The Daily Poor

I have far more in common with a Continental European conservative / reactionary than anyone on the American right.

This is because I sincerely believe the Enlightenment and all that came from it has been a disaster. And the Enlightenment's Godfather appears to have been, unfortunately, the Reformation. When Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira referred to modernism (and Communism, progressivism, etc) as a "frenetic intemperance," I believe he was spot on.

The very problem that has faced the West for several centuries has been the problem of revolution. All who would uphold the principles of benevolence, decency, order, and beauty are duty-bound to oppose and counteract revolutionary forces that aim to upend nature, moral, and Divine order. In so doing, one ought not to hesitate to go after revolutionary ideas and technologies even if they are popular. If anything, they should especially go against them if they are popular, working to supplant them with durable, timeless beauty and order.

Of course, in America, this disposition is a non sequitur insofar as popular politics are concerned. America is the place where the boy's utterance of "fuck you" towards his father is central. The rebellion against the father (even in the name of The Father) is at the center of American DNA -- and, in likewise boyish form, the pursuit of endless fattening luxuries at any cost is a chief source of meaning-making for the America.

Those who spit in the face of nature to employ high technics in service of this pursuit are hailed as demigods by our public; those with an entrepreneurial flourish for "sticking it to the Man" for the masses are celebrated as Kings -- even in cases where "the Man" was right all along. If I remark on these matters, I am met with total disgust, of course. And strangely, it is a disgust I understand intimately, even if I cannot endorse it. This is because I am still, after all, an American.

And so where do I fit? In a Catholic Church in an obscure village in the Adirondack Park, I suppose. This is the closest I can get to a world that mirrors my own ideals anywhere in the USA. If I went to Europe or South America -- I'd be an alien, a migrant, a foreigner. Here, I make sense.

Perhaps this is because the Adirondack Park is the most obviously "reactionary" part of America. The Park Agency violently abhors change; it stewards, protects, and enforces the natural order contained in God-given wilderness. Our State Constitution forces our wildlands to go unmolested regardless of what the market or the masses could ever want or need -- and the long arm of the Empire State's regime will crush anyone who goes against their desires for the Park with a fist as iron as a great Monarch. This is all profoundly unamerican -- and deeply reactionary in a very classical sense.

To be here and to be in Communion with Rome is to be as close to "Continental European" conservatism that an American-born reactionary can be. It is the perfect place for me to dwell in my obscure position without much tension.

In Alabama or California, Texas or Montana -- I would be reminded much more frequently of the respects in which I sharply differ from most American conservatives. Here, I am understood.

Imagine: You buy the $49k house in Ogdensburg, NY. You take the $40k/yr part-time job as a TSA agent at the federally-subsidized airport there that only sees ~40 passengers per day.

You're pulling $2500/mo. Your mortgage is $375. Your job is so easy you read all day at work.

Take long walks along the St Lawrence River, go to Mass at the Cathedral -- take the train up to Ottawa now and then for a long weekend. Hunt deer in the State Forest, fish trout on the Oswegatchie River. Hang out at the VFW and have breakfast at Phillip's.

It'd be an objectively fine life, and you could start living it next week if you liked -- as long as you had a credit score of 600 and 3.5% of $49,000 plus closing costs; let's call it $4,000 cash. Pass a drug test for TSA.

Boom -- federal bennies for an easy PT job, $1500/mo in spending money or savings. Absurd amounts of free time. Quick access to a major Canadian metro of 1M+. Could leave the wife at home and have a whack of kids, too -- no problem.

The only thing you really *can't* do there is LARP as Gordon Gecko or trick yourself into thinking you'll weasel your way into the power elite. I guess that's enough to take it off the table for a lot of people -- I don't know.