It’s 8 p.m., Paris time, and I’m leaving Café Zimmer with Curtis Yarvin, one of the most controversial Anglo-Saxon thinkers of this century (don’t worry, we will talk about the other most controversial thinker in this interview). This is Curtis’s first time visiting Paris. I offer to guide him and his wife to a restaurant reserved for the occasion, near Notre Dame.
During our walk, Curtis points to the cathedral and asks, ‘Do we know who did that?’
I reply that there’s the official story of a short circuit causing the fire, and of course, many conspiracy theories: several items were moved to distant locations before the fire, like the statues of the apostles and some works of art. In fact, there was a very similar case in the fire of Chartres Cathedral in 1134, where historians consider the possibility of an ordered fire quite likely. But we’ll probably never know the truth! It’s impossible!
Curtis smiles and, with a hint of irony, tells me, ‘You see, that’s the problem with a libertarian like Elon Musk. Some problems simply can’t be solved by the free market of ideas.’ I mentioned to my guest that community notes seemed like an effective tool in this search for truth. He wasn’t convinced and added: ‘Yes, but what community notes do is minimize misinformation. What you really want to do is maximize the most accurate information. And if you think finding the truth about the Notre Dame fire is impossible, imagine an investigation led by an individual with full powers, like someone like Louis XIV. Do you think he wouldn’t find out the truth?’
We arrived at the restaurant, and Curtis left me with that final question stuck in my head. A dangerous virus, a brain-eating meme, and through these lines, it will inevitably contaminate others. And after our conversation, where my guest demonstrated perfect knowledge of Louis XVI’s reign, I know, and you will know, that his final question was anything but open-ended.
Here’s the full conversation, exclusively for Rage Magazine.
Marquis2Baillon: You come from a libertarian background, but you eventually became a monarchist. How is that possible?
Curtis Yarvin: There’s this American idea that the way to get a government that works in a certain way is for everyone to agree to be governed in that way. It seems obvious to Americans that government comes from the opinion of the masses, but libertarians need to understand that historically, when regimes had smaller and less intrusive governments, they were more likely to be monarchies than democracies. The rise of democracy also brought the rise of the total state. So, the idea that democratic libertarianism is the way to defeat the total state seems distant and impossible.
The writer who changed my view on this subject is Hans-Hermann Hoppe. He’s the heir to the Austrian School of economics. If you know Ludwig von Mises, Mises’s heir was Murray Rothbard, and Hoppe is Rothbard’s heir. Hoppe wrote a book called Democracy: The God That Failed, in which he opens the possibility of considering life before the Revolution as legitimate. Essentially, revolutions act like cults; they delegitimize everything outside of them. The idea that we live in a kind of cult of the present that delegitimizes the past was somewhat new to me. And when you’re in a cult, it feels like the rest of the world is in a cult.
There are a few uncontested libertarian ideas. One is that there is a complete conflict between the libertarian idea of individual sovereignty—the absolute primacy of law—and the fundamental idea of the democratic era, which is the absolute sovereignty of the people, meaning the sovereignty of whoever commands the loyalty of the people. Historically, we observe that everything moves in the opposite direction [from individual sovereignty] within democratic states. So, the idea of libertarianism being implemented via democracy seems really implausible.
But there’s another problem with libertarianism, which we could call Carl Schmitt’s problem. There’s this very English and American idea of “the rule of law, not men.” In a place like Iran, they would talk about “the rule of God, not men,” or rather “the rule of Allah, not men.” But it’s always a person deciding what God thinks. When you examine the issue of the rule of law, you see that it’s always ultimately the rule of someone who claims to know how to interpret the law. One of my great influences is the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle. He spoke about what is now called classical liberalism in Anglo-American thought, which is essentially 19th-century libertarianism. Carlyle observes: ‘We automate everything, we power everything—what we’re really trying to have is a government that runs on steam.’ He sees that we are attempting to get a government that runs itself, an automated government running “on steam.” But there will always be humans in the equation. My personal way of representing this flaw is to imagine the rule of law as an “unstable balance.” If I take this toothpick and balance it perpendicularly on this table, it will be unstable.’
