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Dark Enlightenment

Anti-democratic, reactionary philosophy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dark Enlightenment

Not to be confused with Counter-Enlightenment or Intellectual dark web.

The Dark Enlightenment, also called the neo-reactionary movement or neoreactionarism (abbreviated to NRx), is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian,[1] and reactionary philosophical and political movement.[2] A reaction against Enlightenment values,[3][4][5][6][7] it favors a return to traditional societal constructs and forms of government such as absolute monarchism and cameralism.[5] Influenced by libertarianism, the movement advocates for authoritarian capitalist city-states which compete for citizens. Neoreactionaries refer to contemporary liberal society and institutions which they oppose as "the Cathedral", associating them with the Puritan church, and their goals of egalitarianism and democracy as "the Synopsis". They claim that the Cathedral influences public discourse to promote progressivism and political correctness,[8][9] which they view as a threat to Western civilization.[4] The movement also espouses scientific racism, a pseudoscientific view which they claim is suppressed by the Cathedral.[8][9][10][11]

Curtis Yarvin began constructing the basis of the ideology in the late 2000's, with Nick Land elaborating and coining the term "Dark Enlightenment". The movement has also had contributions from figures such as venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Despite criticism, the movement has gained traction with parts of Silicon Valley as well as several political figures associated with United States President Donald Trump, including political strategist Steve Bannon, Vice President JD Vance, and Michael Anton.

The Dark Enlightenment has been described as part of the alt-right, as its theoretical branch,[12][13] and as neo-fascist.[12][14][15][16] It has been described as the most significant political theory within the alt-right,[2] as "key to understanding" the alt-right political ideology,[2] and as providing a philosophical basis for considerable amounts of alt-right political activity.[17] University of Chichester professor Benjamin Noys described it as "an acceleration of capitalism to a fascist point". Land disputes the similarity between his ideas and fascism, claiming that "Fascism is a mass anti-capitalist movement", whereas he prefers that "capitalist corporate power should become the organizing force in society".[12] Historians Angela Dimitrakaki and Harry Weeks tie the Dark Enlightenment to neofascism via Land's "capitalist eschatology" which they describe as supported by the supremacist theories of fascism.[18] Neoreactionary ideas have also been described as "feudalist"[8] and "techno-feudalist".[6][7]

History

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Curtis Yarvin

Neo-reactionaries are an informal community of bloggers and political theorists who have been active since the 2000s. Steve Sailer and Hans-Hermann Hoppe are contemporary forerunners of the ideology, which is also heavily influenced by the political thought of Thomas Carlyle and Julius Evola.[6][9] The 1997 book The Sovereign Individual, by William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson, has been cited by Peter Thiel as his strongest influence.[19][20] In 2007 and 2008, software engineer Curtis Yarvin, writing under the pen name Mencius Moldbug, articulated what would develop into Dark Enlightenment thinking. Yarvin's theories were elaborated and expanded by philosopher Nick Land, who first coined the term "Dark Enlightenment" in his essay of the same name.[9][21][22]

By mid-2017, NRx had moved to forums such as the Social Matter online forum, the Hestia Society, and Thermidor Magazine. 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 current aggregation of political power and influential institutions that is controlling the country.[23]

Influence in government

Several prominent Silicon Valley investors and Republican politicians have expressed their influence from the philosophy, with Peter Thiel describing Yarvin as his "most important connection".[24] Steve Bannon has read and admired his work, and there have been allegations that he has communicated with Yarvin which Yarvin has denied.[25][8][10] Michael Anton, the State Department Director of Policy Planning during Trump's second presidency, has also discussed Yarvin's ideas.[26] In January 2025, Yarvin attended a Trump inaugural gala in Washington; Politico reported he was "an informal guest of honor" due to his "outsize influence over the Trumpian right."[27]

U.S. Vice President JD Vance has cited Yarvin as an influence.[28][29][30] Prior to his election to the Vice Presidency, JD Vance cited in his 2022 Senate Campaign Yarvin's "strongman plan to 'retire all government employees,' which goes by the jaunty mnemonic 'RAGE.'"[31] In a 2021 interview, "Vance said Trump should 'fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country and say, The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”[32] Yarvin has praised Vance, stating "in almost every way, JD is perfect", but also considered his relationship with Vance overstated by the media, as they've rarely communicated. He also praised Trump for breaking from Republican practices of trying to "play ball and help the system work" and instead "trying to move all of the levers of this machine that he can move", though also stating "what he’s doing is not at all what I would do with an opportunity like this. But I think that what I would do is probably not possible."[27]

