Returning to Yarvin in 2024

Reinjecting Yarvin's thoughts into the online Right

There are some among this sphere who believe that

Curtis Yarvin

’s, (Mencius Molbug’s) ideas have been discredited, either by the rise of Trump, the Russian invasion of Ukraine or some other event. I do not believe this to be true. Yes, in some ways the “Cathedral” may be weaker than it once was, but it is far from dead. In fact, I would argue that it isn’t so much weaker as it is different, what was once done subtly is now done in the open. Some may view this may be a good thing, but it also presents great danger for a political Right more divided than ever.

   The Trump assassination attempt demonstrates just how weak the American populist “right” remains. Think about it, even if Trump actually represented your views, if he had actually taken the bullet, who would have been able to pick up the sword? The answer is no one, perhaps if it occurs now Vance could pull together a presidential campaign, but what would his term even look like? What does a Trump term really look like? 

   To many of my readers, this will simply be rehashing the obvious. Of course Trump may not be “Your Guy”, but he symbolically represents you, and it opens the door further. Sure, maybe. For those among you who are populists, I would argue he’s really a detriment, as he serves as a pressure release for the regime to allow the populist wave to lap harmlessly on the beachhead rather than become a tsunami. You can’t just run a populist platform every four years, there’s just not enough fuel. In addition, the “enemy at the gates” strengthens the resolve of those who may have been less dedicated to the progressive narrative had he not existed. Think about the pre-2016 political climate, and how divided the American left was. Now the radicals have united with the “moderates” in favor of doing anything-and-everything to StOp FaSCisM!!@!. 

   It is because of this that I would like to return our attention to Unqualified Reservations, and in particular its plan for “action”.

A few points before we begin:

First, I do not agree 100% with Yarvin on everything here. Nor do I disagree 100%. There are things that Yarvin’s worldview is severely lacking in my opinion. The point of quoting in long form is to A) introduce anyone here who hasn’t already read Unqualified Reservations, and B) bring the writings back into circulation as many seem to have abandoned some of the key takeaways.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the American election cycles, and a lot of talk focused around the culture war. I do not see most of this as time well spent. It may be a fun hobby, but for me politics isn’t either fun or a hobby, (I much prefer history), so I don’t think dedicating time inefficiently to it is very worthwhile.

For the record, some of it matters in its own way. Some “culture war” issues are actual issues, (immigration for example), but there are just much larger concerns.

These “larger concerns” are twofold: How to seize power and how to use it. These should always be the primary concerns for anyone serious about politics, and everything else discussed should be informed by the conclusions that one draws from contemplating these two questions.

What I will be focusing on in this essay is Curtis Yarvin’s, answer to the “seize power” question. I’m cutting right to the chase, this essay isn’t about whether or not such a seizure is necessary. I believe his answer to this question is one of the most thoroughly explained and among the most coherent. I also believe that he factors in much fewer nonsensical factors than many in our sphere.

All quotes are pulled from Chapters 9 and 10 of “A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations”. If at any point you feel lost, please go and begin your reading at chapter 1.

First, for some terminology: “The Reaction is an ideal plan for a discontinuous transition of sovereignty, or reboot. The Procedure is what you can do, dear reader, to help make the Reaction happen.”

“A sovereign is defined by its decision structure: the institutions and mechanisms by which it decides to do whatever it does. A reboot is any complete and instantaneous replacement of a sovereign decision structure.”

Now, before I get any further, I would like to put in one very important quote about what the “Reaction ” and “Reboot” which follows is not: “..a reboot has about as much in common with your common, or garden, revolution as a beautiful young woman has with a Gila monster. The two are, quite simply, opposites. Whether your reboot is the true Reaction, dear reader, or some improved model of your own design, please do not use that other R-word. For to describe it as soiled, is to describe shit as shitty.”

Some of my readers seem to be under the illusion that I support a violent uprising in which we reenact 1776 but with AR-15s. I do not, nor do I think “we” would win anyways.

“In our American Reaction, we’re replacing the decision structure of USG.”, (Yarvin refers here to the United States Government), “This is an inherently discontinuous transition. To make the change as clear as possible, the new USG will need a new name. Let’s be unimaginative, and call it NUSG—versus OUSG. NUSG is to inherit all assets and liabilities of OUSG, and none of its decision structure. The transition is nondestructive, instantaneous, and unconditional, like any civilized change of management.”

