2. There's a longstanding fantasy on the American right of opting out of society -- going Galt, the Benedict Option, seasteading -- it's worth tracing the origins.
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3. Arguably American secessionism is rooted in the very DNA of USA (which was born breaking away & then had a Civil War ignited by slave owning secessionist)
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4. But for purposes of understanding modern right, earlier sessessionist impulses came in 1930s, when triumph of New Deal fed fantasies of escaping from mainstream society.
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5. A key theoretical moment was Albert Jay Nock's essay "Isaiah' Job" (1936) which argued that masses were hopeless & real salvation would come from "saving remnant."
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6. Stating in 1937 Harold Gray, the hard-right creator of Little Orphan Annie, started crafting stories of Daddy Warbucks creating free market utopias outside USA. The first "going Galt" narratives.
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7. As
@brianmdoherty notes in fine book Radicals for Capitalism, 1950s libertarians had a spiritual turn because they felt thwarted by triumphant statism.2 replies 5 retweets 93 likesShow this thread -
8. 1950s libertarians around Faith & Freedom magazine started following guru Gerald Heart, advocate of LSD & mescaline (also an influence on Aldous Huxley).
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Replying to @HeerJeet
Do you mean Gerald Heard? I don't think he was a libertarian at all, though of course I can't speak for his followers.
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Replying to @hilzoy
Yeah, Gerald Heard. He wasn't libertarian but a bunch of libertarians became cult followers of him in 1950s.
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He ran in many interesting circles!
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