11 Comments

Differentiation by fashion is a good reinforcer of the clan/successful subculture. Amish and Hasidic Jews come to mind.

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An interesting point that I'll think about.

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Food rituals is another. Jews, Orthodox, and, until recently, Catholics used this for cultural identity.

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1) Jordan Hall's concept of the Civium, as an opportunity for embodied localism within Dunbar Limits afforded by AI where the image and word mediated can no longer be trusted, and everything must be locally verified. Yet the digital remains as a space where many minds can meet still in the imaginary phantasm space, as more minds together = more creative ideas to solve problems (hence city success despite making man and Asabiyyah palpably weaker)

2) Westerners must face their Spenglerian limitations. As Faustians you guys don't do diversity well when in charge. You aren't natively good at being good neighbours that mind your own business but still retain the neighbourliness with those of different sect, that say is normal in the pre colonial East, because you guys want to reach up to the heavens and "overcome" 24/7. Being Faustian with a Magian overlay is what led to much of the progressive projects of the Enlightenment/colonial era (that we still live in). The Cathars being honest Magians would never have come to that.

3) Christmas/Yuletide in Summer, and Lent in Autumn makes no sense. Chinese Spring Festival in Autumn also makes no sense. Yet Ramadan at the same time worldwide does. Our own Aussie family Asabiyyah has experienced a marked step up by doing Mid Autumn (Moon Cake) festival actually in Mid Autumn here. Our ability to be authentic and synch our thoughts with our embodiment is palpably better, even as our acceptability to the Chinese community here goes down, for they do custom and sociability and not Tradition and metaphysics (but we care less too).

Connecting with Indigenous transmissions has been essential here too.

4) (Spiritual) Decolonisation and unLiberalisation, esp. for Westerners, and getting past literacy based limitations. Again Indigenous transmissions come to mind for the latter. But Muslim perspectives are especially powerful for the former, for they are a religious, highly literate and discursive civilisation that nevertheless remained firmly "Eastern". They are a brother that grew up very differently, which helps find the root of why you are each uniquely you despite the relation. Wael B Hallaq and Rene Guenon are indispensible guides.

5) Gender relations comes front and centre. This must be more than a rejection of Feminism, as that is merely a spirit called to fill an existing vacuum. The disrespect for the midwife and the difficulties of smooth human early development are a very old problem for the West, and it has led to many sublimated traumas/compensations. Even St Augustine complained about how his mother focused him on his studies and didn't really take the time to understand him and his inner (sex addicted) life. To respect Christianity for its remarkable role in building a home for Graeco-Romans untethered by Domicide, but accept that it didn't solve the root ancestral problems either.

6) Japanese culture. Aurelian notes how like and unlike American soft power, Japanese soft power spreads throughout the world - even though they have no hegemony at all. Your kids probably watch Anime and bond with other kids at school/homeschool group that love the same Anime (probably Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Delicious in Dungeon and Attack on Titan). There is a genius here in the artistic elite, and a wholeness in their understanding of what a full woman is. They are quite a contrast to Britain on the other extreme of Eurasia in terms of history and cultural/linguistic/ethnic integrity. And rather than striving to be "Beyond Good and Evil", they are more like relaxed in residing before the pair.

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I think you'd be fascinated by what's going on in the Orthodox church in the US right now. It fits your model to a large degree.

The things you're talking about are in motion already. People are flooding into our parishes. They are mostly young single men, and families with young children. This has all happened in the last two years.

Some brave soul just released a study on it-- the first attempt I've seen, however modest, to get a sense of the numbers, for this thing that blindsided us.

https://orthodoxtimes.com/increase-in-orthodox-conversions-in-the-usa-from-2022-to-2023/

The study is dry reading, as studies are. But on the parish level this thing is intense. It's way more than just people finding Jesus. I try to get out and talk to the new people as they show up, and we suddenly have a statistically improbable number of homeschooling families, people who want to get into small-scale homesteading, people who are already into small-scale homesteading, and I'm starting to think that with just a very little push, we have enough families to put together a natural foods bulk-buying club. This is at a parish that, three years ago, had run through the standard church lifecycle of founding families--->ten good years--->founders aging and dying and their kids going off to college--->shrinking attendance with few children, mostly retirees. Everything's changed now. We didn't do any outreach to make that happen. These people are finding us completely on their own, and they are eager to make the parish-level tribe thing happen, consciously or not. Again: our *church* isn't doing anything different. A community of like-minded people with similar goals is suddenly coalescing around it. Is God calling them home? Are they being driven under our roof by outside forces? Both?

I'm skeptical of the idea that the electronic sphere can provide for people's esoteric needs.

One advantage I can see, going forward, is that a church already has a cohesive regional structure, that is easier to build community around, than starting from scratch.

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I've seen sudden and radical increases in church attendance in the last few years. People are realizing that materialism doesn't work and the Church is the last bastion of real spiritual truth. Eastern Orthodox and a few Protestant factions and the LDS are the ones primarily receiving new recruits. A lot of people are dropping the idea that the material form of the United States is sufficient to operate a society.

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From what I hear, conservative Catholic parishes are also seeing this explosive growth.

But I've been putting out feelers everywhere I can think of to get a sense of just how big and how widespread the phenomenon is, and what I'm hearing back suggests it may extend even to fraternal lodges. All sorts of dusty old fuddy-duddy institutions seem to be experiencing a revival these days.

I'm not part of that influx-- I've been here since before it was cool. So I'm itching to know *why* it's happening, what's driving it.

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I'll write an article on it, I am part of the influx. I should look into some of these fuddy duddy fraternities too.

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Yeah?

Have you already written up your personal reasons for turning to the church? I'd love to read that one.

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I swear all we need is one Thiel or Musk to be genuinely Dissident Right and the plethora of organic ideas in this space would catapult into the mainstream.

That is a matter of praxis as well, of course.

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We are so close to getting something working here... we need funding of some type. Minuscule podcasts and publishers like me just aren't enough to build a new culture.

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