Red Pill Republic

The Dark Enlightenment is a topic that is getting more and more attention, even from mainstream publications.  I've touched on it here ("Barack Obama is a communist" is perhaps the best opening line to a post I've ever written), but an old post from Isegoria (you do read him every day, don't you?) gives the best introduction to the topic, phrased in explicitly "Blue Pill"/"Red Pill" terminology:

The nature of the state

• The state is established by citizens to serve their needs. Its actions are generally righteous.
• The state is just another giant corporation. Its actions generally advance its own interests. Sometimes these interests coincide with ours, sometimes they don’t.

The power structure of the West

• Power in the West is held by the people, who have to guard it closely against corrupt politicians and corporations.
• Power in the West is held by the civil service, that is, the permanent employees of the state. In any struggle between the civil service and politicians or corporations, the civil service wins.

The extent of the state

• The state consists of elected officials and their appointees.
• The state consists of all those whose interests are aligned with the state. This includes NGOs, universities, and the press, all of whose employees are effectively civil servants, and side with the civil service in almost all conflicts.

The last one in particular is a concise description of what is called the "Cathedral" - social institutions not directly subject to the Throne but which work in explicit or implicit ways to support it.

I have come to believe that we will not likely vote ourselves out of this.  However, there is another way.  It is the Tao of the Dark Enlightment.  The maddening  thing is that this cannot really be told - at least, nobody has (yet) found a voice to do so.  Moldbug is thick going, even distilled by Isegoria or your humble host.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao, after all.  And so metaphor is what is most accessible to most people.

The Red Pill reference, of course, if from the film The Matrix:



This is the first truly revolutionary philosophy that we've seen in a hundred years, and it is just now emergent.  Whether you accept or reject its arguments, this is the intellectual structure that will battle Progressivism.  And not a moment too soon.  The battle is joined, the game afoot.  Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of class war.