“Everything moves and nothing stays fixed…one cannot step into the same river twice”
–Socrates paraphrasing Heraclitus to Hermogenes, Plato’s Cratylus
Human beings are not partial to change. In fact, we tend to be significantly more impartial to it compared to other species. A 2019 behavioral study conducted by Georgia State University demonstrated that monkeys are more cognitively flexible (more able and willing to change or adapt) than humans are. In the study, a group of humans, rhesus macaques, and capuchin monkeys were instructed to select three icons in a sequence. They completed ninety-six trials, then were given ninety-six more trials in which they were able to immediately select the final icon instead of having to follow the sequence. Whereas the monkeys began selecting the final icon early on, the humans opted to select the icons in the original order they were given. It wasn’t until later on in the trials that they began solely selecting the final icon, proving their own opposition to change.
This study may not provide a complete understanding of why people are resistant to change, but it does give us one major insight: humans are creatures of habit. We favor things that have been around longer because we know them and are comfortable with them. This is not an active choice on our parts, either–it is a biological trait. When we encounter something we are unfamiliar with, our amygdala will release a certain amount of fear hormone, depending on how much of a threat we interpret the unfamiliar object to be. In order for us to be able to overcome this fear, there are certain conditions that have to be met.
In the 1960’s a man named David Gleicher managed to quantify this set of conditions. He determined that in order for someone to be willing to instigate change, the product of their status quo dissatisfaction (A), their desired state (B), and the steps necessary to obtain the desired state (D) has to exceed the cost of the change (X). These numbers do not require any particular scale, and are subject to an individual’s own evaluation of their present state. This formula was later refined by Kathie Dannemiller in the 1980s, and this version is most commonplace today (the inequality ABD>X was changed to DVF>R, where D is one’s dissatisfaction with their present condition, V is their vision(s) of what is possible, F is first concrete steps that can be take to achieve their vision(s), and R is the psychological resistance that they will encounter).
A person’s place on the political spectrum is largely determined by the result of their personal Gleicher/Dannemiller formula. If the product of a person’s DVF exceeds R, they will find themselves leaning towards the liberal side of the spectrum (more change). Alternatively, if the product of a person’s DVF is less than R, they will find themselves leaning towards the conservative side of the spectrum (less change). However, the results of these inequalities are subject to change as a person accumulates more knowledge and experiences. In the political arena, these shifting values, as they pertain to a large population of people, are the root cause of an abstract phenomenon known as the “political pendulum” or “pendulum theory.”
When in reference to United States history, pendulum theory is referred to as “cyclical theory.” This term was coined by Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr., in his book Paths to the Present (1949), as a means of explaining the oscillations between liberal and conservative thought (in an exclusively American context). Since the sample size the theory pertains to is relatively small, it is more structured than pendulum theory. In fact, cyclical theory was expanded and elaborated upon by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. in The Cycles of American History (1986). However, because it is used in a broader context, pendulum theory ultimately has a larger data pool than cyclical theory. It can be applied across a range of time periods and geographical regions, from the American Revolution in the 18th century, to the rise of the Third Reich in the 1930s, to the Iranian Revolution that installed Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.
The saying goes, “We must know our history or we are doomed to repeat it.” In the case of reactionary conservatism, this reigns true. Reactionary conservatism describes a recurring event that has happened on the precipice of many major historical events.
A reactionary movement can be classified as anything that would change tradition. This begs the question: what does this have to do with religion? Conservatism via religion is the scapegoat being used to justify certain reactionary movements. Traditionalism as a whole has been rooted in conservatism, with religion as an identity. When it is broken down, conservatism is traditionalism, with a chosen religion to justify it.
Conservatives do not include just the religious; to believe traditionalism is exclusive to religion crosses out a margin of people. A separation of country and religion almost never happens. Therefore, even if those in that country do not take on the religion, they will most likely adapt some of the mannerisms and moral beliefs of said religion. What starts out as a group of people to mold becomes factions of people who believe in a religion and partake in its beliefs, people who partake and do not believe, people who believe and do not partake, and people who do none of these. The reactionary cause would appeal most to those who partake and believe and those who do not believe but partake.
