I returned to this essay when I saw the photo of the Jake Angeli in the Capitol - a Q-supporter wearing an Indian buffalo mask and a tattoo of Odin, storming the capitol alongside evangelical Christians. Relevant quote:
This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, “the combination of different forms of belief or practice”; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.
[...]
If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge—that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
Peter Thiel / Curtis Yarvin adjacent folks have in recent years heavily pushed these kinds of views in certain parts of the tech scene, Hotz tends to quote them frequently. It's not really religious Catholicism as much as an aesthetic for reactionary politics because you're more likely to find many of these newly minted Catholics at an 'Eyes White Shut' party than at mass.
His syncretism of Christianity with Bronze Age Pervert in this very blog post should immediately remind people of Umberto Eco:
"One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements. The most influential theoretical source of the theories of the new Italian right, Julius Evola, merged the Holy Grail with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, alchemy with the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire. The very fact that the Italian right, in order to show its open-mindedness, recently broadened its syllabus to include works by De Maistre, Guenon, and Gramsci, is a blatant proof of syncretism. If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge — that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism."
I remember reading this in the Utne Reader in the 90's.
4. No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.
You know, that's a good point. And I can't deny that now I'm probably locked into it by loose (/very/ loose) association. But yes I poorly chose my words, I'm sorry.
Your example of branding is appropriate because at this stage I can't see paganism as anything more than a satire religion in the vein of bob or FSM or hell even the Twilight fanbase while we're at it. The edginess is all equally adorable.
They have half-remembered christianity-mingled rituals and holy men, probably. Just like how the Church of the Subgenius has a preacher and gospel and we're all adherents of Bob or the FSM when praying that our code runs. Only difference is that they pretend that it has age and significance that - for all they know - could be the result of christian priests wiping their butt with old norse practices as any correct ritualistic lineage.
I wish they would be honest about the fact that they are satirical. Things already readily not taken seriously are anathema to the fascist. So it wouldn't even be an issue if they were honest. No one is trying to appropriate Bob's face to be an edgy viking. Maybe they should get their branding together so people like me don't have to clarify it being for entertainment value only.
One of the things Emerson was warning about was Dogma:
“The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers, under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are.And, of course, so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church.”
Syncretism is part of what makes these movements appealing, though. Same as for conspiracy theories: it gives a broad appeal because everyone can come with their pet theory which will find a neat niche within the arch-conspiracy framework. There needs to be some flexibility otherwise everything crumbles under the weight of the contradictions and cognitive dissonance.
This last statement is what concerns me a great deal about the MAGA / Q movement. Absolute belief and almost deification of a movement/individual that will replace thought and reason.
From the essay: "The more extreme will even accuse you of specific heresies they imagine you must have in mind, though if there's more than one heresy current in your time, these accusations will tend to be nondeterministic: you must either be an xist or a yist."
The equivalent to your analogy would be a self-professed Christian worshipping an image of a goat and chanting "hail satan". There's a difference between merely failing as an imperfect human being and actively working against the ideology you supposedly support.
Favorite bumper sticker: "JESUS SAVE ME (From all your followers)".
Just like with the beatitudes, if Freedom Market™ cultists read Adam Smith for themselves, maybe we'd have somewhat more productive discourse.
FWIW, what I gleened from this "rewriting" is Adam's warnings about 'spirit of the system'. Rings true. As a recovering methodologist and self-proclaimed agent of change, humiliated by repeated failures (a la Alistair Cockburn), I wish younger me had grasped this sooner.
> It seems to serve both for social signaling within the movement and as a straightforward ideological stance on the profound and radical rejection of reason.
Esoteric knowledge is definitely used for in-group signalling in elite "alt-rightish" affinity groups like frogtwitter. You gain status by having extensive knowledge of that stuff (e.g. relating current events to the Corpus Hermeticum) and posting about it semi-ironically. Then it filters down to the less-educated elements and gets taken seriously.
It’s hardly instigated the mind-blowing epiphany – the realisation that it’s all fake – which the proponents of Discordianism had originally intended.
The article doesn't emphasize this quite right.
The key insight of Discordianism is that all of human society is "fake". If you can kick it, it's real; if you can't kick it, it's exactly as real as Eris is -- which is to say, the way people behave is in accordance with the way that they truly believe.
The first level of Discordianism is to think that Discordianism is a joke.
The second level is to realize that it's true.
The third level is to realize that it's a joke that teaches you that everything that exists in and shared between minds has the same ontological basis: Discordia, Islam, Christianity, the US Federal Reserve System, Google -- they all exist because people believe that they exist and behave in ways that indicate that belief.
To be honest, that document is a prime example of what a manifesto shouldn't look like. I can't understand what you're trying to say from the beginning sentence:
> No other re-ligion (lit. “back-binding” [one etymological analysis of the word /religion/] to some ideas to rely on for humans) is necessary for a society, but only reasoned about principles: reflection, symmetry, cooperative construction (by too many CAs -> 1CA).
I'm never explained as to how the etymology of re-ligion relates to the whole thesis, much less what the etymology actually means. That first sentence will already make 90% of the people in the humanities to close their tabs. Please explain concepts like these in full sentences, than rather jot out abbreviations and notes that only you could decipher. I'm actually intrigued about this etymology, but I can't understand! What is "CA"? What do you mean by morality relating to symmetry?
> Evolved religions like Christianity also abide to following principles. Their followers do:
1. think/reflect about the world (our thinking: one instance of reflection)
2. they are in search of beauty, of beautiful/good actions/deeds (symmetry (1))
3. they try to establish one text, one book, as core of their religion.
Now you're making very, very huge sweeping generalizations about the nature of religion right away at the second sentence, which would now make the remaining 10% of the humanities people to run away. The particular qualm I have (disclaimer: though as a non-humanities person) is the third part: religion is not operated only by what is explicitly written in the texts, but are also implicitly defined by the cultural norms of that society (which is why some religious people often try to "find" things in the text in support/opposition to current cultural norms (such as women's rights in the Bible or the Quran), rather than interpreting the text and then create a top-down cultural norm based on that!) And the "singular text" thing might just be a byproduct of you thinking Christianity is the only religion in the world... (more specifically, a product of Protestanism) Also you really need to be careful when using the term evolved: I'm not saying you shouldn't use it, but you're now adding a evolutionary view of "progress" in religion that you have never explained!
Ah, I don't have the energy to read the rest of this, people deserve a more legible manifesto than that.
A ruling clique spreads quasi-religious beliefs that boil down to "we're the future!" to prospective followers. The ones who join up, are inspired and push ever intensified (yet even more honest) versions of those beliefs onto others "we must get rid the old thing". In one or two cycles of evolution, their evangelism provokes hostility from the unconverted. Unwilling to confront their own motivations, the rulers ignore how the spirit of their beliefs implicitly sanctioned their adherents misbehavior "technically, no one said they want to destroy the old thing".
A simple pattern that rulers to turn a blind eye to the connection between belief and action.
The idea of heresy as a path to being right shows up many times in Graham's work, but he adheres so closely to software heterodoxy throughout his essays.
- Programming language of choice being a huge deal
- Taking it as obvious that the supernatural is fiction
- Assuming smartness is a crucial ingredient for success
I could probably come up with more, but that'll do for now.
This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, “the combination of different forms of belief or practice”; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.
[...]
If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge—that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
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