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Probably should be in the "21st century" section of Reactionary. Else more should be pulled out of there to here, with that as a short summary and this as the main article - David Gerard ( talk) 16:10, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
I've put "neoreactionary" as a bold header here and redirected the relevant topics here. The paragraph in reactionary should largely be shifted here and a better summary written for that article section - David Gerard ( talk) 14:07, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
Radical traditionalism seems to be a perfect fit here for the "See also" section. Any disagreements? 2601:A:6200:AAC:190F:99B4:7633:28C1 ( talk) 04:27, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
I don't think having the "Conservatism" series is appropriate. Is there any reliable source putting this in the conservative movement or worldview more than any other? 73.172.99.131 ( talk) 05:12, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
May want to add some comparisons to the original Enlightenment and what features of that which DE advocates reject. For example, some of Hoppe's fundamentals:
"the natural equality of all men; the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid"
I believe they reject at least those three principles. Especially the first.
J1812 ( talk) 10:07, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
There's remaining evidence on the web he worked on it, though he didn't write the whole thing. Anyone know of anything that clearly sets it out? - David Gerard ( talk) 09:17, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
Should this article be portraying multiple groups or as a loose term ?
I saw at theawl it portrayed not as a single "the movement" terms this article uses, but as a general grouping label, "less a single ideology than a loose constellation of far-right thought, clustered around three pillars: religious traditionalism, white nationalism, and techno-commercialism ". The Telegraph cite says similar, and the TechCrunch cite portrays it as lightly insulting term crafted by folks who dislike, and Spectator says the only unity is a discontent ...
In any event it seems not a "group" with membership or leaders, not a "movment" as something planned so suggestions for improvment please. Would the article do better to say it is "a broad term for" or something like that ? Markbassett ( talk) 16:14, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
I am going to remove the " Fusionism" link in the See Also section, unless someone has a compelling reason to keep it. The views of William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan have approximately nothing to do with the neoreactionary system of ideas. I mean, come on. Fusionism is just mainstream American conservatism. Pretendus ( talk) 20:37, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
David Gerard, why do you say a pile of traditionalist Catholics are in the Dark Enkightenment? What's your evidence?
According to the first reference found in The Baffler, "some are atheists".
According to the article by Nick Land, one of the leaders (Mencius Moldbug) is an atheist.
I don't think the movement supports religion.
69.127.248.215 ( talk) 02:15, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Could you give examples of people within the Dark Enlightenment movement who view religion as a noble lie? Did Dark Enlightenment figures praise Breivik? Do LaVeyan Satanists think religion is societally useful? 69.127.248.215 ( talk) 13:19, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
The American Spectator ref specifically says: "They are Tridentine Catholic or Eastern Orthodox in religion, or else hard materialists." This seems accurate to me - I haven't encountered the Orthodox ones, but there's a pile of tradcats who buy into the DE. The religion as socially useful thing sounds very plausible to me, but we need a cite for this so I've marked it accordingly - David Gerard ( talk) 15:12, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
The source says: "or else hard materialists." So the movement is not clearly pro- or anti-religious. If you have no reference for your statement about religion being socially useful we shouldn't include it. 69.127.248.215 ( talk) 18:26, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
I think the proposed addition is inappropriate because:
Does anyone have a source for the neoreactionary ideology having any connection whatsoever? If not, I am going to remove the entry in "See Also." Pretendus ( talk) 23:09, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
Dear Wikipedia,
do you really consider sound practice to include as "references" some article that simply expresses biased opinions as though they were "facts"? I mean, if a journalist is clearly a left-winger, how can one expect objectivity when he discusses an anti-cultural-marxism sub-culture? Reference sections should be authoritative and credible, you know...
Otherwise, keep up the good work! Cheers! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.2.20.137 ( talk • contribs)
I think that this article should be titled "Neoreaction" rather than "Dark Enlightenment". My rationale:
1) Dark Enlightenment applies mostly to Nick Land and his fans. This is like titling this page "formalism", coined by moldbug. Formalism & DE apply to subsets of the movement. Neoreaction is a broad term.
2)Dark Enlightenment is definitely the lesser used of the two, both in ordinary discourse and among journalists (in the US at least). I don't have an hard evidence for this so it is, for now, clearly the weaker of the 2 points — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.112.229.223 ( talk) 05:59, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
The majority of reliable sources seem to use the phrasing "neoreaction" or "neoreactionary movement". I'd support moving the page to either of these locations. Any thoughts? Denarivs ( talk) 04:54, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Hello Wikipedia editors; my name is Justine Tunney. I've noticed that this article makes an incorrect claim about me. I'd like to point out that I'm not associated with the Dark Enlightenment. I am not a "neoreactionary." I have never been any such thing. Here's proof: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9703134 I've talked to people who've identified with these terms. But certainly talking to people isn't grounds for inclusion in a Wikipedia article that could be potentially damaging to my reputation. Furthermore, the reference that's being used to back up this claim is a smear piece. It was written by Arthur Chu, who is a man well-known for being a biased political partisan. The article he wrote about me in the Daily Beast makes such absurd, ridiculous, and unsubstantiated claims, that no reasonable person could possibly interpret it as anything other than a work of pure fiction. Certainly Wikipedia would not want to cite such untrustworthy content. - Jartine ( talk) 02:25, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
The American Spectator is a blog. The Baffler appears to be a satirical, pundit site, which does not bode well for consideration as reliable. And the Daily Telegraph article link appears to be broken. Besides that, it appears a couple of descriptions were cherrypicked to WP:COATRACK the article lead with criticisms. Support for monarchism and traditional gender role? Unfounded, super minority, fringe views on the characteristics of the movement. Some critics have labeled it neo-fascist? Yea, a lot of critics label a lot of things, but those labels don't end up in article leads, especially when there is (if the link not working is entirely on my side) only one source that mentioned it in passing. That is undue weight, and poor attribution of the article. DaltonCastle ( talk) 20:26, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
The term "Dark Enlightenment" was coined by author and philosopher Nick Land as a satirical play on words for the knowledge supposedly gained from the Enlightenment and lost during the Dark Ages.
it appears to take a stance on the subject using the title
71.105.96.61 ( talk) 13:54, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
I agree with OP that the name "Dark Enlightenment" is both confusing and non-NPOV. The political philosophy is typically referred to as the Neoreactionary Movement by both subscribers of it and critics of it. [1][2][3][4] User:Stephen Balaban -
Moving article.
