Morton Blackwell of The Leadership Institute liked to point out the difference between an organization or conspiracy, and a network. The former have command structures. If you find the top, you can take it down a notch. The latter is just people with shared values who often go to the same parties and exchange ideas and help each other.
The latter is what we should build. While there should be organizations and conspiracies within the network, the network should not be dependent on any particular node. And as long as we stick to legal actions, the answer to infiltration becomes "So What?" Let the FBI provide some hard working volunteers. This sort of thing has happened enough in the past that it was a joke on "Get Smart."
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Notice that I wrote "shared values" vs. ideology. While crafting one or more coherent and related ideologies can be very useful, freedom lovers aren't Borg. We are going to differ. The Tent has to be big. Given how wacko the Left has become, we can be very Big Tent and still have a huge ideological distance from the bad guyx.
But a few central poles for that Big Tent are a good thing. Your Physiocratic Platform is a very good central pole and I have previously encouraged you to flesh out your platform for just that reason. You command a level of philosophical gravitas far beyond what I can manage, and that's pretty important in these parts.
I'll be planting a nearby pole in my next post for the benefit of the Neanderthals in the audience.
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Regarding the Republican Party: it is a vehicle, not a coherent organization. The Republican Party cannot be a coherent organization and be a real opposition to the Democratic Party across the country! This is a big and diverse country. That which works in South Carolina is different from that which works in Massachusetts or California.
Likewise, when infiltrating and influencing other organizations, recognize where we can Bend things to the Good, but respect the inherent goals of the organization. Don't expect an environmental organization to decide global warming is a hoax. Do encourage an environmental organization to embrace a Green Old Deal. Likewise, don't expect to recruit Black Republicans who want to trash the Civil Rights laws -- at least not without getting something better in return. Do recruit Black Republicans and momentary allies to support school choice, getting the gay propaganda out of the public schools, and enforcing the National Picket Line.
Think Lenin's Torsion Belt Theory, but applied to electoral politics vs. eventual bloody revolution.
All good thoughts! You'll recall I actually wrote at length on network organizations. It got almost no readers at all, but you were one of the commenters.
Re: "ideology" vs "shared values" I am beginning to feel that our tribe has a reflexively negative reaction to the term "ideology" that I don't have. Mark has suggested "story", you've suggested "shared values". I'm not stuck on any word for it.
Values are things like freedom, prosperity, clean air, family values, safe neighborhoods.
Ideologies include prescriptions on how to obtain such values.
And yes, we will need moments of agreement on actions when working together, but we don't need to agree across the board.
Here is an example: in the Reagan era the Republican Party called for cracking down on porn, tax cuts for the rich, a war on drugs, keeping gay stuff illegal, and world domination.
Compare this program with Family Values. Cracking down on porn and keeping gay stuff illegal advances Family Values. But the war on drugs *increased* gay activities by locking up men together for years at a time. World domination means sending soldiers abroad, which leads to adultery. (Absence makes the heart go yonder.) Reaganite economic policies have made early family formation ever more difficult, leading to a decade or more of debauchery becoming the norm.
Another example: Murray Rothbard declared that ending the initiation of force should be the highest -- or even only -- political value.
Even if one accepts Rothbard's very one-dimension political philosophy, his ideology, his prescriptions for What is to be done, DO NOT FOLLOW. Abolish the police and you can cut taxes. But you get an increase in crime and/or vigilante activity in the process. Abolish the IRS and you no longer can fund a professional military. While an unpaid militia can make life very hard for would-be conquerors, there's much to be said for a military system which can protect the country by preemptively acting outside our borders.
(Under our current Quisling administration, abolishing the military is looking pretty good, but this has not been the case for much of our history.)
The difficulty comes in describing not a set of "rules" that sound good but are badly flawed (as all man-made ideologies ultimately are) but rather having a descriptor or "manual" that describes reality as succinctly and correctly as possible. Such a thing would NOT be an ideology, but rather just an accurate model of reality that would be very useful in navigating such reality. Luckily there has been such a model, complete with severe testing for over 2000 years. Catholicism (Sedevacantist only today, since the Vatican is now merely a repository of pesos and Satanists, as are all the Novus Ordo fake clergy.)
Ultimately, there will come a point in time (in the near future) when Westerners will have to 'Fight for what they believe in.' & when things go Kinetic (as you note correctly, Pater) there needs to be Ideology &/or Organization (preferably even both!)
To not have either means 'playing for the Loss.' To not even attempt these things (i.e. 'by one's Actions') is a demonstration of (at best) weakness or (at worst) ineptitude.
If the 'Dissident Right' wish to genuinely 'rescue the West' from its coming 'Delenda est' from a combination of Punitive Military Action & 'low to the ground' Saturation hits... it will eventually need to 'go Kinetic' as well... & you can't do that without a solid foundation.
& if that foundation doesn't even exist... this is nothing more than a Sinking Ship, with Loot onboard that will be pilfered & raided dry very rapidly.
The problem is that almost by definition such a foundation would be invisible, as if it was visible it would be infiltrated and subverted. All we can do is our part, in our area. To steal and subvert a phrase from the Left,
I don't think we disagree on 2a (or on 1 and 2 more generally). My only caveat is that stigmergy and stigmergic marks can also be infiltrated and exploited. I say this as a Christian who has a pretty good sense of how even the best stories and memeplexes can be corrupted to the point of inversion.
