I see a lot of these guys as just finding a business model of being contrarian and embracing some edgy thoughts, while giving their readers the fantasy of becoming an elite themselves. In other words, they saw a hole in the ecosystem and set out to fill it.
In this context, they truly are masters of LinkedIn culture.
Another economic issue they face: maintaining the US dollar as world reserve currency in order to keep the American rubes happy. Apparently this is what passes for nationalism in the cuckalt right. Bismark said this in all seriousness at the beginning (does he still say it? He's what you might call a moving target).
I used to look out for white folks --- rescuing [wannabe proud boys] from Aryan Brotherhood prison gang rape during my 34-year career with the prison industrial complex back in California. Since moving to Georgia with resources, I've helped out white people with jobs on my property.
The 400-year-old white headstart program in America refers to the historical advantages and privileges that Europeans received when they migrated to America. These benefits included 2 billion acres of free Indian land issued by the government and the availability of abundant free African labor.
In addition to these advantages, whites received various government handouts that initially excluded Blacks, such as the Indian Removal Act, the Homestead Act, the Naturalization Act, the Social Security Act, the GI Education Bill, the Wagner Act, the Federal Housing Administration, government welfare, redlining, legacy admissions, and unions.
Racism is described as a competitive relationship between groups for ownership and control of resources for wealth and power. Despite efforts toward equality, the wealth distribution has remained largely unchanged since the eve of the American Civil War, with Blacks owning less than 1/2 of 1% of the wealth in the country. This is indicative of the power dynamics at play, as whites own and control 90% of the wealth, effectively dictating the game.
It is also noted that white women, their husbands, and families greatly benefited from affirmative action programs. Additionally, immigrants with unearned benefits benefited from the sacrifices and efforts of black individuals in the fight for civil rights. Civil rights ended immigration racial quotas in 1965.
An excellent article with lots of good talking points. LinkedIn is the perfect confluence of technology, social media and where the 'brand me' mentality all converge. People boast and and virtue signal at the same time, normally beneath the veneer of language like 'streamlining productivity', 'maximizing efficiency', 'equitable output' or some other nonsense. My disdain for Linkedin is boundless.
The NSR as you have termed them leave unaddressed the central flaw of their worldview: if the liberal "elite human capital" are so smart, then why do they believe such stupid things?
Thing is that it's quite irrelevant. The "elite human capital" gain power anyway and propagate such ideas nonetheless.
Moreover, the NSR actually address these questions: The need to distinguish themselves from the masses, luxury beliefs, and often, because the "elite human capital" hates their dad & hometown then they want to humiliate them.
If I had to guess, the narrative is that the liberal elites just made a little oopsie, but because they are smart and competent, they will realize they made a mistake and fix the problem. Unlike the stupid incompetent irrational evil religious Trump voters who are ontologically incapable of being right.
Of course. The NSR are the ones doing the generalizing: Generalizing that liberals must be more intelligent, and conservatives must be stupid. I don't do this or believe in it.
good. there's just too much generalizing going on, on both sides.
What this country needs more than anything is to lose the stereotyping and animosity and look for common ground in order to address and solve some very real problems.
how about the "fundamental value" of recognizing a common humanity of wanting a good or better life for one's family and friends? I think most Americans share the common value of a safe prosperous country; it's the question of how are we going to get there that divides us.
"LinkedIn Right" is a wonderful coinage and describes the feel of this crew well.
I'd suggest that one phrase captures most of what you've discussed here--the materialism, rejection of noblesse oblige, obeisance to the narrative of progress, complete nihilism: "revealed preference." It makes me shudder every time I hear it or its equivalent from this sector.
I was just thinking about hicklibs today, actually, and previously posited that guys like Yarvin/Land (and more recently, Hanania/Bismarck) would be considered their "opposite" - blue state reds. As you said, the hicklib's motivation is pretty prescient - your Trae Crowders and the like have a significant inferiority complex stemmed from their superiority complex with respect to their peers.
They know that their good ol' boy southernism has tarnished their soul forever, an original sin precluding them from ever truly joining the coastal elites they so desperately want to be. As a result, the hatred for their countrymen and what they stand for grows as they forever act as a mirror, reflecting the hicklib's failure to join his true people back at him.
The NSR/blue-state reds are a bit harder to pin down. I'm also high in openness, so I should be ripe pickings for Walt Bismarck/the NSR's audience, but I always found the NSR/Bismarck's/Hanania's optimism to hit the uncanny valley for whatever reason. Almost as if I was somehow being lied to about something, as if their audience is some sort of means to some sort of end for them.
