Friends and supporters of the Sydney Traditionalist Forum will be interested to note that we have entered into a fellowship with the US based Hestia Society for Social Research. The Hestia Society is the latest phenomenon of the online neoreactionary movement: a fusion of sidestream thank-tank and representative body of dissenters from the modernist zeitgeist. The society’s webpage explains that:

“Hestia, the Greek goddess of hearth and home, is understood by neoreaction as the goddess and patron of civilization. There is no more salient sign that the West is in a potentially terminal decline than that the very elementary building block of society is being systematically disrupted and destroyed. There is nothing more symbolic of the West’s decline than the childless home. The womb of civilization is barren. The decline is but a potential fate, and it may be avoided. The purpose of the Hestia Society for Social Studies is to not only diagnose the cancer at the heart of the West’s decline, but to propose a cure.”

We are please to associate with a reactionary network which characterises its mission in essentially positive terms. Far too many counter-revolutionary, paleoconservative or outer-right fora are dominated by a spirit of negative reaction to the status quo without offering – or even seeking – a system of thought that affirms an alternative worldview. The Hestia Society stands out as an organisation of great promise. Existing Hestia projects include: Social Matter, and online magazine of neoreactionary commentary edited by Bryce Laliberte and Hadley Bishop; Reaction Times, an online content aggregator focusing mainly on the neoreactionary blogosphere; Post-Anathema, described as a Tumblr page created “for the development of a neoreactionary aesthetic, in order to further demarcate borders”; and Ascending the Tower, a podcast run through Social Matter.

The neoreactionary online community germinated from the writings of pseudonymous blogger “Mencius Moldbug”, roughly around 2007. It is no exception to the general heterogeneity of the political sidesteam, members of which tend to spend a great deal of time and effort defining a framework within which modernity can be effectively analysed and deconstructed from a non-cultural Marxist position. The Hestia Society states on its website:

“The discussions and disputes ensuing from these fundamental insights have produced a vast body of work which is in danger of spiraling out of control. This is not a bug, but a feature, for the runaway growth of the neoreactionary corpus stemming from the initial ideological singularity has very quickly made apparent to its progenitors that the West is in decline and stands in need of men willing to restore civilization. Civilization must be built, and is the product of conscious thought and action. This is the purpose of the Hestia Society for Social Studies.”

If there is anything that reactionaries (‘neo’ or otherwise) have learned over the last decade at least, it is this: the constant harping by mainstream talking-heads about ‘freedom’ of thoughts and ‘freedom’ of speech is disingenuous banter for those who do not parrot the party line of progressive ideology. Genuine intelectual freedom is anathema to modern liberal mass-democracy. The Hestia Society represents a refreshing reaction against the stifling environment of political correctness that dominates both the official left and its fundraising arm, establishment conservatism. The Sydney Traditionalist Forum’s fellowship with this organisation represents an important step in networking with a group of people who are holding a common front against the onslaught of the barbarians within the gates of our civilisation.

– SydneyTrads Editors

SydneyTrads is the internet portal and communication page of the Sydney Traditionalist Forum: an association of young professionals who form part of the Australian independent right (also known as “dissident right” or “outer right”).