So, I'm researching more into this "dark enlightenment crap with Curtis Yarvin, and ugh, the guy sounds a lot more reasonable when he actually explains his arguments in some ways, but "sounds" is the key word. He's still pushing some pretty crazy ideas that I'd fundamentally disagree with. So I'm listening to his interview with the new york times a few months back. And uh...I wanted to give some thoughts on this. Im about 2/3 of the way through the interview as of writing this, I dont know if I'll finish it, but i did want to respond to what I heard.
So first, the dude argues about the hypocrisy of democracy and how "FDR was a dictator" and we seem to like dictators when they're people we like, but not when we don't. I admit this is somewhat true. However, and this is a tactic he seems to use a lot, FDR can be argued to do what he did to save democracy, and move society forward. What this guy is arguing against is democracy for its own sake. He's arguing for dictatorship as being superior to democracy, claiming it's more efficient and a better way to govern.
I admit, many historical leaders, including many I like, are a bit authoritarian at times. Abraham Lincoln. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt. Some of our greatest leaders. They did things for the people, but sometimes they kinda "broke the rules" and didnt follow the proper procedures. However, here's the thing. This guy seems to think that if you're not on his side, you should be a weak procedure fetishist like say, modern centrist democrats who value the norms and letter of the law, rather than the spirit of it. I admit, sometimes, especially in times of crisis, it's permissible for leaders to do things that normally arent considered fine. However, once again, these leaders ultimately made American democracy stronger and saved it at crucial moments. Had Lincoln not done what he would have done, the US would've broken apart. Had FDR not done what he had done, we would've fallen to fascism or communism. Hell, beyond that, I'll say this. It's the people who wanted that. When you elect someone 4 times in overwhelming margins like FDR was, that's a clear mandate. He did things that the people wanted. The conservatives cynically used procedure to obstruct.
And none of these guys did what Trump is doing with project 2025 and Yarvin's ideas. Trump is basically following Yarvin's playbook, as I discussed in the last article. This whole point is to break democracy, and for what? Rule by corporations? Ridiculous.
Honestly, this is just the hunter vs emissary debate from starfield all over again and how the hunter is like WELL THE EMISSARY USES POWER TOO, ARENT' THEY HYPOCRITICAL? yes, but the emissary uses it in a more restrained and principled way, often acting defensively to stop madmen from taking power. I'm basically the emissary, whereas Yarvin is the hunter. He's just a raw power guy and is twisting things to make it act like emissary like thinkers are just like him. No, they're not. I mean, they KINDA are, but not really. Really, what this guy is doing is mind####ing us and drawing a false equivalence.
Next, he argues that the US should be run like a corporation. He points out that corporations are little monarchies. yeah, they are. I've noticed. And...I don't exactly like corporate America and the tyranny that they impose on people. My entire ideology is literally opposed to the idea of being forced to work for these guys after all and how wage slavery is functionally a soft form of slavery. If anything, I'm actually at least somewhat sympathetic to the argument for like market socialism and how the businesses should be democratically run. I aint ride or die on the idea but I've been open minded to it, even if i dont think it's an end all be all because I'd rather there be an exit option in the form of a UBI. Yarvin supports exit options for his little corporate fiefdoms too, but if there isn't an actual exit exit, does it matter of we have choices between different flavors of tyranny? Choice doesnt make much difference if one can't just opt out entirely.
On that front, Yarvin seems to offer rather ghoulish examples. he's "jokingly" said that the poor should be ground up into like biodiesel or something. But again, he said he was "joking." On a more serious proposal, he seems to support like imprisoning them, possibly in virtual reality. As I gamer, to some extent, I dont mind just chilling and spending all of my time gaming and being online. But being forced to be there and imprisoned sounds messed up. And I assume that people wouldn't be there on their own terms either. So...total psycho there...but hey, that's the right for you.
And then there's him arguing that slaves were better off as slaves and a lot of slaves didn't wanna be freed and how a lot died after 1865 from poverty and the like...uh...okay, to answer this one, yeah, because we imposed wage slavery on people. We replaced a system of a whip with one that was like "work or die by the elements" and people...died by the elements. That doesnt mean slavery is good. That just means that the system of wage labor that came after actually kinda sucks. And again, whose entire ideology is built to oppose wage slavery? mine. I mean, my answer is the equivalent of "reparations for all" as a means to accomplish people being able to be free and secure. This guy is just like, "well ackshully slavery was kinda based". No, it wasn't. We just replaced it with a system that while a bit better in some ways, is still pretty fricking bad. And just because some slaves regretted being freed doesnt mean anything because 1) how many of them knew better? it's not like they ever had much experience with anything else, it's a lot like the people of today going on about what will they do with their life if not forced to work all of the time?, that's not an argument for repression for employers, it just means that people are brainwashed, and 2) once again, the system that replaced actual slavery still kinda sucked.