Reactionary conservatism has been noted as far back as the French Revolution. During this era, conservative forces—especially within the Catholic Church—organized opposition to the progressive socio-political and economic changes brought by the revolution in the hopes of restoring the temporal authority of the Church and Crown. In the 19th century, reactionary denoted people who idealized feudalism and the pre-modern era (before the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution), when economies were mostly agrarian, a landed aristocracy dominated society, a hereditary king ruled, and the Catholic Church was society’s moral center. Those labelled as “reactionary” favored the aristocracy over the middle and working classes, and opposed democracy and parliamentarism. Reactionary is also used to denote supporters of authoritarian anti-communist régimes such as Vichy France, Spain under Franco, and Portugal under Salazar.
Another more recent example is the “progressive” movement in the US during the presidency of FDR and Woodrow Wilson. Progressives take the view that progress is being stifled by vast economic inequality between the rich and the poor, minimally regulated laissez-faire capitalism with monopolistic corporations, and the intense and often violent conflict between those perceived to be privileged and unprivileged. They argued that measures were needed to address these issues. The progressive movement was met with two alternative factions in its receiving message: those who idealized moving forward as a nation for people of color, women, and people in the poverty brackets, and those who used the progressive title to benefit the rich. Economically, Roosevelt and Wilson made strides to abolish trusts, which were a means for the rich to become richer. However, socially, there were no strides made toward improving the conditions of groups that lacked a voice, making this “progressivism” a false statement at best.
In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham. But I am sorry that your statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being.” In this letter, Dr. King was addressing a certain kind of white person; someone who says they believe in racial equality, but detests protests calling for racial equality. He addresses the same type of person who would say that they believe in racial equality, but refuse the existence of a racial problem. The argument of the people he was addressing was simple: that if black folks cared for civil rights, they must go to legislators and negotiate- not wreak havoc in the streets.
It is the same argument made today by people who self-proclaim “I’m not a racist.” The type of people who say things like “I’m not racist, I just think that, first of all, this country has no race problem. Those people were drug dealers. And, regardless, you should never loot! Looting is bad, and illegal! Those THUGS are ruining our country!”
Letter from Birmingham Jail reads the same way right now as it would have sixty years ago. Put it in the lap of someone who proclaims “I’m not racist,” and they’ll squeal at how uncomfortable it makes them. No matter the political belief, the letter truly makes you wonder- are Dr. King’s dreams still dreams? Progress seemed to be made. Laws were signed, pictures were taken. Movies were made, books were published. A black man became President. But the same arguments are being made.
Barack Obama was not the most progressive president. His vice-president had a decades long career at Capitol Hill most known for bipartisanship. He did pass an extensive healthcare bill, along with passing immigration reform, but at the same time he oversaw the most deportations that any sitting president has ever seen. Obama was also extremely eager for the use of new and deadly military technology, and expressed multiple times the importance of individual liberty and the free market. Barack Obama was not progressive. But he was a black man, and that seemed to be enough to shove the swinging pendulum to the right.
Donald Trump was the plug in the progress hole that the covertly bigoted, conservative minds had been looking for since the election of President Obama. The very man that championed a movement discrediting President Obama’s citizenship became the face of a party that was supported by half of the American population. No more looking to the future, only “Make American Great Again.” A border wall for Obama’s DACA. A child in a cage for every new path to citizenship formed. A loss of trans healthcare for every legal gay marriage.
The black president left. And the Black Lives Matter protesters got called thugs. The pendulum swung further right.
The pendulum is swinging before our eyes, but that’s not new in any form. Everytime social issues move just a tick to the left, a period of inflammatory reactions follow. They justify their actions under the mask that there is no problem at all. They say that those problems got fixed in the past, that the issues were fixed by what they are reacting to. The abolition of slavery was followed by the failure that was Reconstruction. Jim Crow laws were passed on the pretext of “separate but equal,” because the abolition of slavery solved that problem, right? The passage of civil rights laws were followed by a still ongoing period of raging police brutality. But those civil rights laws solved that particular issue, didn’t they? Women’s working rights progressed during wartime in the 20s and 40s, only to be held down by the nuclear family structure of the 1950s, but women being able to vote solved those problems, right?
Fear brings people together, whether it be the irrational fear of running too far from the past, fear that is streaked with bigotry, or the fear of hurling too far into a past that we have freed ourselves out from – like in the case of this country’s recent rejection of Donald Trump. The pendulum is swinging from the past to the future, and it will always do so. Imagine that it is in a box, hitting the back and the front. Hope that it’s hitting the front just a bit harder, with a little more momentum, enough for the box to begin to inch forward.
