Reality Requires a Response

Sunshine Mary's old post "The response to reality."

This creates an interesting problem for Christians.  What should our response to reality be?  And to whom should we be listening?  Does our belief in a God who created love to be Creation’s final law preclude us from emulating the responses of pick up artists, secular red pill women, and neo-reactionaries to reality?

Basically, yes, we are precluded. One of the reasons why I wrote my piece against neoreactionary theory is because I'm loathe to encourage breaking up our delicate arrangement. What the Dark Enlightenment has in common is an adherence to reality and a disgust of the progressive vision.

Ours are minority opinions, no matter how true they are. We're living in a world in which the average person holds basic progressive assumptions. A neoreactionary theory would offer solutions to problems most people don't even know exist.

As a Christian, much of my argument with the progressive vision isn't about what's important but in how we should handle what's important. Sure, humans get aroused at all manner of things--does that mean we should encourage all varieties of orgasms? Does a monthly check really provide comfort for the poor? Are we a more moral people because we require our government to take that burden out of our hands? Progressivism is not only unrealistic in my view, but a perversion of Christian values.

But does Moldbug or Heartiste ever talk about our obligations to others? Not that I've seen, but that doesn't mean they're not describing reality and modern errors any less accurately. SBPDL isn't the least bit charitable, but it connects a lot of dots progressives don't want to think about.

I don't doubt that our judgments will split on religious/secular lines. Because of this, I think that the sooner neoreaction coalesces around a plan of action and arrangement, the sooner it will fade--especially because the larger coalition is so fresh. Not because it won't be realistic but because its solutions will be subject to disagreement among the few people who recognize what the problems are.

Take Objectivism. It accurately describes many of the problems of collectivism, which reactionaries, libertarians and conservatives can all agree on. But it rejects altruism, even as an individual's personal value, and alienates everyone with the tiniest bit of charity in his heart. But Ayn Rand, like the neoreactionary bloc, wasn't satisfied with diagnosing the problem--she wanted to be the author of the cure. The two aren't necessarily linked.

The issue in the West is that most don't even understand what's wrong. As long as the average American thinks that the solution is "voting the bums out" and putting a fresh set of bums in, a novel theory of government is irrelevant.

But, then again, maybe I'm sanguine because I have faith that Christianity not only accurately describes reality, it leaves nothing out. It is Truth--everything else is less true. As long as we're seeking truth, we're on the right path. When we've decided we've grasped it, we've taken a wrong turn.