Neo-Reaction (NRx): The Dark Enlightenment

Overview

Neo-Reaction (NRx), also called the "Dark Enlightenment," is a far-right political philosophy that rejects democracy and Enlightenment values, advocating for return to monarchy, hierarchy, and "realistic" governance. Within the Pax Judaica framework, NRx represents:

• Officially: Intellectual critique of democracy and progressivism
• Functionally: Ideological cover for tech oligarchy and authoritarian capitalism
• Politically: Pipeline from libertarianism to authoritarianism
• Eschatologically: Nihilistic embrace of power worship preparing for techno-feudalism

Origins and Key Figures

Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug)

Background (documented):1

• Born 1973; computer scientist
• Created blogging platform Urbit
• Wrote as "Mencius Moldbug" (2007-2014)
• "Unqualified Reservations" blog
• Influential in Silicon Valley

Core works:2

• "An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives" (2008)
• "A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations" (2009)
• "How Dawkins Got Pwned" series
• Various essays on monarchy, democracy, and power

Connections (documented):3

• Peter Thiel attended his talks
• J.D. Vance (VP, 2025) cited as influence
• Tucker Carlson interviewed him
• Advised on Trump transition (disputed)

Nick Land

Background:4

• British philosopher
• Former Warwick University professor
• Moved to Shanghai
• Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU)

Contributions:5

• "The Dark Enlightenment" (2012) - manifesto
• Accelerationist philosophy
• Inhuman aesthetics
• Cosmic pessimism
• Techno-commercialist absolutism

Style: Deliberately obscure, apocalyptic, nihilistic prose.6

Other Figures

Michael Anissimov: Early NRx promoter; later distanced7

Bryce Laliberte: Austrian economics + NRx synthesis

Jim's Blog (Jim Donald): Extreme NRx; misogyny; monarchism

Intellectual Influences

Reactionary Canon

NRx draws from:27

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881):

• Criticized democracy
• "Great Man" theory of history
• Praised strong leadership

Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821):

• Counter-Enlightenment philosopher
• Defended throne and altar
• Pessimistic view of human nature

Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923):

• Elite theory (circulation of elites)
• Critique of democracy
• Mathematical sociology

James Burnham (1905-1987):

• The Managerial Revolution (1941)
• Managerial class as true rulers
• Democracy as facade

Oswald Spengler (1880-1936):

• The Decline of the West (1918)
• Cyclical view of civilizations
• Caesarism as inevitable final stage

Libertarian Roots

Murray Rothbard (1926-1995):28

• Anarcho-capitalism
• Monarchy > democracy (controversial late work)
• Paleolibertarianism

Hans-Hermann Hoppe (b. 1949):29

• Democracy: The God That Failed (2001)
• Private law society
• Monarchy more efficient than democracy
• Physical removal of leftists (controversial)

Pipeline: Libertarianism → anarcho-capitalism → critique of democracy → NRx monarchism30

NRx and Silicon Valley

The Tech Connection

Why Silicon Valley attracted to NRx:31

1. Critique of existing system: Tech entrepreneurs frustrated with regulation, bureaucracy

2. Exit mentality: Build new thing rather than fix old thing (startup mentality)

3. Hierarchy comfort: Tech naturally meritocratic and hierarchical (or so claimed)

4. Accelerationism: Embrace disruption, creative destruction

5. Libertarian roots: Many tech founders started libertarian; NRx is "post-libertarian"

Peter Thiel's Role

Documented connections:32

• Attended Yarvin talks
• Shares NRx skepticism of democracy ("no longer compatible with freedom")
• Seasteading Institute funding
• Palantir's authoritarian-friendly tech
• J.D. Vance backing (Vance influenced by Yarvin)

Thiel quotes:33

"I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." (2009)

"The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics." (Before women's suffrage)

Other Tech Figures

Marc Andreessen:34

• a16z venture capital
• Promoted e/acc (effective accelerationism)
• Anti-regulation stance
• Techno-optimism bordering on determinism

Balaji Srinivasan:35

• Former Coinbase CTO
• "Network State" concept (digital exit)
• Crypto-anarchism meets NRx
• Exit via technology

Curtis Yarvin's Urbit:36

• Decentralized computing platform
• "Digital exit" from Big Tech
• Funded by Peter Thiel, Andreessen Horowitz
• Cultish following in crypto/tech circles

