The modern right, particularly the e-right, is a vast and fascinating ecosystem. Herds of IDW post-liberals placidly graze on disappearing pastures. Packs of vitalist bodybuilders and neo-crusaders race through forgotten forests, vying for supremacy or hunting lesser prey. Techno-optimists construct colonies of silica, glass, and metal, a warren for their singularity queen.
A healthy ecosystem generally requires a healthy amount of competition between its inhabitants. My own thoughts on neutrality notwithstanding, the cut and thrust of online right-wing discourse has obviously been an overwhelming benefit to right-wing thought in general. The nebulous and varied nature of its current scene, however, is also its greatest weakness.
To continue the metaphor, there are also animals of a different and destructive nature. Invertebrates, crawling and brightly colored, signal their poisonous secretions by their flashy display. Dimes Square dart frogs and autogynephilic arthropods alike will kill the organisms that mistake them for anything other than death. The e-right is, as of yet, united only by a mutual dislike of the modern progressive project, and that is its primary weakness. Co-belligerency is rarely the basis for stable governance.
Take, for example, this article by Walt Bismarck on why the e-right must be nicer to promiscuous women. Rather than any intelligent and unique solution, his argument boils down to “you gotta let us be moral imbeciles man, ‘cause if you don’t, we’ll do some reeeaaaaalllly bad stuff.” This is neither intellectually nor morally compelling.
“Trad, but secretly degenerate”
The main thrust of his article is that trads and degens have much more in common than they think. The trads want a stable, healthy, successful society, while the degens want to get their kicks in peace. Wealthy and sophisticated people have always been secretly degenerate, so why can’t society allow the high performers to misbehave while the proles are given a series of moral fences to keep them in line?
Boring mass-ification of immorality has made it passé; the low IQ and corresponding impulse control of the lower classes makes them incapable of “good” and “harmless” immorality. Therefore, he proposes a truce: let the trads build their stable and moral society, and let the elite members of society be as degenerate as they wish.
His reasoning is that high-powered, elite men thrive off of adrenaline and risk-taking; similarly high-powered and elite women thrive off of access to these men. These people are needed to build and direct society, and if they aren’t allowed to blow off steam in “harmless” affairs, indiscretions, and debaucheries, they will eventually create freakish sex cults, gamble with the economy, and send millions of our sons through foreign meat grinders.
The solution is simple: the lower classes are incapable of intelligent transgression, and they must be corralled by the traditionalists’ moral codes. The elites, however, by virtue of superior intelligence, can handle the frisson of sin, and will be satisfied with small indecencies here and there. They would certainly never progress to greater and greater immorality. Without any encounters with the boring and disgusting proles, they would never be forced to.
What exactly is “right-wing” about this idea?
False Religions
His argument does acknowledge the existence of real, natural hierarchies in the world, and argues that society should be based off of. He believes there are elites, and that these elites will run society, and are necessary to run it.
By what qualities will these elites be known? Not any virtue or self discipline, certainly. Morality is for the plebs, beneath such enlightened beings. No, these are sophisticated and worldly-wise businessmen. The author characterizes himself as “strange and autistic,” a “novelty-seeking urbanite,” and represents these elites as being those who ran society in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. There is no metric for what qualifies these elites besides large amounts of money and a penchant for rejecting bourgeois morality. These sound more like leftist bohemians than any right wing elite.
Like many “new” techniques for structuring society, this idea fails on a fundamental level to comprehend either its opposition or the effects of its demands. This is, at its base, an argument for a deliberately, knowingly false religion. Why would anyone sign on to this idea? Because “the trads” want a stable and moral society?
The elites instruct the common crowd how they are to behave, and those stolid trads will get what they want: a society of boring old fuddy-duddies, too locked into their monotonous modes to dream of more. The elites, on the other hand, break every rule in the book because they “deserve it.” We are told we must allow them to, or society will fall apart.
No one will follow this. The “elites,” by their behavior, prove that the moral foundations of society are completely false. Not only do the morals and traditions required of the middle class not actually lead to more success, but the more success you achieve, the less likely you are to follow these ideals. In fact, there is a direct correlation (in his imagined society) between success in life and perversion.
