Assorted Thoughts on Monarchy (and a Goodbye to NRx)

A few weeks ago, I was considering coming to some kind of final reckoning with the ideas of neoreaction. The movement seemed to have stalled and spun its wheels with navel-gazing and back-slapping. And all without having come up with a definable perspective at its center.

I planned on digging through the fundamental texts listed in the Neoreactionary Canon and trying to figure out what exactly were the premises on which everyone was operating.

Then Trannygate happened and I became disgusted with the whole mess of them. It suddenly became clear--these guys think they invented reactionary thought and are too self-aggrandizing to understand that "inventing reaction" is a contradiction in terms.

The ideas they discuss--hierarchy, HBD, the dangers of mob rule--disappeared from the Western conversation only sixty or seventy years ago. For the most part, neoreactionaries don't say, "These old ideas are more true than modern assumptions." They say, "I have true and radical ideas. Me--I have them."

More social posturing, in other words, and that means it's doomed to obscurity, but not before a short-lived sweep through the alternative right because it assembles a lot of loose opinions under a cool-sounding name.

Consider pre-power Italian Fascism. Mussolini and his cohorts wrote millions of words describing how great and revolutionary Fascism was and how different it was from every other political theory. What it failed to describe was what exactly Fascism was.

The Reaction will put you in the driver's seat. The Reaction will be no rerun, brother. The Reaction will be live.

Neoreaction is the same way, all marketing puffery surrounding a few old ideas with no central perspective. So, I'm no longer interested, though I plan on checking in a year from now to see its state.

However, I realized that I'd never written out my thoughts on monarchy, which the mainstream media has erroneously attached to neoreaction but was once a lively topic of discussion. With no more ado, the advantages and lessons of having a final authority:

Monarchy has a human reach  Perhaps the triumph of democracy is really the triumph of bureaucracy, with the idea that good governance is too complex for one man to sit at the head of it.

In absolute monarchy, the government does what the monarch feels is important. If a bureau has outlived its usefulness, the monarch can single-handedly dissolve it. Consider how a strong monarch could have handled the civil rights movement, had he been persuaded that blacks were unduly disadvantaged. He may have instituted the exact same affirmative action programs that were placed but at some point he would have discontinued them as having done as much as they can.

In our current system, programs are easy to start and almost impossible to end. A final authority examines the efficacy of the programs and adjusts accordingly. The quality of the programs, of course, rests on the quality of the one ultimately responsible.

Most importantly, the fact that the monarch cannot control everything means that he’s more likely to control what’s important. Even though final authority rests in a single person, monarchy is naturally decentralized. He’s just one man, after all.

A bureaucracy without an ultimate authority, however, believes that everything can be controlled and never hesitates to try.

Monarchy is the ultimate arbiter of the law  Progressivism has a bad trait of wanting the tail to wag the dog. The existence of exceptions means that the whole of the law has to change. Gay marriage and transgender rights are the current hot buttons, but the best example is euthanasia.

Everyone can conceive of a situation in which it appears that snuffing out the life of another is an act of mercy and not of violence. Our laws are generally geared toward allowing someone to die--removing medical assistance--but progressive thought says that this is oppressive--the law should allow for situations in which it’s advisable to actively kill someone.

By providing a final authority from which the law springs--as opposed to our conception that the law itself is the authority--, monarchy provides an escape valve for especially difficult cases. The man who is charged with murder for putting a pillow over the face of his father who was in the final stages of Alzheimer’s can have his punishment reduced or rescinded by order of the monarch. The monarch has the power to say “This is a special case,” without establishing a precedent for euthanasia. The law applies to most situations but cannot apply to all--monarchy solves this through the final authority of a single person.

Monarchy comes with a set of inherited obligations  Perhaps the reason why dictatorships usually devolve into tyranny is because the dictators themselves were not morally prepared for true leadership.

Aristocrats and monarchs were raised in the culture of noblesse oblige--their blessings of rank required them to care for those lower in status. A future king was raised to respect his role and to understand the needs of his kingdom.

It’s always a gamble to rely on the moral compass of a leader (but hasn’t America consistently done this?), but the truth is that cruel leaders like Ivan the Terrible and prolifigates like Louis XIV were rare. The majority of bad rulers were mediocre and a surprising number were paralyzed by the enormity of their responsibilities, rather than abusing their stations.

The training of life-long leaders is the primary reason why a return to monarchy isn’t feasible today. The descendants of royalty have been separated from real power for so long that they will rule no better than your average ambitious colonel.