[1] http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement [2] http://home.earthlink.net/~peter.a.taylor/moldbug.htm [3] http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/ [4] http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/22/geeks-for-monarchy/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephen Balaban ( talk • contribs) 18:37, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Moldbug's blog has been attested as important to the subject in sufficient RSes to put in, and Land's paper named the movement, but I can't see random blog sources as being a good idea unless they're attested in multiple RSes as being very important sources on the topic. So I would be strongly against linking just blogs even if they claim to be a good directory page, unless they have such an attestation.
Scott Alexander's Anti-Reactionary FAQ would be a nice one to link ... if it has attestation in RSes. Does it? - David Gerard ( talk) 22:42, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Is this in any way either a source that passes WP:RS, or noteworthy in its own right? It looks like a blog. An informative one, but still not an RS - David Gerard ( talk) 15:22, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
It is not clear that these terms are interchangeable. Apparently there are people who claim to be part of the Dark Enlightenment but who do not identify as neoreactioneries. More sources needed? 2003:5B:4B0C:7CB2:64B:80FF:FE80:8003 ( talk) 04:37, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
Dark Enlightenment → Neoreactionary movement
We should move this page to maintain NPOV. User:Stephen Balaban - 00:45, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The Dark Enlightenment is described as an early school of thought in the alt-right Considering the term alt-right is more well known; the article goes into further depth. I think it would be useful to merge this page with that one, and have the term "Dark Enlightenment" re-direct to alt-right. This is my first time trying to do this, and I've read the guides on it, so I'm really, really sorry if I'm doing this wrong. :/ NimbleNavigator ( talk) 14:00, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
I've added a "missing information" tag. As of now, the article is not very detailed. Most of it is "name dropping", links pointing elsewhere, and jargon-laden phrases like Some critics have labeled the movement as "neo-fascist" and Steve Sailer and Hans-Hermann Hoppe are described as "contemporary forerunners" of the movement. Very little can be learned without some effort to explain the ideas of the people involved. Arided ( talk) 12:38, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Here's a lengthy quote that seems thematically related, but I don't know if it a concrete link or a spurious one:
"Court de Gébelin advocated a monde primitif, by which he meant a root or primal age preceding the recorded history of the Greeks and Romans that was the source of global culture and knowledge. This hyperdiffusionist concern with a primal or golden age was also expressed in Court de Gébelin’s esotericism, which in association with his freemasonry included a belief that solar worship was the foundational religion. Beginning in 1773, Court de Gébelin produced a series of volumes for subscribers, under the title Monde primitif, in which he was determined to reconstruct the golden age through language, mythology and symbology. Court de Gébelin would best be remembered for turning the old French card game of tarot into a system of prognostication in the eighth volume of Monde primitif, published in 1781, on the basis that the card symbols were (to his mind) rooted in Egyptian mythology. In that same volume he compared Native American and Old World languages in an attempt to show that all of the world’s languages shared a deeper root that pointed back to the primitif, or primal, age. Court de Gébelin also knew Lafitau’s scholarship, as he cited him as a source on Indigenous languages of Canada. The similarity between Lafitau’s concept of premier temps and Court de Gébelin’s monde primitif is impossible to overlook, particularly when Lafitau had compared the role of the sun in Indigenous beliefs and Old World classical mythology. However distant the worldview of a Masonic Protestant with occult interests might otherwise have been from that of a French Jesuit (whose order, in a fresh round of politically motivated expulsions, had suffered a series of bans that became global under Clement XIV in 1773), Court de Gébelin must have known he shared with the late Lafitau an interest in proving a golden age at the root of all human culture."
Emphasis added, from pp. 118 to 119 of STONE OF POWER: DIGHTON ROCK, COLONIZATION, AND THE ERASURE OF AN INDIGENOUS PAST by DOUGLAS HUNTER, PhD thesis 2015, York University, Toronto.
There is a dead link with the text Scholar cites Antoine Court de Gébelin as an important figure of the "Dark Enlightenment" on Antoine Court de Gébelin's wiki page. I think the link is meant to point to the essay " Dark Side of the Enlightenment."
“The prevailing understanding of the enlightenment is one in which there was only scientific and rational thinking, but there was also a significant number of people contributing to the enlightenment who were absorbed in dubious scholarly pursuits like alchemy, mythology, astrology and secret societies.”
Also:
Edelstein explained that through an odd intermediary (Madame Blavatsky, one of the founders of Theosophy), this myth of a "Hyperborean Atlantis" became a touchstone of Nazi ideology. According to Edelstein, one of the most notorious among this crowd of unorthodox philosophes is Adam Weishaupt, the law professor, champion of Enlightenment philosophy, and founder of the infamous Illuminati, for whom he invented mysterious Masonic rituals in order to better do battle with the Jesuits.
My guess is that this is a spurious link but it's an interesting terminological clash, with some rich ideas in it. Arided ( talk) 01:00, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
I am getting really tired of seeing this kind of thing on Wikipedia.
Libertarianism is neither Right-wing or Left-wing, and is definitely not "conservative". Leftists tend to confuse it with right-wing because Libertarians are for small government, but it has few other similarities to the political "right" or conservatism.
Therefore the statement "coupled with Libertarian or otherwise right-wing or conservative" is wildly inaccurate. The use of "otherwise" lumps libertarianism in with right-wing and conservatism, which is simply incorrect. This sentence seems to be trying to say "anything but Left". But it does so in an egregiously erroneous way. -- Jane Q. Public ( talk) 23:06, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus to move. I asked for more evidence a couple of weeks ago, but no further conversation has ensued. With the weak oppose and a couple of "slight preference" for current title, I don't see a strong consensus here. ( non-admin closure) — Amakuru ( talk) 12:02, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
Dark Enlightenment →
Neo-reactionary movement – More popular term
Deku-shrub (
talk) 17:43, 6 March 2016 (UTC) --Relisted. —
Amakuru (
talk)
09:56, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
I feel that the term "neoreactionary" has significantly more use, though I don't have any sources backing that claim up at this time. Power~enwiki ( talk) 06:50, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Can someone find a source for this, I am pretty sure there is a HPL influence within NRx. I am particularly thinking of the nihilism, the page on Nick Land specifically mentions HPL as an inspiration. And it is easy to spot nihilism within NRx, look at the Moldbug quote that "ethics are fundamentally aesthetic". I also know that Lovecraft was a racist and had far-right political views. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.47.106.148 ( talk) 13:38, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
Smooth alligator ( talk) 17:08, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Hi Smooth alligator. Nice work on the article. When you are done with your expansion you might want to consider sending this up as DYK nomination. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 00:29, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
@ Ad Orientem: The thing about DYK is that whatever you use as your hook has to be well-supported. But it seems like a lot of the literature on the Dark Enlightenment consists of either (1) primary sources such as Curtis Yarvin or Nick Land or (2) outsiders saying "these are a bunch of fascists, racists, etc." or "We notice a lot of people in the alt-right seem to have been influenced by Dark Enlightenment ideas, and that people talk about the Dark Enlightenment in alt-right comment sections." I'm having a little trouble figuring out what would be the best hook to use, that could survive the scrutiny over at Template talk:Did you know. Smooth alligator ( talk) 16:20, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
I chose the external links based mostly on what was listed at http://greyenlightenment.com/measuring-the-influence-of-nrx-bloggers/ and http://takimag.com/article/overreacting_to_neoreaction_nicholas_james_pell Smooth alligator ( talk) 06:08, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
I mostly see a lot of advocacy of corporate rule. Smooth alligator ( talk) 21:03, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
My prediction is that Michael Anissimov will be the first person purged from the neoreactionary inner circle. Why? Because he is the only one among them who is pointing to a historical form of government--monarchy--and saying, "Hey, that could work." The rest are certain that they can come up with something better and altogether new.Smooth alligator ( talk) 23:55, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
George Orwell also used the term "neo-reactionary" in 1943, in an
As I Please column for
Tribune.
