An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives
Mencius Moldbug
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Reality is the perfect enemy: it always fights back, it can never be defeated, and infinite energy can be expended in unsuccessfully resisting it.”
“In many ways nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than the truth. Anyone can believe in the truth. To believe in nonsense is an unforgeable demonstration of loyalty. It serves as a political uniform. And if you have a uniform, you have an army.”
“There is no way to receive a mainstream university education, read the Times every morning, trust both of them, and not be a progressive. Unless, of course, you’re an idiot. But”
“The thing is: these things don’t seem weird to me. In the progressive story of the world, they are mysteries. They can be explained, but they need to be explained. In the reactionary story of the world, however, they are firmly in dog-bites-man territory.”
“In order to make an impact on the political process, you need quantity. You need moronic, chanting hordes. There is no way around this. Communism was not overthrown by Andrei Sakharov, Joseph Brodsky and Václav Havel. It was overthrown by moronic, chanting hordes. I suppose I shouldn’t be rude about it, but it’s a fact that there is no such thing as a crowd of philosophers.”
“In order to make an impact on the political process, you need quantity. You need moronic, chanting hordes. There is no way around this. Communism was not overthrown by Andrei Sakharov, Joseph Brodsky and Václav Havel. It was overthrown by moronic, chanting hordes. I suppose I shouldn’t be rude about it, but it’s a fact that there is no such thing as a crowd of philosophers. Yet Communism was overthrown by Sakharov, Brodsky and Havel. The philosophers did matter. What was needed was the combination of philosopher and crowd—a rare and volatile mixture, highly potent and highly unnatural. My view is that up until the very last stage of the reset, quality is everything and quantity is, if anything, undesirable. On the Internet, ideas spread like crazy. And they are much more likely to spread from the smart to the dumb than the other way around.”
“If, in 1688, you had insisted that the concept of a “constitutional monarchy” was a contradiction in terms, that “constitutional” simply meant “symbolic” and the upshot of the whole scheme would simply be a return to the rule of Parliament, you were a Jacobite. Plain and simple. And you were also dead wrong—for about two centuries. Most of the royal powers died with George III, but even Queen Victoria exercised a surprising amount of authority over the operations of “her” government. No longer.”
“If the Republicans could somehow dissolve themselves permanently and irrevocably, it would be the most brutal blow ever struck against the Democrats.”
“How just will such reflections be, when our posterity shall fall under the merciless clutches of this uncharitable Generation! when our Church shall be swallowed up in Schism, Faction, Enthusiasm, and Confusion! when our Government shall be devolved upon Foreigners, and our Monarchy dwindled into a Republic! Rowan”
“All we’ve done is plant a couple of little, tiny seeds of doubt. Now we’re going to throw a little water on those seeds, and see if we can maybe get a leaf or two to poke its head out. Don’t expect a full-grown redwood to fly up and hit you in the face. Even when they work, which isn’t often, conversions don’t work that way. Doubt is a slow flower. You have to give it time.”
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Book Keywords:
philosopher, doubt, evangelism, herd-mentality, mysteries, jacobites, conversion, history, constitutional-monarchy, philosophy, worldview, long-term-thinking
