Baptiste Rappin Interview | Alexandre Gilbert #311

Now, to your question. Despite its rhapsodic—almost stitched-together—quality, which results from its mode of propagation through blogs and social media, I find in the Dark Enlightenment genuine philosophical depth. I would even go so far as to say that it contains the seeds of a political revolution unlike any we have seen in a very long time.

The three figures you mention—Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin, and Nick Land—are quite different cases.

Let us begin with Peter Thiel. One must refer to what might be called his founding text: “The Straussian Moment,” published in 2007 as a chapter in a collective volume. Thiel, who studied under Jean-Pierre Dupuy at Stanford, possesses a genuine philosophical culture. He is not merely an entrepreneur or investor; there is reflexivity in his financial and entrepreneurial practice.

In that 2007 essay, his principal references are Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, and René Girard. Nietzsche and Heidegger do not appear. From these thinkers, Thiel develops a thesis that has become emblematic of the Dark Enlightenment: democracy and freedom are no longer compatible. Writing in the geopolitical aftermath of 9/11, he concludes that liberal democracy is exhausted and that new political forms must be invented. His Christianity is already explicit at this stage: he suggests that future leaders will be Christian.

Curtis Yarvin’s case is quite different. He is an engineer, a programmer, an information technologist. One could say he thinks in terms of software. He does not reason like an entrepreneur or like a philosopher in the traditional sense. What obsesses him is what he calls “the Cathedral”—a term that designates the cultural hegemony exercised by universities and the media. Political power, in his account, does not lie where appearances suggest—elections, officeholders, formal institutions—but in the control and production of dominant ideas.

In this respect, he echoes Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony, as developed in the Prison Notebooks. Even earlier, Ludwig von Mises, the patriarch of the Austrian School, had argued that it is ideas that ultimately govern the world. Yarvin does not draw in any sustained way on Nietzsche or Heidegger, who today might be classified among technocritical thinkers. His approach to politics resembles a generalized problem-solving exercise.

With Nick Land, we find the most substantial philosophical references. Here, Nietzsche and Heidegger are indeed present, along with Georges Bataille—Bataille as a post-Nietzschean figure. Land is interested in an intensification of lived experience, and his work bears the marks of a vitalist and deconstructive orientation. Chronologically, Land’s philosophical trajectory precedes his encounter with Yarvin. He later integrates Yarvin’s ideas into a broader framework that one could describe as vitalist, even as a form of metaphysical deconstruction.

Thus, the three figures differ significantly. Nietzsche and Heidegger do not play a central role in Yarvin, often described as the founding figure of the Dark Enlightenment. Their influence is far more evident in Land.

Baptiste Rappin: If two origins overshadow all others, they are libertarianism and cybernetics. These are the two primary sources of the Dark Enlightenment.

Within what is loosely called the neoliberal galaxy—a term I use cautiously, since it covers very different realities—the Dark Enlightenment clearly aligns itself with the Austrian School. The patriarch is Carl Menger, though he is rarely cited. The key figures are Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe. In the cases of Rothbard and Hoppe, we are squarely within libertarianism.

What do they share with libertarians? Above all, the conviction that politics is inherently violent because it rests on the illegitimate appropriation of power. Political authority violates an original right of property that defines the state of nature. For Mises and Hayek, the solution is to limit political intervention. But for Rothbard—and even more so for Hoppe—this is insufficient. One must reject all political intervention and establish cities founded entirely on economic and contractual relations.

In such a society, neighbors would own their streets and could rent access; courts and police would be private entities. The social order would be fully contractual. This is laid out, for example, in Rothbard’s The Ethics of Liberty.

Where the Dark Enlightenment diverges from classical libertarianism is in its assessment of feasibility. It judges libertarians to be insufficiently realistic. A purely contractual society will not emerge spontaneously. It requires a decisive political act—a rupture—to bring it into being.

Hence the rethinking of sovereignty in the form of what is called the “sovereign corporation”: a company entrusted with governing a territory. It is accountable to shareholders, since it must generate profit, and to its customers—the residents—who are free to exit and relocate if dissatisfied, for instance because of insecurity. The frequently cited models are Dubai, Singapore, and Hong Kong: strong regimes, indifferent to democracy, yet capable of ensuring economic prosperity. Prosperity, in turn, guarantees peace.

In general, the Dark Enlightenment is pacifist, which is a libertarian inheritance. It argues that democracy fosters war. Here it draws on Hans-Hermann Hoppe, the last major figure of libertarianism and a student of Rothbard. Hoppe acknowledges that we inhabit a world structured by politics and its violence. How, then, should one navigate it?

He mobilizes a criterion originally developed by Mises to criticize socialism: time preference. A high time preference encourages immediate consumption—like that of a child—and undermines the capacity to defer gratification, which is necessary to build civilization. Democratic systems, with their electoral cycles and clientelism, structurally encourage high time preference. Democracy, in this view, tends toward barbarism.

The opposition between civilization and barbarism runs through both libertarian thought and the Dark Enlightenment. Anarchy is “the least bad of regimes.”  The central concept here is time preference.

High time preference encourages immediate gratification—exactly like a child. You cannot build a civilization that requires deferring gratification if everyone operates with high time preference. And democratic systems—elections, clientelism, political cycles—systematically push politics toward high time preference. So, in this logic, democracy equals barbarism.

This civilization-versus-barbarism framework is central to both libertarian thought and the Dark Enlightenment. Anarchy, thanks to hereditary systems, has low time preference because it forces preparation for the future. So, faced with political options that are corrupt in principle, you might as well favor monarchy: a strong, authoritarian power capable of guaranteeing economic prosperity and social cooperation.