[1]
I'm not sure this is really relevant to the article, unless we're going to have a section about other kinds of neoreactionaries.
Smooth alligator (
talk)
07:29, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
References
I'm just gonna note here that the Michael Anissimov article is up for deletion. The problem with Anissimov is that he gets quoted a lot here and there and has played leadership roles in a lot of organizations and summits, but has rarely been the center of attention. His influence seems to be more indirect; he'll make a comment that maybe impacts the thinking of someone who's writing a paper, but that's not the kind of stuff that leads to a lot of detailed articles being written either for or against Anissimov himself. Basically, if you want to be Wikipedia-notable, you need to be a better publicity hog than that. Smooth alligator ( talk) 19:04, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
The media says a lot of entertaining stuff about fringe movements, but when they don't name names, I get skeptical. There could just be random alt-right people wandering into NRx blogs and posting stuff that isn't really representative of the NRx community. Smooth alligator ( talk) 01:35, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Michael Anissimov describes neocameralism as "similar to standard libertarianism, except with a more authoritarian flavor." [1]
Most neoreactionaries, though, probably don't regard themselves as libertarians, and most Libertarians probably would want to distance themselves from NRx, the same way they're trying to distance themselves from the alt-right, since their association with alt-right ideas gets them negative press coverage. The press coverage often speaks of a pipeline from libertarianism to the alt-right, and some in NRx describe themselves as postlibertarians. Smooth alligator ( talk) 22:43, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
References
but it looks cool. Smooth alligator ( talk) 03:06, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
Matthew Shen Goodman was saying, "NRx is a call to return to some variant of monarchy, aristocracy, or what’s called neocameralism, in which the state is a joint stock corporation divvied up into shares and run by a CEO to maximize profit. This last option, Moldbug’s ideal, is not so much a return to either of these other forms of government, but a sleek corporate feudalism hybridizing the two."
In school, they always taught that under feudalism, serfs were tied to the land. In contrast, one of the fundamental ideas of neocameralism is "no voice; free exit". Yet at the same time, another idea of the Dark Enlightenment is that entry into some communities might be restricted on the basis of, say, race. Your ability to exit one community depends on your ability to enter other communities, since you have to live somewhere. (This was brought up at /r/DebateDE.) Smooth alligator ( talk) 00:07, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
I filed a request over at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist#econlog.econlib.org.2Farchives.2F2010.2F07.2Fthe_neo-reactio.html. Smooth alligator ( talk) 16:55, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
This is becoming an extensive article on NRx that is cited largely to blogs, primary sources and non-RSes. It's an interesting writeup, but it's looking to me less and less like anything Wikipedia is for. It needs serious culling to actual third-party reliable sources, and not to primary sourcing. If that results in a skimpy article, that will be because this is not a very notable subject - David Gerard ( talk) 09:56, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Looks like Smooth alligator was a sock of a long banned user. I am not stunned by that news. They seemed to have a rather advanced grasp of Wikipedia for such a new user. But still, it sucks. In theory we should roll back everything they did here. But I am not going to do that. As far as I can tell all of the editing was constructive and frankly, reverting it all would be more trouble than it's worth. However I may do some selective trimming given the heavy reliance on primary sources. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 22:50, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
There are extensive sections of near-impenetrable he-said he-said sourced to primary sources, blogs and far-right unreliable sources. This really isn't Wikipedia-quality sourcing. I've gone through and done a quick tagging - if any of this can be shored up with reliable sourcing, that'd be great, else IMO it's time for a cull - David Gerard ( talk) 16:42, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Equinox ◑ 20:08, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I just came hear to read about the subject and I feel confused rather than informed. As with so many neologisms and new fringe movements, this page is a bit of a mess. Too many primary sources and does not read like an encyclopaedic entry. At times the language is tendentious and weasely (has been described as/Some critics have also labelled/considers itself/Proponents generally also espouse), too much weight is given to unremarkable people and ideas that are simply not noteworthy, hence the high number of primary sources. The lede is all but impossible to make sense of, it's a dogs breakfast of assertions, as someone who knows nothing about the subject this article has left me scratching my head, what on earth is the Dark Enlightenment? Is it a reactionary movement? An anti-democratic movement? An anti-liberal movement? The antithesis to the Enlightenment? A neocameralist movement? A joint-stock republic? A conservative movement? An economically nationalist movement? A Socially conservative movement? A traditionalist movement? A monarchist transhumanism movement? A Catholic anarchist movement? Part of the alt-right movement? A post-libertarian movement? A futurist movement? A post-libertarian futurist movement? anti-libertarian movement? An authoritarian movement? All of the above? (I kid you not, check for yourselves, those are all mentioned...in the lede, it's bonkers!!) This article does not give a clear and concise description of the subject and is poorly cited. It should be reduced to statements of fact from experts or deleted all together (with the small amount of encyclopaedic content added to the reactionary article's 21st century section, which reads poorly at the moment) Bacondrum ( talk) 01:41, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
So, I was WP:BOLD and cleaned out all the blogs, random opinions, original research and assertions made by people no one has ever heard of. These citations and assertions are not encyclopedic by any measure, there was a bunch of claims supported by an article from a neo-Nazi website: Taki's Magazine. Please be careful to cite the article properly, don't do original research and make the article readable...it wasn't, it really didn't make any sense at all. Bacondrum ( talk) 04:00, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
Regardless of whether Taki's is a neo-nazi outlet or just an extreme right outlet, it's not a reliable source. Read it, it's clearly not of use for anything. Bacondrum ( talk) 11:09, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
So just to put this Taki issue to bed, I've made an RFC regarding reliability here Bacondrum ( talk) 04:51, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
I believe this assertion should go:
A paper, published on a wordpress blog by an unknown author of little to no notability, isn't a reliable source. It's also not written in an encyclopedic tone ie: "the embryo of" "lived in the". Bacondrum ( talk) 22:50, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
@ Aquillion: Social Epistemology has an impact factor in the mid-20s (H-Index of 24 according to Scimago). If their online suppliment doesn't constitute an academic RS I'd suggest no online suppliment anywhere does. Simonm223 ( talk) 12:58, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
I have concerns about using the website that is written by the author of the movement to describe the movement without some form of statement saying something like "Those who subscribe to the movement feel that" or something to that effect. Does anyone have any other thoughts? 2001:4898:80E8:B:F160:25E0:5631:28E5 ( talk) 18:24, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
The phrase "whig histriography" appears in the lede section, but is not explained there or elsewhere in the article. Now that it's been referenced, could someone please restore the explanation of what it means to that sentence? It was:
I'd restore it myself, but I've already been accused of "edit warring", and I'd rather not create a ruckus. Thanks, Beyond My Ken ( talk) 19:53, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
