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There appears to have been a mild resurgence of Hlynkaism on the forum. This is concerning, because I believe that the core tenets of Hlynkaism are deeply confused.
@hydroacetylene said:
It's not entirely clear what's supposed to be the determining criteria of identity here. Are wokeism and the DR the same because they're both revolutionary, or are they the same because they only differ on who gets the cushy sinecures? At any rate, I'll address both points.
Revolution (defined in the most general sense as rapid dramatic change, as opposed to slow and gradual change) is a tactic, not an ideological principle. You can have adherents of two different ideologies who both agree on the necessity of revolution, and you can have two adherents of the same ideology who disagree on the viability of revolution as a tactic. Although Marxism is typically (and correctly) seen as a revolutionary ideology, there have been notable Marxists who denied the necessity of revolution for Marxism. They instead wanted to achieve communism through a series of gradual reforms using the existing democratic state apparatus. But does that suddenly make them into conservatives? Their tactics are different from typical Marxists, but their core underlying Marxist ideological principles are the same. I doubt that any of the Hlynkaists on this forum would look at the reformist-Marxists and say "ah, a fellow conservative-gradualist! Truly these are my people; they too are lovers of slow, cautious change".
"Tradition above all" is an empty formalism at best, and incoherent at worst. If tradition is your sole overriding source of moral truth, then we just wind up with the old Euthyphro dilemma: what happens when the tradition that you happened to be born into isn't worth defending? What if it's actively malicious? "Support tradition" is a formal principle because it makes no mention of the actual content of that tradition. If you are living in a Nazi or communist (or whatever your own personal avatar of evil is) regime whose roots extend back further than living memory, are conservatives obligated to support the existing "traditional" regime? Perhaps they're allowed to oppose it, but only if they do so in a slow and gradual manner. You can understand why this response might not be appealing to those who are being crushed under the boot of the regime. And at any rate, you can only arrive at the position of opposing the regime in the first place if you have an alternative source of substantive ethical principles that go beyond the formal principles of "support tradition" and "don't change things too fast".
As for the assertion that wokeism and the DR only differ on "who gets the cushy sinecures"; this is simply incorrect. They have multiple substantive policy disagreements on LGBT rights, traditional gender roles, immigration, foreign policy, etc.
Hlynkaism to me represents a concerning abdication of reflection and nuance, in favor of a self-assured "I know what's what, these radical Marxist-Islamo-fascists can't pull a fast one on me" attitude. This is emblematic of much that is wrong with contemporary (and historical as well) political discourse. The principle goal of philosophical reflection is to undermine the foundation of this self-assuredness. Actually, you don't know what's what. Your enemies might know things that you don't; their positions might be more complicated and nuanced than you originally thought. Undoubtedly the realm of political discourse would become more productive, or at least more pleasant, if this attitude of epistemic humility were to become more widespread.
And as a tactical choice it is itself a ideological commitment. It’s not merely ‘rapid change’- it requires an acceptance of top down impositions, rationalism, the idea of de novo societal shifts implemented by a vanguard party. I reject all of that ideologically. Western trads should seek to weaken state capacity where possible, capture institutions available for capture, and in other situations focus on building parallel institutions and weakening those institutions which cannot be captured. In so doing it is possible to build a functional society which envelopes and digests the rotting hulk of modernism.
I admit this is an exaggeration. However, there is a kernel of truth- a mere commitment to political incorrectness does not a social conservative make. I agree with much of the DR that gays are perverts who shouldn’t be allowed near kids, that women shouldn’t vote, etc. But my reasoning and therefore implementation of these ideas is very different.
You are right to point out that the distinction between tactics and principles is not as clean as I made it out to be. But I'm skeptical that recourse to revolution is always indicative of the deep ideological commitments that you portray it as having. Whatever it may entail ideologically, I don't think it's a good criteria for cleaving the global ideological space at the joints.
The American Revolution was, by most accounts, based on the principles of classical liberalism; principles that I imagine Hlynka and his fellow travelers would endorse wholeheartedly. Was there something ideologically objectionable about the American Revolution just because it took the form of a revolution? Does it have to be denounced? Were the founding fathers necessarily committed to a certain "top down rationalist" view of human nature that true Red Tribers would have to reject?
Or consider the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which instituted an Islamic theocracy. They certainly claim to be following a conservative tradition of some kind; it might not be your preferred tradition, but it's a tradition. Are they too committed to an Enlightenment rationalist view of human nature? Does Islamic theocracy share a deep philosophical affinity with Marxist communism that has hitherto gone unnoticed? And the American Revolution too?
The most reasonable conclusion, on my view, is not that revolutions are a result of people having a deep ideological commitment to the idea of a top down rationally organized society. Revolutions are a result of people wanting power, and having the means and opportunity to seize it. This is universal to left and right, old and new.
Would you be willing to elaborate on this? I'm just curious.
I claim that 1) revolution is a bad tactic for conservatives because it structurally pushes towards a totalizing state and top down change according to rationalist principles, and would point to Spain as an example 2) the vanguard party commitment is itself anti-conservative because it depends on thought experiments rather than iterative development for the design of the envisioned society 3) top down institutions for structural reasons tend towards anti-conservatism 4) only organic development can build institutions which push in a conservative direction.
Hlynka posting is technically a misnomer; I’m more influenced by de Maistre.
The Islamic revolution in Iran is a case of long term failure of top down revolution at creating the envisioned society, just like Franco was; its export through Hezbollah(bottom up even if astroturfed) is considerably more successful. Hezbollah’s control of Lebanon is an example of a conservative force building a parallel society which overtakes the secular modern government of the country in which it dwells by just being better at doing, well, anything people belong to a society for. It’s not an example I like very much- and the retardedly going to war with Israel over and over again will be its downfall- but it is an example. So is the taliban in Afghanistan. The Reagan revolution, driven by moral majority support due to evangelical Christianity(which in turn boomed largely due to the promise of healing the by-now embarrassing racial divisions in certain quarters) can be seen as a partial example but suffered from a lack of structural building.
Much of what the DR calls ‘based’ is just retarded antisociality rooted in the idea of either machismo or offending as many people as possible. I don’t particularly care about ‘big muscles’ as a societal goal, have more conservative sexual ethics than most on the DR(which in its most mainstream form endorses male promiscuity), do care about the duties men owe towards their families which the DR can sometimes be hostile to in the breach. I support the existence of alimony and child support laws and think abolition of no fault divorce is the solution rather than offering a worse deal for women. Women shouldn’t be voting because they have the right to be shielded from the res publicae, the same argument the original anti-suffragettes made, and that women are worse at voting than men are in the present circumstances is perhaps true but only an incidental to the thrust of my argument. This is a duty which men owe to women- it’s on the same grounds that women have the natural right to prioritize motherhood and homemaking over their careers, or to be exempted from the draft- and not a punishment for women being… I don’t actually know what the DR is mad at them for, but it’s clearly something.
Ok, this may be at the root of some of the confusion around this topic. When I say "DR" I mean specifically the narrow white nationalist variant. These people by and large are quite conservative in terms of sexual ethics. Someone like Andrew Tate is not DR under this definition.
You can say that it's not fair to focus on such a relatively small group and ignore the diversity of alternative right-wing thought, which is a valid point, but the white nationalists are worth looking at in particular because they do provide a significant counterexample to Hlynka's arguments.
Tate doesn’t appear particularly popular on the dissident right(or anywhere else, really). But the BAP sphere(and if that’s not core to the dissident right then what is) has considerably laxer views on fornication than I do, and the broader white nationalist sphere seems to mostly be ok with things like (male)fornication and heterosexual sodomy.
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