12/21/2023 0 Comments Unherd editor![]() Still, anyone who reads or listens to Yarvin today will find a devil-may-care but erudite geek with a sense of humor that doesn’t typically accrue to folks with his IQ. Many Moldbug readers have grown up a lot since the days of Unqualified Reservations. No, not Elizabeth Holmes (although Yarvin draws a good deal of inspiration from Silicon Valley)-he’s talking about Queen Elizabeth I. Not MAGA but MEGA: Make Elizabeth Great Again. In short, Yarvin imagines the president as a technocrat with a scepter. He treats social-justice progressives with slightly more contempt than the other two, but sometimes sounds like an old-school progressive-albeit one wrapped in royal finery. Nevertheless, he explains his curious beliefs better than any troglodytic MAGA-head, pious progressive, or dogmatic libertarian. Yarvin’s worldview is a bracing middle-finger salute to every major political tribe. After all, until Unqualified Reservations appeared, who was arguing that Europe’s Dark Ages offer a set of organizing principles to which humanity ought to aspire? His writing is vibrant, provocative, occasionally witty, and undeniably original. Historically literate and well-read, Yarvin has absorbed the writing of thinkers like Thomas Carlyle and James Burnham and arrived at a philosophy that has been variously described as “neoreactionary” or “neo-monarchist.” America’s Founders, he maintains, got it all wrong-liberal democracy is a busted flush, and what the United States needs is the strong arm of an American Caesar to bring order to the prevailing chaos. Yarvin maintains visibility on the podcast circuit because his message is wildly different from the sort of hash most intellectuals sling these days. If you’re a basement-dweller with a webcam and a mic, he might just show up for a chat. He’s spoken for over an hour to Fox’s Tucker Carlson he’s appeared on Michael Anton’s Claremont Institute podcast the American Mind and most recently he's written longform essays for Compact and UnHerd. Moldbug, it turned out, was the nom de guerre of software developer Curtis Yarvin, and since he discontinued blogging, his star only seems to have risen, especially on the “post-liberal” Right. For this, he was eventually anointed High Priest of the “Dark Enlightenment.” Moldbug gave it good and hard to progressives, libertarians, and conservatives alike. Though Unqualified Reservations was a vanilla-looking blog, I could still imagine a curmudgeon with an ink well and quill, furiously scribbling about this or that shibboleth, pulling no punches, suffering no fools. There was something Voltairean about him. The first time I read Mencius Moldbug, I chuckled.
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