notes on neoreaction / little glossarie
Hi User 46
i will attempt here to create non-philosophese definitions of a few words I like and that are related to xhis blog. Philosophy is gay anyway.
I have also used this oppotunrity to create a new note on neoreaction; i have some footnotes to read to you.
Anarcho-fascism
A way of dodging the question of which political tribe one identifies with.
To answer the question, "what are you politically?" is to one: say something about yourself, and two: recall and reinforce a previously determined identity which will unabashedly be applied and framed to you. In order to avoid such affliction, you must throw the question back at them. Not directly, but by surreptitiously crafting and planting identifiers with which to torment the interrogator.
Nydwracu did this principally through the adoption of deliberately abstruse identifiers such as "anarcho-fascism" (from which the tactic takes its name), "reactionary futurism" and "critical legalism." However, a far more evolved subroutine than simple wordsmashing is something like reactionary queerbaiting.
Queerbaiting, in media, is to have a character be plausibly but not explicitly GAYY in order to pander to both fags and homophobes. In anarcho-fascistics, this principle is leveraged through the deconstruction of both liberal and conservative ideology, i.e. the subversion of conventions.
For instance, the quality of absurdity or contrast is not definite in "lesbian anarcho-capitalist," because anarcho-capitalism is not inherently homophobic. Political positions (including declarations of one's own sexual orientation) can be used pragmatically by anybody. Rather, the enhanced anarcho-fascistic content is implicit because hardly anything at all, such as a theory of mind, can be gleaned about political alignment from such anti-social statements, which is the goal.
Contrarianfagging
To deliberately be contrary to the popular positions of a certain group in order to bother them. Richard Banania is a modern master of this game.
Also see 'left-moldbuggianism' toward the bottom.
Countersignaling
In its twitterian usage:
To signal that you are contrary to a certain position or thing.
It's important to know that you can countersignal something without necessarily being a contrarianfag.
Exosemantic
The content of a word or phrase that is not its strict definition, but rather commonly implicated through repeated use by particular speakers and in certain cultural and social contexts; what a word or phrase says about its user.
Word I learned through reading Nydwracu's Introduction to group dynamics. I'd think there was already a term for this, but Nidracu explicitly distinguishes exosemantics from denotation (literal meaning), and connotation (associated feelings), as a sort of third layer of meaning. Wracu uses the example of 'eldritch' to demonstrate this, however I think it's a little contrived to say that it implies its user has read H.P. Lovecraft.
So, let's use a more pertinent political example, since 'exosemantic' is particularly useful in analyzing politically loaded language.
'Woke' denotes being alert of social justice issues. It connotes progressivism, performative politics or cultural signaling. Its exosemantic content can be read in that it is very often used as a pejorative by individuals on the right, so using it commonly implicates that its user is against progressivism, even if what they say doesn't literally entail such.
Well, the politicians have been pushing woke policies for years now.
Plainly and literally, this is just an observation, and the speaker does not state their position on 'woke' policies. But language is a clumsy weapon, and it does not exist in a vacuum!
Niyadwraku uses quote related from this blog post as his preferred definition, which I have reworded.
exosemantic - the part of a word or statement that isn’t its strict entailments, but which are extremely common implicatures– specifically, these shouldn’t be contextual or Gricean implicatures, but socially bound ones, which have been formed by continued use of the word in particular contexts, or by particular speakers. The exosemantics of a word may eventually become incorporated into the defining entailments.
This is philosophy, which as we've clarified earlier is gay. A commenter notes this, and Niedwracu gives us an easier time in his reply, which I have incorporated into the reword:
A speaker’s words say something not only about whatever the speaker is talking about, but also about the speaker. That’s the exosemantic content. It just happens that that content is usually that the speaker is a member of a certain social group.
Exosemantic gang sign
A word or phrase whose exosemantic content reveals what tribe its user is affiliated with.
