The Dark Enlightenment and Neoreactionary (NRx) Thought: Critiques of Liberal Modernity

ENGL 5002F: Studies in Theory | CLMD 6904F: Special Topic in Cultural Mediations

The Dark Enlightenment and Neoreactionary (NRx) Thought:
Critiques of Liberal Modernity

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“Empathy is … a bug in Western civilization…. We need to have empathy
for civilization as a whole and not commit to a civilizational suicide”
—Elon Musk

This graduate seminar examines the Dark Enlightenment and Neoreactionary (NRx) Thought as reactionary critiques of democracy, egalitarianism, and Enlightenment rationality. Emerging from the digital peripheries of techno-capitalism, these movements—articulated by figures such as Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug), Nick Land, Thomas Carlyle, and Carl Schmitt—reject liberal modernity and propose alternative governance models ranging from monarchy to corporate rule. As these ideological formations seek to reshape contemporary power structures, how do literary and cultural texts resist, unsettle, or aesthetically disaffirm the world they envision?

Our readings pair core neoreactionary and techno-futurist texts with critiques from writers like Michel Foucault, Shoshana Zuboff, Byung-Chul Han, and Albert Camus, alongside literary and speculative works by Ursula K. Le Guin, Jeanette Winterson, Ted Chiang, and others. The course foregrounds debates around digital sovereignty, algorithmic governance, racial capitalism, political myth, and the aesthetics of resistance. In particular, we will explore how myth—whether racial, technological, or revolutionary—operates as an animating force across reactionary and emancipatory imaginaries alike. What makes myth such an effective political technology on the Right today, and why do leftist projects so often falter at the level of myth-making?

Seminarians will analyze how literature and visual media mediate contemporary anxieties about technology, identity, and power—from the rise of digital authoritarianism to posthuman intimacies and decolonial futures. One place of tremendous friction (at least for me) is that much poststructuralist thinking on the Left also critiques liberal modernity and liberal political subjectivity. How, then, shall we distinguish critiques on the Right from those on the Left?

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Week 1 (Sept. 5): Authoritarian Racial Thought

Carlyle, Thomas [published anonymously]. “Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question.” Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country 40 (Dec. 1849): 670–679. Link
A canonical work of authoritarian racial thought, central to Yarvin’s influences (anticipating next week). Warning: contains racist views and language.
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Prompt: How does Carlyle’s conception of labour, race, and order prefigure the ideological core of later neoreactionary thinkers? What rhetorical strategies does he use to naturalize racial hierarchy—and how might these be disrupted or inverted by contemporary critiques? Elsewhere Carlyle famously wrote: “A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.” We must think about the use and abuse of empathy in the racist imaginary, which today might best be represented by Elon Musk (“empathy is civilizational suicide”).
Note: In 1850, the philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote a letter to the editor, “The Negro Question,” denouncing the author of the above. Link

Week 2 (Sept. 12): Neoreactionary Myth-Making and the Critique of Liberal Democracy

Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political. Trans. George Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007 (orig. 1932).
Read: Chapter 1, “The Concept of the Political,” Sections 1–3 (pp. 19–37). [In the PDF version, pp. 39–50] PDF
Schmitt defines the political as grounded in the friend/enemy distinction, arguing against liberal neutrality and emphasizing sovereign decisionism—an influence that reverberates through neoreactionary thought.
Yarvin, Curtis [published under Mencius Moldbug]. Unqualified Reservations. Access in various places online, if you wish to explore, but please use the PDF linked below.
Read: A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations (2009), Chapters 1–3 (pp. 1–84). PDF
Establishes key terms in neoreactionary ideology and right-wing critiques of liberal democracy.
Foucault, Michel. “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976. Translated by David Macey. New York: Picador, 2003.
Read: Lecture Six, 11 February 1976 (pp. 115–140). PDF
This lecture explores how early modern actors use fabulous histories (e.g., Trojan descent myths, Norman/Saxon divides) to mobilize aristocratic or revolutionary claims. It’s about how myth constitutes a political subject and a partisan truth—a technology on both right and left.
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Prompt: How does Schmitt’s ‘friend/enemy’ distinction provide a philosophical basis for Yarvin’s rejection of democracy? In what ways does Foucault’s analysis of disciplinary power challenge Schmitt’s and Yarvin’s notions of sovereignty and political legitimacy?
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- OPTIONAL READING: Murray, Stuart J. “Mythic Violence, Memes, and the Recursive Rhetorics of Resistance,” Theory & Event (forthcoming). PDF
  If you are interested, I wrote this over the summer as I was researching and preparing our seminar. This is my position on the moral bankruptcy of political liberalism, taking aim at the Left (especially), and using Luigi Mangione as a case study. I’d welcome your comments and criticism. This has been updated to the version that is forthcoming.
- OPTIONAL READING: Cox Richardson, Heather. “Letters from an American.” Substack. Sept. 8, 2025. Link
  Something contemporary that references Schmitt and Yarvin in the context of the Trump administration.
- Week 2 Lecture Notes PDF
  (I’ve decided to include my rough notes for you)