That's why I think the first and most important hurdle to overcome is the story. If we can't agree on the story arc of reality, and at what point we are currently sitting, then a shared "ideology" is just another pipe dream. The same holds true for organization, which is meaningless without an organizing principle. The French Foriegn Legion were effective? At what? Killing folks for money? Okay. So is our Enemy.
I find myself in general agreement with this comment. Maybe "story arc of reality" is a better (less loaded) term than ideology for our purposes. After all, what is Communism but a story Marx told? "We need to agree on our story" might provoke less reflexive anti-ideological argument.
Seriously, reading this comment thread has been enlightening in confirming my own view. The most stable, successful and true-to-life- best modelling of reality has been hardcore Catholicism. If this sounds totally counter-intuitive I understand, I personally pretty much hated what I thought was the Catholic Church most of my life (and rightly so, because they are impostors). And while this comment will sound like I am a monomaniac zealot, I will only agree to the zealot part (for truth above all, Catholicism just happens to be the best approximation of reality), since in reality I have rather wide and varied interests. Anyway, I look forward to reading a lot more of your work.
Sure. But not all stories are made equal. Marx told a story, but how well does it hold up to Howard's? Howard told a story, but how well does it hold up to Tolkien's?
It all sits within a hierarchy. That doesn’t mean that lesser stories have no value. Just that they are... lesser.
An Entire Civilization State (i.e. China) has adopted Marxist-Leninism as one of its 4 principle ideologies, the other three being Confucianism, Maoism & Xi Jinping Thought. So on purely practical & pragmatic grounds:
'Tolkien's stories' are of the lesser sort by this logic alone. Because whether one likes to admit it or not, Tolkien did not generate an entire Pole of the Newly Emerging Global World Order... while Marxism has done so successfully.
Marx also whispered his story to another land and people, just north of China, who built a mighty empire from it. But the empire was built on quicksand, and vanished less than a century after its founding. Communist China will also fall into shadows and dust. In fact, you might say it already has; Marx would not be pleased by its current form. That form was dreamed up by the Blob in the early 70's, who decided to elevate it for Blob reasons. Before that, it was an impoverished, starving backwater, dependent on an outside kindness that its rulers were too proud and too suspicious to wholly receive.
The reason for the Soviet Union's collapse, and for China's collapse-to-come, is that they were rooted in a very bad and broken story. Marx's story of reality is a ticking time bomb, a snake eating its tail. While Tolkien's story might not have birthed a Unipolar Empire or Global Order, he was inspired by another story told more than 2,000 years ago.
This story has served as a fulcrum point for history. There are other calendars, other ways of marking time. But not even the might of Xi Jinping can enforce them upon the world. He can't even enforce it on his ex-Marxist brethren to the north. That's because there is a hierarchy to stories. Marx's hollow, bitter, unworkable tale sits at the very bottom of it with the ashes of its audience, and the proof for that is as practical pragmatic as it is spiritual and divine.
>>Marx's hollow, bitter, unworkable tale sits at the very bottom of it with the ashes of its audience, and the proof for that is as practical pragmatic as it is spiritual and divine.<<
Very Few Chinese people (probably the Western backed puppets for the most part) would agree with you. For them, Modern Day China could not have been born without Marxism & its derivatives.
& without that trajectory, China would still be a Quasi-feaudal Colony, ripe for Looting & Exploitation by Westerners.
Without Marx, over 800+ million people would still be in poverty. At least, that is how the Chinese people view the matter.
What has Tolkien's 'stories' (which, are allegedly 'less hollow & less bitter') achieved? Have they enabled a Whole Civilization to regain Dignity & Well Being on the Global Stage?
If not, it is very clear what the 'inferior narrative/story' is.
It was not Marx that lifted China out of poverty. It was Marx that murdered untold millions in the Great Leap Forward, Marx who murdered and oppressed millions in the Cultural Revolution. etc. It was the Blob's priorities, working in tandem with Deng Xiaoping that brought China to the place it is now.
"Very Few Chinese people (probably the Western backed puppets for the most part) would agree with you. "
They had better not agree with me, or they might find themselves in prison or dead (but with Great Dignity and Zero Exploitation, no doubt).
A story arc: affecting the political landscape in a positive fashion across geography, demographics, and organizations. Flow like water. We need just enough ideology to agree on what constitutes a positive direction.
The ideation is secondary to the story, though. When you watch or hear or take part in a good story, the goodness of it is pretty obvious. Goodness isn't a complicated war game or byzantine art requiring 100,000 hours of study. We know it when we see it. If we don't see it, we're probably tooling around with at least one eye closed.
Thank you for posting the link. Very enlightening and inspiring. I do believe these essays are not only on the right track, but this is the first time in ages that I've felt a ray of hope. I am fairly new here and find the intelligence gathered in this small group refreshing, stimulating and positive. I hope the points described in the last two essays continues to be refined as, in my estimation, this is exactly what is needed. The initial spark, however manifested, could generate enough enthusiasm to ignite a self-sustaining motive power affecting real change. I'm on board so long as it remains respectful, loving and peaceful combined with an upbeat message.
