Dark Enlightenment

The Dark Enlightenment, also called the neo-reactionary movement or neoreactionarism (abbreviated to NRx), is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian,^[1] and reactionary philosophical and political movement.^[2] A reaction against Enlightenment values,^{[3][4][5] [6][7]} it favors a return to traditional societal constructs and forms of government such as absolute monarchism and cameralism.^[5] Influenced by libertarianism, the movement advocates for authoritarian capitalist city-states which compete for citizens. It also rejects progressivism as a threat to Western civlization, critically referring to liberal institutions as "the Cathedral" and their goals as "the Synopsis". The movement espouses race realist views which they claim are suppressed by the Cathedral.

Starting in the late 2000s, the movement has had contributions from figures such as venture capitalist Peter Thiel, software engineer Curtis Yarvin, and philosopher Nick Land. While neoreactionary views have been criticized and connected with those of fascism and the alt-right, the movement has gained traction with parts of Silicon Valley as well as several political figures associated with United States President Donald Trump, including political strategist Steve Bannon, Vice President JD Vance, and Michael Anton.

Neo-reactionaries are an informal community of bloggers and political theorists who have been active since the 2000s. Steve Sailer is a contemporary forerunner of the ideology, which also draws influence from philosophers such as Thomas Carlyle, Julius Evola, as well as William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson in their book The Sovereign Individual.^{[8][6][9][10]}

In 2007 and 2008, software engineer and former progressive^[6] Curtis Yarvin, writing under the pen name Mencius Moldbug, articulated what would develop into Dark Enlightenment thinking. Yarvin's theories were elaborated and expanded by philosopher Nick Land, who first coined the term "Dark Enlightenment" in his essay of the same name.^[8][11][12]

By mid-2017, NRx had moved to forums such as the Social Matter online forum, the Hestia Society, and Thermidor Magazine. In 2021, Yarvin appeared on Fox News' Tucker Carlson Today, where he discussed the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan and his concept of the "Cathedral", which he claims to be the current aggregation of political power and influential institutions that is controlling the country.^[13]

Several prominent Silicon Valley investors and Republican politicians have expressed their influence from the philosophy, with venture capitalist Peter Thiel describing Yarvin as his "most important connection".^[14] Steve Bannon has read and admired his work, and there have been allegations that he has communicated with Yarvin which Yarvin has denied.^[15][16][17] U.S. Vice President JD Vance has cited Yarvin as an influence.^[18][19][20] Michael Anton, the State Department Director of Policy Planning during Trump's second presidency, has also discussed Yarvin's ideas.^[21] In January 2025, Yarvin attended a Trump inaugural gala in Washington; Politico reported he was "an informal guest of honor" due to his "outsize influence over the Trumpian right."^[22]

Central to neoreactionarism's ideas is a belief in freedom's incompatibility with democracy, with Land having stated "Democracy tends to fascism".^[16] Yarvin and Land drew inspiration from libertarians such as Peter Thiel; Thiel had claimed that the West needed a new political system in the face of 9/11, which he considered to mark the Enlightenment's failure, and stated “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible".^[16][3][4] A 2016 article in New York magazine notes that "Neoreaction has a number of different strains, but perhaps the most important is a form of post-libertarian futurism that, realizing that libertarians aren't likely to win any elections, argues against democracy in favor of authoritarian forms of government."^[23]

Andy Beckett stated that NRx supporters "believe in the replacement of modern nation-states, democracy and government bureaucracies by authoritarian city states, which on neoreaction blogs sound as much like idealised medieval kingdoms as they do modern enclaves such as Singapore."^[24] The modern solution devised by Yarvin in "A Formalist Manifesto" advocates for a form of "neocameralism" in which small, authoritarian "gov-corps" coexist and compete with each other, an idea anticipated by Hans Herman-Hoppe.^{[25][16][8][26]} He claims freedom under the system would be guaranteed by the ability to "vote with your feet", whereby residents could leave for another gov-corp if they felt it would provide a higher quality of life, thus forcing competition. Land reiterates this with the political idea "No Voice, Free Exit", taken from Albert Hirschman's ideas of voice being democratic and exit being departure to another society:^[16]

"If gov-corp doesn’t deliver acceptable value for its taxes (sovereign rent), [citizens] can notify its customer service function, and if necessary take their custom elsewhere. Gov-corp would concentrate upon running an efficient, attractive, vital, clean, and secure country, of a kind that is able to draw customers."^[3]