Obama Has Deported More People Than Any Other President
Election 2016: The Pendulum of American History
The Dark Enlightenment, also known as the neoreactionary (NRx), emerged online in the 2000s. It is an analysis of modern democracy that harshly rejects the vision of the 18th century European Enlightenment. It seeks to challenge the democratic and egalitarian values that have formed the foundations of Western liberal society since the Enlightenment. The neoreactionary movement has been described as an early alt-right school of thought. Some critics have even labelled the movement “neo-fascist.”
Two of the primary figures behind the Neoreaction are Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin, who have presented their ideas in a series of blog articles from which a new “enlightened” ideal has been developed. Nick Land in his manifesto The Dark Enlightenment articulates the movement’s central thesis: “For the hardcore neo-reactionaries, democracy is not merely doomed, it is doom itself. Fleeing it approaches an ultimate imperative.” He condemns modernity as a phenomenon with a tendency to degeneration and self-destruction. For this reason, he believes it is important to call for an awakening of politically incorrect values, for the renewal of ideas that today are considered sacrilegious by what he calls the “religion of universal humanism.” From this perspective, the Dark Enlightenment would “shine” by exposing the falsehood of progress, the lie of egalitarianism, and the nefariousness of democracy.
In 2017, Politico Magazine reported that the White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was in contact via intermediaries with Curtis Yarvin. It was worrying that Bannon had – and probably still has – a philosophy that rejects democracy and embraces an autocratic role as three of the main influences of his political thought. Yarvin, who writes under the name Mencius Moldbug, in 2008, asked in a blog post “What’s so bad about the Nazis?”, and stated that we are taught they are bad because of the horrors committed in the Holocaust. He also mentioned that none of the parties fighting against the Nazis seemed to care much about the Jews or the Holocaust. In a 2009 post about the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle’s defense of slavery, he argued that some races are more suited to slavery than others. On November 15th, 2016, a letter sent to Trump, signed by 169 Democratic House Representatives, urged the former US President to rescind his appointment of Bannon. The letter stated that appointing Bannon “sends a disturbing message about what kind of president Donald Trump wants to be”. Bannon’s employment in the White House ended on August 18, 2017.
Are there other people into the Dark Enlightenment? The short answer is yes. There are many other notable figures and ideas that seem to share connections with the neoreactionary movement. One of them is Peter Thiel, a billionaire entrepreneur, the co-founder of PayPal, data analytics firm Palantir Technologies, and venture capital group Founders Fund, and the first outside investor in Facebook. Thiel is connected with Curtis Yarvin via friendship, being a major backer of Yarvin’s start-up Urbilt, and even some ideological affinity. According to the Baffler, Thiel gave in 2012 a lecture in Stanford University where he seemed to espouse Dark Enlightenment beliefs, he said “a start-up is basically structured as a monarchy. We don’t call it that, of course. That would seem weirdly outdated, and anything that’s not democracy makes people uncomfortable”. However, the long answer for this question is that neoreactionaries are an extreme minority position, even if their way of thinking had an explosion of interest since late 2012 is still worth mentioning the fact that important neoreactionary figures have been writing about this philosophy for years. The reality is that their movement will probably never spread beyond a small circle.
Humans are resistant to change. As creatures of habit, something as daunting as political change becomes a perceivable threat, given that politics seem to run how we live. When some of us are ready for change, others dig their heels in deeper. This is especially true for a political structure such as the United States’ bipartisan government. When every argument becomes blue vs. red, left vs. right, us vs. them, it’s clear that each side is more concerned with self interest and an unwillingness to change.
This past year is enough evidence that change is hard to come by, especially with a bipartisan government. But the reach for change and a swift rebuttal has held true for all social movements in the United States. The country fought a war over abolitionism. Two consecutive votes for Obama were followed by a devout commitment to Trump. Trump’s actions angered enough citizens to swing left again, left enough to make devotedly red states like Texas, Georgia, and Florida become potential swing states. Biden, you’re up!
The political pendulum continues to swing, and it can only swing farther and farther. As one side pushes for their own beliefs, the other side gets ready to push back with at least as much will to match. Whether it be climate change, race relations, international conflict, or bearing arms, both sides of our government will continue to present plans that push for their own definition of progress and they’ll do whatever it takes.
Depending on who you ask, “change” and “progress” are not synonymous. Progress for the left is unimaginable change for the right, and the same can be said the other way around. But however each side defines “progress”, there has to be an understanding that it will not come without opposition to the change. After all, it’s not just politics, it’s human nature.