The Rise of the Orthos

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Most thinking conservatives believe that the modern West has gone off the deep end, and most of them also identify a particular historical event as the start, or at least the first major symptom, of this development. For many modern cultural conservatives, that event was the moral revolution of the 1960s; for some on the American right, it was the Civil Rights movement, the New Deal, or the end of the Civil War; and for certain counterrevolutionaries, it was the French Revolution.

But for a loose affiliation of conservative bloggers and authors who have recently taken to calling themselves “orthos”, the sources of our modern malaise lie farther back in time, and are more deeply embedded in our presuppositions and prejudices. Their critique of the modern Left is far more philosophically substantive and, for better or worse, far more radical than most of its competitors. Their main target is not postmodern relativism, redistributive left-liberalism, Frankfurt School cultural radicalism, or Marxian socialism; for although they deplore these things, they also regard them as mere symptoms of a deeper problem.

This is not your father’s Conservatism. Bloggers who are members of the Orthosphere do not subscribe to any basic tenants of National Review or Ronald Reagan. These are people well informed in their respective fields and have a far greater grasp of politics, philosophy, and theology than most others. Arguing in areas of democracy, human rights, liberty, freedom, the constitution, individual sovereignty, secularism, and so on is not for them.

Admirers of a diverse group of European intellectuals, you can easily find their three most critical thinkers; Joseph de Maistre, Louis de Bonald, and Juan Donoso Cortes. Most are devoutly Christian and not mainstream Protestant either. One tends to find them aligning with Traditionalist Roman Catholicism, Conservative Protestantism (not Fundamentalist), and the Orthodox faith. The Orthosphere is bathed in religious piety, hard-line moralism, and tending towards divinely sanctioned monarchism.

To sum up their beliefs it would be; hierarchy, piety, authority, transcendent moral values, patriarchy, counterrevolution, anti-liberalism, anti-feminism, and anti-individualism. Unlike what is commonly thought, they are heavily involved in the field of science; perhaps that is what makes their arguments more thorough. The movement also crosses over into the AltRight in many instances and perhaps can be described as the more religious version of the rising Alternative Right.

If you are interested in genuine Conservative, reactionary thought either because you are a right-wing Conservative or would just like to learn about the other side; check out their work. Below is a list of blogs which are all part of the Orthosphere:

Collapse: The Blog
Bruce Charlton’s Miscellany
Oz Conservative
The Mad Monarchist
The Thinking Housewife
Throne and Altar
Traditional Christianity
Dispatches from the North

Those are not all of the blogs part of the Orthosphere but are the best ones, in my opinion.

reply to post by Misoir


Misoir,

Awesome, thank you, I am deeply interested in social science and I have never heard of this 'movement'.

The orthos reject the Enlightenment project entirely, and espouse many ideas that are unfashionable even on the Right, including theocracy, censorship, and absolute monarchy. Their ideology centers around the defense of particular loyalties and moral communities, of traditional authority, traditional morality, the monarchy, the patriarchal family, the ethnos, and the Church.

www.brusselsjournal.com...

These folks don't sound like they have the best interests of everyone at heart. So who is listening to them over here?

X.

P.S. I see Misoir. the Orthosphere blogs show who is listening to and developing this line of thinking. Really interesting stuff. Thanks again.

reply to post by Xoanon


In their view it is not important to have everyone’s ‘interests’ at heart. It is about having the transcendent order as their core interest. Utilitarianism seeks to maximize some form of happiness or general welfare among the populace, they completely reject utilitarianism. Expect to see the world through their eyes, what is argued as the only right world view. It does not matter if everyone else dislikes it.

reply to post by Misoir


"4盎司可以击退1000磅。"

X.

I've tried looking at a couple of your links; admittedly not all of them, but a few posts from one or two. I didn't really find anything there that I wasn't already expecting.

I can try to be open minded towards the Right, but the simple problem is that they virtually never say or write anything which, to be truly blunt, I don't honestly consider to be complete garbage. It's always an appeal for a return to modes of thinking which I consider hypocritical and pathological, and which I didn't consider to work at the time when they were relevant, let alone now.

Traditional Christianity, in particular, quite simply isn't. It's a euphemism for warmongering, anti-intellectual, male chauvanist fascism, and tyranny via guilt and fear; advocated by individuals who are almost always deeply mentally ill, and who generally (if they don't admit it, or even aren't consciously aware of it themselves) advocate a message which is in fact the diametric opposite of what I at least consider to be the genuine message and philosophy of Jesus Christ.

