No kings, no self: the protest against hierarchy in a disintegrated age
NPCs on parade and the empty slogans of revolt
They chant "no kings" like it means something. It doesn't. The protestors don't want freedom—they want permission to stay asleep. A man who rejects kings but obeys every flicker of his own chaos is no revolutionary. He's a malfunctioning machine.
Modern rebellion isn't about overthrowing tyrants. It's about refusing to kneel—even to God. And that's the problem.
The signs they wave might as well say "no responsibility, no discipline, no self." Because that's what they're really protesting. Not monarchy. Not oppression. The very idea that some things—some people—some principles—might actually be higher than others. That there might exist a right way to live.
The Gurdjieffian crisis: a society of mechanical rebels
Gurdjieff called them sleepwalkers. Now they carry signs, loot small businesses, and set cars on fire.
The protestors scream about autonomy while being jerked around by every news cycle, every viral outrage, every collective spasm of the crowd. They think they're fighting oppression. Really, they're proving they can't govern their own thoughts for ten consecutive minutes.
Watch them. Really watch. See how their eyes glaze when the chant changes. Notice how quickly their rage shifts targets. This isn't conviction. It's possession. They've become marionettes of the moment, dancing to whatever tune the collective id decides to play next.
Freedom? Hardly. A man with no master inside will always bow to something outside. The protestors swapped crowns for algorithms. Progress.
Gurdjieff's "three-brained beings" were supposed to evolve. Instead, we got this—a species that mistakes MSNBC psyops for thought and confuses mob mentality with moral clarity.
The Traditionalist warning: rejecting kingship is rejecting the divine
Guénon saw this coming a century ago. When sacred hierarchy dies, you don't get utopia. You get this—a mob screaming into the void, mistaking noise for principle.
Ancient rebels killed kings to restore order. Modern ones kill the idea of kings because order terrifies them. They'd rather live in the sewer than admit someone might deserve to sit above them. The protest isn't a demand for justice. It's the death rattle of a civilization that forgot how to look up.
Evola was ruthless about this. Decadence doesn't always wear a crown. Sometimes, it wears a Che Guevara T-shirt, has blue hair, and calls looting "progress." Sometimes, it waves a rainbow flag while trampling every actual tradition that gives meaning to human life.
The protestors imagine themselves as revolutionaries. In truth, they're just the latest iteration of what Guénon called "the reign of quantity," where all values are equal because no values matter.
The deeper tragedy: no kings because no men
Here's the joke: you can't have kings if you don't have men. Real ones. The protestors aren't overthrowing anything. They're just proving they'd collapse under the weight of their own sovereignty.
The protestors don't hate authority. They're just furious they're not allowed to be as unstable as they feel.
Look at their demands. Not for wisdom. Not for virtue. For "freedom," which in their language means freedom from consequence, from duty, from the terrible burden of having to become something.
A society that spits on crowns but can't sit still for five minutes of self-reflection doesn't want democracy. It wants daycare for adults.
Beyond the noise—is there a path back?
Maybe. But not through more shouting.
Real rebellion starts when a man stops blaming “kings” and starts asking why he's still a slave. The protestors got one thing right: there are no kings left. Just a bunch of hollow men playing musical chairs on a sinking ship.
The tragedy isn't that they're fighting power. It's that they don't even know what it looks like anymore.
Here's the bitter pill: hierarchy isn't the problem. You are. Your fragmentation. Your refusal to do the work of becoming whole. The protestors rage against phantom kings because facing their own disintegration would be too painful.
Wake up or die sleeping. Those are the options.
And the clock's ticking.
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