The Three A’s: An Anti-Political Political Strategy

Lately there has been a lot of discussion in the reactosphere about alternatives to right wing political activism. TNIO’s recent post on right wing activism sketches out a case for accelerating leftward drift. Such a strategy could prove useful in that it avoids the pitfalls of political activism. A rightist political activist is just swimming against the leftist riptide only to be swept away into irrelevance. By amplifying leftist positions to their logical extreme, it may be possible to convert moderates to a more rightist position. There is even some evidence that this “agree and amplify” strategy is more effective than trying to engage the flaws of someone’s position directly and telling them why they’re wrong (h/t Andrea Castillo). From this point on I’ll refer to the neoreactionary variant of this rhetorical strategy as the three A’s, Agree, Amplify and Accelerate (AAA).

One fundamental premise of neoreaction is that civilization is not sustainable on purely leftist premises. Humans are hierarchical animals that evolved to be part of enclaves (tribes) of similar humans. We have never been absolutely egalitarian and we never will be. Therefore any attempt to make us so will inevitably lead to a collapse of civilization. As a result we will revert back to the way we’ve always been: tribal, hierarchical and in-egalitarian. The AAA strategy, therefore has a certain appeal. The sooner we can accelerate the collapse, the sooner we can build something new and stable in its place. I’ve expressed my sympathy with AAA on Twitter, and in my discussions with other folks so far I have discerned two major objections to AAA.

1. It doesn’t do much to persuade extremists.  While this may not be an objection per se since the goal of AAA from the outset is to convert moderates, it is still worth noting. If anything this strategy will give the more extreme fringes of left-wing thought an undesirable degree of legitimacy, making AAA on its face a counter-intuitive strategy. If we expect to actually utilize AAA, this is a consequence we will just have to live with. In order to win over moderates, we have to somehow demonstrate for them how ridiculous leftist thought is. An angry raving leftist can probably do more to undermine leftism than an angry raving rightist ever could.

2. It’s redundant. The idea here is that the Overton Window is already moving so far to the left at such a breakneck pace that it really doesn’t need our help. This could prove especially problematic when you consider Poe’s Law. The fact that the “headlines” posted by Salon parody account @Salondotcom are virtually indistinguishable from the real things, is probably evidence that what we may consider outrageous, non-rightists might consider reasonable. Not everyone will pick up on the fact that a left-wing parody is meant to be outrageous. As such AAA is redundant, or worse, ineffective.

My tentative solution to this potential problem is to try to stay one step ahead of the Overton Window. If seemingly sane moderates consider a new Salon article about fat acceptance to be rational, then start advocating for obesity acceptance. If the obesity acceptance seems sane and rational, then start go with “deathfat” acceptance.We want to use the AAA strategy to dissuade moderates from being desensitized to further anti-civilization ideology. As such it’s all a matter of planting seeds of doubt before leftist media can effectively coddle their sentiments to the point where moderates consider the next step in social decline a moral imperative. So far staying one step ahead is the best solution I can come up with at the moment.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings are a vicious pantheon. There is no better weapon at the neoreactionary’s disposal (short of a military coup) than to allow the Gods to wreak havoc on a doomed civilization. Perhaps it’s possible that through AAA we could persuade enough people to resist leftward drift and thereby initiate a stronger and swifter Reaction than what we can do with our current tools. Perhaps not. At the very least, I think we could convert a few sensible survivors after the collapse has occurred. Call me an optimist, but I consider that the worst case scenario.

Added: The New International Outlook expounds upon AAA here.