"I know what you’re thinking. If I was a laowai, I would do the same,” she said. “If you’re looking for a girl to take home tonight, go find someone else.” Her accent was so much softer than that of the new Chinese who struggle through an English sentence despite having spent four years in an American university. Mandarin is a coarse, disjointed set of bisyllables---a cacophony which pours over unto any efforts at English. [ 2,762 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/…/thoughts-upon-the-huangpu-r…/

What for grasps the dead man’s hands? Fingers sloppily grey and cold against the earth of the grave; What for seeks the dead man’s mind? Fold’s crawling wetly like worms against the cracks of his skull; What for draws the dead man’s soul? Falling, falling, falling, into itself a narrow black recess in the shape of a man; Every man is dead, [ 35 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/2018/07/28/emmanuel/

Brother Jonathan, Our recent correspondence has left me with a nagging feeling. It had escaped me exactly what bothered me, but one day as I was taking a walk it came to me. I knew what it was about your words that had left such an impression on me. You don’t believe yourself to be an imperial. No wonder you’ve had so much difficulty. [ 3,328 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/…/…/26/a-letter-to-an-imperial/

This week at American Greatness, we find a sudden and full court press against NATO. Long overdue in our opinion. Angelo Codevilla acknowledges NATO Now Serves the Interests of the Transatlantic Ruling Class. NATO is the new UN. One fmore enemy that needs starving. Christopher Roach follows suit. So too VDH. Also there, VDH takes Deport the Deplorables… [ 4,027 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/…/07/25/week-reaction-2018-07…/

Steven Pinker's new book Enlightenment Now, released February 2018, purports to be a defense of the Enlightenment c.1760s against its steadily growing list of enemies, but in fact reads more like a defense of Star Trek techno-liberalism c.1960s (who's the goddamn reactionary here?). In the book, Pinker comes across less like an Enlightenment philosopher and more as a Henry Ford-type voicing disappointment over the tunes kids are listening to these days and urging them to listen to the music of his youth. [ 2,387 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/…/book-review-stephen-pinkers…/

Since the days of Reagan---and perhaps those of Buckley’s then-new conservative movement--- conservatism has been plagued by a false doctrine about government, which shapes both ideological theory and electoral slogans. It goes something like this: for a variety of social and economic reasons, government is incompetent, inferior, and a necessary evil insofar as it must exist at all. It’s bad. The grand vision of the conservative movement is to roll it back and restrict it in future by whatever means necessary. [ 2,540 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/…/we-need-tremendous-governme…/

I The purple mounts muses mingle on, by Aurora’s opening the lid of the world, Are ‘light with the the joy of the morn, invisible but to the herald, who trumpets out the coming of the all felt unseen, by which the world all hurl’d in the joy felt in what has been and what is to come in thrumming power of inspired’s lyres. [ 506 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/2018/07/21/beyond-kalis-night/

Well, this week ended with a Croatian loss in the World Cup Final. But well-wishes for Croatia were common throughout the sphere. Congratulations to France... and her former African colonies. Better luck next year, Croatia! This week in American Greatness, Pedro Gonzalez notes America Is Not a Nation of Immigrants. A nation of settlers is far more like it. [ 4,436 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/…/07/18/week-reaction-2018-07…/

Sleep, sleep wipe away the tears we weep Stay but awhile and pray your soul to keep The sun is gone and the day is ended Once more the stars threaded ways have wended Keep tight your eyes, keep tight your eyes and rest Unclasp your hands and pray among the blessed Weep not one tear for those are still awake… [ 89 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/2018/07/14/lullaby/

Radical social liberals like to portray themselves as the enemies of the corporate-oligarchic establishment named the Managerial Elites by writers like Burnham and Francis. The purported conflict between radicalism (or leftism, or progressivism) and managerial neoliberal crony capitalism, however, is a false dichotomy, designed to channel people into pre-approved ideologies which are harmless to the ruling elites. Both groups are fundamentally aligned in a “left-hand/right-hand” paradigm. [ 1,819 more word ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/…/12/feminism-labor-exploitat…/

I guess the big news this week was US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's announced retirement. Let's hope Trump picks someone less concerned with always voting with the majority. Other than that, things were eerily quiet around the sphere. Well, except for this. More on that below. This week in American Greatness, Roger Kimball explains how The Left Is Slipping into Terminal Irrelevance… [ 4,000 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/…/07/10/week-reaction-2018-07…/

John Neville Figgis was a political philosopher and Anglican priest who has now become fairly obscure. His claim to fame is that he edited a great deal of Lord Acton’s works (he of “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” fame).[i] This obscurity is very much undeserved, as Figgis is a historian of the first order. Figgis’ … [ 1,724 more word ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/…/john-neville-figgis-on-the-…/

All the way back in the simpler and quieter times of 2009, Paul Gottfried gave a speech to the HL Mencken Club on the development of a new right-wing. Almost immediately, Gottfried quoted Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s command to his troops at the battle of Gallipoli during World War One, “I am not asking you to stand and fight here; I am asking you to die in your tracks.” Befitting [ 817 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/20…/…/09/how-to-ascend-despair/

O Columbia, you who waste in throes In agony waiting what might be born I know your pain; That I do God knows! Ever on the brink of being forsworn; Great red-wood, fire-tried, fire-made Choked as you are with weeds That sprout from wind-borne seeds The same which is the reaper's blade; What a harvest you have---what worth! Of bone and meat, of tare and wheat--- [ 147 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/2018/07/07/columbine-hymn/

This week in American Greatness, Thaddeus McCotter romps through the lowlights in Trump Derangement Syndrome for Fun and Profit. And VDH on Why This Immigration Psychodrama Will Also Pass. Well, let's hope so! And a hopeful take on the Red Hen Incident: Trumping Freedom of Association. Hey, let's agree freedom of association is a good thing. Yeah, no that's not gonna work. [ 4,828 more words ]
https://www.socialmatter.net/…/07/04/week-reaction-2018-07…/