Notes on Populism

By Greg Johnson

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

Populism seeks to rescue popular government from corrupt elites. Naturally, the elites strike back. The most common accusation from elite commentators is that populism is “anti-democratic.” As Yascha Mounk frames it, populism is “the people vs. democracy.” I argue that populism is not anti-democratic, but it is anti-liberal. (See Donald Thoresen’s review of Mounk’s The People vs. Democracy here ^[2].)

Many critics of populism accuse it of being a form of white identity politics, and many critics of white identity politics accuse it of being populist. Populism and white identity politics are distinct but sometimes overlapping phenomena. I will argue, however, that populism and white identity politics complement one another, so that the strongest form of white identity politics is populist, and the strongest form of populism is identitarian. But first, we need to clarify what populism really is.

Political Ideology or Political Style?

One of the more superficial claims about populism is that it is not a political ideology but simply a “political style.” An ideology is a set of principles. A political style is a way of embodying and communicating political principles. The idea that populism is merely a political style is based on the observation that there are populisms of the Left and the Right, so how could it be a unified ideology? Of course, there are also liberalisms of the Left and Right, but this does not imply that liberalism is merely a style of politics rather than a political ideology.

Principles of Populism

Just as Right and Left liberalism appeal to common political principles, Right and Left populists also have the same basic political ideas:

• All populists appeal to the principle of popular sovereignty. Sovereignty means that a people is independent of other peoples. A sovereign nation is master of its own internal affairs. It can pursue its own ends, as opposed to being subordinated to the ends of others, such as a foreign people or a monarch. The sovereignty of the people is the idea that legitimate government is “of the people, by the people, for the people,” meaning that (1) the people must somehow participate in government, i.e., that they govern themselves, and (2) the state acts in the interest of the people as a whole, i.e., for the common good.
• All populists politically mobilize on the premise that popular government has been betrayed by a tiny minority of political insiders, who have arrogated the people’s right to self-government and who govern for their own factional interests, or foreign interests, but not in the interest of the people as a whole. Populists thus declare that the political system is in crisis.
• All populists hold that the sovereignty of the people must be restored (1) by ensuring greater popular participation in politics and (2) by replacing traitorous elites with loyal servants of the people. Populists thus frame themselves as redeeming popular sovereignty from a crisis.

Two Senses of “the People”

When populists say the people are sovereign, they mean the people as a whole. When populists oppose “the people” to “the elites,” they are contrasting the vast majority, who are political outsiders, to the elites, who are political insiders. The goal of populism, however, is to restore the unity of the sovereign people by eliminating the conflict of interests between the elites and the people.

Ethnic and Civic Peoplehood

There are two basic ways of defining a people: ethnic and civic. An ethnic group is unified by blood, culture, and history. An ethnic group is an extended family with a common language and history. Ethnic groups always emerge in a particular place but do not necessarily remain there. A civic conception of peoplehood is a construct that seeks to impose unity on a society composed of different ethnic groups, lacking a common descent, culture, and history. For instance, civic nationalists claim that a person can become British, American, or Swedish simply by government fiat, i.e., by giving them legal citizenship.

Ethnic nationalism draws strength from unity and homogeneity. Ethnically defined groups grow primarily through reproduction, although they have always recognized that some foreigners can be “naturalized”—i.e., “assimilated” into the body politic—although rarely and with much effort. Civic nationalism lacks the strength of unity but aims to mitigate that fact with civic ideology and to offset it with strength in numbers, since in principle the whole world can have identity papers issued by a central state.

A civic people is a pure social construct imposed on a set of particular human beings that need not have anything more in common than walking on two legs and having citizenship papers. Civic conceptions of peoplehood thus go hand in hand with the radical nominalist position that only individuals, not collectives, exist in the real world.

An ethnic people is much more than a social construct. First of all, kinship groups are real biological collectives. Beyond that, although ethnic groups are distinguished from other biologically similar groups by differences of language, culture, and history, there is a distinction between evolved social practices like language and culture and mere legislative fiats and other social constructs.

Ethnic peoples exist even without their own states. There are many stateless peoples in the world. But civic peoples do not exist without a state. Civic polities are constructs of the elites that control states.

Populism and Elitism

Populism is contrasted with elitism. But populists are not against elites as such. Populists oppose elites for two main reasons: when they are not part of the people and when they exploit the people. Populists approve of elites that are organically part of the people and function as servants of the people as a whole.

