Frequently asked questions

Who are you?

A nutcase college student who found out who Curtis Yarvin is, read some of his blogposts from the 2000s, and thought, “I could do this myself.” No, seriously. Take this whole blog with a massive grain of salt. I am in no way a trained political thinker, unless consuming an unhealthy amount of political/philosophical stuff on the Internet counts as “training.” For all I know, this might just be the philosophical equivalent of doing wrestling moves on the trampoline with your brother and thinking yourself to be the next John Cena.

Is your name actually Philippe de Fontclair?

Not a chance. In fact, my real name is potentially one of the farthest possible things from “Philippe de Fontclair.” I’m not even French. The vast majority of the opinions I will be expressing on this blog are probably going to be quite a bit out of the Overton window, so I find it beneficial to conceal my identity. Now, this hasn’t worked for everyone. Moldbug got his identity exposed; so did BAP and Raw Egg Nationalist. However: these are people who had gained a reasonable degree of influence and notoriety at the time their identities were leaked. By contrast, I am some random guy whose takes may not be all that original. If my identity ever does get leaked, that signals to me that I can potentially make a career out of this instead of just doing it as an anonymous hobby. Maybe Alex Jones will even give me a job.

Why is your pen name “Philippe de Fontclair?”

That is a closely guarded secret.

So are you an NRx guy?

Not really. The concept of monarchy fascinates me, but on theological and aesthetic levels. This contrasts with Yarvin’s argument, which essentially seems to be “absolute power equals increased efficiency.” Mussolini had absolute power. Mussolini’s government was, according to legend, very efficient. Mussolini also allied himself with the mastermind of the most infamous genocide in history. I mention this not to smear efficiency, nor even to smear absolute power. Mussolini and Hitler were also atheists, which brings me to my next point:

What do you believe in?

I am a practicing Catholic, and as such, my interpretation of politics and current events is filtered through a Catholic lens. I believe that the ideal state is one that, at least at the in-principle, on-paper level, explicitly makes laws in accordance with Catholic moral standards. Now, this is obviously something that cannot feasibly be achieved in the 21st century. Which, in my opinion, makes it all the more fun to think about. Is it a monarchy? Is it a democracy? Do we just make Pope Leo the Secretary-General of the United Nations? Et cetera. There are a million things you can think about with this hypothetical. On a practical level, however, this aforementioned Catholic lens will be the mindset with which this blog operates. In my opinion, this can make for some pretty interesting and nuanced commentary on certain issues. For example:

There seems to be a growing pronatalist movement among some figures who are part of what the media would label the “tech right.” For the uninitiated: pronatalism is the belief that people should have as many children as possible. It is the opposite of antinatalism, which basically states that the creation of new human life is an evil action that should be avoided. Proponents of pronatalism include former Simpsons guest star Elon Musk. Now, if your average Catholic heard the sentence “Elon Musk wants people to have more kids” with no other context, he’d think that such a sentiment is extremely based. And it is; just not in the way Musk is doing it. Anyone who (unlike our hypothetical Catholic friend here) doesn’t live under a rock will know that Musk’s children have come from multiple women, which is a blatant violation of Catholic principles.

If you go further down the pronatalist rabbit hole, you’ll end up finding Simone and Malcolm Collins. The Collinses, a married couple, are (obscure) pronatalist influencers who, as of this writing, have five children and plan on having more. Again, sounds pretty based at first glance. Until, however, you read further into it and see that they have, according to Wikipedia, “used preimplantation genetic testing during in vitro fertilisation to select embryos with a desirable genetic makeup.” In other words… eugenics? At the very least, something eugenics-adjacent. Not good.

What can I expect to find on this blog?

I’m not sure, to be honest; on any given day I may choose to write about anything. In general, though, this blog will be very politically and/or philosophically focused. Three article ideas I already have are: dissection of the philosophy of Bohemian Grove, an extensive comparison of leftism to a religion, and speculative ramblings about what would happen to the Catholic Church under Curtis Yarvin’s Patchwork system of government. I can say that there probably won’t be much theological stuff. I’m not a theologian; the only thing I’ve ever done to come close to deserving such a title is teach a catechism class for middle schoolers. The last thing I want to do with this blog is lead people into scandal with an ill-informed take on some theological matter. If you absolutely must hear a theological opinion, ask the priest at your local parish, not some eccentric with an anonymous Substack.

In conclusion:

This should be an interesting journey. Hopefully, it will be a successful one, not something that leads to my complete social ostracization. However, if the latter happens, at least I have gone down for (what I perceive to be) a noble cause. Something something Freda Utley. So sit back, slonk a few eggs, and enjoy this ride into either enlightenment or oblivion. Also, subscribe to my girlfriend, who is joining me in this venture.