Philosophically, how does this justify their project?

Baptiste Rappin: : It underpins the Dark Enlightenment’s aim: a strong power that ensures stability, prosperity, and social peace. What’s striking—and often disorienting—is that this program, while aimed at deconstructing the Cathedral and metaphysics, is never reactionary in the conventional sense. Despite their label as “neo-reactionaries,” the Dark Enlightenment still sees itself as part of the Enlightenment. That’s crucial.

They argue that the Enlightenment has been betrayed: the emancipation promised by Enlightenment philosophy has been transformed into a new religion—the religion of progress—instituted within what they call the Cathedral. This new religion eclipses human realities: tragedy, death, suffering. The Dark Enlightenment seeks to restore the “dark” aspects of human existence, rationally, outside this theological frame. They are explicit rationalists. Nick Land’s Dark Enlightenment explains this in the opening pages.

Is there a historical precedent for this?

Baptiste Rappin: : They see history going wrong after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England—the overthrow of James II and the triumph of the Whigs. This is a key divergence from Hayek, who celebrates Whig creation. Dark Enlightenment thinkers argue that Locke, the Whig philosopher supporting the Glorious Revolution, should be countered with Robert Filmer, the theorist of strong, patriarchal, divinely ordained authority. Yervin, for instance, self-identifies as a Jacobite, a supporter of James II.

This historical turn created a new religion—not Christianity, but the Cathedral of Progress, which is universal in its reach. That universality explains why the Dark Enlightenment believes the system cannot be changed from within.

How do they address the impossibility of reform?

Baptiste Rappin: : They adopt Hirschman’s “Exit, Voice, Loyalty” framework. Loyalty doesn’t work—systems are corrupt. Voice—protest, political parties—fails. Only Exit remains. That’s the logic behind building new enclaves: Silicon-Valley-style cities, Greenland projects, or even secession of nation-states. They are federalists, like neoliberals, wanting to dissolve global governance and restructure the world into smaller, economically self-sufficient, strong units.

This is not just theoretical. Look at Elon Musk’s Mars projects—a form of spatial Exit—or Patrick Friedman’s Seasteading initiative: new maritime cities outside national jurisdictions. These are all Exit strategies promoted by the Dark Enlightenment.

Cybernetics link back to 1940s American cybernetics with Norbert Wiener and the 1970s movements that Oxford scholars called the French New Lights, Edgar Morin, Alain Touraine, Michel Rocard, Henri Laborit ?

Baptiste Rappin: : Cybernetics is the second pillar. Often overlooked, but central. Dark Enlightenment thinkers mobilize cybernetics against world government, global regulation, and the current order.

In Yarvin, cybernetics is implied—entropy, thermodynamics—but not fully theorized. Nick Land, by contrast, thematizes it fully, referencing Wiener, Herbert Simon, and concepts like “extropy,” from transhumanism. Their goal is to create enclaves that resist the entropic decay induced by the Cathedral, which is self-destructive.

How do they think about organizational structure?

Baptiste Rappin: : Fractally. The same structure repeats at every scale: family, group, enterprise, department, region, state, continent, planet. Global hierarchies, supranational institutions, post-WWII governance—they reject all of it. For them, sovereignty is at the level of the city or sovereign corporation, a Westphalian return where these units negotiate among themselves to maintain peace, without overarching international institutions.

And philosophy? Heidegger, Deleuze, pop culture?

Baptiste Rappin: : Heidegger is not central. Dark Enlightenment thought is technophilic, transhumanist, invested in technology. Methodologically, you could draw a parallel: Heidegger revealed the unthought structure of Western history (metaphysics); Dark Enlightenment thinkers reveal the unthought structure of modernity—the Cathedral. But there’s no systematic critique of subjectivity or Being.

Deleuze? Mostly absent. Dark Enlightenment engages in “geek philosophy”—pop culture, cyber references, Matrix, Fight Club, Terminator, Gibson novels. Red-pill motifs illustrate awakening to the Cathedral. Their work is fragmentary—tweets, blogs—so reconstructing a systematic philosophy is difficult.

And esotericism? Crowley, hermeticism?

Baptiste Rappin: : Land has minor esoteric references—Crowley, Kabbalah—but peripheral. The core is cyber-geek philosophy and libertarian governance theory.

So what remains of Heidegger in all this?

Baptiste Rappin: : Very little. Dark Enlightenment is concerned with technology, governance, and the problem of violence—libertarian inheritance. Heidegger’s metaphysics is mostly irrelevant. The influence of René Girard is more significant, especially around violence, Apocalypse, and Armageddon.

And the accessibility of this thought?

Baptiste Rappin: : It’s intentionally difficult—fragmented, technical, and geeky. Yarvin’s universe is cyber-geek; Land adds hermetic layers. It’s not “pop philosophy” like Deleuze or Châtelet—it’s targeted, fragmented, often opaque.

Finally, how do we contextualize it?

Baptiste Rappin: : The movement emerges around the mid-2000s. 2007 is pivotal: Peter Thiel publishes The Straussian Moment; Yarvin starts his blog. Initially below the surface, it suddenly gains visibility. Zuckerberg’s political pivot only makes sense within this framework. The Dark Enlightenment combines libertarianism, cybernetics, Exit strategies, and technophilic governance theory into a coherent, disruptive force that reshapes parts of modern geopolitics.