Can someone who’s familiar with Mencius Moldbug’s writing briefly summarize his opinions? I’ve tried reading Unqualified Reservations but I find his writing long-winded. He also refers to a lot of background knowledge I just don’t have, e.g. I don’t know what I’m supposed to take away from him calling something Calvinist.
This is a tall order. Nearly everyone I talk to seems to while getting the same basic models emphasise wildly different things about them. Their updates on the matter also vary considerably everything from utterly changing their politics to just mentally noting that you can make smart arguments for positions very divergent from the modern political consensus. Lots of people dislike his verbose style.
That is certainly the reason I haven’t read all of his material so far.
I think the best way to get a summary is to discuss him with people here who have been read him. They will likely learn things too. When its too political continue the discussion either in the politics thread or in private correspondence.
To this I would add the comment history of fellow LWer Vladimir_M which is littered with high quality Moldbug-like arguments on various issues. Who knows a few new responses might coax him out of inactivity!
I recall some old sort of interesting discussion of Moldbuggian positions in which I participated as well:
By the way: I was pondering Les Miserables not long ago in anticipation of the movie, and realized that both the musical and the original novel are an exact artistic/literary expression of what Moldbug calls Universalism (down to details like the family lineage from Christianity (the bishop at the beginning) to revolutionary politics). And the character of Javert summarizes perfectly Moldbuggian philosophy, e.g. “I am the law and the law is not mocked!” Would you agree?
If we take the Javert = Moldbug metaphor seriously, how should we interpret Javert’s later conclusion that his earlier philosophy contains a hopeless conflict between authority-for-its-own-sake and helping people live happier lives?
Well, the story is set up to favor Universalism. If Moldbug had written it, probably it would have ended with Valjean concluding that his earlier philosophy contained a hopeless conflict between rejecting authority and helping people live happier lives.
I’m smirking at the idea of a Moldbuggian story of the uprising of 1832. Revolutionists Get What They Deserve or some-such. :)
But I don’t think that story has room for the complex characters of Hugo’s story, narratively speaking. There’s no room at all for Valjean, and Javert becomes simply the protagonist to the evil antagonist Enjolras.
Ultimately, you asked if canon!Javert embodies Moldbug. As I suggested above, I think the answer is no. He’s a tragic figure—even Hugo would admit that > 75% of the time, the king’s law point toward a just outcome. But Javert was blind to the fact that the king’s law contained deep flaws.
I don’t know if the passage survives the standard abridgements, but Javert writes a note to his superiors listing several minor injustices in the local prison system, immediately before killing himself. Even after conversion, Javert fails to realize that he was the only person who both (1) knew about the issues, and (2) cared about the injustice. That episode, and Javert as a character, are deeply tragic in my opinion.
And I can’t imagine Moldbug caring about those issues at all. Obviously, Moldbug’s choices would be different—but I don’t get the impression Moldbug would think the minor injustices were even worth his attention if he were in Javert’s situation.
I’m smirking at the idea of a Moldbuggian story of the uprising of 1832. Revolutionists Get What They Deserve or some-such. :)
Yes, in addition to the musical!Javert quote I included, I was going to include “Crush those little schoolboys!”—but tried searching it and found I was misremembering a different line.
But I don’t think that story has room for the complex characters of Hugo’s story, narratively speaking. There’s no room at all for Valjean, and Javert becomes simply the protagonist to the evil antagonist Enjolras.
You are certainly right that Javert is a more complex and tragic character than a pure Inflexible Authoritarian Law archetype. I could shift a bit my statement and say that the bare essence of Javert is that archetype, and that Hugo gives him that depth because of the direction he wants to take the story and the ideology it embodies.
From Moldbug’s viewpoint LesMiz might be described as an Universalist tract that stacks the deck by showing Valjean as saintlike instead of naive, and setting up Javert’s character and storyline to end in a forced alternative between conversion and suicide, rather than the triumph he “deserves”. (Like Chick tracts, or to pick examples with more quality Chesterton’s and Lewis’ fictions, stack the deck against the skeptic.) But I agree that such a description by Moldbug would be too “reductionist’ (to Moldbug’s own ideology) and unfair to the literary qualities of the work.
Moldbug is not beyond commenting recent events or culture, we may yet hear his take on at least the movie if not the book itself. Also I’ll do a search if he perhaps hasn’t already mentioned the book in a offhanded fashion.
It’s a lesson about happens when you combine the virtuous with a pernicious system of virtue. The liberal backlash against strong authoritarianism/belief in the rule of law is one way of reacting to such a world. “The laws are evil, therefore their enforcers are evil.” The other side of this is people who believe the laws are good and anyone who enforces them is good. Both views are lacking nuance. Javert is someone who has spent his life believing that he is good because he enforces the laws, which are good. He can’t live with the idea that he has been “bad” all along.
To be honest, I’m not terribly interested in discussing Moldbug (yet); I just wanted to get a better sense of what other people mean when they call something Moldbuggian. Thanks for the detailed response!
If you’ve got a few hours, I found the Gentle Introduction to be sufficiently gentle, but it does have nine parts and is written in his regular style. I think the first part is strongly worth slogging through, in part because his definition of “church” is a great one. I may write a short summary of it at some point, but that’s a nontrivial writing project.
