A Monarchist Enters The Cathedral

Jan 10, 2022

One of the most interesting thinkers of our time is a Twitter troll, podcaster, author, anarchist, and many of the things we secretly aspire to be (maybe not the anarchist part for some). I was reading Michael Malice’s book The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics when he expanded upon a concept I only heard him discuss in passing: the cathedral. As a Catholic, I took issue with the term at first because it makes a direct comparison to the Vatican. But I eventually got over it knowing it wasn’t meant to denigrate religious belief like so many of our “intellectuals” do today. Over time, the term grew on me into something I incorporated into my own intellectual vocabulary. It fitted a giant piece of the puzzle that was missing in my own search of making sense of the madness we experience today.

Michael Malice didn’t invent the term “the cathedral” though he’s made it more mainstream by introducing it to a wider audience. The anarchist thinker got the term from an internet blogger named Curtis Yarvin. He’s a self described monarchist with a family history of working for the American government (I mention these individuals briefly in my introductory substack article here.) I also suggest watching Curtis’ interview with Tucker Carlson here. To make the disclaimer, he’s been labeled all the typical slurs the far-left gives to their intellectual opponents like “racist” and the other “phobic” terms. All these things are not true of him as far as I can judge. Given Malice’s track record of associations, I’m not presently concerned with those accusations.

WHAT IS THE CATHEDRAL?

The cathedral has been explained by Curtis Yarvin to simply mean “journalism plus academia”. In his substack article on the cathedral (which I will be citing frequently), he explains,

“The cathedral” is just a short way to say “journalism plus academia”—in other words, the intellectual institutions at the center of modern society, just as the Church was the intellectual institution at the center of medieval society.
But the label is making a point. The Catholic Church is one institution—the cathedral is many institutions. Yet the label is singular. This transformation from many to one—literally, e pluribus unum—is the heart of the mystery at the heart of the modern world.”1

The cathedral is decentralized by nature, but acts as a central authority. Under this umbrella, you have several branches:

The corporate press (major media conglomerates and newspapers)
The universities (mainly but not limited to Ivy League institutions)
Big Tech (Facebook, Twitter, Silicon Valley, Amazon etc.— a recent addition to the cathedral)
The State (more so but not limited to executive bureaucratic agencies & intelligence agencies such as the CDC, FDA, CIA, FBI, “the deep state” etc.)
Big Pharma (pharmaceutical and health insurance conglomerates)

There are possibly more branches you can add, but these are the main ones. These institutions aren’t connected on paper in any way, but they are in lockstep together when it comes to political and social policies and narratives. The cathedral has its roots in the progressive movement in America. The birth of the administrative state and modern research universities were founded by progressive activists and politicians. In his book Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics & American Economics in the Progressive Era, Princeton scholar Thomas C. Leonard writes about the original mission of the progressives,

“The progressives’ urge to reform America sprang from an evangelical compulsion to set the world on rights, and they unabashedly described their purposes as a Christian mission to build a Kingdom of Heaven on earth. In the language of the day, they preached a social gospel.
The term social gospel describes a late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century form of liberal Protestantism that pursued economic and social improvement through a scientifically informed mission of social redemption.”2

The social gospel of the progressives had to be rebranded as American society diversified with an influx of immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Immigrants of various religious backgrounds such as catholics, eastern orthodox, jews, etc. had to be convinced of the social gospel message through other explanations. The social gospel evolved into a secular (scientific) tone consisting of high intellectualism instead of high theology— though it still possessed a theological tone. Leonard writes,

“The progressives venerated science not only because it was their necessary instrument of social improvement. For the social gospel progressives at the forefront of American economic reform, science was a place of moral authority where the public-spirited could find religious meaning in scientific inquiry’s values of dispassionate analysis, self-sacrifice, pursuit of truth, and service to a cause greater than one self.”3

The progressives founded research universities with the philanthropy of the exact kind of people they criticized: Ezra Cornell, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, Leland Stanford etc. (you recognize the names of these American universities). They founded the modern social sciences such as economics, psychology, sociology etc. These sciences created legitimacy and authority among the progressive researchers and aspiring students. They qualified their legitimacy and permanent place in the university. These became the sciences of government— specifically the administrative state.