“The essence of any 21st-century reaction is the unity of these two forces: the modern engineering mentality, and the great historical legacy of antique, classical and Victorian pre-democratic thought. The adept, to achieve reactionary enlightenment, observes that both yield the same result. What can it be, but the truth for which all good men seek? Armed with this sure and fearless faith, the Reaction conquers all.”

“That said, let’s jump right in to the Procedure. The Procedure comes in Three Steps:”

1. “Become worthy.”

2. “Accept power.”

3. “Rule!!1!”

I will only be mentioning steps 1 and 2 here, you can easily go and read Yarvin’s own thoughts on what step 3 looks like.

Firstly, we must “become worthy”. Yarvin’s key principle here is what he calls “passifism”, (misspell intended), which is the antonym of “activism”, not “violence”. Fundamentally this “passifism” is a separation from the inherent desire for power. Activists want power, they want a “share” in the sovereignty of the system. More from chapter 9. “As a reactionary, you don’t believe that political power is a human right. You will never convince anyone to adopt the same attitude, without first adopting it yourself. Since you believe others should be willing to accept the rule of the New Structure, over which they wield no power, you must be the first to make the great refusal. They must submit to the New; you must submit to the Old.”

Most important of this is to reject any sort of mainstream politics. You have no party and no candidate.

“One excellent way to make this relationship concrete in your mind is to use the word “subject,” rather than “citizen.” If by some unfortunate coincidence you remain a resident of the British Isles, you are already taught to say “subject.” So you’ll have to shift to something even more demeaning, like “peasant.” This may still overstate your political impact.”

For those who follow Yarvin’s more recent work, this section may explain his thoughts on Biden: “Voting is a borderline case for the passivist. Is it an aggressive act of defiance to refrain from voting—or does electoral participation constitute impermissible political intervention? Either way, you might be breaching the steel rule. Perhaps the most careful policy is to always vote for the candidate or measure that the newspapers expect to win, abstaining only in close contests.”

The one exception Yarvin lists is a direct petition to USG, such as writing your congressman, as this makes no illusion about your involvement.

What you must understand about all of this, is the idea that popular sovereignty is a myth. Government which answers directly, (or indirectly), to the people doesn’t really exist. Even Chomsky understand manufactured consent. Democratic power is transitional, it never lasts long. To actively participate in a false democracy is to perpetuate the myth further, but to drop out altogether is to accept the premise.

If you think all of this is just defeatism, you’re wrong. The goal, after all, is still steps 2 and 3, but you can’t achieve these goals through conservative counter-activism. In fact, Yarvin believes that counter-activism directly strengthens the regime, thus, passifism. “Since, as all external observers can agree, the progressive movement is largely held together by hate, active resistance from the right is not just a waste of effort. It actually contributes to the left’s metabolism. I am not the first to notice this: call it the Dabney effect.”

In short, counter-activism is worse than useless, it just feels good. Therefore it should be avoided.

Moving on to chapter 10., Yarvin begins discussion of what to do. Before we begin on this course of action, I must make two things clear. Firstly, I am assuming that the reader desires regime change of some sort already, (which is why I began the discussion on chapter 9), secondly, everything which follows is based on the given assumption that such proceedings become necessary. I will leave the reader to determine when that is.

“The first big secret of the Procedure: it is not a way to destroy the Modern Structure. Oh, no! It is quite the opposite. It is a way to recover from the spontaneous failure of the Modern Structure. Airbags do not cause car crashes. The Reaction can simply be considered as a safety measure for a potentially spurious failure mode that will probably never happen.”

“Should the Americans remain forever content under their good and ancient Constitution, including of course the innovations and institutions now conventionally ascribed to it, they will remain forever in the grips of the Structure. For better or for worse. The Structure is not some nefarious organ within Washington. It is Washington itself. It must be taken or left.”

“The choice being so drastic, so outside every man’s ken, it is possible that the Americans will remain forever content. In which case: the Procedure is a fun hobby and absolutely harmless. It is also possible that they will not remain so content, and Washington will so abuse them that they declare a case of government failure.”