It has been suggested that the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, bears resemblance to RAGE, as advocated for by Yarvin.[32][7] Land, when asked by the Financial Times if he approved of DOGE, said "the answer is definitely yes", having also endorsed Steve Bannon's goal of "deconstruction of the administrative state".[33] Yarvin has claimed to have given staffing recommendations to Michael Anton.[27]

Beliefs

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Opposition to democracy

Central to neoreactionarism's ideas is a belief in freedom's incompatibility with democracy, with Land having stated "Democracy tends to fascism".[8] Yarvin and Land drew inspiration from libertarians such as Peter Thiel; Thiel had claimed that the West needed a new political system in the face of 9/11, which he considered to mark the failure of the Enlightenment, and stated “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible".[8][3][4] 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 any elections, argues against democracy in favor of authoritarian forms of government."[17]

Journalist Andrew Sullivan writes that neoreaction's pessimistic appraisal of democracy dismisses many advances that have been made and that global manufacturing patterns also limit the economic independence that sovereign states can have from one another.[34]

Support for authoritarianism

Yarvin supports authoritarianism on right-libertarian grounds, claiming that the division of political sovereignty expands the scope of the state, whereas strong governments with clear hierarchies remain minimal and narrowly focused.[35] Yarvin's "A Formalist Manifesto" advocates for a form of "neocameralism" in which small, authoritarian "gov-corps" coexist and compete with each other, an idea anticipated by Hans-Hermann Hoppe.[36][8][9][33] He claims freedom under the system, known as the "Patchwork",[37] would be guaranteed by the ability to "vote with your feet", whereby residents could leave for another gov-corp if they felt it would provide a higher quality of life, thus forcing competition. Land reiterates this with the political idea "No Voice, Free Exit", taken from Albert Hirschman's ideas of voice being democratic and exit being departure to another society:[8][38]

"If gov-corp doesn’t deliver acceptable value for its taxes (sovereign rent), [citizens] can notify its customer service function, and if necessary take their custom elsewhere. Gov-corp would concentrate upon running an efficient, attractive, vital, clean, and secure country, of a kind that is able to draw customers."[3]

Yarvin has advocated for a "dictator-president" or "national CEO".[39] He has also described himself as a royalist, monarchist, and Jacobite,[8][40] and has praised cameralism, Frederick the Great,[10][4][5] Thomas Carlyle, and Friedrich Hayek.[6] Yarvin admires Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for his pragmatic and market-oriented authoritarianism, and the city-state of Singapore as an example of a successful authoritarian regime. He sees the US as soft on crime, dominated by economic and democratic delusions.[35] He additionally cites Dubai and Hong Kong as providing a high quality of life without democracy, stating "as Dubai in particular shows, a government (like any corporation) can deliver excellent customer service without either owning or being owned by its customers."[37]

Andy Beckett stated that NRx supporters "believe in the replacement of modern nation-states, democracy and government bureaucracies by authoritarian city states, which on neoreaction blogs sound as much like idealised medieval kingdoms as they do modern enclaves such as Singapore."[41] Ana Teixeira Pinto describes the political ideology of the gov-corp model as a form of classical libertarianism, stating "they do not want to limit the power of the state, they want to privatise it."[42] According to criminal justice professor George Michael, neoreaction seeks to save its ideal of Western civilization through adoption of a monarchical, or CEO model of government to replace democracy.[43] Academic Jonathan Ratcliffe describes the model as "a network of hyper-capitalist city states ruled by authoritarian CEO monarchs."[40] Neoreactionary ideas have also been referred to as "feudalist"[8] and "techno-feudalist".[6][7] Yarvin's proposals are not fully detailed beyond philosophy and general principles,[40] and the economic ability to leave and the willingness of other locations to accept immigrants are not generally considered.[2] Andrew Jones criticized his arguments as "vaguely defined and often factually incorrect".[2]