'Woke' could count as one, as we went over. It is similar to the term 'shibboleth,' but shibboleths are prototypically about differences in pronunciation.
Ironically, 'exosemantic gang sign' is itself an exosemantic gang sign, only used by people who orbited NRx years ago.
https://x.com/search?q=exosemantic
Fnord
An emotionally loaded word or phrase meant to signal to a reader (especially of a certain group) how they should feel.
A deeper look can be found here. https://lucy.bearblog.dev/fnord-reduction-technique/
I do realize the last section isn't very strong; I'll get to that sometime.
Fnord reduction technique
The act of stripping a passage of its filler and transitional content into its fnords.
Moldbug
Moldberg's deadname. Please don't call xim that.
Nigg Land
The descriptive term for post-NRx Nick Land and its carping grotesqueries, as first articulated by /lit/ schizos. Nigg "jews of gender" Land is thought to be sloppish and un-insightful compared to Nick "Nothing human makes it out of the near-future" Land.
Also, picture related is hosted on POMF.LAIN.LA! It returns! Waow! Please support 7666.
Neoreaction / NRx
An anti-democratic, rightist intellectual movement and framework developed principally by Mencius Moldberg and Nigg Land. A reaction against the Enlightenment, it rejects liberal democracy, egalitarianism, progressivism and its account of history, viewing all as a degenerative ratchet, proposing instead a range of alternative governance models ranging from technocratic city-state competition to restored monarchy.
As a movement and community, it spread primarily through blogging culture and later Twitter, and dissolved in the late 2010s.
Remilia Wiki's page on the NRx I have found to have the most concise definition, the above is just that reworded slightly.
Neoreaction and Twitter, Anomaly UK.
The ideas that became neoreaction were blogged, but neoreaction as a conscious intellectual movement started on twitter.
The Idea of Neoreaction, Nigg Land
[Neoreaction] accepts that the dominant sociopolitical order of the world has ‘progressed’ solely on the condition that such advance, or relentless forward movement, is entirely stripped of moral endorsement, and is in fact bound to a primary association with worsening. [...]
The ‘neo-‘ of neoreaction is more than just a chronological marker, however. It introduces a distinctive idea, or abstract topic: that of a degenerative ratchet.
It is important to note here that while Moldberg is foundational to Neoreaction, he never called himself a neoreactionary, and instead referred to his ideas as 'formalism.' Like many other currents on the right, as Parzival notes, the label was given to them by the outside and adopted. In this case, an article by Arnold Kling is the origin of the label, per Nydwraku.
The Nezperdian Hivemind of Chaos, Parzival:
What the Right needs to do is stop letting the Left set the actual terms: the very words that define the ideas duking it out in this meme war. Neo-Reactionary, Reactionary, hell since it's very inception the Right has been letting the Left name everything- including not just the various factions of the Right but the very Left-Right dichotomy itself!
More on trigger warnings, Nidwraku:
Note also that thedes are commonly named by outsiders. Even neoreaction.
From my bolding, he links to Kling. Kling is not a member of the left and was at least semi-sympathetic to the 'neo-reactionaries' in his art. But the root term 'reactionary' is just an epithet for people who don't like revolution by people who do.
And finally, to its dissolution. Some people like to characterize neoreaction as a subordinate faction of the alt-right, this seems to be a misguided view. The general consensus (by smart people, not retards) is that they actually got 'APED by the rise of the alt-right in the 2010s culture war (Gamergate, Qanon, Trumpism, Charlottesville, you know).
La Wik says NRx influenced the alt-right, doe, and I'll believe that much. What I won't believe is the big ass "populism" infobox they put on the article a month back. Retards write wikipedia.
