Reactionary Fiction
Man progressing, or man rewiring
Science Fiction and Futurism…
Most people do not know these are different genres. Most people use them interchangeably, unbeknownstly revealing their lack of literary education. But however similar they are, they are philosophical opposites as well. Same dreams and nightmares, different use of them. The subtleties are many, but in brief I summarize their difference as follows:
Science Fiction imagines what is feared or desired through technology;
Futurism crushes our desires and fears through technology.
In this regard, Futurism is post-modern. It was, in the past, a prized tool of deconstruction and destruction by mid-centurists to obliterate tradition and question the normative. This, generally in Italy and Russia. It served its purpose and was by and large dropped by the post war era. And that would have been the death of futurism has not a a curious phenomenon developed in the United States, whereby progressives tended to latch onto science fiction instead of futurism. We can theorize why - perhaps progressives wanted some kind of tradition narrative to reinforce their views, and series like Star Trek functioned to that role with great perfection by indoctrinating an entire generation’s youth into the neo-lib-con world view that haunts the modern state’s cathedral. Whatever the cause, nearly a century later a curious consequence is what we see in cinema and literature today: Science Fiction is used to reinforce the regime’s ideals, while Futurism is increasingly used to question and deconstruct them, often with a curious traditionalist vibe.
In the history of creative works, this is quite an unexpected and seemingly little-utilized development. It is one I wish you, my reader, to take ownership of if you are to pursue artistic critiques of the Contemporary State.
Now, I have wanted to write on this topic for many months, but had little in the way of media to project through my lenses in evaluating this. Plague and what not have stunted Hollywood’s capacities. But I was pleasantly surprised when. to those ends, two recent works of fiction were co-released that so beautifully project the finite differences. Apple’s Foundation, and Villeneuve’s Dune. After having watched both, I am eager to get into their similarities and differences and show my opinion that Dune should be received as a work of futurism, while Foundation as a work of Science Fiction.
Why Foundation is Science Fiction
Science fiction is as the term implies. It is fiction that expresses a goal that is achieved by science. Science fiction will always emphasize reaching cultural goals through the popular science of the day. This is something to remember. The purpose of science fiction isn’t just to escape the current reality, but also to orient towards a desired reality. In the Sixties, the science was in physics, chemistry, etc. So the shows were things like Star Trek, where technological achievements were used to reach cultural goals in equality and egalitarianism. Stories were told to emphasize these goals, which were reinforced with phasers and quantum torpedoes. Democracy, insured with atomic fire. Quite the non-surprise that such influenced minds became the lib-con dichotomy of today. And, today, the science is social and psychological. Very subjective matters projected as objective truths. So you can imagine in twenty years time, the leaders are going to be performing aggressive social goals backed by atomic fire. One hopes they fail sooner than the current elite did, but why do they do this?
Foundation, as a story, was written during, and after, the Second World War. It is, simply put, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in space. The main focus of which is the “Seldon Plan”. A mathematically derived prophecy for how to survive a coming dark age. While I loved the story growing up, I always recognized it as blandly original and practically quoting Gibbon’s history book verbatim. Many of the characters are direct name borrows, such as General Bel Riose as a stand-in for the real life General Belisarius. So why did I like it? The structure. The story spans many centuries, and is structured in a very fun way: Every chapter has old and young people, rarely people in their glory days. In so doing, Asimov focused in on the translation of culture, language, and religion between generations and less on the actual acts of individual heroism. You start with Seldon at is old age, and Dornick in his youth. The next chapter has Dornick in his old age, and Hardin in his youth, then Hardin as an old man relaying wisdom, so on and so forth. The experience is that of a time traveler seemingly always arriving at important points, but never long enough to get to know anyone. The characters are turned into set pieces and backgrounds, and the actual “character” is the civilization itself. The Character development, the heroes journey, is not an individual, but the overarching development of a civilization that obeys The Seldon Plan. It would be like movie about the personification of Rome, or Britain. That was the real novelty of Asimov’s writing. Beyond that, it’s just Gibbon’s history with spaceships and lasers.
Now, with the introduction done, I want to take a deter before I get into how Apple, naturally, had to subvert everything I’ve just mentioned. I want to take a deter into gesture. Stay with me on this for a second…
I am extremely sensitive to gesture. I don’t know how to explain this without sounding equivalently autistic in the extreme, but I will attempt: People copy gesture. Generally speaking, the way you move, speak, use hand language with speech, frock your hair, pose when you ponder, even the patterns of how you breathe, are all copied onto you by influences around you. I am not exactly sure how aware most people are of this, but I assume they must be some what aware. Or maybe I really am just that autistic to notice it.