"Almost as if I was somehow being lied to about something, as if their audience is some sort of means to some sort of end for them"
doesn't that apply to most politicians, especially our current Liar-in-Chief Donald Trump.
Trump I understand (yet another wannabe-dictator) but the size of his following is was scares me: can so many modern people be so naive and gullible? Apparently the Great Conman has struck gold in the American heartland.
Intelligence is certainly helpful but not a prerequisite for important social change. When Jesus chose his twelve disciples, he selected from common fishermen and tax collectors. However, they proved ultimately to be men of character with great conviction who could deliver his message and spread to all the corners of the Earth. The “uncanny valley” of so many of the LinkedIn right is due in part to that lack of character and the bot-like obsession with raw IQ. Those with the highest IQ tend to be the most corruptible people as they can more effectively use their powers of rationalization to excuse themselves. Give us men of character who are willing to be firm and defiant. They are the ones who will lead the future.
You wrote: "Those with the highest IQ tend to be the most corruptible people "
I don't see that in Baumeister's book; his conclusion is that aggression does not come from a single motive in humans, but from a variety of motives, such as practical means-end reasoning, moralistic vengeance, dominance and utopian ideologies. You are misrepresenting Baumeister's thesis by simplifying it to such an erroneous as "Those with the highest IQ tend to be the most corruptible people"
Try reading the seminal book on how and why people fall for evil leaders and join mass movements: Eric Hoffer's The True Believer
"In fact, the members of the NSR seem to less frequently address the quality of their ideas and much more frequently direct attention to their ideas’ high status"
You've hit the right note. Walter Bismarck actually thinks modern male fear over getting cuckolded codes as low status. These guys are perpetually looking at social signals and trying to discern those of high prestige from low prestige as opposed to defining it objectively and seeking that out. There is something vaguely...homosexual about it although they aren't homosexuals.
"whether its their eagerness for approval"
Hanania in particular reeks of this kind of eagerness and insecurity. I find him to be personally very repulsive for this reason.
Very accurate take. They are insecure and present ideas only on the basis that it signals status, which is absurd. Makes me think the whole “Girardian scapegoat” analysis of Peter Thiel and other NSR is false and not a great way to settle on good ideas.
Absolutely brilliant! You hit every mark. Cannot count the amount of times I’ve ‘eye rolled’ while reading output from this group (Hanainia being the exception—because I refuse to read anything by him anymore).
The Hanainia sphere are obviously just grifters. By assuming that they actually want to change anything, you're giving them too much credit. They're just moving closer to the leftist mainstream for more attention and money, probably.
plenty of grifters these days, especially those vultures in Trump's circle (Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, Kari Lake, etc) who just see opportunities for personal gain. Not to mention the Grifter-in-Chief Trump himself, who has no moral compass other than: what's in it for me? I think Trump's success ultimately lies in recognizing the monetization opportunity in appealing to that large swath of angry discontented alienated Americans - Trump knows how to stir them up and give them someone to hate, and then pick their pockets and their votes.
Wow there are some real banger passages in this essay. Gonna have to come back to this from time to time to digest better. Great work Dave thank you...
You cannot have a revolutionary outcome without revolution. And you cannot have a revolution without a vision that can inspire people to embody that vision, to act on it every day in every way 'until kingdom come'. I don't see anything like that in the NSR/EHC. And I think that's because they're all technocrats who despise anyone who isn't enamored of technocracy.
I also wanted to leave a quick comment on your performance on the recent podcast with walt bismarck, because you asked.
I thought you did a typically strong job through the 23 mins I was able to listen to… I had never heard of Walt, and I won’t be looking for any of his stuff in the future. The guy was all over the place, and perhaps he perceived it himself, as he referenced the concept of coherence at one point—and boy did the guy lack coherence.
I received some clarity around the 22 min mark when he said that some of the stances he had taken within his previously held ideologies of libertarianism and white nationalism were “performative”.
Pretty much *everyone* who subscribes to a doctrinally coherent ideology is going to be somewhat performative about SOME issues.
When you are a libertarian, white nationalist, communist etc. there are ALWAYS going to be certain topics that are much more personally salient to you than others, but among people who really care about your less salient issues you can't just say you don't care; to maintain basic group cohesion you need to affect some level of investment. If an ideologue tells me they aren't performative about ANYTHING I simply won't believe them.
I have simply reached the stage of life where I feel no desire to be performative anymore. I have some narrow issues I care very strongly about, and on everything else I am willing to be flexible. I reject the notion of having a comprehensive and "principled" ideology, because this seems impractical and silly in an increasingly atomized and unstable world.