Week 3 (Sept. 19): Techno-Nihilism and Accelerationism [BRIDGET]

Land, Nick. Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987–2007. Eds. Robin Mackay and Ray Brassier. Falmouth: Urbanomic/Sequence Press, 2011.
Read: “Machinic Desire” and “Meltdown” (pp. 319–344 and 441–459). PDF
Techno-nihilism and accelerationism as the dark mirror of progressive futurism.
Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Winchester: Zero Books, 2009.
Read: Chapter 1, “It’s Easier to Imagine the End of the World than the End of Capitalism” (pp. 1–11). PDF
Introduces the central thesis of capitalist realism as a pervasive cultural condition that precludes alternative futures, offering a key contrast to Land’s embrace of collapse and transformation.
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Prompt: How do Land and Fisher differ in their responses to capitalist realism? Does Fisher’s critique serve as resistance to accelerationist collapse, or is it caught in the very logic he critiques?
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- OPTIONAL READING: Land, Nick. “A Quick-and-Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism.” The Jacobite, May 25, 2017. LINK
  Land writing accessibly!
- OPTIONAL READING: Beckett, Andy, “Accelerationism: How a Fringe Philosophy Predicted the Future We Live In.” The Guardian, May 11, 2017. LINK
- OPTIONAL READING: Williams, Alex, and Nick Srnicek, “#ACCELERATE MANIFESTO for an Accelerationist Politics.” Critical Legal Thinking [blog], May 14, 2013. LINK
  Accelerationism written from a left-wing perspective (which Land says is now dead in the water).

Week 4 (Sept. 26): Biopolitics and Technofetishism [MADELEINE; ERICA]

Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Viking, 2005.
Read: Chapters 1–2 (pp. 7–110). PDF
Introduces Kurzweil’s vision of exponential technological growth leading to a future point—the Singularity—where human and machine intelligence converge, posing critical questions about autonomy, control, and posthuman governance.
Han, Byung-Chul. Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power. Trans. Erik Butler. London: Verso, 2017.
Read: Chapters 1–3 (pp. 1–20). PDF
Outlines the shift from disciplinary to digital power, where individuals are seduced into self-surveillance under the guise of freedom, efficiency, and participation (recall Foucault’s Discipline and Punish).
Bratton, Benjamin. “The Black Stack.” e-flux Journal #53 (March 2014), pp. 13–21. Link
Proposes a planetary-scale view of computation, examining how sovereignty and architecture are being redefined by digital infrastructure. Offers a critical contrast to Kurzweil’s optimistic futurism by articulating the geopolitics of platforms.
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Prompt: How do Kurzweil’s visions of posthuman evolution stand in tension with Han’s and Bratton’s critiques of algorithmic governance and digital sovereignty? Is Kurzweil’s futurism liberatory, or does it risk reinforcing new forms of domination?
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- OPTIONAL READING (BUT IF YOU DON’T KNOW THIS TEXT, PLEASE READ!): Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
  Read: “Panopticism” (pp. 195–209). PDF

Week 5 (Oct. 3): Posthuman Desire and Monstrous Futures [THEO; BENNY]

Winterson, Jeanette. Frankissstein: A Love Story. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2020.
A speculative reimagining of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, exploring themes of gender, AI, transhumanism, and erotic futurity. Engages with the cultural politics of embodiment, technological desire, and the persistence of the monstrous in visions of liberation and control.
OPTIONAL, but for those who would like a quick recap of Mary Shelley’s story. Link
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Prompt: How does Frankissstein reconfigure the Frankenstein myth in relation to gender, AI, and desire? In what ways might it both resist and mirror neoreactionary fantasies of transcendence and control?

Week 6 (Oct. 10): Political Myth and Managerial Realism [MALAK]

Foucault, Michel. “Is It Useless to Revolt?” Trans. James Bernauer. Le Monde, May 11, 1979. Reprinted in Religion and Culture: Michel Foucault, ed. Jeremy R. Carrette. New York: Routledge, 1999 (pp. 131–134). PDF
A brief op-ed meditation on the necessity and meaning of revolt. Foucault challenges the view that failed uprisings are futile, proposing instead that revolt enacts a refusal that is historically and ethically generative—even when politically unsuccessful.
Burnham, James. The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom. New York: John Day Company, 1943.
Read: Part 3, Chapter 1–3, “Mosca: The Theory of the Ruling Class” (pp. 81–101). Link
Burnham argues that all forms of government rely on legitimating myths—political formulas—that disguise elite rule, a claim foundational to neoreactionary thinking.
Marx, Karl. “Critique of the Gotha Program.” In Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume Three, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970, pp. 13–30. Available at Marxists Internet Archive. Link
Marx critiques the utopianism and statist assumptions of German social democracy, clarifying his vision of a future communist society and offering a counterpoint to Burnham’s elitist realism.
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Prompt: How do Burnham and Marx each frame the relationship between power, myth, and social structure? Does Foucault’s reflection shift the terrain of revolt into something more affective or existential or mythic?

