I first heard of Miles Mathis - who has two very large websites on science (mostly physics) and on other-stuff - especially cultural critique, but also the arts, literature, media etc. - because several people sent me links to his fan-fiction follow-up to The Lord of the Rings.
I didn't like this fan-fic, and could only manage to read a few pages; but went on to browse his other productions, and began to notice a few references to MM here and there in my corner of the internet.
It seems that Miles Mathis is something of a 'phenomenon' in terms of his productivity, range, and stylistic extremism.
Therefore, someone worth a second look, and deserving of some attention.
Since then, I have read through scores of his essays and other productions.
These are attention-grabbing by their 'outrageousness' of vehemence and claims, and broadly appealing to my socio-political sensibilities; but I was also trying to discern whether there was value in them.
(On the basis that, as Chesterton stated; to understand a Man we need to know his philosophy; and knowing his philosophy is a key to understanding everything important about him.)
This was not easy; because I find the MM persona - i.e. his written personality - very irritating and grating. He writes as a tremendously pretentious and domineering character; a particular 'type' of self-assertive, boastful yet emotionally brittle individual - who is relatively common in university circles, but who I would avoid interacting-with 'in real life' (and in print).
Setting that personality aversion aside, what is my evaluation?
Perhaps surprisingly, I think Miles Mathis's best work is his science.
I'm not saying he is right - or indeed wrong - in his particular theories and claims; because his field of concern is not mine, and I am unable to evaluate specifics.
But - from the overall impression and from many small details - I recognize the mental workings and truth-seeking commitment of a real scientist doing real science.
This is rare - especially in physics, which has been corrupted for longer than any other branch of science. And it means that Mathis has a chance of being right or on-the-right-lines; whereas the overwhelming majority of those in 'official' science have zero chance of being right, since they are merely professional research bureaucrats who are "not even trying" to seek or speak the truth.
The rest of Mathis's output can be divided into criticism, critique, and depictions of his visual art works.
The visual art work strikes me as good quality commercial art/ illustration, and I am unsurprised that he can (apparently) make a living from doing it. But - judged as 'art' it is spiritually empty at best, and sometimes it is nasty and evil-tending.
The sense of queasiness and repulsion induced by some of MM's art is mirrored in the effect of much of the writing; and in his self-satisfied (unopposed, pridefully-affirmed, multiply-defended) egotism.
He deploys the kind of ranting aggressive manner associated with the later Nietzsche in his 'Antichrist' phase. I mean the Nietzsche whose chapter headings in his last (pre-totally-insane from syphilis dementia) book Ecce Homo include "Why I am so clever", "Why I am so wise", and "Why I write such excellent books".
This is a manner which, I believe, emanates from someone who lacks a coherent metaphysics and who knows it unconsciously, and wants to keep that knowledge unconscious. One who has excluded the necessary assumptions from-which he could (in principle) discern, critique and advocate values - yet continues to engage in making multiple (quasi-objective) value affirmations and rejections.
In other words; an aggressive assertiveness that brooks no resistance is - it seems to me - the characteristic affect and affectation of a moralist whose deepest beliefs are nihilistic. It is a proximately in-your-face confidence and fluency; overlying an implicit and unacknowledged/ denied conviction of ultimate emptiness, futility, despair.
This is my diagnosis of the many essays focused upon explaining the calculated fakery and manipulation in service to evil that is mainstream modern culture and discourse.
I, of course, agree that mainstream modern West is indeed dishonest and evil - I would say more-so than at any time or place in human history (Mathis, by contrast, regards all of history as essentially The Same, Always bad in the same way as now, and he never seems to discuss the development of human consciousness).
But my explanations are rooted in a belief in God and that we dwell in a divine creation; and that this mortal world is inhabited by spiritual entities; which include the supernatural evil of immortal demons who oppose God's will and divine creation - and whose ultimate goal is the damnation of souls.
...Whereas Mathis explains the characteristic evils of this mortal world in terms of 'secular materialism' - in terms of a selfish and self-gratifying tribalism that holds-together, increases and extends throughout millennia of human history. Thus he (like the late Nietzsche) is focused on genealogy; on the lineages of heredity and ideology of the Evil-Establishment.
This (to my mind) self-contradictorily entails that MM posits an extreme degree of multi-generational purpose, planning and organization; and a sustained and developing global networking... yet such massive cooperation and coordination is posited as happening among people who are (by the same theories) most deeply motivated by their own selfish lusts.
In other words; MM's theories posit ultra-selfishness and self-indulgence, with simultaneously the greatest imaginable degree of long-termist systematic teamwork. This I regard as an impossible combination for mortal and temporary human beings - although exactly what would be expected from immortal demons.
When I looked at the detail of Mathis's specific essays on specific cultural and artistic or literary topics - even when I agreed with his general conclusions, which was quite often - it was evident that most were only very superficially researched and understood; and that the argument method and mode was stereotyped, mechanical, and vastly over-generalized - such that anything at all could be 'proved' or refuted using them.
I was kept reading when my agreement or relative ignorance led my mood to be dominated by my negative-pleasure at reading unrestrained and deft rubbishing of things I felt needed to be rubbished.
But when it came to serious matters; and especially to matters of core values and the proper motivations to a Good man in this world of evil lies - well, there was nothing there.
Furthermore, when I knew the subject matter; the arguments were - in many cases - full of errors and arbitrary false-assumptions, including mistakes in exactly those aspects upon-which the argument depends.
Overall, therefore, I find Miles Mathis to be someone who has good surface instincts; but - because of his God-rejecting, creation-rejecting, anti-spiritual heart - has ended-up indirectly working for the wrong side in the spiritual war of this world.
Once the excitement of his prose and persona have worn-off; what is left, is merely the same fear, resentment, despair and nihilism that characterize The West in these days.
Reading Miles Mathis in quantity or with attention; therefore tends to induce exactly the same mind-set that the demonic spirits most desire to induce in the people of this world; and which they propagate by their human agents of fake-liberation, globalist totalitarianism, and spiteful destructiveness of all that is Good.
As for Mathis himself - somewhat as with Nietzsche, his position is so extreme in its surface-depths incoherence, that its inherent contradictions make it unstable. It is this incipient instability which is being self-concealed by the self-distractions of externally-directed ranting aggressiveness.
But I feel that Mathis may - sooner or later, and perhaps post-mortally - eventually choose to cure these inner contradictions, by adopting metaphysical assumptions that make sense of his superficial opposition to the lies and exploitations of this modern world.
That is, MM is a pretty strong candidate for choosing theism, and Christianity - as soon as he applies his intelligence to fundamental matters of life, death and eternity - with the same diligence he applies it to the phenomena of this world.
On the other hand; Miles Mathis could choose to flip the other way.
If he holds-onto his nihilism, it will infect and permeate his superficial opinions; and he will gravitate to the swelling ranks of pseudo-radicalism, of controlled-opposition - of those who deeply endorse the core assumptions of this evil world, while publicly fussing over the morality of meaninglessly-specific details.
