In this episode, I discuss why we started EXIT, who we’ve brought together, and a few of the things we’ve accomplished. A few thoughts:
It’s not about “cancel culture”.
As many progressives have pointed out, people don’t have to like the things you say. “Reading the room” and dealing with social disapproval is part of life — and in a sane society, this can be a healthy thing. The problem is not that these mechanisms of social control exist, but that the worst people on the planet are deciding who is allowed to speak and what they are allowed to say.
In fact, what mainstream conservatives call “cancel culture” is more like an autoimmune disorder, in which the weapons that ordinarily stigmatize socially harmful behavior are turned against themselves, so that the only distinction that is permitted is that it is wrong to acknowledge distinction.
The problem with this autoimmune disorder is not that it’s unfair, or Unconstitutional, but that it’s terminal.
All the cultural infrastructure that produces healthy family life is being methodically dismantled — and “healthy family life” is not merely a nice thing to have: it is the means by which a culture continues, genetically and memetically.
As these institutions collapse, some of us are still getting lucky — meeting the right woman, making a decent living, even raising healthy children — but the odds are looking longer every day for our kids, even with all the advantages we can give them.
If we remain in the grip of this disorder — if we can’t find leverage, if we can’t organize against these forces — we will go extinct. First, our way of life, our religious beliefs, our values, everything that makes us “us”, will be replaced in our children with the homogenized values of Citibank and Netflix and Planned Parenthood — and of course, those values psychologically sterilize everyone who adopts them. In other words:
It’s about whether or not we get to have grandchildren.
If we want grandchildren, we’re going to need alternatives to government schools. We need jobs that can support a homemaker and children. We need to move to better neighborhoods (or build them), so that our children can find good friends, mentors, and mates.
But that’s all defensive; we also need to build a way of life that our children will want to adopt and iterate. That means being personally exemplary, and happy, and jacked, and good-looking; it also means building a career where we aren’t miserable and exhausted, where we don’t have to resentfully mumble taqiyya to stay employed. It means funding culture production, and supporting dissident thinkers, so that as the present consensus rots and collapses, we can be ready to replace it with something beautiful.
It’s not about abandoning the culture, or forfeiting positions of strength.
Only an idiot would tell a factory worker, “You should never strike, you’re giving up all your power in the system!” Organized, strategic Exit — in the form of walkouts, work stoppages, etc. — is the only means by which labor can gain power within the system. And if you think your cultural and institutional leverage is any different as an Amazon project manager, you’re deluding yourself.
The purpose of EXIT (the organization) is to help our guys prosecute Exit (as a strategy). In order to push back in the workplace and the public square, our Exit must be three things:
Coordinated: One guy quitting his job or shouting into the void won’t make much difference. We need to build the power to act and speak collectively.
Survivable: To have the courage to push back, our guys need to be financially and socially prepared to weather a short-term adjustment — just like striking workers need to know how they’re going to pay their bills for the duration of the strike.
Credible: Exit doesn’t have to mean a permanent withdrawal, but we do need credible alternatives to the resources that we’re currently getting from these hostile institutions. We can’t be bluffing.
EXIT’s solution to this problem is something like Balaji Srinivasan’s concept of a “decentralized network union”. Most of the time, we are building infrastructure that makes us stronger: hiring each other, promoting each other’s work, helping each other start businesses, and investing together. But when someone is directly threatened by doxxing or any other method of backdoor ideological policing, we circle the wagons to make sure they are able to weather the storm and get back on their feet.
We are also collaborating on big-picture problems.
EXIT has brought together a deep pool of talent: software developers, entrepreneurs, marketers, attorneys, investors, creatives, executives, etc. — all of whom have recognized that it’s not enough to be individually successful. We are creating teams to build:
Cancellation insurance
Legal defense funds
Investment funds
Alternative schools
Preparedness services
Arts patronage
Members with expertise and passion take point on each of these projects — many of which we expect to spin off into independent businesses. And members who are unsure what they want, or where their talents would be best used, can report for duty on any of these projects and start figuring it out.
If any of these projects interest you — or if you have another big-picture project that would benefit the group — sign up at exitgroup.us.
EXIT Podcast #39: EXIT