In the United States

Yarvin describes his proposals as a modern version of monarchy[40] and advocates an American monarch dissolving elite academic institutions and media outlets within the first few months of their reign,[44] stating "if Americans want to change their government, they're going to have to get over their dictator phobia."[45] While conceding that it may not be possible, he stated that, were he in Trump's position, he would take executive control of government institutions such as the Federal Reserve, keeping those "that have a very clear role and are not politicized in any way" while disposing of others such as the State Department. He advocates constitutionally challenging laws such as impoundment control, birthright citizenship, and Marbury v. Madison, potentially defying the courts if it were necessary and "unifying". However, he also stated "if you’re doing that in a situation where the vibe is like, 'This is going to be the first shot in the civil war between red America and blue America' [...] I think it’s bad", considering Trump and America "unready for that level of change".[27]

He suggested in a January 2025 New York Times interview that there was historical precedent to support his reasoning, asserting that in his first inaugural address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt "essentially says, Hey, Congress, give me absolute power, or I'll take it anyway. So did FDR actually take that level of power? Yeah, he did." The interviewer, David Marchese, remarked that "Yarvin relies on what those sympathetic to his views might see as a helpful serving of historical references — and what others see as a highly distorting mix of gross oversimplification, cherry-picking and personal interpretation presented as fact."[46]

The Cathedral

Neoreactionaries refer to contemporary liberal society and institutions which they oppose as "the Cathedral", associating them with the Puritan church, and their goals of egalitarianism and democracy as "the Synopsis". They claim that the Cathedral influences public discourse to promote progressivism and political correctness,[8][9] which they view as a threat to Western civilization.[4] Yarvin has accused Ivy League schools, The New York Times, and Hollywood of being members.[10][11]

Land and others argue that enforcement of political correctness by these institutions means that they are a religious entity, thus the name "Cathedral".[47] Yarvin, described by El País as a former progressive,[6] describes these institutions as a "twentieth-century version of the established church",[48] with the educational system as a method for indoctrinating people into the Cathedral, enforcing compliance with progressive ideology and preventing them from thinking for themselves.[48] Yarvin defines a church as "an organization or movement which tells people how to think", and includes schools as churches.[2]

According to neoreactionaries, the Cathedral's adoption of liberal humanism is the primary reason for an alleged decline of Western civilization.[2] A neoreactionary online dictionary defines the Cathedral as "the self-organizing consensus of Progressives and Progressive ideology represented by the universities, the media, and the civil service", with an agenda that includes "women’s suffrage, prohibition, abolition, federal income tax, democratic election of senators, labor laws, desegregation, popularization of drugs, destruction of traditional sexual norms, ethnic studies courses in colleges, decolonization, and gay marriage."[48][8]

The Cathedral concept has been described as "fundamental to the alt-right's understanding of the humanities".[2] Academic Andrew Woods describes the Cathedral as one of one of two central ideas that enable the alt-right to dismiss criticism, the other being cultural Marxism.[48] He writes that both ideas function to pre-emptively neutralize attempts at refutation, and that they are especially used to delegitimize critical theory. The Cathedral allegedly "seeks to delude the American public" while amassing power and influence, and critical theory is portrayed as the ideological justification for the pursuit of power. Progressive thought is seen as a disguise for power-seeking, and Woods says that Yarvin takes advantage of the inability to prove the unconscious desires of others to argue that "everyone's primary motivation in life is their craving for greater power."[48] El País compared the concept to QAnon and its claims of a deep state.[6]

Race

Neoreactionaries endorse scientific racism, a pseudoscientific view which they refer to as "human biodiversity". Land coined the term "hyperracism" to refer to his views on race; he believes that socioeconomic status is "a strong proxy for IQ" rather than race specifically (though he acknowledges a correlation between race and socioeconomic status), and that meritocracy, particularly space colonization, will "function as a highly-selective genetic filter" that propagates mostly (but not strictly) Whites and Asians.[8][9] Roger Burrows, writing for The Sociological Review, stated "In Land’s schema, the consumers ‘exiting’ from competing gov-corps quickly form themselves into, often racially based, microstates. Capitalist deterritorialization combines with on-going genetic separation between global elites and the rest of the population resulting in complex new forms of ‘Human Bio-diversity’. He described Land's views as eugenicist and compared them to those of The Bell Curve.[38] Land has praised China, Hong Kong, and Singapore for their lack of "social terror", attributing it to them being ethnically homogeneous.[33]