The ideologies take over, and leave the individual behind. It's the power of crowds, the need to belong, and the susceptibility of so many discontented and unfulfilled people to the pitch of skilled conman who pitches: "I alone can solve your problems, I am your voice."
> In this way, the New Secular Right is aligned almost entirely in the wrong direction. A prospective aristocracy doesn’t demonstrate its superiority by mocking the stupidity of rural conservative rubes, it just demonstrates its inability to understand noblesse oblige. And a prospective dissident movement isn’t creating change by imitating the forms of the current technocratic class, because the whole point of a dissident movement is to expose the flaws of the current elite and subsequently earn the right to rule over them.
These people can't display elite behavior because none of them are actually elites. The real upper class doesn't incessantly fret over which behaviors code as low-class, and which do not. They don't have to, because elites feel no urge to affirm their status. This is the behavior of insecure middle class strivers, who think they can pull of a reasonable facsimile of aristocracy by cargo-culting some of its affectations.
When I look into Hanainia’s eyes, all I see is death.
All I see is ego.
To use a pop culture reference, he has all the soul of Homelander...
All I see is insecurity and nerdiness.
I see a lot of these guys as just finding a business model of being contrarian and embracing some edgy thoughts, while giving their readers the fantasy of becoming an elite themselves. In other words, they saw a hole in the ecosystem and set out to fill it.
In this context, they truly are masters of LinkedIn culture.
99% of people with a normal job can’t contradict wokeness in public without losing their career.
But Richard hanania proved that if you can get enough subscriptions you could quit your day job even if you got doxxed as an internet Nazi.
Now there are a million copy cats. Like how school shooters imitate each other.
The main economic issue they face is market saturation.
Another economic issue they face: maintaining the US dollar as world reserve currency in order to keep the American rubes happy. Apparently this is what passes for nationalism in the cuckalt right. Bismark said this in all seriousness at the beginning (does he still say it? He's what you might call a moving target).
Woke, more socially acceptable, replaces nigger. The same applies to CRT and DEI. White male hegemony is the white supremacist's wet dream.
I used to look out for white folks --- rescuing [wannabe proud boys] from Aryan Brotherhood prison gang rape during my 34-year career with the prison industrial complex back in California. Since moving to Georgia with resources, I've helped out white people with jobs on my property.
The 400-year-old white headstart program in America refers to the historical advantages and privileges that Europeans received when they migrated to America. These benefits included 2 billion acres of free Indian land issued by the government and the availability of abundant free African labor.
In addition to these advantages, whites received various government handouts that initially excluded Blacks, such as the Indian Removal Act, the Homestead Act, the Naturalization Act, the Social Security Act, the GI Education Bill, the Wagner Act, the Federal Housing Administration, government welfare, redlining, legacy admissions, and unions.
Racism is described as a competitive relationship between groups for ownership and control of resources for wealth and power. Despite efforts toward equality, the wealth distribution has remained largely unchanged since the eve of the American Civil War, with Blacks owning less than 1/2 of 1% of the wealth in the country. This is indicative of the power dynamics at play, as whites own and control 90% of the wealth, effectively dictating the game.
It is also noted that white women, their husbands, and families greatly benefited from affirmative action programs. Additionally, immigrants with unearned benefits benefited from the sacrifices and efforts of black individuals in the fight for civil rights. Civil rights ended immigration racial quotas in 1965.
In the scheme of things, whites are doing well.
Depends entirely on your industry.
"the fantasy of becoming an elite themselves"
Well-said. Ironical, isn't it.
An excellent article with lots of good talking points. LinkedIn is the perfect confluence of technology, social media and where the 'brand me' mentality all converge. People boast and and virtue signal at the same time, normally beneath the veneer of language like 'streamlining productivity', 'maximizing efficiency', 'equitable output' or some other nonsense. My disdain for Linkedin is boundless.
“We are progressing profits upstream and downstream in order to synergize marketable efficiency maximization.”
The Bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.
Genius
"beneath the veneer of language" -it's an old story; cf Stuart Chase's (1938) "The Tyranny of Words"
https://neofascism.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-words-by-stuart-chase
The NSR as you have termed them leave unaddressed the central flaw of their worldview: if the liberal "elite human capital" are so smart, then why do they believe such stupid things?
Thing is that it's quite irrelevant. The "elite human capital" gain power anyway and propagate such ideas nonetheless.
Moreover, the NSR actually address these questions: The need to distinguish themselves from the masses, luxury beliefs, and often, because the "elite human capital" hates their dad & hometown then they want to humiliate them.