He also refers to a lot of background knowledge I just don’t have, e.g. I don’t know what I’m supposed to take away from him calling something Calvinist.
Could you please clarify if you are unsure what he means when he calls a position Calvinist (presumably Crypt-Calivinist or something like that) or are you just unsure what Calvinism is?
The short and sufficient answer to the second is that this is a designation for a bunch of Protestant Christians who historically took themselves very seriously and have a reputation for being dour. Take special note of the Five Points of Calvinism.
The short and insufficient answer to the first is people who have ethical, political and philosophical ideas that can’t be justified by their declared systems of ethics but can be perfectly well explained if you note the memeplexes in their heads are descendent of highbrow American Protestantism of the previous centuries. He goes into several things he considers indications of this and points out they dislike this explanation very much and want to believe their positions are the result of pure reason or Whiggish notions of history inching towards a universal “true human morality”.
The former, but thanks for your clarification on both (I imagine your clarification on the latter is a relevant connotation Moldbug wanted and that I was largely ignorant of).
Moldbug has a variety of opinions that he expresses in his articles. Summarizing all of them is therefore hard. I will try to list a few.
Moldbug reject the progressive project. That means that he’s opposed to most politicial ideas of Woodrow Wilson and presidents after Wilson.
Moldbug rejects modern democracy. He thinks that the US military should orchestrate a coup d’état. After the coup d’état the US should split and every state should have his own laws.
In the ideal case Moldbug wants that the states to be run like a stock company. If that isn’t possible Moldbug prefers the way Singapur and Qatar are governed to the way the US is governed. According to him competition between a lot of states that are governed like Singapur is better than a huge federal government.
I suspect that Moldbug thinks a military coup is only a means to an end. He wants government rule on a for profit basis, with essentially no tolerance of social disorder—other than vote with your feet (i.e. leaving). This is the concept he calls “Patches.”
Your timeline starts too late. Moldbug rejects the Glorious Revolution.
Moldbug does reject it, I’m however not sure that he rejects all political pre-20st century events.
He seems to like corporations and corporations have gotten much more legal rights than they had before the Glorious Revolution.
Can someone who’s familiar with Mencius Moldbug’s writing briefly summarize his opinions? I’ve tried reading Unqualified Reservations but I find his writing long-winded. He also refers to a lot of background knowledge I just don’t have, e.g. I don’t know what I’m supposed to take away from him calling something Calvinist.
This is a tall order. Nearly everyone I talk to seems to while getting the same basic models emphasise wildly different things about them. Their updates on the matter also vary considerably everything from utterly changing their politics to just mentally noting that you can make smart arguments for positions very divergent from the modern political consensus. Lots of people dislike his verbose style.
That is certainly the reason I haven’t read all of his material so far.
I think the best way to get a summary is to discuss him with people here who have been read him. They will likely learn things too. When its too political continue the discussion either in the politics thread or in private correspondence.
I’m interested and willing to engage in such discussion. If you are too I’d ask you to perhaps make a list of the posts you have read so far? For now I’m assuming you began with one of the recommended essays like Idealism Is Not Great, Divine-right monarchy for the modern secular intellectual, Formalist Manifsto. Perhaps the introductory Open Letter to Open Minded Progressives or the Gentle Introduction sequences.
To this I would add the comment history of fellow LWer Vladimir_M which is littered with high quality Moldbug-like arguments on various issues. Who knows a few new responses might coax him out of inactivity!
I recall some old sort of interesting discussion of Moldbuggian positions in which I participated as well:
Belief in religion considered harmful? (My summary of the post. )
Five ways to classify belief systems
A list of several articles I read and would be interesting in talking about
By the way: I was pondering Les Miserables not long ago in anticipation of the movie, and realized that both the musical and the original novel are an exact artistic/literary expression of what Moldbug calls Universalism (down to details like the family lineage from Christianity (the bishop at the beginning) to revolutionary politics). And the character of Javert summarizes perfectly Moldbuggian philosophy, e.g. “I am the law and the law is not mocked!” Would you agree?
If we take the Javert = Moldbug metaphor seriously, how should we interpret Javert’s later conclusion that his earlier philosophy contains a hopeless conflict between authority-for-its-own-sake and helping people live happier lives?
Well, the story is set up to favor Universalism. If Moldbug had written it, probably it would have ended with Valjean concluding that his earlier philosophy contained a hopeless conflict between rejecting authority and helping people live happier lives.
I’m smirking at the idea of a Moldbuggian story of the uprising of 1832. Revolutionists Get What They Deserve or some-such. :)
But I don’t think that story has room for the complex characters of Hugo’s story, narratively speaking. There’s no room at all for Valjean, and Javert becomes simply the protagonist to the evil antagonist Enjolras.
Ultimately, you asked if canon!Javert embodies Moldbug. As I suggested above, I think the answer is no. He’s a tragic figure—even Hugo would admit that > 75% of the time, the king’s law point toward a just outcome. But Javert was blind to the fact that the king’s law contained deep flaws.
