Explaining the New Right, Part 2
Bronze Age Pervert
Warning: I think it should go without saying that describing the writing of a character who calls himself Bronze Age Pervert could offend some readers. What I share in this post is intended to accurately inform, not to display gratuitous obscenity.
Introduction/Background
Bronze Age Pervert (BAP) is a very challenging writer to understand, mainly because his writing inconsistently varies between serious philosophical argument and outright trolling. It can therefore be hard to tell when BAP is to be taken seriously and when he is to be taken ironically. Aside from Curtis Yarvin, who certainly means what he says and writes, you will find that this is typical of adherents to the New Right. They cover much of what they say and write in irony and trolling so that it is difficult to ascertain when they are being serious, and to afford themselves a degree of plausible deniability for some of their more controversial speech.
BAP’s identity has never officially been confirmed, though he has traditionally been identified as a pseudonym of Costin Alamariu, a Romanian-American who went to High School with BJ Novak and John Krasinski of “The Office” fame. In fact, Alamariu and Novak were together involved in a prank in which the group replaced the audio guide for a Chinese ceremonial art exhibition at a Boston museum with their own homemade tape. The tape has made its way to YouTube where listeners of BAP’s podcast, Caribbean Rhythms (a name which has no apparent relation to the content of the podcast), will recognize his exaggerated Eastern-European accent. And that is perhaps how BAP should be understood — a semi-serious, Borat-like character created by Alamariu. Despite obtaining a BS from MIT, an MA from Columbia, and a PhD from Yale, Alamariu’s BAP speaks in broken English and makes frequent spelling and grammatical errors in his writing. His persona is akin to what you would expect a bronze-age steppe barbarian warlord would have been like.
The earliest appearance of BAP on the internet that I could find that has survived to present day is a forum post from October 2012, incidentally the same timeframe as Curtis Yarvin’s RAGE speech at the BIL conference. In the forum post, BAP offers some “helpful” dating advice for men:
This is typical of BAP’s trolling. BAP also has a Twitter/X account, where he frequently posts “thirst trap” pictures of anime girls (If you don’t know what this means, it is better not to ask.), homoerotic pictures of young men in various states of undress, and outlandish short stories that are most certainly made-up. Mixed in with this trolling, however, are serious or semi-serious political policy prescriptions, such as the one below:
BAP’s main account (@bronzeagemantis) was banned from Twitter in August 2021, and he instead tweeted from an alternate account, @beachstud90210, until the main account was subsequently unbanned in late 2022 upon Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.
Bronze Age Mindset: Vitalism, Hypermasculine Hierarchy, and Anti-Egalitarianism
Aside from Twitter posting, BAP’s foray into writing began with the release of his first book, Bronze Age Mindset, in 2018. In it, he builds upon the ideas of his primary philosophical influence, Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th century German philosopher known primarily for such concepts as the “death of God”, nihilism, and the Ubermensch. Nietzsche disdained traditional Christian values such as humility and compassion, viewing them as suppressing more natural instincts like power and vitality. This forms the basis of what BAP calls “Vitalism” of which there are four key aspects:
Rejection of modernity, including (and especially) a rejection of Christianity.
Strength-based moral hierarchy - In other words, the physically strong are morally justified in ruling over the physically weak.
Emphasis on physical self-improvement - Specifically through weight-lifting and sun exposure. This in itself is not abnormal. However, many of BAP’s followers go as far as “sunning their testicles” under the belief that it increases testosterone and fertility levels.
Hypermasculinity - In other words, Nietzsche’s Ubermensch or strongman. BAP expresses particular disdain for women in positions of authority, which he refers to as the “gynocracy”.
Rejection of traditional moral values, particularly egalitarianism, in favor of physical strength and defined hierarchies form the basis of BAP’s political thought. Like Curtis Yarvin, BAP is strongly opposed to democracy and popular sovereignty, especially in its modern form:
Quoting BAP, “Modern “democracy” is totalitarian and vicious, and tries to subject the best to the rule of the heaps of biological refuse and most especially to the rule of those who can stir them up.”
Naturally, BAP also opposes concepts such as human rights and equality, as such concepts force superior, stronger individuals into having to defer to those he considers to be weak and inferior:
Quoting BAP referring to bronze-age Greeks, “…these men would have never submitted to abstractions like "human rights," or "equality," or "the people" as some kind of amorphous entity encompassing the inhabitants of the territory or city in general. They would have rightly seen this as pure slavery, which is our condition today: no real man would ever accept the legitimacy of such an entity, which for all practical purposes means you must, for entirely imaginary reasons, defer to the opinion of slaves, aliens, fat childless women, and others who have no share in the actual physical power.”
BAP has a particular disdain for women, blaming many of modern democracy’s problems on the “liberation” of women.
Quoting BAP, “Giving 'freedom' to women — an impossibility. With the liberation of women in the 19th century, the West has given itself an infection from which it can’t recover without the most terrible convulsions and the most thorough purgative measures….” “…because the 'liberation' of women makes democracy into a terminal disease…one that doesn’t just end a particular government, but the civilization.”
