“The left thrives on dialectics, the right perishes through them. Insofar as there is a pure logic of politics, it is that. One immediate consequence (repeatedly emphasized by Mencius Moldbug) is that progressivism has no enemies to the left. It recognizes only idealists, whose time has not yet come. Factional conflicts on the left are politically dynamic, celebrated for their motive potential. Conservatism, in contrast, is caught between a rock and a hard place: bludgeoned from the left by the juggernaut of post-constitutional statism, and agitated from ‘the right’ by inchoate tendencies which are both unassimilable (to the mainstream) and often mutually incompatible, ranging from extreme (Austro-libertarian) varieties of laissez-faire capitalist advocacy to strains of obstante, theologically grounded social traditionalism, ultra-nationalism, or white identity politics.”
NICK LAND
The Dark Enlightenment
It seems that the Dark Enlightenment, and the pro-Russian crowd in America, are offering some interesting commentaries on Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Upon his Gray Mirror, Curtis Yarvin wrote that in 2025 “murder gets 26 million likes,” referring to “normiecons, my poor Abandoned friends….” And then, in a Machiavellian sidenote, “Your values will not help you here.” A more obvious agent provocateur, Alexander Dugin, has called for MAGA to wage civil war in America. Even more than that, and with a wink towards the Kremlin, he wants America to join Russia in a “world civil war.” So I begin with a cautionary note: The truisms of the Dark Enlightenment are sophistical. One might call these truisms “rabble bait.” There is a sharp hook buried in the Dark Enlightenment’s offerings that says American conservatives needs to be nastier, readier for violent measures, more Machiavellian.
Before the Spanish Civil War the Spanish right was meek and compliant. Then, after the murder of a conservative senator, the right armed itself and defeated the left in one of the most violent civil wars of the twentieth century. The American right is not as helpless as its enemies like to imagine. Its values can still be deployed, and they should not be underestimated.
And yet, Yarvin continues to sneer at the conservatives, referring to them as “normiecons.” The American right has no unity, “actual or prospective,” wrote Nick Land, “and thus has no definition symmetrical to that of the left.” Watch, then, in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, how quickly this truism can be falsified. At some point, the Machiavellians are not going to be able to control the process they have labored to set in motion. Those influence agents on the right, trained by America’s foreign enemies, will inevitably find themselves unequal to the circumstances. The connection between what Moscow wrought through its agents in the culture wars, and what Russian missiles are accomplishing in Europe, will eventually come to light. Nick Land understands this and has taken the precautionary step of moving to China.
The late Stan Evans joked that America has only two political parties: the Evil Party and the Stupid Party. But consider the change that has been underway. The Evil Party has grown stupid and spoiled even as the Stupid Party is becoming more Machiavellian. In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Attorney General Pam Bondi wants to use hate speech laws to go after leftists. The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions, as ever. But so many of today’s intentions are not good. When the ends justify the means, the means will become an end.
Under the long-accepted rules of war and peace, the assassination of leaders (civil and military) was long forbidden. Since 9/11, however, everything has changed. President Barack Obama used drone strikes to assassinate American citizens. American authorities have been making death lists and killing individuals with drones, justifying it as a “war against terror.” This trend is disturbing, to say the least. For years there has been loose talk about assassinating President Vladimir Putin. In March of 2022 Senator Lindsey Graham made remarks that were interpreted as calling for Putin’s assassination. Kill an evil dictator and save millions of lives. Right? But killing one man is not going to change anything. Make a martyr and see what happens. See how your enemy’s cause finds a new justification. Please remember that we tried to kill Saddam Hussein with an air strike at the outset of Gulf War II. We missed and killed a bunch of innocent people in a restaurant. Did anyone think this was wrong?
When you wage war dishonorably you lose the peace. Therefore I assert, in the strongest terms: Assassination is a dishonorable practice. Consider the recent past. President Trump ordered the assassination of the IRGC General, Qasem Soleimani who died with ten others when a U.S. Reaper drone obliterated two cars in his convoy in January 2020. Ten people died in that attack. Was the attack righteous?
General Soleimani was assassinated while flying to Iraq for negotiations. According Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi, General Soleimani landed at the Baghdad airport to attend a parley at Trump’s insistence. But instead of a civilized meeting between enemies, he was murdered on orders of the U.S. President. Many Americans applauded this assassination. It is worth quoting Balthasar Gracian on this subject, from his Art of Worldly Wisdom, No. 165:
“WAGE WAR HONORABLY. You may be obliged to wage war but not to use poisoned arrows. Everyone must act as he is, not as others would make him to be. Gallantry in the battle of life wins everyone’s praise; one should fight so as to conquer, not alone by force but by the way it is used. A mean victory brings no glory, but rather disgrace. Honor always has the upper hand. An honorable person never uses forbidden weapons, such as using a friendship that’s ended for the purposes of a hatred just begun; a confidence must never be used for vengeance. The slightest taint of treason tarnishes one’s good name. In people of honor the smallest trace of meanness repels. The noble and the ignoble should be miles apart. Be able to boast that if gallantry, generosity, and fidelity were lost in the world people would be able to rediscover them in your own heart.” [Joseph Jacobs translation]
Imagine if, at the surrender ceremony on the deck of the USS Missouri, General Douglas MacArthur had pulled out a pistol and shot the Japanese envoys. Could he have justified this by saying they deserved death? Such would have been seen as an act of savagery condemned by the whole world. “But Jeff,” some might say, “these Japanese imperialists were evil.” One must not be a blockhead in such matters. Evil is something that exists in every human heart, and here we see its foothold in our own. However right our cause, we are not archangels fighting against Satan. We are imperfect human beings fighting against other imperfect human beings. The object of every war is peace on favorable terms. How can you have peace if you act without honor?