An insightful chapter titled "Mencius Moldbug and the Reactionary Enlightenment" has been written by Joshua Tait in: Key Thinkers of the Radical Right, edited by Mark Sedgwick (available to download you know where). I'm currently working on other articles based on other chapters, so I share the source to contributors over here. Azerty82 ( talk) 09:57, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
The word movement appears throughout this article. Is the dark enlightenment really a movement? Is it a political movement (a social group that operates together to obtain a political goal) or a social movement (a coordinated group action focused on a social issue)? Movement implies many people working together to achieve a common goal, but only two people are in the dark enlightenment "movement" as far as I can tell. Those two people are Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin. The article says "Neoreactionaries are an informal community of bloggers and political theorists....," but aside from Land and Yarvin, no others are mentioned by name (except as precursors to the "movement"). Who's in the no-reactionary community? Who besides Land and Yarvin is in this movement? Unless editors can drudge up the names of other neo-reactionary thinkers or doers in the "movement," the word movement should be dropped from this article. Two people do not constitute a "movement." Chisme ( talk) 16:44, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
That "see also" section is ridiculously sprawling. We have categories for this sort of thing, surely. Why do each of these apply? - David Gerard ( talk) 20:26, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 22:21, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
I have removed the following paragraphg from the "Crticism" section, because it is exceedingly difficult to understand. I'm far from stupid and I couldn't make out at all what the writer was attempting to convey. In fact, it verges on double-talk:
Despite Yarvin's fervent espousal of neo- cameralism—the political reformation qua a government-cum-corporation polity—critics remain pessimistic with regards to the concentration of "sovereign power in the hands of a single individual", explicitly fearful of it becoming an accelerant for "tyranny and catastrophe". [1] And though Yarvin, who is quick to antecedent empire of Frederick the Great, claims that the corporate-political restructuring will foster a freer state, the ideology, in essence, is a demand for the re-domestication of economic and political power, "an outcry in the face of a dialectical transformation of globalization." [2] Together, the autocratic re-institution and renouncement of international integration underscore neoreacton's radical separation from Enlightenment-era principles and the accompanying events, particularly those that catalyzed the global deterritorialization necessary for modernity's 21st-century configuration, such as the "eighteenth-century critique of Christianity...[and] the colonial predations of Europe in the nineteenth century". [2] [3] [4] And though a reexamination of civil and political rights are not intrinsically deleterious per se, but, here, the abandonment of egalitarian tenets signifies an attempt to restore "the lost past" of pre- democracy nation-states, and marks a re-formalization of "institutionalized racism". [5] [6] [7]
I invite the editor who added it to attempt to re-write it in clear, straight-forward understandable English. You're writing to a popular audience, not to academics or specialists, please write is so people can take in the information you wish to convey. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 04:45, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
References
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I would argue that calling the forms of leadership they espouse 'archaic' is justified, since they have been wholly superseded and the conditions in which they existed have drastically changed/are non-existent in our day and age. Its use here is not biased, since e.g. cameralism is archaic (or at least, the political scientist who would argue otherwise has yet to be found). I know that with reactionaries, this is contentious, but I think omitting the label would be WP:FALSEBALANCE. TucanHolmes ( talk) 12:50, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
This whole page almost completely lacks any description of what Land and Yarvin actually think and write. This is troubling, because there is a LOT of criticism of what they have said, but without telling us what is actually being criticized. It's very odd to see every single section of the page go to great pains to remind us that "commentators" have called them alt-right, but with no indication of why that is.
As a good example - The neo-reactionary lot directly reject the notion of egalitarianism. They don't believe that egalitarianism is possible or desirable; they think attempts towards it are both doomed to failure and also inherently bad. These are some eyebrow raising claims! Knowing what the claim is helps you to understand just how extreme these people are, and explains why they are called racist and misogynistic and so forth. These descriptions are not wrong at all, they are fair extrapolations of what the authors have said themselves, and with more context that can be made clear.
They also reject democracy because, to their mind, it is inevitably a tyranny of the majority which can simply overrule liberty by a vote. They argue that popular consent is not enough, and that in any case this is simply a veneer over an elected tyrant. They aren't authoritarian as such; they think ALL forms of statism are authoritarian, including democracy. They do want a state, so they would consider themselves to be in the authoritarian school, because any non-anarchist would be to their view. Again, these are some wild claims which are extremely heterodox. They are not people who are rejecting the freedom of democracy for some kind of dictator; they view democracy as a dictator too, and want to swap it for a dictator more their taste. This is an important difference, and helps to explain why they get called fascists by people who don't agree about the nature of democracy.
These are people who have published books and put out blogs about their thoughts. They are not shy about putting their views out there. So why is this article only able to summon up a single citation from the people who's work is being described? Why is there seemingly no interest in putting their views on the page which describes them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.168.35.70 ( talk) 15:05, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
The introduction describes Dark Enlightment as "a [...] philosophy". I'd argue that this is a colloquialism with unclear meaning. There's a clear definition for philosophy but not for a philosophy (which is semantically just the negation of a connected, rational philosophical discourse and therefore a negation of the idea of philosophy). I'd suggest to call it a political movement. -- Jazzman ( talk) 09:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
I don't believe the inclusion of Steve Sailer as a forerunner of DE is accurate, or supported by the citation 148.75.130.220 ( talk) 01:01, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
Of possible interest to editors watching and/or editing this page... Who is Curtis Yarvin, the monarchist, anti-democracy blogger? - Vox. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 23:40, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Probably should be in the "21st century" section of Reactionary. Else more should be pulled out of there to here, with that as a short summary and this as the main article - David Gerard ( talk) 16:10, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
I've put "neoreactionary" as a bold header here and redirected the relevant topics here. The paragraph in reactionary should largely be shifted here and a better summary written for that article section - David Gerard ( talk) 14:07, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
Radical traditionalism seems to be a perfect fit here for the "See also" section. Any disagreements? 2601:A:6200:AAC:190F:99B4:7633:28C1 ( talk) 04:27, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
I don't think having the "Conservatism" series is appropriate. Is there any reliable source putting this in the conservative movement or worldview more than any other? 73.172.99.131 ( talk) 05:12, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
May want to add some comparisons to the original Enlightenment and what features of that which DE advocates reject. For example, some of Hoppe's fundamentals:
"the natural equality of all men; the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based on the consent of the people; and a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid"
I believe they reject at least those three principles. Especially the first.
