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mardi, 27 septembre 2011

Le spectacle est devenu « la meilleure des polices »

Le spectacle est devenu "la meilleure des polices"

arton12570-aea95.jpg

Ex: http://ungraindesable.hautetfort.com/

En exergue de ce livre figurent deux belles citations de Guy Debord et Jean-Claude Michéa particulièrement bien choisies. L’auteur est très curieux à  voir l’abondante bibliographie (Jean-Pax Méfret, Murray, Michéa, Debord, Debray,Raymond Boudon, etc) ; ce livre est donc particulièrement intéressant car il s’attaque à de vrais sujets, de vrais problèmes.

Selon l’auteur, le lien est évident entre Murray et Debord ; « l’ordre spectaculaire et festif a pour conséquence (…) la disparition du réel . La " société hyperfestive " apparaît comme l’aboutissement de " la société du spectacle "».

Ce livre est une violente et véritable attaque contre le libéralisme mais sous un angle plutôt proche de Michéa que de Besancenot.
 

« (…) dans la société libérale, aucun vice ne doit en lui-même être à priori réprimé (…) Par ailleurs, et pour en revenir au présent , un taux relativement élevé de criminalité ne nuit pas au bon fonctionnement du « système libéral », au contraire. Prenons un exemple contemporain avec les émeutes urbaines : les voitures brûlées doivent être remplacées, les vitrines brisées réparées, etc. Et, comme le note avec ironie le philosophe Jean-claude Michéa dans L’emprise du moindre mal, le « système libéral «  dans sa grande ruse, a su aussi produire en parallèle toute « une industrie de l’excuse, voire de légitimation politique », se proclamant de gauche ou d’extrême gauche, mais en fait culturellement et politiquement libérale : « C’est le travail habituellement confié aux rappeurs, aux cinéastes « citoyens » et aux idiots utiles de la sociologie d’Etat. »

Il aborde ensuite le milieu du showbiz avec le politique et la corruption.

Il conclue ainsi « (…) Chaque époque a ses tabous et son idéologie dominante. Sous l’Ancien Régime, l’Eglise catholique » aujourd’hui « son influence a bien pâli » (…) le dieu caché du temps présent : la nouvelle religion spectaculaire et festive, diffuse, fluide et totalisante, avec ses prêtres et ses dévots de la médiasphère et du show-business (…) de nouvelles hiérarchies sociales, des tabous d’un genre nouveau, un conformisme inédit, tout un système dans lequel les troubadours jouent désormais les premiers rôles(d’anesthésistes). Car ainsi que le note Jean-claude Michéa, « il serait temps de reconnaître enfin que de nos jours, c’est le spectacle lui-même qui est devenu « la meilleure des polices » »

00:05 Publié dans Actualité, Livre, Sociologie | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Tags : philosophie, sociologie, livre, spectacle | |  del.icio.us | | Digg! Digg |  Facebook

samedi, 17 septembre 2011

Kampf und Tragödie des Barons Ungern-Sternberg"

Berndt Krauthoff: "Ich befehle! Kampf und Tragödie des Barons Ungern-Sternberg"

Eine Rezension

Götz KUBITSCHEK

Ex: http://www.sezession.de/

khan.jpgIm Regin-Verlag erscheint seit rund zwei Jahren ein ambitioniertes Programm, das sich – grob gesagt – dem traditionalen Gedankenkreis um Julius Evola, der Konservativen Revolution im weitesten Sinne sowie Figuren und Leitbildern einer Antimoderne widmet. Der Verleger bestückt also – salopp gesagt – die Nische in der Nische mit Büchern, und jeder, der sich ein bißchen mit dem Verlagsgeschäft auskennt, muß sich fragen, ob und wie man dort ein paar Mark verdienen will:

Denn der Regin-Verlag hat weder »Ever-Brauns« im Programm, noch legt er schlampiges Zeug vor, dem man ansieht, daß wirklich jeder Pfennig gespart wurde. Die Bücher sind vielmehr gut gesetzt, gut lektoriert, interessant und angemessen gestaltet. Ein Blick auf die stets aktuell gehaltene Internetseite www.regin-verlag.de lohnt sich.

In diesem Jahr erschienen ist der Nachdruck des Romans Ich befehle! von Berndt Krauthoff aus dem Jahr 1938 (hier einsehen und bestellen). Der Autor schildert darin Aufstieg und Fall des Barons Ungern-Sternberg, der als Befehlshaber einer bunt zusammengewürfelten, auf seine Person eingeschworenen Armee den Kommunisten vier Jahre lang schwer zusetzte. Er nahm den Kampf auf Seiten der »Weißen« unmittelbar nach der bolschewistischen Februarrevolution 1917 auf, hielt bis zur Niederlage Admiral Koltschaks seine sibirische Stellung und setzte danach auf eigene Faust, und ohne weiterhin in gegenrevolutionäre Strategien eingebunden zu sein, einen bereits vorbereiteten Plan um: Ungern-Sternberg überschritt im Oktober 1920 die Grenze der Äußeren Mongolei, eroberte im Februar die Hauptstadt Urga (das heutige Ulan Bator) und bis Mitte April 1921 das gesamte Gebiet. Allerdings überspannte er bereits im Sommer seine Kräfte und scheiterte bei dem Versuch, von der Mongolei aus Teile Sibiriens von den »Roten« zu säubern und seinen Einflußbereich auszuweiten. Am 15. September wurde Ungern-Sternberg, der auch die eroberten Teile der Mongolei wieder verloren hatte, gefangengenommen und erschossen.

Ich befehle! folgt insgesamt dem, was an historisch gesichertem Wissen über die kurze, aber intensive Führerschaft Ungern-Sternbergs vorhanden ist. Da die Darstellung – streng chronologisch und im Präsenz verfaßt – wie das unmittelbare Tagebuch eines Feldschreibers wirkt, ist es sogar als historisches Dokument wahrgenommen und verwendet worden. Das Nachwort des russischen Historikers Sergej Lwowitsch Kusmin zeigt allerdings, wie in der Darstellung des Lebens Ungern-Sternbergs stets biographische Exaktheit und Mythenbildung einander abwechseln: Natürlich gibt es Berichte über den Mut oder die Führungsgewalt des Barons, dessen geradezu unwiderstehliches Charisma ebenso belegt ist wie seine asiatische Grausamkeit in der Bestrafung seiner Untergebenen, wenn Befehle nicht ausgeführt oder Eide gebrochen wurden; aber die Quellenlage ist alles in allem doch dürftig, und so ist der Zugriff Berndt Krauthoffs eben vor allem eine gut erzählte historische Geschichte, die dem Faktenskelett sozusagen das Fleisch an die Knochen hängt. Manchmal gerät die Darstellung sogar zur Legende über eine dämonische Heiligenfigur: In ihm sah man einen Befreier, einen Retter, sogar die Inkarnation einer kriegerischen Gottheit der Mongolen. Krauthoff gelingt es, den Stoff nüchtern anzufassen und damit ein geradezu unwirkliches Leben in der Wirklichkeit zu halten.

Mit der »dramatischen Ballade« Kreuzzug 1921 von Michael Haupt ist ein zweiter literarischer Text im Buch enthalten. Dieses Drama ist viel weiter weg von der historischen Persönlichkeit als der Roman, aber es verdichtet wichtige Stationen und Szenen und ist, wie das Nachwort festhält, »ein Beispiel dafür, wie man das Ungernsche Epos in Europa verstand, kurz nachdem es bekannt wurde.« Die Widmung ist pathetisch, sie gilt »den wenigen Auserlesenen, die in der Welt zu führen verstehen«. Ist Haupts Drama je aufgeführt worden? Hier wünscht man sich mehr Auskunft über den Autor und über die Aufnahme seines Stückes.

Aber vielleicht ist das für das Ansinnen des Regin-Verlags auch zu sehr germanistisch gedacht. Hier geht es um die Bergung und Bewahrung verschütteten Schrifttums, und zwar aus gegebenem Anlaß. 2011 ist nämlich ein Gedenkjahr für alle Ungern-Sternberg-Verehrer: Er ist vor 125 Jahren geboren worden und wurde vor 80 Jahren füsiliert. Das ist auch der Grund, warum neben der literarischen Würdigung des Barons bereits im vergangenen Jahr in der »Anderen Bibliothek« (Eichborn) die Biographie Der blutige, weiße Baron aus der Feder James Palmers erschien (Sezession verwies im Februar-Heft dieses Jahres darauf). Auch dieses Buch hat keine Furore gemacht. Wer kennt schon Ungern-Sternberg, wer die literarischen Zeugnisse über ihn? Nun sind sie also wieder erhältlich, sind in der Welt und gut in Form gebracht.

Berndt Krauthoff: Ich befehle! Kampf und Tragödie des Barons Ungern-Sternberg mit Anhang: Michael Haupt: Kreuzzug 1921. Dramatische Ballade, Kiel: Regin-Verlag 2011. Hier bestellen.

vendredi, 02 septembre 2011

Aux sources de l'islamisme allemand contemporain

Wolfgang KAUFMANN:

Aux sources de l’islamisme allemand contemporain

 

L’islamisme allemand contemporain trouve ses racines chez les volontaires musulmans levés contre l’URSS de Staline

 

Depuis un discours controversé du Président fédéral Wulff, on discute de plus en plus intensément en Allemagne pour savoir si l’islam est propre à ce pays ou non. Les débatteurs ne sont à l’unisson que sur un point: l’islam est désormais présent en terre germanique. La même remarque vaut pour l’islamisme. Ce qui conduit tout naturellement à la question: comment l’islamisme est-il arrivé en Allemagne?

 

Vu l’immigration de plusieurs millions de Turcs musulmans, on peut supposer que l’islamisme présent aujourd’hui en terre allemande provient de cette vague migratoire. Toutefois, on doit bien constater que l’infiltration initiale d’un islamisme en Allemagne n’est pas un effet de l’immigration, après 1945, de travailleurs de confession musulmane. Deux livres publiés récemment le démontrent:

Stefan MEINING,

Eine Moschee in Deutschland. Nazis, Geheimdienste und der Aufstieg des politischen Islam im Westen, Verlag C. H. Beck, München, 2011, 316 pages, 19,95 euro.

 

&

 

Ian JOHNSON,

Die vierte Moschee. Nazis, CIA und der islamische Fundamentalismus, Verlag Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 2011, 360 pages, 22,95 euro.

 

Ces deux livres sont parus quasi simultanément, leurs titres se ressemblent fort et leurs couvertures également: ce qui pourrait faire penser à une action concertée. Cependant, à la lecture, on s’aperçoit quand même qu’il s’agit d’un hasard.

 

Les deux ouvrages décrivent le même phénomène. Stefan Meining, rédacteur du magazine politque “Report München”, dépendant de l’ARD, se concentre sur la responsabilité des services allemands dans l’émergence de l’islamisme, tandis que Ian Johnson, Prix Pulitzer, met surtout l’accent sur celle des services secrets américains. La lecture de ces deux ouvrages nous donne une belle image d’ensemble et nous permet de constater, en plus, que l’islamophilie peut prendre de multiples visages. La direction nationale-socialiste —rien moins!— fut la première a faire venir délibérément en Allemagne des représentants de la haute hiérarchie de l’islam politique, à commencer par Hadj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti de Jérusalem et chef religieux de la communauté musulmane de Palestine. Le motif de cette démarche se trouve dans la ferme résolution de Hitler lui-même, de son Ministre des affaires de l’Est Alfred Rosenberg, ainsi que des chefs de la Wehrmacht et de la Waffen-SS, d’utiliser et d’engager l’islam comme arme secrète contre l’URSS. Dans le cadre de cette politique, plusieurs centaines de milliers de musulmans du Caucase et d’Asie centrale ont été, jusqu’en 1945, enrôlés dans des unités de volontaires comme la “Division SS musulmane Nouveau Turkestan”. Ces unités avaient tout naturellement beoin d’un accompagnement politique et religieux.

 

La plupart de ces légionnaires musulmans, qui ont eu la chance, après la défaite de l’Allemagne, de ne pas avoir été rapatriés de force et d’avoir ainsi échapper à la mort par fusillade, se sont installés à Munich et ses environs. Parmi eux: quelques imams qui avaient auparavant servi dans les unités de la Wehrmacht ou de la Waffen-SS. Trois cents de ces “oubliés” fondèrent en 1953 la “Religiöse Gemeinschaft Islam” (“Communauté religieuse islamique”). Dès ce moment, le jeu a repris car le gouvernement fédéral allemand avait, lui aussi, l’intention d’utiliser à son profit les émigrants de confession musulmane. L’acteur principal de cette politique, côté allemand, fut le “Ministère fédéral des expulsés, réfugiés et victimes de la guerre”. A cette époque-là, ce ministère était placé sous la houlette de Theodor Oberländer (membre du parti “Gesamtdeutscher Block”/”Bund der Heimatvertriebenen und Entrechten” – “Bloc pour toute l’Allemagne”/”Ligue des Expulsés et Spoliés”). Pendant la guerre, Oberländer avait été le commandeur d’une unité spéciale de la Wehrmacht, la “Bergmann”, au sein de laquelle servaient d’assez nombreux volontaires musulmans venus du Caucase. L’objectif d’Oberländer était d’utiliser la “Religiöse Gemeinschaft Islam” pour faire éclater l’Union Soviétique en provoquant une révolte généralisée des peuples non russes, ce qui aurait entraîné, comme effet second, la réunification de l’Allemagne dans les frontières de 1937. C’est la raison pour laquelle, par l’entremise d’Oberländer, l’association musulmane de Munich a reçu le soutien financier du gouvernement fédéral allemand.

 

L’islam politique a été une arme pendant la Guerre Froide

 

Parallèlement aux tentatives ouest-allemandes d’enrôler l’association musulmane de Bavière, la CIA, et son organisation satellite, l’AMCOMLIB (“American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism”) commencent, elles aussi, à s’intéresser aux exilés ex-soviétiques et musulmans de Munich et de sa grande banlieue. Or les Américains paient beaucoup mieux que les Allemands: les membres de la “Communauté Religieuse Musulmane”, fixés à Munich, vont progressivement se faire recruter pour agir dans le cadre de la guerre psychologique menée par les Etats-Unis. Ils vont commencer par une collaboration au micro de “Radio Liberty” où ils vitupèreront contre la politique soviétique à l’égard des nationalités et de la religion islamique. L’islam politique allemand s’est donc transformé en un instrument américain dans la Guerre Froide, chargé de “tordre le cou” au communisme athée, avec, pour corollaire, d’amener à une révision générale des conséquences de la seconde guerre mondiale.

 

Les ex-légionnaires anti-soviétiques, qui se laisseront embrigader dans les services allemands ou américains, ne se présenteront pas, à l’époque, comme des fondamentalistes musulmans, à l’instar de ceux que nous connaissons aujourd’hui: ces anciens soldats de la Wehrmacht ou de la Waffen-SS s’étaient assimilés au mode de vie allemand; ils aimaient boire de l’alcool et se livrer à de joyeuses libations; leurs femmes et leurs filles ignoraient délibérément les prescriptions vestimentaires islamiques; toutes les autres consignes religieuses n’étaient pas davantage prises au pied de la lettre. Chose curieuse et digne d’être rappelée: c’est justement cette liberté par rapport aux prescrits rigoureux de la religion musulmane qui va provoquer une mutation décisive de la situation. Elle a eu lieu à l’occasion de la première “conférence islamique d’Allemagne”, tenue le 26 décembre 1958 dans la salle paroissiale catholique Saint-Paul à Munich.

 

Lors de cette manifestation, pour la première fois, des étudiants très croyants et très rigoristes, venus des pays arabes, rencontrent les émigrés issus des régions islamisées de l’URSS. Au départ, il n’y a pas de confrontation directe entre les deux groupes: tous s’accordent pour que soit réalisé un premier objectif, celui de construire un lieu central de prière à Munich. Pour y parvenir, ils créent au début du mois de mars de l’année 1960, une “Commission pour la Construction de la Mosquée”. Le directeur de cette commission, que les participants ont élu, n’était pas un ancien légionnaire issu du Turkestan ou du Caucase mais l’Egyptien Said Ramadan, figure de proue du mouvement des “Frères musulmans” qui était aussi, à l’époque, secrétaire général du “Congrès islamique mondial”. La raison principale qui a justifié l’élection de Said Ramadan fut qu’on espérait qu’il ramènerait des subsides en provenance des pays arabes pour la construction de l’édifice religieux. C’est ce qu’il fit. Mais, simultanément, il entama une campagne de dénigrement des anciens légionnaires des armées allemandes, parce que leur mode de vie n’était plus “pur”, ce qui conduisit à leur marginalisation totale.

 

Au bout de ce processus d’éviction, qui se situe en mars 1962, les protagonistes arabes d’une interprétation pseudo-traditionaliste et rigide de l’islam ont pris le contrôle de la Commission, qui, quelques mois plus tard, allait se dénommer “Islamische Gemeinschaft in Süddeutschland” (“Communauté Islamique d’Allemagne du Sud”). Depuis le 4 décembre 1982, elle s’appelle, en bout de course, “Islamische Gemeinschaft in Deutschland”. Depuis lors, l’organisation établie à Munich a servi de plaque tournante à un réseau islamiste qui n’a cessé de croître à la manière d’un rhizome sur tout le territoire de la République fédérale, sans que les autorités allemandes ne s’en alarment outre mesure.

 

Celles-ci n’ont montré de l’intérêt pour ce réseau qu’à partir du 11 septembre 2001, lorsque le troisième président en fonction, le Syrien Ghaleb Himmat, fut soupçonné de terrorisme: d’après les renseignements fournis par le “Financial Crimes Enforcement Network”, une instance dépendant du Ministère américain des finances, il aurait fonctionné comme fournisseur de fonds pour al-Qaïda.

 

Wolfgang KAUFMANN.

(article paru dans “Junge Freiheit”, Berlin, n°35/2011; http://www.jungefreiheit.de ).

 

lundi, 08 août 2011

Il segreto dei padri fondatori

Il segreto dei padri fondatori

di Luca Leonello Rimbotti

Fonte: mirorenzaglia [scheda fonte]


 

hegger_fondo-magazine-306x450.jpgGli  Stati Uniti sono un groviglio che nasconde un intrigo. Il groviglio è la mentalità fanaticamente esclusivista che recarono con sé i Padri pellegrini che fondarono, all’inizio del Seicento, le prime comunità puritane del New England. Essi erano febbrilmente convinti di dover portare nel mondo la verità biblica, che fosse con le buone o con le cattive. L’intrigo è invece la congiura massonica di sovversione mondiale del potere, che ben presto si saldò al puritanesimo nel corso del Settecento, andando a costituire un’esplosiva miscela di intollerante invasività. Noi sappiamo che, da quei tempi lontani, un unico disegno fondamentalista muove all’azione gli eredi di quella duplice formula puritano-massonica: la conquista dichiarata del mondo, l’assoggettamento delle popolazioni del pianeta al potere degli “eletti” di Geova e del Grande Architetto, la costruzione del tempio universale di Salomone.

Cosa sia questo “tempio”, quanto di spirituale esso racchiuda, è ben detto dalla struttura del templarismo bancario cui appartengono, da sempre, le amministrazioni americane, a cominciare dalla potente loggia Skull and Bones, di cui erano membri i Bush. L’obiettivo del potere mondiale che queste sette si son date, sin dagli esordi, lo si raggiunge servendosi dell’infiammata parola di predicatori che agiscono in maniera martellante dai pulpiti mass-mediatici, quando basti. Quando non basti, ci si rivolge senza indugio alla soccorrevole intercessione della più brutale violenza, ad esempio elargendo ai popoli riottosi le note somministrazioni di napalm, il santo argomento che negli ultimi decenni numerose nazioni hanno potuto apprezzare in qualità di concreto sostegno al diritto, che una ristretta casta cosmopolita si riserva, di erigere una repubblica universale a sua misura.

Come ognuno sa, quando si parla degli Stati Uniti, non sono in ballo né la “democrazia” né la “libertà”, né tantomeno l’“uguaglianza”. Ciò che conta è l’imposizione di “diritti” concreti (accesso al denaro, al potere, alle risorse, al controllo sociale) veicolati sotto specie di “diritti” individuali di facciata, ma alla cui fruizione sono deputati soltanto i membri della setta mondialista. Nicholas Hagger, studioso inglese delle culture nazionali e storico affermato, ha recentemente scritto Il segreto dei padri fondatori. La nascita degli Stati Uniti fra puritani, massoni e la creazione del Nuovo Ordine Mondiale (Arethusa). Un libro che si inserisce in un filone, minoritario ma di valore, presente da svariati anni sul mercato delle idee ed inteso a strappare la maschera dalla faccia dello zio Sam, per presentarlo per quello che è: un impostore travestito da salvatore. Ricordiamo, solo a titolo d’esempio, libri come Il sistema per uccidere i popoli di Guillaume Faye o Un paese pericoloso di John Kleeves (entrambi pubblicati anni fa dalla Società Editrice Barbarossa), ma anche Gli eletti di Dio. Lo spirito religioso dell’America (Editori Riuniti) del giornalista Marco Nese. Proprio in quest’ultimo, ad esempio, si trova scritto in quale maniera la sindrome elettiva degli antichi e degli attuali puritani non abbia per nulla in vista una democrazia sociale, quanto piuttosto una “repubblica teocratica” su base oligarchica, strumento diretto di una ristretta minoranza di fondamentalisti, che si spacciano con virulenza come possessori di un mandato universale, intorno al quale veniamo assicurati che si tratta della diretta volontà del Geova biblico. Quella che normalmente la si direbbe una patologia da alienati è divenuta la giustificazione di un gigantesco potere che avanza pretese di universalità, e che ottiene incredibili riscontri di assuefazione e persino di condivisione, attraverso lo strumento della minaccia e dell’intimidazione, oppure dei beni materiali diffusi, col miraggio dei quali si registra l’ammorbidimento dell’opinione pubblica internazionale.

