Professional Philosophy in the Age of Neoreaction

In explaining the varieties of contemporary reactionary philosophy to my non-philosopher spouse, I settled on: “dark enlightenment” (DE) is neoreaction that leans continental, TESCREAL is neoreaction that leans analytic. Even though I am firmly of the view that the continental/analytic divide is more sociological (i.e., foremost a relation of power and privilege) than anything else, there are nevertheless some characteristic differences in canon and methods. With its focus on textual exegesis, working with literature in translation, and so on, continental philosophy looks more like the other humanities, especially literary and cultural studies. Analytic philosophy has traditionally tried to cozy up to the sciences; it privileges work in English that focuses on purportedly apolitical technical matters. Continental philosophy doctoral programs tend to be in Catholic universities (Pope Benedict wrote a dissertation on phenomenology), whereas analytic ones tend to be in the Ivy League and big private institutions like NYU. Famous if problematic analytic philosopher Peter Singer’s work is central to the TESCREAL bundle philosophies, which often incorporate consequentialist ethics, just as Nick Landian DE is often called things like “Deleuzian Thatcherism” of “based Deleuze.”

This scheme is helpful in highlighting the differences between these two main strands of contemporary neoreactionary thought. I’m not going to go into a deep dive into each school of thought both because others have done that (I especially like Paul Gilroy’s, Elizabeth Sandifer’s, and Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres’ work on this matter) and because my interest here is more in thinking through a few other issues. (I’m also not going to cite any of the DE or TESCREAL stuff directly because the bad stuff is immediately evident and I don’t want to repeat it or give it oxygen.) First, understanding the Dark Enlightenment and the TESCREAL bundle as continental and analytic sides of the same coin helps bring into focus the institutional structures of legitimation that have kept DE almost entirely out of the academy (which to be clear is a good thing) yet allowed TESCREAL bundle ideas to flourish at the highest level of institutional prestige (which is bad). There’s a generalizable lesson to be gleaned from how and why US-based continental philosophy has kept DE well on the pseudoscientific fringes of the profession; that generalizable lesson has less to do with the will and moral fiber of individuals and more to do ...