Who Enforces the Rules?
How will you prevent the proles from joining their elites, in behavior if not in wealth? He offers no metric by which to judge the “elites” other than undefined “success,” characterized by wealth and “sophistication.” Who defines these? Who enforces these? Will anyone with a certain amount of money be let in? The slovenly Bankman-Frieds of the world would be front-runners for entry. Will a glib tongue and a slick smile earn you the title of “sophisticated?” Look no further than the Clintons for your clientele.
He points to the Mafia’s hold on Las Vegas as a good example of enforced sophistication in perversion. The Mafia, though, hardly blinked at prostituting underage girls or selling drugs to the less sophisticated classes. They certainly did not carry themselves as wise, prudent, and temperate degenerates. Even aside from this, it is sheer insanity to say that a healthy society requires a violent, criminal organization running covert rings of perversion for the benefit of “elites.”
The fact of the matter is that elites will always lead by example. The credentialed administrative class might believe that the plebs just need to be told what to do by the Faucis, Bankman-Frieds, and Obamas of the world, but people will always listen to actions more than words. There is no way to allow the elites to have their perversions without sending a tacit message to the proles that these things are not actually wrong, but are actually a marker of success.
Even more ridiculous, the author knows this, even if he won’t admit it. He tells us of Sin City, as if that was at all a secret to the average person of the day. Everyone knew about its reputation, and so anyone with the money to take part in it sought to. Would the Mob, his idealized defenders of society, really turn away new, deep-pocketed customers? How would he prevent this re-occurring? He does not say. Perhaps he is more interested in “the conversation” than any practical solutions.
The Morality of a Four-Year-Old
Practicality aside, the other horn of his dilemma is the inevitability of this kind of society, and the dangers of trying to avoid it. Whether or not we can dance on the razor’s edge of degenerate traditionalism, we will (according to him) face it nonetheless.
According to him, all elites, throughout history, have always had higher verbal IQ, and therefore can always think of more perverse things to do than the average peon. A successful society, therefore, will engineer society to allow (and even encourage) the elites to follow their perversions while preventing the lower classes from trying to emulate them.
Indeed, we must allow him to exercise his deviancy, or his “elite” class will massacre our sons and debauch our daughters. Someone, somewhere will be sinning, so we might as well let them have their small peccadilloes to avoid the greater calamity their full appetites could unleash. Really, we should be thanking them for being so benevolent.
This is the morality of a four-year-old. Someone is eventually gonna do a bad thing, therefore the trads might as well let these poor, adrenaline junkie elites have their thrills. Again, what exactly is right-wing about this? You might as well argue with the left that schizophrenic knife murderers can’t help it, its just how they’re wired, and that policing these things won’t stop every attempt at them. Look guys, murder still happens, guess we can’t punish that anymore. Better make a safe space for degenerate elites to kill people so they can blow off all that steam from ordering the plebs around.
Of course, his inevitable response would be that he’s advocating for “harmless,” “sexy,” and “psychologically useful” deviancy. Even leaving aside the fact that the breakdown of sexual mores among the elite is never harmless with regards to the example set for the lower classes, he ignores that hedonistic utopias would never and have never stayed in those boundaries.
Impurity Spiralling
Every hedonistic society of elites has progressed from perversion to perversion until something (internal collapse, external invasion, counter-elite, etc.) wipes them out. None have ever managed to create this ideal balance he desires. He does not even consider this, let alone account for it. The reason they have not is that they are incapable. The very concept of balance is alien to hedonism, regardless of the platitudes.
This is easily illustrated by his own argument: he desires a broadly traditional society for the proles, with havens set apart for the elites’ enjoyment. He explicitly says that these should be deliberately engineered by society’s leaders, which he also says ought to be those same transgressive elites. In what world is this any real transgression? The elites give themselves explicit permission and spaces to commit the small sins they want. Who is going to stop them? There will be no frisson of transgression when they are in no danger of public shame and ruin.