According to Land, the concepts of hate speech and hate crimes are simply methods to suppress ideas that contradict the Cathedral’s dogma. He says that statements described as "hate speech" are not related to hatred but are simply a type of defiance of the Cathedral's religious orthodoxy. The suppression is carried out by the "Media-Academic Complex" because the ideas are seen as reflecting a "heretical intention".[48]

Yarvin has stated "Although I am not a white nationalist, I am not exactly allergic to the stuff", believing it to simply be an ineffective tool for "the very real problems about which it complains." Yarvin has endorsed arguments for Black racial inferiority and claimed they are being suppressed by the Cathedral.[10][11] He has claimed that some races are more suited to slavery than others[49] and has been described as a modern-day supporter of slavery, a description he disputes.[50][49]

Accelerationism

One of goals of neoreactionarism is to achieve accelerationism, using capitalism and technology to destabilize existing systems and create radical change. Roger Burrows stated "The Dark Enlightenment itself might be best thought of as the application of Land’s accelerationist framework to Molbug’s neocameralism."[38] Land views democratic and egalitarian policies as only slowing down acceleration and a technocapital singularity, stating "Beside the speed machine, or industrial capitalism, there is an ever more perfectly weighted decelerator [...] comically, the fabrication of this braking mechanism is proclaimed as progress. It is the Great Work of the Left."[11][8] Vox characterized such views as having come from Land living in China's "techno-authoritarian political system" and his admiration for Deng Xiaoping and Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew.[11] Land has referred to Lee as an "autocratic enabler of freedom", and Yarvin has also praised Lee.[51] Yuk Hui stated "Land’s celebration of Asian cities such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore is simply a detached observation of these places that projects onto them a common will to sacrifice politics for productivity".[4] Land has advocated for accelerationists to support the neoreactionary movement, though many have distanced themselves from him in response to his views on race.[41]

Formalism

In the inaugural article published on Unqualified Reservations in 2007, entitled "A Formalist Manifesto", Yarvin used the term "formalism" for his ideas, advocating for the formal recognition of the realities of existing power by aligning property rights with current political power as a solution to violence.[52][53] Courtney Hodrick, writing for Telos, stated "in his view, all politics are individual property relationships and the social contract is an agreement between citizen-consumers and governor-owners. Your consent to an agreement such as 'I won’t kill anyone on the street,' he explains, is 'just your agreement with whoever owns the street.' This agreement means that the owner of the street may use violence to enforce this agreement, just as individuals may use violence to defend their own property. His concern [...] is deciding who has the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. But rather than concern himself with justifying legitimacy politically or metaphysically, Moldbug calls for a naturalization of existing property relations."[37] Yarvin describes the U.S. as "an big [sic] old company that holds a huge pile of assets, has no clear idea of what it’s trying to do with them, and is thrashing around like a ten-gallon shark in a five-gallon bucket",[40] advocating formalism as a solution:

"To a formalist, the way to fix the US is to dispense with the ancient mystical horseradish, the corporate prayers and war chants, figure out who owns this monstrosity, and let them decide what in the heck they are going to do with it. I don't think it's too crazy to say that all options—including restructuring and liquidation—should be on the table."[54]

He rejects democracy as "ineffective and destructive" and attributes the successes of the post-WWII democratic system to its actually being "a mediocre implementation of formalism". He describes democratic politics as "a sort of symbolic violence, like deciding who wins the battle by how many troops they brought".[54] Rejecting pacifism for what he perceives as a tendency to advocate for the rectification of injustices instead of seeking an end to armed conflict, Yarvin promotes the adoption of classical approaches to international law and the idea of "formalising the military status quo"[55] as the most direct path to peace. He identifies the form of pacifism which prioritises "righteousness" instead of peace with the Calvinist doctrine of providence, and "ultracalvinism" as the ideological/theological basis for contemporary American interventionism.[56][57] The term "formalism" would eventually be supplanted by "neoreactionary" and "Dark Enlightenment".[9][8]

