January 28, 2017January 28, 2017 Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

Some Thoughts on Immigration, Segregation, and Gentrification

Recently, I wrote a couple of articles about the social alloying model for immigration and the dangers of the decline of the average American IQ whose concepts are more than tangentially related. Skepticism about immigration, especially mass immigration, has finally been mainstreamed in the United States, and is headed in that direction in most of the rest of the Western world. The so-called “refugee” crisis is coming to head as Europe and the Anglosphere are being flooded by millions of hostile, inassimilable, socially corrosive aliens from across the uncivilised world. This is quickly driving those in the middle into one of two directions as the West swiftly divides into two starkly opposite camps – those who wish to preserve the Western world and its unique, valuable set of cultures by ending this immigration, and those who wish to continue the flood of savages unabated until the West succumbs under the tidal wave of barbarism and brutishness.

It is rightly remarked that such a flood of “immigrants” isn’t really correctly described by the word “immigration.” Rather, the term “invasion” would be more a propos. This, of course, fits right in with the social alloying model referenced above. In the production of alloys, when one metal is of dissimilar atomic size and electronegativity to the base metal, only small amounts of that metal can be successfully incorporated into the base metal to form an alloy. Likewise, when “immigrants” are of grossly different culture, race, language, etc., only small numbers of them can be incorporated into a host society. When you flood a million Muslim barbarians into a civilised Western nation like Germany or Sweden, the results – as we can plainly see – are going to be catastrophic. Already, the societies of every European country that has taken in a large proportion of Muslim and African “refugees” have found themselves weakened and even seemingly ready to collapse.

The wisdom of nationalism is quite obvious from these examples before us. Different countries exist so that people of different cultures can live with their own kinds, within their own cultures, where everyone generally shares the same assumptions, mores, and ways of living. As much as multiculturalists may wish it to be so, trying to force large groups of people from different cultures and races to live together will not result in some glowing multicultural utopia, but rather war and bloodshed. “Diversity + proximity = war” should be a truism that every right-thinking person understands and internalises.

January 25, 2017January 25, 2017 Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

Punching Nazis

So last Friday during the inauguration of President Trump and all of the attendant civil disorder that went along with it, Richard Spencer got punched in the face by a hit-and-run SJWer. Some folks would say he was asking for it, while others are a bit disturbed by the whole affair. Many, of course, don’t have a problem with punching a “Nazi” in the face. After all, who would? We all know that Nazis are bad guys, and it helps that we beat them like a drum in World War II. Hence, Nazis make an excellent Schelling point against which good, patriotic Americans (or people, like SJWs, who are only pretending to be good, patriotic Americans) can rally.

Yet – as is almost always the case – the devil is in the definitions.

One of the major problems with invoking a label in politics is that it tends to be subjectively applied. Someone is a “Nazi,” for instance, not because they actually are, but because the one calling them that disagrees with them and wants to get others to disagree with them as well. Such tends to be the case with Richard Spencer. Now, it can easily be granted that Spencer holds to positions which are both well outside the mainstream as well as being offensive to many. I’ve discussed elsewhere my own disagreement with the sort of white nationalism represented by Spencer, which I think is unrealistic, atheistic, and globalistic. However, calling him a “Nazi” is actually pretty stupid. That word means something very specific. A “Nazi” is a “National Socialist,” which is a specific and fairly well-defined ideology that goes far beyond “says stuff about race that I don’t like.” Whatever other things Spencer may be, a “Nazi” is not one of them. But because he takes some pretty controversial positions on race, the charge superficially appears to apply in the eyes of people who don’t really take time to think deeply about these issues.

January 7, 2017 Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

Why Westernisation through Modernity is Failing

One of the biggest mysteries that plagues the world of neoconservatism is the question of why the end of history – that final triumph of liberal democracy and consumer capitalism – hasn’t occurred yet. All around the world in many different cultures and nations there is a strenuous reaction against these very things. Indeed, even in the western core – Western Europe and the Anglosphere – there is increasing skepticism about these tenets of the Enlightenment.

The question which the neoconservatives ask is, “Why do they hate us?” This question increasingly applies to pretty much everybody all over the world, but most especially to the Muslim world. Instead of seeing Fukuyama’s end of history, we’re seeing Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilisations. It seems to many of the neocons that the Muslim world is simply being obstinately ungrateful in refusing to recognize the blessings of democracy, secularism, and hedonism being imposed upon them by the force of Western military might.

Now, far be it from me to defend Islam itself or to defend the terroristic tactics which Muslims use. Certainly, I find Islam to be a false religion and Muslims to be primitive barbarians for the most part. However, my attitude toward them tends to be one of desiring to neither invade them nor invite them. I’m perfectly happy to let them do what they want in their own lands and to run their own countries as they see fit, so long as their barbarism is not imported into our Western countries.