Che, per i Padri pellegrini, si trattasse di mentalità alienata di emarginati fanatizzati dal Libro, è cosa sulla quale gli studiosi paiono concordi. Un pugno di invasati, sfuggiti all’anglicanesimo nazionalista elisabettiano, è alle origini dell’insediamento sul territorio altrui nel Nuovo Mondo, attuato dopo una prima fase di oculato etnocidio locale. Un pugno, invece, di freddi e lucidi programmatori, i massoni sbarcati in America un secolo più tardi, è all’origine dell’organizzazione politica di quella volontà di dominazione mondiale, che i puritani, da soli e con la sola recita dei versetti biblici, mai sarebbero riusciti a trasformare in sonante realtà planetaria.

Hagger, a darci la misura di quanto profondi fossero e siano gli intrecci fra l’universalismo puritano e il cosmopolitismo massonico, scrive chiaro e tondo che «si può affermare che la filosofia puritana fosse in realtà rosacrociana». Fra il puritanesimo anglo-olandese, all’origine del millenarismo americano, e il ginepraio massonico e illuminista settecentesco (Illuminati di Baviera, Rosacroce, Giacobiti, Priorato di Sion, templarismi vari, neo-catarismi, etc.) correva un unico filo. Si trattava di erigere la Nuova Sion in terra vergine, dopo che il tentativo di sovvertire i poteri tradizionali in Europa (ad es. contro i Borbone o i Tudor) era per il momento fallito. Poiché: «L’ordine di Weishaupt fu finanziato dalla casa sionista dei Rothschild e da altri quattro ebrei» e il rabbino Adam Weishaupt – guida degli Illuminati – ebbe secondo Hagger una decisiva influenza sui puritani americani, entrò in contatto con lo stesso Benjamin Franklin e condizionò in chiave massonica l’afflato rivoluzionario dei coloni americani. Si preparò il terreno alla fase storica della rivoluzione. E di Franklin sappiamo, come scrive Hagger, che «dopo essere stato a lungo un sionista rosacroce, era stato inviato a Parigi nel dicembre 1776 come ambasciatore coloniale per chiedere aiuto militare e finanziario».

Legami stretti fra la massoneria illuminista e il puritanesimo. Legami ideologici, oltre che operativi. Il sogno massonico e quello biblista venivano fatti coincidere: il tempio di Salomone e la Nuova Sion potevano essere costruiti senz’altro nel Nuovo Mondo, ma ugualmente nel Vecchio si potevano organizzare le prime rivoluzioni, i primi sforzi per svellere lo Stato nazionale a forte tenuta e sostituirlo con lo Stato massonico a direttiva puritana. La coincidenza temporale fra la rivoluzione americana e quella francese parla da sola. Al culmine, il piano sovversivo mondiale: «Le direttive che Weishaupt ricevette furono quelle di unirsi con i templari, deporre i Borboni in Francia e dar forma alla Nuova Atlantide sionista baconiana nel Nuovo Mondo». Da allora anche i ciechi hanno potuto vedere che l’installazione del massonismo puritano negli USA e la sua alleanza con l’illuminismo francese hanno significato prima di tutto la lotta contro l’Europa, percepita come il primo, grande ostacolo al piano mondialista: guerra alla Spagna nel 1898, due guerre mondiali con utilizzo di massacro aereo scientifico e bomba atomica umanitaria, poi franca imposizione del modello cosmopolita ed etnopluralista, “patriottismo costituzionale”, sudditanza militare ed economica. Il tutto, sempre gestito in coppia dalla premiata agenzia internazionale America-Francia, con zelante succursale inglese: parliamo dell’Occidente atlantista, la rovina dell’Europa, la sua maledizione. Oggi, ad esempio nel caso della fasulla guerra anti-libica, con Obama e Sarkozy sembra di rivedere all’opera Franklin e Lafayette, e si ha la più plateale conferma che l’analisi di Hagger coglie nel segno.

Non si tratta, infatti, di vicende storiche che seguano vie casuali. Si tratta di un programma secolare di sovversione e di erezione di un potere unico mondiale, che liquidi le entità politiche solide e insedi il massonismo universale. Come ha scritto Carlo Marroni sul Sole-24 Ore, riferendosi proprio al libro di Hagger: «l’ascesa degli Stati Uniti non è stato un evento aleatorio ma un piano strategico progettato da un’élite massonica fin dagli albori della nuova Repubblica». Il “Grande Oriente d’America” guida la mano politica delle amministrazioni americane: e poco, anzi nulla importa che queste siano repubblicane o democratiche, nere o bianche o magari domani ispaniche o gialle. Ciò che importa è che l’unico obiettivo, quello fissato tra Seicento e Settecento, vada a compimento: repubblica mondiale gestita dall’oligarchia cosmopolita che, attraverso la gestione della finanza internazionale, si assicuri la “elezione divina” di governare il mondo.

L’unificazione di progetto puritano e progetto massonico in un unico piano poteva dirsi compiuta alla fine del secolo XVIII. Quei fanatici eversori vollero anche dare simboli eloquenti alla loro opera: la capitale Washington costruita con la planimetria templare della squadra e del compasso, ad esempio. Oppure la piramide e l’occhio del Grande Orologiaio, che ti fissa minaccioso dalla banconota da un dollaro. Tutto questo ha voluto significare una sfida essenzialmente anti-europea. Il Gran Maestro George Washington sapeva ciò che faceva. E con lui lo sapevano i suoi generali, i quali «praticamente tutti erano massoni templari», come attesta Hagger. Tirando le somme: era davvero tutta propaganda lo slogan dell’Asse sulla “congiura ebraico-massonico-plutocratica”? O non era invece, quella formula di lotta, uno sguardo profetico sull’abisso, la denuncia di un feroce piano di morte, il tentativo di salvare la nostra civiltà con la forza della disperazione? Ognuno, che non sia cieco e sordo, può rispondersi da solo.



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lundi, 25 juillet 2011

Storia della cultura fascista

Storia della cultura fascista

di Luca Leonello Rimbotti


Fonte: mirorenzaglia [scheda fonte]

image.jpgÈ appena uscito un libro eccellente sul Fascismo e la sua importanza come moderno movimento rivoluzionario: non esitiamo a considerarlo un vero e proprio manuale di base, in grado di rompere gli steccati del conformismo vetero-ideologico e di porsi come strumento di contro-cultura di qualità: su di esso può essere ricostruita pezzo a pezzo tutta la storiografia del nuovo Millennio sul Fascismo. E con esso si può finalmente buttarsi alle spalle la lunga e avvilente stagione in cui a dominare la scena erano gli intellettuali codardi e opportunisti, i gestori della menzogna storica, i grandi camaleonti allevati in gioventù dal Regime, da questo messi in pista e poi, alla prova dei fatti, rivoltatiglisi contro come un groviglio di serpi rancorose, subito asservite ai nuovi padroni del dopoguerra. L’eccezionale uscita editoriale si chiama Storia della cultura fascista (il Mulino) di Alessandra Tarquini, una giovane ricercatrice di scuola defeliciana che già conoscevamo come ottima storica di Gentile e del gentilianesimo. Di questo libro bisogna parlare alto e forte. Deve essere da tutti conosciuto, studiato, divulgato. Non foss’altro per quella compostezza ed equanimità che, a distanza di quasi settant’anni dalla fine del Fascismo, è il minimo che si possa richiedere ad uno studioso di oggi.

Fatti i conti con i vecchi rottami della faida ideologica, appartenenti a una stagione ingloriosamente trapassata, la Tarquini passa in rassegna tutte le componenti che hanno costituito l’anima del movimento e del Regime fascisti: l’uno e l’altro sono da lei giudicati essenzialmente come soggetti politici rivoluzionari portatori di modernità e di cultura innovatrice. Viene così rovesciato l’assunto propagandistico di quanti avevano per decenni irriso il Fascismo, dicendolo privo di una sua originale ideologia, di una sua peculiare cultura, di una sua spinta modernizzatrice. La studiosa – in questa che è propriamente una storia della storiografia sul Fascismo – precisa che, per la verità, negli ultimi decenni già si erano avuti i sintomi di un generale ripensamento degli storici in materia. I tempi dei Quazza, dei Bobbio, dei Santarelli, dei Tranfaglia e compagni, una volta crollato il comunismo sovietico e prontamente liquidata la sbornia marxista che aveva dettato legge soprattutto negli anni Settanta, ha lasciato campo a posizionamenti più seri. Le boutade sul Fascismo reazionario e sul Mussolini pagato dai padroni capitalisti, le pedestri generalizzazioni sugli incolti picchiatori, tutte cose che comunque rimangono a testimonianza di un’atmosfera italiana popolata da studiosi sovente di rara bassezza qualitativa, vengono sostituite con l’analisi che oggi «gli storici hanno capovolto i loro giudizi e sono passati dal negare l’esistenza della cultura fascista al ricostruire i suoi diversi e molteplici aspetti considerandoli non solo importanti, ma addirittura decisivi per capire il fascismo».

Quando, negli anni Sessanta, uscirono gli studi capitali di Mosse e De Felice, la canèa antifascista fece di tutto per spingerli ai margini. Poi, mano a mano, si aprivano spiragli, si notavano marce indietro. Poterono così aversi i libri, per dire, di Isnenghi, Turi, Zunino, che, pur non rinunciando alla polemica ideologica anche fuori posto, tuttavia dimostravano che la repubblica delle lettere si stava rendendo conto che il Fascismo era stato un fenomeno ben più complesso che non “l’orda degli Hyksos” immaginata da Croce e sulla cui traccia si era gettata la muta degli storici marxisti o di scuola azionista. Poi, soprattutto dall’estero, arrivarono in successione un Gregor, uno Sternhell, un Cannistraro, ma specialmente poi un Griffin, e su questa scia si è potuta avere in Italia la densa produzione soprattutto di Emilio Gentile, ma anche di tutta una serie di nuovi storici, che nell’insieme hanno prodotto con risultati notevoli indagini anche minute sul Fascismo come combinazione di mito e organizzazione, di totalitarismo e modernità.

Intendiamoci, il rigurgito passatista è sempre dietro l’angolo: e ogni tanto ancora escono libri che sembrano scritti, e male, quarant’anni fa, e pur sempre i vecchi Tasca o Salvatorelli continuano qua e là a far pessima scuola. Ma, in generale, le nebbie si stanno diradando e il Fascismo comincia a vedersi riconosciuti alcuni tratti fondamentali. Che, come la Tarquini ben precisa, furono essenzialmente la modernità, la centralità del popolo e la cultura. Il tutto, incardinato sul principio del primato della politica, dette vita ad una autentica rivoluzione. Anzi, come la storica puntualizza, si trattò proprio di una sorta di rivoluzione conservatrice, che se da un lato proteggeva quanto di buono vi era nel tessuto sociale tradizionale, dall’altro si presentava con un massimo di proiezione sul futuro. Ciò che la Tarquini, riferendosi ad esempio a Sternhell, ha sottolineato nel senso che il Fascismo fu un fenomeno politico «dotato di una propria ideologia rivoluzionaria non meno coerente del liberalismo e del marxismo, che aveva espresso la volontà di creare una nuova civiltà e un uomo nuovo». Fu infatti anche una rivoluzione antropologica, un tentativo di rifare l’uomo accentuandone le disposizioni alla socialità e al solidarismo, infrangendo così sia l’individualismo liberale che la massificazione collettivista marxista.

La Tarquini riassume gli ambienti che erano alla base della concezione politica fascista: i “revisionisti” (guidati da Bottai, con elementi di spicco come Pellizzi);  gli “intransigenti” (con Soffici, Maccari, Ricci come punte di lancia); e i “gentiliani” (Cantimori, Spirito, Carlini, Volpicelli, Saitta fra gli altri). Tra queste posizioni si muovevano uomini ai limiti dell’una o dell’altra cerchia e talvolta si avevano passaggi non contraddittori, trasversali, come ad es. un Malaparte o un Longanesi, vicini sia a “Strapaese” che a “900″ di Bontempelli.

Grazie a questi gruppi venne assicurata la centralità del popolo nella visione del mondo fascista, il popolo come “pura forza”, cioè «un soggetto depositario di valori positivi», per il quale, come scrive la Tarquini, gli scrittori politici «si impegnavano nella società del loro tempo sostenendo la costruzione di un nuovo Stato nazionale e popolare». Qualcosa che accendeva la modernità. Le veloci pagine della studiosa ricordano che il Fascismo fu cultura, e anzi alta cultura, sin dagli inizi del Regime vero e proprio, con il “Manifesto degli intellettuali fascisti” voluto da Gentile nel 1925 e che vedeva schierati alcuni pesi massimi della cultura italiana del Novecento, fra i quali Pirandello, Volpe, Codignola, Ungaretti, Soffici, che si andavano ad affiancare ai D’Annunzio, il “primo Duce del Fascismo”, ai Marinetti, ai Cardarelli, ai Papini, etc. E siamo in attesa di qualcuno che ci dica quale altro regime si sia mai avvalso di una così potente schiera di aperti sostenitori.

Ma la Tarquini è anche originale, laddove traccia percorsi nuovi: ricordando l’influenza che il filosofo Giuseppe Rensi (in anni recenti al centro di un processo di rivalutazione, dopo un lungo oblìo) ebbe sul Fascismo e sulla sua idea di autorità; oppure sulla figura di Emilio Bodrero, storico della filosofia e docente alla Scuola di Mistica Fascista, secondo il quale, sin dal 1921, il Fascismo doveva «mobilitarsi come forza rivoluzionaria, per conquistare il potere e dare vita a un nuovo ordine politico».

La Tarquini ricorda anche l’avanguardismo giovanile, fulcro incandescente di elaborazione ideologica e di spinta rivoluzionaria il cui programma, sin dagli esordi del 1920, esprimeva un massimo di moderna socialità, dato che proponeva di «adeguare i programmi scolastici alle esigenze professionali dei ragazzi» e di «abolire il voto in condotta, di sostenere gli studenti più poveri e di rendere obbligatorio l’insegnamento dell’educazione fisica». E poi c’erano le donne. E che donne…da Ada Negri (prima donna nominata all’Accademia d’Italia, nel 1940), alla Deledda (che partecipò alla stesura del testo unico per le scuole medie), fino alla Sarfatti, regina incontrastata del modernismo fascista in politica, in letteratura e nelle arti.

E, a proposito dell’arte e della sostanza del Fascismo come «politicizzazione dell’estetica» e volontà di «socializzazione degli intellettuali» (e in campo artistico basti ricordare la passione fascista di un Sironi, di un Severini, di un Primo Conti, di un Piacentini, di un Terragni, etc.), l’autrice rammenta la presenza massiccia di artisti e letterati di primo piano nello squadrismo (Rosai, Maccari, Malaparte-Suckert, ma potremmo aggiungere lo stesso Marinetti, oppure Lorenzo Viani, Gallian, etc.), così come non manca di scrivere che l’enorme fermento ideologico e culturale messo in moto e catalizzato dal Fascismo si presentò, come avevano già indicato i vari Nolte, Mosse e Del Noce, come «un fenomeno politico figlio della modernità», così da «esprimere una forte spinta alla modernizzazione dell’economia, della società e della cultura». Il senso della missione dei giovani, il progetto di un destino comune, l’esaltante prospettiva di un popolo unito e socialmente avanzato furono il cuore dello sforzo culturale messo in campo dal Fascismo, che poté usufruire di un vero e proprio esercito di intellettuali d’alto e non di rado altissimo livello: ad un impietoso confronto, l’odierna incolta e rozza liberaldemocrazia mondiale – priva di intellettuali che superino il quarto d’ora di celebrità mediatica – ne esce distrutta.



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mardi, 19 juillet 2011

Intellectuels faussaires: triomphe médiatique des experts en mensonge

faussaires.jpg

« Les Intellectuels faussaires : Le triomphe médiatique des experts en mensonge » de Pascal Boniface (entretiens)

 

Ex: http://www.polemia.com/

Directeur de l’Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques (Iris), engagé à gauche, Pascal Boniface décape des idoles médiatiques, qu’il appelle des « experts en mensonge ». Un réjouissant jeu de massacre.

On ne peut guère soupçonner Pascal Boniface d’avoir, lui aussi, retourné sa veste, comme tant de ces « intellectuels faussaires » qu’il décrypte avec alacrité dans son dernier ouvrage éponyme. Après sa thèse d’État en droit international public sur les sources du droit international du désarmement, il fait très tôt partie des jeunes conseillers en affaires stratégiques proches de Charles Hernu, le premier ministre de la Défense de François Mitterrand, après mai 1981. Expert pour les questions de défense auprès du groupe socialiste de l’Assemblée nationale, il travaille aussi sur ces sujets aux cabinets de Jean-Pierre Chevènement, ministre de la Défense, puis de Pierre Joxe, d’abord à l’Intérieur puis à nouveau à la Défense.

mensongesmédiatiques,manipulations mdiatiques,livre,pascal boniface,france,actualité,médias,presse,journauxBoniface est resté fidèle à cet engagement socialiste, tout en menant une brillante carrière d’universitaire (il est aujourd’hui enseignant à l’Institut d’études européennes de l’université Paris-VIII) et de consultant. Passé par l’université Paris-I, l’École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan et l’Institut d’études politiques de Paris et de Lille, il crée en 1990 l’Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques (Iris), l’un des meilleurs think tanks français. Il en est le directeur. Auteur d’une quarantaine d’ouvrages, responsable de l’Année stratégique et du trimestriel la Revue internationale et stratégique, il est aussi, pour une autre passion, le secrétaire général de la Fondation du football.

On peut discuter son analyse du conflit israélo-palestinien : en 2003, son livre Est-il permis de critiquer Israël ? avait déjà suscité de vives controverses (lire dans Valeurs actuelles). Sa galerie des “experts en mensonge” est sans doute un peu polémique, parfois injuste. Sa liste – Bernard-Henri Lévy, Caroline Fourest, Alexandre Adler, François Heisbourg, Philippe Val et quelques autres – est sans doute incomplète. Mais les citations qu’il fait, les rappels de quelques énormités et de concepts creux assénés par tous ces intellectuels courtisés par tant de médias font mouche. Pascal Boniface s’est sans doute fait des ennemis pour longtemps. Il nous explique les raisons de cette charge, à gauche toute…

Frédéric Pons : Pourquoi avoir écrit ce livre maintenant sur les « intellectuels faussaires » ?

Pascal Boniface : Il est vrai qu’il aurait pu être écrit de puis longtemps. J’attendais que quelqu’un s’en charge. Cela n’est pas venu. J’étais de plus en plus agacé de voir ces mensonges et contre vérités défiler en boucle, ne pas être contredits. Voir ces faussaires triompher médiatiquement, alors que nombreux étaient ceux qui connaissaient leurs failles, devenait difficile à supporter ; je me suis donc attelé à la tâche. Les multiples réactions positives que je reçois montrent que, pour le public également, le moment était venu.

F.P. :Est-il exact que vous avez essuyé le refus de nombreux éditeurs ?

P.B. : Quatorze éditeurs ont rejeté le livre ; et encore, je ne l’avais envoyé ni à Grasset, ni à Denoël, ni à quelques autres dont je connaissais par avance la réponse, forcément négative. Cela montre bien le poids des connivences dans le milieu éditorial et, d’un certain côté, le non-respect du public auquel on dénie une variété de choix. Il y a là un vrai problème sur le plan démocratique.

F.P. Et dans les médias ?

P.B. : Si je ne peux pas parler d’un silence médiatique, il est vrai que je n’ai guère d’illusions sur les comptes-rendus de nombreux grands médias. Mais des journaux d’opinion à droite comme à gauche en font part et, surtout, le bouche à oreille fonctionne fort bien.

F.P. : N’êtes-vous pas vous-même, comme quelques journalistes de Valeurs actuelles, un habitué des plateaux de télévision ?

P.B. : Je suis en effet régulièrement invité dans des médias. Il y en a également où je suis interdit, uniquement sur la base de mes positions sur le conflit au Proche-Orient.

F.P. : Vous vous êtes aussi trompé…

P.B. : Mais je défie quiconque de me prendre en défaut de mensonges volontaires. Il a pu m’arriver de commettre des erreurs, comme tout un chacun, mais moins que certains que je cite en exemple. Cela me mortifie à chaque fois que je m’en rends compte. Mais je ne pourrais jamais émettre un argument auquel je ne crois pas, uniquement parce qu’il me permettrait de mieux convaincre le public.

F.P. : Homme de gauche, vous brisez des idoles qui sont pour la plupart issues de la gauche ou engagées à gauche. Ne tirez-vous pas contre votre propre camp, et peut-on être débatteur de droite sans être automatiquement un faussaire ?

