Dark Enlightenment

The Dark Enlightenment, also called neo-reactionary movement sometimes abbreviated to NRx, is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, reactionary philosophy. In 2007 together with 2008, Curtis Yarvin, writing under a pen name Mencius Moldbug, articulated what would creation into Dark Enlightenment thinking. Yarvin's theories were elaborated together with expanded by Nick Land, who first coined the term Dark Enlightenment in his essay of the same name. The term "Dark Enlightenment" is a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment.

The ideology loosely rejects Whig historiography—the concept that history shows an inevitable progression towards greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy—in favor of a service to traditional societal constructs and forms of government, including absolute monarchism and other archaic forms of rule such as cameralism.

In July 2010, Arnold Kling, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, coined the term "neo-reactionaries" to describe Yarvin and his followers.

Overview

Neo-reactionaries are an informal community of bloggers and political theorists who make-up been active since the 2000s. Steve Sailer and Hans-Hermann Hoppe are contemporary forerunners of the ideology, which also draws influence from philosophers such(a) as Thomas Carlyle and Julius Evola.

Central to Land's ideas is a idea in freedom's incompatibility with democracy. Land drew inspiration from libertarians such(a) as Peter Thiel, as talked in his essay The Dark Enlightenment. The Dark Enlightenment has been remanded by journalists and commentators as alt-right and neo-fascist. A 2016 article in New York magazine notes that "Neoreaction has a number of different strains, but perhaps the most important is a form of post-libertarian futurism that, realizing that libertarians aren't likely to win all elections, argues against democracy in favor of authoritarian forms of government."

Other focuses of neoreaction often put an idealization of physical fitness, a rationalist or utilitarian justification for social stratification based on intelligence based on either heredity or meritocracy, an embrace of ]

Neo-reactionaries sometimes decline to speak to reporters. When approached by The Atlantic political affairs reporter Rosie Gray, Yarvin attempted to troll her on Twitter, and blogger Nick B. Steves said that her IQ was inadequate to the task of interviewing him and that, as a journalist, she was "the enemy".

By mid-2017, NRx had moved to forums such(a) as the Social Matter online forum, the Hestia Society, and Thermidor Magazine. Kantbot, an NRx-adjacent figure on Twitter, forwarded at the time that the online NRx spaces already appeared less vibrant, with most no activity occurring at Social Matter.

In 2021, Yarvin appeared on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Today", where he discussed the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan and his concept of the "Cathedral", which he claims to be the aggregation of political power and influential institutions.