I can go on a dating app and predict that ninety five percent of profiles I see will be women making the same handful of gestures from popular music videos this year. I can predict whole personalities based off this, to be honest. I’ve thoroughly tested this. I’ve always hoped of being wrong, but time and time again the gesture in the photo predicts the personality they have copied in living motion. Not to sound puritans, but if you are a parent this is also why you should be very cautious of what kind of dance moves your children make. These things imprint onto the mind and alter one’s personality. There is no coincidence when you see one kind of gestures, dance move, or verbal tics show up at certain protests or gatherings or parties. You can even predict entire political pantheons in people’s heads by these notions. And there’s a physical reason why.
The cause of this, is a specialized type of cell in your brain known as Mirror Neurons. They, as the name implies, construct mirror performances based off data fed into them from visual, audio, and other cues. Not every species has mirror neurons. They show up in primates, as you would imagine. But also in rats. In fact, some evidence suggests even crows have some parallel neurological system as well.
Mirror neurons are why a baby will mimic your face. They are why apes will repeat gestures you show them, as shown above, when you feed them. They are why some whales will attempt to mimic human speech when exposed to them for prolonged periods, as seen below:
What you may not realize, is that mirror neurons are wired into the neurological hierarchy above the motor systems. This should be obvious, because they mimic movements. But this should also scare you, because humans have an advanced capacity to recognize patterns with remarkable specificity. We don’t just mimic motion. We mimic behavior and belief as well. Even contradictory ones. In the past, this was generally used by religious or monarchical powers. In America, most mimic entertainment powers. This is why, when Cardi B comes out with a new sexual gesture in a music video, you can be guaranteed that within two weeks that same gesture will be on every screen-addicted woman’s tiktok, twitter, tinder, etc etc. This is also why, when a generation of men lack a good father figure to mimic, they are prone to violent degenerate retardation.
Humans will even mimic animals in the absence of people. You’ve likely heard of feral children who behave like animals who adopted them in the wild. This is neurologically the same kind of decline as the urban young man prone to wild violent acts.
You may be wondering what this has to do with Science Fiction. And now we return to the topic from our detour. These matters are relevant in the curious shift from Sci-fi oriented around technology, to an orientation around the social sciences. People will mimic what they see in the absence of direction from a parent or institution. In the past, this was James T Kirk’s trust of “The Science”. Today, that is mimicking Michael Burnham’s unrealistic depiction of future women, or the weak effeminate men around her. What these social-science-fictions display as normative behavior in pretend-world, is what the youth will mimic in the real world, and face frustrations when reality doesn’t permit their mimicry to succeed in meaningful existence.
In Apple’s Foundation, the crescendo of this shift is found in the Second Episode, “Preparing to Live”. Within this episode is a scene with a subtle gender swap that likely flew under the radar of most watchers. Throughout the eighties through to the early two thousands, there was often the “pool scene”. A romantic shot where an unsure female is lured into the sexual advances of a very jockey male. Or lad as they use in the UK. The female is brought over to the male’s advances, and the romantic relationship is established. In Foundation, this is reversed. A man who cannot swim is pulled into the water and in a helpless scene, a strong female lead - abs and all - conquers him. The cue for the mirror neurons should be obvious.
They are both black, naturally. Because the science says we need more African representation. Every single Protagonist of this story is, thus, black. That’s not an insult, mind you. You can have great black leads. I rather enjoyed Black Panther, and may God rest the soul of Boseman; A Christian man with scholarly knowledge of Hebrew, and a student of both the Old and New testament. His movie is good because his story is good. His story is good because his Christian virtues are good. Foundation, however, is neither Christian nor virtuous. And when you make every hero in the story black, and every villain white, you are clearly producing a work of propaganda. And worse, when you feminize your men into weak ab-licking creatures who don’t know how to swim on a starship - lacking capacity to be anything masculine at all - you have created a work of social fiction. A work of propaganda. But a work of fiction, no less. A fiction which relies on the current Science.
The Science now says old gender roles are too patriarchal and likely reinforcing rape culture. Lord knows how you derive morals from science. But the social-science-fiction must reinforce this. Notice it doesn’t actually offer any way to stop the problem of uncontrolled sexuality. Its solution is to simply reverse the role. Sprinkle in some hints of bisexuality between Seldon and this man, just to follow “The Science”, and wala! In so doing, the effeminate nerdy bisexual man is the receiver of masculine drives disguised behind breasts. Most likely didn’t notice this reversal, but your mirror neurons did.
Feminine abs, over-representation of black women, and effeminate bisexual men aside, there is another minor detail with the genetic dynasty ruling the Empire that is worth pointing out. They are all white men, clones of each other. They are described as stale, unoriginal, and incapable of new ideas. They’ve ruled for about four hundred years - possibly a curious albeit subliminal reference to the Sixteen Nineteen project’s claims to Four Hundred and Two years of oppression. None of these details are from the book. They are creative liberties. It’s just interesting how it mirrors our own timeline today. I would speculate that instead of Edward Gibbon’s decline and fall, this book is a retelling of Robin DiAngelo’s fragile history.