Populists recognize that people differ in terms of intelligence, virtue, and skills. Populists want to have the best-qualified people in important offices. But they want to ensure that elites work for the common good of the polity, not for their own factional interests (or foreign interests). To ensure this, populists wish to empower the people to check the power of elites, as well as to create new elites that are organically connected to the people and who put the common good above their private interests. (For more on this, see my “Notes on Populism, Elitism, and Democracy ^[9].”)

Populism and Classical Republicanism

When political scientists and commentators discuss the history of populism, most begin with nineteenth-century agrarian movements like the Narodniki in Russia and the People’s Party in the United States. But nineteenth-century populism looked backward to the republics of the ancient world, specifically the “mixed regime” of Rome.

Aristotle’s Politics is the most influential theory of the mixed regime. (See my “Introduction to Aristotle’s Politics” here ^[10].) Aristotle observed that a society can be ruled by one man, a few men, or many men. But a society can never be ruled by all men, since every society inevitably includes people who are incapable of participating in government due to lack of ability, for instance the very young, the crazy, and the senile.

Aristotle also observed that the one, few, or many could govern for their factional interests or for the common good. When one man governs for the common good, we have monarchy. When he governs for his private interests, we have tyranny. When few govern for the common good, we have aristocracy. When the few govern for their private interests, we have oligarchy. When the many govern for the common good, we have polity. When they govern for their factional interests, we have democracy.

It is interesting that for Aristotle, democracy is bad by definition, and that he had to invent a new word, “polity,” for the good kind of popular rule that was, presumably, so rare that nobody had yet coined a term for it.

Aristotle recognized that government by one man or few men is always government by the rich, regardless of whether wealth is used to purchase political power or whether political power is used to secure wealth. Thus popular government always empowers those who lack wealth. The extremely poor, however, tend to be alienated, servile, and greedy. The self-employed middle classes, however, have a stake in the future, long-time horizons, and sufficient leisure to participate in politics. Thus popular government tends to be stable when it empowers the middle classes and chaotic when it empowers the poorest elements.

Finally, Aristotle recognized that a regime that mixes together rule by the one, the few, and the many, is more likely to achieve the common good, not simply because each group is public spirited, but also because they are all jealous to protect their private interests from being despoiled by the rest. Aristotle was thus the first theorist of the “mixed regime.” But he was simply observing the functioning of actually existing mixed regimes like Sparta.

One can generate modern populism quite easily from Aristotle’s premises. Aristotle’s idea of the common good is the basis of the idea of popular sovereignty, which means, first and foremost, that legitimate government must look out for the common good of the people.

Beyond that, Aristotle argued that the best way to ensure legitimate government is to empower the many—specifically the middle class—to participate in government. The default position of every society is to be governed by the one or the few. When the elites govern selfishly and oppress the people, the people naturally wish to rectify this by demanding participation in government. They can, of course, use their power simply to satisfy their factional interests, which is why democracy has always been feared. But if popular rule is unjust, it is also unstable. Thus to be stable and salutary, popular rule must aim at the common good of society.

The great theorist of popular sovereignty is Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his On the Social Contract, Rousseau claims that the General Will is the fount of sovereignty and legitimacy. What is the General Will? The General Will wills the common good. The common good is not a convention or construct of the General Will but rather an objective fact that must be discovered and then realized through political action.

Rousseau distinguishes the General Will from the Will of All. The General Will is what we ought to will. The Will of All is what we happen to will. The Will of All can be wrong, however. Thus we cannot determine the General Will simply by polling the people.

Rousseau even holds out the possibility that an elite, or a dictator, can know the General Will better than the populace at large. But no matter how the General Will is determined—and no matter who controls the levers of power—political legitimacy arises from the common good of the people.

Populism and Representation

Populism is often associated with “direct” as opposed to “representative” democracy. Populists tend to favor referendums and plebiscites, in which the electorate as a whole decides on important issues, as opposed to allowing them to be decided by representatives in parliament. In truth, though, there is no such thing as direct democracy in which the whole of the people acts. Even in plebiscites, some people always represent the interests of others. Thus democracy always requires some degree of representation.

One can only vote in the present. But a people is not just its present members. It also consists of its past members and its future members. Our ancestors matter to us. They created a society and passed it on to us. They established standards by which we measure ourselves. And just as our ancestors lived not just for themselves, but for their posterity, people today make decisions that affect future generations. Thus in every democratic decision, the living must represent the interests of the dead and the not yet born.