P.B. : Je suis malheureusement parvenu à un âge où je n’ai plus d’illusions sur le fait que le monopole du coeur ou de la vertu serait à gauche. Je me sens toujours de gauche mais je connais des gens de droite d’une parfaite intégrité et animés par des convictions sincères et l’envie de servir l’intérêt général, et des gens qui se disent de gauche qui ne sont que des opportunistes sans foi ni loi et qui, au-delà des déclarations généreuses, ne pensent qu’à leur carrière personnelle.

F.P. : Qu’appelez-vous exactement « le bain amniotique de la pensée dominante » ?

P.B. : C’est le fait de croire que le monde occidental est supérieur aux autres civilisations, qu’il a le monopole de la vertu, qu’il serait en danger parce que justement il est plus vertueux, qu’Israël est la seule démocratie du Proche-Orient et que l'opposition à sa politique ne s’explique que par ce facteur, qu’il est l’avant-garde de la lutte contre le terrorisme islamiste, et que donc, au lieu de le critiquer pour sa politique à l’égard des Palestiniens, il faudrait plutôt le soutenir. Enfin, c’est aussi penser que l’islam en tant que tel est un danger. Et puis surtout, par rapport aux périls stratégiques, se concentrer sur la dénonciation des effets sans jamais réfléchir aux causes.

F.P. : Que reprochez-vous précisément à « l’entrée en force de la morale dans l’agenda international », phénomène que vous disséquez et qui permettrait à certains intellectuels de « nous faire avaler des couleuvres » ?

P.B. : Je serais ravi que la morale entre en force dans les relations internationales. Malheureusement, on l’évoque pour ne pas la mettre en pratique. Trop souvent son évocation conduit à un manichéisme qui divise le monde en deux : le bien d’un côté, le mal de l’autre. Par ailleurs, si on tranche les situations stratégiques au nom de la morale, on parvient vite à une situation où celui qui s’oppose à vous n’est pas un contradicteur mais un être immoral. Si votre opposant est contre la morale, pas la peine d’argumenter, il suffit d’excommunier. C’est une insulte à l’intelligence. Trop souvent, ceux qui se réclament d’une approche morale le font de façon sélective.

F.P. : Pourquoi dites-vous que BHL est de venu le « seigneur et maître des faussaires » ?

P.B. : Il a bâti autour de lui un réseau dont il est le centre. Membre du conseil de surveillance du Monde, président de celui d’Arte, actionnaire de Libération, proche d’Arnaud Lagardère et de François Pinault, il occupe une place médiatique absolument incroyable. Fort de cette position, il peut raconter n’importe quoi sans que jamais cela ne remette en question sa visibilité. Sur sa proximité avec le commandant Massoud, avec la famille de Daniel Pearl, il a multiplié les contrevérités. Par connivence ou par peur, on n’ose pas le contredire si on fait partie du milieu médiatique.

F.P. : Comment caractériseriez-vous le portrait type d’une « sérial-menteuse », telle que vous la décrivez sous les traits de Caroline Fourest ?

P.B. : Elle est la Marion Jones du débat public : apparence impeccable, bonnes performances, mais qui ne sont pas basées sur l’honnêteté. Simplement, la lutte antidopage est plus efficace dans le domaine du sport que la lutte antimensonges dans le domaine intellectuel. Sa caractéristique principale est d’attribuer à ses adversaires des propos qu’ils n’ont jamais tenus pour s’en offusquer.

F.P. : En êtes-vous sûr ?

P.B. : Encore récemment, pour répondre au portrait que je dresse d’elle, elle disait que j’avais toujours soutenu “des régimes peu recommandables” (ce qui est plutôt le cas de nombre de ses amis), que je combattais tous ceux qui défendaient la laïcité et le droit des femmes, et elle s’interrogeait par ailleurs de façon calomnieuse sur les financements de l’Iris (en clair, elle sous-entendait que j’étais financé par les pays arabes). Bien sûr elle ne répondait en rien sur le fond à ma démonstration, qu’elle confirmait plutôt par ses propos.

F.P. : Peut-on dire qu’Israël et l’islamisme sont devenus des facteurs clivants entre intellectuels, notamment à gauche, transformant certains en “faussaires” ?

P.B. : Je n’irai pas jusque-là. Il y a d’autres éléments, mais il est vrai que le soutien d’Israël et la stigmatisation de l’islam permettent une certaine impunité aux faussaires.

F.P. : Est-il possible, dans les médias, d’échapper aux «vents dominants » ou aux modes intellectuelles ?

P.B. : Malgré un battage médiatique digne des régimes autoritaires, Bernard-Henri Lévy n’aurait vendu que 3 500 exemplaires de son dernier livre. Cela prouve que le public est moins idiot que ne le pense une partie de ces élites faussaires. La connivence ne crée pas forcément le succès. En revanche, elle éloigne une grande partie de l’opinion de ces élites, ce qui est dangereux pour la démocratie.

Propos recueillis par Frédéric Pons
Valeurs actuelles 
30/06/2011

Pascal Boniface, Les Intellectuels faussaires : Le triomphe médiatique des experts en mensonge, Jean-Claude Gawsewich éditeur, mai 2011, 272 pages, 19,90 euros

Correspondance Polémia – 4/07/2011

dimanche, 15 mai 2011

G. Faye: Why we fight

Why We Fight

whywesmall_1_1.jpgGuillaume Faye
Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance
Translated by Michael O’Meara
Arktos Media, 2011

People

An ethnic ensemble — biological, historical, cultural — with a territory, its fatherland, in which it is rooted.

‘The people’ — the very term is suspect to the cosmopolitan Left, which sees it as bordering on the politically incorrect — is not any statistical ‘population’; it’s an organic community embracing a transcendent body made up of ancestors, the living, and their heirs. Though marked with a certain spirituality, a people is diachronically rooted in the past and projects itself into the future — it’s submerged in biological and genetic matter, but at the same time it’s a historical, and spiritual, reality.

It’s belonging to a specific people that distinguishes a man and makes him human. Though modern Western egalitarian doctrines reduce peoples to indifferent socioeconomic aggregates, peoples actually constitute the organic bases of the human race; similarly, such doctrines conceive of the ideal man as an individual ‘emancipated’ from his organic attachments — like an undifferentiated cell in a human magma.

It’s necessary to recall, especially for certain Christians, that a people’s attachment is incompatible with Christianity’s present cosmopolitanism. The claim, for example, that ‘I am closer to an African Catholic than I am to a non-Christian European’ is a universalistic claim that relegates a people’s nation to something of secondary significance. This is, indeed, the great drama of European Christianity, marked as it is by Pauline universalism. A Catholic attached to his people and conscious of the biological and cultural dangers threatening them might instead say, ‘I respect all the Christians of the world, but hic et nunc I fight for my people above all, whatever their religion’.

The Jesuit spirit might resolve the contradiction in reference to the Old Testament’s Hebraic tradition: ‘Babel — the mélange of disparate peoples — is a punishment from God, Who wants His peoples to be separate and diverse — humanity is one in Heaven, but multiple on Earth’.

Arab Islam has no difficulty reconciling the notion of people (the ‘Arab nation’) with that of its universalism. The Jews, on their side, have similarly reconciled a ferocious defence of their ethnicity — their singularity — with their religion, however theoretically monotheistic and universalist it may be. At no moment have Judaism and Islam, unlike the Christian Churches today, engaged in doubting, guiltstroking diatribes against ‘xenophobia’ and ethnocentrism. They are not masochistic . . .

* * *

Like every anthropological notion, ‘people’ lacks mathematical rigour. A people doesn’t define itself as a homogeneous biocultural totality, but as a relationship. It’s the product of an organic alchemy that brings various ‘sub-peoples’ together. The Bretons, Catalans, Scots, etc., can be seen thus as the sub-peoples of a larger people — the Europeans.

* * *

We ought to highlight the ambiguity that touches the notion of the people. The universalist ideology of the French Revolution confused the idea of the people with that of an ‘ensemble of inhabitants who jurisdictionally possess nationality’, whatever their origin. Given the facts of mass immigration and naturalisation, the notion of the French people has been greatly diluted (as have the British or German peoples, for the same reason). This is why (without broaching the unresolvable issue of what constitutes a ‘regional people’ or a ‘national people’), it’s advisable to dialectically transcend semantic problems — and affirm the historic legitimacy of a single, European people, historically bound, whose different national families resemble one another in having, for thousands of years, the same ethnocultural and historical origins. Despite national, linguistic, or tribal differences, haven’t African Blacks, even in Europe, been called on by Nelson Mandela or the Senegalese Mamadou Diop to ‘think like one people’? From Nasser to al-Qadhafi, by way of Arafat, haven’t Arabs been urged to see themselves as an Arab people? Why don’t Europeans have the same right to see themselves as a people?

As for ‘regional peoples’, it’s necessary to oppose Left-wing regionalists, self-professed anti-Jacobins and anti-globalists, who unhesitatingly accept the concept of French or American jus soli — who confuse citizens and residents, and who recognise as Bretons, Alsatians, Corsicans, etc., anyone (even of non-European origin) who lives in these regions and chooses to accept such an identity.

* * *

In belonging to a people, its members are emotionally inclined to define themselves as such, which implies political affiliation. For this reason, we say that a people exists at that point where biological, territorial, cultural, and political imperatives come together. But in no case does mere cultural or linguistic attachment suffice in making a people, if they have no common biological roots. Alien immigrants from people X who are installed on the territory of people Y — even if they adopt cultural elements of their host people — are not a part of Y. As De Gaulle thought, there might be minor exceptions for small numbers of compatible (White) minorities, capable of being assimilated, but this could never be the case for, say, French West Indians.

Similarly, in defining the notion of a people, territorial or geopolitical considerations must also be taken into account. A people is not a diaspora: the Jews felt obliged to reconquer Palestine as their ‘promised land’ because, as Theodor Herzl argued, ‘without a promised land, the Jews are just a religious diaspora, a culture, a union, but not a people’.

There’s a good deal of talk today, on the Left and the Right, about people being ‘deterritorialised’. In reality, there’s nothing of the kind. Every healthy people, even if they possess an important diaspora (Chinese, Arabs, Indians, etc.), maintains close relations with its fatherland.

* * *

Modernist gurus have long claimed that the future belongs not to peoples, but to humanity conceived as a single people. Again, there’ll be nothing of the kind. Despite globalisation and in reaction to it, the Twenty-first century will more than ever be a century of distinct peoples. Only Europeans, submerged in the illusions of their decadence, imagine that blood-based peoples will disappear, to be replaced by a miscegenated ‘world citizen’. In reality what is at risk of disappearing are Europeans. Tomorrow will be no twilight of peoples.

On the other hand, the twilight of several peoples is already possible. One often forgets that Amerindians or Egyptians have disappeared — hollowed out internally and overrun. For history is a cemetery of peoples — of weak peoples — exhausted and resigned.

* * *

A caution is necessary here: Right and Left-wing theoreticians of ‘ethnopluralism’, opposed to humanity’s homogenisation, speak of ‘the cause of peoples [3]’, as if every people must be conserved. In reality, the system that destroys peoples — the title of one of my books that was misunderstood by certain intellectuals — only threatens unfit peoples, i.e., present-day Europeans. It also threatens those residu peoples, whose fate is of interest only to museum-keepers. It seems perfectly stupid and utopian to believe that every people can be conserved in history’s formaldehyde. What a pacifistic egalitarian vision.

The main threat to the identity and existence of great peoples occurs, in contrast, through the conjunction of deculturation and the colonising invasion of alien peoples — which we’re presently experiencing. The Western globalist ‘system’ will never threaten strong peoples. Are Arabs, Chinese, or Indians threatened? On the contrary. It reinforces their identity and their desire to conquer, by provoking their reaction to it.

The people in danger — largely because of its own failings — is our people, for reasons as much biological as cultural and strategic. That’s why it’s necessary to replace the egalitarian ideology of ‘the cause of peoples’ with the ‘cause of our people’.

* * *

There are three possible positions: first, peoples don’t exist, or no longer exist — it’s an obsolete category — only humanity counts (the thesis of universalistic egalitarianism); second, all peoples ought to exist and be conserved (the utopian — also egalitarian — ethnopluralist position — completely inapplicable to our age); and third, only strong, wilful peoples can subsist for long historical periods — periods of selection in which only the most apt survive (the voluntarist, realist, inegalitarian thesis). We obviously support the third position.

What’s essential is reappropriating the term ‘people’ and progressively extending it to the entire Eurosiberian Continent. The present understanding of ‘European’ by the reigning ideology at Brussels is inspired by French Jacobin ideology. This ideology makes no reference to an ethno-historical Great European people, only to a mass of disparate residents inhabiting European territory. This tendency needs to be radically replaced.We propose that European peoples become historical subjects again and cease being historical objects. In the tragic century that’s coming, it’s especially crucial that Europeans become conscious of the common dangers they face and that, henceforth, they form a selfconscious community of destiny. This is well and truly a matter of forging a ‘new alliance’ that — through resurrection, metamorphosis, and historical transfiguration — will lead to a refounding of a Great European people and, in the midst of decline, succeed — not without pain, of course — in giving birth again to the phoenix.

Available from Arktos Media [4]


Article printed from Counter-Currents Publishing: http://www.counter-currents.com

vendredi, 06 mai 2011

The Coming Chinese Superstate

Richard HOSTE

Ex: http://www.counter-currents.com/

Review: Richard Lynn
Eugenics: A Reassessment
Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers 2001

eugenics.jpgOne of the only valid points made by the critics of Bell Curve was that if the science was accepted, then eugenics, which Hernstein and Murray refused to endorse, becomes the rational solution to society’s ills. Steven Pinker, the next major public thinker associated with the hereditarian position, likewise refused to follow his own logic far enough. One scholar who doesn’t flinch is psychologist Richard Lynn. Eugenics is not only right, but we have a duty to increase the frequency of genes for positive traits and reduce the frequency of genes for negative traits. Once you determine that something is a genetic problem it cries out for a genetic solution. Eugenics: A Reassessment looks at the history of eugenics, the ethical case for it and its future. Here Lynn goes beyond his role as a psychologist and gives us his own theory of the coming end of history.

The Rise and Fall of Eugenics

Eugenic ideas existed long before the publications of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. In The Republic, Plato pictured a society where rulers, soldiers, and workers would be bred on the same principles of the breeding of plants and livestock, about which much must have been known in 380 B.C. Still, it was the discovery of evolution that was the catalyst of these ideas taking off in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Biologist, statistician, and psychologist Sir Francis Galton was the main prophet of eugenics. He spent his life forming organizations, writing, and spreading the word about humanity’s potential for improvement. He carried out the first studies that showed nature to be more important than nurture in determining intelligence and character.

By the early 1900s eugenics was endorsed by practically all biologists and geneticists, politicians such as Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Woodrow Wilson, and Winston Churchill, and thinkers across the political spectrum, including Bertrand Russell, H. L. Mencken, and George Bernard Shaw. Lynn makes the distinction between positive eugenics, encouragement given to society’s best to produce children, and negative eugenics, trying to set limits on the breeding of the inferior. It was the latter that was easier to legislate on.

The first American sterilization law was passed in Indiana in 1907 “to prevent the procreation of confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles, and rapists.” By 1913 similar acts had been passed in 12 states and a further 19 had laws on the books by 1931. The constitutionality of these laws was challenged in court and in 1927 Buck v. Bell went to the supreme court. The case centered around a mentally retarded woman who was born to a mentally retarded mother and gave birth to yet another retard. Her hospital applied to have her sterilized, and Christian groups protested. The court ruled 8-1 in favor of sterilization. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the following in the famous decision.

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the state for these lesser sacrifices . . . in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute the degenerate offspring of crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit for continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccinations is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

Unfortunately, over the twentieth century only about 60,000 American sterilizations would take place, which amounted to less than 0.1 percent of mentally retarded and psychopathic people. Sweden did a little better, sterilizing the same amount, totaling one percent of the entire population. In Japan, 16,520 women met the same fate until their law was repealed in 1996. In Denmark, a third of all retards over a ten year span. Unsurprisingly, the all-time champions of sterilization were the Germans, who sterilized 300,000 people after their sterilization law was passed in 1933.

As Lynn points out, it’s not all that unusual for a scientific theory to be accepted and then rejected. What makes eugenics unique is that it’s a rejected theory that turned out to be true. While the importance of heredity in determining individual and group traits is well-established, by the end of the twentieth century to call something eugenic was to condemn it. The author blames horror at the crimes of Nazi Germany and the increasing value given to individual over social rights. In recent years courts in the US and Britain have said that parents can have retarded women in their care sterilized, ruling against civil liberties organizations who’ve joined with Christian groups in arguing that all people have a right to as many children as they can produce. While these legal decisions aren’t made on eugenic grounds, we should be thankful for the effect.

The arguments against eugenics don’t hold up. First is the claim that we can’t decide what positive and negative traits are. It’s hard to argue with Galton’s original three characteristics of intelligence, health, and character (close enough to conscientiousness in modern psychology) being desirable. Who would argue that disease could be preferable to health or stupidity to genius? It’s a case of moral relativism taken to the extreme.

Lynn looks at other characteristics we may select for but doesn’t find any beyond Galton’s original three. Society needs a wide range of people on the continuum of extraverted/introverted and neurotic/relaxed in a way that it doesn’t need a wide range of propensity to break the law or catch diseases. He also says that beauty provides no social good, and people have different definitions of it. Here is the only place I part ways with the author. Among environmentalists (people who care about the environment, not anti-hereditarians), beauty is seen as a legitimate reason to preserve certain forests and trees that provide no economic good. It’s why we save redwood trees but not swamps. As far as the lack of a universal standard, Peter Frost demolishes that as a PC myth. Even if everyone didn’t agree that blue eyes and white skin were the most beautiful, every race could select based on their own standards.

The idea that eugenics wouldn’t work is also answered here. If we determined that it wouldn’t be possible to select for certain traits in living organisms, then not only eugenics but horticulture, animal domestication and even evolution itself would all have to be rejected too. As a matter of fact, heritability of running speed among horses has been found to be between 15 and 35 percent heritable, lower than the lowest estimates for intelligence or psychopathy among humans. Any trait that is passed on genetically can be made more or less common or enhanced among a population.

Classical Eugenics

Lynn differentiates between classical eugenics and new eugenics, the use of biotechnology. A section is given to each.

The only country to practice classical positive eugenics in the modern world has been Singapore, under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew. Higher earners were given tax breaks for children and a government unit was set up to bring college graduates together in social settings like dances and cruises to encourage relationships and procreation. In three short years, the results were impressive.

Births in Singapore

 

Education Level of Mother 1987   1990  
  Number Percent Number Percent
Below Secondary 26,719 61.3 26,718 52.3
Secondary and above 16,012 36.7 24,411 47.7

Between 1987 and 1990, births to college educated women went from 36.7 percent of all births to 47.7. Obviously, it’s not hopeless, and the problem of dysgenics can be corrected if a government sets its mind to it. In Nazi Germany, loans were given to couples determined to be of good genetic stock. For each child they produced, 25 percent of the loan would be written off. Whether such things can be done in a democracy, especially a multi-racial one, is a different question.

The biggest victory for negative eugenics has been the liberalization of abortion laws. Although justified as based on a “woman’s right to choose,” those who have unintended pregnancies are usually of low intelligence and those with anti-social tendencies. Thus, increasing the availability of abortion is eugenic. Those who are concerned about good breeding should support causes traditionally associated with the left like abortion on demand and making birth control freely available.

The Promise of Biotechnology

The most exciting part of this book is the section on the new eugenics, and how biotechnology may make all the questions raised here obsolete. Prenatal diagnosis can now screen for some of the most common genetic diseases, and the fetuses can be aborted. In the 1990s, this was estimated to reduce incidences of genetic disorders at birth by 5 percent. As the technology becomes better and more widely available we can expect the rate of genetic disease to drop. It’s a matter of time before embryos can be screened for other traits like beauty and intelligence.

Gene therapy is the attempt to help an individual by inserting genes for positive traits. These genes are then passed on to offspring. In the 1980s, this technology was used on mice to treat a heredity disease and by the 1990s was used to treat human disorders. Like prenatal screening, it’s only a matter of time before this technology can be used for the selection of whatever parents desire.

Embryo selection consists of taking a number of eggs from a woman, fertilizing them with the sperm of a partner in vitro, testing each for desirable traits and inserting the best embryo. The second, third, and fourth best can be saved for possible future use and the rest discarded. When Lynn’s book was written in 2001, it was possible to test for sex and thousands of genetic diseases.

In the twenty-first century it will become possible to test embryos for the presence of genes affecting numerous other characteristics, including late-onset diseases and disorders; intelligence; special cognitive abilities, such as mathematical, linguistic, and musical aptitudes; personality traits; athletic abilities; height; body build; and physical appearance. It will then be possible for couples to examine the genetic printouts of a number of embryos and select for implantation the ones they regard as having the most desirable genetic characteristics.

Before this happens some technical issues need to be addressed, such as identifying the desirable genes. That’s going to happen over the next few decades. Right now it’s possible to hormonally stimulate a woman to produce around 25 embryos at one time. With this technology, even parents of poor stock will be able to produce at least average children. Couples can be expected to produce embryos within a range of 30 IQ points; 15 over the parents‘ average to 15 below. With embryo selection the IQ of a population will have the potential to be raised 15 points in a single generation. Average intelligence can be expected to keep increasing until we hit our limit and new mutations pop up, the way average speed among thoroughbreds has been rising without the fastest times doing so in decades. In 2001, in vitro fertilization cost between $40,000 and $200,000 in the US and $3,000 to $4,000 in Britain, due to lower health care costs in general. Today, it’s a fraction of that. Like all technology, the quality can be expected to improve and the price to drop.