January 4, 2017January 4, 2017 Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

Lying to People about History Doesn’t Help Them

If there was anything that you would think would be immutable, it would be the past. Short of inventing a time machine, it should be impossible to change any event that has already occurred. However, this assumption is actually quite incorrect. While the events of objective history themselves cannot be changed, our understanding of them can. Indeed, revising history is easy when you control the levers of education and popular culture. Then, it’s just a matter of telling the history that you want to be told while ignoring the history that actually happened.

A case in point would be the movie slated to hit the theaters tomorrow called Hidden Figures. If the hype surrounding this movie is to be believed, it will tell the “true” story of the American space program that put a man on the moon. The movie is a loose biography of Katherine Johnson, a black woman who played a role in the space program. The hype surrounding the movie, of course, portrays her as the single central figure in that program without whom nothing would have been accomplished. All those white guys with slide rules and crew cuts? They could have done nothing without her.

Now to be clear, there really was a black woman named Katherine Johnson who was involved with the space program – that much is true. It is also true that she was an accomplished mathematician and that she was involved in checking the calculations that were involved with the orbital mechanics of putting a man on the moon. But it’s a long way from that to the sort of “black woman single-handedly put a man on the moon” recounting that the narrative hype seems to be portraying. At face value this movie would seem to be exactly the sort of historical revisionism that progressives love to utilize for the purpose of “resetting the narrative,” so to speak.

December 30, 2016December 31, 2016 Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

Race Realism is a Good Thing

There are few things that will get you into trouble as quickly as talking about race. This issue is one of the hardest things for a person to become red-pilled about. Many soft-Right classical liberal-style “conservatives” may go along with limiting immigration or even criticizing democracy, but the moment you start talking about racial differences, their inner cuck comes flying to the surface. Westerners – who seem almost by nature to be xenophilic – have a very difficult time accepting realities about race which contradict the sort of wishful thinking about this issue which they learn from their schooling and from their popular culture. As such, even many so-called conservatives will manifest an unreasonable fear of reality about these things.

The perfect example of this could be seen on Twitter this past Tuesday. There is a third-tier conservative talk radio personality who broadcasts out of Charlotte, North Carolina (I live in this state and had never heard of him prior to a couple of months ago) named Bill Mitchell. He has amassed quite a following on Twitter, much of it due to his vigorous support for Donald Trump during the recent election. However, on Tuesday Mitchell had a complete, day-long Twitter freak out because he thought that some of his followers might be “racists.” This led to a series of rather ridiculous broadsides against the alt-Right, whom he characterized as horrible, horrible people because many of them are concerned about the drastic demographic changes that are being forced upon Western countries. To be concerned about the future of white people in their own countries and to recognize the defensive need for the same sort of identity politics on the part of whites that other races routinely engage in was for him apparently beyond the pale. He responded with a huge, ugly, virtue signalling cuckout.

It really was hilarious to see, in a morbid sort of way. Mitchell asserted that Trump had disowned the nationalist alt-Right (even though Trump’s top representative to Israel canceled a meeting with Israel’s foreign minister after a Swedish delegate from the “far-right” Sweden Democrats had been excluded). He apparently failed to grasp that the whole impetus for the anti-immigration stance that drove Trump’s campaign was essentially alt- Right style nationalism. Instead, and predictably, Mitchell tried to characterize all members of the alt-Right as Nazis and the like.

December 18, 2016December 18, 2016 Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

Perfecting the Triune Man

About three months ago, I wrote a post which asked (and hopefully answered in a not completely superficial fashion) the question of what constitutes the natural aristocracy, that body of men who will rise above their fellows and who would, if in a rational system, obtain to positions of power and influence, guiding their societies in a superior fashion. This subject has actually been one which I’ve mulled for the better part of two decades, long before I made the journey from normiedom to neoreaction. For a while, I had set the concept of a superior group of people aside because I bought into the false churchianity teaching that “all people are equal” (which is actually never once taught in the Bible) and that it’s “unchristian” to suggest otherwise. Of course, what the Bible actually teaches is that while spiritual salvation may be open to all, positionally there are strict and unequal gender roles, positions of authority within the churches, positions of authority established by God in society, and even inequalities between different national groups. So my return to a proper understanding of inequality and the rightness, and indeed the naturalness, of it was like a reunion with a long-lost acquaintance.