As necessary and as inescapable as war is, it must have rules. Thus I look askance at the awfulness of Nick Land’s Dark Enlightenment and its Machiavellianism, which carries forward no sense of honor (and no real moral sense). When you are morally bankrupt, when the foulest means are considered fair, then your underlying ideal is nihilist. Once you have gone to the Dark Side, all your legitimate concerns and moralistic claims are mere sophistry. In your Wilderness of Mirrors, the very Devil is reflected back on every side.
More than thirty years ago, when I was writing the first draft of Origins of the Fourth World War, I explained that “the right is a fiction, everyone is on the left.” I said that the conservatives were “political undertakers,” that they were “conservatives without anything left to conserve.” Charlie Kirk suggests to us that this might not be true, after all; for he was in earnest about conserving America’s youth. Many lost souls of today wander through our universities, stirred to greater confusion, caught in the whirlpool of a prevailing nihilism. Kirk was confronting this nihilism. And that is why he was assassinated. The alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, had no sense of honor when he fired from range against an unarmed man. It was a cowardly killing which Robinson hoped to get away with. But why would he do such a thing? Because he was taught a set of false moralistic dogmas in school, and because he loved a man who was supposedly transitioning to a woman.
Those who saw Charlie Kirk offering a more hopeful future, restoring Christian values, probably did not imagine his martyrdom. Charlie Kirk lost his life standing up to a spiritual sickness that is ruining many lives. Those leftist entertainers and journalists who are now trying to distract from the killer’s motive, and who are denying the left’s responsibility, are presently not well received by the country. And yet, many on the left are not backing down. Some have gushed over the love affair of the assassin, who they feel sympathy for.
Since the assassination, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has denounced Kirk as a racist for opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But Kirk was not a racist. He opposed the Civil Rights Act because it was being used to threaten free speech. And leftists like Ocasio-Cortez know this. Yet their heartless condemnations reverberate inside unbalanced minds. After a silent moment of prayer for Kirk on the House floor in the Capitol, shouting broke out. A Democrat combatively shouted, “What about the kids in Colorado?” Others called for gun control laws. Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) yelled back, “You caused this!”
At Kirk’s memorial service his widow said, “Charlie wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life.” She then added, with heartbreaking sobs, “This young man, I forgive him. The answer to hate is not hate.”
A few days before, in her first speech after the assassination, Erika Kirk said this:
The evildoers responsible for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done. They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith, and of God’s merciful love.
They should all know this: If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea. You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country and this world. You have no idea.
You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.
To everyone listening tonight, across America, the movement my husband built will not die. It won’t. I refuse to let that happen. It will not die. All of us will refuse to let that happen.
No one will ever forget my husband’s name. And I will make sure it will become stronger, bolder, louder, and greater than ever. My husband’s mission will not end, not even for a moment.
We watched Charlie Kirk’s campus debates and his engagement with college youth. He had a real impact. His intellectual charisma was intense. And now he is a martyr, and his widow is openly raising a “battle cry.” But it is not a battle cry of violence. It is a battle cry for hearts and minds. She said that Charlie had laid down his life for others. It seems that this assassination has become meaningful for millions of people, in and outside of America, in a way assassinations usually are not. People identified with this man. To be fair, some people on the left feel genuinely bad. But some are not in a forgiving mood at all. Journalist Megyn Kelly professed unreadiness for reconciliation. “I don’t have a lot of appetite for the others [on the left]…. I see them doing more of what they have done,” she told David Rubin of the Rubin Report.
Rubin asked Kelly, “Do you think there has to be a mea culpa? So many of the people who have called us all Nazis, as everyone knows … I don’t know if I can welcome them yet unless there was a true moment of self-reflection….”
Kelly responded, “I’m not even in that charitable of a place. I don’t actually see a Kumbaya moment coming…. And I frankly don’t see any change coming either…. I don’t see any reconciliation coming. I don’t see any change of behavior coming….”
Kelly reflects a hardening of resolve, an unwillingness to let this go. “I see them doing more of what they have done,” said Kelly, “I see more 22-year-old young men … falling prey to the messaging … trans young men … being easily exploited…. It’s just a new dawn.”
Kelly underscored that “our side” is not committing the violence and “I am just sick of the lies that we are.” It is customary that conservatives do not like violence, and did not riot or burn down buildings in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination (as leftists did in the case of George Floyd’s death). Here is a point of comparison. Perhaps America is undergoing a transformation, where an extended confrontation either makes gold out of dross or turns everything to sewage.
For centuries the West has been drawn toward an abyss through subterranean philosophical channels. Many today blame Marcuse and Gramsci, while others blame Marx or Hegel. Going further back, there was Georgios Gemistos Plethon. He wanted to reestablish the pagan religion of ancient Greece, and told a Roman Catholic Cardinal that it was going to happen. But it did not happen then, and probably will not happen now. Today a psychologically disturbed minority has come to think that their gender ideology has triumphed, that history is on their side. After this assassination, however, the country will decisively turn against them. The idea that there are dozens of genders, that male and female only exist as an arbitrary social convention, is losing traction fast. As Matt Walsh has said, “We live in a culture that has lost its mind.” But now, violence has served to focus millions of minds.
Think of the news stories that have broken lately: For example, the biological man who wanted to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Cavanaugh in 2022 has apparently transitioned to being a woman. Alec McKinney, a transgender teenager, was one of two adolescents who perpetrated the May 2019 shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch in Denver, Colorado, which killed a student. In March 2023 Aiden Hale, a transgender “man,” killed three children at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. In August 2025, Robin Westman, who was tired of being transgendered and possibly triggered by taking transition-related drugs, opened fire at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, killing two children. Why were crimes of this kind not noticeable in the 1940s or 50s or even 60s? To what extent has our educational system, under leftist management, contributed to these murderous psychotic episodes?