Western governments may outlaw all these technologies, but they will be legal somewhere, and as these options became cheaper and better known more couples will travel to take advantage of them. The situation will be similar to when abortion was only available in certain US states or European countries, and women desiring to have one would simply take a bus.

Not everybody will be able to afford biotechnology, and some ethicists reject it on those grounds. Of course, there are all kinds of things that rich people can afford that the poor can’t; we don’t outlaw them all. Lynn optimistically points out that no technology that can help humanity has ever been successfully suppressed. The inherent quality gap between the genetically engineered upper class and the ‘natural’ lower class will continue to grow until the former decides to sterilize the latter or forces them to use biotechnology themselves.

Why China is the Future

In 1994 China passed the Eugenic Law. All pregnant women were required to undergo embryo screening and abort fetuses with genetic disorders. This was a follow-up to the famous one-child policy introduced in 1979 that brought the birth rate down to 1.9 per woman.

Attitudes of elites and those who work in the relevant fields are likely to determine what technologies are accepted and how liberally they’ll be used. A survey was conducted between 1994 and 1996 asking geneticists and physicians around the world whether they agreed with the statement “An important goal of genetic counseling is to reduce the number of deleterious genes in the population.”

Country Percentage of Geneticists and Physicians Agreeing with Eugenic Goals
China 100
India 87
Turkey 73
Peru 71
Spain 67
Poland 66
Russia 58
Greece 58
Cuba 57
Mexico 52
Major 

 

Western

Democracies

<33

In addition to the negative attitudes of the elites towards anything eugenic, other reasons we can expect these ideas not to win fast acceptance in the West are the value placed on individual rights, democracy, and the existence of low IQ minorities who would be disproportionately affected by any measures aimed at improving the genetic quality of the population. While many countries in the third world might feel positively about eugenic measures, the attitudes in China are the most favorable and when that is combined with the advantages of an authoritarian government, a lack of dysgenic immigration, and a high IQ starting point it’s not hard to believe that the Chinese will continue to be the most enthusiastic and efficient users of biotechnology.

So how will this nation of a billion people treat the rest of the world after it’s raised its IQ to 150+? Lynn might be too optimistic here. He believes the Chinese will colonize the world and try to improve the IQs and living standards of their subjects. The Europeans will be kept around for their biological uniqueness and admired for their cultural accomplishments, the way that the Romans subjugated the Greeks but appreciated their philosophy and art. If the Chinese decide that the Europeans should be preserved they’d be doing more for them than whites are currently doing for themselves. A global eugenic superstate led by by the Chinese will be the “end of history.”

Lynn’s forecasts the next 100 years with a stone-cold detachment. The first government to utilize the power of biotechnology will take over the world. Thanks to third world immigration and egalitarianism, the decline of the West seems inevitable and eugenic policies unlikely. The future of humanity being in the hands of the dictators in Beijing may not be the most comforting idea in the world, but at least the reader of Eugenics may be convinced that intelligence and civilization will continue somewhere.

For a review of Richard Lynn’s Dysgenics see here.

jeudi, 05 mai 2011

The Fall of Man: Richard Lynn's "Dysgenics"

Richard HOSTE

Ex: http://www.counter-currents.com/

Review: Richard Lynn (photo)
Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations
Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1996

rlynn-2s-300x282.jpgWhen it comes to population, quality matters more than quantity. While educated Westerners never tire of sprinkling their conversations with the word “overpopulation,” voicing concern about population worth is taboo. Put it this way: you have to spend the rest of your life in a city filled with Nigerians or Japanese. You can either pick the ethnic makeup or the amount of people in the city. Which would you choose? As it’s settled that genes influence character and intelligence, could these traits be declining in some or all populations? Has it to some extent? Anecdotes exist about single educated women and fertile welfare queens, but hard data is needed.

While support for eugenics has been around since the time of Plato, the first person to worry about genetic deterioration was French physician Benedict August Morel. He’s an obscure figure today and much better known is the more important Sir Francis Galton, who coined the term eugenics in 1883. He thought that more genes for lower intelligence and poor character were concentrated in the lower classes, whose higher fertility would lead to a decline in genetic quality. Galton spent his life working to reverse the trend. He eventually convinced Darwin himself of the danger. Biologist Alfred Russell Wallace wrote:

In one of my last conversations with Darwin he expressed himself very gloomily on the future of humanity, on the ground that in our modern civilisation natural selection had no play and the fittest did not survive.

It wasn’t until 1974 that Nobel prize winning physicist William Shockley called the process dysgenics. Darwin went on to despair over the excessive breeding of “the scum.” Data has always been needed on whether his fears had been justified. Richard Lynn brings together studies and data from the last 200 years dealing with the connection between fertility and intelligence/socioeconomic status from all over the world. How afraid should we be?

Selection throughout Time

The conditions that hunter-gatherers lived in insured an upkeep of genetic quality. Usually there was a chief who had to have a certain amount of intelligence to acquire and maintain his position. He had the most access to females, there would be relatively high ranking men who had one wife and many of the unfit never bred. Mutations that popped up which adversely affected health would be weeded out. Early nation-states continued with polygamy.

With Western man’s transition to civilization selection was weakened but not eliminated. The higher social classes enjoyed better nutrition so had better health and children more likely to survive into adulthood. Christianity struck a blow against the Western gene pool by enforcing celibacy among the priesthood but probably more than made up for it by prohibitions against adultery. Most who have children out of wed-lock then and now have/had lower intelligence and less self-control. Overall, the years 1500-1800 were good for Europe’s gene pool. In England from 1620-1624 the middle classes reported 4.4 children per woman compared to 2.1 for the working class. Part of the reason why is life expectancy. In Berlin from 1710-1799 the average life expectancy for the upper class was 29.8 years compared to 20.3 for the lower class. The numbers for Geneva, Rouen and Neuruppin in the 18th century are similarly tilted towards the former. This didn’t mean that everybody died when they were 20-30 years old but that more of the lower classes were dying in childhood before they could mate.

Lynn understands that for these numbers to mean anything it would have to be shown that there was social mobility. If everybody was stuck in their own class with no opportunity to rise or fall then we would expect different social classes to be similar and not worry about differences in fertility. Pitrim Sorokin looked at a wide range of societies and found that there has never been one with no social mobility at all. The closest thing has been the caste system in India, but even these classes weren’t absolutely closed. Economist historian S.J. Payling concluded that there was significant social mobility in Europe from at least the 14th century on.

Natural Selection Breaks Down: Health and Intelligence

Mutations occasionally pop up in any population. Since the vast majority are adverse, stable fertility for an entire population still means deterioration. The maintenance of the quality of the population requires not just a stable population at all levels but the active weeding out of the unfit. The results of the slacking of selection in our modern world is apparent in disease. Today, almost 1% of children born have a mutation for a common genetic disorder. Due to carriers of bad genes surviving and new mutations, it’s estimated that the rates of hemophilia, cystic fibrosis and phenylketonuria are increasing every generation by 26%, 120%, and 300% respectively. Humanity requires that we save children that can be saved but breeding for those with diseased genes needs to be restricted. Lynn hints that better genetic screening and selective abortion can offset some of the consequences of modern medicine.

American psychologist Theodore Lentz was the first to devise a method for finding the relationship between intelligence and fertility. He tested the IQs of children and found out how many siblings they had. Assuming that children have the same IQ as their parents, if those with lower IQs had more brothers and sisters than children with high IQs then it could be determined that dysgenics is happening. In 1927 Lentz calculated an IQ drop of 4 points per generation. Calculations in Britain found a drop of about 2 points per generation. These surveys didn’t include the childless but since they are disproportionately those with higher IQs the studies actually underestimate the extent of dysgenic fertility. Reviewing various studies and using findings from twin and adoption cases showing that IQ is 82% heritable, Lynn calculates a genotypic IQ decline of 5 points in Britain from 1890-1980. In the US he calculates a drop of 2.5 IQ points for whites and 6.2 for blacks over three generations. Interestingly, women are shown to universally have more dysgenic fertility than men. This is partly because low IQ men probably have a harder time finding mates than low IQ women.

The Fall of Greece

Greece is a particularly interesting example. Papavassiliou (1954) looked at IQ, socioeconomic status and fertitlity for men and came up with the following results.

Intelligence and Fertility in Greece, 1950s

Socioeconomic StatusNumber SurveyedMean IQNumber of Children
Professionals 41 117.2 1.78
Skilled Workers 80 100.9 2.66
Semi-skilled Workers 27 91 4
Unskilled Workers 67 82.2 5.56

My calculations give an IQ of 96.9 for the parent generation and an IQ drop of 4.9. Using a heritability of .82 for IQ puts the IQ of the children’s generation at 92.9 (IQ of parent generation – .82 x 4.9). Lynn has found elsewhere that the IQ of Greece is 95. This low (for Europe) figure is surprising considering the country’s historical accomplishments. Papavassiliou’s data may solve the puzzle.

Does the Flynn Effect Disprove Eugenics?

While science has shown that traits for IQ and socioeconomic status are heritable and those with poor genes are outbreeding those with good genes, actual performance on IQ tests in the industrialized world has risen over the last century. How can this be? This seeming paradox is called the Flynn effect, after the scientist who estimated IQ gains of about 3-4 points per decade over the 20th century.

We can rule out the effect of increased familiarity with written tests or better education because these gains are present in children as young as two years old. It is doubtful that it is due to increased stimulation because adoption studies show that the effect of shared environment is negligible; two biologically unrelated people raised in the same house are no more alike than any two random strangers. Lynn’s explanation is that the Flynn effect is due to better nutrition. This seems like the best explanation, as over the same time period height and brain size have increased by one standard deviation: the same as the increase in IQ.

So while genotypic intelligence, which can be seen as underlying genetic quality, has decreased, actual performance, phenotypic intelligence, has seen an increase. This increase can’t last forever and the evidence shows that in the developed world, with even the poorest suffering from obesity, the Flynn effect has hit its ceiling. We can now expect a decrease in observed intelligence in the developed even discounting low IQ third world immigration.

The Case of Character

Francis Galton and the early eugenicists weren’t only concerned with the decline in intelligence and health but what they called character: a moral sense, ability to delay gratification and work towards long term goals and sense of duty. Modern psychologists call this conscientiousness and Lynn gives a working estimate for it being 66% heritable. The news here is even worse than the data on intelligence.

Looking at criminals and psychopaths and their number of siblings yields a decline in consciousness that is twice the rate of the decline in intelligence. This has had real life consequences

The straightforward prediction is that the high fertility of criminals has led to an increase in the number of genes in the population responsible for crime and this will show up in increasing crime rates. These increasing crime rates have certainly occurred in most of the economically developed nations during the second half of the twentieth century. In the United States, crime rates approximately tripled between 1960 and 1990; in Britain they quadrupled, and similar increases have occurred in many other countries.

Rates of out-of-wedlock births tell a similar story. Western populations are morally worse than ever and we can expect the modern welfare state to continue to accelerate the decline. Unfortunately, most social scientists and policy makers are too steeped in the environmentalist dogma to deal with these problems.

Does the Universality of the Problem Mean It’s Hopeless?

While there are no direct studies for IQ and fertility in the third world we can check to see how socioeconomic status and education, both correlated with IQ, relate to number of children. Lynn calls the birth rate of the lowest class over the birth rate of the highest class the dysgenic ratio. For example, if those in the lowest class have 3 children per woman and the higher class have 2, the dysgenic ratio is 3/2 = 1.5. Anything over 1 indicates dysgenic fertility and anything under 1 indicates eugenic fertility. While a number over 2 is high for modern Western nations, ratios have been calculated at 3.1 for Columbia, 2.6 for Guatemala, 2.7 for Mexico and 3.1 for Brazil. Muslim and African countries have lower ratios, but only because even the highest classes have large numbers of children. In a worldwide survey the only exceptions are Bangladesh, Fiji and Indonesia who have ratios of 1.01, 0.93, and 0.86 respectively. The developing world can be expected to remain “developing” indefinitely.

So dysgenic fertility is found everywhere: among rich and poor and every race. Does that mean it’s hopeless? We won’t know until we at least acknowledge and try to deal with the problem. Communism once controlled half the planet and today its equivalent is globalization and the supposed triumph of liberal democracy. While communists can say that true communism “has never been tried” and continue to be liberals, the legacy of Nazism poisons the eugenics movement. Of course, blaming the ideas behind eugenics for the crimes of the Nazis is as silly as blaming the ideology of the welfare state for Soviet labor camps. So there is no rational reason why eugenics can’t capture the hearts and minds of policy makers the way it did 100 years ago. While the facts of differential fertility may discomfort our feminized elites we must never stop repeating that the cost of doing nothing is the end of civilization. There’s no virtue in ignoring that.

Source: HBD Books

vendredi, 25 février 2011

Democracy Needs Aristocracy

Democracy Needs Aristocracy, by Sir Peregrine Worsthorne

Democracy Needs Aristocracy
by Sir Peregrine Worsthorne
221 pages, Harper Collins, $15.

In the early pages of Democracy Needs Aristocracy the author mentions Alexis de Toqueville and his groundbreaking Democracy in America and not surprisingly, the newer work continues in the footsteps of that classic with a broad-reaching thesis on the nature of government that sides with the organic over the mechanistic.

Experienced writer Peregrine Worsthorne mixes his far-reaching thesis with personal narrative and precise examples in the form of contradictions that eliminate exceptions to his arguments. He writes in a hybrid style somewhere between relaxed academia and vivid popular non-fiction but with the logical thoroughness of a legal brief. Like the topic of the book itself, his style spans a vast breadth of knowledge and distills it into a single voice, like condensation turning mist to rain.

As a consequence, Democracy Needs Aristocracy is both one of those books that zooms by at light speed as massive ideas thrust the reader across time and space, and is also like a textbook an exacting read that requires the full attention of the reader. Each chapter drops important pieces into our understanding of history and how we arrived at the present time, not all of them controversial assertions so much as forgotten and decontextualized ones.

The style is not circular so much as it returns to core concepts after breaking them apart, bringing the forgotten but necessary counterpart to deconstruction, re-integration, to the reading process. As a result reading this book is like peeling an onion, with each layer revealing more of the big picture. It offers what few books can manage anymore: a vertiginous sense of discovery and concepts dropping into place that can explain the subtle mysteries of our present political climate.

Worsthorne’s thesis suggests that aristocracy, or an organic social order of the most qualified who enforce a balance that linear-thinking government cannot, not only arises naturally but if well-selected, provides an elite who are dedicated to public service more than themselves. It succeeds because it is decidedly non-mechanistic: he delights in the social aspects of an elite dedicated to stewardship, and illustrates how civility as a guiding principle ensures politics do not become abandoned to abstractions unrelated to life itself.

Finally, he contrasts society under rule by aristocracy, whose members are secure in their position and steeped in its tradition, with the “meritocratic” rise of the “classless society,” and points out in detail how the classless society fails to achieve its objectives and may achieve instead the inverse. As both an aristocrat and a journalist, Worsthorne describes the view from both sides of the bench on this issue.

A good part of the book addresses the necessary conditions of his thesis, including the most difficult to define parts such as “civility” and the notion of an organic, non-governmental caste who nonetheless provide the backbone to all governmental activities. For moderns, understanding caste is like trying to understand the use of a pressure cooker inside a black hole; Worsthorne elaborates slowly, but works up to his point:

“Aristocracy, however, is different because the bonds forged at birth and maintained at every subsequent stage in life, create a degree of loyalty between members as strong as, if not stronger than, those that bind together the members of a nation. The Old Etonian George Orwell tried to escape them but never wholly succeeded, concluding sadly, at the end of his life, that it was easier to change your party than change your class. Speaking personally, I cannot imagine life without class, which is not a passive condition but one that provides you with a general culture, a network to which you naturally belong, a stream of history in which you feel free and safe — almost a collective individuality.” (86)

In his retelling of history, the UK survived the time of the French Revolution because unlike the French, the English did not centralize their power into a single agency, but made government less efficient and instead cultivated a class of experts, united by a code of civility or “gentlemanly” conduct, such that they could conduct the appropriate circumventions of authority in smoke-stained lounges over glasses of cognac.

In this Worsthorne’s view is a hybridization of elitism and anarchy, in which the purpose of aristocracy is to avoid a powerful central government and its Boolean rules, and instead to cultivate a pool of talent that can organically and covertly address problems that are beyond the understanding of the electorate. His appeal to civility, the mode of aristocracy, is a call for a moral renovation to the modern state.

“For as a result of this method of selection, Britain’s political class had inherited enough in-built authority — honed over three centuries — and enough ancestral wisdom — acquired over the same period — to dare to defy both the arrogance of intellectuals from above and the emotions of the masses from below; to dare to resist the entrepreneurial imperative; to dare to try to raise the level of public conversation; to dare to put the public interest before private interests; to dare to try to shape the nation’s will and curb its appetites.” (50)

Bureaucracies, which he describes as the “natural enemies” of aristocrats, rely on rigid rules of a binary nature. When triggered, they must follow through blindly, causing periodic outrages so ludicrous they remind us of the rote actions of a machine out of control. In contrast, Worsthorne advocates the reliance on a class of people he describes as devoted to public duty, and their ability to intervene in place of blind rules.

As he reminds us, good leadership is unpopular because it does not pander to the arrogant intellectuals or emotional masses. In fact, it avoids special interests so that the nation as a whole can thrive. He describes it with a metaphor from his boarding school:

“I wanted the best of both worlds: authority figures who at one and the same time both protected me and left me alone; who came to my aid in emergencies but otherwise allowed me to mind my own business. Officious busybody prefects who kept an eye on one all the time were more a liability than an asset. But unofficious prefects who noticed what was going on from a corner of the eye were the opposite. Even more to be desired were the few older boys who turned down the office of prefect but were natural authority figures on the side of justice and order requiring, by virtue of strong individual character, no official badge of office.” (22)

This winding book, arcane like an ancient castle yet refreshing like finally finding the answer to your research in a footnote in the last book even tangential to your “official” topic, provides many such challenging ideas. Underlying every part of it is a distrust in the idea of a government that unites its public and private faces and thus is manipulable by special interests; Worsthorne argues for an older yet, if you look at it critically, more mature form of government, where rule by quality of people predominates under rule by book of rules.

Democracy Needs Aristocracy is a challenging and engrossing read, and even for those hostile to aristocracy, provides a thorough exploration of where our current systems of government fail. His thesis is flexible, and deliberately written from a liberal-friendly position, to show that democracy becomes anti-elitist mob rule without some mediating elite to keep anti-egalitarianism from becoming crowd revenge. As such, it is every bit as eternal as de Toqueville, and presents a vision of government that none can afford to fully ignore today.

You can find this book at Amazon for $15 or from Harper Collins UK for £9.

samedi, 12 février 2011

Nazisme et révolution

 

À propos de Fabrice Bouthillon, Nazisme et Révolution. Histoire théologique du national-socialisme. 1789-1989 (Fayard, coll. Commentaire, 2011).

 «Que vienne à paraître un homme, ayant le naturel qu’il faut, et voilà que par lui, tout cela est secoué, mis en pièces : il s’échappe, il foule aux pieds nos formules, nos sorcelleries, nos incantations, et ces lois, qui, toutes sans exception, sont contraires à la nature. Notre esclave s’est insurgé, et s’est révélé maître.»
Platon, Gorgias, 483d-484a.


