Monday, March 04, 2013

The Dark Enlightenment

A 10-part series, by Nick Land:  On "Dark Enlightenment."  (I've linked to Matt Leslie's presentation of it, which is where I found it, and also because the original links don't work, it seems.)

Long, complicated, interesting.  Basic question:  Is democracy simply incompatible with individual liberty?  Not in tension with, mind you.  Incompatible.  You may know "Dark Enlightenment" from Mencius Moldbug, of course. See also "Left Singularity."

with thanks to Jeremy B.

4 comments:

Dirty Davey said...

Then again, is any form of government compatible with "human liberty" so conceived? Or do we come back to Churchill: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Once a world has more than one person in it, some infringements on total liberty are inevitable.

Road to Surf Bum said...

Oofta.I'm halfway through this pot of honey, when "so this is how my students feel" popped into my head. Is this gonna be on the exam?

Florarie online said...

It depends on how you define democracy. The present universal democracy is certainly incompatible with individual freedom, but it was considered so from ancient times.

Jeff said...

Moldbug is an interesting thinker, and I see his criticisms of democracy as pretty much on the money. That said, I am not sure ideas like rehabilitating the ancien regime, as he seems to favor, represents any sort of improvement on the status quo, and he kinda goes off the rails trying to defend it. Ah well. Good reading nonetheless. In this day and age there's