What is darkish lights, this neo-regional doctrine that influences Trumpism? | EUROtoday

On Apr 22, 2025

Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.

” LA neo-reaction is not the conservatism of your grandfather, ”warns Nick Land, a philosopher and a figurehead of dark lights. This radical school of thought is a kind of philosophy of lights upside down. For Land, this movement is “marriage, within the period of internet 2.0, between the rules of recent engineering and classical anti -democratic pondering”. A whole program.

Without constructions or actual analysis laboratory in universities, darkish lights flourish particularly within the borders of the Internet: between blogs, boards and marginal mental circles. Also known as NRX (for “neoreactionary”), this faculty of thought could appear confused at first. One factor is for certain, it’s primarily based on three elementary pillars: undemocratic, antiegalitarist and antiprogressist.

The thesis of accelerationism

The delivery of darkish lights is the fruit of a digital assembly between two singular minds: Nick Land, former thinker of the University of Warwick, fascinated by the Cyberpunk universe and technological dystopias, and Curtis Yarvin, an American engineer, influential blogger and disillusioned libertarian. When the 2 males meet, the combination is explosive. Nick Land, in his ebook The Dark Enlightenmentin 2012, which definitively consecrates the idea of darkish lights, doesn’t disguise his admiration for the American blogger.

In the Nineties, Nick Land had already made a reputation for himself along with his reflection on accelerationism, a thesis to say the least ambivalent. To put it merely, think about that you’re in a automotive launched at full pace on a winding street. The brakes are damaged, the steering wheel is shaking and the passengers howl to make the motive force decelerate. But as an alternative of making an attempt to brake, it presses even stronger on the accelerator. For what ? Because he’s satisfied that the one option to get out of this hellish scenario is to push the system to its level of rupture.

This is how accelerationists see the world: capitalism, know-how and trendy social constructions have change into uncontrollable. But as an alternative of making an attempt to decelerate or reform them, accelerationists assume that they should be pushed to their climax. Because it is just by reaching their excessive limits that these techniques will collapse, opening the best way to one thing new. “Capitalism is an infernal machine, but it is precisely by letting it be unleashed that it will reveal its contradictions and will be self -destroyed,” writes Nick Land.

The paradox of this concept is that it’s taken up each by part of the acute left, which sees it as a chance to shoot down capitalism, and by sure thinkers of the acute proper, who see it as an opportunity to sow chaos to rebuild an authoritarian and “perfect” society on its ashes.

Curtis Yarvin, the disillusioned libertarian who turned Cesarist

In 2007, Curtis Yarvin, underneath the pseudonym of Mencius Moldbug, revealed a political manifesto which is able to change into a reference for neoreactionaries. He presents himself as a satisfied libertarian, however deeply disenchanted. According to him, deregulated liberalism is “an obvious idea” which “could never be applied in practice”. For what ? Because, in accordance with Yarvin, libertarians are too connected to democracy, a system which he considers basically ineffective and corrupt.

Yarvin provides a radical various: Cesarism, an authoritarian type of authorities the place a robust chief, a “political CEO”, takes the reins of the state as we direct an organization. For him, “good is order”. The one and solely precedence is the effectiveness of political techniques. A political mannequin is nice if he manages to keep away from violence. Everything else – social justice, ecology, equality – is secondary, even superfluous.

In this imaginative and prescient, democracy is an out of date system, stricken by what Yarvin calls “cathedral”. This idea, which appears to be like like two drops of water on the thought of the deep state, is central in neoreactional pondering. The cathedral designates the media-academic complicated which, in accordance with him, imposes a progressive and egalitarian ideology on the entire of society. Yarvin writes: “Cathedral shouldn’t be a proper establishment, however a diffuse community of mental and media elites that form cultural and political norms. It is the true energy behind the throne. »»

An undemocratic and technocratic doctrine

Dark lights subsequently reject democracy, which they think about as an ineffective system, unable to unravel the complicated issues of the trendy world. Instead, they advocate an authoritarian technocracy, the place choices are made by enlightened consultants or leaders, with out interference from the plenty. This imaginative and prescient is impressed by absolute monarchies, but in addition massive trendy corporations, the place energy is centralized and choices are made hierarchically.

Nick Land, in his take a look at The Dark Enlightenmentgo even additional by saying that egalitarianism is a harmful phantasm. According to him, human societies are naturally hierarchical, and any try to equalize them results in mediocrity and chaos. He writes: “Egalitarianism is not only a mistake, it is a betrayal of human nature. Societies thrive when they accept their natural hierarchies. »»

The real question is: to what extent Elon Musk, even Donald Trump, are influenced by this school of thought. Because the junction between traditional conservatives and dark lights is not obvious. On the contrary even. Curtis Yarvin, convinced atheist, defends any form of moral values in politics, whether they come from progressives or Catholic conservatives.

“He violently condemns the conservatives who, in mirror of progressives, are unable to think of power as it is. According to Yarvin, the conservatives are consubstantially reached for democracy. The reactionary character of Yarvin’s thought is reflected in a desire to dissolve the politician in an authoritarian economic engineering, “mentioned researcher Arnaud Miranda, researcher at Cevipof and specialist in up to date ideas of decadence, in a analysis article.

The advisers of advisers

Likewise, marriage between neoreactionarians and the American alt-right shouldn’t be apparent. “If the neoreaction and the alt-right share the refusal of conventional conservatism, these two currents don’t appear to us to be confused. The alt-right is populist and with a supremacist tendency. The neoreaction is basically formalist and elitist. The neoreactionalists despise populism as being basically democratic: if there’s a political change, it could possibly solely come from above, “observes Arnaud Miranda.

Yarvin “imposes himself as a serious mental affect with the important thing personalities of the longer term administration of Donald Trump, particularly on the potential threats to American democracy”, wrote The Guardian A few weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration. Indeed, the blogger seems to have an intellectual influence on the vice-president elected JD Vance and is close to several members of the Trump administration.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

In a podcast recorded in 2021, JD Vance mentioned: “There is this Curtis Yarvin who wrote on some of these things. You have to accept that all this will collapse. “Before including:” The task of the conservatives at present is to preserve as much as possible and, then, when the inevitable collapse will arise, to rebuild the country in a way that is really better. »»

The influence of this thinker of dark lights does not stop there. Curtis Yarvin is also very close to Peter Thiel, co -founder with Elon Musk de Paypal, Marc Andreessen, billionaire and informal advisor to the president, and Michael Anton, also advisable to the president. Arnaud Miranda also argues that “Yarvin would have favored the political ascent of Elon Musk and would notably be on the origin of the Gaza Plan”. Meanwhile, Voltaire turns into his grave.

https://www.lepoint.fr/eureka/qu-est-ce-que-les-lumieres-sombres-cette-doctrine-neoreactionnaire-qui-influence-le-trumpisme-22-04-2025-2587909_4706.php