If I had to guess, the narrative is that the liberal elites just made a little oopsie, but because they are smart and competent, they will realize they made a mistake and fix the problem. Unlike the stupid incompetent irrational evil religious Trump voters who are ontologically incapable of being right.
well, you're sure generalizing. Are you suggesting that ALL liberals think alike, and ALL Trump voters think alike?
Wouldn't it be more reasonable to say that some, or many, liberals (or MAGAs, or immigrants) think and act alike, rather than ALL?
Of course. The NSR are the ones doing the generalizing: Generalizing that liberals must be more intelligent, and conservatives must be stupid. I don't do this or believe in it.
good. there's just too much generalizing going on, on both sides.
What this country needs more than anything is to lose the stereotyping and animosity and look for common ground in order to address and solve some very real problems.
Common ground cannot be found between people who share no fundamental values in common.
how about the "fundamental value" of recognizing a common humanity of wanting a good or better life for one's family and friends? I think most Americans share the common value of a safe prosperous country; it's the question of how are we going to get there that divides us.
"why do they believe such stupid things?"
You could ask the same question about virtually any group, including Trump-worshipping MAGAs.
I think Fisher's Law explains a lot of it:
https://neofascism.substack.com/p/fishers-law
"LinkedIn Right" is a wonderful coinage and describes the feel of this crew well.
I'd suggest that one phrase captures most of what you've discussed here--the materialism, rejection of noblesse oblige, obeisance to the narrative of progress, complete nihilism: "revealed preference." It makes me shudder every time I hear it or its equivalent from this sector.
I was just thinking about hicklibs today, actually, and previously posited that guys like Yarvin/Land (and more recently, Hanania/Bismarck) would be considered their "opposite" - blue state reds. As you said, the hicklib's motivation is pretty prescient - your Trae Crowders and the like have a significant inferiority complex stemmed from their superiority complex with respect to their peers.
They know that their good ol' boy southernism has tarnished their soul forever, an original sin precluding them from ever truly joining the coastal elites they so desperately want to be. As a result, the hatred for their countrymen and what they stand for grows as they forever act as a mirror, reflecting the hicklib's failure to join his true people back at him.
The NSR/blue-state reds are a bit harder to pin down. I'm also high in openness, so I should be ripe pickings for Walt Bismarck/the NSR's audience, but I always found the NSR/Bismarck's/Hanania's optimism to hit the uncanny valley for whatever reason. Almost as if I was somehow being lied to about something, as if their audience is some sort of means to some sort of end for them.
Good article per usual Dave
"Almost as if I was somehow being lied to about something, as if their audience is some sort of means to some sort of end for them"
doesn't that apply to most politicians, especially our current Liar-in-Chief Donald Trump.
Trump I understand (yet another wannabe-dictator) but the size of his following is was scares me: can so many modern people be so naive and gullible? Apparently the Great Conman has struck gold in the American heartland.
Lol. You know where you are, buddy?
"hicklibs"
libhicks?
cityslickers
Intelligence is certainly helpful but not a prerequisite for important social change. When Jesus chose his twelve disciples, he selected from common fishermen and tax collectors. However, they proved ultimately to be men of character with great conviction who could deliver his message and spread to all the corners of the Earth. The “uncanny valley” of so many of the LinkedIn right is due in part to that lack of character and the bot-like obsession with raw IQ. Those with the highest IQ tend to be the most corruptible people as they can more effectively use their powers of rationalization to excuse themselves. Give us men of character who are willing to be firm and defiant. They are the ones who will lead the future.
idk if the bible can be taken as an accurate account of how christianity spread
"Those with the highest IQ tend to be the most corruptible"
Where on earth do you find evidence to support such an outrageous claim?
Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty by Dr.Roy Baumesiter (https://a.co/d/h8SUjD3)
You wrote: "Those with the highest IQ tend to be the most corruptible people "
I don't see that in Baumeister's book; his conclusion is that aggression does not come from a single motive in humans, but from a variety of motives, such as practical means-end reasoning, moralistic vengeance, dominance and utopian ideologies. You are misrepresenting Baumeister's thesis by simplifying it to such an erroneous as "Those with the highest IQ tend to be the most corruptible people"
Try reading the seminal book on how and why people fall for evil leaders and join mass movements: Eric Hoffer's The True Believer
https://www.amazon.ca/True-Believer-Thoughts-Nature-Movements/dp/0060505915
"In fact, the members of the NSR seem to less frequently address the quality of their ideas and much more frequently direct attention to their ideas’ high status"
You've hit the right note. Walter Bismarck actually thinks modern male fear over getting cuckolded codes as low status. These guys are perpetually looking at social signals and trying to discern those of high prestige from low prestige as opposed to defining it objectively and seeking that out. There is something vaguely...homosexual about it although they aren't homosexuals.
