THE REDUNDANCY OF THE DARK ENLIGHTENMENT

by Brett Stevens

We live in an age of trends. For this reason, people are constantly inventing new "movements" which claim to be different, but are at a logical level identical to the older ones. By "at a logical level," I mean comparing the structure and function or their ideas and not their surface appearance. Appearance is always misleading and geared toward concealing the fundamental sameness of things.

Currently the roiling trend on the internet is movements like the "Dark Enlightenment," "Neo-reaction" and "red pill" as well as various "third way" movements. Each proclaims itself to be a new and untested idea, knowing that its audience craves novelty. And yet, if you dig below the level of appearance and look at the structure of the arguments of each group, you find something very far from new.

However, these groups have a lot vested in not admitting this. First, they are saturated in the media of a time that demonizes certain beliefs as ignorant and bad. Second, they would lose their novelty, and thus their reason to exist as independent profit-producing entities (generally through advertising revenues from blogs). And finally, they'd take an ego hit, and who wants to do that?

ALT-RIGHT PODCAST 10: TRUTH IN THE SHADOWS, SHADOWS IN THE TRUTH

TradYouth's Matt Parrott joins Andy and Colin to discuss "The Dark Enlightenment" and the way that the internet is radically changing our intellectual culture and views of the World.

MARK SHEA GETS PUNK'D!

Mark Shea, through a glass darkly

In recent months, the term "Dark Enlightenment" has, for some reason, become the go-to phrase among mainstream types attempting to make some sense of the ragtag coalition of defiant anti-establishment types who comprise our movement. What's notable, of course, is that mainstream types are deigning to notice us at all. Even if their appraisals tend to be sneering, sniggering, and dismissive, they nevertheless for some reason feel the need to acknowledge our undeniable presence in a manner that they never have before.

One of the more sanctimonious obsessors over the DE lately is the eternally odious neo-Catholic blogger Mark Shea. Shea's classic MO is to rant against his enemies, before banning them from defending themselves in his comment boxes, only permitting his inexplicably numerous minions to heap on further abuse. (Full disclosure: one of our editors' scaps with Marky Mark and his Fun Bunch go way back: for details, take up and read!)