The simple fact is that equality is a farce. People, both at the individual and at the national levels, are unequal. These inequalities occur partly because of genetic and other “hardwired” differences and partly because of choices which those individuals and nations make which have long-term ramifications for their success or failure down the road. While the question of inequality may seem on the surface to be something that pertains more to the nationalism and patriarchy circles within the broader alt-Right, I think it’s definitely something neoreactionaries ought to be concerned with as well. After all, the Moldbugian watchwords for passivism are: Become worthy – accept power – rule. Identifying and inculcating the natural aristocracy is intimately tied in with the first of these steps – becoming worthy. Without a natural aristocracy which has consciously prepared itself to step into the vacuum created by the Great Reset (which has not been averted by the election of Donald Trump, but only postponed for a few years at most), the best men will not rule when the time for it comes.

My purpose with this post is to delve more deeply into what is entailed in the notion of a “natural aristocracy” and how it is enhanced. The process must begin with the recognition that man is a tripartite being – spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body (soma). This is an important point because the tendency on the part of many is to focus on one or two of these to the exclusion of the other(s), which necessarily creates an imbalanced person. Becoming the superior person, Confucius’ “gentleman,” requires the cultivation of all three. As noted above, there are many genetically inborn differences – some people are simply smarter, more athletic, etc. than others. However, the development of the triune being of man can overcome many natural deficiencies, and indeed demonstrates a superiority of will and purpose when this is done. I will cover each part separately in detail below, though keep in mind that each works coactively with the others.

November 18, 2016November 18, 2016 Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

Monergocapitalism and the Diminution of the Human Spirit

Of the many pathologies which afflict the modern Western world, one of the most pernicious is the soullessness of Western economic life. The essence of modernity, from an economic point of view, is to work for a repetitive eight hours a day so we can then go home and sit in front of a television for eight more, or else go out to the mall and buy useless junk that we don’t really need. Many in our societies recognise this problem, but feel powerless to do anything about it. We feel locked in, chained to a system which maximises “economic growth” and minimises our humanity. We have no choice but to feed the relentless machine of “progress” by offering ourselves as sacrifices to the great god Mammon.

Modern Western man finds himself in the grip of monergocapitalism – the inexorable, undivided will of the economic imperative. Many may be familiar with the Calvinistic theological position of monergism, which essentially posits that God will work through His Holy Spirit to bring about the regeneration of individuals whom He chooses, regardless of their actual cooperation with Him. The term comes from the Greek mono (“one, single”) + ergon (“to work”). Essentially, God’s action AND will alone (as it is often applied) are involved in the theological process of salvation. By analogy, economic monergocapitalism follows the same line – the only acts and will that matter are those of the capitalist imperative, the “invisible hand” that drives all transactions, all goals, all desires, all purposes. All economic life is ever more centralised, ever more monopolistic, ever more fitted into the same mold. To attempt to hinder in any way the progress of this economic imperative is to be a regressive, to be a heretic and a reprobate. Everything must be subsumed under the economic will, even the very essence of human life itself. We in the West have indeed reached the point where the human body itself, even that of the unborn child, is subject to dismantlement and sale to the highest bidder. Likewise with the human soul, captured by the vapid entertainments and propaganda of a society which enslaves the mind to the plasma screen TV.

What we see going on with respect to this monergocapitalism is an extension of the larger and more overall tyranny over mankind of “technique” which was discussed by Jacques Ellul in his book The Technological Society. In it, he discusses the role which technique (which extends far beyond mere machine technology) and its advancement plays in dominating human society ever more thoroughly. Technique is, essentially, any means by which any realm of the human life is regulated, systematised, and organised in what we might call “inorganic” ways. Mankind has always had technology and methods of organising his life, and had even had fitful starts at systematic science. However, it is only since the late 18th century (i.e. coinciding with the full efflorescence of “Enlightenment” thought) that human industry and life began to be dominated by “technique” in such a way that “progress” became formalised as a social aim and the function of economic competition became enshrined as the single acceptable driving force in society, with all others such as religion and morality being shunted to the side as “not useful.” Both man and machines were subordinated to the drive for economic improvement and advancement.

November 9, 2016November 16, 2016 Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

Social Turbulence and Governmental Form

One of the most commonly observed natural phenomena around us is that of turbulence. We experience turbulence everywhere that we see fluid flow – in the air which airplanes pass through, in the wakes of boats traveling in the water, in the rising of smoke and the movement of clouds, and many other everyday things. Yet, for all of its commonness, turbulence is still little understood and is difficult to control or predict. Turbulence is a chaotic phenomenon, in the “chaos theory” sense of the term. Most commonly, a chaotic system is one which exhibits the property of sensitivity to initial conditions. Essentially, chaotic systems are deterministic, meaning that given their current conditions, their evolution can (in theory) be completely predicted. However, in practice, chaotic systems (such as those exhibiting turbulent flow) will diverge from the expected evolution because of this sensitivity to the initial conditions. Any arbitrarily small perturbation of the system will result in significantly divergent future behaviour. In essence, while one *could* completely predict the evolution of a chaotic system, because of our inability to measure and control with sufficient precision, even extremely small differences from “theory” will lead to large changes in the system from what we thought we would observe, based on determinism alone. There are other properties which must be present for a dynamical system to be classified as chaotic, but these tend to be more highly technical and will not be discussed here.