Monarchy provides a framework  One of the most eye-opening writers I discovered in my early days of conservatism was Justus Moser. In this conservative collection, he has a piece from the 1770s named “No Promotion According to Merit.”

I was amazed that something so fundamental had a period of debate. But Moser had some good points. His central argument was that a stable arrangement allows actors to work around the framework to accomplish their goals. A shifting arrangement--one that is always changing in order to “improve” it--is like building a house during an earthquake.

Likewise, in one of his books, Theodore Dalrymple marveled at the quality of life somewhere in Italy, which he ascribed to the complete ineffectiveness of the government. Because the people could not rely on the state to regulate their economy properly, they developed a black market for quality goods whose prices were not inflated by taxes and other regulatory costs.

I don’t know that I’d go quite as far as those two, but one should know that monarchy provided a stable arrangement. The character of the reign was dictated by the character of the monarch, whose time on the throne may well last decades. Whether the most capable leader in history, a so-so ruler or a total incompetent, the subjects had time to adjust to the idiosyncrasies of their monarch. If the king was good, they prospered. If he was bad, they worked around him.

Monarchy is not driven by change  Modern democracy is built on the cry, “We can do it better!” Rare is the politician who runs on the platform that nothing needs to be done.

A monarch is more likely to accept that a system is generally working and leave it unchanged. Progressive thought is always looking for the exceptions and overhauling the system to correct them. When the overhaul creates further exceptions, more overhauling follows. It’s a cycle that produces instability and can never be judged for its effectiveness because it’s always about to be improved.

The days of powerful monarchs probably will not be seen again for a long time. The kings and queens of the past came from warriors who won their position through battle and cunning. Their descendants held their thrones by outsmarting and outfighting their rivals while earning the love of their subjects. The genes may still be there (though probably not) but the historical environment has been destroyed. There is no one to take their place.

Even though we can’t return to those days, we can see the failures of our current system by comparison. Absolute monarchy may be extinct but it is not obsolete.

"Edgy" or the Canary in the Coalmine?

Call it the newest terror of the non-establishment right:  re-entryism:

Edgiest political position you can take: Things actually aren’t that bad, and in fact some things are quite nice. The US government is stable and not evil, resources are abundant and people are living longer and happier lives than they have in the past.

This from The Right Stuff, which has lately been encouraging engagement with the conservative establishment.

This standpoint reveals an odd, perhaps disturbing similarity in all of the narratives, both mainstream and edgisphere.  They all share an underlying need for a villain, for opposition, for hatred.  We have to be *this* close to utter annihilation.  It doesn’t matter that our world offers abundant material wealth and almost limitless means for one to find self-actualization, that in many ways all of this posturing is vanity, actually being content in any way is unthinkable.

Michael Annisimov faced this several months ago when he had an online debate. He was armed to the teeth with arguments for monarchy but was stymied by the question, "What's so bad that we have to change everything?" (That's the impression I got, anyway.)

I think the agitation within the non-establishment right is a matter of a few things. The first is that the opinions expressed over here have been suppressed. The Internet has allowed these opinions to be heard again.

The second comes from my personal sense that we're overextended in all areas. Take the first statement's proposition that the "US government is stable and not evil." "Evil," of course, is a strong statement but I feel that we've foolishly tried to control the world. 28 Sherman has done a great job of explaining US foreign policy of the Cold War (and for a while afterward) as a protection racket. It's not a noble system but at least it's pragmatic. You make sure we have cheap access to your exports and we'll make sure that regional disputes settle in your favor.

Clinton seemed to wrestle with the notion, but Bush and Obama both dove fully into the idea that the US should use its power to impose our ethereal ideals of social perfection. If we were arrogant before, it was an arrogance of strength. We currently have the arrogance of a self-righteous busybody, taking to the global stage to shame African nations about their laws against homosexuality. The former has to be respected while the latter brings only contempt. The former earns the enmity of the weak, who cannot battle with the powerful. The latter earns the enmity of the powerful, who resent being lectured about their petty failings.

America has less of a need to relate well with other countries than, say, the Czech Republic. We're mostly isolated and abundant in resources. But the assumptions of those in power--and those that put them there--are just as foolish as those that drive foreign policy.

The life of Obamacare is a great example of the weaknesses of our current dynamic. The bill was powered through Congress as its most prominent supporters claimed that it had to be passed in order to "find out what's in it." These supporters made a (somewhat pathetic) march of triumph and then claimed that they were victims of racial slurs as they did so. The bill that was signed into law was the creation of an unprecedented legal innovation providing a shortcut past the Constitution. Its provisions have been delayed and altered by extra-legal means. The roll-out of the central website (outsourced to Canada) was a disaster caused by lack of meaningful supervision. Throughout the entire process, those that controlled it pointed their fingers at their opponents, claiming that they were the cause of all the problems. Facts and numbers have been spun so much that there is no telling what the consequences are.