The social gospel or intellectual gospel sought to reform society as a single organism rather than individuals. With the finding of experts at these universities, they became employed in the administrative bureaucracy of the State. The State has an endless supply of reformers and experts waiting to perfect society and humanity as a whole one bureaucrat at a time. The universities are therefore seminary schools for the State creating the priestly class in Yarvin’s concept of the cathedral. G.K. Chesterton recognized journalists as part of this priestly class during this time as well. He writes,

“The journalists would appear to be in an almost literal sense the priests of the modern world. They may not rise precisely to the tremendous responsibility which was laid upon Peter, but at least it can be said that whatever they bind on earth is bound on earth, and whatever they loose on earth is loosed on earth. . . The priest's influence and power consisted almost entirely in the fact that he was the only man who brought news. He alone had the keys of the house of knowledge, and his decadence consisted. . . in that he would not enter in himself nor suffer those that were entering to go in. In other words, the corruption of the priesthood occurred at the precise moment in which it changed from a minority organised to impart knowledge into a minority organised to withhold it. The great danger of decadence in journalism is almost exactly the same. Journalism possesses in itself the potentiality of becoming one of the most frightful monstrosities and delusions that have ever cursed mankind. This horrible transformation will occur at the exact instant at which journalists realise that they can become an aristocracy.”4

Chesterton’s analysis of the journalists is synonymous with university researchers. Perhaps it was too young in its infancy to catch Chesterton’s eye. In our branches of the cathedral, we listed the corporate press and university institutions. These people often switch to these jobs back and forth or have both jobs at the same time. It’s not uncommon for a commentator on a corporate press show or a New York Times contributor to also possess a university job teaching in the government sciences. These journalists and professors are now an elite aristocracy in the cathedral that withholds knowledge rather than imparts it. They are the gatekeepers of acceptable narrative (orthodoxy). Just as the Church establishes theological boundaries, the cathedral establishes even narrower forms of acceptable slogans and “discourse.” Chesterton also brilliantly established the difference between Government and the Church in this context,

“Now I know there is a feeling that Government can do anything. But if Government could do anything, nothing would exist except Government. Men have found the need of other forces. Religion, for instance, existed in order to do what law cannot do— to track crime to its primary sin, and the man back to his bedroom. The Church endeavored to institute a machinery of pardon; the State has only a machinery of punishment. The State can only free society from the criminal; the Church sought to free the criminal from the crime. Abolish religion if you like. Throw everything on secular government if you like. But do not be surprised if a machinery that was never meant to do anything but secure external decency and order fails to secure internal honesty and peace.”5

DOCTRINAL STABILITY OF THE CATHEDRAL

The social gospel from the progressives became the scientific gospel where a parallel church was set up next to the actual church. The cathedral will always set the terms of discourse, the problems to solve, the declared enemies, the “public interest”, etc. while remaining separate institutions on paper. The cathedral will evolve on its doctrine over time to adapt to the current political and social climate. Evolution is necessary to maintain their power and relevance. Yarvin explains in his article,

“In 1951, Harvard, Yale, the Times and the Post were on the same page. But Yale in 1951 was on nowhere near the same page as Yale in 2021. If you could teleport either Yale into the other’s time zone, they would see each other as a den of intellectual criminals.”6

The cathedral of today has no problem denouncing the cathedral of the past. They will admit the errors of the past without taking any responsibility. They will denounce their ancestors as “radical” and “conservative” even if they identified as progressive themselves. Although some conservatives have no problem claiming famous leaders of the cathedral such as Teddy Roosevelt. The divide between conservatives and progressives is sometimes a degree of rhetoric rather than philosophy. The best philosophical opposition to progressivism came from classical liberals who upheld medieval and enlightenment notions of natural rights, natural law, private property rights, and individual liberty. Some conservatives took this banner of opposition towards progressives, but others shared progressive views. The cathedral has incorporated both progressive and conservative philosophy over time though it leans heavily progressive. It’s possible to argue the conservatives who shared progressive views simply became more progressive overtime while retaining their conservative bonafides. The alliance of neoconservatives with the progressive Democrat Party today is a perfect example of intellectual “diversity” in the cathedral.

Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt speaks to crowds in Mineola, New York, in support of US entry into the First World War, 1917 Universal History Archive / Contributor

In most versions of reality, diversifying your intellectual institutions would create integrity and security. One independent institution can check the other and so forth. Unfortunately in America’s situation (and the West), it did the opposite. The Chesterton diagnosis of the minority becoming the aristocracy seems to be what took place. Instead of imparting the treasure, they hid the treasure for themselves. Those seeking the treasure they were promised were deemed the opposition. Imagine the disservice if Dante’s visit to the afterlife was hidden from the world while he impiously administered his judgment on the world (which would’ve been understandable given his exile). The message of Frankenstein was man playing God would unleash an insurmountable amount of devils free from human control. The mission to save the world precisely became the mission to control the world. The atheist criticism of religion and the Church is exactly what happened to the cathedral.