J1812 ( talk) 10:07, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
There's remaining evidence on the web he worked on it, though he didn't write the whole thing. Anyone know of anything that clearly sets it out? - David Gerard ( talk) 09:17, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
Should this article be portraying multiple groups or as a loose term ?
I saw at theawl it portrayed not as a single "the movement" terms this article uses, but as a general grouping label, "less a single ideology than a loose constellation of far-right thought, clustered around three pillars: religious traditionalism, white nationalism, and techno-commercialism ". The Telegraph cite says similar, and the TechCrunch cite portrays it as lightly insulting term crafted by folks who dislike, and Spectator says the only unity is a discontent ...
In any event it seems not a "group" with membership or leaders, not a "movment" as something planned so suggestions for improvment please. Would the article do better to say it is "a broad term for" or something like that ? Markbassett ( talk) 16:14, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
I am going to remove the " Fusionism" link in the See Also section, unless someone has a compelling reason to keep it. The views of William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan have approximately nothing to do with the neoreactionary system of ideas. I mean, come on. Fusionism is just mainstream American conservatism. Pretendus ( talk) 20:37, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
David Gerard, why do you say a pile of traditionalist Catholics are in the Dark Enkightenment? What's your evidence?
According to the first reference found in The Baffler, "some are atheists".
According to the article by Nick Land, one of the leaders (Mencius Moldbug) is an atheist.
I don't think the movement supports religion.
69.127.248.215 ( talk) 02:15, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Could you give examples of people within the Dark Enlightenment movement who view religion as a noble lie? Did Dark Enlightenment figures praise Breivik? Do LaVeyan Satanists think religion is societally useful? 69.127.248.215 ( talk) 13:19, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
The American Spectator ref specifically says: "They are Tridentine Catholic or Eastern Orthodox in religion, or else hard materialists." This seems accurate to me - I haven't encountered the Orthodox ones, but there's a pile of tradcats who buy into the DE. The religion as socially useful thing sounds very plausible to me, but we need a cite for this so I've marked it accordingly - David Gerard ( talk) 15:12, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
The source says: "or else hard materialists." So the movement is not clearly pro- or anti-religious. If you have no reference for your statement about religion being socially useful we shouldn't include it. 69.127.248.215 ( talk) 18:26, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
I think the proposed addition is inappropriate because:
Does anyone have a source for the neoreactionary ideology having any connection whatsoever? If not, I am going to remove the entry in "See Also." Pretendus ( talk) 23:09, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
Dear Wikipedia,
do you really consider sound practice to include as "references" some article that simply expresses biased opinions as though they were "facts"? I mean, if a journalist is clearly a left-winger, how can one expect objectivity when he discusses an anti-cultural-marxism sub-culture? Reference sections should be authoritative and credible, you know...
Otherwise, keep up the good work! Cheers! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.2.20.137 ( talk • contribs)
I think that this article should be titled "Neoreaction" rather than "Dark Enlightenment". My rationale:
1) Dark Enlightenment applies mostly to Nick Land and his fans. This is like titling this page "formalism", coined by moldbug. Formalism & DE apply to subsets of the movement. Neoreaction is a broad term.
2)Dark Enlightenment is definitely the lesser used of the two, both in ordinary discourse and among journalists (in the US at least). I don't have an hard evidence for this so it is, for now, clearly the weaker of the 2 points — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.112.229.223 ( talk) 05:59, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
The majority of reliable sources seem to use the phrasing "neoreaction" or "neoreactionary movement". I'd support moving the page to either of these locations. Any thoughts? Denarivs ( talk) 04:54, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Hello Wikipedia editors; my name is Justine Tunney. I've noticed that this article makes an incorrect claim about me. I'd like to point out that I'm not associated with the Dark Enlightenment. I am not a "neoreactionary." I have never been any such thing. Here's proof: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9703134 I've talked to people who've identified with these terms. But certainly talking to people isn't grounds for inclusion in a Wikipedia article that could be potentially damaging to my reputation. Furthermore, the reference that's being used to back up this claim is a smear piece. It was written by Arthur Chu, who is a man well-known for being a biased political partisan. The article he wrote about me in the Daily Beast makes such absurd, ridiculous, and unsubstantiated claims, that no reasonable person could possibly interpret it as anything other than a work of pure fiction. Certainly Wikipedia would not want to cite such untrustworthy content. - Jartine ( talk) 02:25, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
The American Spectator is a blog. The Baffler appears to be a satirical, pundit site, which does not bode well for consideration as reliable. And the Daily Telegraph article link appears to be broken. Besides that, it appears a couple of descriptions were cherrypicked to WP:COATRACK the article lead with criticisms. Support for monarchism and traditional gender role? Unfounded, super minority, fringe views on the characteristics of the movement. Some critics have labeled it neo-fascist? Yea, a lot of critics label a lot of things, but those labels don't end up in article leads, especially when there is (if the link not working is entirely on my side) only one source that mentioned it in passing. That is undue weight, and poor attribution of the article. DaltonCastle ( talk) 20:26, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
The term "Dark Enlightenment" was coined by author and philosopher Nick Land as a satirical play on words for the knowledge supposedly gained from the Enlightenment and lost during the Dark Ages.
it appears to take a stance on the subject using the title
71.105.96.61 ( talk) 13:54, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
I agree with OP that the name "Dark Enlightenment" is both confusing and non-NPOV. The political philosophy is typically referred to as the Neoreactionary Movement by both subscribers of it and critics of it. [1][2][3][4] User:Stephen Balaban -
Moving article.