Relation to seasteading

Prominent figures in the neoreactionary movement have connections to seasteading, the creation of sovereign city-states in international waters, which has been characterized as a way to execute the movement's ideas. Yarvin has connections to Patri Friedman, founder of The Seasteading Institute, and Thiel was once its main investor.[8][6][38] Thiel has also advocated the use of cyberspace, outer space, and the oceans to outstrip traditional politics via capitalism in order to realize libertarianism.[4] Land has quoted Friedman in stating that "free exit is so important that…it [is] the only Universal Human Right".[38]

Relation to the alt-right

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The Dark Enlightenment has been described by journalists and commentators as part of the alt-right, as its theoretical branch.[12][13] Journalist and pundit James Kirchick states that "although neo-reactionary thinkers disdain the masses and claim to despise populism and people more generally, what ties them to the rest of the alt-right is their unapologetically racist element, their shared misanthropy and their resentment of mismanagement by the ruling elites".[58]

Scholar Andrew Jones wrote in 2019 that the Dark Enlightenment is the most significant political theory within the alt-right, and that it is "key to understanding" the alt-right political ideology.[2] "The use of affect theory, postmodern critiques of modernity, and a fixation on critiquing regimes of truth", Jones remarked, "are fundamental to NeoReaction (NRx) and what separates it from other Far-Right theory".[2] Moreover, Jones argues that Dark Enlightenment's fixation on aesthetics, history, and philosophy, as opposed to the traditional empirical approach, distinguishes it from related far-right ideologies.[2]

Historian Joe Mulhall, writing for The Guardian, described Land as "propagating very far-right ideas."[59] Despite neoreaction's limited online audience, Mulhall considers the ideology to have "acted as both a tributary into the alt-right and as a key constituent part [of the alt-right]."[59] Journalist Park MacDougald described neoreactionarism as providing a philosophical basis for considerable amounts of alt-right political activity.[17][60]

The term "accelerationism", originally referring to Land's technocapitalist ideas, has been re-interpreted by some into the use of racial conflict to cause societal collapse and the building of white ethnostates, which has been linked to several white nationalist terrorist attacks such as the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacres. Vox described Land's shift towards neoreactionarism, along with neoreactionarism crossing paths with the alt-right as another fringe right wing internet movement, as the likely connection point between far-right racial accelerationism and the otherwise unrelated technocapitalist term. They cited a 2018 Southern Poverty Law Center investigation which found users on the neo-Nazi blog The Right Stuff who cited neoreactionarism as an influence.[11] Land himself has called the neoreactionary movement "a prophetic warning about the rise of the Alt-Right".[8]

Relation to fascism

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Journalists and academics have described the Dark Enlightenment as neo-fascist.[12][14][15][16] University of Chichester professor Benjamin Noys described it as "an acceleration of capitalism to a fascist point". Land disputes the similarity between his ideas and fascism, claiming that "Fascism is a mass anti-capitalist movement", whereas he prefers that "capitalist corporate power should become the organizing force in society".[12] Historians Angela Dimitrakaki and Harry Weeks tie the Dark Enlightenment to neofascism via Land's "capitalist eschatology" which they describe as supported by the supremacist theories of fascism. Dimitrakaki and Weeks say that Land's Dark Enlightenment was "infusing theoretical jargon into Yarvin/Moldbug's blog 'Unqualified Reservations'".[18]

In The Sociological Review, Roger Burrows examined neoreaction's core tenets and described the ideology as "hyper-neoliberal, technologically deterministic, anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, pro-eugenicist, racist and, likely, fascist", and describes the entire accelerationist framework as a faulty attempt at "mainstreaming ... misogynist, racist and fascist discourses".[38] He criticizes neoreaction's racial principles and its brazen "disavowal of any discourses" advocating for socio-economic equality and, accordingly, considers it a "eugenic philosophy" in favor of what Nick Land deems "hyper-racism".[38] Graham B. Slater wrote that neoreaction "aim[s] to solve the problems purportedly created by democracy through what ultimately amount to neo-fascist solutions."[16]

In the contemporary art world, art historian Sven Lütticken says that the popularity of Land's concepts has made certain art centers in New York and London hospitable to trendy fascism.[61]

See also

References

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