Some accounts by SSC/ACX readers on der 'cord:
[T]he whole NRX thing had pretensions of becoming the core of a new right-wing intellectual movement but half of it fizzled out and the rest got absorbed into MAGA
[B]y 2016 most NRX writers had either given up and moved on to more interesting things, or gotten sucked into the MAGA orbit, with the notable exception of Curtis Yarvin.
yeah, [Mencius Moldbug] was pretty much the OG and he’s one of the few still writing, most of the NRx guys either got sucked into MAGA or decided that writing about obscure linguistics facts was a better use of their time
(geg to the last one)
Dark Enlightenment
This term is most often used interchangeably with Neoreaction/NRx, since Nick Land's titular 2012 essay, which coined the term, gave the 'neo-reactionary' blogosphere which had already coalesced under Moldberg & co. a banner.
A banner is little bit different from a political philoslopy. If we accept that it isn't an exact synonym for the NRx, and some people do, an attempted separate definition goes:
A superset of ideas and philoslopical tendencies surrounding Neoreaction, including those of Hans Hermann Hoppe (Austrian critiques of democracy), Peter Thiel (technocracy, transhumanism), Steve Sailer (HBD) and beyond.
Is Neoreaction Right-Brahmin Signaling?, Butch Leghorn.
The Dark Enlightenment is basically a superset of ideas that surrounds NRx. The DE is concerned with truth, and is in some ways a reaction against the lies spun by our current society. For example, Human Biodiversity is concerned with genetic truth ...
The Dark Enlightenment, Nigg Land, in which he explicitly names Hobbes and Hoppe as 'dark enlightenment.'
Where the progressive enlightenment sees political ideals, the dark enlightenment sees appetites. [...] From Thomas Hobbes to Hans-Hermann Hoppe and beyond, it asks ...
The asymmetry between the two terms I think be seen most blatantly in NRx blogger Scharlach's visualized 'Networks of Dark Enlightenment,' in which he includes a lot of individuals and sites that wouldn't identify as Neoreactionary, or even repudiate the philosophy as Eliezer Yudkowsky, Vox Day (while he did later cozy up to NRx in 2016, Scharlach made this in 2013) and Roosh V have.
Eric S. Raymond speculated that this might be some gayop by the NRx in order to make themselves appear larger than they really are, I think this is at least somewhat correct.
[S]omeone unfamiliar with the players would be justified in wondering if there’s really any coherence there at all. And that’s a fair question. Some of the people the map sweeps in don’t think of themselves as “Dark Enlightenment” at all. [...] I think this map is partly in the nature of a successful con job or dezinformatsiya.
Also:
Additionally, maps like [Scharlach's] can sometimes reinforce existing affinities if people on both ends notice them and take them seriously.
.. or create new affinities. which is hyperstition or something.
Left-Moldbuggianism
not to be confused with LRx, which is way different and has far more influences from Nigg Land.
A descriptive term for a particular current of right-wing liberal contrarianism, which accepts the description of modern democratic soyciety by Moldberg but nonetheless concludes that it is the best possible option, and that we should work to improve it from the inside.
Slightly reworded defintion from Non Zionism. You should read his article to learn about their ideas.
Writers Richard Banania and Deep Left Analysis are the core of this strain. Anatoly Karlin and Richard Spencer are also good contenders.
LRx
not to be confused with LesbiaNRx, which is an anarcho-fascistic thedish identifier for the ideas of writer Nyx Land, who musn't be confused with Nigg Land, the british philosopher.
Left reaction, as synthesized by Cyborg Nomade.
https://antinomiaimediata.wordpress.com/lrx/
LesbiaNRx
A term for the ideology of internet troon writer Nyx Land/n1x, who is most known for theorizing g/acc or gender accelerationism. It primarily functions as an anarcho-fascistic identifier rather than a serious descriptor of ideology.
You can read xis blog at nyx.land.
It must be noted that although 'lesbiaNRx' is anarcho-fascism as attached to sexual orientation, this is not an instance of reactionary queerbaiting, but rather an attempt at co-option from the other side, i.e. queer reactionarybaiting. If you take the time to read Unlife, Nyx is not a neoreactionary in any sense.