Moreover, within the present generation, some are too young to participate in politics. Others are unable due to disability. The basic principle for excluding living people from the electorate is that they would lower the quality of political decision-making. However, they are still part of the people, and they have genuine interests. Thus the electorate must represent their interests as well.

Beyond that, there are distinctions among competent adults that may lead to further constriction of the electorate, again to raise the quality of political decision-making. For instance, people have argued that the franchise should be restricted to men (because they are the natural guardians of society or because they are more rational than women), or to people with property (because they have more to lose), or to people with children (because they have a greater stake in the future), or to military veterans (because they have proven themselves willing to die, if necessary, for the common good). But again, all of those who are excluded from the franchise are still part of the people, with interests that must be respected. So they must be represented by the electorate.

Thus even in a plebiscite, the people as a whole is represented by only a part, the electorate. Beyond that, unless voting is mandatory, not every member of the electorate will choose to vote. So those who do not vote are represented by those who do.

Thus far, this thought experiment has not even gotten to the question of representative democracy, which takes the process one step further. An elected representative may stand for hundreds of thousands or millions of voters. And those voters in turn stand for eligible non-voters, as well as those who are not eligible to vote, and beyond that, those who are not present to vote because they are dead or not yet born. The not-yet-born is an indefinite number that we hope is infinite, meaning that our people never dies. It seems miraculous that such a multitude could ever be represented by a relative handful of representatives (in the US, 535 Representatives and Senators for more than 300 million living people and untold billions of the dead and yet-to-be-born). Bear in mind, also, that practically every modern politician will eagerly claim to be really thinking about the good of the entire human race.

But we have not yet scaled the highest peak, for people quite spontaneously think of the president, prime minister, or monarch—a single individual—as representing the interests of the entire body politic. Even if that is not their constitutional role, there are circumstances—such as emergencies—in which such leaders are expected to intuit the common good and act accordingly.

Thus it is not surprising that cynics wish to claim that the very ideas of a sovereign people, a common good, and the ability to represent them in politics are simply myths and mumbo-jumbo. Wouldn’t it be better to replace such myths with concrete realities, like selfish individuals and value-neutral institutions that let them peacefully pursue their own private goods?

But the sovereign individual and the “invisible hand” are actually more problematic than the sovereign people and its avatars. From direct democracy in small towns to the popular uprisings that brought down communism, we have actual examples of sovereign peoples manifesting themselves and exercising power. We have actual examples of leaders representing a sovereign people, divining the common good, and acting to secure it.

There is no question that sovereign peoples actually exercise power for their common goods. But how it happens seems like magic. This explains why popular sovereignty is always breaking down. Which in turn explains why populist movements keep arising to return power to the people.

Populism and Democracy

The claim that populism is anti-democratic is false. Populism simply is another word for democracy, understood as popular sovereignty plus political empowerment of the many. Current elites claim that populism threatens “democracy” because they are advocates of specifically liberal democracy. (See my review of Jan-Werner Mueller’s What Is Populism? here ^[15] and William Galston’s Anti-Pluralism here ^[16].)

Liberal democrats claim to protect the rights of the individual and of minorities from unrestrained majoritarianism. Liberal democrats also defend “pluralism.” Finally, liberal democrats insist that the majority is simply not competent to participate directly in government, thus they must be content to elect representatives from an established political class and political parties. These representatives, moreover, give great latitude to unelected technocrats in the permanent bureaucracy.

Liberal democracy is, in short, anti-majoritarian and elitist. Populists recognize that such regimes can work for the public good, as long as the ruling elites are part of the people and see themselves as its servants. But without the oversight and empowerment of the people, there is nothing to prevent liberal democracy from mutating into the rule of corrupt elites for their private interests and for foreign interests. This is why populism is on the rise: to root out corruption and restore popular sovereignty and the common good.

Populists need not reject liberal protections for individuals and minorities, ethnic or political. They need not reject “pluralism” when it is understood as freedom of opinion and multiparty democracy. Populists don’t even reject elites, political representation, and technocratic competence. Populists can value all of these things. But they value the common good of the people even more, and they recognize that liberal values don’t necessarily serve the common good. When they don’t, they need to be brought into line. Liberals, however, tend to put their ideology above the common good, leading to the corruption of popular government. Ideological liberalism is a disease of democracy. Populism is the cure.

