Yellow Light Nationalism

In search of a distant place called home

The momentary gleam of the spectacle, immediate stimulation, is not beautiful, but rather the quiet afterglow, the phosphorescence of time.

— Byung-Chul Han, The Transparency Society

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I am quite serious about building a town.

Over the last month, I have begun scouting around Europe for land. Naturally, this has me thinking about architecture - but more than that, of space; of place; of home.

There is something profound in the West’s abandonment of incandescent bulbs, with their warm yellow light and quiet hum, and their replacement with clusters of penetrating white LEDs. It is illustrative of a deeper reflex of the manic phase of our late-stage culture - its blind pursuit of autistic efficiency and the ever intensification of illumination, observation, and homogenization.

Our homes and our streets are now lit as only our offices used to be. The white light which we encounter everywhere in the physical world has the same character as the over-stimulating light of the screen and the virtual. This change in the quality of the light, though subtle, advances the universal process of demoralization and environmental sterilization which we are subject to.

One cannot dream in such intense light. One cannot drift between worlds and play with unreality and unseen things. The cold white light leaves nothing unseen, no shadows in which mysteries or spirits might dwell. It anchors and limits one’s consciousness to the crass objects which it covers.

This change of light presents us spiritual dissidents with an opportunity and a responsibility. To build towns, as I intend to, which seduce people away from the strongholds of the regime, we must rely on our natural advantages, which are metaphysical, spiritual, and religious.