Week 7 (Oct. 17): Ambiguous Utopia [ASHLEY]

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. New York: Harper & Row, 2024.
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Prompt: In what ways does Le Guin’s ambiguous utopia subvert traditional political binaries? How might her vision respond to or critique the deterministic logic of both technocratic and reactionary ideologies?

Week 8 (Oct. 31): AI Sovereignty and Surveillance Futures [OLIVIA]

Bostrom, Nick. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Read: Chapters 1–2 (pp. 22–88 of the linked PDF, with apologies for poor quality!). PDF
Introduces the concept of superintelligent AI and the existential risks posed by misaligned optimization, laying the groundwork for a governance dilemma in posthuman futures.
Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: PublicAffairs, 2019.
Read: Part I, Chapter 1: “Home or Exile in the Digital Future” (pp. 1–37). PDF
Offers a foundational critique of how data extraction has become the basis for a new economic order, raising questions of autonomy, consent, and democratic erosion in algorithmic life.
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Prompt: How does Zuboff’s critique of surveillance capitalism challenge Bostrom’s rationalist futurism? What assumptions about power, consent, and human agency underwrite each approach to AI?

Week 9 (Nov. 7): Algorithmic Intimacies and Digital Ontologies [JUDE]

Chiang, Ted. “The Lifecycle of Software Objects.” In Exhalation: Stories. New York: Vintage, 2020, pp. 103–201.
A novella that explores the ethical, emotional, and ontological dimensions of raising sentient digital beings over time. Raises critical questions about care, labour, commodification, and the blurred boundaries between human and nonhuman subjectivities in virtual life.
Chiang, Ted. “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling.” In Exhalation: Stories. New York: Vintage, 2020, pp. 185–230.
I’m adding this story late, so technically it’s OPTIONAL. However, it’s light reading this week and I probably would have included this rather than the first story (had I read it before designing the syllabus). It’s a philosophically fascinating short story and I believe well worth your time if you can read it.
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Prompt: What kinds of care, labour, and ethical obligations emerge in Chiang’s digital world? How does the story’s quiet realism interrogate or disrupt dominant narratives of optimization and technological progress?

Week 10 (Nov. 14): Talkin Bout a Revolution [MEKYLE]

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press, 2004.
Read: “On Violence” (pp. 1–62). PDF
Revolutionary decolonial thought; critique of liberal humanism.
Camus, Albert. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. Trans. Anthony Bower. New York: Vintage International, 1991.
Read: Selection (pp. 3–5, 13–17, 105–111, 177–187). PDF
Camus critiques both nihilism and absolute revolution, proposing rebellion as a measured affirmation of human dignity. This reading complicates Fanon’s account of decolonial violence with a call for ethical limits and solidarity.
Achebe, Chinua. “Dead Men’s Path.” In Girls at War and Other Stories. London: Heinemann, 1972, pp. 83–86. Reprint available online. Link
A short story examining the clash between colonial modernity and indigenous belief systems, offering a powerful allegory of cultural imposition and resistance within the context of postcolonial critique.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. “The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright.” Translated from Gikuyu by the author. Nairobi: Jalada Africa, 2016. Reprint available online. Link
An allegorical fable grounded in oral storytelling traditions that imagines a political origin for the human body’s upright posture. The story critiques internal division and envisions cooperation as the basis of liberation—an accessible entry point into decolonial narrative ethics.
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Prompt: What tensions emerge between Camus’s ethics of revolt and Fanon’s revolutionary decolonialism? How do Achebe and Ngũgĩ deepen or complicate these frameworks through narrative and allegory? Consider oral traditions here: for those interested, compare Indigenous storytelling practices.

Week 11 (Nov. 21): Pro-natalism and The Great Replacement, Special Guest Prof. Sarah Brouillette

Brady, Miranda. “Citizen Mothers and Others: Natalist Discourse and Politics in the U.S. after Trump.” Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture (20 July 2025). https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2025.2525412. PDF

ENGL 5002F: Studies in Theory | CLMD 6904F: Special Topic in Cultural Mediations