Review of Grey Mirror Fascicle I: Disturbance by Mr. Curtis Yarvin.
Review by Mr. Trevor Blake
Wrapped (paperback). Small 8vo. Blank (black) x2 + Half Title “FASCICLE 1: / DISTURBANCE” + imprint + Title “GRAY MIRROR / FASCICLE 1: / DISTURBANCE / by / CURTIS YARVIN / Passage / Publishing” + blank + Table of Contents x3 + blank + Introduction + blank + pp. 1 – 223; Notes pp. 224 – 236 + blank x2 (white) + blank x2 (black). Text to back cover not found on Cased edition.
Cased (hardcover). 8vo. Textured endpaper + Half Title “FASCICLE 1: / DISTURBANCE” + imprint + Title “GRAY MIRROR / FASCICLE 1: / DISTURBANCE / by / CURTIS YARVIN / Passage / Publishing” + blank + Table of Contents x3 + blank + Introduction + blank + pp. 1 – 223; Notes pp. 224 – 236 + blank x2 (white) + textured endpaper. Text to front cover not found on Wrapped edition.
This fine book, in a handsome hardcover and practical paperback, is available from the publisher at passage.press. Thanks to @PassagePress for this and many recommended titles. Quotations cited by page numbers in brackets.
I
“The potted histories we tell ourselves about who we are and how we got here are not just incomplete, but designed to sustain public and private power in one particular direction.” So reads the back cover of the paperback edition of Grey Mirror Fascicle I: Disturbance by Mr. Yarvin. The particular direction was specified by Mr. Yarvin as far back as January of 2009: “Cthulhu may swim slowly. But he only swims left. Isn’t that interesting?” [https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified/]
I’ll say that is interesting! It is difficult to find a social change or a legal change over the past few hundred years that wasn’t a win for the left. What and who the designer of that trend, how they sustain public and private power, and why left, these are all interesting questions.
Mr. Yarvin offers several possible reasons why Cthulhu only swims left. The reason might be a feedback loop between the state and public opinion [42] which is purely mechanical [67]. This reason might explain why Cthulhu only swims left during the past few hundred years. But this reason does not explain not how that feedback loop got to looping. Nor does it predict where the loop will loop to. “One measures a circle beginning anywhere” as Charles Fort said, and looping explanations contain only themselves.
The reason Cthulhu only swims left might be a process of elimination that filters out the right and leaves the left, because “some ideas are objectively too crazy for large numbers of people to believe.” [67] Ladies and gentlemen, meet my friend Religion. Please dress him in this explanation, see how it fits. Oh dear.
The reason Cthulhu only swims left might be because “new ideas replace old ideas because they are more exciting.” [127] Exciting new ideas are more exciting, sure. Neutral or dull new ideas aren’t exciting, so it’s not the newness that is the reason. Exciting ideas are exciting, I guess? And what about exciting new ideas more or less of the right. It can be considered that the uniforms worn on the Death Star are more exciting than those worn at the Rebel Base. Excitement doesn’t limit itself to the left, and this explanation doesn’t sparkle for long.
The reason Cthulhu only swims left might be because of unfairness. “If both sides are treated fairly, neither side can or will persecute the other — whether formally or informally.” [212] And “coexisting and physical space is hard only if the two groups are constantly struggling for power.” [214] The struggle for power is, itself, an application of power, even by the loser. Power is power; on this we agree, and while I think this loop touches something important it also loops back only on itself. Unfairness is not a reason why Cthulhu only swims left.
The reason might Cthulhu only swims left be because … well, because he doesn’t. “One way to know that this is the correct definition of ‘left’ and ‘right’ is to look at situations in which a regime originates on the left, then in power becomes right-wing. This story is more than just common: it is universal among successful revolutions.” [126] Cthulhu only swims left, but then right. It’s a universal among successful revolutions. If the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful revolution is that it starts left and then goes right then Cthulhu never swims left (for long).
All of these reasons for why public and private power is sustained in one particular direction are swimming in circles. I’m not going to take that as a sign they are full-stop wrong, but that there’s something interesting in this particular patch of ocean. To find what that something interesting might be, I ask the Grey Mirror a question.