Ana Teixeira Pinto describes the political ideology of the gov-corp model as a form of classical libertarianism, stating "they do not want to limit the power of the state, they want to privatise it."^[27] According to criminal justice professor George Michael, neoreaction seeks to save its ideal of Western civilization through adoption of a monarchical, or CEO model of government to replace democracy.^[28] Yarvin has advocated for a "dictator-president" or "national CEO".^[29] He has also described himself as a royalist, monarchist, and Jacobite,^[16] and has praised cameralism, Frederick the Great,^[17][4][5] Thomas Carlyle, and Friedrich Hayek.^[6] Neoreactionary ideas have been referred to as "feudalist"^[16] and "techno-feudalist".^[6][7]

Prominent figures in the neoreactionary movement have connections to seasteading, the creation of sovereign city-states in international waters, which has been characterized as a way to execute the movement's ideas. Yarvin has connections to Patri Friedman, founder of The Seasteading Institute, and Thiel was once its main investor.^[16][6] Thiel has also advocated the use of cyberspace, outer space, and the oceans to outstrip traditional politics via capitalism in order to realize libertarianism.^[4]

Neoreactionaries refer to contemporary liberal society and institutions which they oppose as "the Cathedral" in association with the Puritan church, and their goals of egalitarianism and democracy as "the Synopsis". They claim that the Cathedral influences public discourse to promote progressivism and political correctness,^[16][8] which they view as a threat to Western civilization.^[4] Yarvin considers Ivy League schools, The New York Times, and Hollywood to be members.^[17][30] El País compared the concept to the idea of the deep state and QAnon conspiracy theories.^[6]

Neoreactionaries endorse race realism, referring to it as "human biodiversity". Land coined the term "hyperracism" to refer to his views on race; he believes that socioeconomic status is "a strong proxy for IQ" rather than race specifically (though he acknowledges a correlation between race and socioeconomic status), and that meritocracy, particularly space colonization, will "function as a highly-selective genetic filter" that propagates mostly (but not strictly) Whites and Asians.^[16][8] He praised China, Hong Kong, and Singapore for their lack of "social terror", attributing it to them being ethnically homogeneous.^[26] Yarvin has stated "Although I am not a white nationalist, I am not exactly allergic to the stuff", believing it to simply be an ineffective tool for "the very real problems about which it complains." Yarvin has endorsed arguments for Black racial inferiority and claimed they are being suppressed by the Cathedral.^[17][30]

Neoreactionarism functions to achieve accelerationism, using capitalism and technology to destabilize existing systems and create radical change. Land views democratic and egalitarian policies as only slowing down acceleration and a technocapital singularity, stating "Beside the speed machine, or industrial capitalism, there is an ever more perfectly weighted decelerator [...] comically, the fabrication of this braking mechanism is proclaimed as progress. It is the Great Work of the Left."^[30][16] Vox characterized such views as having come from Land living in China's "techno-authoritarian political system" and his admiration for Deng Xiaoping and Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew,^[30] with Land calling Lee an "autocratic enabler of freedom" and Yarvin also praising Lee.^[31] Yuk Hui stated "Land’s celebration of Asian cities such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore is simply a detached observation of these places that projects onto them a common will to sacrifice politics for productivity".^[4] Land has advocated for accelerationists to support the neoreactionary movement, though many have distanced themselves from him in response to his views on race.^[24]

Developed by Yarvin, Formalism^[17] is a doctrine which advocates for the restructuring of symbolic power to correspond to actual power, rejecting democratic politics as "a sort of [merely] symbolic violence, like deciding who wins the battle by how many troops they brought":^[32]

"To a formalist, the way to fix the US is to dispense with the ancient mystical horseradish, the corporate prayers and war chants, figure out who owns this monstrosity, and let them decide what in the heck they are going to do with it. I don't think it's too crazy to say that all options—including restructuring and liquidation—should be on the table."^[32]

Rejecting pacifism for what he perceives as a tendency to advocate for the rectification of injustices instead of actually seeking an end to armed conflict, Yarvin promotes the adoption of classical approaches to international law and the idea of "formalising the military status quo"^[33] as the most direct path to peace. He identifies the form of pacifism which prioritises "righteousness" instead of peace with the Calvinist doctrine of providence, and "ultracalvinism" as the ideological/theological basis for contemporary American interventionism.^[34][35]