Ex: http://stalker.hautetfort.com/

Finalement, le lecteur pressé ou le journaliste n'auront pas besoin de lire de sa première à sa dernière page le curieux essai* de Fabrice Bouthillon puisque, dès la première ligne du livre, la thèse de l'auteur est condensée en une seule phrase : «Le nazisme a été la réponse de l’histoire allemande à la question que lui avait posée la révolution française» (p. 11). À proprement parler, cette thèse n'est pas franchement une nouveauté puisque Jacques Droz, dans L’Allemagne et la Révolution française, sur les brisées d'un Stern ou d'un Gooch, l'avait déjà illustrée en 1950, en montrant comment la Révolution française avait influencé quelques-uns des grands courants d'idées qui, comme le romantisme selon cet auteur, ont abouti à la déhiscence puis au triomphe du Troisième Reich.
La thèse de Bouthillon est, quoi qu'il en soit, fort simple, ses détracteurs diront simpliste (voire tout bonnement fausse) et ses thuriféraires, évidente sinon lumineuse : «À Paris en 1789, le contrat social européen se déchire, la Gauche et la Droite se définissent et se séparent. La béance qui en était résultée était demeurée ouverte depuis lors. Sur la fin du XIXe siècle, le conflit mondial qui commençait à se profiler semblait devoir l’approfondir encore» (p. 77).
Le constat est imparable, le travail de démonstration peut-être moins, sauf dans les tout derniers chapitres de l'ouvrage de Bouthillon, de loin les plus intéressants. Les coups contre la Gauche pleuvent ainsi dans l'ouvrage de Fabrice Bouthillon, qu'il s'agisse de critiques radicales, touchant ses plus profondes assises intellectuelles ou bien de rapprochements, assez faciles à faire il est vrai, entre celle-ci et le nazisme. Ainsi, s'appuyant sur une lecture contre-révolutionnaire de l'histoire, Fabrice Bouthillon peut écrire, fort justement, que : «L’idée, essentielle à la démarche de toute Gauche, d’un homme hors de tout contrat, d’un homme dans l’état de nature, est donc une pure contradiction dans les termes. La nature de l’homme, c’est la société; pour l’humanité, la nature, c’est la culture. Et voilà pourquoi la politique révolutionnaire cherche à s’élaborer sur un fondement qui doit forcément lui manquer : il n’est pas au pouvoir des hommes d’instituer l’humanité; la politique n’est pas quelque chose que l’homme pourrait constituer, mais qui le constitue. La fondation de la Cité, de la politique, de l’humanité, exigerait des forces supérieures aux forces humaines; or les révolutionnaires sont des hommes, en force de quoi, la tâche à laquelle ils s’obligent est donc vouée à l’échec» (p. 26).
C'est sur ce constat d'échec que, selon Bouthillon, le nazisme va fonder son éphémère empire, d'autant plus éphémère que, comme n'importe quel autre gouvernement n'ayant son origine que dans une sphère strictement temporelle ou séculière, il périra, qu'importe, nous le verrons, la facilité avec laquelle il tentera, au moment de s'effondrer, de récupérer les emblèmes et symboles du christianisme.
Concernant les rapprochements entre les emblèmes et les symboles de la Gauche et ceux du nazisme (1), nous pouvons lire ceci, lorsque Bouthillon analyse longuement et de manière fort convaincante la première proclamation publique du programme du parti nazi, faite le 24 février 1920 : «les hommes de Gauche présent à la Hofbräuhaus ont pu finir par brailler «Heil Hitler !» avec les autres, parce que Hitler leur a tenu des propos et leur a fait accomplir des gestes dans lesquels ils se retrouvaient. Par le nazisme, la Gauche n’a pas été seulement contrainte; elle a aussi été séduite» (p. 162) et, surtout, cette autre longue évocation de points communs entre les deux ennemis qui n'ont pas toujours été, loin s'en faut, irréductibles : «ce qui compte, pour comprendre ce qui se passe dans la salle archétypique [le 24 février 1920 : première proclamation publique du programme du parti nazi] où le récit de Mein Kampf transporte le lecteur, et comment la révélation du programme contribue à y créer peu à peu l’unité, c’est d’abord de se souvenir qu’il comprend vingt-cinq articles, ce qui permet de faire monter peu à peu la sauce de l’enthousiasme; et que, dans le lot, il y en a bien neuf qui relèvent incontestablement du patrimoine politique de la Gauche, ce qui permet à ceux des siens qui restent encore dans l’auditoire de s’y joindre progressivement. Point 7, l’État a le devoir de procurer aux citoyens des moyens d’existence : c’est le droit au travail, tel que revendiqué par la révolution de 1848. Point 9, tous les citoyens ont les mêmes droits et les mêmes devoirs : c’est l’égalité devant la loi, type 1789. Point 10, tout citoyen a le devoir de travailler, et le bien collectif doit primer sur l’intérêt individuel : c’est le noyau de tout socialisme. Point 11, suppression du revenu des oisifs, et de l’esclavage de l’intérêt : mais c’est du Besancenot, nos vies valent plus que leurs profits. Point 12, confiscation des bénéfices de guerre : à la bonne heure; point 13, nationalisation des trusts : quoi de mieux ? Point 14, hausse des retraites; point 17, réforme agraire – on en revenait aux Gracques – avec possibilité d’expropriation sans indemnité pour utilité publique; point 20, enfin, l’égalité de tous les enfants devant l’école, façon Ferry» (pp. 163-4).
Rappelant les analyse de Michel Dreyfus dans L’Antisémitisme à gauche (Éditions La Découverte, 2009), l'auteur ne craint pas d'enfoncer le clou lorsqu'il affirme qu'une autre partie du programme nazi n'a pas pu manquer de plaire à la Gauche, à savoir, son antisémitisme viscéral : «Mais il faut aller plus loin encore, et dire que ces points-là n’étaient pas les seuls du programme nazi qui, sous la République de Weimar, pouvaient susciter l’approbation d’un auditoire de Gauche. Cinq autres articles visaient les Juifs. Les points 5, 6, 7, les excluaient de la citoyenneté allemande, et donc aussi de la vie politique nationale; l’article 23 les excluait de la presse et de la vie culturelle; l’article 24 proclamait le respect du parti nazi envers un «christianisme positif», pour mieux condamner «l’esprit judéo-matérialiste». or cette thématique pouvait elle aussi constituer un appât pour la Gauche, et il est, de ce point de vue, très suggestif, qu’à l’arraché tant qu’on voudra, l’unanimité n’ait vraiment été atteinte dans la salle, le 24 février 1920, que sur le vote d’une résolution antisémite» (p. 164).
Bouthillon poursuit sa démonstration en insistant sur la spécificité du nazisme, qui parvint à concilier, un temps du moins, Droite et Gauche et ainsi refermer la plaie qu'avait ouverte la Révolution française en séparant, historiquement, les deux frères irréconciliables partout ailleurs qu'en France selon l'auteur (2) : «Or, dans l’histoire allemande, la nazisme constitue à la fois l’apogée de la haine entre la Gauche et la Droite, parce qu’il est né de la Droite la plus extrême et qu’il vomit la Gauche, et, en même temps, l’ébauche de leur réconciliation, précisément parce qu’il se veut un national-socialisme, unissant donc, à un nationalisme d’extrême-Droite, un socialisme d’extrême-Gauche. Vu sous cet angle, sa nature politique la plus authentique est donc celle d’un centrisme, mais par addition des extrêmes; et c’est pourquoi il peut espérer parvenir en Allemagne à une véritable refondation» (p. 173). Au sujet de cette thèse de Bouthillon, sans cesse répétée dans son ouvrage, de la création du nazisme par l'addition des extrêmes, notons ce passage : «pour que la Droite mute en l’une de ces formes de totalitarisme que sont les fascismes, il faut qu’elle accepte de faire sien un apport spécifique de la Gauche, et même de l’extrême-Gauche» (pp. 189-90).
Toutes ces pages (hormis celles, peut-être, du chapitre 2 consacré à Bismarck) sont intéressantes et écrites dans un style maîtrisé, moins vif cependant que celui d'un Éric Zemmour. Elles n'évoquent cependant point directement le sujet même qui donne son sous-titre à l'ouvrage de Bouthillon. Il faut ainsi prendre son mal en patience pour découvrir, au dernier chapitre, la thèse pour le moins condensée (en guise de piste de recherche méthodiquement développée, comme celle d'Emilio Gentile exposée dans La Religion fasciste), d'un autre ouvrage de l'auteur intitulé Et le bunker était vide. Une lecture du testament politique d'Adolf Hitler (Hermann, 2007). Car, en guise d'histoire théologique du nazisme que la seule référence à Carl Schmitt évoquant la théologie paulinienne ne peut tout de même combler (3), nous avons droit à une série de rapprochements, parfois quelque peu spécieux (4) entre les derniers faits et gestes de Hitler et ceux du Christ, comme celui-ci : «Le testament qu’il [Hitler] laisse est lui-même conçu comme un équivalent du discours du Christ pendant la dernière Cène, au moment de passer de ce monde à son Père : «je ne vous laisse pas seuls», tel est le thème dominant de ces adieux, dans un dispositif où l’expulsion de Göring et de Himmler hors du Parti pour trahison est l’exact pendant de celle de Judas hors du cénacle» (p. 254).
C'est donc affirmer que, s'il ne faut point considérer Hitler comme l'antichrist (5), il peut à bon droit être vu comme l'un de ses représentants, une idée qui a fait les délices de nombre d'auteurs, dont le sérieux de la recherche est d'ailleurs matière à controverse, tant certaines thèses ont pu sembler loufoques aux historiens du nazisme.
Mais affirmer que Hitler n'est qu'une des figures du Mal, et certainement pas celui-ci en personne si je puis dire nous fait peut-être toucher du doigt la thèse qui semblera véritablement scandaleuse aux yeux des lecteurs : Hitler est un dictateur absolument médiocre, dont le seul coup de génie a été, selon Bouthillon, d'adopter une position centriste qui lui a permis de mélanger habilement les idées et les influences venues des deux extrêmes politiques.
Autant dire que, devant l'effacement des frontières politiques auquel nous assistons de nos jours, la voie est libre pour que naissent une furieuse couvée de petits (ou de grands) Hitler qui, soyons-en certains, auront à cœur de venger l'honneur de leur père putatif et surtout de lire le testament aux accents fondamentalement religieux selon Bouthillon que le chef déchu leur aura laissé juste avant de se suicider et de faire disparaître son corps, comme une ultime parodie démoniaque de l'absence du cadavre du Christ.

Notes
* Livre dont Jean-Luc Evard donnera, ici même, une critique véritable, ce que la mienne n'est évidemment point qui se contente de dégager les grands axes de la démonstration de Bouthillon.
littérature,critique littéraire,histoire,nazisme,révolution française,théologie politique,fabrice bouthillon,éditions fayard(1) Sur le salut nazi, Fabrice Bouthillon affirme : «Ce geste fasciste par excellence, qu’est le salut de la main tendue, n’est-il pas au fond né à Gauche ? N’a-t-il pas procédé d’abord de ces votes à main levée dans les réunions politiques du parti, avant d’être militarisé ensuite par le raidissement du corps et le claquement des talons – militarisé et donc, par là, droitisé, devenant de la sorte le symbole le plus parfait de la capacité nazie à faire fusionner, autour de Hitler, valeurs de la Gauche et valeurs de la Droite ? Car il y a bien une autre origine possible à ce geste, qui est la prestation de serment le bras tendu; mais elle aussi est, en politique, éminemment de Gauche, puisque le serment prêté pour refonder, sur l’accord des volontés individuelles, une unité politique dissoute, appartient au premier chef à la liste des figures révolutionnaires obligées, dans la mesure même où la dissolution du corps politique, afin d’en procurer la restitution ultérieure, par l’engagement unanime des ex-membres de la société ancienne, est l’acte inaugural de toute révolution. Ainsi s’explique que la prestation du serment, les mains tendues, ait fourni la matière de l’une des scènes les plus topiques de la révolution française – et donc aussi, qu’on voie se dessiner, derrière le tableau par Hitler du meeting de fondation du parti nazi, celui, par David, du Serment du Jeu de Paume» (p. 171).
(2) «À partir de 1918, il n’est donc plus contestable qu’une voie particulière s’ouvre dans l’histoire de l’Europe pour l’une des nations qui la composent. Mais c’est la voie française. Parce que, sur le continent, pour la France, et pour la France seulement, la victoire pérennise alors la réconciliation de la Gauche et de la Droite qui s’était opérée dans l’Union sacrée, le clairon du 11 novembre ferme pour elle l’époque qui s’était ouverte avec la Révolution, et la République devient aussi légitime à Paris que la monarchie avait pu l’être avant 1789. Mais partout ailleurs sur le continent, c’est la défaite, dès 1917 pour la Russie, en 1918 pour l’Allemagne, en 1919, autour du tapis vert, pour l’Italie» (p. 107). Cet autre passage éclaire notre propos : «La période qui va de 1789 à 1914 avait été dominée par la séparation de la Gauche et de la Droite provoquée par la révolution française, et l’Allemagne avait perdu la chance que l’union sacrée lui avait donnée de refermer cette brèche. Du coup, la logique de la situation créée par la Révolution perdure, s’amplifie, se durcit : à Droite, la brutalisation exacerbe les nationalismes, à Gauche, elle surexcite l’universalisme, jusqu’à en tirer le bolchevisme. Moyennant quoi, la nécessité de mettre un terme à cette fracture se fait, au même rythme, plus impérieuse» (p. 197).
(3) «Rétablir l’Empire, réunir l’extrême Gauche et l’extrême Droite : Hitler aussi s’est donné ces deux objectifs, et la parenté de son entreprise avec celle de Napoléon ne doit donc rien au hasard. Elle vient de ce que le nazisme est né de l’effondrement révolutionnaire du katekhon aussi directement que le bonapartisme en est sorti. Comme ce qui se passe en Allemagne en 1933 vise à combler le gouffre, un moment refermé en 1914, mais rouvert dès 1918, qui béait sous la politique européenne depuis qu’en 1789, la Révolution avait mis un terme au prolongement que, durant près de quatorze siècles, le régime de Chrétienté avait procuré à l’Empire romain, la dimension antichristique du nazisme en découle immédiatement, faite d’opposition radicale au christianisme et de ressemblance avec lui, de ressemblance avec lui pour cause d’opposition radicale à lui» (pp. 262-3). Auparavant, l'auteur aura évoqué, tirant profit des thèses bien connues de René Girard (cf. p. 198) sur la violence mimétique, la volonté (et son exécution) d'exterminer les Juifs par une analyse du gouffre en question et des façons pour le moins radicales de le combler : «La Droite continentale tient qu’on ne peut quitter le contrat ancien, qu’il est en fait impossible de déchirer définitivement; la Droite insulaire [avec Burke], elle, démontre qu’on ne peut parvenir à un contrat nouveau. Or la Révolution s’étant pourtant bel et bien produite, il en résulte qu’on se trouve dans un état limbaire, intermédiaire entre ces deux vérités. On est entre l’Ancien Régime, chrétien, où la Victime, sur le sacrifice de laquelle reposait en dernière analyse tout l’ordre social, depuis la mise en place de l’augustinisme politique, était le Christ, régime qu’on ne peut totalement oublier – et le nouveau contrat social, qui, par hypothèse, ne devra plus rien au christianisme, mais auquel on ne peut atteindre. Eh bien, la solution intermédiaire est de refonder l’unité sur la haine du Juif : ce n’est plus le régime ancien, ça tient donc du nouveau; mais ce n’est pas un régime absolument nouveau, et ça tient donc de l’ancien : puisque dans l’ancien, en la personne du Christ, déjà la victime était juive» (p. 199).
(4) Ainsi du rapprochement opéré par l'auteur entre Eva Braun / Adolf Hitler et Ève / Adam, cf. p. 251-2.
(5) «En dictant son testament politique, Hitler visait à s’ériger en une espèce de dieu; faire de lui le Diable, comme y concourent avec ensemble de nos jours les médias, politiques et institutions d’enseignement, c’est l’aider à atteindre son but. S’il y avait cependant une leçon à retenir de la théologie de l’Antéchrist, ce serait pourtant que du mal, il n’a été qu’une des figures, et qu’il y aura pire – un pire que peu fort bien servir cette espèce de sacralisation perverse dont notre époque le fait jouir, grosse d’effets en retour au bout desquels nous ne sommes probablement pas rendus» (p. 268).

mardi, 18 janvier 2011

Evolving into Consumerism -and Beyond it: Geoffrey Miller's "Spent"

Evolving into Consumerism—and Beyond It:
Geoffrey Miller’s Spent

Alex KURTAGIC

Ex: http://www.counter-currents.com/

Geoffrey Miller
Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior
New York: Viking, 2009

31--B9alQzL.jpgWhen I was asked to review this book, I half groaned because I was sure of what to expect and I also knew it was not going to broaden my knowledge in a significant way. From my earlier reading up on other, but tangentially related subject areas (e.g., advertising), I already knew, and it seemed more than obvious to me, that consumer behavior had an evolutionary basis. Therefore, I expected this book would not make me look at the world in an entirely different way, but, rather, would reaffirm, maybe clarify, and hopefully deepen by a micron or two, my existing knowledge on the topic. The book is written for a popular audience, so my expectations were met. Fortunately, however, reading it proved not to be a chore: the style is very readable, the information is well-organized, and there are a number of unexpected surprises along the way to keep the reader engaged.

Coming from a humanities educational background, I was familiar with Jean Baudrillard’s treatment of consumerism through his early works: The System of Objects (1968), The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures (1970), and For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1972). Baudrillard believed that there were four ways an object acquired value: through its functional value (similar to the Marxian use-value); through its exchange, or economic value; through its symbolic value (the object’s relationship to a subject, or individual, such as an engagement ring to a young lady or a medal to an Olympic athlete); and, finally, through its sign value (the object’s value within a system of objects, whereby a Montblanc fountain-pen may signify higher socioeconomic status than a Bic ball-pen, or a Fair Trade organic chicken may signify certain social values in relation to a chicken that has been intensively farmed). Baudrillard focused most of his energy on the latter forms of value. Writing at the juncture between evolutionary psychology and marketing, Geoffrey Miller (an evolutionary psychologist) does the same here, except from a purely biological perspective.

The are three core ideas in Spent: firstly, conspicuous consumption is essentially a narcissistic process being used by humans to signal their biological fitness to others while also pleasuring themselves; secondly, this processes is unreliable, as humans cheat by broadcasting fraudulent signals in an effort to flatter themselves and achieve higher social status; and thirdly, this process is also inefficient, as the need for continuous economic growth has led capitalists since the 1950s to manufacture products with built-in obsolescence, thus fueling a wasteful process of continuous substandard production and continuous consumption and rubbish generation. In other words, we live in a world where insatiable and amoral capitalists constantly make flimsy products with ever-changing designs and ever-higher specifications so that they break quickly and/or cause embarrassment after a year, and humans, motivated by primordial mating and hedonistic urges that have evolved biological bases, are thus compelled to frequently replace their consumer goods with newer and better models — usually the most expensive ones they can afford — so that they can delude themselves and others into thinking that they are higher-quality humans than they really are.

Miller tells us that levels of fitness are advertised by humans along six independent dimensions, comprised of general intelligence, and the five dimensions that define the human personality: openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness, stability, and extraversion. Extending or drawing from theories expounded by Thorstein Veblen and Amotz Zahavi (the latter’s are not mainstream), Miller also tells us that, because fraudulent fitness signaling is part and parcel of animal behavior, humans, like other animals, will attempt to prove the authenticity of their signals by making their signaling a costly endeavor that is beyond the means of a faker. Signaling can be rendered costly through its being conspicuously wasteful (getting an MA at Oxford), conspicuously precise (getting an MIT PhD), or a conspicuous badge of reputation (getting a Harvard MBA) that requires effort to achieve, is difficult to maintain, and entails severe punishment if forged. Miller attempts to highlight the degree to which these strategies are wasteful when he points out that, in as much as university credentials are a proxy for general intelligence, both job seekers and prospective employers could much more efficiently determine a job seeker’s general intelligence with a simple, quick, and cheap IQ test.

As expected, we are told here that signaling behavior becomes, according to experimental data, exaggerated when humans are what Miller calls “mating-primed” (on the pull). Also as expected, men and women exhibit different proclivities: males emphasizing aggression and openness to experience by performing impressive and unexpected feats in front of desirable females, and females emphasizing agreeableness through participation in, for example, charitable events. And again as expected, Miller tells us that while dumb, young humans engaging in fitness signaling will tend to emphasize body-enhancing consumption (e.g., breast implants, muscle-building powders, platform shoes), older, more intelligent humans, educated by experience on the futility of such strategies, instead emphasize their general intelligence, conscientiousness, and stability through effective maintenance of their appearance, via regular exercise, sensible diet, careful grooming, and tasteful fashion. Still, this strategy follows biologically-determined patters: as women’s physiognomic indicators of fertility (eye size; sclera whiteness; lip coloration, fullness, and eversion; breast size; etc.) peak in their mid twenties, older women will apply make-up and opt for sartorial strategies that compensate for the progressive fading of these traits, in a subconscious effort to indicate genetic quality and stability, as well as — as mentioned above — conscientiousness.

Less expected were some of the explanations for some human consumer choices: when a human purchases a top-of-the-line, fully featured piece of electronic equipment, be it a stereo or a sewing machine, the features are less important than the opportunity the equipment provides its owner to talk about them, and thus signal his/her intelligence through their detailed, jargon-laden enumeration and description. This makes perfect sense, of course, and reading it provided theoretical confirmation of the correctness of my decision in the 1990s, when, after noticing that I only ever used a fraction of all available features and functions in any piece of electronic equipment, I decided to build a recording studio with the simplest justifiable models by the best possible brands.

Even less expected for me where some of the facts outside the topic of this book. Miller, conscious of the disrepute into which the evolutionary sciences have fallen due to foaming-at-the-mouth Marxist activists — Stephen Jay Gould, Leon Kamin, Steven Rose, and Richard Lewontin — and ultra-orthodox nurture bigots in modern academia, makes sure to precede his discussion by describing himself as a liberal, and by enumerating a horripilating catalogue of liberal credentials (he classes himself as a “feminist,” for example). He also goes on to cite survey data that shows most evolutionary psychologists in contemporary academia are socially liberal, like him. It is a sad state of affairs when a scientist feels obligated to asseverate his political correctness in order to avoid ostracism.

Unusually, however, Miller seems an honest liberal (even if he contradicts himself, as in pp. 297-8), and is critical in the first chapters as well as in the later chapters of the Marxist death-grip on academic freedom of inquiry and expression and of the cult of diversity and multiculturalism. The latter occurs in the context of a discussion on the various possible alternatives to a society based on conspicuous consumption, which occupies the final four chapters of this book. Miller believes that the multiculturalist ideology is an obstacle to overcoming the consumer society because it prevents the expression of individuality and the formation of communities with alternative norms and forms of social display. This is because humans, when left to freely associate, tend to cluster in communities with shared traits, while multiculturalist legislation is designed to prevent freedom of association. Moreover, and citing Robert Putnam’s research (but also making sure to clarify he does not think diversity is bad), Miller argues that “[t]here is increasing evidence that communities with a chaotic diversity of social norms do not function very well” (p. 297). Since the only loophole in anti-discrimination laws is income, the result is that people are then motivated to escape multiculturalism is through economic stratification, by renting or buying at higher price points, thus causing the formation of

low-income ghettos, working-class tract houses, professional exurbs: a form of assortative living by income, which correlates only moderately with intelligence and conscientiousness.

