Dark Enlightenment
The Dark Enlightenment, also called the Neo-Reactionary movement, is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, and reactionary philosophical and political movement. It can be understood as a reaction against values and ideologies associated with Enlightenment, advocating for a return to traditional societal constructs and forms of government, such as absolute monarchism and cameralism. The movement promotes the establishment of authoritarian capitalist city-states that compete for citizens. Neoreactionaries refer to contemporary liberal society and its institutions as "the Cathedral", associating them with the Puritan church, and their goals of egalitarianism and democracy as "the Synopsis". They say that the Cathedral influences public discourse to promote progressivism and political correctness, which they view as a threat to Western civilization. Additionally, the movement advocates for scientific racism, a view which they say is suppressed by the Cathedral.
Curtis Yarvin began constructing the basis of the ideology in the late 2000s, drawing upon libertarianism and Austrian economics along with thinkers such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Thomas Carlyle. Nick Land elaborated upon Yarvin's ideas and coined the term "Dark Enlightenment", applying it to his accelerationism as a means to achieve a technological singularity. The movement has also received contributions from prominent figures, such as venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Despite criticism, the movement has gained traction with parts of Silicon Valley, as well as with several political figures associated with United States President Donald Trump, including political strategist Steve Bannon, Vice President JD Vance, and Michael Anton.
The Dark Enlightenment has been described as part of the alt-right, as its theoretical branch, and as neo-fascist. It has been described as the most significant political theory within the alt-right, as "key to understanding" the alt-right political ideology, and as providing a philosophical basis for considerable amounts of alt-right political activity. University of Chichester professor Benjamin Noys described it as "an acceleration of capitalism to a fascist point". Nick Land disputes the similarity between his ideas and fascism, saying that "Fascism is a mass anti-capitalist movement", whereas he prefers that "capitalist corporate power should become the organizing force in society". Historians Angela Dimitrakaki and Harry Weeks link the Dark Enlightenment to neofascism via Land's "capitalist eschatology" which they argue is grounded in the supremacist theories of fascism. Neoreactionary ideas have also been described as "feudalist" and "techno-feudalist".
History
Neo-reactionaries are an informal community of bloggers and political theorists who have been active since the 2000s. Steve Sailer and Hans-Hermann Hoppe are contemporary forerunners of the ideology, which is also heavily influenced by the political thought of Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Carlyle, and Julius Evola. In 2007 and 2008, software engineer Curtis Yarvin, writing under the pen name Mencius Moldbug, articulated what would develop into Dark Enlightenment thinking. Yarvin's theories were elaborated and expanded by philosopher Nick Land, who first coined the term "Dark Enlightenment" in his essay of the same name.By mid-2017, NRx had moved to forums such as the Social Matter online forum, the Hestia Society, and Thermidor Magazine. In 2021, Yarvin appeared on Fox News' Tucker Carlson Today, where he discussed the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan and his concept of the 'Cathedral', which he says is the current aggregation of political power and influential institutions that is controlling the country. Emerson Brooking, an expert in online extremism, said that "Yarvin escaped the fringe blogosphere because he wrapped deeply anti-American, totalitarian ideas in the language of U.S. start-up culture."
