Current Affairs31 Maj 2022

The Terrifying and Stupid Ideas of "Neoreactionaries"

A recent article in Vanity Fair about the National Conservatism Conference profiles figures on the "New Right," including Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, Blake Masters, and a deeply unpleasant individual called Curtis Yarvin, a.k.a. Mencius Moldbug. Yarvin/Moldbug is an advocate of "neoreactionary" politics and explicitly believes in ending democracy and instituting a dictatorship in the United States. J.D. Vance, who may well be a U.S. senator soon, admits in the Vanity Fair profile that he is an admirer of Yarvin's thinking. For a long time, "neoreactionary" thought dwelled mostly in the darker corners of the internet, but we may well soon see these ideas become more mainstream as the American right becomes increasingly extreme and hostile to the democratic process.

Today on the podcast, author Elizabeth Sandifer joins to discuss "neoreaction": what its tenets are and why it is both incredibly stupid and incredibly terrifying. Sandifer is the author of Neoreaction a Basilisk: Essays on and Around the Alt-Right. Sandifer's book profiles some key neoreactionary thinkers and is a witty demolition of their horrible ideas. In this episode, Sandifer explains the core of neoreactionary philosophy, including some of the more bizarre ideas to percolate through this ecosystem such as the "basilisk" of the title. We discuss why these ideas catch on and the threat they pose.

The photograph above is of Curtis "Mencius Moldbug" Yarvin, who looks precisely like what you'd expect a sinister pro-dictatorship pseudointellectual named Moldbug to look.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(600)

Palestinians Shouldn’t Have to Be Perfect Victims (w/ Mohammed el-Kurd)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Mohammed el-Kurd is a Palestinian writer from Jerusalem, The Nation’s Palestine correspondent, and ...

31 Aug 31min

AIPAC Knows Its Money Is Toxic (w/ Track AIPAC)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Track AIPAC is an advocacy and watchdog project that tracks AIPAC and other pro-Israel political sp...

27 Aug 31min

Both Parties Are Failing Working People (w/ Dan Osborn)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Dan Osborn is an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Nebraska and a former union leader who fi...

25 Aug 19min

The Israel Lobby Is More Desperate Than Ever

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Eli Clifton is an investigative journalist and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible S...

21 Aug 36min

The “Silent Genocide” in Cuba (w/ Abby Martin)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Abby Martin is a journalist, filmmaker, and creator of The Empire Files. She joins Current Affairs ...

20 Aug 53min

Socialist Defends Medicare for All on Fox News

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Nathan J. Robinson returns to The Will Cain Show to defend Medicare for All, California’s proposed ...

18 Aug 4min

Send Ben Shapiro to Iran

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Why should other people’s children be the ones who die in the wars he promotes? 🌹 Full article by ...

13 Aug 13min

Graham Platner and the Left’s Misogyny Problem (w/ Yasmin Nair)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Yasmin Nair is a writer, activist, and longtime contributor to Current Affairs. In this conversatio...

11 Aug 1h 17min