I've got plenty of upbeat for you -- in the form of peaceful yet useful actions.
I fear I'm too much of a silly person to be entirely respectful. And when the Woke actively try to destroy America and brainwash kindergarteners into castrating themselves, some entertaining spleen venting is in order.
re: "Story" see my substack; become a neo-feudalist, it's the only consistent right-wing story.
re: organization -sort of agree with Woe's post, with the proviso that there must be some initial coordination on what symbols to use etc. That's why there must be some aspect of this that is secret and conspiratorial i.e. must be quasi-secret organizing.
IMO the counter-revolt has to be organized like a franchise; everyone does his own thing tactically, but some central office is responsible for strategic standards.
Back when I was a kid I was into farming and Allan Savory’s methods in particular. He implemented a grassland regeneration system based on his experiences as a revolutionary (if I remember rightly?) in Rhodesia. Step one is to set a goal (he calls it a “holistic goal”) and then after that there is a normal feedback cycle to determine what is most effective. It’s a great way to keep heterogeneous people on track.
"The various Communist Party Cadres that operated in the 20th century are the exemplars of such coalitions."
I have to point out that of the many such cadres, only one was successful. Lenin differed in 2 major ways from marxist ideology: he was in a rural-feudal state rather than an urban-capitalist state, and he didn't bother trying to indoctrinate the masses with ideology. He mostly just promised them earthly rewards and a chance to get payback on the elites that had pissed on them their whole lives. Russian peasants weren't exactly famous for their love of 100 page political tracts.
The lessons to be learned from this:
1. Ideology is less important than getting regular people on board by promising them what they want in order to put you in power. After you win, you can implement whatever ideology you want as long as you keep your powerbase happy.
2. Theory often doesn't survive first contact with the enemy, and so we must be ready to switch it up to what works in the moment.
3. Timing is important; don't blow your load early, be on the lookout for opportunities.
=
Of course, this isn't to say that ideology isn't important for the various heads of splinter cells, but we shouldn't think it's necessary to beat every 90 IQ recruit over the head with the collected works of the Mises Institute.
Speaking of which, we may need a very broad umbrella, as the DR is very split in its goals, with many holding absolutist beliefs in many different things. We might even need a mostly negative identity: "we are not X, Y, Z!" Add in the understanding that no matter what is done, most likely there will be a lot more than 3 nations in North America in 50 years, so it's not a winner-take-all kind of movement.
People can have their anarcho-syndicalist commune in CA, and there can be a techno-futurist monarchy in New England. Whatever. The more someone cares about their bespoke vision of the future, the harder they should work to create it IRL, rather than working harder to start drama on the internet over it.
The shared ideology is necessary; otherwise there is nothing.
Two examples come to mind, 1) The assassination attempt on Robert Fico. Apparently a "lone wolf", but he was swimming in the supportive milieu of western media. And 2) the Debian project responsible for Linux.
In each case a shared ideology. Without that, each individual would be reinventing the wheel. Life isn't long enought for that.
The most important thing I can say on this is this- KNOW YOUR ENEMY and WHY THEY ARE. (Your Enemy)
Research their Ideology, if you find it an abomination, ask yourself, 'WHY?' Form a cogent response in your own mind.
Even not counting Controlled Opposition (Say... 'The Daily Wire'? Possibly?) far too many on 'The Right' have no real idea what they dislike about 'The Left' other than the obvious. The truth is, that at their core, many of these people have THE SAME IDEOLOGY, they just don't like 'The Left's' take on it. It's like hating the left because they champion Neapolitian, while you think Vanilla should rule. It's a matter of TASTE.
There are probably a lot more of these 'Conservatives' than anything else. They need to decide where their heart lies. You can't be an effective fighter if, deep down, you actually AGREE with your enemy.
Notice this is not like a member of Controlled Opposition, who is being blatantly dishonest. This person is created as a by-product of bad education and a sloppy culture. They move about in a kind of haze, having no real passion for anything. For some it's so bad they don't even know that there are things that one *should* stand for, much less stand for them.
And crikey- Dump the term 'Woke'. It used to mean Cultural Marxist but because of the above, has become such a flabby word, it can (and has) been used to mean just about ANYTHING. I recently heard a young man use it to define Fascism. (Which, nominally, is the OPPOSITE of what it means.) At least I benefitted from a laugh.
This entire debacle of Western Culture came about because of Cultural Marxism. If you don't like where things are going, find what that means. Once you know it, you will either find it acceptable and become a follower of the Ideology, or you will find it an abomination and will have a much better idea of what should be done.
In my circles, we know this as the Stand-Alone Complex, taken from the Ghost In The Shell series using that as a subtitle. (Season One introduced the concept; Season Two showed how it can be deliberately employed.) All it would need to be a hand-in-glove fit is the propagation of a "original" that never existed.
I point this out to (a) show that there are already pop culture examples evident and (b) that the threat it possesses is likewise on the radar of the Establishment (albeit depreciated at this time) because you can see the writers' consultations/experiences with law-enforcement/counter-intelligence in how Section 9 deals with both seasons' antagonists.
GITS:SAC is over 20 years old now. Those who saw it as teenagers are now nearing or at 40; this idea will find faster virality when put in terms that they already understand.