THE CATHEDRAL AGENDA

If the cathedral is going to survive, it needs to adapt intellectually. The cathedral is first and foremost the intellectual center of America (backed by an empire of course). The infancy of the modern cathedral came from the economic prosperity of the post civil war industrial revolution. It was true that an economic inequality developed as a result with new industries emerging and old industries fading away. The progressives modeled themselves as supporters of the disenfranchised working class. These legitimate concerns were used as the excuse to establish their parallel church. However, they were anything but sincere. Leonard writes,

“The protest of the progressives originated not out of personal suffering, but rather out of moral and intellectual discontent with the suffering (and enrichment) of others. Progressives did not work in factories; they inspected them. Progressives did not drink in saloons; they tried to shutter them. The bold women who chose to live among the immigrant poor in city slums called themselves “settlers”, not neighbors. Even when progressives idealized workers, they tended to patronize them, romanticizing a brotherhood they would never consider joining.”7

The disgust the cathedral has for the average person has been a constant characteristic of these institutions since its infancy. All policies of the cathedral derive from a disgust of the average person. Their advocacy is really a publicized patronizing. They used the influx of immigrants to create a working class war between Americans and foreigners. I’d suggest reading Leonard’s book to see the full story of the progressives. As I mentioned before, the cathedral needs to adapt intellectually to maintain relevance. How do they select ideas for their agenda?

The cathedral can’t approach the hard sciences in a way that the Church can. The Church can discuss the theological implications of biological evolution or the discovery of extraterrestrial life. The cathedral has been a proponent of the “woke” ideology for decades. This ideology, rooted in post-modernism, critical theory etc., can’t command the hard sciences in the way it can the social sciences. The Soviet Union made progress in astronomy, chemistry etc. as does the cathedral today. However, the social sciences (government sciences) is the intellectual center for new ideas to advance its power and influence. The philosophies of critical race theory, gender fluidity, “social justice”, white fragility etc. are all creations of the cathedral. Curtis Yarvin explains the cathedral will always select the dominant idea in its own marketplace of ideas. He explains in a parable that the dominant idea will always increase their legitimacy and power,

“Whereas in the lecture halls and newsrooms of Mutopia, there is a market for dominant ideas. A dominant idea is an idea that validates the use of power. Such an idea will enjoy a selective tailwind in the Mutopian market.
And there is no market for recessive ideas. A recessive idea is an idea that invalidates power or its use. Such an idea will fight a selective headwind in the Mutopian market. Neither of these distorting evolutionary effects appears among Mundanan dissidents.”8

In this parable, Mutopia is representative of the current structure of the cathedral. Mundana is more representative of his ideal monarchy with some issues of social bigotry. He evens the score some between these two examples in terms of “problems” they have to demonstrate his point. The dominant idea will always validate the university seminarians and journalists pursing their position of bureaucratic authority and influence. Examples of climate science, “anti-racist” ideology, etc. create relevance and authority to these disciplines creating access to the money pot and power the cathedral provides. The more “woke” your climate science, the more funds and influence you have within the cathedral.

CONCLUSION

The cathedral, termed by monarchist blogger Curtis Yarvin, is a now the mainstream identifier for the collection of elite institutions in America. They are separate institutions, but act in unison as if they were a single organization. There are entire books that can be written on the cathedral. I barely scratched the surface here, but dissected enough to give the viewer a nice start in familiarizing oneself with the patterns of the political and social news cycle. My purposes for diving into the cathedral concept relates to my previous articles on Girardian theory. Let’s recall the original hypothesis of this substack:

“I propose the Trump presidency and the rise of social media unintentionally exposed what was behind the curtain of the cathedral revealing a once sacred institution that is in the midst of its greatest sacrificial crisis in history.”9

I’m going to begin to make the connection (as nobody has done before) that the cathedral, identified by Curtis Yarvin and made mainstream by Michael Malice, is in fact the institution facing the sacrificial crisis in our society. In our understanding of the sacrificial crisis, the community needs a scapegoat to maintain peace and order. (Please read my previous articles if you haven’t already). This connection sheds a light on how the cathedral and its followers are functioning zealously, militantly, and religiously in search of the scapegoat. I’m going to apply these Girardian ideas in union with the ideas of Curtis Yarvin to create a bigger picture of what we are facing today.