Curtis takes a toothpick and holds it perpendicular to the table, placing his finger on its top.
Of course, the closer it is to its balance point, the less force is needed to hold it, but it can never stand on its own; it will need my finger to apply some amount of force. This metaphor is very close to what the rule of law (Rule of Law) is without the rule of power (Rule of Power), what Carl Schmitt calls “the exception.”
Now, imagine that this toothpick is the size of a phone pole, ten meters high, five meters high, whatever. I can still hold it with my hand at the center. If you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle, you know that you can balance something just by rocking back and forth. But now, imagine it’s falling, and that this toothpick is the size of a telephone pole. You realize it would take enormous amounts of force to bring it back to vertical, but just a small amount of force to keep it in place.
So, when we imagine a country—let’s say Venezuela—and we ask, “How do we establish the rule of law?” You think, “Okay, we need to elect a libertarian president.” But how? And what does he do to get to the rule of law? Before reaching the rule of law, you have to end all sorts of warfare, and the thing about libertarianism, when interpreted dogmatically, is that it’s supposed to be a universal formula with the principle of non-aggression at its core. But how does the principle of non-aggression apply when we’re in a state of war? Does that mean it’s not legal to shoot someone because they’re wearing the wrong uniform?
Now, look at El Salvador, where President Bukele has taken back control of the country and given it one of the lowest crime rates in the Western Hemisphere. To do that, he simply made this observation: if you have gang tattoos, you’re in a gang; if you don’t, you’re not (laughs). Is it wrong to have gang tattoos? Is it wrong to draw something on your skin? According to libertarian principles, no. On the other hand, you have to understand that a step toward order is a step toward law, which comes after order. What they had before was a system of government and law inspired by the United States. This system, of Anglo-American law, is designed for a society where deviation is rare. But when 1% of your population is part of a gang, your only path to a libertarian El Salvador is through building mega-prisons. It’s either the rule of law or the rule of gangs. Replacing the rule of gangs with the rule of the state is the only way to achieve anything resembling the rule of law. Realizing that this is a paradox within libertarianism highlights that, in some cases, libertarianism is wrong.
So, when I compare these things [monarchy versus libertarianism], it’s like comparing Einstein to Newton. Newtonian physics is incorrect; there’s a missing term in the equation, and yet it describes many situations perfectly. But it’s still wrong. In many cases, you don’t notice that it’s wrong, but it always is. So, to judge a system that claims to be complete, like libertarianism, you have to introduce this corollary: ‘What if it’s a situation like in El Salvador?’ Then you can say: ‘Libertarianism is wrong.’ If it’s wrong, that doesn’t mean capitalism is bad or anything; it just means there’s a more general answer, and in some cases, you can say libertarianism is the solution, but in other cases, libertarianism is not the solution.
M2B: It’s missing a feature.
CY: Yes. When you say it’s missing a feature, you can easily see that the missing feature is essentially the king. Because it’s the king’s role—and it’s not too hard to explain this, even to libertarians—to have the monopoly on power, to prevent others from usurping it. What happens in our society is that because there’s no king, there are many other forces that can seize power, and some of them are criminal forces that seek to exercise power over the individual.
M2B: Foreign forces…
CY: Foreign forces, bureaucratic forces… So, you think you’ve created a world without force, but in reality, you’re still confronted by all sorts of predators seeking to seize power. This is a constant throughout history. For example, the French Revolution is largely, in my opinion, due to France’s infection with English ideas. Louis XVI himself was very impressed by the British system of mixed government, which was quite oligarchic at the time. He was a man who was passionate about clocks; he didn’t really want to exercise power. He looked at England, and at that time, he saw the Hanoverian dynasty, where kings were installed to replace an earlier dynasty, the Stuarts, who actually wanted to rule. So, he thought, ‘I just want to live in my palace and work on my clocks,’ and preside over France’s destiny, rather than being like Louis XIV, who said, ‘It must be this way; it must be that way.’ Louis XVI thought, ‘We could have this kind of self-operating liberal system. And if I transformed the state to function like Parliament, then it would work as well as in England.’