"While originally intended to "underscore the dilemmas and concerns that people would face if they relied too heavily on the new communications infrastructure,"[1] Stand Alone Complex (スタンド・アローン・コンプレックス Sutando Arōn Konpurekkusu?) eventually came to represent a phenomenon where unrelated, yet very similar actions of individuals create a seemingly concerted effort.
A Stand Alone Complex can be compared to the emergent copycat behavior that often occurs after incidents such as serial murders or terrorist attacks. An incident catches the public's attention and certain types of people "get on the bandwagon", so to speak. It is particularly apparent when the incident appears to be the result of well-known political or religious beliefs, but it can also occur in response to intense media attention. For example, a mere fire, no matter the number of deaths, is just a garden variety tragedy. However, if the right kind of people begin to believe it was arson, caused by deliberate action, the threat that more arsons will be committed increases dramatically.
What separates the Stand Alone Complex from normal copycat behavior is that there is no real originator of the copied action, but merely a rumor or an illusion that supposedly performed the copied action. There may be real people who are labeled as the originator, but in reality, no one started the original behavior. And in Stand Alone Complex, the facade just has to exist in the minds of the public. In other words, a potential copycat just has to believe the copied behavior happened from an originator - when it really did not. The result is an epidemic of copied behavior having a net effect of purpose. One could say that the Stand Alone Complex is mass hysteria over nothing - yet causing an overall change in social structure."
In the first season the antagonist stumbles upon the idea and attempts to use it to bring his targets to justice, but being unfamiliar his mistakes end up imperiling his own cause.
In the second season, the antagonist (a different character) knows what this is and deliberately creates the Complex to provoke a political crisis intended to produce a regime change to a form more suitable for the antagonist's greater objectives.
The antagonist uses what you call stigmegic organization (as could be imagined then in Japan) to create the conditions that make the Complex possible and uses the refugee crisis as the catalyst to invoke it. From there he's using that very style of organization, backed by massive data collection and real-time intelligence analysis, to get the results he's after with manipulation of various forms of signaling in virtual and realspace alike.
GITS:SAC is still widely available in streaming and disc formats. Two seasons and a movie (Solid State Society), but for this conversation only the TV series matters.
We need a gamut of qualitative markers to recognise one another, and a "look", both aesthetic and intellectual, that is at least very difficult to fake. Thankyou for your work, it is strong thought.
Jokes aside, we should spearhead a new sharp, attractive look for men. Fashion, like most cultural media, has stopped changing since 1997. I guess the baggy pant look has mostly gone away but you could take a average joe American from 1998, put in into today as he is dressed in 2024, and he'd look in place rather than out of it.
I've seen better fashion ideas in video games than any of the demonic retard trash coming from the fashion industry.
I think a coherent philosophy is what is needed to drive ideology. The reason both the left and right have gone off the rails is they have abandoned philosophy and focus on causes abortion, the boarder ect. I don’t know if anyone knows why they are for or against anything more than on a surface level.
Indeed! That business of complaining about illegal immigration because it is illegal bothered me 20 years ago back when I was still a Libertarian. We need to explicitly renew WHY we have immigration quotas. And there are several good reasons, including reasons that are pretty old school liberal.
Whatever that ideology is, the reform would have to be structural and so obviously against the core of the regimes justifying ideology that they couldn't fake it in some future "reform".
I have made note of this rather important post you made and commented on it at my blog. I think if you peruse there you will see that I am more likely a candidate for eventual droning by some government of the West than a Fed, but I also am not aware of you or who you are and have been, as I only just started reading your blog. Anyway, well met fellow non-member of any non-cells.
>> The pseudonyms or blog titles adopted by the coalition’s members could all adopt a similar aesthetic as a stigmergic mark, making it evident to “those who know” that they are aligned <<
The right could still learn a few things from the various underground economic organizations that thrived in the 20th century.
Such organizations rarely present any grand societal solution. But in Japan, especially, their sphere of influence extended quite far into the political realm.
And, they were all freedom enthusiasts almost without exception.
Morton Blackwell of The Leadership Institute liked to point out the difference between an organization or conspiracy, and a network. The former have command structures. If you find the top, you can take it down a notch. The latter is just people with shared values who often go to the same parties and exchange ideas and help each other.
The latter is what we should build. While there should be organizations and conspiracies within the network, the network should not be dependent on any particular node. And as long as we stick to legal actions, the answer to infiltration becomes "So What?" Let the FBI provide some hard working volunteers. This sort of thing has happened enough in the past that it was a joke on "Get Smart."
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Notice that I wrote "shared values" vs. ideology. While crafting one or more coherent and related ideologies can be very useful, freedom lovers aren't Borg. We are going to differ. The Tent has to be big. Given how wacko the Left has become, we can be very Big Tent and still have a huge ideological distance from the bad guyx.
But a few central poles for that Big Tent are a good thing. Your Physiocratic Platform is a very good central pole and I have previously encouraged you to flesh out your platform for just that reason. You command a level of philosophical gravitas far beyond what I can manage, and that's pretty important in these parts.
I'll be planting a nearby pole in my next post for the benefit of the Neanderthals in the audience.
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Regarding the Republican Party: it is a vehicle, not a coherent organization. The Republican Party cannot be a coherent organization and be a real opposition to the Democratic Party across the country! This is a big and diverse country. That which works in South Carolina is different from that which works in Massachusetts or California.