"whether its their eagerness for approval"
Hanania in particular reeks of this kind of eagerness and insecurity. I find him to be personally very repulsive for this reason.
Fuck I hate 'codes as low status'. Sums up the whole problem.
Very accurate take. They are insecure and present ideas only on the basis that it signals status, which is absurd. Makes me think the whole “Girardian scapegoat” analysis of Peter Thiel and other NSR is false and not a great way to settle on good ideas.
Linkedin is awful, like meeting someone selling an MLM every single day at your door.
Absolutely brilliant! You hit every mark. Cannot count the amount of times I’ve ‘eye rolled’ while reading output from this group (Hanainia being the exception—because I refuse to read anything by him anymore).
he is certainly the most noxious of the bunch isn't he?
The Hanainia sphere are obviously just grifters. By assuming that they actually want to change anything, you're giving them too much credit. They're just moving closer to the leftist mainstream for more attention and money, probably.
plenty of grifters these days, especially those vultures in Trump's circle (Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, Kari Lake, etc) who just see opportunities for personal gain. Not to mention the Grifter-in-Chief Trump himself, who has no moral compass other than: what's in it for me? I think Trump's success ultimately lies in recognizing the monetization opportunity in appealing to that large swath of angry discontented alienated Americans - Trump knows how to stir them up and give them someone to hate, and then pick their pockets and their votes.
Dave and I discussed a lot of these points on my pod, give it a listen!
https://newaltright.substack.com/p/episode-33-tradition-metapolitics
Wow there are some real banger passages in this essay. Gonna have to come back to this from time to time to digest better. Great work Dave thank you...
Cheers
You cannot have a revolutionary outcome without revolution. And you cannot have a revolution without a vision that can inspire people to embody that vision, to act on it every day in every way 'until kingdom come'. I don't see anything like that in the NSR/EHC. And I think that's because they're all technocrats who despise anyone who isn't enamored of technocracy.
I could get on board with good technocracy, but NSR/EHC isn't even that. It's a lot of bad ideas that are designed for maximum marketability.
If you were going to run a state like LKY versus run a substack your going to end up with very different answers.
Dave, great essay here.
I also wanted to leave a quick comment on your performance on the recent podcast with walt bismarck, because you asked.
I thought you did a typically strong job through the 23 mins I was able to listen to… I had never heard of Walt, and I won’t be looking for any of his stuff in the future. The guy was all over the place, and perhaps he perceived it himself, as he referenced the concept of coherence at one point—and boy did the guy lack coherence.
I received some clarity around the 22 min mark when he said that some of the stances he had taken within his previously held ideologies of libertarianism and white nationalism were “performative”.
With that comment, the pieces fell into place.
Yeah I think Bismark is more a performance artist than a public intellectual.
He admitted as much in your discussion with him.
I half expect him to agree
Pretty much *everyone* who subscribes to a doctrinally coherent ideology is going to be somewhat performative about SOME issues.
When you are a libertarian, white nationalist, communist etc. there are ALWAYS going to be certain topics that are much more personally salient to you than others, but among people who really care about your less salient issues you can't just say you don't care; to maintain basic group cohesion you need to affect some level of investment. If an ideologue tells me they aren't performative about ANYTHING I simply won't believe them.
I have simply reached the stage of life where I feel no desire to be performative anymore. I have some narrow issues I care very strongly about, and on everything else I am willing to be flexible. I reject the notion of having a comprehensive and "principled" ideology, because this seems impractical and silly in an increasingly atomized and unstable world.
well said, Walt.
The ideologies take over, and leave the individual behind. It's the power of crowds, the need to belong, and the susceptibility of so many discontented and unfulfilled people to the pitch of skilled conman who pitches: "I alone can solve your problems, I am your voice."
> In this way, the New Secular Right is aligned almost entirely in the wrong direction. A prospective aristocracy doesn’t demonstrate its superiority by mocking the stupidity of rural conservative rubes, it just demonstrates its inability to understand noblesse oblige. And a prospective dissident movement isn’t creating change by imitating the forms of the current technocratic class, because the whole point of a dissident movement is to expose the flaws of the current elite and subsequently earn the right to rule over them.
These people can't display elite behavior because none of them are actually elites. The real upper class doesn't incessantly fret over which behaviors code as low-class, and which do not. They don't have to, because elites feel no urge to affirm their status. This is the behavior of insecure middle class strivers, who think they can pull of a reasonable facsimile of aristocracy by cargo-culting some of its affectations.