I think we underestimate how much Louis XIV and Mazarin essentially saved France from having the equivalent of the English Civil War, because I think the Fronde was really trying to turn into that in some way, and Louis XIV stopped it. If you’re looking for a figure much more impressive than Louis XVI, look at Louis XIV. For example, one of the things people in the English-speaking world have a hard time understanding is the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, where he said: ‘No, we’re no longer going to tolerate Protestants.’ This was met with horror in England, an entirely Protestant land. The English idea of religious tolerance—of course, the English weren’t very tolerant of Catholics either. If you read, for example, Milton’s famous speech on free speech, he says: ‘On every free market of ideas, everyone must be heard—except the Catholics, who are threats.’ So, it’s not exactly like English Protestants really believed in religious freedom at that time either. And that’s something we find today on the left. What you notice about the left in general is a form of hypocrisy because, beyond the ideals, leftism is a kind of addiction to power.
For example, when Louis XVI tries to escape to seek help from the Austrians—heading to Compiègne or elsewhere, while his brother is already in Koblenz—this action is criticized by people who don’t believe in nations at all. They say: ‘We don’t believe in nations, but you do; therefore, you should be ashamed of seeking help from the Austrians.’ Right? Another example is William of Orange, who establishes the Hanoverian monarchy and leads the Glorious Revolution—which the English call a Dutch invasion. The reason William of Orange invades is that he received a letter from the seven most influential aristocrats in England saying: ‘If you invade, we won’t have any problem with it.’ So, when liberals express nationalism, there’s an American saying: ‘They’re yanking your chain.’ The idea that Louis XVI got Austrian help to restore France and save it from the Terror is seen negatively and is still taught to French schoolchildren with phrases like ‘He brought in the Austrians, that’s bad.’ There’s this widespread idea that there’s a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ French Revolution. You’ve probably heard of the No True Scotsman fallacy: if something has bad consequences, that means there’s a bad part of that thing, and then they say: ‘Well, that was the bad part.’ However, this violates Occam’s Razor. If something had bad effects, then the thing itself was bad.
M2B: The second prominent thinker of what’s known as neoreaction is Nick Land. He has responded to a lot of your own writings, but it seems you’ve never given your opinion or critique of his ideas. Have you read Nick Land?
CY: I’ve never read Nick Land, although I should. There are several reasons for that. First, I don’t like reading texts influenced by my own ideas. It’s like rereading my own thoughts, and it’s a bit suffocating.
Curtis’s wife: You should really read him; Nick Land has his own style, you won’t feel like you’re reading yourself.
CY: Yes, but there’s another issue. The tradition in which he writes is that of continental philosophy. He’s rooted in 20th-century literature, and that’s not really a style I enjoy. I much prefer reading 19th-century authors, like those from the Victorian era, for example. So, it’s largely a matter of style. That said, I should probably get over that and read him, especially since we now share the same publisher. I need to meet him.
M2B: Speaking of Nick Land, what’s your opinion on the singularity?
CY: Honestly, I don’t believe in it. There’s this recurring, quasi-Marxist idea of the robot uprising. The word ‘robot’ itself comes from a Slavic word that means ‘labor.’ It was popularized through a play by the author Karel Čapek, Rossum’s Universal Robots, written in 1920, and of course, it’s impossible to think of robots without thinking of a robot uprising, which gives us films like Metropolis or more recently Terminator. And if we look back 500 years, we can even see in this robot uprising a continuity with the Jewish myth of the golem. It’s this myth of man creating an intelligent thing that immediately turns against him.