Like, this guy is unmoored from the traditions of western enlightenment thought and liberalism. he argues we have a recency bias and how we assume our politics is so much better than aristotle's because our physics are better. It's the overall amount of knowledge actually. What this guy is, is someone who rejects the narrative of progress. Like I'm a progressive. I believe that over time that much like with physics where through science we improve our understanding and advance things, that we should do that with social systems too. That new morality should, in theory, be better than old morality. That we advance and learn from our mistakes, and that many rules that now exist that didnt exist thousands of years ago are there for a reason and fixed things that previous generations did wrong. What this guy is saying is we should just throw all that out the window and maybe the old guys from thousands of years ago had it right. No, they fricking didn't.
And then he returns to the whole hypocrisy of westerners by defending anders brevik by saying "well ackshully nelson mandela was a terrorist too." Again, we're arguing hunter vs emissary again. A principled, restrained use of power vs a raw dictatorial one and acting like they're the same thing.
But yeah, that's what this guy is doing. He's like a total moral relativist. And not in a good way. Like, he's the kind of guy who if we were to go back to christianity would actually be like "well ackshully it's fine if people just all kill each other because if you stop me you're just as bad as i am" and then try to muddy the waters that much you actually defend acting like a moral psychopath.
Like, even if i admit morality is mostly subjective, in a way it kind of isn't in some limited ways. I would argue that there are some obvious impulses or directions that morality should flow in. Some goals it should try to reach. Like reducing suffering, extending life, giving people enough liberty to pursue their own ends and self actualize, etc. And this guy's morality almost seems devoid of all of that. he really does think we need a strong man to just tell everyone what to do and that society is actually better that way.
And then toward the end of the video he once again returned to this idea that CEOs just know better than most people and if government ran industries, they wouldn't do so well.
We already have seen government run like a corporation before with Trump. it sucks. it baffles me we're trying this again with a side of this guy's crazy ideas. I honestly think that corporate rule is the whole reason were here. If democracy, true democracy, prevailed in the first place and we didnt have corporations controlling the entire thing from the shadows, we would've worked this out in 2016 by electing Bernie Sanders.
We ended up in this cursed timeline because our government is already run by corporations and ignoring the will of the people. And because corporations have captured both parties, we keep flipping back and forth between these crappy options that no one actually likes, and now it's getting dangerous because these guys are trying to use trump to seize power for themselves directly. it's scary. And I dont think most people actually voted for this. They just voted for trump because they rejected the democrats. They vote for democrats because they rejected the republicans.
We need less corporate rule, not more. I hate these stupid elitists who think they know so much better than people.
And yeah, I know I also think people are stupid and I know better too. BUT...i also acknowledge democracy as the "least bad system of government" and dont think the solution to that is to get rid of democracy and let the oligarchs rule directly. Like, why is this a thing? Oh democracy sucks, let's have this small unelected group of people just make decisions for people whether they like it or not. Yeah, like that's gonna go over so well /s.
Really. I acknowledge democracy is flawed. But that's why I propose like...universal college education? Because maybe for democracy to work properly, the masses need to actually be educated and informed? The problem with our system is its currently stupid people being guided like puppets on a string toward certain conclusions and then this guy is like "the answer to this is to just make the puppet master a dictator." NO! THAT'S TOTALLY NOT THE ANSWER. The answer is to get the puppeteers out of the way and stop them from running the show and let people organically decide what they want without elites trying to force them to predetermined outcomes that suck.
Every problem with american democracy comes from its oligarchic roots, and from ignorance. Problems that the GOP actively fosters and tries to make worse because it benefits them. And now they're going full blown toward illiberalism and trying to do away with even the PRETENSE of democracy. Again, the answer is more democracy, not less.
Really. This is gonna be a scary next few months/years. I hope democracy can withstand this. Because this is BAD. Really BAD. People who believe in this guy's ideas are in our government and influencing things. And Trump was bad enough before those guys were in the picture. At this point im not sure whose worse, Trump or the people behind him. Like I thought trump was a unique threat, but its looking like no, the GOP really is just full on going full steam toward rank authoritarianism. it's like every time we think they can't get worse they get worse. Every election more extreme, more dangerous. And now they're an existential threat to the system that even as recently as a decade ago they swore to protect.
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