Danielle Allen
WSJ, May 6, 2025
“The ability to unmask the hypocrisies of priests has always won adherents. But Mr. Yarvin leads them astray with his vision of absolute monarchy and racial cleansing.”
This week I debated the right-wing blogger Curtis Yarvin. Harvard students had worked with his publisher to book event space, and they asked me to debate him. When students ask for help thinking about intellectual material, my job is to provide that help.
I’ve been surprised by Mr. Yarvin’s influence among Harvard students. He is known for founding the “Dark Enlightenment” movement. People need to understand his argument, its attraction—and its profound errors. Here’s one example from his recent book, “Gray Mirror”: “Democracy ends once everyone realizes that without it, everyone can just win.”
Mr. Yarvin argues that for most of human history people have believed in a hierarchy of races and lived under absolute monarchies. He thinks this combination has served people well by generating efficient governments with missions that are “the same as the mission of a company: to maximize the value of its capital.” Since capital for a state is its land and people, and since Mr. Yarvin believes in a hierarchy of races, maximizing the value of capital means not being afraid of racial cleansing.
In his telling, our age, beginning in the early 20th century, is founded on lies: that human beings are equal and that self-government by free and equal citizens is possible. DNA, he argues, disproves the former; our current political situation disproves the latter. We don’t govern ourselves—because we have become a weak and frivolous people, and because an oligarchy has captured our institutions, including universities, the media and the professions. These figures operate a “ministry of truth” to keep people under control. Because their lies are now foundering on reality, Mr. Yarvin maintains, the time has come for regime change—for an absolute monarch. ….SOURCE