There's a phenomenon I call a "Dark Mirror" ideology. Such an ideology is by definition paired with a "Light Mirror" ideology that it stands in opposition to.

Crucially, a Dark Mirror ideology is not a total inversion of its twin; it stands only in moral opposition to its counterpart, while otherwise making the exact same factual claims about how the world works. The only thing the belief systems disagree about is what we're supposed to do about it.

I find Dark Mirror ideologies fascinating because they seem vanishingly rare in real life, yet they're constantly invoked in online political debates. The general form of a Dark Mirror accusation looks like this:

“You don't really believe what you say, you just want bad things.”

Let's take some random topic like, say, Minimum wage:

Pro-Increase (accusing opponents):
“You know people can’t live on $7.25 — you just want to exploit workers and keep them desperate.”

Anti-Increase (accusing supporters):
“You know it’ll kill small businesses and jobs — you just want to score political points and look generous with other people’s money.”

In this contrived example the Pro-Increase and Anti-Increase camps are not Dark Mirrors of each other (they believe different things about what Minimum wage policy will do), yet they believe their opponents secretly agree with them and are just choosing to be evil for some malicious reason.

Dark Mirrors are pretty rare

What do I mean when I say that Dark Mirror ideologies are rare?

Consider Darth Vader. As a Sith Lord, he stands in total moral opposition to the Jedi. However, unlike his secular Imperial compatriots, he accepts all the same cosmological tenants as his spiritual enemies:

Admiral Motti: Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebels' hidden fort—(gasps as Darth Vader chokes him with The Force)

Darth Vader: I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Darth Vader is best described not as an atheist or even an agnostic with respect to the Jedi religion, but as a Dark Jedi. He sincerely believes The Force exists, as well as everything else the Jedi profess about how it works, and even its role in governing the universe. He just believes in using The Force for evil instead of good.

The other classic example is Satan, as traditionally taught in orthodox Christian theology. Satan is no atheist, a fact that the apostle James, the brother of the Lord, points out in his epistle (emphasis mine):

¹⁸ Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

¹⁹ Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

Satan, being a fallen angel, has celestial knowledge beyond man's understanding and believes every factual claim professed by the most pious, most orthodox theologian, even going so far as to acknowledge every last word of the Nicene creed as just another boring fact about the universe, as uncontroversial to him as the law of gravity or the weak nuclear force. He knows all that stuff, he just opposes the Christian God and everything Christianity believes is good. Within this theological framework, Satan is a Dark Christian.

Approximately zero self-identified Satanists fit the "Dark Christian" definition–most of them are secularists who just find Christianity's arch-enemy to be a useful mascot in their quest to diminish the power of established religion in the political and cultural sphere.

A true Dark Christian must believe in the Christian God, so that means atheists and agnostics are right out. A Dark Christian must also agree with all the other theological claims Christianity makes, so that excludes pagans, polytheists, syncretists, gnostics, and deists. Heretical sects (by almost any definition) also fall short of the "Dark Christian" definition, not just for incompatible beliefs, but also because their moral systems have considerable genuine overlap with orthodox Christianity, even as they reject large swathes of traditional dogma.

Even should you go to the ends of the earth and find some weird fringe sect that strictly professes perfect classical trinitarian doctrine, but also that God is bad actually, even these elusive specimens might not yet qualify as "Dark Christians." To achieve that, they would have to go one step further and fully commit to wickedness, inverting all the foundational moral goals and values of Christianity, even and especially the ones that modern secularists enthusiastically uphold. That means thou shalt kill, thou shalt bear false witness, cursed are the peacemakers, hate your neighbor, etc.

Defined this strictly, aside from a tiny handful of extremely esoteric psychopaths, Satan and his legions of demons are the only beings in the universe who would qualify as "Dark Christians." Similarly, Darth Vader and the Emperor seem to be the only "Dark Jedi" we ever encounter in the original Star Wars trilogy, with the rest of the empire happy to oppress the rebel alliance on purely secular grounds.

My point is, it would be extremely weird and surprising for your enemies to believe everything you do about what's true and what's at stake, and then just want bad things for bad reasons.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen ever, just that it's more likely that your ideological opponents have a different model of the world.

Let's Invert the Mirrors

Charlie Munger is famous for the "inversion game." Instead of trying to think about how to succeed, think of how to fail. Once you've listed all the things that will make you fail, figure out how to avoid those things.

I'm adapting this idea to understanding ideologies. I'll come up with "Dark Mirror" pairs of famously opposed ideologies, while genuinely trying to be fair and pass the ideological turning test with regards to how each base movement sees the world.

Let's go down the list and you'll see what I mean.

Marxism vs. Capitalism

Dark Marxists would accept everything Karl Marx says about the evolution of human society and the socio-economic forces at work (labor theory of value, surplus value, tendency of the rate of profit to fall, etc.). Dark Marxists would also accept that Capitalism is but one stage of social evolution along the inevitable path to Socialism and finally Communism, but also that the exploitation of workers at the hands of capital is good, actually. Therefore, Dark Marxists should dedicate themselves to holding back the irresistible march of history like Norse Gods striving in vain to delay the coming of Ragnarok.

In this sense Dark Marxists are closer to the biblical Satan than any of the other Dark Mirrors I cover in this post. They know they’re doomed to lose in the end, they’re just trying to inflict as much damage as they can before the music stops.