What is left and what is right? “It is best to not even look behind the metaphor — to leave it to intuition” [114] and “the word [left] hardly ever means the same thing to two different people.” [111] The left “changes over time.” [39] I agree, and so does the evidence.
It was the Committee of Public Safety that established the National Bathtub in revolutionary France. The long march to communism simply must go through a specific and scientifically defined stages, but if it can skip a few or shuffle them around that’s also okay. Communists are dead-set against the bourgeoisie decadence of homosexuality, and that’s why communists are the champions of homosexuality. No man is above another in the cause, it’s just that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has the only federal holiday in the USA (Columbus Day being shared with others), Lenin’s material remains were on display in Moscow until this year, and images of Chairman Mao are all over China because reasons. Solidarity of the working class will of course demand the murder of millions of the working class, by the working class. Women can do anything men can do, provided standards are adjusted. Suffrage is a basic human right that basically must not to be given to all humans. Eugenics was a unique evil that was defeated by the left, while birth control and family planning are a unique good for which the left was the vanguard.
The left is… whatever it says it is, honey! It was born that way, and that’s why it has to change and you have to get with the times. This closes the lane for Cthulhu always swimming left, but look at that elder god go as another lane is opened. The intuition that the left always wins, the data points are there, it’s just that the conclusion is wrong. If the solar system were geocentric, the night sky would look exactly as it does now. The intuition that the left always wins has to be wrong, because “the left” is fluid.
Winners win, and winners come in two varieties. One kind of winner played by the rules and, through skill and luck, won. The other kind of winner used skill and luck and also cheating, and then won. Or claim the win even if you’re just the last knucklehead standing when the dusk clears. The map snaps into place.
The fluidity of “the left” is not a problem but is a strength for “the left.” They are the winners who employ any means necessary to win. The group that plays by the rules sometimes also wins, but sometimes must console itself with only a Rule Enjoyer ribbon.
This is not a modern conflict. Religions have rules, and also have a rule for the exceptions to those rules. Thou shall not kill, but here’s the situation where gosh darn it where you just gotta. Here is the final commandment of God of Gods, and then here’s the final-final commandment, and hold the line there may be some more.
The religious rule for the exceptions to religious rules is revelation. Things were settled, but there’s been a revelation. The revelation may spread like the Ghost Dance or the Mormons, and the revelation may spread like Taiping or Islam. Revelation is following the rule that the rules are not always to be followed. If you’re looking for religion to make sense, I have some bad news. But if you’re looking for a description of how things are, heed what Mr. Yarvin said: “Every regime has forms by which it can declare its decision to transfer power to a successor regime.” [87]
Religion is not the only set of rules that has a rule about not following the rules. There’s also science. Science is a confident statement about how much – that is, how little – confidence one has in making statements. Science begins with the statement “I may be wrong, but… ”
Mr. Marx distinguished his variety of socialism by how good he was at bullying other socialists, and by having the sugar daddy of Mr. Engels (who, incidentally, was the literal daddy to Mr. Marx’ illegitimate and abandoned son). To put a nice face on it, though, Mr. Marx distinguished his variety of socialism by calling it scientific socialism. Mr. Marx said “I may be wrong, but (I’m not)” and got away with it.
Mr. Saul Alinsky stated it plainly in Rules for Radicals (1971): “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If I should make my enemy have to live up to its own book of rules, then for my friends… well, I leave it to your intuition. It’s not that the left always wins, because there is no reliable grouping of the left in men or in ideas. It’s that (1) winners win (2) sometimes cheaters win and when they do (3) they use the winner’s prerogative to write their own history. “History is compliant. History can always be tortured until it confesses.” [158] “[Liberalism] was never fundamentally a democratic movement, though it captured democratic support.” [182]
If the marketplace of ideas “rewards the beast that is best at reproducing itself within its environment” [68] then the left is the HeLa cell while the right is either a normal cell or a cancer cell.
