Exit Neoreaction

I haven’t exited neoreaction yet. But I may do in the near future. Let me explain.

I deactivated my twitter account today. NRx twitter is too much of a shithole for me to handle nowadays, and it has been getting progressively worse in the past year. Also, neoreaction has a giant entryist problem. Case in point.

Neoreaction is too much of a muddled label nowadays. It means pretty much whatever people want it to mean. All three parts of “the trike” are just trying to redefine neoreaction in a way that is centered around them. Another case in point. Mark Yuray writes a post titled “What is Neoreaction”. Talks about tradition and Evola all the way through it, doesn’t mention Moldbug once. Maybe you don’t find this a problem, but I do. This is a sign that neoreaction no longer means what it used to mean back when I first started following the blogosphere in late 2012 (at least to a significant and continually growing amount of people who identify as neoreactionaries). It is no longer even centered around the same ideas. From 2013 to the present day, what used to be the core of neoreaction – the ideas of Moldbug, i.e. formalism, patchwork, neocameralism, austrian economic analysis, etc. have been progressively pushed to the periphery as neoreaction has become more and more of a “popular movement” than anything else.

I am pessimistic about the future of neoreaction. The ideas that originally attracted me are no longer discussed. Most of the original bloggers and commenters who discussed ideas which attracted me – Moldbug, Foseti, Handle, Vladimir, etc. are long gone. I myself am not capable to compensate for their absence. I am too young to have sufficiently developed ideas which I can elaborate at length on my blog. The most I can do is share insight porn from some of the books I read. Originally I came to neoreaction to learn. But one can only learn from people who (1) talk about subjects which are interesting to him and (2) who are more knowledgeable than him in those subjects. Presently most people in NRx do not fill either of those conditions. The people who do I can count on one hand, and I will continue to follow their blogs.

Leaving twitter might make me less pessimistic about neoreaction. After all, stupidity is easily expressed in 140 characters, but genuine insight – almost impossible. Although I doubt it at the moment. The intellectual decline of neoreaction is even clearly noticeable in comment sections on some of the most popular blogs, like Land’s and Jim’s. Especially when compared to early to mid 2013.
If I don’t find neoreaction improving in the near future, I will simply stop calling myself a neoreactionary. I’d probably substitute it for “formalist” or something like that because it is much more specific. And that will be my final exit (or rather not “final” because some small number of neoreactionaries are still formalists, but an exit from the majority of neoreaction at any rate). I am not sure if I will discontinue this blog at that point, but it is a possibility. It’s kind of a pity if that were to happen of course as this is a brand new blog. But if there is no proper intellectual stimulus that I find interesting coming out of other bloggers in the neoreactionary sphere I don’t see me being very productive on this blog. As I said, I am young, and not much of an original thinker myself, at least not yet.

I have no interest in trying to “save” neoreaction, or to try and shape it more to my liking. That would be prioritizing voice over exit, and no true formalist does that. The moment when what is discussed in neoreaction no longer fits my interests I will simply exit the sphere and abandon the label. You might think I am being close minded, or childish, but I am not obliged to read or engage in discussions I no longer find insightful or intellectually stimulating.

Please, try to not overreact to this post.