Quoting BAP, “I’m sure that Europe prior to the Bronze Age, before the coming of the Aryans, was similar to modern Europe. People lived in communal longhouses and were likely browbeaten and ruled by obese mammies who instilled in them socialism and feminism.”
In short, BAP’s main criticism of modern society/democracy is that it fails to recognize and accede to the superiority of physically strong men as compared to the “heaps of biological refuse” that include weaker men, women, and everyone else.
“Selective Breeding” and Modern Eugenics
BAP’s basic solution to the ills of modern society is to, primarily through eugenics, create a super-race of strong men who will have complete and total dominion over the rest of society. BAP does not explicitly call for domination of a particular race or ethnicity. However, he often references and idealizes “Aryan” cultures, particularly those of the bronze age, and he uses the concept of “Aryans” to advocate for a return of “vitality” and masculine hierarchies and social structures. BAP has a clear disdain for “racial mixing” and has identified it as a cause of civilizational destruction:
BAP has a particular focus on what he calls “owned space”, and he considers the ownership of space as a fundamental aspect of life and human existence. He views a perceived lack of owned space in modern society as a significant problem. He criticizes the "domestic life of the village" and urban environments as constraining human potential, describing them as "pollution of cities built on filth" that prevent the "unfolding of its inborn destined form or nature.” BAP views the purpose of life as mastery over oneself and one’s surroundings.
BAP’s concept of eugenics and owned space, when combined, echo the early 20th century German concept of “living space” or Lebensraum. BAP does not explicitly use this term, though he has referred to the Nazi attempt at breeding a superior race of “Lebensborn”:
For the historically uninitiated, Lebensraum was a key cornerstone of Nazi ideology and a driver for German aggression in World War II.
The Explicit Embrace of Fascism
Speaking of which, I do not engage in loaded political hyperbole by flippantly casting accusations of “fascist” and “Nazi”. I don’t believe, for instance, that Curtis Yarvin is a fascist. However, BAP is an admitted fascist, as he wrote in a 2021 essay Communitar Fools:
“I believe in Fascism or “something worse” and I can say so unambiguously because, unlike others, I have given up long ago all hope of being part of the respectable world or winning a respectable audience. I have said for a long time that I believe in rule by a military caste of men who would be able to guide society toward a morality of eugenics.”
I need not write at length on this. BAP has conveniently summarized his overall philosophy in this one quote. I leave it to the reader to decide their level of concern of an admitted fascist influencing the political philosophy of the second most powerful man in the country. Well, maybe third, after Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Speaking of which…
Connection to Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin, and JD Vance
BAP is widely-read and influential in New Right circles, particularly among younger men. BAP is in his early 40s, but aside from his time in academia, nothing else is known about his career or how he makes his money. It is believed that, like Curtis Yarvin, BAP counts Peter Thiel as a billionaire patron. Thiel is certainly aware of BAP and his writings, having described his prescriptions to solve the problems of modern society “tempting”. Yarvin reads BAP, and in fact gifted a copy of BAP’s first book, Bronze Age Mindset, to Michael Anton, Trump 47's selection for the Director of Policy Planning at the Department of State. Subsequently, Anton published a review of Bronze Age Mindset in the Claremont Review of Books, a prolific conservative publication, thereby launching BAP from the fringe of alt-right social media trolling into the traditional conservative ecosystem. From there, the book was apparently passed around to young Trump 45 staffers in the White House.
In 2017, Politico reported that Steve Bannon, Trump’s Chief Strategist at the time, read both Yarvin and BAP, and was in communication with Yarvin through intermediaries. Yarvin told the Atlantic that BAP was his connection to the White House through Steve Bannon and that Trump would soon be issuing “powerful Executive Orders” to implement the New Right’s vision. That didn’t happen, perhaps because Bannon was fired (or stepped down, depending on who you ask) a few months later, and Yarvin was certainly trolling the Atlantic at the time. However, I think there is a non-zero chance that it could be happening now, particularly because both Yarvin and BAP now have a much closer connection to the White House through Vice President JD Vance. In fact, JD Vance follows BAP on Twitter/X. BAP and his followers have referred to JD Vance as “our guy”.
However, unlike his comments on Curtis Yarvin, I could find no direct comments that JD Vance has made about BAP or his writing, nor do I expect that JD Vance will ever make any comment related to BAP. He has proven to be a very intelligent and savvy political operator. His previous comments in 2021 regarding Yarvin were clearly a “rookie mistake” that I think he is not likely to repeat. Therefore, any case to be made as to JD Vance’s true philosophical beliefs and intentions for power will only ever be based on circumstantial evidence, albeit quite strong circumstantial evidence. Watch what he says and does carefully, and you will witness an increasing bend toward authoritarianism.
One final note for those who may be confused by BAP’s appeal; understand that male loneliness, particularly among young men, is increasingly becoming a larger societal issue. Many Gen Z men are suffering from a “failure to launch” and have more difficulty establishing careers and long-term relationships with women than previous generations. To some of these men, BAP offers a sort of “empowerment”.
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If you are willing to continue to follow me down the rabbit hole, stay tuned for the next part, which will be a description of “Uncle Ted”.