Thus, the “Reaction” is a backup plan. The primary plan for Yarvin at the time of this writing is simply to let USG exist and do its thing. In the case that it fails however:

“In which case: what comes next? The purpose of the Procedure is to answer this question. If keeping Washington is Plan A, what is Plan B? Obviously, in the case that the Americans do not remain forever content with their noble overlords, something must be done. Clearly, this plan has been entirely neglected and is of considerable importance. Devising it can only be construed as a public service.”

“If this Plan B is never used, it should at least be entertaining to construct, and at best have some other social utility in the world of Plan A. If it is used, on the other hand, it should work as well as is possibly foreseeable.”

Yarvin then lets the cat out of the bag so to speak, by explaining that, “The second big secret of the Procedure is that airbags, um, do cause car crashes. (Or, at least, anti-lock brakes cause car crashes.)

How? Because drivers modify their behavior when in a vehicle without these safety features. Although any Plan B is no more than a safety feature, its may also have some indirect effect on political behavior.”

In layman’s terms, there is currently no alternative to USG, therefore it is best to live under Washington. Were an alternative present and fully constructed however, perhaps this would change. To state what should by now be obvious:

“In case anyone, perhaps not having watched enough Kung Fu episodes, remains morally confused about how sincere passivists can assemble a political weapon, passivism turns out to be just one special case of a more general principle: do not act until it is proper to act. Since it is nowhere near proper to act, the difference is irrelevant—now, and for the foreseeable future.”

“So the First Step is (a) a fun hobby which enhances, invigorates, relaxes and entertains the soul of man under socialism;¹ and (b) an information weapon to be used offensively in the Second Step, and defensively in the Third. It is not a compromise between these two objectives. It is both, at once, completely. But how can anyone succeed in such a daring enterprise?”

“The spiritual core of the First Step is the famous and ancient Chinese principle of the Mandate of Heaven, or Tianming. This can be condensed as the principle that power flows toward the worthy. To attain power: become worthy to rule. Since becoming worthy is a worthy exercise by definition, it satisfies our need for quantum Buddha duality. It is simultaneously harmless and deadly—both, at once, completely. Moreover, no one can laugh at it, because I did not make it up myself. Tianming is quite literally ten times as old as American democracy, and far better proven by experience.”

Becoming noble, (see

Johann Kurtz

’s earlier writings), is a crucial step in overriding the system as it stands. Not only is it necessary in a practical sense, it is also greatly preferable. Simply put, I do not want rule by the terminally online.

“To defeat the Modern Structure, create a New Structure which is more worthy to rule. Much more worthy to rule. Once this (perfectly passive) task is complete, the New Structure has only to wait. The law of Tianming tells us that power will flow to it—as the rains return to the ocean.”

“Remember the analogy of the eject button. The reason USG is so stable is not that it is (a) structured militarily to retain power without the broad consent of its subjects. Nor is the regime (b) especially loved by said subjects. Rather, USG is permanent because there (c) exists no credible alternative to its services.”

“No one can press the red button, because there is no red button. This precludes all forms of effective collective resistance—political or military—to the continued rule of USG. If your goal is to abolish USG and then figure out what to do next, you are crazy and no one will support you. If your goal is to reform USG, you are ignorant, dense or deluded, and you will fail—not personally, of course, but just in achieving your goal.”

Yarvin then goes into several paragraphs of explaining that the Soviet Union fell primarily because there was a clear alternative presented: American style democracy. I’ll save you the four paragraphs that explain this, it’s simple enough to grasp. In contrast: “USG has no possible resistance to a new Schelling point. Therefore, according to some optimists, constructing one should make it at once turn black and drip into the bedsprings, like the corpse of M. Valdemar. Everyone will be amazed in retrospect that this 18th-century relic survived into the early 21st. Even if this rosy scenario does not occur, the device once assembled creates many practical options.”

Importantly, we should be hopeful that USG simply becomes a good institution again. We aren’t little communist rodents, I don’t want to gnaw the wiring to bits, I’d rather it simply work. However, I don’t believe this likely, thus we move onto methods.