We need to be a bit Machiavellian (aka "cunning as serpents") and separate our core ideology from our actions. Don't run the Perfect Candidate. Run the best candidate that can win. See https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/how-many-real-reactionaries-do-we
Likewise, when infiltrating and influencing other organizations, recognize where we can Bend things to the Good, but respect the inherent goals of the organization. Don't expect an environmental organization to decide global warming is a hoax. Do encourage an environmental organization to embrace a Green Old Deal. Likewise, don't expect to recruit Black Republicans who want to trash the Civil Rights laws -- at least not without getting something better in return. Do recruit Black Republicans and momentary allies to support school choice, getting the gay propaganda out of the public schools, and enforcing the National Picket Line.
Think Lenin's Torsion Belt Theory, but applied to electoral politics vs. eventual bloody revolution.
All good thoughts! You'll recall I actually wrote at length on network organizations. It got almost no readers at all, but you were one of the commenters.
https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/the-world-is-run-by-spin
Re: "ideology" vs "shared values" I am beginning to feel that our tribe has a reflexively negative reaction to the term "ideology" that I don't have. Mark has suggested "story", you've suggested "shared values". I'm not stuck on any word for it.
Values are things like freedom, prosperity, clean air, family values, safe neighborhoods.
Ideologies include prescriptions on how to obtain such values.
And yes, we will need moments of agreement on actions when working together, but we don't need to agree across the board.
Here is an example: in the Reagan era the Republican Party called for cracking down on porn, tax cuts for the rich, a war on drugs, keeping gay stuff illegal, and world domination.
Compare this program with Family Values. Cracking down on porn and keeping gay stuff illegal advances Family Values. But the war on drugs *increased* gay activities by locking up men together for years at a time. World domination means sending soldiers abroad, which leads to adultery. (Absence makes the heart go yonder.) Reaganite economic policies have made early family formation ever more difficult, leading to a decade or more of debauchery becoming the norm.
Oh yes! That SPIN article was a good one. We need more SPIN.
Another example: Murray Rothbard declared that ending the initiation of force should be the highest -- or even only -- political value.
Even if one accepts Rothbard's very one-dimension political philosophy, his ideology, his prescriptions for What is to be done, DO NOT FOLLOW. Abolish the police and you can cut taxes. But you get an increase in crime and/or vigilante activity in the process. Abolish the IRS and you no longer can fund a professional military. While an unpaid militia can make life very hard for would-be conquerors, there's much to be said for a military system which can protect the country by preemptively acting outside our borders.
(Under our current Quisling administration, abolishing the military is looking pretty good, but this has not been the case for much of our history.)
Ideology IS a negative, because ultimately ALL ideologies are wrong. I wrote on this too, here:
https://www.gfilotto.com/heroes-and-villains/villains-2
The difficulty comes in describing not a set of "rules" that sound good but are badly flawed (as all man-made ideologies ultimately are) but rather having a descriptor or "manual" that describes reality as succinctly and correctly as possible. Such a thing would NOT be an ideology, but rather just an accurate model of reality that would be very useful in navigating such reality. Luckily there has been such a model, complete with severe testing for over 2000 years. Catholicism (Sedevacantist only today, since the Vatican is now merely a repository of pesos and Satanists, as are all the Novus Ordo fake clergy.)
Indeed, it is not adequate for the task. We need to create/take over quite a few other vehicles.
This is the genius of the original Fabians as well as the International Communist Conspiracy. Pawn grabbing/going for the root hairs is worth doing.
Ultimately, there will come a point in time (in the near future) when Westerners will have to 'Fight for what they believe in.' & when things go Kinetic (as you note correctly, Pater) there needs to be Ideology &/or Organization (preferably even both!)
To not have either means 'playing for the Loss.' To not even attempt these things (i.e. 'by one's Actions') is a demonstration of (at best) weakness or (at worst) ineptitude.
If the 'Dissident Right' wish to genuinely 'rescue the West' from its coming 'Delenda est' from a combination of Punitive Military Action & 'low to the ground' Saturation hits... it will eventually need to 'go Kinetic' as well... & you can't do that without a solid foundation.
& if that foundation doesn't even exist... this is nothing more than a Sinking Ship, with Loot onboard that will be pilfered & raided dry very rapidly.
The problem is that almost by definition such a foundation would be invisible, as if it was visible it would be infiltrated and subverted. All we can do is our part, in our area. To steal and subvert a phrase from the Left,
"Meme globally; Act locally."
I don't think we disagree on 2a (or on 1 and 2 more generally). My only caveat is that stigmergy and stigmergic marks can also be infiltrated and exploited. I say this as a Christian who has a pretty good sense of how even the best stories and memeplexes can be corrupted to the point of inversion.
That's why I think the first and most important hurdle to overcome is the story. If we can't agree on the story arc of reality, and at what point we are currently sitting, then a shared "ideology" is just another pipe dream. The same holds true for organization, which is meaningless without an organizing principle. The French Foriegn Legion were effective? At what? Killing folks for money? Okay. So is our Enemy.
I find myself in general agreement with this comment. Maybe "story arc of reality" is a better (less loaded) term than ideology for our purposes. After all, what is Communism but a story Marx told? "We need to agree on our story" might provoke less reflexive anti-ideological argument.
