Beyond the Vapor with Robert Stark

Mr. Raven is a late GenXer who lives in a wilderness area and makes laser cut paper art. Subscribe to his Substack, Whisper from the Trees.

Topics include:-How rural areas are treated like internal colonies-How the rural vs urban divide plays out in dissident politics–Sam Francis’ Leviathan and Its Enemies and James’ Burnham’s Managerial Revolution-The class divide in dissident politics–The smart but poor demographic who don’t fit in with proles-How both Robert and Mr. Raven share a downwardly mobile upper class and bohemian background-Whether America has any aristocratic attributes as a mercantile nation–The formation of ethnic and cultural enclavism-How an economic downturn could accelerate enclavism-Whether enclavism would lead to neo-feudalism-Why Mr. Raven is skeptical of Curtis Yarvin’s idea of corporate run enclaves-Why distributism and mutualism are superior economic systems to capitalism and socialism-Mr. Raven’s essay on Medieval Craft Guilds-How guilds can address problems of jobs, education, and credentialism-The need for a tripartite system where different social castes share power-Misconceptions about the High Middle Ages-Hans Hermann Hoppe’s, Democracy: The God That Failed, a defense of decentralized aristocracy over centralized democracy-How resource scarcity could breakdown mass society in the future–Whether technology will continue to be a force for centralization in the future–Mr. Raven’s essay on beauty and the role of aesthetics in politics and society-How America undervalues aesthetics as a hustler society-Why old money people are superior to new money strivers-How old money vs new money struggles play out in politics-The class dynamics in California-Mr. Raven’s observations on living in San Francisco in 1991-Why neither Robert nor Mr. Raven voted for Trump-The case for Trump as a placeholder for preventing the other side from doing bad things-The economics of the arts-The problem of conservatives and populists being philistines on art and culture-Art fascists, Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, and the Italian Futurists-The segment of the dissident right that is more culturally sophisticated-Why Enclavism needs a pluralist dualism of diverse downtowns with homogenous bedroom communities