We have evidence of a murderous psychosis more broadly insinuated onto society. How else can we explain thousands upon thousands of semi-anonymous citizens, breaking forth upon the Internet, celebrating Kirk’s death? Think back to comments like, “zero sympathy,” or “Karma is beautiful.” Society would be charitable to regard these people as simply deranged.
Is the left going to win the Culture War after this, or keep their winnings? I wonder; for now we have a martyred champion of God, Country, Family winning more hearts and minds than the left will ever win back. People are asking questions. Who are the real haters in this story? The old nonsense that conservatives are haters simply does not fly anymore. Listen to the alleged assassin’s hypocrisy: “I had enough of this hatred,” Tyler Robinson wrote to his trans lover. “Some hate can’t be negotiated out. If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence. Going to attempt to retrieve it again….”
You have to really hate a person to plan and carry out an assassination against him in a public setting, in front of his friends and family. You have to be incredibly cruel, perhaps to the point of insanity. As Erika Kirk said, Charlie was trying to save young men like Tyler Robinson from bungling their lives. Megyn Kelly made a striking statement when she said that identity politics is not the real problem here. She said that this assassination stems from the fact that religion has been taken out of the public square.
It is a fact that most Americans now disagree on fundamentals, on basic beliefs. They disagree about religion, ontology, God, and downstream of all that — politics. Karl Marx’s “project” led the way in blasting traditional thought in our academic institutions. Marxist Critical Theory, in all its permutations, has been massively destructive. We must remember that nations, to exist, crave consensus on foundational questions. What happens when you break that consensus? What happens when you intentionally degrade the culture and Balkanize it?
Certainly many of our university professors would leap for joy if America fell. Leftists are always ready to denounce what they call Christian nationalism. They hate Christianity and they hate American patriotism. To call Christians haters is a very important part of their program. Therefore, Christians are said to hate gays and transgenders. But more than that, white Christians are blamed for white nationalism. To make the charge stick, they point to the fact that Charlie Kirk and other Christians want illegal immigration to stop. Especially, people like Kirk are wary of Muslim immigration.
To be sure, America was founded on religious tolerance, and the Christian people of this country have long embraced that tolerance (unlike the Marxists, whose record in power has shown exceeding intolerance). Consider America’s actual heritage, which the left is presently attempting to abuse. The Framers of the Constitution were greatly concerned with freedom of religion. The First Amendment reads as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The historical context was this: Europe had suffered two centuries of religious warfare between Catholics and Protestants prior to the eighteenth century. There are many scholars who will deny that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was intended to prevent religious war, but this was a real concern (which was ultimately shared by the states, which repealed their established churches by 1833). But there is a caveat to this which Charlie Kirk was bold enough to mention. If the Founders had known that millions of Muslims would immigrate here, and the growing Muslim population would be used to cancel Christianity from the public square, the Framers of the Constitution would have written this clause differently.
People who talk openly of the dangers inherent in putting Christians and Muslims into the same cities and towns can lose their jobs. In Europe they can put you in jail for this. The truth of this matter is absolutely crucial, and the left has used every tactic to intimidate “normies” into silence. Because of the left’s war on free speech, which has stifled debate, Europe may face a terrible religious war between Muslims and non-Muslims sometime in this century. We see what is happening in the United Kingdom. The burning of churches in France is not accidental. Rising violence from Muslim immigrants is a fact in the daily life of Germany. You want to put two scorpions in a bottle? You think it is a fun game? A growing number of people in the West are cursing the political elite for betraying them. In country after country Muslims have flooded in, and the authorities seem to like it. The fact is, whether you want to admit it or not: All religions cannot live in peace with each other. Look at Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, having once been part of the same nation. Look at the violence in the former Yugoslavia, in the Middle East, in Africa. You have to be an idiot to intentionally Balkanize your country by importing Muslims into Christian or secular communities. But this is what the left has advocated under a deceptive banner of tolerance. Charlie Kirk understood this game, just as he understood the weaponization of so-called “gender.”
America has shown that Christians of different backgrounds, and Jews, can live together in harmony. The success of America along these lines, however, does not mean Islam can be successfully integrated as well. Having studied this question, I do not think it wise to make society into an experiment where two scorpions, as noted above, have been placed in a bottle. As the Christians of Lebanon will tell you, there was no problem with Muslims until their numbers grew to near equality. When the Muslims had sufficient numbers, the civil war began. Do you think the left does not know this fact? What do the Christians of Egypt say in this regard? Are they not persecuted? What do Hindus say about Islam? What do we see all over Africa? Does Saudi Arabia allow Christians to set up churches in their country? No. Should we be importing Muslims into the West? No. Borders exist for good reason. How else can a people enjoy their own culture in peace? To speak common sense in this regard, however, gets you labeled as a hater. I agree with Charlie Kirk in saying that there cannot be a moral obligation to change our country into a mix of incompatible elements. I agree that the border must be closed to mass illegal immigration. Consider the words of Italian journalist, Oriana Fallaci:
“I don’t speak, of course, to the vultures who seeing the September 11’s images scornfully giggle, “Good. Americans-got-it-good.” I speak to the people who, though neither stupid nor evil, delude themselves in pietism or uncertainty or doubt. And to them I say: Wake up, folks, wake up! As intimidated as you are by the fear of going against the stream and looking racist … you don’t understand or don’t want to understand that a Reverse Crusade is on [the] march. As blinded as you are by the myopia and the stupidity of the Politically Correct, you don’t realize or don’t want to realize that a war of religion is being carried out. A war they call Jihad. A war that … aims at the conquest of our souls and at the disappearance of our freedom. A war which is conducted to destroy our civilization, our way of living and dying, of praying or not praying, of eating and drinking and dressing and studying and enjoying Life. As numbed as you are by the propaganda of falsehood, you don’t put or do not want to put in your mind that if we do not defend ourselves, if we do not fight, the Jihad will win.” [The Rage and the Pride, pp. 83-84]
Fallaci was an Italian persecuted for speaking out against Islam. She blasted the left, showing how free speech had been curtailed in Europe to advance the Muslim cause. Ask yourself why the police are arresting people in Great Britain for publicly complaining about Muslim immigration, Muslim rape gangs, and Muslim crime? Why does the left give Islamic fundamentalism a pass while calling Christians like Charlie Kirk “racists” and “fascists”? How can a Marxist Muslim like Ilhan Omar, whose family fell from power after oppressing her native Somalia, get elected to the U.S. House of Representatives? What kind of idiot Americans voted for her? What kind of idiot party embraces her? Think of what the Democratic Party is trying to bring about. They want millions of Muslims to flood into America so the new arrivals can vote the country out from under the Christian people of the United States. This is why the Democratic Party advocates an open border. This is why the Democratic Party says illegal aliens should have voting rights. They really do hate Christianity.
