C. Bradley Thompson is the Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He has written an essay about recent events including the murders of Charlie Kirk and Iryna Zarutska:
https://www.theredneckintellectual.com/p/nihilism-and-the-crisis-of-the-west
Mr. Thompson, the diagnosis “nihilism” was all around somewhat before you were born and on into when you were in diapers. I remember it. You actually getting paid for reruns? No, postmodernism was not needed for the continuation of evil in the world. Nor were proponents of nihilism required. You’ve written such smart books before; this is as disappointing as when Justice Scalia gave an interview to the NewHour a few years ago and revealed himself to be a regular religiously prejudiced conservative mindset behind the mask of his public jurisprudence. People pull the trigger under their own head, same as it ever was. Timothy McVeigh, . . . all of them. And by the way, what was in their heads was political ideology, definite hatreds, not nihilism and not Nietzsche.
Meanwhile Senator Paul has now finked out (and again insinuated that he was attacked at his house by his neighbor for political reasons, which is a lie) when liberty of press needed defense.
Sunshine soldiers.
C. Bradley Thompson addresses the cause of the problem, but one thing he does not address is where people are turning for the answers to this problem.
They are not turning to reason or to Enlightenment thought. They are turning to Christianity, largely because Charlie Kirk was himself a Christian conservative.
I find that disturbing, because as a result of it, we may be in for another dark age. The more fundamentalist Christians reject freedom as “liberalism,” as “freedom to sin,” and believe that the proper purpose of government is to force people to obey God. This is very different from America as defined by its Founding Fathers. (The fundamentalists would probably claim that if people had been forced to obey God to begin with, the bad guys wouldn’t have had free speech, so Charlie Kirk wouldn’t have had to put himself at risk by arguing against them.)
I am at least grateful that when Pam Bondi started saying that she was going to go after “hate speech,” a lot of conservatives revolted online, forcing her to partially backtrack, although her backtrack still conflates “hate speech” with threats. At least there are still some free speech advocates out there.
I just hope they support free speech on principle as opposed to saying “we need free speech for now, but once we get into power it will no longer be necessary,” which is how a lot of fundamentalists of different religions think.
There are very few consistent advocates of freedom, but the continued existence of freedom may depend on inconsistent advocates, such as Christians who are not fundamentalists, who are actually willing to use their eyes and their brains enough to see the advantages of individual rights.
But these are the M1s who, in the DIM Hypothesis, Leonard Peikoff said were practically nonexistent or non-influential in America.
I hope that assessment is incorrect, but I do think a lot of people have reacted badly to Ayn Rand, and seem to have decided to become more consistent in their rejection of reason and reality in order to distance themselves from her. Is this part of why the M1s and D1s are disappearing? …
Finally gave the Thompson article a read. Boydstun is far too kind in his dismissal. Here’s a just a sampling of the nonsense.
“From the day he entered Kindergarten until his last day in school, Brown was no doubt taught that he was a member of an oppressed racial minority, that he was the victim of systemic racism, that he was a second-class citizen of an evil nation dedicated to promoting “whiteness.” This is what the government school system teaches.”
Strange that I went to public school not that long ago and was never taught this, nor knew anyone who said they were taught this, and that my kids go there and have never been taught this or told of it being taught. But I’m sure that Thompson thoroughly investigated Brown’s school teachers and based his assertion on actual knowledge. He wouldn’t just talk completely out of his ass, right?
“This message was reinforced on the TV he watched and in the music he listened to. The whole Soros funded, DEI-Industrial Complex that he met in the court system told him that his actions were not his fault, that he was a victim of systemic racism…
…most importantly, she ignored Brown. She did not even look at him. She did not recognize his existence…Iryna represented for Brown everything that he hated: whiteness and beauty, which, in his ideologically twisted mind, means privilege.”
Oh okay so he really is just throwing shit at the wall without a scintilla of evidence. Truly shameful.
“[Kirk’s] benevolence shone brightly.”
Like when he said homosexuals should be stoned to death according to God’s perfect law? Or when he called for a “patriot” to bail out Paul Pelosi’s attacker?
