In both videos, though, Johnson credits his formulation to his “friend,” Os Guinness, a self-described social critic whose website foregrounds that he is the great-great-great grandson of the Irish brewer Arthur Guinness. The younger Guinness spoke in person at ARC’s conference in London this week. ARC has financial ties to the Dubai-based Legatum Group, which co-owns right-wing cable outlet GB News. ARC’s CEO most recently served as head of the Legatum Institute, which was influential in pushing for Brexit. Lobster enthusiast Jordan Peterson is involved as well. On the Joe Rogan Experience, Peterson said ARC was focused on putting forward a “pro-human view on environmental stewardship” as well as mounting a defense of “long term, committed, monogamous, heterosexual relationships,” among other right-wing bugaboos. As Politico reported today, ARC invited presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and State Financial Officers Foundation CEO Derek Kreifels to talk about their crusade against Environment, Social and Governance investing principles.
The first entry in the “Research” section of ARC’s website features an essay by Guinness entitled Our Civilizational Moment. The West, he argues in language strikingly similar to Johnson’s, “now faces a critical moment and contest. It will either experience a genuine and profound renewal of its ideas and ideals, it will replace those ideas and ideals with different but equally powerful ones, or it will decline beyond hope of recovery.”