Seriously, reading this comment thread has been enlightening in confirming my own view. The most stable, successful and true-to-life- best modelling of reality has been hardcore Catholicism. If this sounds totally counter-intuitive I understand, I personally pretty much hated what I thought was the Catholic Church most of my life (and rightly so, because they are impostors). And while this comment will sound like I am a monomaniac zealot, I will only agree to the zealot part (for truth above all, Catholicism just happens to be the best approximation of reality), since in reality I have rather wide and varied interests. Anyway, I look forward to reading a lot more of your work.
Sure. But not all stories are made equal. Marx told a story, but how well does it hold up to Howard's? Howard told a story, but how well does it hold up to Tolkien's?
It all sits within a hierarchy. That doesn’t mean that lesser stories have no value. Just that they are... lesser.
An Entire Civilization State (i.e. China) has adopted Marxist-Leninism as one of its 4 principle ideologies, the other three being Confucianism, Maoism & Xi Jinping Thought. So on purely practical & pragmatic grounds:
'Tolkien's stories' are of the lesser sort by this logic alone. Because whether one likes to admit it or not, Tolkien did not generate an entire Pole of the Newly Emerging Global World Order... while Marxism has done so successfully.
Marx also whispered his story to another land and people, just north of China, who built a mighty empire from it. But the empire was built on quicksand, and vanished less than a century after its founding. Communist China will also fall into shadows and dust. In fact, you might say it already has; Marx would not be pleased by its current form. That form was dreamed up by the Blob in the early 70's, who decided to elevate it for Blob reasons. Before that, it was an impoverished, starving backwater, dependent on an outside kindness that its rulers were too proud and too suspicious to wholly receive.
The reason for the Soviet Union's collapse, and for China's collapse-to-come, is that they were rooted in a very bad and broken story. Marx's story of reality is a ticking time bomb, a snake eating its tail. While Tolkien's story might not have birthed a Unipolar Empire or Global Order, he was inspired by another story told more than 2,000 years ago.
This story has served as a fulcrum point for history. There are other calendars, other ways of marking time. But not even the might of Xi Jinping can enforce them upon the world. He can't even enforce it on his ex-Marxist brethren to the north. That's because there is a hierarchy to stories. Marx's hollow, bitter, unworkable tale sits at the very bottom of it with the ashes of its audience, and the proof for that is as practical pragmatic as it is spiritual and divine.
>>Marx's hollow, bitter, unworkable tale sits at the very bottom of it with the ashes of its audience, and the proof for that is as practical pragmatic as it is spiritual and divine.<<
Very Few Chinese people (probably the Western backed puppets for the most part) would agree with you. For them, Modern Day China could not have been born without Marxism & its derivatives.
& without that trajectory, China would still be a Quasi-feaudal Colony, ripe for Looting & Exploitation by Westerners.
Without Marx, over 800+ million people would still be in poverty. At least, that is how the Chinese people view the matter.
What has Tolkien's 'stories' (which, are allegedly 'less hollow & less bitter') achieved? Have they enabled a Whole Civilization to regain Dignity & Well Being on the Global Stage?
If not, it is very clear what the 'inferior narrative/story' is.
It was not Marx that lifted China out of poverty. It was Marx that murdered untold millions in the Great Leap Forward, Marx who murdered and oppressed millions in the Cultural Revolution. etc. It was the Blob's priorities, working in tandem with Deng Xiaoping that brought China to the place it is now.
"Very Few Chinese people (probably the Western backed puppets for the most part) would agree with you. "
They had better not agree with me, or they might find themselves in prison or dead (but with Great Dignity and Zero Exploitation, no doubt).
A story arc: affecting the political landscape in a positive fashion across geography, demographics, and organizations. Flow like water. We need just enough ideology to agree on what constitutes a positive direction.
The ideation is secondary to the story, though. When you watch or hear or take part in a good story, the goodness of it is pretty obvious. Goodness isn't a complicated war game or byzantine art requiring 100,000 hours of study. We know it when we see it. If we don't see it, we're probably tooling around with at least one eye closed.
The stories were written over a half century ago, by professionals:
https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/a-kinder-sillier-reactionary-vision
Thank you for posting the link. Very enlightening and inspiring. I do believe these essays are not only on the right track, but this is the first time in ages that I've felt a ray of hope. I am fairly new here and find the intelligence gathered in this small group refreshing, stimulating and positive. I hope the points described in the last two essays continues to be refined as, in my estimation, this is exactly what is needed. The initial spark, however manifested, could generate enough enthusiasm to ignite a self-sustaining motive power affecting real change. I'm on board so long as it remains respectful, loving and peaceful combined with an upbeat message.
I've got plenty of upbeat for you -- in the form of peaceful yet useful actions.
I fear I'm too much of a silly person to be entirely respectful. And when the Woke actively try to destroy America and brainwash kindergarteners into castrating themselves, some entertaining spleen venting is in order.
re: "Story" see my substack; become a neo-feudalist, it's the only consistent right-wing story.
re: organization -sort of agree with Woe's post, with the proviso that there must be some initial coordination on what symbols to use etc. That's why there must be some aspect of this that is secret and conspiratorial i.e. must be quasi-secret organizing.