”Robinson was also involved in homosexual relationship with a man pretending to be a woman.” This has not, to my knowledge, been confirmed, and it’s frankly weird that Thompson thinks this is relevant.
“For Charlie Kirk, it meant first that he appealed to reason, objectivity, and logic…”
No, he appealed to faith and emotionalism; his arguments were cavalcades of logical fallacies, context-dropping and lies. But tomayto-tomahto right? Kirk was a full-throated Trump-supporter who totally earned the fascist label, just not the bullet it was written on.
“The anti-civilization Left could tolerate his conservative values and policy prescriptions, but they could not tolerate his method of public discussion.”
The “left” killed nobody on September 10. That was the action of a lone individual. You know how I know? Because Thompson was very careful not to mention another woman who, together with her husband, was murdered earlier this year. Her name was Melissa Hortman, and her killer wasn’t conveniently black or (perhaps) a leftist, but a card-carrying conservative anti-abortion nut job. Faced with that case, I’ve little doubt that Thompson would insist that that murder carries no philosophical implications at all, and certainly none that would be uncomfortable to his credulous audience of nitwits.
“In the minutes, hours, days, and weeks after the barbaric murders of Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk, hundreds and hundreds (probably thousands if not tens of thousands) of Americans went online to express their satisfaction if not glee at the deaths if Iryna and Charlie. Indeed, they have been nothing less than celebratory at the murders of two innocent people.“
Firstly, who was celebrating the death of Iryna? I’ve seen zero reporting of anyone doing that. Second, given the prevalence of Russian and Chinese bots on social media platforms, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if a lot of those “reactions” were deliberate efforts to inflame internal tensions. In any case, in a country with 350M people I’m supposed to be worried about a few hundred shitposters? When the president pardons hundreds of people who attacked police officers in a riot he incited? Give me an effing break.
“Not surprisingly, many of the loudest voices supporting this targeted violence have come from college professors and K-12 teachers.”
Not surprisingly, Thompson couldn’t be bothered to support this assertion in the slightest.
“Common decency would suggest that America’s postmodern Leftists denounce savagery, violence, and murder, but they can’t and won’t because their ideological bloodlust calls for it. Instead, they cheer it on.”
Democrat officials from top to bottom have condemned the murder of Charlie Kirk, as did every major media figure that Thompson would call a leftist. An MSNBC anchor was fired for daring to suggest that Kirk’s divisive and dehumanizing rhetoric contributed to his death. It’s Thompson that seems to desperately require the maintenance of his sense of victimhood.
On 9/16/2025 at 8:27 PM, necrovore said:
They are not turning to reason or to Enlightenment thought. They are turning to Christianity, largely because Charlie Kirk was himself a Christian conservative.
I find that disturbing, because as a result of it, we may be in for another dark age.
The Englightenment isn’t an atheistic movement, and modern Christianity isn’t incompatible with the Englightenment … as evidenced by the fact that the Englightenment happened in a deeply religious Europe. A Europe far more religious than the western world is today.
A Dark Age requires a very specific brand of religion. The only currently popular religious movements which may create a Dark Age in parts of the world are two Islamic movements: Khomeinism and Salafism. That’s it. No other popular religion is a threat to the Englightenment. No other popular religious movement wishes to bring about a Dark Age.
3 hours ago, stansfield123 said:
Christianity isn’t incompatible with the Englightenment
The former claims that truth comes from divine revelation, the latter through observation and reason. What’s the compatibility?
3 hours ago, stansfield123 said:
the Englightenment happened in a deeply religious Europe. A Europe far more religious than the western world is today.
The fact that Christianity was too ineffectual to fully exterminate the enlightenment thinkers does not earn it credit. Those thinkers had to be very careful to express their ideas in ways that the relevant priests wouldn’t deem heretical. Those thinkers who failed to do this ended up burned alive, like Giordano Bruno, or else imprisoned/exiled like Voltaire.
As for modern religions, ask an honest Evangelical what sort of world they want and compare that to a Wahhabi Muslim.