Leftist will tell you that I am a white racist for writing these words. They will say I am a racist because I do not want my country to become a non-white country, since most Muslims are not of European descent. If that is a good argument, then Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are racists for wanting to change America into a brown country. Right? The logic has to apply to everyone equally. Ask yourself why Marxists like Omar and Ocasio-Cortez want to make America a brown country? Is it because whites have refused to accept Marxism and they are hoping non-whites will succumb to their rhetoric of race resentment and class warfare?
Again, there is an unmistakable pattern of malevolence here. Bring the intimidation. Scare corporate executives with political correctness. Tempt them with cheap imported labor. The Marxists in the schools will happily play along. The leftist mainstream media will also help. Then you get the Whore of Babylon as your spokesperson. And when somebody like Charlie Kirk stands up and says no, one of your brainwashed acolytes assassinates him. But it only works if everyone stays intimidated.
A Christian consensus once formed the basis of America’s root values. As noted before, a good deal of politics is downstream of religion and culture. Niall Ferguson recently gave a talk discussing the Charlie Kirk assassination and the prospects of civil war in America. He ruled out the likelihood of civil war, pointing to the strength and stability of the Constitution. He argued that Trump was not a prospective dictator who was consolidating power, that the Constitution was still working, that the Judiciary and the Legislative branches were capable of checking presidential power. Ferguson admitted, of course, that there are domestic enemies and foreign enemies who want to see a civil war in America. Yet, he said, the system is too strong.
Perhaps it is not so simple, however, because the left only pretends to respect the Constitution. In fact, I have seen proof that the left despises the Constitution as written. This is because socialism is not going to work under the U.S. Constitution. You either have to dump the Constitution altogether or interpret it to mean whatever a future leftist Supreme Court says it means. In other words, we will only have the Constitution as long as there is a conservative majority on the court. As soon as that majority is gone, you will not have Constitutional protections at all. Therefore, I cannot take Ferguson’s optimism seriously.
The left is a problem for America because, over time, it is becoming more radical and more oppressive in its objectives. As it gains control, it grabs more power and does not give that power back. It has gained control because it controls the universities from whence government personnel are hired. In other words, the left dominates the permanent government (i.e., the bureaucracy). Charlie Kirk was focused on resisting the left in the universities. This is actually a hopeless task, except that he managed to change the thinking of some students and parents. Now that he is a martyr, and millions have been awakened to the problem, more can be done. It will not be done by negotiation, however.
Of special interest, I predict that the left will mobilize so-called leftist Christianity in response to Erika Kirk’s use of an enlarged movement. They will try to attract her attention for the purpose of engaging her in discussions. In such circumstances, the left will use all manner of tricks. Furthermore, there is no way to successfully engage with the left on the level of ideas. Any and every attempt will end badly unless a combative stance is taken from the outset.
Thomas Molnar pointed out, long ago, in a book titled Ecumenism or New Reformation, that dialogues conducted between the Catholic Church and communism were “a scandal.” Molnar pointed out that Marxism is fundamentally incompatible with Catholic and Protestant belief. Whatever communists might pretend, Karl Marx and Lenin were clear. Central to Marxism’s concept of emancipation was mankind’s emancipation from “all previous alienations of which religion is the most important one and also the last, the hardest to destroy.” [p. 116] The communists have sought to infiltrate the churches, pretending religious affiliation (as we see with Vladimir Putin himself). This has always been a cynical game. Furthermore, Molnar points to a challenge that came before the advent of Marxism.
