There’s been a buzz on twitter recently about Xenogoth’s writing on Patchwork (specifically a lil reader that has traversed the caves, but not seen the light of (non-cave) day), and I thought it would be useful to create a primer, or just a simple explanation post for people who are trying to grapple with it.

Old(er) Beginnings

While the term we use was coined by Moldbug some years ago, Patchwork begins in 1860 in Paul Emile de Puydt’s essay Panarchy. Here de Puydt outlines what they call Panarchism (and we call Patchwork):

The truth is that there is not enough of the right kind of freedom, the fundamental freedom to choose to be free or not to be free, according to one’s preference….Thus I demand, for each and every member of human society, freedom of association according to inclination and of activity according to aptitude. In other words…