“In the First Step, we do not replace all of USG. We just replace its brain—the University. With a new device we call the Antiversity, which is pretty much what it sounds like it is. Here is a summary:

“The Antiversity is an independent producer of veracity—a truth service. It rests automatic confidence in no other institution. Its goal is to uncover any truth available to it: both matters of fact and perspective. It needs to always be right and never be wrong. Where multiple coherent perspectives of an issue exist, the Antiversity must provide all—each composed with the highest quality available.”

“The power of a truth service is its reliability. It may remain prudently silent on any point; it must err on none. The thesis of the Procedure is that if we can construct a truth service much more powerful than USG’s noble and revered ministry of information, we will be able to use it to safely and effectively defeat USG. Indeed, I can imagine no other way to solve the problem.”

“Once this device of great veracity, the Antiversity—expressing not only razor-sharp analytical intelligence, not just exhaustive learning, but also great prudence and judgment—is fully armed and operational, it is straightforward to ask it the question: chto dyelat? What is to be done? What is the sequel to the coup d’état? What is Plan B?”

“The Antiversity will promptly deliberate, in its accustomed fashion, and churn out a hundred-page report. Probably with a DVD-sized appendix. And this will be Plan B, which describes how the institutions of NUSG are created outside power and installed in it. Plan B, in short, is the constitution of the Second Step.”

If this sounds a little bit too simple for you, that’s because it is. Yarvin will later elaborate what he believes Plan B would actually look like, the point is to show who is going to create it. You have ample reason to take issue with this, but to keep it simple, if the plan isn’t created by smart and honest people, you’ll end up with either a failure or a bad success.

As for this Antiversity, it has real consequences. The goal of the Antiversity isn’t to simply be a new research institute, it’s real purpose is to demonstrate clearly just how far Harvard and its ilk have drifted from truth. In doing so, the “trust the experts” mentality will be revealed to be even thinner than it is already understood to be.

As it stands today, the experts are trusted because there are no other experts. Sure, your neighbor might have doubts about global warming, but these people sure are a lot smarter than he is. Better to just drive a hybrid, just in case they’re right. But what if there were real subject-matter-experts detailing exactly how and why the global warming narrative has huge holes? Perhaps he’d drive a Ram…

This is more possible today than when Yarvin was writing in 2009. Thanks to Covid, the “experts” have lost a great deal of face. However, they still stand, and will continue to do so until replaced.

You may believe an Antiversity to be unnecessary, but if you want to stand any chance of building a government that can functionally govern all of the United States, you will need one first. Think about it carefully, why does it seem like everything you learn from either side is always a lie or an exaggeration to at least some degree? They have political incentive to just make it the fuck up sometimes. If you want truth in any field, (science, history, even mathematics), you have to separate the researcher from the politician entirely. The truth service- the Antiversity- must not only state when the University lies, it must also state when it has told the truth, (which it does on the vast majority of subjects), otherwise it will lose credibility instantly. If the Antiversity is ever seen to lie, the University regains almost all lost credibility. This is also the reason why it must be at least semi-organized, while there are millions of low-level writers like myself, most of us are wrong a significant portion of the time, so there’s no credibility in simply claiming that the University lies.

Before you continue, please read the entirety of Yarvin’s writing on the Antiversity, I do not have time to properly summarize and it is imperative to understand the rest if this essay.

I’ll be resuming here on what happens next.

“First, the program of the Antiversity will (unless I am completely out to lunch) be simply too far to the right to derive any benefit from any incremental shift to the left. It cannot sell in the same market as conservatism; it must create its own market. And there will always be a categorical barrier between the two.

“Second, moderating its program means diluting its truth service with tactical fiction, a compromise of which it is constitutionally incapable. Unless, of course, it has been corrupted.”

“Third, and perhaps most important, choosing the Antiversity over the University is a boolean choice—there is no way to split the difference. For this choice to remain clear, of course, the Antiversity has to be right every time it disagrees with the University.”

I have had arguments with friends about the premise of this “Antiversity”. One told me that simply put, “we are the Antiversity”. This is false. The Antiversity cannot be some grassroots movement, nor a collection of “debunkers”. It must be a formal institution. In order to always tell the truth and never be wrong, it must have a chain of command which controls all information distribution. If this is not done, it will fall apart. Certain people can always be right about their specialties, maybe you can trust

Raw Egg Nationalist

for all your dietary concerns, but for the Antiversity to work, they must specialize in everything. Therefore, it must be a real formal institution of some kind. Maybe Elon can fund this next…

“On all three counts, we see a clear separation. Basically, I believe that the Procedure can succeed because I believe there is an isolated political maximum, or island of stability, several orders of magnitude to the right of the present-day political spectrum. If you stay on the island—the Right Pole, as it were—you have a chance of actual victory. If not, you might as well go work for David Frum.”

