28, 2017 – 5:54 pm
Remember Supernova 1987a? (Of course you do.) Well, NASA’s been keeping an eye on it for you. Fantastic video and images here.
February 28, 2017 – 5:04 pm
A couple of months ago I was contacted by a woman named Lucy Diego, who was putting together an anthology of neoreactionary essays and wanted to know if she might use some of what I’ve written here. (I was happy to agree.) Ms. Diego runs an art gallery in London that last year mounted an […]
February 26, 2017 – 8:11 pm
A couple of weeks ago I picked up a copy of The Outline of History, written in 1920 by H.G. Wells. I’m halfway through the first volume of two. It’s a fine example of post-WWI Progressive-era thinking, and Mr. Wells was of course a wonderful craftsman, so I’ve been enjoying it enormously. (The entire book […]
February 24, 2017 – 11:11 pm
By now you’ve probably heard about the flagrantly tendentious decision by the Fourth Circuit in Kolbe v. Hogan, which upheld a flimsy “assault-weapons” ban in Maryland. The ruling is here. Here, here, here, and here are some responses.
February 23, 2017 – 3:58 pm
In its ongoing purge of all heterodox opinion, Twitter has now suspended Nick Land’s account, @Outsideness. They have no possible pretext for doing so, other than the suppression and silencing of ideological dissidents. Nick Land has never threatened anyone, nor even used a profane word. If you have any doubt that there is now an […]
February 23, 2017 – 12:25 am
As dark allusions to the rise of Hitler circulate in the wake of the new administration’s immigration-enforcement initiatives, making the rounds tonight is this anonymous remark: Clearly we must do what the world did after it recognized the horror of the Holocaust: come together in support of the founding of a Mexican homeland. A place […]
February 21, 2017 – 4:25 pm
There’s been quite a fuss about Donald Trump’s having suggested that Sweden might be having problems digesting millions of profoundly alien, mostly Muslim, immigrants. The narrative conflict could not be starker: on the one side, a description of a formerly safe, homogeneous and peaceful Scandinavian nation descending into a darkening abyss of rape, fear, cultural […]
February 21, 2017 – 12:56 pm
With a hat-tip to Bill Valicella, here’s an item, by Alex Ross for The New Yorker, arguing that the Frankfurt School foresaw the rise of Donald Trump. Did they? Well, we shouldn’t be surprised, because they labored to create exactly the ideological conditions in the postwar West — the deadly mind-virus of radical and pathologically […]
February 16, 2017 – 4:57 pm
I heard it again just the other day. It’s from some sappy movie a few decades back: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” What idiot wrote this? Love means constantly having to say you’re sorry.
February 16, 2017 – 4:38 pm
Steve Bannon’s reading-list has had our Brahmins on the fainting-couch. In this item, for example, Jason Horowitz of the the New York Times, searching for the “roots” of Mr. Bannon’s “dark” and “apocalyptic” worldview, notes with horror that our new presidential adviser has not only heard of, but has actually read Julius Evola. (So have […]
February 16, 2017 – 3:35 pm
In my ceaseless foraging for blog-fodder, I ran across this clickbait today: 10+ Hilarious Reasons Why The English Language Is The Worst “The worst”? Au contraire, say I: what other language has such richness of idiom, precision and discrimination? Anyway, off to the linked item I went. It began: English is a mystery to all […]
February 15, 2017 – 1:13 pm
With a hat-tip to Nick B. Steves, here’s a post-and-thread you might like to read, if you have some time. The post, at the computer scientist Scott Aaronson’s blog Shtetl-Optimized, is a protest against the Trump travel ban, from a familiar perspective, and ends with a challenge to Trump voters: “go ahead, let me hear […]