Communism is not a new line of thought that originated in Marx, but the contemporary expression of the exclusive belief in mankind’s self-fulfillment in the secular city. Under various names communism has accompanied Christianity in history, and will accompany it for the remainder of history, offering to Christians the temptation of facilitating their earthly happiness … through a kind of short-cut [i.e., ecumenism]. If the burden of spirituality and of spiritual loyalty to the Civitas Dei is removed, Communists of all times argued, then the objectives of Christianity can materialize in short order, for all mankind will help with a unity of purpose…. Thus there are and there always will be Christians who listen to the Communist lure (while Christ did not listen to Satan’s tempting words!) and who say: Let us give up faith, or at last, let us suspend faith in all that the Church teaches because this is not what Christ taught. If we follow Christ but not the Church … we will find that … Christ was also a Socialist, exhorting us with his example to work for the poor, against the rich, and for the happiness of all men. This is how the Gospel became in the minds of young Catholics a social gospel, either definitively or for a certain historical period.” [p. 117]
Molnar then asked whether the Church should have no contact with the communists whatsoever. His answer was that this would be impossible since the Church would also want to keep the lines of communication open to Catholics stuck in communist countries. And here we see on what grounds the Church has compromised itself. Molnar asked whether Christian intellectuals wrongly tried to save the Church by “camouflaging it, or, having lost their faith under the fire of Marxist critique, have … transferred allegiance to Marxism which they hope ultimately to liberalize into a domesticated form of the secular city?” [P. 121]
The lesson is a simple one. Whoever engages in religious dialogue with the Russians or Chinese, Cubans or Venezuelans (name your favorite communist country), “accepts in advance a weak position.” The communists never make a doctrinal concession, but only give out false appearances. This must be remembered, though it is almost always forgotten. By artful pressure, communism has forced Christianity into a series of retreats and concessions. If you missed this process then you had better start reading your Church Bulletin, for the communists have infiltrated every major denomination, targeting the highest rung of church leadership.
Here we find a generally a dismal situation for Christians, because Christians have shown great naivete in the past. One thing must be admitted in this context. The deadliest enemies of America are, first and foremost, enemies of Christianity. Socialism wants to become, through its historical unfolding, a New Religion. It wants to remake mankind by refashioning the beliefs of mankind. It was Eric Voegelin who wrote about “the political religions” in an essay on “Ersatz Religion.” According to Voegelin, the political religions are deeply dissatisfied with the order of being, which will have to be changed through a historical process (i.e., political process). As Voegelin explained,
“This assumption is not altogether self-evident, because the Christian solution might also be considered, namely, that the world throughout history will remain as it is and that man’s salvational fulfillment is brought about through grace in death.” [Vol. p. 297]
Furthermore, the political religions believe “that change in the order of being lies in the realm of human action, that this salvational act is possible through man’s own effort.” [Ibid] Ask yourself what it means to “change the order of being.” It most often signifies an inversion of the social order, or an inversion of hierarchy, or a perversion of anything you might name. It can also mean turning men into women. The formula of socialism is here revealed as something rather simple. But, as Matt Walsh has pointed out, a man who “transitions” is not really a woman. He cannot get pregnant or menstruate. He has mangled his own manhood without transitioning at all. Everything the socialists promise is impossible to achieve. Humans cannot “change the order of being.” We will never eliminate poverty, square the circle, or build a utopian society. These things are not possible within the given order of being. Only the Christian solution makes sense, exactly as Voegelin indicated. “There is no political solution,” says a song by The Police, “to our troubled evolution….”
Shortly after World War II, Richard Weaver wrote of the “spoiled child mentality,” which is the raw fuel of the new political religions and their campaign to change the order of being. Related to this, Eric Voegelin suggested that G.W.F. Hegel had been a philosophic sorcerer who offered modern man a special kind of magical thinking. Downstream of Hegel the West became inundated with “gnostic mass movements” which did not begin as mass movements at all, but originated with small groups of dreamy intellectuals. Voegelin listed as gnostic mass movements, “progressivism, positivism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, communism, fascism, and national socialism.” As Voegelin pointed out, the gnostic sees the world as filled with evils which include “poverty, sickness, death, the necessity for work, and sexual problems.” [p. 300] It is fascinating that Voegelin listed “sexual problems” in this category. According to Voegelin,
In the three cases of [Thomas] More, Hobbes, and Hegel, we can establish that the thinker suppresses an essential element of reality in order to be able to construct an image of man, or society, or history to suit his desires. If we now consider the question of why the thinker would thus contradict reality, we shall not find the answer on the level of theoretical argument…. We must move our inquiry to the psychological level … [p. 308]
Modern man, as a spoiled child, fantasizes about ruling the world, about subordinating reality to his whims. He is humiliated because he is, after all, a creature rather than the Creator of All. Whatever Hegel might suggest, man cannot change the order of being. “The constitution of being remains what it is — beyond the reach of the thinker’s lust for power,” noted Voegelin. Our schools and universities are in the business of promoting the student’s lust for power. The murderous rage of Tyler Robinson is here in a nutshell. Robinson loved a man who wanted to become a woman. In the midst of this self-deceptive fantasy, Charlie Kirk is heard to say that men cannot become women, and they cannot have babies, and such liaisons are unnatural. The fantasy of Robinson was threatened by the truth. So he decided to assassinate the messenger of that particular truth, Charlie Kirk.
Here is what it means to live a lie. We see from this horrific example, how living a lie can lead to murder. We saw this in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. We see this in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. You begin with a lie and you end with dead bodies. Here we can touch on the question of Christ versus Antichrist, signifying the struggle between Truth and Untruth.
Everyone has this choice. We can live in the truth, or we can live a lie. What we learn, over time, is that lies are toxic. Lies are soul-destroying. Only the truth can set us free. Charlie Kirk was assassinated for speaking the truth to young men. He was trying to save young men from the most self-destructive of lies.
He gave his life for this.
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488 responses to “As Fantasies of Civil War Dance in Their Heads….”
By the way, Jeff, what were your thoughts on Trump’s recent apparent about-face on Russia? Giving his approval for western nations to shoot their planes out of the sky, saying that Ukraine should take all the land back.