Why Dune is Futurism
Dune has ever-interested me from youth, perpetually enchanting my dreams and inspiring my creativity. It’s really more a fantasy book than a work of science fiction. I was read it by my mother young, before I knew what Star Wars was. It probably was one of the early books I was read that biased me to the superiority of the Christian faith. Although, Herbert by no means was a religious man. An atheist, he mixes and divides beliefs within the text as he pleases. Abrahamic unionism is a major theme, along with Buddhist practices. Some of my favorite teaching of “Orange Catholicism”, the main religious text of the series, include:
Religion often partakes of the myth of progress that shields us from the terrors of an uncertain future.
Beware the seeds you sow and the crops you reap. Do not curse God for the punishment you inflict upon yourself.
If the deaf know not they are, what sense know not you lack?
These lessons, while not Christianity, rather obviously derive from the wisdom of Christ.
However, note the subversion. This isn’t really Abrahamic Unity. It’s deconstructing Abraham’s descendants. Herbert thinks you can do this to religious truth claims. So it is a book to hold with gloves, least you burn your soul. And it is this knee-deep example that hints at Dune’s deeper futurism.
Villeneuve, the director of Dune’s newest attempt to enter cinema, is more interested in critiquing the contemporary world as we find it now, rather than Hebrber’s conformist post-war world that he critiqued. He has now established a rather good consistency in questioning cultural norms of the lib-con order today. A fascinating plot point in in his previous film, Blade Runner 2049, follows a young white synth as he is lulled into the possibility that he is half- human and something important to the world’s story. He discovers memories linking him to grander stories he longs to be part of - of stories he almost seems to feel entitled to be part of. Stories he longs to give purpose to his pod-life existence. But! He later discovers these memories are artificial imports. The real protagonist is a woman, and the memories come from her experiences.
The process of discovering all your expected participation in the world around you has been given over to others is one which parallels the experience of many young white men today. They are quickly discovering their state no longer takes interest in their dreams and fears. They simply aren’t the cultural protagonist anymore. The dreams in their head belong to others, and they are being taken and given to others regularly. For this reason, Bladerunner has often been joked as Incel Rager, 2049. Rightly so, I believe. This problem isn’t in itself to blame on the state. There’s plenty to blame on the laxity of yesteryear’s cultural protagonist. It’s hard to feel sad for a bunch of coomers, after all. They kinda did it to themselves.
But Most people do not realize that the state simply cannot operate giving patronage to multiple cultural aspirations. The reality is, it can only handle one. The myth of progressives is that the aspirations of the colored rainbow can be uplifted together with the old order, with no preferenced group. Some may construct deeper fictions that any preference is only temporary on the road to equality. The reality, however cruel it sounds, is that the state cannot manage this. At best, it ends up operating a revolving door and picking one group at a time, and perpetually disappointing all with every rotation. This is an oft-overlooked problem when you rely on the state to define your purpose in life. It is, of course, avoidable. In days past this patronage was the responsibility of a devolved local hierarchy. Your elder, or tribesmen, or parent, would give you your story. Often this gifting was part of a coming of age ritual. It was something for your mirror neurons to receive as a life-long mimicry. But today, people want the state to do this. The state wants to do this too. The state naturally longs to be a replacement for the local hierarchy. But the state cannot give everyone a unique story. There’s just not enough time to figure out everyone’s local experiences and direct them as needed. So the state will over time generalize and singularize that gift into a single identity. For us, that is to consume. And now, you are seeing the consequences: When the state picks transgendered preferences, suddenly it accidentally causes a generation of young people to mutilate themselves. When it switches gears to black people, suddenly Latinos feel angry they are ignored. When it switches to Latinos, African Americans feel under-represented. Consider recently with the wave of anti-Asian crimes committed by Black youths? You saw the state struggle to simultaneously advocate for both. The state is displaying its incompetence in broadcasting more than one aspiration. All suffer when all depend on one source that isn’t God.
To these points, Villeneuve’s Dune is a work of Futurism. It unapologetically rejects the mythos of the existing lib-con regime. It doesn’t need to apologize for a state that picks favorites. The emperor has his favored families, and those he doesn’t care for. Villeneuve’s Dune has no democracy. The world is a projection of great families and the will of their noble leaders. There are no feminine abs in Dune. Female warriors rely on tactical actions and emotional manipulation as they would in real life. Women do not want to be men, and men do not want to be women. Women seek the things that women actually would want naturally: family, shadow, and loyal sons. Men seek the things they would naturally want: loyalty, brotherhood, strength of will and precision of muscle. There is a line the Duke says to his concubine. “I should have married you”. With that, Villeneuve’s Dune establishes a firm grasp at the neck of the weakened real.