“This might be called a Martin Luther strategy. Luther had many predecessors, often quite talented and vigorous, who worked to reform the Church. The result: barbecue. But Luther, who worked to abolish the Church, died in his bed. Not that he abolished the Church, but not that it abolished him either. Why? Because the island of stability is a perfect Schelling point.”

“The set of all people who want to reform the Church is not a trivial coalition. How do they want to reform the Church? What, precisely, is their agenda? Anyone can say he wants to reform the Church, and mean anything by it. The bishops can be for it. The cardinals can be for it. The Pope can be for it. Reform! Yes, by all means, we shall have reform.”

“The set of all people who want to abolish the Church is a trivial coalition. Either you are a Protestant or a Catholic. It is not possible to be a Protestant on some issues and a Catholic on others. Neither side will accept those who are lukewarm. The result: cohesion and commitment.”

What all of this means is simple: There are a million variations of “reform the USG”, from Socialists all the way to Project 2025 social conservatives. There are very few who want to completely replace USG altogether. There is never a “that is too far” moment with this cause, you either want it gone or you don’t. Moving forward:

“Let’s look at this Right Pole, this island of stability, a little more closely. What are its attractions? The island cannot be a Schelling point unless people actually want to move there. Besides the innate excitement of extremism—which you can get any day at Kos or Stormfront (have Kos and Stormfront ever thought of cooperating on some kind of anti-Jew initiative?)—what are the mental attractions of the Reaction?”

“I see two: one obvious and one not. The obvious one is that, since the Reaction is the Antiversity and the Antiversity is always right, the attraction of truth is always present, and never dispelled by even the smallest injection of fiction. Not everyone has a nose for pure truth, but many do. Moreover, the pattern in which those who have a nose for pure truth come to it and feast en masse, like tadpoles on a dead fox, is recognizable to many of the rest.”

“The less obvious attraction—though perhaps even more important—is that, unlike conservatism, the Reaction actually has a credible strategy for achieving power. If sufficiently large numbers of people abandon the University and shift their trust to the Antiversity, the Modern Structure will fall, the New Structure will be born, and those who overthrow it will receive power. The details of this transition are completely unimportant, at least for this discussion.”

“In other words, it is quite straightforward to picture a future in which reactionaries recapture USG. It may not be likely, and in fact it is not; but the picture can be constructed. It is not straightforward to picture a future in which conservatives recapture USG, because conservatives are nowhere near having a plan to attack the University, the Civil Service, the Press, or the structure surrounding them. (What conservatives mean by victory: more jobs for conservatives.) Since no actual attack is contemplated, no victory can be imagined. And since the Structure is not about to go away on its own, no realistic world without it can be portrayed.”

“Whereas the reactionary narrative is easy: everyone becomes a reactionary. More or less. When there are enough of us, we seize the State—“by any means necessary,” as Malcolm put it, although as reactionaries we must at once add and proper—and complete the Procedure.”

“You start to see why building the Antiversity is such a tremendous task. The Antiversity has to become so credible that it can serve as the definitional backbone of a political movement which could not otherwise exist: the movement to replace the Constitution with the Antiversity. (More precisely, with a transition plan of the Antiversity’s design.)”

“The mountains exist. But there is a path—I believe. And if I am right, if there is a path, this path is the basis for exactly the same type of feedback power generator that was born as the Progressive movement, and grew up to be the Modern Structure. I note, however, that the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was plugged into just the same feedback reaction. So the effect is both powerful and dangerous—as we should expect, in any recipe for sovereignty.”

“Basically, if you see a plausible strategy for domination whose only missing ingredient is the number of supporters, it is rational to join this strategy, especially if it costs you nothing to join. Thus progressives crowd around the supple progressive line, constantly twisting to support whatever policy gives progressives the most victory and power. Watch them twist now, on Afghanistan! It is always sad to see others in mental pain. But they adjust.”