Unlike most here, I have not believed that Trump is a Russia toady, but believed that he was extending as much leeway as possible to Putin to give him every possible chance. Lest we forget, it was only when Trump gave his deadline and then abruptly changed it to 10 days that the Alaska meeting happened. To me it seems Russia’s strategy has been to delay, delay, delay, all the while their propaganda stations depict him as a Moscow mule. It was really quite remarkable when Trump welcomed him in Alaska and I saw their inside channels already creating memes with the soldiers on their knees with the red carpet, essentially mocking the Americans as subservient when Trump had been extending a hand of friendship. Such psychopathic behavior is quite something to behold.
The problem with Russia’s strategy, if I am right, is that eventually Trump catches on to it and grows weary of it. I believe that his recent comments reflect that and are also an attempt to apply leverage yet again. I truly hope he eventually realizes Russia can never be negotiated with, but I don’t know if his psychological makeup allows that.
It is also encouraging to see Trump realize that Europe is filled with Moscow toadies who have been funding the very war they claim to hate. The European leftists along with Zelensky self righteously call for Trump to apply more sanctions to Russia while they continue buying fuel from them. I don’t think Trump realizes that some people in European governments could be literally compromised by Moscow, but this is at least a step in the right direction.
Ukraine’s campaign of bombing their oil refineries is leaving a mark, bit by bit. The fuel prices are rising in Russia and citizen discontent is rising. If Trump is able to strong-arm Europe into boycotting Russian fuel, and that includes their fuel routed through India, I believe he could FINALLY inflict actual consequences on them. But up until this point they have not really suffered any. We hear that Russia is mobilizing an additional 292,000 soldiers.
I do also wonder about Trump’s Golden Dome project. Does this provide a real challenge to the longterm strategy of the Communists? It would seem so to me. We know China already vociferously objected to it. If the Communist strategy for world domination depends entirely on nuclear first strike supremacy and Trump is building a defense network to neutralize that supremacy, does that mean we are on the clock in a sense, with the Communists having to decide whether to execute that strategy before it becomes infeasible to do so? At what point does the missile defense network come online? How long is this window of time, if it exists?
Curious to hear thoughts.
Trump has not followed through on sanctions, and so we see an inconsistency. I am glad Trump says he will defend the Baltic States and Poland. But now Venezuela is becoming a problem, with mass mobilizations. I fear this will be a diversion designed to keep our support to Europe and Ukraine at a minimum.
I think the sanctions were delayed by the Russians agreeing to the Alaska meeting, and I think Trump is now inclined to place them but has realized it will be pointless if Europe does not cooperate. It is also a trap for just Trump alone to put them on without the assistance of Europe, and this seems to be a trap that Zelensky and Europe was trying to get him to do. I do not know why, one guess is that they wanted him to act alone so that Russian propaganda could use that action to further attack the dollar, or so that Russia could use that action to focus its propaganda on the U.S. as the sole aggressor.
But it seems Trump is now ready to place sanctions and is at the stage of placing pressure on the Europeans. I am quite suspicious of these Europeans that they have not cut themselves completely off of Russian energy. I believe Europe could have some Russian assets among their ranks. And so I think it is good that Trump is finally scrutinizing their affairs a bit.
Merc: developing a missile shield will take a few years.
But a more serious question that I see, can the CCP and Putin hold on to power much longer? For months, even over a year, there are reports of riots and other sabotage against the CCP inside China. Meanwhile the Russian populace is finally waking up against Putin and his war. Ukraine reports that they are being aided in their attacks inside Russia by active groups carrying out sabotage. At the same time the economies of both countries are crashing. Will either regime last long enough to wait for the Golden Dome to be developed and built? Can either regime last another year?
You mention that Russia is raising another 292,000 troops, for what? The long awaited attack against NATO? Their plans for an attack against the U.S. have been leaked, plans that include nuclear weapons, are they ready to carry out those plans? How soon?
Who said Russia is raising another 292,000 troops? Where did you get this number? Did I make a typo? I do not remember this number.
That’s the number that I copied from Merc at the top of this page.
Not my number.
Listening to KLW show. Human Events was founded by Allan Ryskind, who was a hardline anti-Communist. Buchanan was one of its contributors, but Pat evolved, as did Human Events, eventually ending up in the hands of Jack Posobiec. Human Events was R Reagan’s favorite political magazine.
Very far from Reagan now.
This was an excellent discussion. Jeff, I hope that you don’t mind that I posted this?
https://rumble.com/v6zgohg-live-with-jeff-johnny-and-lee.html
I don’t mind at all. It is good for people to watch it, if they can find it in this huge thread, lol.
Those who want more material for their weary brains should listen to James Lindsey, who discourses on Alexander Dugin. Lindsey discovered Dugin’s posts praising Auron MacIntyre, a podcaster on The Blaze Media. Dugin is so full of praise for MacIntyre, it’s a bad sign.
The Russian National Socialism of Aleksandr Dugin – New Discourses https://share.google/Iku11NmyOyRF5YSQV
Dugin is a very dangerous intellectual.
Jeff
Just wanting to let you and your readers know that I have helped a Hong Kong person who now lives in Germany with translating some articles he had written around 2014 about the actions of Szeto Wah and the ‘Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Movement’:
https://mega.nz/file/XIgXRS6A#nkSHhWYErCOCO2oxpLSkR803KIj_tubJKg0Lefiy25Q
Another thing I want to let your readers know, many Hong Kong people consider the ‘Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Movement’ are the CCP because they are very close with people such as Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang and during the 1980’s the ‘Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Movement’ are very close with the CCP leadership
Hi Alex. I hope you are well.
I am quite well, have been helping the Hong Kong community translating any articles written about the ‘Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Movement’ there is serious grounds to doubt the ‘Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Movement’ given they are very close with the CCP leadership and it seems people in Taiwan also known about it too
It’s Mrs VanZandt from X. I left you a message prior to leaving the platform. You may not have seen it. Your tireless work for the Homg Kong people is honorable and commendable. The implications for America are astounding. My email is Jluttjohann@hotmail.com. Keep in touch anytime you need feedback or support.