Lest anybody think that I have any desire to trade said Right for an equal tyranny of lisping, atheistic male homosexuals, or the stereotypical short haired, fanatically vegan lesbians, who in their own turn consider my gender (male) to be disposable, and to lack the fundamental right to exist, I can assure you that I do not.

My own vote is for none of the above.

I think the illness is moral and spiritual. No one respects authority anymore: every damn hipster thinks rebellion is cool. So even if the answer is as simple as "obey authority" and 'have holiness" they complain about being coerced by religion. Really, all illness is caused by the biblical devil's sin of not being able to submit to an authority: first to God, then to parents, then to the ones over you. Authority gets corrupt when they no longer believe God will punish them.

Originally posted by Misoir
To sum up their beliefs it would be; hierarchy, piety, authority, transcendent moral values, patriarchy, counterrevolution, anti-liberalism, anti-feminism, and anti-individualism.

I have no problems with transcendent morality; I just have massive problems with theirs.

The way you're describing these people makes Hitler look like Gandhi. They'd probably accuse Colonel Quaritch of being limp-wristed.

Unlike what is commonly thought, they are heavily involved in the field of science; perhaps that is what makes their arguments more thorough.

If you mean more thorough than the two line strings of barely literate, supercilious profanity that I normally see from conservatives around here, then sure; I'll buy that.

The movement also crosses over into the AltRight in many instances and perhaps can be described as the more religious version of the rising Alternative Right.

What is the Alternative Right, exactly? Then again, I'm not sure I want to know. I feel like I'm being introduced to the extended family of C'thulhu; except I actually like C'thulhu, so I'm not sure I want to insult him to that degree.

If you are interested in genuine Conservative, reactionary thought either because you are a right-wing Conservative or would just like to learn about the other side; check out their work.

I think the one reason why I could see myself reading it, is because I've largely become immune to horror movies. The most truly horrifying aspect of this, though, is that there are people around who actually think like this.

reply to post by petrus4

I think the one reason why I could see myself reading it, is because I've largely become immune to horror movies. The most truly horrifying aspect of this, though, is that there are people around who actually think like this.

Slave morality?

How can you judge it with such a closed mind?

reply to post by Misoir

To sum up their beliefs it would be; hierarchy, piety, authority, transcendent moral values, patriarchy, counterrevolution, anti-liberalism, anti-feminism, and anti-individualism.

I think that if the authority of the hierachy does indeed possess piety and transcendant moral values there would be no need for the farce that is 'democracy'.

I am anti-liberalism and anti-feminism.

Im not entirely sold on the anti-individualism. But I think the 'money or blood' thing factors in. I think a system like this does have the potential to offer geniune 'upward mobility' to its populace. Maybe individualism would not be important.

The whole thing sounds very anti-american Sounds like Republicans would hate it just as much as Democrats.

I think it would all depend on who was on top. If they did have piety and transcendant moral values I think it could work great.

I like the idea of a society that all pulls in the one direction but at the same time embraces survival of the fittest by not being too sentimental or carrying the weak.

Western society today celebrates devolution(biology).

Originally posted by theubermensch

Slave morality?

How can you judge it with such a closed mind?

Because I've had three and a half decades of personal experience, with a father who holds many of the views that these nut cases advocate. I know the fascist, "strict father," model very well; and I know exactly where it leads.

As a male myself, I obviously do not condone misandry or seperatist lesbianism; but at the same time, I have come to believe that the penalty for male chauvanism, should be death for the chauvanist in question; via asphyxiation, from being forced to ingest their own testicles.

These people are products of history and environment every bit as much as are the religious. The other half of Western tradition is the mother that birthed them: rationalism, democratism, egalitarianism, scientism, agnosticism tending toward atheism, materialism (in both the philosophical and the colloquial sense), social atomism, individualism, utilitarianism. All these tendencies (almost) all Westerners possess, whether they are also religious or not. Joe might be libertarian and therefore more interested in individualism than in egalitarianism; whereas Bob the socialist inverts the two in his value system. But it’s not hard to see how they are children of the same mother.

Two part article on why Buddhism is so attractive to the western mind

He writes many interesting opinions. Don't forget part 2.