Postmodernism for neoreactionaries: the deconstruction of the West

The writing on the wall is beginning to make itself visible. ISIS continues to operate in Iraq, requiring some kind of military intervention, but America knows Iraq, and we do not want to go there again. There may be wars fought by volunteers and mercenaries, but there will never be another draft. The history book has already been written, and its reflection back onto internal American politics is on its way, as Adam Curtis suggests in Bitter Lake.

To understand what comes next, though, we must first reflect on the general pattern that has brought us here. It seems that many on the Internet who are close to the correct persuasion are still convinced of a conspiracy led by a "cathedral" or this kind of mental construct. In fact, what we are witnessing is not a conspiracy, but a deconstruction.

This is Jacques Derrida's adaption of Heidegger's use of the word Destruktion. It does not mean the denial that language has meaning, but rather the (uncertain) denial that meaning has certainty. Where Heidegger desired to root out our false sense of certainty, Derrida declared that there need not be any writer to do the destroying; as his pomo buddies declare, "the text deconstructs itself." To dumb it down to everyday language, deconstruction tells us that text never tells us the "whole truth"; but more correctly, text is never whole but always implies an absence. If that sounds terrifying, it's because it is. Even the children of poststructuralism desire an escape from Derrida. They imagine they can "use" analysis as a weapon against "Eurocentric authority". They are possessed by the illusion that they are not being used themselves.

For example, the Norwegian academic Thomas Hylland Eriksen was cited as a conspirator by neoreactionary sources, because of this comment he made:

Our most important task ahead is to deconstruct the majority, and we must deconstruct them so thoroughly that they will never be able to call themselves the majority again.

Please remember your philosophy when you read quotes like this. Eriksen wants to say that we need to destroy, or dismantle, the majority; the second half of the sentence makes this obvious. But he says "deconstruct" instead, because it sounds nicer. Why does it sound nicer? Because it means something different, and in fact its real meaning contradicts the sense he uses it in. "We" do not do deconstruction. The text deconstructs itself; the role of a writer in a deconstruction is to observe and mourn with a bit of melancholy, not to cheer on. If "we" have an intellectual "task" then we are still doing Thomist heresy-hunting, and we still believe (really?) that philosophers lead the masses around by the nose. So Eriksen is abusing language. He has not truly seen the world-changing consequences of Heidegger's voluntarism, let alone Derrida's removal of agency from the equation. He's really just making "deconstruct" into a euphemism for the most banal sense of "destroy."

And of course people see what he's saying, and even though Eriksen really has no say in it, you get reactionaries who don't want to be destroyed--sometimes exceedingly violent ones. But Eriksen is not a conspirator, he's just incompetent. Those kids on Utøya were not conspirators either, because there is no conspiracy. The West is being deconstructed, regardless of what anyone wants to happen. Meaning remains, but not certainty. When terrorists are in control of Syria, it is still meaningful that we are bombing them, but we do not need analysts to tell us that bombing provides no certainty that peace can be restored, and as we listen to the platitudes of Obama, Cameron, and Hollande, we can watch a grand narrative automatically deconstructing itself.

A mini-deconstruction. In 2008 we elected Obama on a platform of "change", because we were hungry for the change that we believed to offer unambiguous new possibilities for happiness. (At the time, if it can be believed, people denied that there was a racial element in this.) And we elected him on a platform of "hope," because we were already uncertain. The common phrase is "hope against all odds," not "hope in accordance with the odds." And that was eight years ago. How's that hopey-changey stuff working out for ya? Are you feeling more hopeful about the state of the world after 2015? Poor whites aren't. Do you have hope when Obama talks about "red lines," and feel confident about what happens when they're crossed? And that change, too! Are you delighted by the changes Obama has wrought in the Levant and the resulting enormous displacement of families and loss of livelihood? Change!

But what would you put in place of Obama, my radical friends? Communism? The deconstruction of that idea is already done. We have seen how it relies on the concepts of bourgeoise and proletariat, and how it becomes incoherent in the face of the uncertainty over who is who in the real world. Noninterventionist libertarianism? Sure, let's see how that goes when the economy starts shrinking. Neoreactionary monarchism? And who will be king? But what else is there? Well, there's Trump.

Not necessarily Trump himself, but someone like him. Regardless of who wins this year's election, political operatives must have already taken note of Trump's popularity, and kept it in mind for future elections. A pattern is being established, and it will take hold. Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West, volume 2:

In the form of democracy, money has won. There has been a period in which politics were almost its preserve. But as soon as it has destroyed the old orders of the Culture, the chaos gives forth a new and overpowering factor that penetrates to the very elementals of Becoming — the Caesar men. Before them the money collapses. The Imperial Age, in every Culture alike, signifies the end of the politics of mind and money. The powers of the blood, unbroken bodily forces, resume their ancient lordship. “Race” springs forth, pure and irresistible — the strongest win and the residue is their spoil. They seize the management of the world, and the realm of books and problems petrifies or vanishes from memory. From now on, new destinies in the style of the pre-Culture time are possible afresh, and visible to the consciousness without cloaks of causality. . . .
The liberal bourgeois mind is proud of the abolition of censorship . . . but it is precisely this that smooths the path for the coming Caesars of the world press. Those who have learned to read succumb to their power, and the visionary self-determination of Late democracy issues in a thoroughgoing determination of the people by the powers whom the printed word obeys.

Look, dear readers! Here he is, standing before us sunburned as the polls open in Iowa, taking no money but his own, his every word a goldmine for the press, a true Caesar after Spengler's heart. We hope against hope that he is just a passing entertainment, the idol of elderly and dying whities. But he won't go away. He will win votes and remain at the podiums in March, making us ever more uncomfortable. Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush cower against our critiques, but our words hold no power over him, and he will not go away. The year goes on, Hillary wins, but uncertainty reigns. And the passing of years, and the deconstruction. Bombs drop somewhere in the global South; Europe weakens; urgent press conferences are held; we listen, and we want to believe, we really do, but the words ring hollow, and we try and try but the center cannot hold. And come the Bonapartes and Caesars. They can't come fast enough. The writing, as I have said, is on the wall.

Next week: The Californian ideology