IMO the counter-revolt has to be organized like a franchise; everyone does his own thing tactically, but some central office is responsible for strategic standards.
That's really well said.
Back when I was a kid I was into farming and Allan Savory’s methods in particular. He implemented a grassland regeneration system based on his experiences as a revolutionary (if I remember rightly?) in Rhodesia. Step one is to set a goal (he calls it a “holistic goal”) and then after that there is a normal feedback cycle to determine what is most effective. It’s a great way to keep heterogeneous people on track.
"The various Communist Party Cadres that operated in the 20th century are the exemplars of such coalitions."
I have to point out that of the many such cadres, only one was successful. Lenin differed in 2 major ways from marxist ideology: he was in a rural-feudal state rather than an urban-capitalist state, and he didn't bother trying to indoctrinate the masses with ideology. He mostly just promised them earthly rewards and a chance to get payback on the elites that had pissed on them their whole lives. Russian peasants weren't exactly famous for their love of 100 page political tracts.
The lessons to be learned from this:
1. Ideology is less important than getting regular people on board by promising them what they want in order to put you in power. After you win, you can implement whatever ideology you want as long as you keep your powerbase happy.
2. Theory often doesn't survive first contact with the enemy, and so we must be ready to switch it up to what works in the moment.
3. Timing is important; don't blow your load early, be on the lookout for opportunities.
=
Of course, this isn't to say that ideology isn't important for the various heads of splinter cells, but we shouldn't think it's necessary to beat every 90 IQ recruit over the head with the collected works of the Mises Institute.
Speaking of which, we may need a very broad umbrella, as the DR is very split in its goals, with many holding absolutist beliefs in many different things. We might even need a mostly negative identity: "we are not X, Y, Z!" Add in the understanding that no matter what is done, most likely there will be a lot more than 3 nations in North America in 50 years, so it's not a winner-take-all kind of movement.
People can have their anarcho-syndicalist commune in CA, and there can be a techno-futurist monarchy in New England. Whatever. The more someone cares about their bespoke vision of the future, the harder they should work to create it IRL, rather than working harder to start drama on the internet over it.
Good thoughts. I don't see any place I really disagree so I shan't start drama on the internet over it :-)
The shared ideology is necessary; otherwise there is nothing.
Two examples come to mind, 1) The assassination attempt on Robert Fico. Apparently a "lone wolf", but he was swimming in the supportive milieu of western media. And 2) the Debian project responsible for Linux.
In each case a shared ideology. Without that, each individual would be reinventing the wheel. Life isn't long enought for that.
The most important thing I can say on this is this- KNOW YOUR ENEMY and WHY THEY ARE. (Your Enemy)
Research their Ideology, if you find it an abomination, ask yourself, 'WHY?' Form a cogent response in your own mind.
Even not counting Controlled Opposition (Say... 'The Daily Wire'? Possibly?) far too many on 'The Right' have no real idea what they dislike about 'The Left' other than the obvious. The truth is, that at their core, many of these people have THE SAME IDEOLOGY, they just don't like 'The Left's' take on it. It's like hating the left because they champion Neapolitian, while you think Vanilla should rule. It's a matter of TASTE.
There are probably a lot more of these 'Conservatives' than anything else. They need to decide where their heart lies. You can't be an effective fighter if, deep down, you actually AGREE with your enemy.
Notice this is not like a member of Controlled Opposition, who is being blatantly dishonest. This person is created as a by-product of bad education and a sloppy culture. They move about in a kind of haze, having no real passion for anything. For some it's so bad they don't even know that there are things that one *should* stand for, much less stand for them.
And crikey- Dump the term 'Woke'. It used to mean Cultural Marxist but because of the above, has become such a flabby word, it can (and has) been used to mean just about ANYTHING. I recently heard a young man use it to define Fascism. (Which, nominally, is the OPPOSITE of what it means.) At least I benefitted from a laugh.
This entire debacle of Western Culture came about because of Cultural Marxism. If you don't like where things are going, find what that means. Once you know it, you will either find it acceptable and become a follower of the Ideology, or you will find it an abomination and will have a much better idea of what should be done.
Re: "stigmergic organization"
In my circles, we know this as the Stand-Alone Complex, taken from the Ghost In The Shell series using that as a subtitle. (Season One introduced the concept; Season Two showed how it can be deliberately employed.) All it would need to be a hand-in-glove fit is the propagation of a "original" that never existed.
I point this out to (a) show that there are already pop culture examples evident and (b) that the threat it possesses is likewise on the radar of the Establishment (albeit depreciated at this time) because you can see the writers' consultations/experiences with law-enforcement/counter-intelligence in how Section 9 deals with both seasons' antagonists.
GITS:SAC is over 20 years old now. Those who saw it as teenagers are now nearing or at 40; this idea will find faster virality when put in terms that they already understand.
Can you elaborate on this? Or point me to where you've written on it? Really interesting!
Since this is a work in entertainment media and well-known by now, there's been plenty of useful summarization of the concept. I'll quote the Infogalactic entry (here: https://infogalactic.com/info/Philosophy_of_Ghost_in_the_Shell#Stand_Alone_Complex):
"While originally intended to "underscore the dilemmas and concerns that people would face if they relied too heavily on the new communications infrastructure,"[1] Stand Alone Complex (スタンド・アローン・コンプレックス Sutando Arōn Konpurekkusu?) eventually came to represent a phenomenon where unrelated, yet very similar actions of individuals create a seemingly concerted effort.