I don’t know if the passage survives the standard abridgements, but Javert writes a note to his superiors listing several minor injustices in the local prison system, immediately before killing himself. Even after conversion, Javert fails to realize that he was the only person who both (1) knew about the issues, and (2) cared about the injustice. That episode, and Javert as a character, are deeply tragic in my opinion.
And I can’t imagine Moldbug caring about those issues at all. Obviously, Moldbug’s choices would be different—but I don’t get the impression Moldbug would think the minor injustices were even worth his attention if he were in Javert’s situation.
Yes, in addition to the musical!Javert quote I included, I was going to include “Crush those little schoolboys!”—but tried searching it and found I was misremembering a different line.
You are certainly right that Javert is a more complex and tragic character than a pure Inflexible Authoritarian Law archetype. I could shift a bit my statement and say that the bare essence of Javert is that archetype, and that Hugo gives him that depth because of the direction he wants to take the story and the ideology it embodies.
From Moldbug’s viewpoint LesMiz might be described as an Universalist tract that stacks the deck by showing Valjean as saintlike instead of naive, and setting up Javert’s character and storyline to end in a forced alternative between conversion and suicide, rather than the triumph he “deserves”. (Like Chick tracts, or to pick examples with more quality Chesterton’s and Lewis’ fictions, stack the deck against the skeptic.) But I agree that such a description by Moldbug would be too “reductionist’ (to Moldbug’s own ideology) and unfair to the literary qualities of the work.
Moldbug is not beyond commenting recent events or culture, we may yet hear his take on at least the movie if not the book itself. Also I’ll do a search if he perhaps hasn’t already mentioned the book in a offhanded fashion.
It’s a lesson about happens when you combine the virtuous with a pernicious system of virtue. The liberal backlash against strong authoritarianism/belief in the rule of law is one way of reacting to such a world. “The laws are evil, therefore their enforcers are evil.” The other side of this is people who believe the laws are good and anyone who enforces them is good. Both views are lacking nuance. Javert is someone who has spent his life believing that he is good because he enforces the laws, which are good. He can’t live with the idea that he has been “bad” all along.
I will probably have to watch the movie or reread the book before commenting since I recall the story only in vague outlines.
Thanks thats a helpful summary.
Slightly related question, why are his views seemingly being suddenly discussed a lot and taken semi-seriously on LessWrong?
It isn’t a sudden change. As far as I know, Moldbug’s ideas are a recurring minor theme at LW.
Yes I think this is about right. An example is this discussion of Peter Thiel’s support of seastading.
As NancyLebovitz said it isn’t really a new thing, there was a recent discussion on why talk of Moldbug’s ideas is noticeable here.
To be honest, I’m not terribly interested in discussing Moldbug (yet); I just wanted to get a better sense of what other people mean when they call something Moldbuggian. Thanks for the detailed response!
I summarized very briefly my understanding of his political philosophy in this comment a few weeks ago.
If you’ve got a few hours, I found the Gentle Introduction to be sufficiently gentle, but it does have nine parts and is written in his regular style. I think the first part is strongly worth slogging through, in part because his definition of “church” is a great one. I may write a short summary of it at some point, but that’s a nontrivial writing project.
Could you please clarify if you are unsure what he means when he calls a position Calvinist (presumably Crypt-Calivinist or something like that) or are you just unsure what Calvinism is?
The short and sufficient answer to the second is that this is a designation for a bunch of Protestant Christians who historically took themselves very seriously and have a reputation for being dour. Take special note of the Five Points of Calvinism.
The short and insufficient answer to the first is people who have ethical, political and philosophical ideas that can’t be justified by their declared systems of ethics but can be perfectly well explained if you note the memeplexes in their heads are descendent of highbrow American Protestantism of the previous centuries. He goes into several things he considers indications of this and points out they dislike this explanation very much and want to believe their positions are the result of pure reason or Whiggish notions of history inching towards a universal “true human morality”.
The former, but thanks for your clarification on both (I imagine your clarification on the latter is a relevant connotation Moldbug wanted and that I was largely ignorant of).
Moldbug has a variety of opinions that he expresses in his articles. Summarizing all of them is therefore hard. I will try to list a few.
Moldbug reject the progressive project. That means that he’s opposed to most politicial ideas of Woodrow Wilson and presidents after Wilson.
Moldbug rejects modern democracy. He thinks that the US military should orchestrate a coup d’état. After the coup d’état the US should split and every state should have his own laws.
In the ideal case Moldbug wants that the states to be run like a stock company. If that isn’t possible Moldbug prefers the way Singapur and Qatar are governed to the way the US is governed. According to him competition between a lot of states that are governed like Singapur is better than a huge federal government.
Your timeline starts too late. Moldbug rejects the Glorious Revolution.
I suspect that Moldbug thinks a military coup is only a means to an end. He wants government rule on a for profit basis, with essentially no tolerance of social disorder—other than vote with your feet (i.e. leaving). This is the concept he calls “Patches.”
Moldbug does reject it, I’m however not sure that he rejects all political pre-20st century events. He seems to like corporations and corporations have gotten much more legal rights than they had before the Glorious Revolution.