The Reactionary Man

Last week, I opined on a series of Nicolás Gómez Dávila aphorisms and I intend to make this an ongoing series. He is, by far, the more talented writer and I’m simply titillating my own vanity by anchoring his superior observations with my less prestigious, and more modern, commentary. In other words, consider me Harry Flashman to Dávila’s Sir Gerald Graham. Today’s will entail Don Colacho’s analysis on the reactionary, which I suspect most of our readers would consider themselves, to one degree or another.

Anguish over the decline of civilization is the affliction of a reactionary. The democrat cannot lament the disappearance of something of which he is ignorant.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 66

Don Colacho is not referring to the “Democrats” in the American political sense. Although, he is certainly correct, considering their ignorance of the past and outright hatred of almost everything in our history prior to 1945 AD, minus the Tyrant Lincoln’s short reign. His “democrat” could be charged at the entirety of our political class, be it the greedy Republicans, nonsensical libertarians or the racial megalomaniac Democrats. After all, they all believe in some different shade of fever dream that we call modern democracy.

The Reactionary Man almost always feels a sense of shame when viewing the modern world. This shame comes from a deep regret, and the self-admission in the extinction of lost knowledge, of the passing of the old world. In our age, that “old world” could be the state of life from thirty years ago or it could be the zeitgeist from two or three centuries past. Regardless of long-term history or faded memories, the Reactionary Man sees only the slow moral decay of a civilization coughing up bile with a putrid smile on its lips and children welcomed into libraries by mentally ill monsters.

The reactionary does not become a conservative except in ages which maintain something worthy of being conserved. 

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 160

In a former life, I used to be a conservative. My sense of conservatism could be summed up as, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” That fire was doused, at least in the Conservative, Inc. sense and my own personal ideological development, when I was just in high school. Conservatism began to mean much more than tradition and the ongoing maintenance of functional civilization. In fact, American conservatism discarded its duties and degraded into a hollow husk, a more lethargic mirror to social liberalism’s sprint through our national soul, bloodthirsty abroad, but completely incompetent and craven at home.

Sadly, there’s very little on the national level worthy of being conserved, at least politically and culturally. Thus, I became one of the Reactionary Men. However, there’s still a glowing ember within the South. Within this ancient land, there still remains men unwilling to succumb to modernity’s great wave or lured by conservatism’s false song of defending endless wars in the Middle East and sanctifying GDP growth. In our age, there is only the liberal, be it a progressive tattletale, neoliberal warhawk or a skittish adherent to the Grift Right, and the reactionary.

What the reactionary says never interests anybody. Neither at the time he says it, because it seems absurd, nor after a few years, because it seems obvious. 

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 283

If you recall, the alarms ringing around the acceptance of homosexual unions (I won’t call them marriages, that’s between male and female and for the creation of life) was casually shrugged off, by the mainstream Right, Left and Center, and labeled lunatic, garbled claptrap. The slippery slope was declared heretical, foolish and unreasonable. In a short amount of time, all sordid acts and events centered on homosexuality became legalized, institutionalized and, finally, commercialized.

The same cry of danger regarding the cracks in our societal armor can be traced to all of America’s crumbling institutions, from the Boy Scouts to the U.S. Navy. In turn, the public, which still has a modicum of concern, sighs and says to one another, “I told you so.” The Reactionary Man is essentially Dr. Miles Bennell from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. We’re frantically warning our people of their impending doom and of the civilizational consequences, which is met with cold silence or nervous laughter.

The reactionary does not aspire to turn back, but rather to change direction.
The past that he admires is not a goal but an exemplification of his dreams. 

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 366

It’s a common accusation, from both rabid leftists and also vapid, apolitical pinheads, to hurl at the Reactionary Man, “You just want to live in the past!” It’s not true, but it contains enough truth for it to be an above-average slash. Of course, it’s presently impossible for us to snap our fingers and bring back the 19th (or 18th) century Southern agrarian society. That long dead social order, plus a dash of practical, modern accompaniments, is the vision. It cannot be resuscitated from its lasting sleep, but it can be the model, with some minor tinkering, for a more reasonable future.

Our current direction is the path to perdition. A course correction must occur. The modern world is not scalable and the world is not flat for global commerce and mass migration. Inherent truths are either gibberish or lies to elite ears. The Reactionary Man sees the writing on the wall, stares at the moon and waits for the other shoe to drop.

Deo vindice