I had read most of these essays on Jack Donovan's website before I reread them in this short collection. I particularly like "Violence is Golden" of course, but his new ones like "Train for Honor", "Crom" and "The New Brotherhood" are interesting and well written. I still can't get 100% behind tribalism but like Crom, Donovan doesn't need me to get behind his ideas. They are there regardless. Donovan admits that empires can accomplish great things, although at too high a social cost. But what about those great things? I don't see space travel emerging out of tribalism. As long as men dream of lofty goals, the drive for consolidated power and resources will pull tribes together. Does Donovan just want the pendulum to swing back into barbarism for a while? Is this inevitable? Is this shift/collapse required to jump-start human potential again (ala Venkatesh Rao's The Return of the Barbarian)? I mean, I know its happened before several times throughout human history. It does seem naive to assume our species has moved past that cycle. Anyone who watches the international news should be able to admit that. Just how widespread and how long will it be though?
In Donovan's essay The New Brotherhood, he cites Guillaume Faye's archeofuturism as a guiding principle. This will be my next avenue of investigation. ( )