Populism and White Identity Politics

What is the connection between populism and white identity politics? I am both a populist and an advocate of white identity politics. But there are advocates of white identity politics who are anti-populist (for instance, those who are influenced by Traditionalism and monarchism), and there are non-white populists around the world (for instance, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and Thaksin Shinawatra in Thailand).

However, even if there is no necessary connection between populism and white identity politics, I wish to argue that the two movements should work together in every white country. White identitarians will be strengthened by populism, and populism will be strengthened by appeals to white identity.

Why should white identitarians align ourselves with populism? Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin argue in National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy that the rise of national populism is motivated by what they call “the Four Ds.” The first is Distrust, namely the breakdown of public trust in government. The second is Destruction, specifically the destruction of identity, the destruction of the ethnic composition of their homelands due to immigration and multiculturalism. The third trend is Deprivation, referring to the collapse of First-World living standards, especially middle-class and working-class living standards, due to globalization. The final trend is Dealignment, meaning the abandonment of the center-Left, center-Right duopolies common in post-Second World War democracies. (For more on Eatwell and Goodwin, see my “National Populism Is Here to Stay ^[18].”)

The Destruction of identity due to immigration and multiculturalism is a central issue for white identitarians. The Deprivation caused by globalization is also one of our central issues. The only way to fix these problems is to adopt white identitarian policies, namely to put the interests and identity of indigenous whites first. Once that principle is enshrined, everything we want follows as a matter of course. It is just a matter of time and will.

As for Distrust and Dealignment, these can go for or against us, but we can certainly relate to them, and we can contribute to and shape them as well.

Eatwell and Goodwin argue that the “Four Ds” are longstanding and deep-seated trends. They will be affecting politics for decades to come. National populism is the wave of the future, and we should ride it to political power.

Why do populists need to appeal to white identity? It all comes down to what counts as the people. Is the people at its core an ethnic group, or is it defined in purely civic terms? Populists of the Right appeal explicitly or implicitly to identitarian issues. Populists of the Left prefer to define the people in civic or class terms and focus on economic issues. Since, as Eatwell and Goodwin argue, both identitarian and economic issues are driving the rise of populism, populists of the Right will have a broader appeal because they appeal to both identity and economic issues.

The great task of white identitarians today is to destroy the legitimacy of civic nationalism and push the populism of the Right toward explicit white identitarianism.

If you want to support our work, please send us a donation by going to our Entropy page ^[19] and selecting “send paid chat.” Entropy allows you to donate any amount from $3 and up. All comments will be read and discussed in the next episode of Counter-Currents Radio, which airs every Friday.

Don’t forget to sign up ^[20] for the twice-monthly email Counter-Currents Newsletter for exclusive content, offers, and news.

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

URL to article: https://www.counter-currents.com/2020/08/notes-on-populism/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: https://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/freedomofspeech.jpg

[2] here: https://www.counter-currents.com/2019/04/why-the-people-cant-be-trusted/

[3] Image: https://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/ItsOkayCover.jpg

[4] here.: https://www.counter-currents.com/2020/07/its-okay-to-be-white/

[5] Image: https://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/FPTPFrontMedium.jpg

[6] here: https://www.counter-currents.com/from-plato-to-postmodernism-order/

[7] Image: https://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/TowardANewNationalismCOVERmedium.jpg

[8] here: https://www.counter-currents.com/toward-a-new-nationalism-order/

[9] Notes on Populism, Elitism, and Democracy: https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/09/notes-on-populism-elitism-and-democracy/

[10] here: https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/06/introduction-to-aristotles-politics-part-1/

[11] Image: https://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/NewRightOldRight1crop1-e1397004534744.jpg

[12] here: https://www.counter-currents.com/new-right-vs-old-right-order/

[13] Image: https://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/PrejudiceCropSmall.jpg

[14] here: https://www.counter-currents.com/in-defense-of-prejudice-order/

[15] here: https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/12/what-populism-isnt/

[16] here: https://www.counter-currents.com/2020/02/william-galstons-anti-pluralism/

[17] Image: https://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ConfessionsSecondEdSmall-1.gif

[18] National Populism Is Here to Stay: https://www.counter-currents.com/2019/07/national-populism-is-here-to-stay-2/

[19] our Entropy page: https://entropystream.live/countercurrents

[20] sign up: https://www.counter-currents.com/2020/05/sign-up-for-our-new-newsletter/

 

 

Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas avec la diversité ?

Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas avec la diversité ?

Greg Johnson

Il y a des contextes dans lesquels la diversité est une bonne chose. Par exemple, la diversité des produits sur le marché, la diversité des choix dans la vie, la diversité des opinions dans la politique et le milieu universitaire, et une diversité de points de vue dans les jurys pour décerner des prix ou rendre un jugement.

Mais dans le contexte de la politique contemporaine, la diversité signifie quelque chose de très spécifique, c’est-à-dire intégrer une variété de races et de groupes ethniques différents dans la même société ou institution. La diversité signifie aussi l’intégration des femmes et des minorités sexuelles dans des institutions qui les excluaient traditionnellement, comme l’armée. Evidemment, on peut imaginer une société sans diversité raciale et ethnique, mais on ne peut pas imaginer une société sans des hommes et des femmes. On peut cependant imaginer une société dans laquelle les hommes et les femmes ont des domaines et des rôles sociaux assez distincts.

Le multiculturalisme, le multiracialisme, le féminisme, et l’agenda LGBTQ constituent le sens principal de la diversité aujourd’hui. Les gens qui la promeuvent ont souvent très peu de respect pour la diversité d’opinions et la liberté de choix. Cette version politiquement correcte de la diversité est mon sujet ici.

Ce n’est pas une exagération de dire que l’éloge de la diversité est la religion civile de notre époque. Alors que dans le passé, il était obligatoire pour chacun – spécialement les ambitieux et les puissants – de rendre un hommage formel au christianisme, aujourd’hui les gens rivalisent pour offrir les éloges les plus excessifs et les professions de foi sincères au Dieu de la diversité. A partir de Bill Clinton, les présidents US – républicains et démocrates – ont répété le mantra que « la diversité est la plus grande force de l’Amérique ». Pas seulement une force parmi d’autres, mais notre plus grande force.

Même si l’armée, la police et les pompiers abaissent les standards de force physique pour accroître la diversité, ils proclament que leur vraie force se trouve dans la diversité elle-même. En fait, en 2007, le général George Casey, alors commandant de toutes les troupes US en Irak, proclama : « Je crois fermement que la force de notre armée vient de notre diversité » [1]. Pas des armes, pas de la technologie, pas de la formation, pas des muscles et du caractère des hommes, pas de l’unité d’un objectif commun. Mais de la diversité. Espérons que cette théorie ne sera jamais testée dans une bataille contre un adversaire sérieux.

Même si les institutions éducatives abaissent les standards d’admission et de diplômes, les programmes de base des classes, créent des disciplines nouvelles pour donner des diplômes et des emplois universitaires à des membres de groupes marginalisés, et dépensent des sommes énormes pour le recrutement des minorités et pour la propagande de la diversité, ils prétendent que l’éducation est plus forte que jamais du fait de toute cette diversité, même si par tous les standards objectifs la société dépense davantage pour l’éducation et les gens apprennent moins de choses que jamais auparavant.

La même pensée illusoire est endémique dans tous les autres secteurs de la société : les affaires, la religion, les associations caritatives, les arts, etc.

Les Nationalistes Blancs s’opposent à la diversité. Nous voulons des patries racialement et culturellement homogènes pour tous les peuples blancs. Parce que nos idées s’opposent à tout le courant majoritaire culturel et politique, les Nationalistes Blancs doivent avoir une bonne réponse à la question : « Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas avec la diversité ? ». Voici quatre raisons pour lesquelles la diversité serait une mauvaise chose, même si les Blancs n’étaient pas menacés d’extinction.

1. La diversité signifie dépossession blanche

La raison primordiale pour laquelle la diversité est mauvaise est très simple. Dès que nous parlons d’accroître la diversité dans une communauté ou une entreprise ou une église ou une école, c’est toujours un euphémisme pour avoir moins de Blancs. Pourquoi donc les Blancs devraient-ils penser que c’est souhaitable ? Il n’y a vraiment pas de bonne réponse à cela.