It is possible to be a vegetarian between meals. And it is possible to be a vegetarian during meals. I don’t always know my own motivations and I sure don’t know yours, but I can observe consistency in actions. The consistency in action of being a vegetarian during meals looks like a goal of being a vegetarian has been achieved. The consistency in action of being a vegetarian between meals looks like a goal of eating has been achieved. Sincerity I cannot measure, nor intent, nor motive, but actions can be observed. When the menu options are limited, some will go hungry more often some will be fed. Sincerity, intent, motives, and consistency — you won’t find those in groups and you’re incredibly skilled and lucky to find them in yourself. I have an intuition what is inherently good or bad – for me, for now. For you? Vaya con Dios.
As Mr. Yarvin said of something else entirely: “And remember that none of these forms of force is inherently good or bad. None!” [176] Rule following and cheating, those are options you have. The goal of the trolley problem depends on if you’re the one tied to the tracks, or if you’ve the one turning the switch, or if you’re the one making the trains run on time. Since “turning off a senescent agency lost in a useless, outdated, unsolvable, or even dangerous goal is generally beyond the power of politics in the 21st-century,” [205] I instead can turn my attention to what is generally within my power in the twenty-first century.
There is much in Grey Mirror that can explain and predict if we keep all the same evidence but consider it in a different combination.
II
“I don’t trust the people any more than I trust the government.” – Robert Anton Wilson, “Searching for Cosmic Intelligence.” Interview by Jeffrey Elliot (1980).
Neither the House of Rules nor the House of Cheats is inherently good or bad, for me. And that includes the good and the bad. I’ve written words and drawn pictures that are absolutely haram, so the House of Rules isn’t always playing by my rules. I’ve worked in public education and social services, so the useless, outdated, unsolvable, and even dangerous goals of the House of Cheats are entirely familiar. What I want is the power to avoid being locked in either house, or any house. How can I get that power?
“For power, obviously, you need numbers.” [134] What kind of power does having the numbers bring? Number power! Numbers are power and power is numbers. Back to treading water, I’m afraid.
For power, obviously, you need something else that is not numbers. “All power comes from loyalty.” [69] “True power implies a command decision made by an individual in charge of a team.” [204] “Solving collective-action problems demands coordination.” [132] Great Man Theory has its advocates. Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of “representative men” in 1850. Mr. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote of the Overman in “Thus Spake Zarathustra” in 1883. A book on Great Man Theory has been published only the year before this review (ahem). There are a number of numbers between none and all. An elite cadre can carve out quite a kingdom for itself. “Try to recruit the most fashionable people in the world, in every sense of the word that counts.” [135] Good advice. The desire to rule may be “fundamentally lascivious and disruptive.” [216] But perhaps a Great Man may prefer his lasciviousness to the disruption of others.
And may I make a special recommendation for “The Hero Lectures” (published as Heroes and Hero Worship in 1841) by Mr. Thomas Carlyle. For all the chapter and verse Mr. Yarvin has cited about Mr. Carlyle, I do not recall a time when he cited Hero Worship. This could be a flaw in my memory. Or it could be a preference on the part of Mr. Yarvin, who instead of following through with Great Man Theory limits power to numbers as did Mr. Marx. “Marxism works.” [216] Like Mr. Marx, Mr. Yarvin says that social change is the result of class conflict: “The revolutionary dictatorships of the 20th century were rebellious wartime regimes.” [170]
There is another theory of power. This theory is as widespread and forbidden in philosophy as it Machiavelli is as widespread and forbidden in politics. Mr. Yarvin is bold enough to hold up this theory. But like Great Man Theory, he does not hold it in the pride of place which he does numbers.
Here is Mr. Yarvin speaking the unspeakable theory of power. “To care the most powerfully is to care mostly about power.” [133] “Unless a demonstration or election is literally a demonstration of potential physical force, democracy quickly becomes a formality.” “Commitment is chimp power. Unless you are ready to chimp, you have no power to vote. It matters not if you have the ‘right’ — any real power will just be taken from you.” [174] “Power ultimately depends on force.” [205] “The truth always feels good and satisfying and right. So does a well-made sword in your hand, though.” [125] “Mobs beating people for their race or religion is not beyond human nature. It is extremely normal!” [154]
I have no disagreement. Physical force is power. This is not a circular argument, but a point, the sun from which all heat and light radiates. This is the father of all and king of all. This is the “high-commitment mass politics” [136] which remains a thing in some parts of the world. Whether it is following the rules, following the sanctioned exception to the rules, or just getting things done, the side willing and able to kill more of the other side will tend to endure. No other model explains more or predicts more than force. Thou shall not kill, but here’s the situation where gosh darn it where you just gotta.