A Stand Alone Complex can be compared to the emergent copycat behavior that often occurs after incidents such as serial murders or terrorist attacks. An incident catches the public's attention and certain types of people "get on the bandwagon", so to speak. It is particularly apparent when the incident appears to be the result of well-known political or religious beliefs, but it can also occur in response to intense media attention. For example, a mere fire, no matter the number of deaths, is just a garden variety tragedy. However, if the right kind of people begin to believe it was arson, caused by deliberate action, the threat that more arsons will be committed increases dramatically.
What separates the Stand Alone Complex from normal copycat behavior is that there is no real originator of the copied action, but merely a rumor or an illusion that supposedly performed the copied action. There may be real people who are labeled as the originator, but in reality, no one started the original behavior. And in Stand Alone Complex, the facade just has to exist in the minds of the public. In other words, a potential copycat just has to believe the copied behavior happened from an originator - when it really did not. The result is an epidemic of copied behavior having a net effect of purpose. One could say that the Stand Alone Complex is mass hysteria over nothing - yet causing an overall change in social structure."
In the first season the antagonist stumbles upon the idea and attempts to use it to bring his targets to justice, but being unfamiliar his mistakes end up imperiling his own cause.
In the second season, the antagonist (a different character) knows what this is and deliberately creates the Complex to provoke a political crisis intended to produce a regime change to a form more suitable for the antagonist's greater objectives.
The antagonist uses what you call stigmegic organization (as could be imagined then in Japan) to create the conditions that make the Complex possible and uses the refugee crisis as the catalyst to invoke it. From there he's using that very style of organization, backed by massive data collection and real-time intelligence analysis, to get the results he's after with manipulation of various forms of signaling in virtual and realspace alike.
GITS:SAC is still widely available in streaming and disc formats. Two seasons and a movie (Solid State Society), but for this conversation only the TV series matters.
Wow - that's astonishing.
We need a gamut of qualitative markers to recognise one another, and a "look", both aesthetic and intellectual, that is at least very difficult to fake. Thankyou for your work, it is strong thought.
We need a men's wear aesthetic! It can't just be the dorky neo-con blue blazers and bow ties.
I'm thinking military-cut jackets with mandarin collars, cloaks, and polished combat boots. I'm trying to make "galacticore" fashion happen. Who's in??
Jokes aside, we should spearhead a new sharp, attractive look for men. Fashion, like most cultural media, has stopped changing since 1997. I guess the baggy pant look has mostly gone away but you could take a average joe American from 1998, put in into today as he is dressed in 2024, and he'd look in place rather than out of it.
I've seen better fashion ideas in video games than any of the demonic retard trash coming from the fashion industry.
I agree. Next issue: "What is to be worn"!
I’ve written on just this topic: https://thejourneymansalmanac.substack.com/p/fremen-corture
Fantastic. I just restacked. Great stuff.
Thanks, I’m glad it found a receptive ear.
I think a coherent philosophy is what is needed to drive ideology. The reason both the left and right have gone off the rails is they have abandoned philosophy and focus on causes abortion, the boarder ect. I don’t know if anyone knows why they are for or against anything more than on a surface level.
Indeed! That business of complaining about illegal immigration because it is illegal bothered me 20 years ago back when I was still a Libertarian. We need to explicitly renew WHY we have immigration quotas. And there are several good reasons, including reasons that are pretty old school liberal.
For starters, Ecotopia and open borders don't mix: https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/rule-11-exploit-the-environmentalists
And open borders lead directly to U.S. military interventions, including the kinds that lefties used to protest: https://rulesforreactionaries.substack.com/p/a-kinder-gentler-nationalism
That second link even has a libertarian argument for border control.
I couldn't agree more. Well said. 100%.
Whatever that ideology is, the reform would have to be structural and so obviously against the core of the regimes justifying ideology that they couldn't fake it in some future "reform".
Always interesting.
Keep on!
Too much more of this and you'll risk a conspiracy indictment
I have made note of this rather important post you made and commented on it at my blog. I think if you peruse there you will see that I am more likely a candidate for eventual droning by some government of the West than a Fed, but I also am not aware of you or who you are and have been, as I only just started reading your blog. Anyway, well met fellow non-member of any non-cells.
My post is here: https://www.gfilotto.com/creating-the-resistance
Well met, fellow non-member of any non-cells! Great to see you here Kurgan, and thank you for the kind words on your blog.
You're most welcome, fellow total stranger!
>> The pseudonyms or blog titles adopted by the coalition’s members could all adopt a similar aesthetic as a stigmergic mark, making it evident to “those who know” that they are aligned <<
Well Done Grandpa! 🫡 That's the Way to do things!
Now.... whatever do you mean by that? 😏
😂
You guys lmao
The right could still learn a few things from the various underground economic organizations that thrived in the 20th century.
Such organizations rarely present any grand societal solution. But in Japan, especially, their sphere of influence extended quite far into the political realm.
And, they were all freedom enthusiasts almost without exception.