Donc quand quelqu’un dit : « Vous avez une jolie petite ville ici – c’est prospère, c’est propre, c’est amical –, mais elle manque d’une certaine diversité », la bonne réponse est : « Donc, vous pensez qu’il y a trop de Blancs ici ? Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas avec les Blancs ? Pourquoi n’aimez-vous pas les Blancs ? »

Maintenant certains pourraient répondre qu’ils ne veulent pas diminuer le nombre des Blancs. Ils veulent juste ajouter un peu d’épices. Mais cette réponse suppose que la pénurie n’existe pas, donc que vous pouvez ajouter des gens à une communauté sans accroître les coûts et abaisser les bénéfices pour les gens qui sont déjà là. Pourtant il est légitime de demander si l’accroissement de la diversité enlèvera des opportunités aux Blancs tout en accroissant la circulation, le crime, l’aliénation, les conflits, et d’autres fardeaux sociaux.

En plus de cela, même si quelqu’un dit qu’il ne veut pas diminuer le nombre absolu de Blancs, il maintient tout de même qu’il y a un trop grand pourcentage de Blancs dans la population totale. Donc demandez-lui pourquoi il veut que la population blanche soit diluée.

Si la diversité signifie simplement dépossession blanche, alors évidemment c’est une mauvaise chose pour les Blancs. Evidemment les Blancs allaient fatalement s’en offusquer. Maintenant nous commençons à résister à cela. Le Nationalisme Blanc est simplement la résistance inévitable au nettoyage ethnique anti-Blancs que nous appelons diversité. Bienvenue à la résistance.

Bien sûr l’accroissement de la diversité est mauvais pour les peuples indigènes de n’importe quel pays, pas seulement pour les Blancs. Quand les Blancs arrivèrent en Afrique, en Asie, et dans les Amériques, est-ce qu’ils n’accroissaient pas simplement la diversité de l’endroit ? Mon premier ancêtre à arriver dans les Amériques débarqua à Jamestown en 1612. Il fuyait l’oppression et la pauvreté. Il tentait de construire une vie meilleure pour lui-même et sa famille. Et il apportait de la diversité au Nouveau Monde. Mais les Blancs n’obtiennent jamais de reconnaissance pour cela. C’est toujours décrit comme du colonialisme et du génocide quand les Blancs le font. N’est-ce pas aussi mauvais quand des non-Blancs le font à nous ?

2. La diversité affaiblit toutes les institutions

La diversité, nous dit-on, renforcera littéralement tout. Probablement cette force signifie que chaque institution touchée par la diversité accomplira mieux sa fonction. Les quartiers seront de meilleurs endroits où vivre. Les gouvernements promouvront mieux la justice et l’harmonie. Les écoles éduqueront et formeront mieux les étudiants. Les hôpitaux guériront mieux les malades. Les armées et la police produiront plus de sécurité. Les pompiers et les équipes médicales d’urgence sauveront plus de vies. Les Eglises sauveront plus d’âmes. Les hommes d’affaires produiront plus de profits. Et ainsi de suite.

Mais cela n’a pas de sens. Chaque institution est définie par ses buts. Donc pour bien fonctionner, chaque institution doit trouver des gens qui sont bons pour promouvoir ses buts. Les enseignants doivent enseigner. Les pompiers doivent combattre les feux. Les soldats doivent combattre les ennemis. Etc. Dans toute institution, le critère principal pour engager et promouvoir des gens est l’aptitude à contribuer au but de l’institution. Aucune institution ne peut être améliorée en introduisant des critères rivaux de succès, comme la diversité.

Par conséquent, dès que la diversité devient la « plus grande force » d’une institution, les gens abaisseront naturellement ses standards de succès pour promouvoir la diversité. Par exemple, les soldats et les pompiers doivent être physiquement forts pour accomplir leurs fonctions. Mais quand la diversité devient une valeur – spécialement l’intégration des femmes dans des professions requérant de la force physique – les standards sont inévitablement abaissés, affaiblissant ainsi l’institution de la manière la plus importante : en la rendant moins capable d’accomplir sa fonction. Donc la diversité n’est pas une force. C’est une faiblesse.

3. La diversité est une source de conflits

La diversité est une source de conflit à l’intérieur des institutions et à l’intérieur des sociétés en général. Ces conflits les gênent dans l’accomplissement de leurs fonctions, même si l’on n’adopte pas le but d’une promotion artificielle de la diversité. Une école divisée par des  conflits ne peut pas enseigner aussi bien qu’une école harmonieuse. Une armée divisée par des conflits ne peut pas combattre aussi bien qu’une armée unifiée. Une société affectée par des conflits est un endroit moins agréable à vivre qu’une société pacifique.