To clarify, Mr. Yarvin and I have not told you that billions must die. Nor even one. Any prior words noting the efficacy of violence are abrogated by this statement of our preference for peaceable solutions.
III
“Oligarchies must always be criticized as systems. Since an oligarchy is not a monarchy, criticizing individuals is pointless — there are always replacements.” [128] Criticizing individuals can be pointless, for many individuals. But there are some individuals who with a glance and a nod can erase bloodlines. It is not that the individual is pointless and systems are strong. It is that strength is strong, and some individuals are more strong than others. “The most powerful way to change the world is to take as much power as possible — that is, to take as much power as you and your supporters have right now (probably none!), into as much power as possible.” [134].
Mr. Yarvin seeks, and finds, “first principles.” [217] The most powerful way to change one’s own world is to take as much power as possible – for one’s self. The state does not have a monopoly on taking taxes or waging war. Remember that none of these forms of force is inherently good or bad. These forms of force are merely mine, with varying degrees of my ability and my interest to carry them through. The first principle is not numbers. The first principle is the unique one, the individual, the einzige, the ego.
Since the left is fluid, it cannot be said that groups over time tend to go left. But groups over time do tend to say they have gone left. Easy to think of many groups that were center or right and say they have gone left, hard to think of any groups that have gone the other way. And it’s easy to think of many individuals that were center or left and say they have gone right, hard to think of any individuals that have gone the other way. Isn’t that interesting. Why is the laughter of vitalism in individuals and in cadres, with only a resentful wished-for “class consciousness” in the mob? Why will the mob swim in counter-clockwise inbound spirals while an individual will swim in clockwise outbound spirals?
Because an individual will be the Rule Enjoyer with just one rule: me first. It might suit the individual to isolate, or to have supporters (or “supporters”). It might suit the individual to state what he doing plainly (usually works out poorly for the individual) or to cloak his actions in altruism (see: history). The “Open Letter” of Mr. Yarvin is published for all the world to read, one reader at a time. [https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2008/04/open-letter-to-open-minded-progressives/] The “Open Letter” is a safety corridor for individuals who are center or left to say they have gone right.
Max Stirner (1806 – 1856) stated plainly the first principle of me first. For his troubles he lost everything, was the subject of ridicule for a good third of The German Ideology by Messrs. Marx and Engles, was never credited by Nietzsche but (maybe) was the source of his transvaluation of all values and his overman, and would have been entirely forgotten but for Scottish anarchist John Henry Mackay’s research. Max Stirner wrote of the power of numbers, in particular the number one. Machiavelli wrote for one, The Prince. And is the gray mirror held up to the masses, or to one?
There are several volumes of Gray Mirror yet to be published, and Mr. Yarvin publishes a recommended series of essays online as well [graymirror.substack.com]. One hopes that The Ego and His Own by Max Stirner, Might is Right: The Authoritative Edition by Ragnar Redbeard, and perhaps a recent book on Great Man Theory, will supplement his research before these future volumes see print. The only crime greater than avoiding the books I have listed here would be to publish future volumes of Gray Mirror, as tragically occurred in this first volume, without an index.
Trevor Blake (b. 1966) is an author and publisher. He was the Lead Judge in the George Walford International Essay Prize, owned the largest private collection of works by and about R. Buckminster Fuller, and is employed as an appraiser of rare book collections. He is the lead editor of Der Geist, a journal of egoism in print 1845-1945. He is the author of Confessions of a Failed Egoist, Buckminster Fuller Bibliography, Dora Marsden Bibliography, The Eagle & Serpent Index of Names, numerous introductions, and Great Man Theory.
Quotations intended as fair use. All quoted materials (C) 2024 Curtis Yarvin.
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This review was first published at x on 28 April 2025.