Coming back to OpenAI, if we go back 60 years, we had these computers that could play chess. And these computers could barely play chess, yet people thought: these computers are going to become more and more powerful, stronger [at this chess game], and eventually surpass us and finally conquer the world! This myth, of seeing ChatGPT and thinking, ‘Wow, this tool is crazy, and computers will soon conquer the world,’ is as human as it gets. But if you look at ChatGPT more closely, what is it good for? Cheating on high school homework. There were startups specializing in cheating on high school homework, and they had to shut down because ChatGPT does exactly the same thing, but better.
Moreover, ChatGPT isn’t even that good of a tool. I used it for some research a while back: I was looking to find out the translator of one of the only English translations of Louis XIV’s memoirs. It’s a 19th-century book that’s very hard to find, where ‘Louis’ is written as ‘Lewis,’ translated and published anonymously. So, I asked ChatGPT who the translator was, and ChatGPT told me, ‘This translation was done by this guy.’ I thought it was interesting because this author had indeed translated a lot of books during that period. However, he was a far-left radical. So, it’s impossible that he was the translator of Louis XIV’s memoir. But no, ChatGPT presented me with this information, obviously false, that you can’t find anywhere on the Internet, in a perfectly convincing manner! So, when you read these stories of AI turning the universe into “paper clips,” it’s just grotesque, it’s a pure myth.
Sure, we have this computer that plays chess, but after some time, we realize that chess is a game that computers are naturally good at. Aristotle had this idea of the natural slave, and that’s what AI is, a natural slave[2].
M2B: In 2007, you wrote that the Cathedral would never bother attacking a mere pseudonymous blogger. Yet today, in the West, people are being sent to prison for simple tweets, not to mention the arrest of Pavel Durov and the threats against Elon Musk. What does this signify, from the Cathedral’s perspective? Are we witnessing a demonstration of its hegemony, or rather, its weakening?
CY: My time hasn’t come yet (laughs), but I must admit I wasn’t fully calm when presenting my passport at Orly. I’d also had some trouble when going to New Zealand. We’ll see what happens with this U.S. election, whichever way it goes, it will be completely crazy. It’s going to be a fight for everything, including free speech. The problem is, we’re still in a world where the regime isn’t joking around, and unfortunately, the people fighting it are anything but serious.
When I started my blog, you could write absolutely anything you wanted on the Internet. Back then, I was also pitching Urbit, my decentralized, uncensorable OS project. People didn’t see the point because these censorship and free speech issues didn’t exist yet. But as our world became increasingly strange, people suddenly woke up. What’s currently happening in Brazil, where they’re threatening to send anyone working on or consulting X to prison, is completely insane!
2007 was like a bubble: we could have Bush as president, Al Gore as president, Obama as president—it didn’t matter, we’d reached the end of history! Everything was normal. Except no, things weren’t normal! And we’ve been witnessing an escalation of all these things that make absolutely no sense.
M2B: COVID…
CY: COVID is the perfect example of that. It’s not the product of a conspiracy but, on the contrary, of a perfectly normal bureaucratic system. COVID is no more a conspiracy than Chernobyl. Mikhail Gorbachev didn’t secretly conspire to blow up a nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Chernobyl is just the product of the Soviet system, a system that said, ‘Wow, it would be so great if we proved how superior the Soviet nuclear system is by unplugging all the safety systems and showing that Soviet nuclear plants are still safe!’ And guess what? They weren’t!
The story of COVID is similar: after SARS 1, scientists realized that many viruses present in the jungle could mutate and infect humans. We decided to collect all these dangerous viruses. But these mutations take time, so why not do it ourselves! Of course, we can’t conclusively link this research to the COVID-19 pandemic. But let’s imagine it wasn’t the case, that this research wasn’t the origin of the 2020 pandemic—it was extremely close to being so.
I want to thank Curtis Yarvin for his time, as well as Rage and everyone who made this interview possible. You can find Curtis Yarvin’s writings on graymirror.substack.com.