L’idée qu’une société ou une institution puisse être améliorée par la diversité est une aberration de la fin du XXe siècle et du début du XXIe siècle. Aucun philosophe politique ou homme d’Etat sérieux du passé n’aurait entretenu cette idée pendant un instant.

Le but de la politique est de créer de l’ordre social et de l’harmonie. Fondamentalement, c’est le problème de s’entendre les uns avec les autres. La vie sociale doit apporter des bénéfices nets à ses participants, ou les gens suivront chacun leur chemin séparément, et la société s’effondrera. Mais au-delà de cela, puisque nous ne sommes pas juste des individualistes égoïstes, nous devons cultiver la responsabilité sociale et l’investissement social, afin que les gens travaillent à améliorer la société et soient en fait prêts à mourir pour assurer qu’elle soit préservée et perpétuée. Ce sont les grands problèmes de la politique : créer de l’harmonie sociale et un sens profond d’identification avec l’organisme politique, de responsabilité vis-à-vis de l’organisme politique, de bonne volonté à donner sa vie pour l’organisme politique.

Maintenant, comment la diversité raciale et ethnique aide-t-elle à atteindre ces buts ? Imaginez que vous vivez dans une rue arborée d’un quartier idyllique où beaucoup d’enfants jouent. Mais à mesure que la population s’accroît et que la circulation devient plus difficile, vous remarquez que beaucoup de gens traversent en voiture votre quartier plutôt rapidement. Ils ont découvert que votre rue est un raccourci pour passer d’une grande artère congestionnée à une autre, donc ils traversent à toute vitesse votre quartier autrefois tranquille, mettant en danger les petits enfants.

Vous décidez de faire quelque chose. Vous voulez que la ville installe des ralentisseurs. Pour faire cela, vous devez d’abord allez voir vos voisins et les mettre de votre coté, pour pouvoir faire bloc et faire une pétition pour réclamer des ralentisseurs. Mais pour mettre vos voisins de votre coté, vous devez pouvoir communiquer avec eux. Ne serait-ce pas bien ? Mais en Amérique aujourd’hui, il y a beaucoup de quartiers où vous ne pouvez plus communiquer avec vos voisins. Ils ne parlent pas la même langue.

Au-delà de cela, même si vous parlez la même langue, vous devez encore avoir les mêmes valeurs. Les nations blanches sont aujourd’hui colonisées par des gens qui ne s’investissent pas du tout pour celles-ci. Ils sont ici uniquement pour prendre. Ils viennent de sociétés qui sont caractérisées par la misère publique et la splendeur privée. A l’intérieur des murs de leurs maisons, tout est charmant, mais dehors dans les rues il y a des chiens morts et des nids de poule, et c’est très bien pour eux. C’est leur système de valeurs. Essayez de motiver des gens ayant ce système de valeurs pour qu’ils s’impliquent afin de faire mettre des ralentisseurs dans votre rue, même s’ils ont des petits enfants, même si cela pourrait les protéger. C’est très difficile.

Pour poursuivre des buts communs, vous devez déjà avoir des choses en commun. Vous devez avoir une langue commune pour communiquer. Vous devez connaître la mentalité des autres gens. Mais quand vous connaissez la mentalité des autres, c’est que vous avez les mêmes valeurs qu’eux, ou vous ne pourrez jamais poursuivre les mêmes buts.

La diversité mine toutes ces choses. A un certain moment, il devient impossible de rechercher ou de préserver les nombreux biens sociaux qui furent créés quand les Etats-Unis ou la Suède ou toute autre société européenne étaient en grande majorité européens, c’est-à-dire quand les gens parlaient la même langue, avaient les mêmes valeurs, connaissaient la mentalité des autres gens, et sentaient qu’ils pouvaient donner à la communauté parce que ce ne serait pas un acte de sacrifice sans réciprocité. Une diversité accrue cause une confiance sociale plus faible, un engagement social plus faible, et la destruction du domaine public. Ce n’est pas bon pour la société.