“Most progressives are socially normal human beings, who in any political environment would just be choosing the largest, best-appointed bandwagon for their personal conveyance. In Nazi Germany they would be Nazis, in Russia they would be Bolsheviks, in the kingdom of Louis XIV they would be all for Louis XIV. This is one of the many reasons there is no need to guillotine them. Au contraire: one way to know you’ve actually seized actual power is that these remoras latch on to you. The effect is unmistakable and quite pleasant. It is also useful.”

This is what I meant in my last essay. The average progressive is just a person, and he’ll just be a person under any regime. There is no utility in viewing over 50% of the American population as your enemy just off of voting records, especially when you can simply unplug them from access to authority.

Now, we need to talk more about this Antiversity. The Antiversity is an absolute must-have for this procedure, although what it looks like is up for debate. The reason for this is simple, the regime is both controlled by and defended by American academia. So long as academia and journalism continue unimpeded, you won’t be able to replace the regime, (the exception being maybe a military coup, but this would put Mark Miley in charge so we’ll still need the procedure).

Academia and journalism are the sources of manufactured consent, they inform American progressives about what to think. Even if you suddenly replace the regime tomorrow, the majority of both the population and the government won’t be behind it, (look at Trump between 2016 and 2020 if you want to see what that looks like). Academia and journalistic institutions have to be shown for what they are, and once a new regime is built, they must be replaced.

What follows is essentially the remainder of the process by which power is seized:

“At the beginning of the Second Step, the Antiversity is already a well-established institution which has consumed hundreds of man-years of individual effort. It is, in a word, a success. It cannot be laughed at or ignored. It may still appear improbable that it will defeat the University in the struggle for control over USG, but it can no longer appear impossible. Therefore, some probability factor can be applied to its success.”

“It is the product of this probability with the magnitude of the success—the expected value—that matters. The feedback takeoff effect should occur when this product, which should be nonzero, exceeds the equivalent product for progressivism, the University and the Modern Structure.”

“Young supporters continue to be attracted to progressivism, because progressivism offers them impact, i.e., power. Very small slices of impact. Very, very small. I.e.: bogus internships at second-tier polar-bear foundations. But—still. The magnitude is very small, but the probability is 1 by definition. The Structure rules, and apparently will always continue to rule.”

“Obviously, after becoming the Establishment itself, our old revolutionaries have very little free power to offer. Everything they could get their fangs on, they have sucked and discarded. The remaining prey is very small, very elusive, and very indigestible. The progressive movement is rapidly experiencing a crisis of power starvation—its supporters, who feed on victory, demand action. But there are precious few victories left to win.”

“A reboot strategy, such as the Reaction, offers a slice of impact in a more probabilistic way. Although it has a low probability of victory, the magnitude of victory—a whole new regime to construct—is so large that their perceived product is not insignificant. At least, it should be comparable to the starvation rations of the progressive. Let alone to those of conservatism, in which the probability of victory is significant but the magnitude of the victory is negligible.”

“Thus the Reaction has the ability to become fashionable with amoral elites, which was clearly a prerequisite for any kind of political success in the 19th and 20th centuries. Instead of a tiny slice of power in the existing regime, which is real, it offers supporters a large slice of power in the new regime, which is hypothetical—but which will become real, as soon as enough people support it. This is sufficient to stimulate the chimpanzee power instinct, which is if anything more developed in the most cultured and educated of minds.”

“If we consider the set of Reaction supporters as a social network, we will see that the core of this social network is the set of extremely intelligent, learned and prudent scholars who have created the Antiversity. Since its strategy for success involves expanding that social network, it must do what all successful social networks do: start with the elites, and work downward.”

“So, again, the Reaction has two engines: truth and victory. By producing truth and only truth, it attracts those strange geeks who are attracted to pure truth. Because it has a strategy for actual, complete victory, it attracts those normal remoras who are attracted by victory. With the combination, it is built to win—like Kimbo Slice.”

“In the American context, victory can only be produced by a coalition of civilized unity, i.e., a party containing both Amerikaners and dissident Brahmins. Once a sufficient quantity of the latter can be recruited, the former will recognize their natural leaders and fall into line. However, organizing any number of Amerikaners by any method which precludes the recruitment of Brahmins is a waste of time. Even in a democracy, the great contest is for minds, not heads. Once the minds are won, the heads will follow.”