. . .

[W]hen economic stratification is the only basis for choosing where to live, wealth becomes reified as the central form of status in every community — the lowest common denominator of human virtue, the only trait-display game in town. Since you end up living next to people who might well respect wildly different intellectual, political, social, and moral values, the only way to compete for status is through conspicuous consumption. Grow a greener lawn, buy a bigger car, add a media room . . . (p. 300)

This is a very interesting and valid argument, linking the evils of multiculturalism with the consumer society in a way that I had not come across before.

Miller’s exploration of the various possible ways we could explode the consumer society does get rather silly at times (at one point, Miller considers the idea of tattooing genetic trait levels on people’s faces; and elsewhere he weighs requiring consumers to qualify to purchase certain products, on the basis of how these products reflect their actual genetic endowments). However, when he eventually reaches a serious recommendation, it is one I can agree with: promoting product longevity. In other words, shifting production away from the contemporary profit-oriented paradigm of cheap, rapidly-obsolescing, throwaway products and towards the manufacture of high quality, long-lasting ones, that can be easily serviced and repaired. This suggests a return to the manufacturing standards we last saw during the Victorian era, which never fails to put a smile on my face. Miller believes that this can be achieved using the tax system, and he proposes abolishing the income tax and instituting a progressive consumption tax designed to make cheap, throwaway products more expensive than sturdy ones.

Frankly, I detest the idea of any kind of tax, since I see it today as a forced asset confiscation practiced by governments who are intent in destroying me and anyone like me; but if there has to be tax, if that is the only way to clear the world out of the perpetual inundation of tacky rubbish, and if that is the only way to obliterate the miserable businesses that pump it out day after day by the centillions, then let it mercilessly punish low quality — let it sadistically flog manufacturers of low-quality products with the scourging whip of fiscal law until they squeal with pain, rip their hair out, and rend their garments as they see their profits plummet at the speed of light and completely and forever disappear into the black hole of categorical bankruptcy.

If you are looking for a deadly serious, arid text of hard-core science, Spent is not for you: the same information can be presented in a more detailed, programmatic, and reliable manner than it is here; this book is written to entertain as much as it is to educate a popular audience. If you are looking for a readable overview, a refresher, or an update on how evolved biology interacts with marketing and consumption, and would appreciate a few key insights as a prelude to further study, Spent is an easy basic text. It should be noted, however, that his area of research is still in relative infancy, and there is here a certain amount of speculation laced with proper science. Therefore, if you are interested in this topic, and are an activist or businessman interested in developing more effective ways to market your message or products, you may want to adopt an interdisciplinary approach and read this alongside Jacques Ellul’s Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, Jean Baudrillard’s early works on consumerism, and some of the texts in Miller’s own bibliography, which include — surprise, surprise! — The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, and The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide, by Richard Lynn, among others.

TOQ Online, August 14, 2009

lundi, 10 janvier 2011

Force et Honneur

Force et Honneur

« Le calendrier mémoriel de nos pères était, autrefois, parsemé de noms de saints, de soldats héroïques et aussi de grandes batailles. Ces noms, gravés dans l’histoire des peuples, étaient toujours évocateurs : ils constituaient une mémoire collective et forgeaient les identités nationales », écrit Jean-Pierre Papadacci, « Français d’Empire », en préface à un ouvrage intitulé « Force et honneur ».

Ce livre, auquel ont collaboré une trentaine d’auteurs, raconte « ces batailles qui ont fait la grandeur de la France et de l’Europe ». Sans doute certaines manquent-elles, comme Fontenoy, mais on y trouve beaucoup de rencontres qui ont compté, depuis la bataille de Marathon au début du Ve siècle avant Jésus-Christ jusqu’au siège de Sarajevo à la fin du XXe siècle de notre ère.

Le lecteur y trouvera, entre autres, les Thermopyles, Bouvines, le siège de Vienne, Torfou, Austerlitz, le siège de l’alcazar, la bataille d’Alger…

Tous les textes ne sont pas d’égale facture, mais la plupart sont bien écrits et intéressants. Citons notamment le récit de la prise de Jérusalem par les croisés, par Pierre Vial, la bataille d’Azincourt, par Jean Denègre, la levée du siège d’Orléans, par Thierry Bouzard, Lépante, par Robert Steuckers, Camerone, par Alain Sanders, Verdun, par Philippe Conrad, Dien Bien Phu par Eric Fornal, un récit de l’insurrection de Budapest par Vitéz Marton Lajos…

Le livre se conclut sur une série d’entretiens avec des officiers français : le général Yves Derville, qui participa à la première guerre du Golfe ; le colonel Jean Luciani, ancien des FFI et vétéran de Dien Bien Phu ; le capitaine Dominique Bonelliancien du 1er BEP puis du 1er REP en Indochine et en Algérie ; l’adjudant-chef Jean Laraque, les sergents Alexis Arette et Roger Holeindre, le caporal-chef Trogne, autres « sentinelles de l’Empire ».

« Nous savons que nous sommes des débiteurs et que nous avons le devoir de faire fructifier et de transmettre le patrimoine que nous avons reçu », écrit encore Jean-Pierre Papadacci dans sa préface. Nul doute que ce livre, destiné prioritairement aux adolescents, y contribue.

Force et honneur, ces batailles qui ont fait la grandeur de la France et de l’Europe, Les amis du livre européen ed.

ACHETER SUR AMAZON

17:25 Publié dans Histoire, Livre, Militaria | Lien permanent | Commentaires (1) | Tags : histoire, militaria, livre, guerres, polémologie | |  del.icio.us | | Digg! Digg |  Facebook

mercredi, 24 novembre 2010

39-45: les dossiers oubliés, retour sur les crimes soviétiques et américains

39-45 : les dossiers oubliés - retour sur les crimes soviétiques et américains

VARSOVIE (NOVOpress) – Boguslaw Woloszanski, journaliste polonais, continue dans son nouvel ouvrage, 39-45 : les dossiers oubliés, aux Editions Jourdan, d’explorer les faces méconnues de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, sur la base notamment de la récente ouverture des archives de l’ex-Union Soviétique.

Le premier chapitre du livre est d’ailleurs consacré aux manœuvres de l’un des plus grands criminels de l’histoire du XXème siècle : Joseph Staline. Où comment l’ami de Lénine [1] liquida en 1937 le chef de son armée, Mikhaïl Nikolaïevitch Toukhatchevski, danger pour son pouvoir absolu, avec l’aide… du régime hitlérien, trop heureux de priver l’Armée Rouge de son officier le plus talentueux.

Boguslaw Woloszanski rappelle aussi les coups tordus perpétrés par les démocraties occidentales durant ce conflit qui saigna à blanc le continent européen. L’auteur souligne pourquoi des centaines de Canadiens furent sacrifiés à Dieppe le 19 août 1942 alors que seulement 50 Américains débarquèrent sur le sol normand ce jour là.

Les Etats-Unis mirent le paquet en revanche pour s’attaquer à des cibles non militaires. Boguslaw Woloszanski revient sur les raids aériens américains sur Tokyo [2] en 1945. Celui du 9 au 10 mars fut le plus meurtrier des bombardements de la Seconde Guerre mondiale : 100 000 victimes, pour la plupart brûlées vives. Il dépassa en nombre de victimes les bombardements d’Hambourg en juillet 1943 ou de Dresde en février 1945 [3]. Au cours des sept derniers mois de cette campagne, ce type d’actions a provoqué la destruction de 67 grandes villes japonaises, causant plus de 500 000 morts et quelque 5 millions de sans abri. Pourtant, aucun général américain ne fut traduit devant un tribunal international pour ces crimes de guerre.


[cc [4]] Novopress.info, 2010, Dépêches libres de copie et diffusion sous réserve de mention de la source d’origine
[http://fr.novopress.info [5]]


Article printed from :: Novopress.info France: http://fr.novopress.info

URL to article: http://fr.novopress.info/72388/39-45-les-dossiers-oublies-retour-sur-les-crimes-sovietiques-et-americains/

URLs in this post:

[1] l’ami de Lénine: http://fr.novopress.info/16199/russie-une-statue-de-lenine-dynamitee-a-saint-petersbourg/

[2] raids aériens américains sur Tokyo: http://les3abeilles.lefora.com/2010/09/23/les-bombardements-sur-tokyo-2/

[3] Dresde en février 1945: http://fr.novopress.info/466/dresde/

[4] cc: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/fr/

[5] http://fr.novopress.info: http://fr.novopress.info

dimanche, 10 octobre 2010

Jack Malebranche's Androphilia: A Manifesto

Jack Malebranche’s Androphilia: A Manifesto

Ex: http://www.counter-currents.com/

Jack Malebranche (Jack Donovan)
Androphilia: A Manifesto
Baltimore, Md.: Scapegoat Publishing, 2006

Near the end of Androphilia, Jack Donovan writes “It has always seemed like some profoundly ironic cosmic joke to me that the culture of men who love men is a culture that deifies women and celebrates effeminacy. Wouldn’t it make more sense if the culture of men who are sexually fascinated by men actually idolized men and celebrated masculinity?” (p. 115).

He has a point there. As Donovan notes, homosexual porn is almost exclusively focused on hypermasculine archetypes: the lumberjack, the marine, the jock, the cop, etc. (I am going to employ the term “homosexual,” despite its problematic history, as a neutral term to denote same-sex desire among men. I am avoiding the term “gay,” for reasons that will soon be apparent.) So why are homosexuals, who worship masculine men, so damn queeny? Most straight men (and women too) would offer what they see as the obvious answer: homosexuals are not real men. They are a sort of strange breed of womanly man, and it is precisely the otherness of masculine men that attracts them so. This is, after all, the way things work with straight people: men are attracted to women, and vice versa, because they are other. We want what we are not. Therefore, if a man desires another man then he must not be a real man.

What makes this theory so plausible is that so many self-identified homosexuals do behave in the most excruciatingly effeminate manner. They certainly seem to be not-quite-men. Donovan thinks (and I believe he is correct) that it is this womanish behavior in homosexuals that bothers straight men so much – more so, actually, than the fact that homosexuals have sex with other men in the privacy of their bedrooms.

Donovan objects to effeminacy in homosexuals as well, but he sees this effeminacy as a socially-constructed behavior pattern; as a consequence of the flawed logic that claims “since we’re attracted to what’s other, if you’re a man attracted to a man you must not be a real man.” Having bought into this way of seeing things, the “gay community” actually encourages its members to “camp it up” and get in touch with their feminine side. They think they are liberating themselves, but what they don’t see is that they have bought into a specific set of cultural assumptions which effectively rob them of their manhood, in their own eyes and in the eyes of society.

Donovan argues, plausibly, that homosexual attraction should be seen as a “variation in desire” among men (p. 21). Homosexuals are men — men who happen to be attracted to other men. Their sexual desire does not make them into a separate species of quasi-men. This is a point that will be resisted by many, but it is easily defended. One can see this simply by reflecting on how difficult it is to comprehend the homosexuals of yore in the terms we use today to deal with these matters. There was, after all, unlikely to have been anything “queeny” (and certainly not cowardly) about the Spartan 300, who were 150 homosexual couples. And the samurai in feudal Japan were doing it too — just to mention two examples. These are not the sort of people one thinks of as “sensitive” and who one would expect to show up at a Lady Gaga concert, were they around today. It is unlikely that Achilles and his “favorite” Patroclus would have cruised around with a rainbow flag flying from their chariot. These were manly men, who happened to sexually desire other men. If there can be such men, then there is no necessary disjunction between homosexuality and masculinity. QED.

In essential terms, what Donovan argues in Androphilia is that homosexuals should reject the “gay culture” of effeminacy and reclaim masculinity for themselves. Ironically, gay culture is really the product of an internalization of the Judeo-Christian demonization of same-sex desire, and its insistence that homosexuality and masculinity are incompatible. Donovan wants gays to become “androphiles”: men who love men, but who are not defined by that love. “Gay men” are men who allow themselves to be defined entirely by their desire, defined into a separate segment of humanity that talks alike, walks alike, dresses alike, thinks alike, votes alike, and has set itself apart from “breeders” in fashionable urban ghettos. “Gay” really denotes a whole way of life “that promotes anti-male feminism, victim mentality, and leftist politics” (p. 18). (This is the reason Donovan often uses “homo” instead of “gay”: gay is a package deal denoting much more than same-sex desire.) He argues that in an effort to promote acceptance of men with same-sex desire, homosexuals encouraged others to regard them as, in effect, a separate sex — really, almost a separate race. “Gay,” Donovan remarks, is really “sexuality as ethnicity” (p. 18). As a result, gay men have cut themselves off from the fraternity of men and, arguably, trapped themselves in a lifestyle that stunts them into perpetual adolescence. Donovan asks, reasonably, “Why should I identify more closely with a lesbian folk singer than with [straight] men my age who share my interests?”

Many of those who have made it this far into my review might conclude now that Androphilia is really a book for homosexuals, and doesn’t have much to say to the rest of the world. But this is not the case. Donovan’s book contains profound reflections on sexuality and its historical construction (yes, there really are some things that are historically constructed), the nature of masculinity, the role of male bonding in the formation of culture, and the connection between masculinity and politics. This book has implications for how men — all men — understand themselves.

Donovan attacks head-on the attempt by gays to set themselves up as an “oppressed group” on the model of blacks and women, and to compel all of us to refrain from uttering a critical word about them. He attacks feminism as the anti-male ideology it is. And he zeroes in on the connection, taken for granted by nearly everyone, between gay culture and advocacy of left-wing causes. Androphilia, in short, is a book that belongs squarely on the political right. It should be no surprise to anyone to discover that Donovan has been busy since the publication of Androphilia writing for sites like Alternative Right and Spearhead.

Donovan himself was a part of the gay community when he was younger, but never really felt like he belonged. He so much as tells us that his desire for men is his religion; that he worships masculinity in men. But it seemed natural to Donovan that since he was a man, he should cultivate in himself the very qualities he admired in others. His desire was decidedly not for an “other” but for the very qualities that he saw, proudly, in himself. (He says at one point, “I experience androphilia not as an attraction to some alien opposite, but as an attraction to variations in sameness,” p. 49).

Donovan is certainly not alone. It’s natural when we think of homosexuals to visualize effeminate men, because those are the ones that stand out. If I asked you to visualize a Swede you’d probably conjure up a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Nordic exemplar. But, of course, a great many Swedes are brunettes (famous ones, too; e.g., Ingmar Bergman). The effeminate types are merely the most conspicuous homosexuals. But there also exists a silent multitude of masculine men who love men, men whom no one typically pegs as “gay.” These men are often referred to as “straight acting” — as if masculinity in a homosexual is necessarily some kind of act. These men are really Donovan’s target audience, and they live a tragic predicament. They are masculine men who see their own masculinity as a virtue, thus they cannot identify with what Donovan calls the Gay Party (i.e., “gay community”) and its celebration of effeminacy. They identify far more closely with straight men, who, of course, will not fully accept them. This is partly due to fear (“is he going to make a pass at me?”), and partly, again, due to the prevailing view which equates same-sex desire with lack of manliness. The Jack Donovans out there are lost between two worlds, at home in neither. Loneliness and sexual desire compels such men to live on the periphery of the gay community, hoping always to find someone like themselves. If they have at all internalized the message that their desires make them less-than-men (and most have), then their relationship to masculinity will always be a problematic one. They will always have “something to prove,” and always fear, deep down, that perhaps they are inadequate in some fundamental way.

Androphilia is therapy for such men, and a call for them to form a new identity and group solidarity quite independent of the “gay community.” On the one hand, Donovan asserts that, again, homosexuality should be seen as a “variation in desire” among men; that homosexuals should see themselves as men first, and not be defined entirely by their same-sex desire. On the other hand, it is very clear that Donovan also has high hopes that self-identified androphiles will become a force to be reckoned with. He writes at one point, “While other men struggle to keep food on the table or get new sneakers for Junior, androphiles can use their extra income to fund their endeavors. This is a significant advantage. Androphiles could become leaders of men in virtually any field with comparative ease. By holding personal achievement in high esteem, androphiles could become more than men; they could become great men” (p. 88).

Is Jack Donovan — the androphile Tyler Durden — building an army? Actually, it looks more like he’s building a religion, and this brings us to one of the most interesting aspects of Androphilia. Repeatedly, Donovan tells us that “masculinity is a religion,” or words to that effect (see especially pp. 65, 72, 76, 80, 116).

A first step to understanding what he is talking about is to recognize that masculinity is an ideal, and a virtue. Men strive to cultivate masculinity in themselves, and they admire it in other men. Further, masculinity is something that has to be achieved. Better yet, it has to be won. Femininity, on the other hand, is quite different. Femininity is essentially a state of being that simply comes with being female; it is not an accomplishment. Women are, but men must become. If femininity has anything to do with achievement, the achievement usually consists in artifice: dressing in a certain manner, putting on makeup, learning how to be coy, etc. Femininity is almost exclusively bound up with being attractive to men. If a man’s “masculinity” consisted in dressing butch and not shaving, he would be laughed at; his “masculinity” would be essentially effeminate. (Such is the masculinity, for example, of gay “bears” and “leatherman.”) Similarly, if a man’s “masculinity” consists entirely in pursuing women and making himself attractive to them, he is scorned by other men. (Ironically, such “gigolos” are often far more effeminate mama’s boys than many homosexuals.) No, true masculinity is achieved by accomplishing something difficult in the world: by fighting, building something, discovering something, winning a contest, setting a record, etc. In order for it to count, a man has to overcome things like fear and opposition. He has to exhibit such virtues as bravery, perseverance, commitment, consistency, integrity, and, often, loyalty. Masculinity is inextricably tied to virtue (which is no surprise — given that the root vir-, from which we also get “virile,” means “man”). A woman can be petty, fickle, dishonest, fearful, inconstant, weak, and unserious — and still be thought of as 100% feminine.

A woman can also be the butchest nun, women’s lacrosse coach, or dominatrix on the planet and never be in any danger of someone thinking she’s “not a real woman.” With men, it’s completely different. As the example of homosexuals illustrates, it is quite possible to have a y chromosome and be branded “not a real man.” Masculinity, again, is an ideal that men are constantly striving to realize. The flip side of this is that they live in constant fear of some kind of failure that might rob them of masculinity in their eyes or the eyes of others. They must “live up” to the title of “man.” Contrary to the views of modern psychologists and feminists, this does not indicate a “problem” with men that they must somehow try to overcome. If men did not feel driven to make their mark on the world and prove themselves worthy of being called men, there would be no science, no philosophy, no art, no music, no technology, no exploration.

“But there would also be no war, no conflict, no competition!” feminists and male geldings will shriek in response. They’re right: there would be none of these things. And the world would be colorless and unutterably boring.

As Camille Paglia famously said, “If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.” She also said “There is no female Mozart because there is no female Jack the Ripper.” What this really means is that given the nature of men, we can’t have Mozart without Jack the Ripper. So be it.

It should now be a bit clearer why Donovan says that “masculinity is a religion.” To quote him more fully, “masculinity is not just a quality shared by many men, but also an ideal to which men collectively aspire. Masculinity is a religion, one that naturally resonates with the condition of maleness. Worship takes place at sports arenas, during action films, in adventure novels and history books, in frat houses, in hunting lodges” (p. 65).

Earlier in the book he writes: “All men appreciate masculinity in other men. They appreciate men who are manly, who embody what it means to be a man. They admire and look up to men who are powerful, accomplished or assertive. . . . Men respectfully acknowledge another man’s impressive size or build, note a fierce handshake, or take a friendly interest in his facial hair. . . . Sportscasters and fans speak lovingly of the bodies and miraculous abilities of their shared heroes. . . . While straight men would rather not discuss it because they don’t want to be perceived as latent homosexuals, they do regularly admire one another’s bodies at the gym or at sporting events” (p. 22). None of this is “gay,” “latently gay,” or “homoerotic.” This is just men admiring manliness. One of the sad consequences of “gay liberation” (and Freudian psychology) is that straight men must now police their behavior for any signs that might be read as “latency.” And gay liberation has destroyed male bonding. Just recently I re-watched Robert Rossen’s classic 1961 film The Hustler. In the opening scene, an old man watches a drunken Paul Newman playing pool and remarks to a friend, “Nice looking boy. Clean cut. Too bad he can’t hold his liquor.” No straight man today would dream of openly admiring another man’s appearance and describing him as “nice looking,” even though there need be nothing sexual in this at all.