Because there is no thrill to be had, they will inevitably seek out the thing that is just slightly beyond what society would allow, as hedonists always have and always do. Yet, because these people are the same ones that run society, what prevents them from making this new perversion legal? Even worse, what prevents it from becoming de facto legal by the very fact that it is society’s lawmakers who are doing it? He is self-described as “novelty-seeking” in his life; when his latest thrill is legitimized, why would he not seek out a new level of “novelty?”
This creates a spiral as the elites drive themselves to ever greater depths of vice, each seeking to outdo the other as last year’s freakshow becomes this year’s New Normal. This is how it has happened in every single decadent empire throughout history. No doubt he would insist that was only because they did not police the ranks of the elite carefully enough, and a few plebs slipped through the cracks.
As I’ve already pointed out, though, he has no plan for policing them effectively (the closest he gets is “the Mafia were great"), and even if he did, it’s ridiculous to believe that he is the first hedonist to attempt this. The vast majority of hedonists believe themselves to be in control, and yet it is impossible for any group of hedonists to achieve this, because to police yourself and others in this fashion would require massive amounts of self-discipline and personal virtue, precisely those two qualities that no hedonist has. He defeats his own project by his nature.
More than this, the downward spiral of hedonism, far from heralding a golden age of stability and success, universally occurs as an empire enters a decadent decline. He argues that all elites have always been perverse and degenerate. History would indicate that while elites degrade over time (as does everything), the ones who build the empire are far more disciplined and self-denying than their lesser scions. Physical excellence and moral excellence must coincide, and decadent empires rarely muster even a tithe of their ancestors’ vigor, let alone their virtue. Hedonism cannot build an empire, and degeneracy always heralds imperial decline.
Parasitism
At its root, his argument is a parasite’s plea. The only reason he desires the stable society is to enable his perversions without the inevitable effects they bring. He wants another host, healthy, vital, and alive. There is no other reason for this stable society.
Everyone must discipline themselves, work hard, refuse temptation, follow moral codes, all so that the enlightened elite (defined only by their similarity to his own self-image) can have their fun without being too concerned about their decadence causing instability and decay.
This is impossible to create, let alone maintain. No one would believe in a system that the elites clearly are flouting, particularly if the entire system is founded on attempting to ensure the elites can continue to flout the rules. Perhaps he would say the elites would keep it a secret. Complete secrecy was impossible even in his golden age of “Sin City,” how much more would it be impossible in an age of digital panopticism, where there is a camera and microphone in every pocket?
Nothing in his article has any real right wing ideas to offer, only more of the same transgressive, progressive morality that has given us the modern world. His appeal is that high-powered people require the adrenaline rush of transgression to avoid worse problems. Well, his golden age featured elites who had their decadent spaces. They embroiled us in Vietnam while proving incapable of preserving their elite spaces from middle class pollution. Why would we expect anything different this time around?
If adrenaline rushes are required, there are ample ways to risk your neck that do not involve a collapse of morals. Older elites, contrary to his assertion that all have pursued perversion for their thrills, took part in ritualized combat and contests of military strength where they ran a serious risk of losing their life, but proved their courage and fitness to lead if they won.
What exactly makes this a lesser form of risk-taking than sexual peccadilloes? To ask the question is to answer it: he doesn’t actually want “risk-taking” or “adrenaline rushes,” he wants uninhibited perversion. His ideology is a thinly veiled excuse for his lack of self-control. Everything else is window-dressing. All of his concern for society is only so that it might carry water for his vices.
The ecosystem of the new right will not survive for long in the tender care of these parasites. Like all parasites, they cannot help themselves, and will bleed the host dry to eke just one more ounce of pleasure from their lives. Giving them a foothold will only weaken and eventually destroy their hosts. Because people look to the elites for direction, creating a society that does not elevate excellence, both physical and moral, can only result in one that denigrates and destroys both. His philosophy is one of decay and incapacity, not vigor, and seeks to puppet the right for his own degenerate ends. These parasites must be expelled.
"At its root, his argument is a parasite’s plea. The only reason he desires the stable society is to enable his perversions without the inevitable effects they bring. He wants another host, healthy, vital, and alive. "
Well said, Aodhan. I enjoyed your series. Looking forward to more articles.