Artur Nowrot's Reviews > Neoreaction a Basilisk: Essays on and Around the Alt-Right

Since the book is now available to buy in full version (i.e. with additional essays), I’m expanding my review a bit.

Note: I read some of the essays in early versions.

Neoreaction a Basilisk is an incisive and funny look at various strands of the alt-right and some adjacent topics (like TERFs), that at the same time asks questions about the strategies the left should adopt in the face of reactionary backlash and the spectre of the climate change-caused crisis (or possibly extinction).

The main essay is an analysis of three thinkers that were influential in neoreactionary circles: Nick Land, Mencious Moldbug, and Eliezer Yudkowsky, but its second half becomes the cornerstone of Sandifer’s own proposals of what to do in the face of the fact that “we are fucked”, stressing, among other things, the radical potential of empathy.

The second one deals with Gamergate, starting with Sandifer’s sometime nemesis, Vox Day, and tracing the lies that became the foundation of this movement.

“Theses on a President” is a psychogeographic look at Trump, looking at where he grew up and how he made his fortune, and through that it becomes a cosmic horror story of a man who sacrificed his humanity for the appearance of power. This (along with John Higgs’ book on KLF) is one of the best examples of a genre I like to call “occult biography”, but it can also be read as a great lovecraftian story.

The essay on Austrian School (co-written with Jack Graham) offers a Marxist analysis and rebuke of libertarian thought, demonstrating how limited their conception of freedom really is. It’s a great read even before the authors bring up Erich Fromm.

The essays about lizard people might be my least favourite, probably because the nominal subject matter lacks the urgency of the rest of the collection, but it’s still very good and offers some interesting insight into the mentality of conspiracy theorists.

The TERF essay, on the other hand, might be my favourite. It offers an interesting explanation of why trans rights became such a focal point (and a point of contention) for the general movement for minority rights, points to the history of trans activism that the gay rights movement frequently tries to suppress, and then reaches for the writings of one of the trans-exclusionary radical feminists, Mary Daly, to show why transness is a vital category for leftist thinking in general.

The closing essay focuses on Peter Thiel and serves as a summation of the books argument against the alt-right.

Overall, it’s worth a read even if you’re not necessarily keen on delving into all the horrors that surround us (who could blame you?). Sandifer’s book is very, very funny, offers convincing take-downs of the ideas and people it takes on, and the constructs its own ideas about what we should do about all that, offering a glimmer of grim hope. We will be back; they can’t bury us forever.