[1] http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement [2] http://home.earthlink.net/~peter.a.taylor/moldbug.htm [3] http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/ [4] http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/22/geeks-for-monarchy/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephen Balaban ( talk • contribs) 18:37, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Moldbug's blog has been attested as important to the subject in sufficient RSes to put in, and Land's paper named the movement, but I can't see random blog sources as being a good idea unless they're attested in multiple RSes as being very important sources on the topic. So I would be strongly against linking just blogs even if they claim to be a good directory page, unless they have such an attestation.
Scott Alexander's Anti-Reactionary FAQ would be a nice one to link ... if it has attestation in RSes. Does it? - David Gerard ( talk) 22:42, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Is this in any way either a source that passes WP:RS, or noteworthy in its own right? It looks like a blog. An informative one, but still not an RS - David Gerard ( talk) 15:22, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
It is not clear that these terms are interchangeable. Apparently there are people who claim to be part of the Dark Enlightenment but who do not identify as neoreactioneries. More sources needed? 2003:5B:4B0C:7CB2:64B:80FF:FE80:8003 ( talk) 04:37, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
Dark Enlightenment → Neoreactionary movement
We should move this page to maintain NPOV. User:Stephen Balaban - 00:45, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The Dark Enlightenment is described as an early school of thought in the alt-right Considering the term alt-right is more well known; the article goes into further depth. I think it would be useful to merge this page with that one, and have the term "Dark Enlightenment" re-direct to alt-right. This is my first time trying to do this, and I've read the guides on it, so I'm really, really sorry if I'm doing this wrong. :/ NimbleNavigator ( talk) 14:00, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
I've added a "missing information" tag. As of now, the article is not very detailed. Most of it is "name dropping", links pointing elsewhere, and jargon-laden phrases like Some critics have labeled the movement as "neo-fascist" and Steve Sailer and Hans-Hermann Hoppe are described as "contemporary forerunners" of the movement. Very little can be learned without some effort to explain the ideas of the people involved. Arided ( talk) 12:38, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Here's a lengthy quote that seems thematically related, but I don't know if it a concrete link or a spurious one:
"Court de Gébelin advocated a monde primitif, by which he meant a root or primal age preceding the recorded history of the Greeks and Romans that was the source of global culture and knowledge. This hyperdiffusionist concern with a primal or golden age was also expressed in Court de Gébelin’s esotericism, which in association with his freemasonry included a belief that solar worship was the foundational religion. Beginning in 1773, Court de Gébelin produced a series of volumes for subscribers, under the title Monde primitif, in which he was determined to reconstruct the golden age through language, mythology and symbology. Court de Gébelin would best be remembered for turning the old French card game of tarot into a system of prognostication in the eighth volume of Monde primitif, published in 1781, on the basis that the card symbols were (to his mind) rooted in Egyptian mythology. In that same volume he compared Native American and Old World languages in an attempt to show that all of the world’s languages shared a deeper root that pointed back to the primitif, or primal, age. Court de Gébelin also knew Lafitau’s scholarship, as he cited him as a source on Indigenous languages of Canada. The similarity between Lafitau’s concept of premier temps and Court de Gébelin’s monde primitif is impossible to overlook, particularly when Lafitau had compared the role of the sun in Indigenous beliefs and Old World classical mythology. However distant the worldview of a Masonic Protestant with occult interests might otherwise have been from that of a French Jesuit (whose order, in a fresh round of politically motivated expulsions, had suffered a series of bans that became global under Clement XIV in 1773), Court de Gébelin must have known he shared with the late Lafitau an interest in proving a golden age at the root of all human culture."
Emphasis added, from pp. 118 to 119 of STONE OF POWER: DIGHTON ROCK, COLONIZATION, AND THE ERASURE OF AN INDIGENOUS PAST by DOUGLAS HUNTER, PhD thesis 2015, York University, Toronto.
There is a dead link with the text Scholar cites Antoine Court de Gébelin as an important figure of the "Dark Enlightenment" on Antoine Court de Gébelin's wiki page. I think the link is meant to point to the essay " Dark Side of the Enlightenment."
“The prevailing understanding of the enlightenment is one in which there was only scientific and rational thinking, but there was also a significant number of people contributing to the enlightenment who were absorbed in dubious scholarly pursuits like alchemy, mythology, astrology and secret societies.”
Also:
Edelstein explained that through an odd intermediary (Madame Blavatsky, one of the founders of Theosophy), this myth of a "Hyperborean Atlantis" became a touchstone of Nazi ideology. According to Edelstein, one of the most notorious among this crowd of unorthodox philosophes is Adam Weishaupt, the law professor, champion of Enlightenment philosophy, and founder of the infamous Illuminati, for whom he invented mysterious Masonic rituals in order to better do battle with the Jesuits.
My guess is that this is a spurious link but it's an interesting terminological clash, with some rich ideas in it. Arided ( talk) 01:00, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
I am getting really tired of seeing this kind of thing on Wikipedia.
Libertarianism is neither Right-wing or Left-wing, and is definitely not "conservative". Leftists tend to confuse it with right-wing because Libertarians are for small government, but it has few other similarities to the political "right" or conservatism.
Therefore the statement "coupled with Libertarian or otherwise right-wing or conservative" is wildly inaccurate. The use of "otherwise" lumps libertarianism in with right-wing and conservatism, which is simply incorrect. This sentence seems to be trying to say "anything but Left". But it does so in an egregiously erroneous way. -- Jane Q. Public ( talk) 23:06, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus to move. I asked for more evidence a couple of weeks ago, but no further conversation has ensued. With the weak oppose and a couple of "slight preference" for current title, I don't see a strong consensus here. ( non-admin closure) — Amakuru ( talk) 12:02, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
Dark Enlightenment →
Neo-reactionary movement – More popular term
Deku-shrub (
talk) 17:43, 6 March 2016 (UTC) --Relisted. —
Amakuru (
talk)
09:56, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
I feel that the term "neoreactionary" has significantly more use, though I don't have any sources backing that claim up at this time. Power~enwiki ( talk) 06:50, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Can someone find a source for this, I am pretty sure there is a HPL influence within NRx. I am particularly thinking of the nihilism, the page on Nick Land specifically mentions HPL as an inspiration. And it is easy to spot nihilism within NRx, look at the Moldbug quote that "ethics are fundamentally aesthetic". I also know that Lovecraft was a racist and had far-right political views. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.47.106.148 ( talk) 13:38, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
Smooth alligator ( talk) 17:08, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Hi Smooth alligator. Nice work on the article. When you are done with your expansion you might want to consider sending this up as DYK nomination. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 00:29, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
@ Ad Orientem: The thing about DYK is that whatever you use as your hook has to be well-supported. But it seems like a lot of the literature on the Dark Enlightenment consists of either (1) primary sources such as Curtis Yarvin or Nick Land or (2) outsiders saying "these are a bunch of fascists, racists, etc." or "We notice a lot of people in the alt-right seem to have been influenced by Dark Enlightenment ideas, and that people talk about the Dark Enlightenment in alt-right comment sections." I'm having a little trouble figuring out what would be the best hook to use, that could survive the scrutiny over at Template talk:Did you know. Smooth alligator ( talk) 16:20, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
I chose the external links based mostly on what was listed at http://greyenlightenment.com/measuring-the-influence-of-nrx-bloggers/ and http://takimag.com/article/overreacting_to_neoreaction_nicholas_james_pell Smooth alligator ( talk) 06:08, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
I mostly see a lot of advocacy of corporate rule. Smooth alligator ( talk) 21:03, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
My prediction is that Michael Anissimov will be the first person purged from the neoreactionary inner circle. Why? Because he is the only one among them who is pointing to a historical form of government--monarchy--and saying, "Hey, that could work." The rest are certain that they can come up with something better and altogether new.Smooth alligator ( talk) 23:55, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
George Orwell also used the term "neo-reactionary" in 1943, in an
As I Please column for
Tribune.
