The Dark Enlightenment with Ted Relf

The central idea is that the Enlightenment, and all its principles of democracy, equality, reason and humanism, was a catastrophic mistake, which has led to self-destructive spiral of decline which is destroying western civilization. The proposal is that the monolithic nexus of academia, media and government bureaucracy that enforces ideological conformity under the guise of enlightenment values needs to be collapsed. The system of government to replace it is an updated version of the monarchies that preceded the Enlightenment, powerfully supported by information technology (a technosociety) that will be run by strong leader rather like a corporate CEO, and that this will allow for the freedom that has has been suppressed by the mediocrity of democracy.

This may seem far-fetched, but Vance and Bannon have certainly been strongly influenced by it, and the actions of the Trump administration against woke culture, illegal immigrants, the Smithsonian etc certainly seem to align with it.

It is also a philosophy that effectively declares intellectual war on humanism. I believe it has to be taken very seriously, and that it is important not to get caught into criticising its details, or pointing to its factual errors.

Some reading (if you search online you will find that a lot of items are behind paywalls – these are not):

https://time.com/7269166/dark-enlightenment-history-essay/ This is OK and how it came to my attention via a friend, but rather slight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment/  Probably too much detail, and remember Wikipedia entries can be edited by anyone, including the Dark Enlightenment devotees.

https://newrepublic.com/article/183971/jd-vance-weird-terrifying-techno-authoritarian-ideas/  This 2024 article is about how Vance got his ideas about the Dark Enlightenment from Peter Thiel who got them from Curtis Yarvin who elaborated then from Nick Land.

https://publicmedievalist.com/dark-enlightenment/  This is by a medieval historian, Amy Kaufman, in 2017 and is probably the most accessible quick read. It includes some copies of the posts by Curtis Yarvin which may look ridiculous but have serious messages. Her criticisms are well made, but I think are no match for what the issues are in 2025.