Turbulence will begin to occur in a dynamic fluid flow system when a threshold in flow energy and velocity is reached which leads to chaotic changes in localised flow velocity and fluid pressure. Once a certain amount of energy (typically represented by velocity, which is related to kinetic energy in the system) is reached in a flow system, it transitions from laminar flow (smooth, even flow characterised by parallel layers of fluid which lack lateral mixing) to turbulent. As a result, the eddies and vortices which identify a turbulent system become apparent in the system. The more energy you add to a flowing fluid system, the closer you get to that threshold for turbulent behaviour until you eventually cross it.

Turbulent flows demonstrate several characteristics.

October 22, 2016October 24, 2016 Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

Narratives versus Reality

An increasingly common term that we are seeing in Western political discourse is “narrative.” Everybody has their narrative. The news media build a narrative, politicians create their narratives, entire governments produce narratives which they wish for their populations to consume unquestioningly. The term essentially refers to the version of events, coupled with the interpretation (aka spin) of those events, that the narrative-builder wishes for the consumer to believe, nearly always in contravention to what is plainly visible before our eyes. Who are you going to believe? The narrative builder telling you something you likely want to hear, or your lying eyes?

In previous writings, I’ve criticised the prevalence of ideology over pragmatism in too much of what goes on in our social and political systems. Obviously, in doing so I am not condemning the process of having a comprehensive worldview, per se, which informs our interpretation of the world around us and which directs how we respond to the stimuli we receive from our environment. This is what we often think of when we use the term “ideology,” and pretty much everyone has one, even if those held by most people are shallow and ill-conceived.

Instead, I tend to use the term “ideology” in these contexts as a functional synonym for “narrative,” only on a grander scale. An ideology, essentially, is an institutionalised narrative, a comprehensive “story” that is told to explain not just one, but an entire world full of stimuli which must be “read” a certain way for the ideologue to be and remain comfortable. As with situational narratives, ideologies tend to suffer from a distinct lack of accord with reality. Or put another way, they seek to bend reality to the needs of the ideology, rather than the other way around. Most commonly understood ideologies on both Left and Right, whether Socialism or Libertarianism, suffer from this defect. They not only view the world, but also then try to treat the world, as they wish it were rather than as it really is.

October 15, 2016 Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

Restoring the West or Bringing in the Next Stage?

The West is the world’s sick man. I think that just about anyone with any knowledge of the current state of world affairs would recognise the truth of this statement. While still wielding a great, perhaps even preponderant, amount of military and economic power on paper, the Western nations have increasingly shown themselves to be riddled with feckless “leadership” and a blatant unwillingness to defend themselves against foreign subversion and the invasion of millions of hostile foreign nationals entering under the guise of “refugees” and “immigration.” The failure is not one of capability, but of will. The West is a patient lying on his sickbed who refuses to take the medicine that will assuredly make him well. Instead, he continues to wrestle with his fever while blaming the doctors who prescribe for him his cure.

It’s obvious that the current state of affairs in the West cannot and will not continue for very long. Our societies are very far out of accord with nature, and our unnatural, high-energy transition state situation is going to tip over the edge and drop into a lower energy well of one sort or another. It has generally been one of the goals of Tradition and neoreaction to be ready for this “Great Reset” event (or series of events, more likely), and to become worthy, accept power when it presents itself, and then rule. Typically involved with this is the notion of a “restoration” of the West, a return to the things that made the West natural and good, while hopefully avoiding a repetition of the things that have brought us to our present point. The point to this post is to delve somewhat into what the nature of this restoration might look like, if indeed there is to be a restoration. But to do that, I’d first like to cover and analyse, in brief, some history of “the West” and use the previous “restorations” to draw some conclusions.

When we talk about “the West” or “Western civilisation,” these terms are usually used with varying degrees of precision depending on the speaker or writer. However, I think the most broad and generally understandable definition (which I will, as a result, use here) is that “the West” is a long, semi-continuous succession of civilisational “stages” that first became identifiable around the 6th century BC in Greece, and which continue to the present day. Each succeeding civilisation is like a storey in a building built upon the previous ones. These stages each contributed something to what we now call Western civilisation.

The Neo-Ciceronian Times

"What, indeed, is a state, if it is not an association of citizens united by law?"