Thank you Alex. This adds to our knowledge of China’s advances in Asia.
Dugin just announced he’ll be doing an interview with Nick Land in the coming weeks.
That is going to be a very interesting thing to watch. Thank you for mentioning this.
During a sleepless night, a flash of crazy fear crossed my mind: what if there were three Putins in the world?
The first, the original, the only one; the second, the exact copy, Xj J.; and the third (the scary copy), Trump?
What would happen if the original attacked Europe, the second worked in Taiwan and surrounding areas, and the third worked on you American citizens, transforming the US into a kind of communist dictatorship 4.0?
Venezuela and Mexico, two diversions, and the killing of Kirk… he was no longer useful to the mad project.
Could something like this ever happen? Have any of you thought about it?
I do not understand the metaphor of three Putins. Does Putin rise to the level of being a metaphor?
No, no metaphor, three presidents who are evil in different ways. Is that possible? Have you ever thought about it?
Most political leaders are evil in different ways. I have thought all the leaders of WW2 showed different ways of being evil in one thing or another. Human beings must possess weapons of attack and defense inside themselves. We call things of this kind evil. Jacob Burckhardt once said, “Power is evil.” Then there is Lord Acton who said power tends to corrupt and absolute power tends to corrupts absolutely. Ask yourself what evil is,
SUMMA THEOLOGIEA – St. Thomas Aquinas – on Religion 2nd, 2nd, art. 81
On the contrary, Tully says (Rhet. ii.) that religion is a virtue consisting in the service and worship of a superior nature whom men call divine.
I answer that, as Isidore says (Etym. x.), according to Cicero, a man is said to he religious from ” religion, because he often ponders over, and, as it were, reads again (religit), the things which pertain to the worship of God, so that religion would seem to take its name from reading over those things which belong to Divine worship because we ought frequently to ponder over such things in our hearts, according to Prov. iii. 6, In all thy ways think on Him ; although it may also take its name from the fact that we ought to seek God, whom we had lost by our neglect.”^
Or again, religion may be derived from religare (to bind together), wherefore Augustine says (De Vera Relig.): May religion bind us to the one Almighty God. However, whether religion take its name from frequent reading, or from a repeated choice of what has been lost through negligence, or from being a bond, it denotes properly a relation to God.
For it is He to Whom we ought to be bound as to our unfailing principle; to Whom also our choice should be resolutely directed as to our last end ; and Whom we lose when we neglect Him by sin, and should recover by believing and protesting our faith. UNQUOTE
—–
In regards to your point about people visiting Lenin’s corpse
Religion is a relation to a higher being other than man (relation to God by men), and so it is impossible to call it religion when men go to see a corpse of their founder, as they are not venerating that corpse but go there out of curiosity, or just simply to pay “respect”, which in itself is not an act of religion, as what religion is must be expressed that way also in the outward act, which the communists don’t accomplish by simply visiting the corpse of their criminal founder Lenin…etc.
MOREOVER, Lenin himself had no relations with God nor was a Lenin possessed of any Divinely given virtues that would elevate him to the status of a Saint, but he was a horrible enemy of God, a true psychopathic criminal, and to go visit such a man’s grave or place of repose is an abomination to God, because by doing so such people pay respect to his wicked evil deeds and attempt to honor Lenin thereby…which is very evil in the eyes of God.
Lenin is venerated by communists who treat him like a god-king and founder of a new order. They say he is immortal, “More alive than all the living.”
The term veneration is applied to a religious honor, in Greek it is called Dulia, but that can hardly be applied to the communists who reject the existence of God and existence of human immortal soul.
It is pure subjectivism in their regard, and regarding Lenin the term is not literal (because they don’t believe in God’s existence etc.) but figurative sense, that is in his ideological evil opinions.
Moreover, to venerate something or somebody who had done evil, who was a criminals, is destroying the very sense or meaning of the word veneration, it is in truth to give consent to what that criminal has committed and what his false opinions were or are…to honor such a criminal is in itself criminal, it is to give moral consent to that which the criminal had caused, argued, proposed and enforced – that still doesn’t make it a religion, and you cannot honor a man as God either, that is a heresy and blasphemy…and BTW, communists who reject God’s existence would hardly use that term in the literal sense, and they would be very careful to use it all, because then the Party discipline would take notice and they could be severely reprimanded for making such statements or assertions, even if it was only figuratively regarding their criminal leader Lenin etc.
Stop.
Concerned, still trying to argue about the meaning of “religion”?
I’m a linguist. One of the areas of linguistics is a study of how languages change over time. Here you try to argue that just because a word had a certain meaning in Latin centuries ago, that therefore it has the same meaning in English today. If you tried to make that argument in court, you’d be laughed out of court. In English today, it has a different meaning than it had in Latin centuries ago.
Even within English, words have changed meanings. “Prevent” even just 400 years ago meant “to go before” from the French “prevenir”. Within my lifetime, “queer” meant “odd” or “strange”. Is that the meaning you think of when you hear that term today? In ancient Greek “mysterion” referred to a doctrine taught from teacher to student, yet today does “mystery” have that meaning? So the same way, “religion” in modern English doesn’t have the same meaning as it did in centuries old Latin.
By the say, that translation of Proverbs 3:6 is inaccurate. “In all your roads know (acknowledge) him, and he will make your highways straight.”