Of course, there is something decidedly sexual in androphilia. The androphile admires masculinity in other men also, but he has a sexual response to it. An androphile may admire all the same qualities in a man that a straight man would, but the androphile gets turned on by them. Here we must note, however, that although the straight man admires masculinity in men he generally spends a lot less time reflecting on it than an androphile does. And there are innumerable qualities in men (especially physical qualities) which androphiles notice, but which many straight men are completely oblivious to. In fact, one of the characteristics of manly men is a kind of obliviousness to their own masculine attractiveness. Yes, straight men admire masculinity in other men and in themselves — but this is often not something that is brought fully to consciousness. No matter how attractive he may be, if a man is vain, his attractiveness is undercut — and so is his masculinity. Men are attractive — to women and to androphiles — to the extent that their masculinity is something natural, unselfconscious, unaffected, and seemingly effortless. Oddly, lack of self-consciousness does seem to be a masculine trait. Think of the single-minded warrior, uncorrupted by doubt and introspection, forging ahead without any thought for how he seems to others, unaware of how brightly his virtue and heroism shine.

What all this means is that androphilia is masculinity brought to self-consciousness. To put it another way, the androphile is masculinity brought to awareness of itself. It is in the androphile that all that is good and noble and beautiful in the male comes to be consciously reflected upon and affirmed. It is in androphiles like Jack Donovan that the god of masculinity is consciously thematized as a god, and worshipped. Masculinity is a religion, he tells us again and again.

Now, I said a few lines earlier that lack of self-consciousness seems to be a masculine trait. If in androphiles a greater self-consciousness of masculinity is achieved, doesn’t this mean that androphiles are somehow unmasculine? Actually what it means is that they are potentially hyper-masculine. It is true that we admire unselfconscious figures like Siegfried or Arjuna, because they seem to possess a certain purity. But such men are always ultimately revealed to be merely the plaything of forces over which they have no control. Greater still then a naïve, unselfconscious purity is the power of an awakened man, who consciously recognizes and cultivates his virtues, striving to take control of his destiny and to perfect himself. This is part and parcel of the ideal of spiritual virility Julius Evola spoke of so often.

The difference between Siegfried and Arjuna is that the latter had the god Krishna around to awaken him. Krishna taught him that he is indeed a plaything of forces over which he has no control. But Arjuna then affirmed this, affirmed his role in the cosmic scheme as the executioner of men, and became the fiercest warrior that had ever lived.

Most men unconsciously follow the script of masculinity, pushed along by hormones to realize the masculine ideal — usually only to find the same hormones putting them in thrall to women and, later, children. Androphiles consciously recognize and affirm masculinity, and because their erotic desires are directed towards other men, they have the potential to achieve far more in the realm of masculine accomplishment than those who, again, have to “struggle to keep food on the table or get new sneakers for Junior.” Thus, far from being “unmasculine,” androphiles have it within their power to become, well, Overmen. Androphiles have awakened to the god in themselves and other men. There is an old saying on the Left Hand Path: “There is no god above an awakened man.” There is also no man above an awakened man. So much for the idea that a man’s love for other men is a badge of inferiority.

Implicit in the above is something I have not remarked on thus far, and that Donovan does not discuss: the duality in the masculine character. It is a rather remarkable thing, as I alluded to earlier, that testosterone both makes a man want to fight, to strive, and to explore — and also to inseminate a woman and tie himself down to home and family. Of course, without that latter effect the race would die out. But it is nevertheless the case that men are pulled in two directions, just by being men: towards heaven and towards earth. To borrow some terms from Evola again, they have within themselves both uranic and chthonic tendencies. Modern biologists have a way of dealing with this: they insist that all of life is nothing but competition for resources and reproduction. Thus, all of men’s uranic striving, all of their quest for the ideal, all of their adventures and accomplishments, are nothing more than ways in which they make themselves more attractive to females. This is sheer nonsense: nothing but the mindset of modern, middle-class, hen-pecked professors projected onto all of nature.

The truth is that men strive to realize the ideal of masculinity in ways that not only have nothing to do with the furtherance of the species, but are often positively inimical to it. Perhaps the best and most extreme example of masculine toughness one could give is the willingness of the samurai to disembowel themselves over questions of honor. Men strive for ideals, often at the expense of life. Masculinity has a dimension that can best be described as supernatural — as above nature. Women are far more tied to nature than men are, and this (and not sexist oppression) is the real reason why it is almost exclusively men who have been philosophers, priests, mystics, scientists, and artists. It is woman’s job to pull man back to earth and perpetuate life.

One way to look at androphilia is that it is not just the masculine come to consciousness of itself, but the masculine ridding itself of the “natural.” This “natural” side of the man is not without value (again, without it we would go extinct), but it has almost nothing to do with what makes men great. The androphile is free to cultivate the truly masculine aspects of the male soul, because he is free of the pull of the feminine and of the natural. This has to have something to do with why it is that so many great philosophers, artists, writers, mystics, and others, have tended to be androphiles. In 1913, D. H. Lawrence wrote the following to a correspondent: “I should like to know why nearly every man that approaches greatness tends to homosexuality, whether he admits it or not: so that he loves the body of a man better than the body of a woman — as I believe the Greeks did, sculptors and all, by far. . . . He can always get satisfaction from a man, but it is the hardest thing in life to get one’s soul and body satisfied from a woman, so that one is free for oneself. And one is kept by all tradition and instinct from loving a man.”

The androphile, again, is masculinity brought to consciousness of itself — and in him, it would seem, much else is brought to consciousness as well. For what else are science, philosophy, religion, art, and poetry but the world brought to consciousness of itself? These things — which are almost exclusively the products of men — are what set us apart and make us unique as a species. Human beings (again, almost exclusively men), unlike all other species, are capable of reflecting upon and understanding the world. We do this in scientific and philosophical theories, but also in fiction, poetry, and painting. Some of us, of course, are more capable of this than others — capable of achieving this reflective stance towards existence itself. And it would seem that of those men that are, some carry things even further and become fully aware of the masculine ideal that they themselves represent. And they fall in love with this. Sadly, androphile writers, artists, poets, etc., have often bought into the notion that their desire for other men makes them unmasculine and, like Oscar Wilde, have shoe-horned themselves into the role of the decadent, effeminate aesthete.

I think that when Donovan describes masculinity as a religion this is not just a desire to be provocative. I think he does experience his admiration for men as sacred. If this is the case, then it is natural for men who feel as he does to insist that such a feeling cannot be indecent or perverse. Further, it is natural for them to wonder why there are men such as themselves. What I have tried to do in the above reflections (which go beyond what Donovan says in his book) is to develop a theory of the “cosmic role,” if you will, of the masculine itself, and of the androphile. I believe Donovan is thinking along the same lines I am, though he might not express things the same way. He writes at one point:

Masculinity is a religion, and I see potential for androphiles to become its priests — to devote themselves to it and to the gods of men as clergymen devote their lives to the supernatural. What other man can both embody the spirit of manhood and revere it with such perfect devotion? This may sound far-fetched, but is it? If so, then why? Forget about gay culture and everything you associate with male homosexuality. Strip it down to its raw essence — a man’s sexual desire for men — and reimagine the destiny of that man. Reimagine what this desire focused on masculinity could mean, what it could inspire, and who the men who experience it could become. (p. 116)

There is much else in Androphilia that is well-worth discussing, though a review cannot cover everything. Particularly worthy of attention is Donovan’s discussion of masculinity in terms of what he calls physical masculinity, essential masculinity, and cultural masculinity. Then there is Donovan’s discussion of masculine “values.” These really should be called “virtues” (especially given the etymology of this word — mentioned earlier — Donovan his missed a bit of an opportunity here!). The language of “values” is very modern. What he really has in mind is virtues in the Aristotelian sense of excellences of the man. Donovan lists such qualities as self-reliance, independence, personal responsibility, achievement, integrity, etc. He starts to sound a bit like Ayn Rand in this part of the book, but it’s hard to quarrel with his message. The book ends with a perceptive discussion of “gay marriage,” which Donovan opposes, seeing it as yet another way in which gays are aping straight relationships, yearning narcissistically for society’s “approval.”

This is really a superb book, which all men can profit from, not just androphiles. If one happens to be an androphile, however, one will find this is a liberating and revolutionary work.

vendredi, 08 octobre 2010

Olivier Bardolle - Petit traité des vertus réactionnaires

 

 

Vient de paraître chez L'Editeur, ce Petit traité des vertus réactionnaires d'Olivier Bardolle, que nous vous conseillons.

Présentation de l'éditeur
En Occident, depuis près d'un demi-siècle, les idées progressistes tiennent le haut du pavé. Il semblerait pourtant que l'on redécouvre aujourd'hui certaines vertus à la pensée réactionnaire. Ne serait-ce qu'une capacité de résistance certaine aux ravages de l'hypermodernité et aux bienfaits immodérés de la pensée unique. Sans tomber dans le manichéisme propre à l'époque, ce petit traité, particulièrement tonique, dénonce les fausses valeurs avec jubilation et poussera chacun, qu'il se prétende de droite ou de gauche, à réviser son catéchisme idéologique. C'est ainsi qu'Eric Naulleau, réputé de gauche, n'a pas hésité à préfacer ce texte en toute indépendance d'esprit. A lire sans modération

L'auteur
Olivier Bardolle, né en 1952, est un essayiste reconnu et un interlocuteur recherché (on l'a vu plusieurs fois dans l'émission de Frédéric Taddeï, Ce soir ou jamais). Du Monologue implacable (Ramsay, 2003) à De la prolifération des homoncules sur le devenir de l'espèce (L'Esprit des Péninsules, 2008) ou à ce Petit traité des vertus réactionnaires, Olivier Bardolle tisse, dans la lignée de Philippe Muray (à qui ce dernier ouvrage est dédié), le portrait de l'hypermodernité avec sagacité, ironie, mordant et, ce qui n est pas encore interdit : érudition. Chacun de ses essais épingle la bien-pensance et les idées toutes faites de ses chers contemporains.

Olivier Bardolle, Petit traité des vertus réactionnaires, L'Editeur, 2010.
Commande possible sur Amazon.fr.

 

jeudi, 30 septembre 2010

La révolte selon Gerd Berglfleth

Arno_Breker_-_Camarades.jpgArchives de SYNERGIES EUROPEENNES - 1986

 

La révolte selon Gerd Bergfleth

 

Il faut rendre hommage à un petit livre pratique qui n'aborde pas le mic-mac du guignol politicien mais se penche, au fond, sur le politique en soi. Ce livre est l'anthologie d'une révolte, celle de Bernd MATTHEUS et d'Axel MATTHES. Mieux qu'une anthologie, ce livre est une symphonie à la radicalité. Ces textes, cette valse de théories et de littérature tranchée et osée feront vibrer les cœurs hardis, les cœurs qui contestent toutes les formes de médiocrité. Les grands ancêtres, les maîtres éternels de toutes les révoltes y ont contribué en fournissant leurs sentences les plus incisives, les plus mordantes: Bataille et Céline, Hölderlin et Pessoa, Nietzsche et le Marquis de Sade. Les partisans cultivés de la révolte radicale œuvrent ici en commun. Des aphorismes épiques aux essais philosophiques, nous découvrons un thème, celui de la révolte, dans une sarabande de méditations subversives, où l'on se découvre jouisseur et prospecteur. Mais ce menu, les auteurs nous l'offrent avec la prudence qui s'impose; en effet, la lecture n'en est pas aisée. "La révolte est signe. Signe de ce ou celui qui se trouve en dehors de toute espèce d'ordre. La révolte possède de nombreux visages. La révolte est une chose, son expression en est une autre. Il y a la révolte de l'homme sans envergure et celle du démagogue, qui visent à accentuer encore le rabougrissement de l'homme, qui se plaisent à soumettre et opprimer, qui aiment à cultiver la médiocrité et l'esprit grégaire. Mais il y a aussi la révolte de l'esseulé rebelle et rétif. Le soumis qui courbe le cap et celui qui ignore la crainte évaluent le concept de révolte d'une manière fondamentalement différente. Le fait que l'Eglise ait envoyé tous les grands hommes en enfer, est une sorte de "révolte" qui déplaisait déjà souverainement à Nietzsche. Ce que moi j'affirme, c'est la révolte contre tout discours établi sur la révolte". Et Axel MATTHES poursuit: "La radicalité doit pouvoir s'afficher, il faut pouvoir la lire dans des actes, des instants uniques, des gestes, des formes qui témoignent d'une attitude bien particulière et unique... La radicalité n'est pas en fin de compte une question de goût, mais un état d'esprit. Etre radical est une chance: la chance de trouver du neuf".

 

Enfin, voici quelques délicatesses de cette "symphonie à la radicalité":

 

"De tout cela, je déduirais que la voie vers la délivrance conduit à travers l'enfer lui-même, mais seul celui qui devine déjà la délivrance, pourra trouver l'issue" (BERGFLETH).

 

"Qu'aimes-tu donc en fait, toi l'Original? Ma nostalgie." (ROZANOV).

 

"Pour l'homme vraiment religieux, rien n'est péché" (NOVALIS).

 

"Plus l'homme progresse, moins de choses il trouvera, auxquelles il pourra se convertir" (CIORAN).

 

"Se donner ses propres normes et s'y tenir" (Alain de BENOIST).

 

Le lecteur qui voudra trouver un néo-moralisme évitera de lire cette anthologie. Ceux qui, en revanche, cherchent à honorer nos vieux dieux et veulent vivre existentiellement l'audace de la révolte, devront trouver dans cet ouvrage le fil d'Ariane du parfait révolté. Comme MATTHES et MATTHEUS, permettez-vous la révolte !

 

Martin Werner KAMP.

 

Bernd MATTHEUS / Axel MATTHES (Hrsg.), Ich gestatte mir die Revolte, Verlag Matthes & Seitz, München, 1985, 397 S., 22 DM.

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dimanche, 22 août 2010

UN ouvrage fondamental sur la "révolution conservatrice"

bundieschejugend.jpg

 

 

Archives de SYNERGIES EUROPEENNES - 1999

Un ouvrage fondamental sur la révolution conservatrice

 

Richard FABER (Hrsg.), Konservatismus in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Königs­hau­sen & Neu­mann, Würzburg, 1991, ISBN 3-88479-592-9.

 

Deux contributions de cet ouvrage collectif intéressent directement notre propos: 1) Ri­chard FABER, «Differenzierungen im Be­griff Konservatismus. Ein religionssoziolo­gi­scher Versuch» et 2) Arno KLÖNNE, «"Rechts oder Links?". Zur Geschichte der Nationalrevolutionäre und Na­tionalbolsche­wisten». Richard Faber, dont nous connais­sons déjà la concision, résume en treize points les positions fondamentales du "con­servatisme" (entendu dans le sens alle­mand et non pas britannique):

◊1) le principe de "mortui plurimi", le culte des morts et des anciens, garant d'un ave­nir dans la conti­nui­té, de la durée.

 

◊2) Ce culte de la durée im­plique la no­stal­gie d'un ordre social stable, comme celui d'a­vant la révolution, la réfor­me et la re­nais­san­ce (Hugo von Hofmanns­thal).

 

◊3) Dans l'actualité, cette nostalgie doit con­duire l'homme politique à défendre un or­dre économique "sain", respectant la plu­ralité des forces sociales; à ce niveau, une con­tra­diction existe dans le conservatisme con­temporain, où Carl Schmitt, par exem­ple, dé­nonce ce néo-médiévisme social, com­me un "romantisme politique" inopé­rant, au nom d'un étatisme efficace, plus dur encore que le stato corporativo italien.

 

◊4) L'ordre social et politique dérive d'une re­­pré­sentation de l'empire (chinois, babylo­nien, perse, assyrien ou romain) comme un analogon du cosmos, comme un reflet mi­cro­cosmique du macrocosme. Le christia­nis­­me médiéval a retenu l'essentiel de ce cosmisme païen (urbs deis hominibusque com­munis). La querelle dans le camp con­ser­vateur, pour Faber, oppose ceux qui veu­­­lent un retour sans médiation aux sour­ces originales païen­­nes et ceux qui se con­tentent d'une ré­­pétition de la synthèse mé­dié­vale christia­ni­sée.

 

◊5) Les conservateurs perçoivent le fer­ment chrétien comme subversif: ils veu­lent une re­ligion qui ne soit pas opposée au fonction­nement du politique; à partir de là, se déve­loppe un anti-christia­nisme conservateur et néo-païen, ou on impose, à la suite de Jo­seph de Maistre, l'ex­pé­diant d'une infailli­bi­li­té pontificale pour bar­rer la route à l'impo­li­tis­me évangélique.

 

◊6) Les positivistes comtiens, puis les maur­ras­siens, partageant ce raisonnement, déjà présent chez Hegel, parient pour un catho­li­cis­me athée voire pour une théocratie a­thée.

 

◊7) Un certain post-fascisme (défini par Rü­diger Altmann), observable dans toutes les traditions politiques d'après 1945, vise l'in­té­gration de toutes les composantes de la so­ciété pour les soumettre à l'économie. Ainsi, le pluralisme, pourtant affiché en théo­rie, cè­­de le pas devant l'intégra­tion/ho­mo­loga­tion (option du conservatisme technocrate).

 

◊8) Dans ce contexte, se dé­ve­lop­pe un ca­tholicisme conservateur, hostile à l'auto­no­mie de l'économie et de la so­cié­té, les­quel­les doivent se soumettre à une "syn­thèse", celle de l'"organisme social" (suite p. 67).

 

◊9) Le contraire de cette synthèse est le néo-li­béralisme, expression d'un polythéis­me po­liti­que, d'après Faber. Les principaux re­pré­sentants de ce poly­théis­me libéral sont O­do Marquard et Hans Blumenberg.

 

◊10) Dans le cadre de la dialectique des Lu­mières, Locke estimait que l'individu devait se soumettre à la société civile et non plus à l'autorité po­litique absolue (Hobbes); l'exi­gence de soumission se mue en césarisme chez Schmitt. Dans les trois cas, il y a exi­gence de soumission, comme il y a exi­gen­ce de sou­mission à la sphère économique (Alt­mann). Le conservatisme peut s'en ré­jouir ou s'en insurger, selon les cas.

 

◊11) Pour Fa­ber, comme pour Walter Ben­jamin avant lui, le conservatisme représente une "tra­hi­son des clercs" (ou des intellec­tuels), où ceux-ci tentent de sortir du cul-de-sac des discussions sans fin pour débou­cher sur des décisions claires; la pensée de l'ur­gence est donc une caractéristique ma­jeu­re de la pensée conservatrice.

 

◊12) Faber cri­ti­que, à la suite d'Adorno, de Marcuse et de Ben­jamin, le "caractère affir­ma­teur de la cul­ture", propre du con­ser­va­tisme. Il re­mar­que que Maurras et Maulnier s'engagent dans le combat politique pour pré­server la culture, écornée et galvaudée par les idéo­logies de masse. Waldemar Gu­rian, disciple de Schmitt et historien de l'Ac­tion Fran­çai­se, constate que les sociétés ne peuvent sur­vivre si la Bildung disparaît, ce mé­lange de raffinement et d'éducation, pro­pre de l'é­li­te intellectuelle et créatrice d'une na­tion ou d'une civilisation.

 

◊13) Dans son dernier point, Faber revient sur la cosmologie du conservatisme. Celle-ci implique un temps cyclique, en appa­ren­ce différent du temps chrétien, mais un au­teur comme Erich Voe­gelin accepte explici­te­ment la "plus ancien­ne sagesse de l'hom­me", qui se soumet au rythme du devenir et de la finitude. Pour Voe­gelin, comme pour cer­tains conserva­teurs païens, c'est la pen­sée gnostique, an­cêtre directe de la moder­nité délétère, qui re­jette et nie "le destin cy­clique de toutes choses sous le soleil". La gnose christia­ni­sée ou non du Bas-Empire, cesse de per­ce­voir le monde comme un cos­mos bien or­don­né, où l'homme hellé­ni­que se sentait chez lui. Le gnostique de l'an­tiquité tardive, puis l'homme moderne qui veut tout mo­di­fier et tout dépasser, ne par­vient plus à re­gar­der le monde avec émerveillement. Le chré­tien catholique Voe­gelin, qui aime la cré­a­tion et en admire l'or­dre, rejoint ainsi le païen catholique Maur­ras. Albrecht Erich Günther, figure de la ré­vo­lution conserva­trice, définit le conserva­tis­me non comme une propension à tenir à ce qui nous vient d'hier, mais propose de vi­vre comme on a toujours vécu: quod sem­per, quod ubique, quod omnibus.      

 

Dans sa contribution, Arno Klönne évoque la démarche anti-système de personnalités comme Otto Strasser, Hans Ebeling, Ernst Niekisch, Beppo Römer, Karl O. Paetel, etc., et résume clairement cette démarche en­tre tous les fronts dominants de la pen­sée politique allemande des années 20 et 30.  Le refus de se laisser embrigader est une leçon de liberté, que semble reprendre la "Neue Rechte" allemande actuelle, sur­tout par les textes de Marcus Bauer, philo­so­phe et théologien de formation. Un ex­cel­lent résumé pour l'étudiant qui sou­hai­te s'i­ni­tier à cette matière hautement com­ple­xe (RS).

 

samedi, 21 août 2010

"Toward the White Republic"

"Toward the White Republic"

Counter-Currents is proud to announce the publication of our first title:

Michael O’Meara’s
Toward the White Republic
Edited by Greg Johnson
San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2010
160 pages
hardcover: $30

Note: Toward the White Republic will first be released in a signed, numbered hardcover edition of 100 copies.