Influence in government
Several prominent Silicon Valley investors and Republican politicians have been associated with the philosophy. Steve Bannon has read and admired Yarvin's work, and there have been allegations that he has communicated with Yarvin which Yarvin has denied. Bannon would later consider Yarvin an enemy, which Yarvin did not reciprocate. Michael Anton, the State Department Director of Policy Planning during Trump's second presidency, has also discussed Yarvin's ideas, and Yarvin has claimed to have given staffing recommendations to him. In January 2025, Yarvin attended a Trump inaugural gala in Washington; Politico reported he was "an informal guest of honor" due to his "outsize influence over the Trumpian right." Marc Andreessen has quoted Yarvin and referred to him as a "friend", also investing in his startup Tlon and urging people to read him.According to historian of conservatism Joshua Tait, "Moldbug's relationship with the investor-entrepreneur Thiel is his most important connection." Max Chafkin described Yarvin as the "house political philosopher" for Thiel's circle of influence, including people such as Blake Masters, and Yarvin has referred to Thiel as "fully enlightened". Vanity Fair noted that both have been influential in the New Right and the National Conservatism Conference. Thiel had also invested in Yarvin's Tlon.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance has cited Yarvin as an influence and has connections to Thiel. Prior to his election to the Vice Presidency, JD Vance cited in his 2022 Senate Campaign Yarvin's "strongman plan to 'retire all government employees,' which goes by the mnemonic 'RAGE.'" In a 2021 interview, "Vance said Trump should 'fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country and say, "The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it. Yarvin has praised Vance, stating "in almost every way, JD is perfect", but also considered his relationship with Vance overstated by the media, as they've rarely communicated. He also praised Trump for breaking from Republican practices of trying to "play ball and help the system work" and instead "trying to move all of the levers of this machine that he can move", though also stating "what he’s doing is not at all what I would do with an opportunity like this. But I think that what I would do is probably not possible."
It has been suggested that the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, bears resemblance to RAGE, as advocated for by Yarvin. Land, when asked by the Financial Times if he approved of DOGE, said "the answer is definitely yes", having also endorsed Steve Bannon's goal of "deconstruction of the administrative state". In a report by The Washington Post, two DOGE advisors described Yarvin as an "intellectual beacon" for the department, with one saying, "It's an open secret that everyone in policymaking roles has read Yarvin." The report said that Yarvin, initially approving of the Trump administration, had become critical of DOGE. He cited its handling of the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, stating "Instead of fighting against these people because they’re an enemy class who votes for the Democrats, you saying, 'Oooh, we have cookies for you.'" However, Tait said that Yarvin bears some responsibility for DOGE, saying, "It would have been created, probably, regardless. But he spent a good chunk of time creating a justifying framework for it." Political philosopher Danielle Allen said that DOGE is clearly based on Yarvin's work, and the outcome was the natural result of the shortcomings in Yarvin's views.
CNN notes that Thiel, Andreessen, Vance and Anton don't deny that they are listening to Yarvin, but they have indicated that they do not accept all of Yarvin's theories:
Beliefs
Opposition to democracy
Central to neoreactionarism's ideas is a belief in freedom's incompatibility with democracy, with Land having stated "Democracy tends to fascism". Yarvin and Land drew inspiration from libertarians such as Thiel, particularly his statement "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" in a Cato Unbound essay. Yuk Hui additionally notes Thiel's contribution to the 2004 conference “Politics and Apocalypse” in which he argued that the U.S. needed a new political theory in the face of 9/11, which marked the failure of the Enlightenment, and that democracy and equality had made the West vulnerable. However, when asked by The Atlantic about Yarvin, Thiel opined that trying to radically alter the current U.S. government was unrealistic. He also suggested that Yarvin's methods would lead to Xi's China or Putin's Russia. Hui notes that neoreactionaries consider the Enlightenment values of democracy and equality to be degenerative and limiting, respectively. Tait considers Yarvin to have "a complex relationship" with Enlightenment values, as he adopts a secular and rationalist view of reality while rejecting its key political ideals of equality and democracy. Sergio C. Fanjul contrasts the movement's far-right critique of the Enlightenment with the Frankfurt School's critique of the Enlightenment as a Eurocentric prelude to colonialism and war.Yarvin told Vanity Fair "The fundamental premise of liberalism is that there is this inexorable march toward progress. I disagree with that premise." A 2016 article in New York magazine notes that "Neoreaction has a number of different strains, but perhaps the most important is a form of post-libertarian futurism that, realizing that libertarians aren't likely to win any elections, argues against democracy in favor of authoritarian forms of government."
Journalist Andrew Sullivan writes that neoreaction's pessimistic appraisal of democracy dismisses many advances that have been made and that global manufacturing patterns also limit the economic independence that sovereign states can have from one another.