[1]
I'm not sure this is really relevant to the article, unless we're going to have a section about other kinds of neoreactionaries.
Smooth alligator (
talk)
07:29, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
References
I'm just gonna note here that the Michael Anissimov article is up for deletion. The problem with Anissimov is that he gets quoted a lot here and there and has played leadership roles in a lot of organizations and summits, but has rarely been the center of attention. His influence seems to be more indirect; he'll make a comment that maybe impacts the thinking of someone who's writing a paper, but that's not the kind of stuff that leads to a lot of detailed articles being written either for or against Anissimov himself. Basically, if you want to be Wikipedia-notable, you need to be a better publicity hog than that. Smooth alligator ( talk) 19:04, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
The media says a lot of entertaining stuff about fringe movements, but when they don't name names, I get skeptical. There could just be random alt-right people wandering into NRx blogs and posting stuff that isn't really representative of the NRx community. Smooth alligator ( talk) 01:35, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Michael Anissimov describes neocameralism as "similar to standard libertarianism, except with a more authoritarian flavor." [1]
Most neoreactionaries, though, probably don't regard themselves as libertarians, and most Libertarians probably would want to distance themselves from NRx, the same way they're trying to distance themselves from the alt-right, since their association with alt-right ideas gets them negative press coverage. The press coverage often speaks of a pipeline from libertarianism to the alt-right, and some in NRx describe themselves as postlibertarians. Smooth alligator ( talk) 22:43, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
References
but it looks cool. Smooth alligator ( talk) 03:06, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
Matthew Shen Goodman was saying, "NRx is a call to return to some variant of monarchy, aristocracy, or what’s called neocameralism, in which the state is a joint stock corporation divvied up into shares and run by a CEO to maximize profit. This last option, Moldbug’s ideal, is not so much a return to either of these other forms of government, but a sleek corporate feudalism hybridizing the two."
In school, they always taught that under feudalism, serfs were tied to the land. In contrast, one of the fundamental ideas of neocameralism is "no voice; free exit". Yet at the same time, another idea of the Dark Enlightenment is that entry into some communities might be restricted on the basis of, say, race. Your ability to exit one community depends on your ability to enter other communities, since you have to live somewhere. (This was brought up at /r/DebateDE.) Smooth alligator ( talk) 00:07, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
I filed a request over at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist#econlog.econlib.org.2Farchives.2F2010.2F07.2Fthe_neo-reactio.html. Smooth alligator ( talk) 16:55, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
This is becoming an extensive article on NRx that is cited largely to blogs, primary sources and non-RSes. It's an interesting writeup, but it's looking to me less and less like anything Wikipedia is for. It needs serious culling to actual third-party reliable sources, and not to primary sourcing. If that results in a skimpy article, that will be because this is not a very notable subject - David Gerard ( talk) 09:56, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Looks like Smooth alligator was a sock of a long banned user. I am not stunned by that news. They seemed to have a rather advanced grasp of Wikipedia for such a new user. But still, it sucks. In theory we should roll back everything they did here. But I am not going to do that. As far as I can tell all of the editing was constructive and frankly, reverting it all would be more trouble than it's worth. However I may do some selective trimming given the heavy reliance on primary sources. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 22:50, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
There are extensive sections of near-impenetrable he-said he-said sourced to primary sources, blogs and far-right unreliable sources. This really isn't Wikipedia-quality sourcing. I've gone through and done a quick tagging - if any of this can be shored up with reliable sourcing, that'd be great, else IMO it's time for a cull - David Gerard ( talk) 16:42, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Equinox ◑ 20:08, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I just came hear to read about the subject and I feel confused rather than informed. As with so many neologisms and new fringe movements, this page is a bit of a mess. Too many primary sources and does not read like an encyclopaedic entry. At times the language is tendentious and weasely (has been described as/Some critics have also labelled/considers itself/Proponents generally also espouse), too much weight is given to unremarkable people and ideas that are simply not noteworthy, hence the high number of primary sources. The lede is all but impossible to make sense of, it's a dogs breakfast of assertions, as someone who knows nothing about the subject this article has left me scratching my head, what on earth is the Dark Enlightenment? Is it a reactionary movement? An anti-democratic movement? An anti-liberal movement? The antithesis to the Enlightenment? A neocameralist movement? A joint-stock republic? A conservative movement? An economically nationalist movement? A Socially conservative movement? A traditionalist movement? A monarchist transhumanism movement? A Catholic anarchist movement? Part of the alt-right movement? A post-libertarian movement? A futurist movement? A post-libertarian futurist movement? anti-libertarian movement? An authoritarian movement? All of the above? (I kid you not, check for yourselves, those are all mentioned...in the lede, it's bonkers!!) This article does not give a clear and concise description of the subject and is poorly cited. It should be reduced to statements of fact from experts or deleted all together (with the small amount of encyclopaedic content added to the reactionary article's 21st century section, which reads poorly at the moment) Bacondrum ( talk) 01:41, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
So, I was WP:BOLD and cleaned out all the blogs, random opinions, original research and assertions made by people no one has ever heard of. These citations and assertions are not encyclopedic by any measure, there was a bunch of claims supported by an article from a neo-Nazi website: Taki's Magazine. Please be careful to cite the article properly, don't do original research and make the article readable...it wasn't, it really didn't make any sense at all. Bacondrum ( talk) 04:00, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
Regardless of whether Taki's is a neo-nazi outlet or just an extreme right outlet, it's not a reliable source. Read it, it's clearly not of use for anything. Bacondrum ( talk) 11:09, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
So just to put this Taki issue to bed, I've made an RFC regarding reliability here Bacondrum ( talk) 04:51, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
I believe this assertion should go:
A paper, published on a wordpress blog by an unknown author of little to no notability, isn't a reliable source. It's also not written in an encyclopedic tone ie: "the embryo of" "lived in the". Bacondrum ( talk) 22:50, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
@ Aquillion: Social Epistemology has an impact factor in the mid-20s (H-Index of 24 according to Scimago). If their online suppliment doesn't constitute an academic RS I'd suggest no online suppliment anywhere does. Simonm223 ( talk) 12:58, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
