The NRx ‘Trichotomy’ Becomes a Dichotomy

From a Facebook post by Curt Dolittle, AN ANALYSIS OF THE STATE OF NRx AND ITS RELATION TO PROPERTARIANISM

Neoreaction has its roots deeply embedded in San Francisco-area tech culture. Moldbug is a technologist who is now trying to upgrade the internet. Anissimov worked as media director for the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and gained recognition through his association with transhumanism before jumping on Neoreaction.

It would seem NRx has morphed away from tech culture, as the traditionalists/ethno-nationaists have decidedly secured the ideological upper-hand.

From The Trichotomy Explained:

Since Spandrell’s celebrated blog post of April 2013, neoreaction has been seen as a trinity, or “trichotomy” of three principles: the Ethno-Nationalist principle, the Techno-Commercial principle, and the Religious-Traditionalist principle.

Now it’s more like a dichotomy. The Techno-libertarians have fallen out of favor. I am probably the only one who blogs about Silicon Valley culture in the context of reaction.

I’m not sure why the techno-libertarians have fallen from grace. Maybe it has to do with immigration, which plays a large role in the Silicon Valley economy and how ethno nationalism is incompatible with it. Vox Day, who is an emphatic ethno nationalist and traditionalist, has probably the biggest audience of any on the the ‘alt right’ and would appear to be the putative ‘leader’ of NRx thought.

I would be disappointed if NRx becomes another ‘white nationalist’ group. I think NRx has the potential to be something different.

The problem is NRx could be too smart for its own good. NRx may remain a philosophical movement and not a political one due to these internecine intellectual conflicts. Smart people tend to not want to conform, and will sometimes vehemently defend their differences instead of uniting. The Republican and Democratic Parties work because they have lots of members who are of average IQ, making it easy to unite behind a cause or a core set of values. But given how the traditionalists and ethno nationalists represent the overwhelming majority of NRx, cohesion is possible but maybe not in the direction I had hoped.