Dune is a breath of fresh air not as a deconstruction of the old, but of the current. While a common critique of Dune is that it is just another white savior story, so what?He’s a good hero. Dune deconstructs the lib-con truth regime on race and religion. The Emperor is Persian. Atreides is some kind of Greek-Spaniard Mediterranean family. Harkkonens are Sweeds. Arrkeans are various darker skinned people. The Emperors servants are often black-as-night Africans, and his terror-soldiers are some kind of Frenchmen. These all can exist and experience each other’s uniqueness without any bitchy journalists screaming about cultural appropriation or racism. it’s so refreshing to see human diversity without all the cope and virtue signaling of the lib-con truth regime. When Paul Atreides fights a black native of Arrakis to the death, there is no cope to race or religion. Paul didn’t defeat him because of any innate superiority or inferiority. He simply had greater reason to live. Greater desire to struggle for glory. And yet, this ought not be conflated with some lib-con regime myth about the atomized individual wearing their various identities and mental illnesses as a badge of honor. Paul has family and prophecy. He is connecting to his culture and traditions just as much as the man he kills. Fate simply favored his calling more. His father gave him a story he wants to live out. These are ancient motivations and traits that form a human essence. Things lost in the contradictory hyper-focus on the atomized consumer or the racialized ill-humored extremist.
Sure, Dune does talk about topics like colonization and oppression. You can’t avoid these topics given the topics in the book and film. But it doesn’t dichotomize these things into good vs evil. Instead, if reveals hierarchies that need repair instead of obliteration. Repair through the obliteration of the lib-con truth regime.
Even consider the character of Liet Kynes, swapped out for a black woman in the film. Yet, this is no cope to “The Science” as Foundation did. She is not some abs-possessing domineering masculine figure with breastly unrealistic personality. She is a native relying on her familial ties to the people, but also a member of the imperial court willing to exercise good virtues with loyalty to the Emperor. Her death - possible death - is meaningful because she balanced virtue and loyalty in a realistic feminine way.
In the books, the male character is the father of Chani, the eventual wife of Paul. It is unclear if she will end up being Chani’s mother here, but a mother she still acts like. She is more a mother than anything else. Her emotions save lives as if she is trying to mother Paul and his remaining friends into thriving in a harsh world. Her work focuses on mothering the planet to spring life and achieve its full potential. A wonderful contrast to the ridiculous gender swap in Foundation with Gaal Dornick. Proving you can diversify your cast if you want, without compromising on basic common sense character traits and limitations. Liet is no Mary Sue.
The Sleeper
Dune is a lesson to the Reactionary Artist. A lesson to learn. And one final lesson I wish to offer, is the theme of The Sleeper: an abstracted notion of human potential seen in both series. In Foundation, Gaal Dornick worships The Sleeper as a deity that to save herself from a dying civilization. But the sleeper never wakes to save. His blessings can only come from his dreams. He can only dream things to be faithful to. The myth of progress. Always tomorrow coming, never today arrived. Always cursing yesterday even though it was yesterday’s hope.
Dune insists on a different idea. The Sleeper MUST awaken. A line very meaningful to my own youth. The path of self-actualization through awakening the inner aristocracy of the soul is hard, but when you take the effort to get there, more possibilities awaken with you - within you.
The contrast between the two come down in the real as what you wish to do with your life. Will you sleep and dream of better worlds to signal to? Or will you awaken to make them? For Christians, there is an inheritance of creation that one receives with faithful obedience to good ethics. The love of neighbor and God can awaken the sleeper and empower him to actualize a phantasm of God’s kingdom to come. This can only ever be a phantasm and but a preview of the more permeant future. But it allows a past to be blessed when it passes, and a hope to long for coming. There is no need to curse yesterday’s progress. Human existence is desirable and desired to replicate and build on what has passed.
Apple’s Foundation offers nothing of the sort. The past is to be condemned. The future is in plans and prophecies with no certainty in a dying world. At best, you will get to lick the abs of a black female childless hero with a gun. Dune, on the other hand, offers you an alternative:
You’ve heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There’s an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind
What will you do, reader, when you are trapped by the lib-con truth regime? Will you chew your limbs off and run away? Or will you maintain your posture and hide your blade, awaiting the Hunter that must be removed to live free.
The sleeper must Awaken.
To these ends, if you are a reactionary and you like to write, do consider studying the use of futurism as a critique of the lib-con truth regime. Find ways to deconstruct and destroy their order and ethos. It’s true that right wing artistry is rare. Here’s your chance to be that at a sophisticated technical level. Wishing you well!
Where did you get this phrase: 'Women seek the things that women actually would want naturally: family, shadow, and loyal sons' ?