The Dark Enlightenment has been described by journalists and commentators as part of the alt-right (as its theoretical branch),^[36][37] as well as neo-fascist.^[36][38] University of Chichester professor Benjamin Noys described it as "an acceleration of capitalism to a fascist point". Land disputes the similarity between his ideas and fascism, claiming that "Fascism is a mass anti-capitalist movement", whereas he prefers that "capitalist corporate power should become the organizing force in society".^[36]

Journalist and pundit James Kirchick states that "although neo-reactionary thinkers disdain the masses and claim to despise populism and people more generally, what ties them to the rest of the alt-right is their unapologetically racist element, their shared misanthropy and their resentment of mismanagement by the ruling elites".^[39]

Scholar Andrew Jones, in a 2019 article, postulated that the Dark Enlightenment is "key to understanding" the alt-right political ideology.^[40] "The use of affect theory, postmodern critiques of modernity, and a fixation on critiquing regimes of truth", Jones remarked, "are fundamental to NeoReaction (NRx) and what separates it from other Far-Right theory".^[40] Moreover, Jones argues that Dark Enlightenment's fixation on aesthetics, history, and philosophy, as opposed to the traditional empirical approach, distinguishes it from related far-right ideologies.^[40]

Historian Joe Mulhall, writing for The Guardian, described Land as "propagating very far-right ideas."^[41] Despite neoreaction's limited online audience, Mulhall considers the ideology to have "acted as both a tributary into the alt-right and as a key constituent part [of the alt-right]."^[41]

Historians Angela Dimitrakaki and Harry Weeks tie Dark Enlightenment to neofascism via Land's "capitalist eschatology" which they describe as supported by the supremacist theories of fascism. Dimitrakaki and Weeks say that Land's Dark Enlightenment was "infusing theoretical jargon into Yarvin/Moldbug's blog 'Unqualified Reservations'".^[42]

Describing the impact of Dark Enlightenment theories upon the contemporary art world, art historian Sven Lütticken says that the popularity of Land's concepts has made certain art centers in New York and London hospitable to trendy fascism.^[43]

The term "accelerationism", originally referring to Land's technocapitalist ideas, has been re-interpreted by some into the use of racial conflict to cause societal collapse and the building of white ethnostates, which has been linked to several white nationalist terrorist attacks such as the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacres. Vox pointed to Land's shift towards neoreactionarism, along with neoreactionarism crossing paths with the alt-right as another fringe right wing internet movement, as the likely connection point between far-right racial accelerationism and the otherwise unrelated technocapitalist term. They cited a 2018 Southern Poverty Law Center investigation which found users on the neo-Nazi blog The Right Stuff who cited neoreactionarism as an influence.^[30] Land himself has called the neoreactionary movement "a prophetic warning about the rise of the Alt-Right".^[16]

Prior to his election to the Vice Presidency, J.D. Vance cited in his 2022 Senate Campaign a "strongman plan to 'retire all government employees,' which goes by the jaunty mnemonic 'RAGE.'"^[44] RAGE was a plan to fire government employees which would allow society to begin its path towards The Network State. In a 2021 interview, "Vance said Trump should 'fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country and say, The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”^[45]

Some have pointed out that the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, bears resemblance to RAGE, as advocated for by Yarvin.^[45][7] Land, when asked by the Financial Times if he approved of DOGE, said "the answer is definitely yes", having also endorsed Steve Bannon's goal of "deconstruction of the administrative state".^[26] Yarvin has claimed to have given staffing recommendations to Michael Anton.^[22]

Journalist Andrew Sullivan argues that neoreaction's pessimistic appraisal of democracy dismisses many advances that have been made and that global manufacturing patterns also limit the economic independence that sovereign states can have from one another.^[46]

In an article for The Sociological Review, after an examination of neoreaction's core tenets, Roger Burrows deplores the ideology as "hyper-neoliberal, technologically deterministic, anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, pro-eugenicist, racist and, likely, fascist", and ridicules the entire accelerationist framework as a faulty attempt at "mainstreaming ... misogynist, racist and fascist discourses".^[47] He criticizes neoreaction's racial principles and its brazen "disavowal of any discourses" advocating for socio-economic equality and, accordingly, considers it a "eugenic philosophy" in favor of what Nick Land deems "hyper-racism".^[47]

• Tait, Joshua (2019). "Mencius Moldbug and Neoreaction". In Sedgwick, Mark (ed.). Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy. Oxford University Press. pp. 187–203. ISBN 978-0190877606.