Dark Capitalists would agree that free markets, capital formation, free trade, and light regulation foster economic dynamism, innovation, and competitive market forces that in turn drive economic growth, increased living standards, and technological progress, but also that economic growth, increased living standards, and technological progress are bad, actually. Therefore, Dark Capitalists should impede markets, discourage capital formation, restrict trade, and intentionally burden the economy with regulations. Dark Capitalists do this not because it will help workers or achieve a more equal society, but because it will hurt economic growth and make everyone poorer.

A Dark Capitalist doesn't actually care about prosperity and would do everything in their power to thwart economic dynamism. It's hard to imagine a motivation for this other than general misanthropy or some weird primitivist mania.

It seems clear to me that Dark Marxists look nothing like actual Capitalists, and Dark Capitalists look nothing like actual Marxists. These movements have profoundly different understandings not only of what the good is, but also the fundamental forces that drive the world.

Let's try another example – animal welfare.

Vegans vs. Grill Dads

Dark Veganism would accept all the Vegan tenants that animals have some degree of sentience, feel pain, are morally significant beings. They would further accept that animals suffer greatly when we raise and slaughter them in factory farms, but also that their suffering is good actually, and we should therefore kill and eat as many of them as possible. In fact, Dark Vegans might posit that one should strive to eat animals with the highest degree of sentience, the greatest capacity for pain, and the most moral significance, which starts to sound like some kind of bizarre man-eating cannibal cult.

I guess there's a few hyper online performative rage-baiters who just want to own the vegans all day who might fit this bill, but at least they haven't started yearning for man-flesh.

Actual offline opponents to veganism look a lot less like “Dark Vegans” than some normie who likes burgers and just doesn’t think eating animals is a big deal. Perhaps a dad who just wants to grill. What’s the dark mirror of that?

Dark Grill Dads would accept as undisputed fact that animals were put on Earth for humans to eat, that cows, pigs, and chickens are not morally significant beings, that hamburgers, ribs, and fried chicken are delicious, but also that eating delicious food is bad actually, and therefore you should pursue a life of self-denial and asceticism, even though it's not really a big deal if a bunch of cows, pigs, and chickens are slaughtered for human consumption.

I guess the closest thing to a Dark Grill Dad is some kind of monk–at least the kind that belongs to a religion that doesn't object to non-monastics eating meat? Less perfect examples might be any layperson of such a religion who observes periods of fasting like Lent or Ramadan? In practice plenty of people who have no issue with eating meat might still have objections to or at least qualms about factory-farming; a true Dark Grill Dad would have none whatsoever, but still oppose meat eating on entirely different grounds.

Christians vs. New Atheists

We've previously discussed Dark Christians, with the biblical Satan as the prime example. Famous organized religion hater Richard Dawkins would hardly qualify for the label for reasons we've already established – but what would his own movement's dark mirror be?

Dark New Atheists would agree with the New Atheists that there is no God and that seeking meaning primarily through science and reason will bring about a new secular enlightenment, but also that that's bad actually. Dark New Atheists therefore should embrace and promote obscurantism, pseudoscience, and woo, all while performatively worshiping a God they don't actually believe in.

Okay – weirdly enough this is the exception that proves my rule "Dark Mirror Ideologies mostly don't exist." I can definitely think of a few prominent cases of Dark New Atheists in real life. I will leave identifying them as an exercise for the reader.

Liberals vs. Conservatives

Alright, let's get partisan – conservatives vs. liberals!

Dark Liberals agree that democratic institutions, free speech, a free press, human rights, tolerance for differences, and a cultural melting pot are all essential parts of maintaining a free society, but also that such a society is bad actually. Therefore, they actively undermine democratic institutions, oppose free speech, are intolerant of human rights and differences, etc.

At first glance this seems like most garden variety dictators and authoritarians, but a closer look complicates that narrative. Most dictators drink their own Kool-Aid about how much better their autocratic system is; a true Dark Liberal would be cynical and insecure. In a Dark Liberal's world view, Liberalism really is the most powerful and effective organizing force–and that's precisely why the Dark Liberal needs it to fail, so they can be free to pursue their autocratic goals at great cost to society.

Dark Conservatives would believe that organized religion, traditional values, respect for authority, and a cautious approach to change are essential bulwarks for maintaining stability and order, but also that stability and order are bad actually, and therefore they should actively undermine organized religion, traditional values, respect for authority, all so we can pursue change for change's sake with reckless abandon.

At first blush one might say that Anarchism must be a Dark Mirror of Conservatism, but that misunderstands how Anarchists tend describe themselves. Anarchists are not necessarily opposed to order and in fact many value it as an inherent good – they just think it should come naturally, horizontally, and voluntarily rather than artificially, vertically, and coercively.

The Khmer Rouge might be a better example, but even they had their own weird ideology and aims.

A better example might simply be the Joker:

Know thy enemy

Accusing your opponent of belonging to a Dark Mirror ideology is a weird narcissistic exercise, and a failure to develop a coherent theory of mind. It's also counter-productive.

Invoking Dark Mirrors not only doesn't help us defeat our opponents, it blinds us to who they really are. You can't defeat what you don't understand.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle

- Sun Tzu