The dominant religion of the west is now Democracy.

It has nothing to do with classical liberal republics. It is in essence an ecclesial order of experts given total power to create equality. Votes and elections only serve as mere rituals of allegiance to this order. This order's job is to define and destroy the sins of racism, sexism, homophobia, and any other inequality that expands their power over all. Equality is necessarily totalitarian.

Like all religions they define their heresy by antithesis; any worldview that rejects equality.

I said I wouldn’t comment on the Bear discourse, but it still seems to still have legs, so here we are.

What the women who choose the bear are saying is “there are not enough men around me who I trust”. They don’t know anything about bears, obviously. To understand this you have to think in terms of tribes. Not modern ideologies or even the relatively high civilization “tribes” that the Romans would have described people like the Gauls living in.

I’m talking prehistoric tribes of small bands of humans made up of mostly kin.

The Matrix is a cultural milestone of modern film. The action and sleek aesthetics have earned it appreciation from many angles but ultimately its an anti-parable of spiritual failure.

What The Matrix presents is the futility of trying to Escape from Escaping. Like many guys my age I thought The Matrix was the coolest thing in the world when it came out.

Alongside Ghost in the Shell and other cyber-punkish works it introduced Plato’s cave and theory of mind concepts to a lot of teenagers who were just looking to be entertained.

I’ve seen a lot of conversation about the Sky Father vs. Earth Mother thing on the rw side of X lately.

I have a pretty weird take on the problem that I’ve been looking for an excuse to share and this is as good a reason as any. The problem, as far as RW circles see it, is that modern liberalism is a Longhouse; an overly-communal society managed by a matriarchy of scolds and weak men enforcing safety-ism and mediocrity.

The longhouse and all it’s attendants are a symptom of Earth Mother worship.

With the recent news that a sequel to the movie Gladiator is coming there are rumors of the new movie being “woke” and fuzzy memories about the original are running amok. I thought it would be worth giving my take on the films legacy.

Gladiator in the Circus 🧵 Gladiator is really two films. One is a dedication to many great things about ancient Rome; a glorious spectacle of armies, arms, and armor. A film that brings the Colosseum back to life.

The other film is political propaganda the kind of which Hollywood cannot be subtle about.

As one of the High Openness Low Agreeable individuals referenced herein, and can I be so bold as to suggest “Worldly Curmudgeon” for this disposition, this piece spoke to me in a lot of ways.

I was surprised to see Post-Christian here, as I’ve been calling myself that lately.

https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1651304801693466658

I was raised Methodist, slid into agnosticism, then atheism. I was repulsed by the progressiveness of modern Atheists though.

It’s hard to watch people mock God while asserting a vulgar reflexive faith in equality, gender, and feminism and take them seriously.

The reason the establishment is so insane on escalating with Putin is because of their delusions about Trump.

They are treating the guy with nukes like he would only use them in their imagination because on some level they've normalized their own propaganda of everything. Trump was a "fascist" who obeyed court rulings and peacefully transitioned power after losing an election.

They've spent years pretending this objective reality should be replaced with the narrative that DC saved itself from a fascist takeover that wasn't going to happen.