“Tactically, conservatism concentrates on exactly the wrong side of this problem. It concentrates on recruiting the largest number of Amerikaners, by any means necessary. It goes straight for the democratic bait. The bait is indeed tasty and can generate a very realistic impression of power, but it is a mob rather than an army and cannot organize itself for any real political capture. I would trade the entire red-state population for a quarter of the Burning Man attendees—because, if I had the latter, I could easily get the former back. Again, political actors naturally recognize their natural leaders. Forge the spearhead, and the spear will show up on its own.”

“If this coalition of the middle and upper classes—the civilized classes—can be formed, victory is certain regardless of the numbers of the underclass. When the civilized classes are united, an underclass population of any size is not a political problem, but a security problem. And not a difficult one in this day and age. If the civilized coalition is outvoted, it can simply bid directly for the loyalty of the security forces, a contest it will always win.”

“The civilized coalition is politically conceivable. Hints of it, for instance, were seen in the Giuliani era in New York. Of course “Giuliani time” in New York developed orders of magnitude less power than would be required for actual regime change. Nonetheless, it was found possible to appeal politically to the upper crust to perform the normal or healthy role of aristocrats, i.e., cooperating to preserve civilized society. Which was admittedly in a somewhat dire condition.”

“One of the chief features that makes the Modern Structure pathological, in the present era, is the inescapable alliance of the upper class and the underclass against the middle. Rather than a Brahmin–Amerikaner alliance, we have a Brahmin–Dalit alliance.² As political structures go, this one is quite sordid and inefficient, but also quite stable.”

“However, observed in retrospect from a future in which the civilized coalition has reasserted itself, the Brahmin–Dalit alliance makes a distinctly negative impression on the student of history. This impression is easily conveyed to impressionable high-school students—sealing, in a generation or two, the historical fate of democracy. NUSG will certainly have no difficulty in making its predecessor look bad.”

“In short: all the Reaction must do is convince reasonable, educated men and women of good will to support stable, effective and reliable government. If this cannot be done, we are most certainly all doomed.”

“So there are no real Jedi mind tricks in the Procedure. There is no magic jujitsu that will make Washington go away instantly. There is just a very large amount of extremely hard work. Given the number of people currently devoting their efforts to strategies of resistance that have no chance of success under any circumstances, however, this one strikes me as relatively promising. I hope you agree.”

Closing Thoughts

Yarvin was writing Unqualified Reservations in 2009. Some things have changed, most have not. You are more than welcome to discuss specifics in the comments, but if you throw everything he’s said out the window simply because “America is more polarized now”, you’re an idiot.

If this is the only work by Curtis Yarvin you’ve ever read, please read more. Two chapters of one blog as a standalone really doesn’t do his work justice, this essay is primarily intended as a reintroduction. I highly recommend this essay as well as this one to start.

Lastly, a few notes to those to detractors.

You are more than welcome to disagree with the idea that “the Procedure” is the only way forward. You are also more than welcome to disagree with Yarvin’s desired end-state of an American monarchy. However, before you do please consider the following:

Firstly, on the end-state, governments must be designed to fit the people. America’s human capital is currently slop. I don’t like it anymore than you, but it’s true. Until it is no longer slop, a democracy can’t work, (see Haiti). Even if it could, why would you want that? If you can lay out a route to some mythical Starship Troopers-esque Republic that’s at least half as coherent as Yarvin’s procedure, maybe I’m here for it. Until then, I’m kinda stuck with this one man, I dunno what to tell you.

Secondly, and most importantly, about the procedure. If you would prefer the populist route to a monarchical end-state, that’s fine. You can be a fascist, I’m not going to get all moralistic about it. But you must seriously think about what that end-state will look like. Personally, under the current political climate, I don’t like it. I’m not allergic to the idea, but I’d rather we ended up somewhere more stable. If you don’t, or don’t think that this is possible, fine, but please seriously think about what that will look like when you win.

Again, in some ways to a new reader Yarvin may seem, in his own words, “out to lunch”, but his work laid the foundations for much of the “Dissident Right”, and it should be taken seriously and read by all.