I'm not an end-of-the-worlder. My position has long been that the assumptions we've taken on since the "long march through institutions" are wrong. At its most fundamental, our assumption is that human society can be organized on strictly rational grounds. All difficulties are either the fault of not enough "logic" or Kulaks, who must be driven out.

The system, what we've termed the Cathedral, rewards not results but a determined fervor. "He's a son-of-a-bitch but he gets the job done," is no longer acceptable--one must conform to the assumptions. But adherence to an ideology means lesser adherence to reality. Were the architects behind the Obamacare roll-out hired for their effectiveness or their party affiliation?

The problem with the progressive assumptions is not just that they are unrealistic. It's that they allow for no feedback. The answer to every setback is, "More of the same, only twice as hard," and "It's that redneck's fault. Get him!" One can't argue with that; in their minds, it's the people that fail the theory, not the other way around.

Classical conservatism says that if we halt all attempts at "improvement," then we'll be okay. In some respects, I agree. Not because this system is pretty good and will work if we stop tinkering with it. Instead, if we somehow manage to halt all top-down change, then we can start working around it, forming new traditions. Americans have always been a resourceful and charitable people; left alone to make our own way, we will find a way to be successful and fair without the scolding of professors and bureaucrats.

But, when progressivism fails, its response is to seize more power and more control. After all, the theory wasn't practiced properly and, besides, an immoral enemy got in the way. If we had the power to do things right, and to smote the enemy, then we'd really see how great the theory is.

The agitation from the "edgisphere" is because we are squandering the social, moral and financial capital built up from eons of traditional arrangements and it won't stop until it's all gone. The end of progressivism will be when there are no excuses left. One by one, we've kicked the foundations of society out from underneath us; the non-establishment right is crying out, "Hey, we need those!"

The foundation they kick at hardest is that valuing effectiveness over zealotry. The question at hand is:  How long before the same people who devised the Affordable Care Act are in charge of the highways? How long before they become small-claims court judges? Do you think they'll do any better at that then they have at sweeping national reform?

There's always a chance that each debacle will wake a few up to the fact that their beliefs aren't realistic. One can either choose to double-down on one's ideology or reject it. Maybe someday we'll hear them say, "I don't care what his politics are, he's the best bridge inspector we've got and we need him."

But I doubt it. The progressive mentality is that all of this, all this civilization and organization and infrastructure, just happened naturally. Here we are, in one of the most technologically advanced and wealthiest nations in history--"It took nothing for me to get here, so it should take nothing for me to maintain it."

Go visit a third-world former British colony some time and you'll see the result of that thinking.

The US government is stable in the way a 700 pound man is stable. So stable that, when he inevitably dies, you won't be able to move him and have to let him rot away.

Is it all that bad? Of course not, because all of the national and international horror show is just a performance viewed from the back row. America might lose out for influence in the Ukraine but that won't effect how your streetlights work. The realities of your life as a citizen aren't in Washington but all around you, right where your sitting.

Is the world collapsing? Well, the part of the world that doesn't work. Is it going to effect us? Probably, but we won't be alone. And when the new bridge inspector shows up, you'll know he's an idiot--because you looked in his eyes--and plan accordingly.

A Light in the Gloom

Kristor at The Orthosphere caught some attention with the post Onward, Christian Bloggers:

So, we need not feel discouraged that the orthosphere, or Neoreaction more generally, have not yet exploded in popularity...We must rather look ahead to the next iteration of the High Middle Ages. Our proper purpose is like that of Lindisfarne, and Alcuin: to shine in the gathering gloom a glimmer of the eternal light of Truth, so that in the wreckage of the collapse that seems daily more inevitable, we and the readers who discover us in the next few years will be philosophically, morally and spiritually prepared to propose by our acts a social order founded on reality – which, in a collapse, is anyway already asserting itself with a vengeance.

This is very much what I've been getting at when writing about neoreaction. While it's an exciting project to create a government from scratch, the public isn't agitating for a new system. Not because our current system is so great but because they've never considered that it isn't so great. "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

Here's another quote:  “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one,” Charles Mackay said.

The non-establishment right is full of individuals who have recovered their senses alone. The myth of progress is seductive; it provides moral superiority with no heavy lifting. And most who have been seduced will only repent when they have no choice but to see that it was all a lie.