Sorry. “By the way…” not “By the say…”
Dear sir,
your enthusiasm in this regard is noted, but please do observe, there is no argument, there is only objective truth what religion is and what it is not, which eliminates any arguments that would attempt to make religion (or to subject the term religion) to the sphere of subjective opinion – this way, and BTW this phenomenon is rampant today, which is a tragedy – but this way you could invent any opinion, anything you like, and begin to call it a religion, or just like the sodomite trans perverts begin to call themselves the opposite what they were born, that doesn’t make them into that sex they were born, now does it ?
So once the door is opened for this subjectivism, it turns upside down any established objective truth you don’t like, it creates nuances of opinions into your own criteria, but the truth is still lacking the objective quality, what the truth is, what the reality and established truth represents.
This was the heresy of one of the enemies of the Church, his name was Josef Ratzinger – he was never valid Pope, but an excommunicated apostate, he wrote in his abominable book a horrible heresy – (Principles of Catholic Theology he called the book) – he wrote QUOTE: Truth changes with times…UNQUOTE
That is a heresy, because God Himself is the truth essentially and he does not change at all (Epistle of St. James), so likewise what the objective truth is cannot change with times, contrary to what you suggest above, only the understanding of the objective truth can be improved, but in the same exact judgment, in the same exact meaning, not in any contradiction. It can only bring to understanding more deeper sense in the same meaning of the term, not any invention of a new and contradictory meaning, a one that subverts the objective truth and meaning of the term in question.
Simple example would be – if you attempt to say that a certain item no longer is what that item is used for – like a glass for drinking could be called an ashtray – does that make that glass an ashtray ? No, of course not. But this the essence what these perverted times tried to present, and that is this subjectivism, which of course does not represent the proper way to to discovery of the truth, judgment of what the truth is and what it is not.
And what the secular courts attempt to establish is not binding in conscience, if they attempt to establish injustice or perversion of justice, then such judgment becomes of itself injustice, no matter of what people agree to, or attempt to judge, in front of God it is and still remains injustice. That is the essence of the truth, not some argument about it, as you attempted to categorize above, no matter of what linguistic nuances you have experienced before.
Aristotle wrote about the problem of words, definitions and meanings. The true sense of a thing requires that we look carefully at the thing in order to recognize its essence. Here is Aristotle’s method, which Aquinas mastered. Voegelin used Aristotle’s procedure in showing that Marxism was a political religion in its structure, psychology, and practice. Here is a new phenomenon which requires that we adjust some of our concepts. Voegelin said an attentive observer can see that our previous definition of religion has been discolored by earlier history and the religious nature of totalitarian movements can be shown. CONCERNED is not interested in what Voegelin clearly shows. I cannot get him to even discuss Voegelin’s analysis, or that of Chambers. If Communism is not a religion why does it want to eliminate Christianity, or take it over and communize it? Naturally, communists see Christianity as a competing system of thought. Competition implies that both are concerned with the same things.
Voegelin explained very clearly that the “higher being” that is venerated in political religions is “the people” and their instrument, the all powerful and absolute “state.” They therefore have a god and even an eschatology. But you never address Voegelin’s points. You keep discussing unrelated points.
Mr. Nyquist,
Voegelin is just a philosopher with his opinions, but they are not dogmatic nor binding in conscience. One the other hand St, Thomas Aquinas has been declared as Doctor of the Church by the Magisterial Authority of the past Popes, and several of them used his doctrine in the infallible doctrines of the Catholic Church. That is the difference.
To address the point above – the term political religion cannot be taken in its literal sense because that would elevate ANY political opinion into that level, which is then the realm of the so vastly spread today subjectivism, not of the objective truth.
But objective truth has its constraints which have to be observed, otherwise nothing will make any sense anymore and people could declare anything and claim anything to be their truth, despite the factual objective truth contradicting their opinions.
The statement, and categorical it was, that communism is a religion is refuted by the same point of the objective truth what the essence of religion truly is, so the term “political religion” does not represent that category at all, but invented new category, and an opinion of those who present them, but it is still outside the realm of the objective truth what the term religion truly means, as St. Thomas stated – quoted above.
IN another words, you cannot worship men, men don’t worship men and call it religion, nor can it be applied that you can worship an ideology, which again is impossible because then ideology of itself does not represent any kind of objective subject of worship, it lacks the stature or quality of that which religion towards the higher being represents…
In simpler words – to call an ideology a religion cannot be termed in a literal sense, only in figurative sense, based on the constraints the objective truth has, of what religion always have been and what it is.
In communism the presence of the object of worship or object of religion is missing, and communism only retains the ideology status, which cannot be called a religion…to worship an idea itself is not on the same level as worshiping God, that is impossible.
This is not some kind of argument, but categorical truth, as the Catholic Church has always understood it and declared it.
Aquinas never said anything about Karl Marx, Marxism, or Marxism-Leninism. These phenomenon were unknown to all previous history and to Aquinas. Please stop quoting him as if he actually analyzed the nature of Marxism. And Voegelin was not engaged in giving out his “opinion.” He was a philosopher and political scientist, and was not concerned with mere opinion. Voegelin understood the meaning of Doxa in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. In ancient Greek philosophy, particularly in Plato’s work, doxa represents a lower level of understanding, distinct from true knowledge. It is the opinion or belief that people hold, which may or may not be true. Voegelin was meticulous in his analysis. He was not giving out a “lower level of understanding.” This is not what he did.
Jeff, Would early next week be a good time for Venezuela to strike America? Hegseth has announced that he is assembling hundreds of generals at Quantico and Trump said that he would go if asked. Would it be possible to launch a nuclear warhead at Quantico?
It is possible to launch a nuke against Quantico from a submarine, of course. But it would not be decisive. These men all have deputies. What is interesting is the suggestion that a face-to-face meeting must be arranged because we no longer trust the security of our communications. Why else would such a meeting be called on the eve of war?