I have concerns about using the website that is written by the author of the movement to describe the movement without some form of statement saying something like "Those who subscribe to the movement feel that" or something to that effect. Does anyone have any other thoughts? 2001:4898:80E8:B:F160:25E0:5631:28E5 ( talk) 18:24, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
The phrase "whig histriography" appears in the lede section, but is not explained there or elsewhere in the article. Now that it's been referenced, could someone please restore the explanation of what it means to that sentence? It was:
I'd restore it myself, but I've already been accused of "edit warring", and I'd rather not create a ruckus. Thanks, Beyond My Ken ( talk) 19:53, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
An insightful chapter titled "Mencius Moldbug and the Reactionary Enlightenment" has been written by Joshua Tait in: Key Thinkers of the Radical Right, edited by Mark Sedgwick (available to download you know where). I'm currently working on other articles based on other chapters, so I share the source to contributors over here. Azerty82 ( talk) 09:57, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
The word movement appears throughout this article. Is the dark enlightenment really a movement? Is it a political movement (a social group that operates together to obtain a political goal) or a social movement (a coordinated group action focused on a social issue)? Movement implies many people working together to achieve a common goal, but only two people are in the dark enlightenment "movement" as far as I can tell. Those two people are Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin. The article says "Neoreactionaries are an informal community of bloggers and political theorists....," but aside from Land and Yarvin, no others are mentioned by name (except as precursors to the "movement"). Who's in the no-reactionary community? Who besides Land and Yarvin is in this movement? Unless editors can drudge up the names of other neo-reactionary thinkers or doers in the "movement," the word movement should be dropped from this article. Two people do not constitute a "movement." Chisme ( talk) 16:44, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
That "see also" section is ridiculously sprawling. We have categories for this sort of thing, surely. Why do each of these apply? - David Gerard ( talk) 20:26, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 22:21, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
I have removed the following paragraphg from the "Crticism" section, because it is exceedingly difficult to understand. I'm far from stupid and I couldn't make out at all what the writer was attempting to convey. In fact, it verges on double-talk:
Despite Yarvin's fervent espousal of neo- cameralism—the political reformation qua a government-cum-corporation polity—critics remain pessimistic with regards to the concentration of "sovereign power in the hands of a single individual", explicitly fearful of it becoming an accelerant for "tyranny and catastrophe". [1] And though Yarvin, who is quick to antecedent empire of Frederick the Great, claims that the corporate-political restructuring will foster a freer state, the ideology, in essence, is a demand for the re-domestication of economic and political power, "an outcry in the face of a dialectical transformation of globalization." [2] Together, the autocratic re-institution and renouncement of international integration underscore neoreacton's radical separation from Enlightenment-era principles and the accompanying events, particularly those that catalyzed the global deterritorialization necessary for modernity's 21st-century configuration, such as the "eighteenth-century critique of Christianity...[and] the colonial predations of Europe in the nineteenth century". [2] [3] [4] And though a reexamination of civil and political rights are not intrinsically deleterious per se, but, here, the abandonment of egalitarian tenets signifies an attempt to restore "the lost past" of pre- democracy nation-states, and marks a re-formalization of "institutionalized racism". [5] [6] [7]
I invite the editor who added it to attempt to re-write it in clear, straight-forward understandable English. You're writing to a popular audience, not to academics or specialists, please write is so people can take in the information you wish to convey. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 04:45, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
References
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I would argue that calling the forms of leadership they espouse 'archaic' is justified, since they have been wholly superseded and the conditions in which they existed have drastically changed/are non-existent in our day and age. Its use here is not biased, since e.g. cameralism is archaic (or at least, the political scientist who would argue otherwise has yet to be found). I know that with reactionaries, this is contentious, but I think omitting the label would be WP:FALSEBALANCE. TucanHolmes ( talk) 12:50, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
This whole page almost completely lacks any description of what Land and Yarvin actually think and write. This is troubling, because there is a LOT of criticism of what they have said, but without telling us what is actually being criticized. It's very odd to see every single section of the page go to great pains to remind us that "commentators" have called them alt-right, but with no indication of why that is.
As a good example - The neo-reactionary lot directly reject the notion of egalitarianism. They don't believe that egalitarianism is possible or desirable; they think attempts towards it are both doomed to failure and also inherently bad. These are some eyebrow raising claims! Knowing what the claim is helps you to understand just how extreme these people are, and explains why they are called racist and misogynistic and so forth. These descriptions are not wrong at all, they are fair extrapolations of what the authors have said themselves, and with more context that can be made clear.
They also reject democracy because, to their mind, it is inevitably a tyranny of the majority which can simply overrule liberty by a vote. They argue that popular consent is not enough, and that in any case this is simply a veneer over an elected tyrant. They aren't authoritarian as such; they think ALL forms of statism are authoritarian, including democracy. They do want a state, so they would consider themselves to be in the authoritarian school, because any non-anarchist would be to their view. Again, these are some wild claims which are extremely heterodox. They are not people who are rejecting the freedom of democracy for some kind of dictator; they view democracy as a dictator too, and want to swap it for a dictator more their taste. This is an important difference, and helps to explain why they get called fascists by people who don't agree about the nature of democracy.
These are people who have published books and put out blogs about their thoughts. They are not shy about putting their views out there. So why is this article only able to summon up a single citation from the people who's work is being described? Why is there seemingly no interest in putting their views on the page which describes them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.168.35.70 ( talk) 15:05, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
The introduction describes Dark Enlightment as "a [...] philosophy". I'd argue that this is a colloquialism with unclear meaning. There's a clear definition for philosophy but not for a philosophy (which is semantically just the negation of a connected, rational philosophical discourse and therefore a negation of the idea of philosophy). I'd suggest to call it a political movement. -- Jazzman ( talk) 09:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
I don't believe the inclusion of Steve Sailer as a forerunner of DE is accurate, or supported by the citation 148.75.130.220 ( talk) 01:01, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
Of possible interest to editors watching and/or editing this page... Who is Curtis Yarvin, the monarchist, anti-democracy blogger? - Vox. - Ad Orientem ( talk) 23:40, 28 October 2022 (UTC)