On Technological Salvation

Michael Anissimov tweeted links to a couple of my rants yesterday. I appreciate it.

On the matter of "neoreaction=neocameralism," we've been thinking along the same lines. Take this piece, Neocameralism is Autism:

A common rejoinder to criticisms against neocameralism is the simple phrase, “Robot drones”. First of all, for a hypothetical system of government to have to rely on technology that barely exists yet is already a sign of obvious weakness. It’s like coming up with a form of government based on abundant nuclear fusion energy.

This is true and it makes me wonder as to the ages of the neoreactionary true believers. Live long enough and you'll go through cycle after cycle of "technological revolutions" and rapturous predictions about the techno-heavenly future. After the new gadgets arrive, they simply become tools for the same old human behavior, only faster and with a wider reach.

What attracted me to the DE--even where I disagreed--was that it was a community about coming to conclusions. We've run through advances in weaponry, communication, calculation and transportation. When, exactly, are we allowed to decide "Technology isn't going to save us?" After the iPhone 6 fails to have a "Anti-Venality" function? After the next major programming language fails to prevent carnality? Or should we just wait until a week after the (latest) projected date for the Singularity?

The same day, Outside In published this:

Increasingly, there are only two basic human types populating this planet. There are autistic nerds, who alone are capable of participating effectively in the advanced technological processes that characterize the emerging economy, and there is everybody else. For everybody else, this situation is uncomfortable. The nerds are steadily finding ways to do all the things ordinary and sub-ordinary people do, more efficiently and economically, by programming machines. Only the nerds have any understanding of how this works, and — until generalized machine intelligences arrive to keep them company — only they will. The masses only know three things:
(a) They want the cool stuff the nerds are creating
(b) They don’t have anything much to offer in exchange for it
(c) They aren’t remotely happy about that

 I'll reference Poe's Law here but take the post at face value.

It's precisely this nerd-power attitude that got us into the global mess we're in now. Armed with delusions of competence, nerds created a financial system so abstract and interrelated that a handful of greedy idiots could crash markets around the world, and so complex that no one can fix them. Ability to understand does not equal ability to manage.

The ability to understand is usually an illusion, anyway. To autify it, there are plenty of "unknown unknowns" and always will be--at least, to assume otherwise is setting up for a fall.

To drag the subject back to novel forms of governance, the goal shouldn't be a "more perfect union" but a more robust organization. If we accept that rot sets into even the most elegant of structures--and we must--then our design goal is to minimize the possible damage and maximize the ability to repair.

The fundamental error I'm seeing here is the idea that our conditions today--in the West and globally--is somehow the natural state of things. "The future will be filled with nerds creating cool gadgets and the great unwashed wanting to play with them and nothing can stop it." Nothing except that which stopped every other civilization:  famine, disease, invasion, corruption, complaisance.

The natural state of things is at Sudan's southern border. None of those folks are clamoring for smart watches.

The Charity of the Egalitarian

An older one from Henry Dampier, How Hierarchy is Kinder to the Poor Than Equality:

Egalitarianism turns poverty into something like a chronic medical condition that requires a treatment or a cure. This denies the poor the self-respect that might otherwise be accorded to them were society allowed to recognize their true position in life relative to others. Further, by treating poverty like a disease, superior people lose their sense of obligation to provide personal leadership and guidance to the impoverished members of society.

Dampier is onto something I've been turning over in my mind. Progressivism is a form of moral cowardice cloaked in moral superiority. The progressive does nothing to help suffering individuals, yet he considers himself a good--better--person because he votes for his government to perform charity in his name. Holiness with no heavy lifting.

The progressive refuses to give a hungry man a place at his table then turns around and rages at the injustice of a society that allows a man to starve.

What he really rages at is a society that allows a starving man to exist. However we get to an absence of starving people, whether by breaking the lock on the supermarket's doors, or packing them away in workhouses, or putting them out of their misery--any of that can be rationalized, as long as he doesn't have to look into a pleading face. Even the progressive understands that he might find himself saying, "No." How can he live with that?

There is another element in the egalitarian's perspective on poverty--vanity. If all are equal and if the progressive has emptied everyone else's pockets to promote equal opportunity, then his exalted position can only be explained by his wonderful self. He could have done it, too. It's just that I'm more...And that's especially delicious when it comes with no responsibility towards others.

The poor will always be with us, so it’s our duty to provide them with dignified, stable, respectable roles of service within civilization.

Quite right. If we accept that there is inequality among people, then we are given the question, What are we to do about it? It's a question that can only be approached morally because any other way gets very ugly, very fast.