The Cathedral Thesis: Analysis

What It Gets Right

Institutional power is real:37

• Elite universities do shape ideology
• Media does have bias
• Bureaucracies resist change
• Consensus is manufactured

Credentialism and capture:38

• Elite schools as gatekeepers
• Revolving door between institutions
• Groupthink in professional classes

What It Gets Wrong

Implies coordination that doesn't exist:39

• Academia is fragmented and competitive
• Media outlets fight for scoops
• No central control
• Conflates emergent pattern with conspiracy

Ignores right-wing institutional power:40

• Conservative think tanks (Heritage, AEI)
• Fox News, conservative media ecosystem
• Religious institutions
• Corporate power (usually right-aligned)

Class analysis missing:41

• Cathedral thesis is cultural, not economic
• Ignores capital's role in shaping ideology
• Misses that progressive rhetoric often serves elite interests

The Conspiratorial Slide

Cathedral → "Them" → Antisemitism:42

Pattern observed:

Start with Cathedral (institutional progressivism)

Ask "who runs the Cathedral?"

Notice Jewish overrepresentation in media, academia

Conclude: Jews control everything

NRx → alt-right pipeline

Yarvin's response: Claims to oppose antisemitism; "Cathedral" not ethnic conspiracy.43

Reality: Many NRx adherents make explicit antisemitic arguments; Nick Land flirts with "Jewish question."44

Patchwork and Corporate Sovereignty

The Governance Model

Yarvin's ideal:45

Neocameralism: Government as profitable corporation

Structure:

• Sovereign corporation owns territory
• Shareholders own stock
• CEO-monarch manages
• Goal: Maximize shareholder value (= resident welfare)
• No democracy, but market discipline (residents can exit)

Real-World Experiments

Charter cities:46

• Honduras ZEDE program (Zone for Employment and Economic Development)
• Próspera (anarcho-capitalist city)
• Critics: Neocolonialism, circumventing local democracy

Company towns (historical):47

• Pullman, Illinois (1880s) - Failed; labor unrest
• Amazon's HQ2 demands (2017-2018) - Cities competed for privilege of Amazon overlord
• Foxconn cities in China - Worker exploitation

The problem: Companies optimize for profit, not welfare; residents are captive; "exit" is expensive.48

Saudi NEOM

The project (announced 2017):49

• $500B+ planned investment
• "The Line" - linear city
• AI-governed
• Separate legal system
• No democracy

NRx dream realized?: Absolute monarchy + high-tech + planned city50

Reality: Construction disasters, forced evictions, likely to fail or become dystopia.51

Acceleration and Nihilism

Nick Land's Dark Enlightenment

The vision:52

Capitalism as inhuman process:

• Not tool humans use
• Autonomous force using humans
• Accelerating toward Singularity
• Human agency irrelevant
• Techno-capital will consume all

Ethics: None; only efficiency and acceleration

Aesthetics: Inhuman, alien, horror (cosmic pessimism)

Accelerationism

The split:53

Left accelerationism (l/acc):

• Accelerate capitalism to its collapse
• Hasten contradictions
• Communism on the other side

Right accelerationism (r/acc):

• Accelerate capitalism as end in itself
• Technology is amoral god
• Humans will merge with machines or be discarded
• Democracy, humanism obstacles to acceleration

Effective accelerationism (e/acc): Recent variant; techno-optimist version (see separate article)

The Nihilism Problem

NRx's dark core:54

No positive vision: Only critique; no inspiring future

Power worship: Might makes right; survival of the fittest

Anti-humanism: Humans as expendable; technology or hierarchy as supreme values

Pessimism: Decline is inevitable; only "realistic" to accept hierarchy and domination

The appeal: To disaffected, cynical, and nihilistic; offers meaning through submission to power55

NRx and the Pax Judaica Framework

Techno-Feudalism as Stage III

The interpretation:

Pax Judaica requires:

• Abandonment of democracy
• Acceptance of hierarchy
• Technological control
• Corporate sovereignty
• Elite rule justified ideologically

NRx provides:

• Intellectual justification for abandoning democracy
• Blueprint for tech oligarchy
• Philosophy for accepting domination
• Exit mechanisms preventing revolt (patchwork diffuses resistance)

Silicon Valley as Vanguard

The claim: NRx-influenced tech elites building Pax Judaica infrastructure56

Supporting evidence:

• Thiel's Palantir (surveillance)
• Musk's Neuralink (control)
• Andreessen's AI investments (replacing human decision-making)
• Yarvin's influence on right-wing politics (J.D. Vance)

The endgame: Techno-monarchy where tech CEOs are literal sovereigns; democracy abolished as obsolete.57

The Libertarian-to-Fascist Pipeline

The pattern observed:58

Stage 1: Libertarian (individual freedom, small government)

Stage 2: Anarcho-capitalist (no government, markets for everything)

Stage 3: NRx (democracy is the problem; hierarchy needed)

Stage 4: Fascism (strong ethnic nation-state; hierarchy enforced)

Documented cases: Many former libertarians now alt-right or NRx59

Critiques

From the Left

The critique: NRx is reactionary apologetics for oligarchy and oppression.60

Specific arguments:

Ahistorical: Ignores why democracy emerged (monarchies were brutal and unstable)

Class warfare: Elites rejecting democracy because it threatens their power

Pseudointellectual: Dresses up power worship in philosophical jargon

Racist and sexist: HBD is scientific racism; gender hierarchy valorized

Dystopian: Patchwork = corporate tyranny; neocameralism = neofeudalism

From the Right

Traditional conservatives: NRx is too extreme, nihilistic, and anti-Christian.61

Critiques:

• Rejects tradition in favor of futurism
• Obsessed with efficiency over virtue
• Amoral techno-capitalism not true conservatism
• Atheistic and inhuman

From Libertarians

Critique: NRx betrays libertarian principles.62

Objections:

• Endorses authoritarianism
• Abandons individual liberty
• Trusts monarchs over markets
• Exit is fake freedom (still under sovereign's control)

From Democrats

Critique: NRx misunderstands democracy.63

Counter-arguments:

• Democracy is process, not outcome; legitimacy through consent
• Inefficiency is feature (prevents tyranny), not bug
• Accountability matters; monarchs unaccountable
• Cathedral thesis overstates elite coordination
• Empirical record: democracies outperform autocracies on most metrics

Influence and Impact

Political Influence

Documented impact:64

J.D. Vance:

• 2024 VP candidate
• Cited Yarvin as influence
• Criticized democracy
• Backed by Peter Thiel ($15M+)

Curtis Yarvin:

• Invited to Trump world events
• Tucker Carlson interview (2021)
• Influence on New Right

Ideas entering mainstream:

• "Cathedral" language used by conservatives
• Democracy skepticism more acceptable on right
• Exit (seasteading, network state) discussed seriously

Cultural Influence

Beyond politics:65

Literature: NRx aesthetics in sci-fi (e.g., Peter Watts, Ted Chiang critique it)

Gaming: Themes in strategy games; online discourse

Philosophy: Academic engagement (critical but acknowledging it exists)

Tech: Startup culture influenced by exit mentality

The Future of NRx

Scenarios

Scenario 1: Fading fad:

• NRx peaked ~2014
• Absorbed into alt-right or faded
• Intellectual dead end

Scenario 2: Tech oligarchy realized:

• Thiel, Musk types accumulate power
• Democracy weakens
• Corporate sovereignty expands
• NRx becomes default ideology of elite

Scenario 3: Fascist synthesis:

• NRx merges with ethno-nationalism
• Techno-fascism emerges
• Cathedral thesis fuels antisemitic conspiracy theories

Warning Signs

If NRx succeeding (things to watch):66

• More tech elites rejecting democracy publicly
• Charter cities expanding
• Exit mechanisms (crypto, seasteading) gaining adoption
• "Cathedral" discourse mainstreaming
• Political figures citing NRx thinkers
• Monarchism or authoritarianism gaining intellectual respectability

Discussion Questions

Is democracy truly inefficient, or is inefficiency its strength (prevents tyranny)?

Does "Exit" actually provide freedom, or just choice of master?

Is the Cathedral thesis valid social analysis or conspiracy theory?

Can hierarchy be justified, or is equality a fundamental value?

Is NRx honest pessimism or self-serving ideology for would-be oligarchs?

Further Reading

• Peter Thiel
• Effective Accelerationism
• Dark Enlightenment Philosophy
• Libertarian to Fascist Pipeline
• Techno-Feudalism

This article examines Neo-Reaction within the Pax Judaica framework. While NRx writings and tech connections are documented, claims about coordinated oligarchic conspiracy remain speculative interpretations.