Release date: August 17, 2010

“Just as in medieval times it was considered high treason to speak of the death of the king, in the United States it is taboo to contemplate the break-up of the ‘one nation, indivisible.’ Yet in this slim volume of essays Michael O’Meara argues that if the white race is to survive on this continent, the American Empire must perish. Secession is rising from the ashes of 1865, and O’Meara is one of its leading prophets.”
—H. A. Covington, author of the Northwest Quartet

“Michael O’Meara is a thinker of great depth and a writer of extraordinary skill. He is impressively erudite, yet in these essays he wears his learning lightly. He is not a pedant trying to dazzle his readers with arcane and esoteric verbiage. He is a revolutionary, who wants to change the world. His idea of the White Republic as the mythic source and aim of radical cultural-racial regeneration may seem too romantic and too risky to the older generation of American paleo-conservatives and European ethno-nationalists. But if the white man is to retrieve his destiny, it is the only way.”
—Tomislav Sunić, author of Homo americanus

CONTENTS

Foreword • iii

From Myth to Revolution
1. Toward the White Republic • 1
2. The Myth of Our Rebirth • 21
3. The Sword • 31
4. The Edge of the Sword • 40
5. Cù Chulainn in the GPO • 47
6. The Northwest Novels of H. A. Covington • 61

Why I am Not a Conservative
7. Why I Write • 71
8. Three Pillars • 77
9. The Next Conservatism? • 87
10. Against White Reformists • 95

Apocalypse American-Style
11. Katrina’s Intimation of the End • 100
12. 2009: Crisis or Opportunity? • 107
13. US, SU: Same Scenario? • 126
14. The Hotrod of the Apocalypse • 140

Call to Arms
15. Foreigners Out! • 148

Index • 151
About the Author • 154

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mercredi, 31 mars 2010

Postmortem Report: a collection of essays by Tomislav Sunic

Postmortem Report: a collection of essays by Tomislav Sunic

Ex: http://majorityrights.com/

Tom_Sunic_Tomoslav_Council_of_Conservative_Citizens_2008.jpgYou may already know that Tom Sunic’s new book Postmortem Report: cultural examinations from postmodernity has been published.  Tom is a fine essayist - among the best we have - and Postmortem Report brings together the best of his work in this format.  He asked me to produce some blurb to announce the book here, but I thought a few short passages might be more to your taste.  These are what he selected.

From the (suitably straightening) foreword by Kevin MacDonald:

Europeans who have any allegiance to their people and culture cannot stand by and accept this state of affairs. We are approaching an endgame situation in the West. In the United States, people of non-European descent will be the majority in just a few short decades, and the same will happen throughout Europe and other societies established by Europeans since the dawn of the Age of Discovery. At that point, the centuries-old hostilities and resent-ments of non-White peoples toward Whites that Sunic discusses will come to the fore, and the culture and Europe will be irretrievably lost.

We must confront this impending disaster with a sense of psychological intensity and desperation. Reading Tom Sunic’s essays will certainly provide the background for understanding how we got here and perhaps also for finding our way toward the future.

And from the text, a subject which just occasionally gets an airing here:

In conclusion, one could say that, in the very beginning of its development, Judeo-Christian monotheism set out to demystify and desacralize the pagan world by slowly supplanting ancient pagan beliefs with the reign of the Judaic Law. During this century-long process, Christianity gradually removed all pagan vestiges that coexisted with it. The ongoing process of desacralization and the “Entzauberung” of life and politics appear to have resulted not from Europeans’ chance departure from Christianity, but rather from the gradual disappearance of the pagan notion of the sacred that coexisted for a long time with Christianity. The paradox of our century is that the Western world is saturated with Judeo-Christian mentality at the moment when churches and synagogues are virtually empty.

And more:

And yet, we should not forget that the Western world did not begin with the birth of Christ. Neither did the religions of ancient Europeans see the first light of the day with Moses—in the desert. Nor did our much-vaunted democracy begin with the period of Enlightenment or with the proclamation of American independence. Democracy and independence—all of this existed in ancient Greece, albeit in its own unique social and religious context. Our Greco-Roman ancestors, our predecessors who roamed the woods of central and northern Europe, also believed in honor, justice, and virtue, although they attached to these notions a radically different meaning.

On two giants of the German revolutionary conservative tradition:

One cannot help thinking that, for Spengler and his likes, in a wider historical context, war and power politics offer a regenerative hope against the pervasive feeling of cultural despair. Yet, regardless of the validity of Spengler’s visions or nightmares, it does not take much imagination to observe in the decadence of the West the last twilight-dream of a democracy already grown weary of itself.

... And what to say about the German centenarian, enigmatic essayist and novelist Ernst Jünger, whom the young Adolf Hitler in Weimar Germany also liked to read, and whom Dr. Joseph Goebbels wanted to lure into pro-Nazi collaboration? Yet Jünger, the aristocratic loner, refused all deals with the Nazis, preferring instead his martial travelogues. In his essay Annäherungen: Drogen and Rausch, Jünger describes his close encounters with drugs. He was also able to cut through the merciless wall of time and sneak into floating eternity. “Time slows down . . . The river of life flows more gently… The banks are disappearing.” While both the French president François Mitterrand and the German chancellor Helmut Kohl, in the interest of Franco-German reconciliation, liked meeting and reading the old Jünger, they shied away from his contacts with drugs.

On the racio-political attack against our people:

The whole purpose of classicism and neoclassicism, particularly in plastic art, but also in philosophy and literature suggested that Europeans had to abide by the cosmic rules of racial form and order. Whatever and whoever departs from order — brings in decadence and death. The word and epithet “racist” and “racism” are usually hurled against White nationalists, never ever scathing other racial non-European out-groups. Over the last fifty years, no effort has been spared by the Western system and its mediacracy to pathologize White Western peoples into endless atonement and perpetual guilt feelings about their White race. The intended goal was to create a perception that all non-European races and out-groups are immune to sentiments of xenophobia or racial exclusion. The incessant anti-White propaganda and the idealization of non-Whites have attained grotesque dimensions, resulting in clinical self-hate and neurotic behavior among the majority of Whites.

And, finally, on the perils of being labelled a “racist”:

Intellectual terror in American colleges is well hidden behind the garb of feigned academic conviviality and the “have-a-wonderful day” rhetoric of superficially friendly peers. Yet it has far more insidious effects than the naked terror I experienced in a drab ex-communist Europe. Apart from being a derogatory, value-laden word that immediately lends itself to an array of catastrophic fantasies and judgment-day scenarios, the word “Nazi” also gives birth to a schizoid behavior among a number of White nationalists, particularly in America. Many of them seriously project in their minds National Socialist Germany as a country populated by Albino-like Nordic Übermenschen possessing a hidden force that could be resuscitated any day either in Patagonia or on astral UFOs. As noted previously in The Occidental Observer, the false reenactment of political events leads to their farcical repetition — with dangerous political consequences. In our postmodernity, the overkill of false images leads to the real kill. The often rowdy and infantile behavior of such “proud Aryan internet warriors” scares off serious White people who could otherwise be of some help in these decisive days of struggle for Western civilization. We must ask ourselves: Cui bono? Who benefits?

vendredi, 12 mars 2010

Les "dégagements" de Régis Debray

regis_debray_1.jpgLes dégagements de Régis Debray

Ex: http://metapoinfos.hautetfort.com/

Dégagements est le titre du nouvel essai de Régis Debray qui doit sortir en librairie dans les prochains jours. Il a rassemblé dans ce volume, en particulier, ses carnets publiés dans la revue Médium.

L’essentiel, qui est un certain style, se niche dans les détails. C’est le ton de l’écrivain, celui qui vivifie les mots et stylise la vie.

Régis Debray joue aux quatre coins avec les accidents de la vie. Entre figures tutélaires (Julien Gracq ou Daniel Cordier), et artistes redécouverts (Andy Warhol ou Marcel Proust), entre cinéma et théâtre, expos et concerts, le médiologue se promène en roue libre, sans apprêt ni a priori. Rêveries et aphorismes cruels se mêlent aux exercices d’admiration. Les angles sont vifs, la lumière crue, mais souvent, à la fin, tamisée par l’humour.

Ainsi l’exige la démarche médiologique, tout en zigzags et transgressions, selon la définition un rien farceuse qu’en donne l’auteur : « Un mauvais esprit assez particulier qui consiste, quand un sage montre la lune, à regarder son doigt, tel l’idiot du conte. »

Essayiste, romancier, journaliste et mémorialiste, Régis Debray a notamment publié aux Éditions Gallimard de nombreux essais : Ce que nous voile le voile. La République et le sacré (Hors Série Connaissance, 2004), Le plan vermeil (Hors Série Connaissance, 2004), Supplique aux nouveaux progressistes du XXIe siècle (Hors Série Connaissance, 2006), une pièce de théâtre : Julien le fidèle (collection blanche, 2005), des mémoires : Aveuglantes lumières (collection blanche, 2006). Derniers ouvrages parus : Un candide en Terre Sainte (collection blanche, 2008, Folio n° 4968) et Le moment fraternité (collection blanche, 2009).

 

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dimanche, 07 mars 2010

Bruno Favrit: Nouvelles des Dieux et des Montagnes

Bruno FAVRIT, Nouvelles des Dieux et des Montagnes

Ex: http://terreetpeuplevivarais.wordpress.com/

« Ensuite il assista à la chute de son corps nu (…) tout au fond de lui, quelque chose lui avait commandé d’attendre pour assister à cela: la vision d’une petite masse sur la neige, et qui maintenant se taisait. » C’est ainsi que la Russie septentrionale joue avec un pauvre Français, Léo. Qui est prêt à devenir fou furieux dans cette ville portière de l’Océan Glacial avec ces nuits polaires sans fin…qui remportent à jamais ses deux compagnons marins.

« En fait, Saint-Paul a éveillé beaucoup de vocations, dit-il sèchement. » Dans cette nouvelle, nous apprenons qu’un mythe existe – celui de Saint-Paul, un passionné de la montagne, un de ses fils. Un Homme qui a battu tous les records de l’alpinisme mais qui reste discret en vivant dans son chalet isolé, connu de quelques amis privilégiés. Poussin, et bien d’autres jaloux se risqueront à refaire ses trajets dangereux. Ils y laisseront leurs vies. La Montagne garde à jamais ses secrets…

Comme dans les Andes chiliennes, jamais le scientifique européen ne découvrira le secret d’une momie indienne. Au risque d’éveiller les pires malheurs, personne ne devrait y toucher ! Le patron de l’Auberge locale semble connaitre la réponse à ce mystère qui fait traverser à notre héros des montagnes et passer les nuits dehors…près du réel danger.

Mais que dire, si, de nos jours, Vincent Vermeil, en rentrant dans son village natal ou tant de souvenirs l’attendent: son oncle païen décédé sans qu’on sache comment et sa bien-aimée.. Une enquete qu’il mènera en bon Sherlock Holmes, s’il ne finirait pas, contrairement au célèbre détective…le cou brisé dans l’eau forestière ! Est-ce le Jeu du Pendu qui se perpétue ?! Le sang se glace-t-il déjà chez les sages paroissiens ? Pas chez les enfants des forets autour de Saint-Rome, en tout cas, hé hé.

Et c’est pas fini ! Dans la chaude Catalogne, les étudiants tout excités que peuvent etre des jeunes gens, célèbrent le culte de Mithra. Une relation amoureuse se noue entre Juanita et Ramon.

« Quant à Maxime, je demeure persuadée qu’il a eu la mort qu’il désirait si ardemment. » Ce Saint-Paul, ici, dans la dernière nouvelle du recueil (j’en veux encore !) est bien parti conquérir ses montagnes chéries et a disparu.. Meme Liliane qui écrit ses lignes sur sa probable mort n’est pas sure de celle-ci ! En effet, elle lattend ! La disparition de Maxime Saint-Paul ?! Chiche ! Les Grands Esprits ne nous quittent jamais. La preuve en est que tous les 6 nouvelles nous appellent à imiter les élans des personnages.

Toujours plus haut. Et plus loin, en ayant sous la main ce superbe bouquin imprégné de l’âme du Vieux Continent.

A commander sur www.crevetabous.com des Amis de la Culture Européenne

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dimanche, 31 janvier 2010

Est-il trop tard pour sauver l'Amérique?

21486945_1421861

Est-il trop tard pour sauver l’Amérique?

L’installation de Barack Obama à la Maison-Blanche coïncide avec une remise en cause sans précédent du »  modèle »  américain. L’économie d’endettement issue des années 1980 n’a pas résisté au choc de la crise financière et les Etats-Unis doivent désormais faire face à l’affaiblissement de leur puissance économique, industrielle et financière, à l’étiolement de leur leadership mondial et au doute d’une société fragilisée par le creusement des inégalités. Dans cet essai vif et documenté, Patrick Artus et Marie-Paule Virard expliquent les causes de ce déclin, ainsi que ses conséquences économiques, financières, voire géopolitiques, pour les États-Unis comme pour l’ensemble du monde. Ils montrent pourquoi, en dépit d’un leadership incontestable dans les nouvelles technologies, leur économie crée moins de richesses et se révèle de plus en plus inégalitaire. D’où la fuite en avant dans l’endettement, facteur clé de la grande crise de 2007-2008. Entre récession et facture du sauvetage du système bancaire, la situation des finances publiques va donc continuer à se dégrader. Et la dette extérieure continuer à augmenter, ce qui rendra les États-Unis toujours plus dépendants de pays prêteurs – avec la Chine au premier rang -, de plus en plus tentés d’affirmer leur supériorité. Est-il trop tard pour sauver l’Amérique ? Un affrontement Etats-Unis/Chine est-il inéluctable ? Le pire n’est jamais sûr, mais le défi que doit relever Obama est immense. Il ne concerne pas seulement l’avenir de l’Amérique mais celui du monde entier. L’intérêt majeur de ce livre est de donner au lecteur toutes les clés pour comprendre ces enjeux.

Patrick Artus est directeur de la recherche de Natixis, professeur à l’Ecole polytechnique et professeur associé à l’université Paris-l-Panthéon-Sorbonne. Marie-Paule Virard, ancienne rédactrice en chef du magazine Enjeux-Les Echos, est journaliste indépendante. Ils ont publié ensemble, à La Découverte, trois livres à succès : Le Capitalisme est en train de s’autodétruire (2005), Comment nous avons ruiné nos enfants (2006) et Globalisation, le pire est à venir (2008).

Disponible sur Amazon [1]


Article printed from :: Novopress Québec: http://qc.novopress.info

URL to article: http://qc.novopress.info/7758/est-il-trop-tard-pour-sauver-lamerique/

URLs in this post:

[1] Amazon: http://www.amazon.fr/dp/2707157325?tag=birhac-21&camp=2910&creative=19482&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=2707157325&adid=103DYAD50M53TY4S1W7W

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lundi, 14 décembre 2009

Souffrance de la France et appel de l'Empire

Souffrance de la France et appel de l’Empire

par Pierre LE VIGAN

Cioran ausculte notre patrie

Emil_Cioran.jpg

Un ennui tient à la clarté. C’est l’ennui qui tient au trop de clarté. « Je ne crois pas que je tiendrais aux Français [au sens d’être attaché à] s’ils ne s’étaient pas tant ennuyés au cours de leur histoire. Mais leur ennui est dépourvu d’infini. C’est l’ennui de la clarté. C’est la fatigue des choses comprises. » (Cioran, De la France, 1941). La France, dit-il encore, c’est la sociabilité, l’amour de la conversation. « C’est une culture a-cosmique, non sans terre mais au-dessus d’elle. »

Sur la fin de la France comme peuple, Cioran livre cette prodigieuse analyse, indépassée : « Un peuple sans mythes est en voie de dépeuplement. Le désert des campagnes françaises est le signe accablant de l’absence de mythologie quotidienne. Une nation ne peut vivre sans idole, et l’individu est incapable d’agir sans l’obsession des fétiches. Tant que la France parvenait à transformer les concepts en mythes, sa substance vive n’était pas compromise. La force de donner un contenu sentimental aux idées, de projeter dans l’âme la logique et de déverser la vitalité dans des fictions – tel est le sens de cette transformation, ainsi que le secret d’une culture florissante. Engendrer des mythes et y adhérer, lutter, souffrir et mourir pour eux, voilà qui révèle la fécondité d’un peuple. Les  » idées  » de la France ont été des idées vitales, pour la validité desquelles on s’est battu corps et âme. Si elle conserve un rôle décisif dans l’histoire spirituelle de l’Europe, c’est parce qu’elle a animé plusieurs idées, qu’elle les a tirées du néant abstrait de la pure neutralité. Croire signifie animer. Mais les Français ne peuvent plus ni croire ni animer. Et ils ne veulent plus croire, de peur d’être ridicules. La décadence est le contraire de l’époque de grandeur : c’est la re-transformation des mythes en concepts. […] Les Français se sont usés par excès d’être. Ils ne s’aiment plus, parce qu’ils sentent trop qu’ils ont été. Le patriotisme émane de l’excédent vital des réflexes; l’amour du pays est ce qu’il y a de moins spirituel, c’est l’expression sentimentale d’une solidarité animale. Rien ne blesse plus l’intelligence que le patriotisme. L’esprit, en se raffinant, étouffe les ancêtres dans le sang et efface de la mémoire l’appel de la parcelle de terre baptisée, par illusion fanatique, patrie. […] La France n’a plus de destin révolutionnaire, parce qu’elle n’a plus d’idées à défendre. Les peuples commencent en épopées et finissent en élégies. »

Cioran évoque l’appel de l’Empire : « Lorsque se défont les liens qui unissaient les congénères dans la bêtise reposante de leur communauté, ils étendent leurs antennes les uns vers les autres, comme autant de nostalgies vers autant de vides. L’homme moderne ne trouve que dans l’Empire un abri correspondant à son besoin d’espace. C’est comme un appel à une solidarité extérieure dont l’étendue l’opprimerait et le libérerait en même temps. » Et l’on comprend alors ce qu’on n’avait peut-être jamais compris avant : l’Empire est femelle, l’Empire, c’est la protection de la femme, de la mère, c’est le ventre. C’est la part féminine d’une aspiration au politique. D’où sa légitimité, d’où, aussi, la nécessité que cette part féminine ne s’exprime pas trop fémininement. En d’autres termes, l’Empire doit être républicain avant d’être démocratique (la République est la condition de la démocratie). Si c’est le contraire, on ajoute de la féminité à de la féminité, on ajoute de la domesticité à de la domesticité, de la protection à la protection, et c’est alors un déficit de masculinité qui se manifeste. Avec un très gros risques : ce sont les empires faibles qui sont les plus bellicistes (Russie et Autriche-Hongrie en 1914). Le Japon de 1941 n’est pas un contre-exemple : ce n’était pas un empire fort dans la mesure où le Japon était fort mais n’était aucunement un Empire, c’était une nation avec un Tenno, ce qui n’est pas du tout la même chose.

Pierre Le Vigan

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lundi, 02 novembre 2009

Frankfurter Buchmesse 2009 - Antaios-Rundbrief 24/2009

1254823928_5.jpgFrankfurter Buchmesse 2009
Antaios-Rundbrief 24/2009
Dienstag, 27. Oktober
 
Liebe Freunde,
Liebe Leser,
 
von der Frankfurter Buchmesse haben wir auch neue Bücher aus dem Ares-Verlag mitgebracht, und Preisreduziertes aus dem Landt-Verlag.
 
1. "Frau, komm!", heißt der Titel eines erschütternden Buches über die Massenvergewaltigungen deutscher Frauen und Mädchen 1944/45. Der Autor Ingo von Münch legt damit die erste Gesamtdarstellung über das Ausmaß dieses Kriegsverbrechens vor. Bisher erschienene Bücher zu diesem Thema konzentrierten sich auf Fall-Darstellungen. Informationen und eine Bestellmöglichkeit finden Sie hier.
 
2. Als Korrektur an einer Biographie versteht der versierte Publizist und Historiker Dirk Bavendamm sein umfangreiches Buch Der junge Hitler, zu dem Sie hier mehr Informationen und eine Bestellmöglichkeit finden.
 
3. Sezession-Autor Olaf Haselhorst ist federführend beteiligt an dem als Standardwerk zum Thema angelegten Werk Der deutsch-französische Krieg 1870/71. Vorgeschichte, Verlauf, Folgen. Informationen und eine Bestellmöglichkeit finden Sie hier.
 
4. Eine gut geschriebene und reich bebilderte Zusammenfassung des Architektur-Streits zwischen Moderne und Tradition legt Norbert Borrmann vor: Kulturbolschewismus oder "ewige Ordnung" zeigt, wie sehr der Streit um Formen ein ideologischer Machtkampf ist. Informationen und eine Bestellmöglichkeit finden Sie hier.
 
5. Zuletzt: Der Landt-Verlag hat drei seiner schönen, wertvoll ausgestatteten Bücher im Preis reduziert. Eberhard Straubs Biographie Wilhelm II (32,90), Martin Tielkes Studie über Ernst Jünger und Carl Schmitt (Der stille Bürgerkrieg, 24,90) sowie Sergio Romanos Brief an einen jüdischen Freund (29,90) kosten jetzt nur noch jeweils 18 Euro. Informationen und eine Bestellmöglichkeit: hier.
 
 
Telefonisch bestellen Sie wie immer bei Frau Drese unter 034632/90941, und Informationen zum Verlagsprogramm finden Sie unter www.antaios.de.
 
Gruß!
Götz Kubitschek
-------------------------------------------------------
 
Wer den Rundbrief nicht mehr erhalten will, schreibe an info@edition-antaios.de.
 

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