Ainsi, les philosophes et les hommes d’Etat à travers les âges ont considéré que l’homogénéité raciale, ethnique et religieuse était une énorme bénédiction. Par exemple, le père fondateur américain John Jay – qui a dû réfléchir plus profondément que Bill Clinton ou Barack Obama sur les sources de l’ordre politique – remarqua avec plaisir dans les Federalist Papers No. 2 que « la Providence avait été heureuse de donner ce pays unique à un peuple uni – des gens descendant des mêmes ancêtres, parlant la même langue, professant la même religion, attachés aux mêmes principes de gouvernement, très similaires dans leurs manières et coutumes… ». Jay ne considérait même pas les esclaves nègres ou les Indiens américains comme faisant partie du peuple américain. Les Fondateurs pensaient que tenter de les intégrer dans le nouveau système sur un pied d’égalité avec les Blancs aurait rendu la nouvelle société plus faible, pas plus forte.

Lee Kuan Yew, le fondateur de la Singapour moderne, devait créer de l’ordre dans une société multiraciale, ce qui le conduisit à adopter l’autoritarisme, pas la démocratie libérale. Dans une interview avec le Spiegel, Yew déclara : « Dans les sociétés multiraciales, vous ne votez pas d’après vos intérêts économiques et sociaux, vous votez d’après la race et la religion » [2]. Ainsi la démocratie dans un contexte multiracial n’était pas cohérente avec un ordre politique, particulièrement un ordre politique qui pouvait poursuivre un bien commun. La démocratie ne peut pas parvenir d’une manière fiable à un consensus de gouvernement si les gens qui votent ne sont pas déjà très similaires entre eux. Sans une population relativement homogène, l’ordre doit être imposé de haut en bas. Donc plus la diversité augmente, plus la démocratie échoue.

L’ancienne vérité que la diversité cause le conflit est également appuyée par la science sociale contemporaine. Par exemple, le sociologue de Harvard, Robert D. Putnam étudia 41 communautés aux Etats-Unis, allant de celles hautement diverses à d’autres hautement homogènes. Il découvrit que la confiance sociale était fortement corrélée avec l’homogénéité et la méfiance sociale avec la diversité. Il découvrit que même des gens de la même race et du même groupe ethnique se font moins confiance lorsqu’ils vivent dans des communautés diverses. Après avoir éliminé les autres causes possibles pour les variations de la confiance sociale, Putnam conclut que « la diversité a en soi un effet majeur » [3]. La diversité conduit à la rupture de la confiance sociale, qui mène au déclin général de l’ordre social. Ainsi, d’après Putnam, dans les communautés diverses les gens font moins confiance au gouvernement et aux médias, se sentent politiquement dépossédés, participent moins à la politique et aux projets de la communauté, proposent moins leur aide, donnent moins aux organisations caritatives, ont moins d’amis, passent plus de temps à regarder la TV, et se sentent moins heureux dans leur vie.

Le spécialiste de science politique Tatu Vanhanen parvint à des conclusions similaires à partir d’une étude comparative de la diversité et des conflits dans 148 pays [4]. Vanhanen découvrit que le conflit social n’est pas fortement corrélé avec les différences de richesse et de pauvreté, ou avec les différences entre gouvernements démocratiques et autoritaires. Mais il est fortement corrélé avec la diversité. Qu’elles soient riches ou pauvres, démocratiques ou autoritaires, les sociétés diverses ont plus de conflits que les sociétés homogènes, qui sont plus harmonieuses, quels que soient les niveaux de richesse ou de démocratisation.

Promouvoir la diversité est une mauvaise manière de gouverner une société, même celles qui ne sont pas menacées de déclin démographique.

4. La source la plus profonde d’harmonie sociale

Pourquoi la diversité est-elle une source de disharmonie ? Et pourquoi la similarité est-elle une source d’harmonie ? Est-ce entièrement une question de culture, c’est-à-dire une langue commune et un système de valeurs commun ? Ou y a-t-il quelque chose de plus, quelque chose de plus profond ? Les Nationalistes Blancs disent que la source ultime d’harmonie politique n’est pas la culture. C’est la génétique.

L’idée nationaliste civique est essentiellement que nous pouvons créer une société harmonieuse unifiée à partir de groupes de gens radicalement différents si nous les assimilons dans une langue commune et un système de valeurs commun. Les nationalistes civiques s’accrochent à l’idée d’assimilation, parce que sans elle ils devraient briser le terrible tabou du « racisme ».

Bien sûr nous ne tentons même pas d’assimiler des immigrants aujourd’hui. Nous avons perdu la confiance en nous culturelle pour obliger les étrangers à adopter nos normes et notre mode de vie. En plus de cela, les immigrants tentent très agressivement de nous assimiler, morceau par morceau. En outre, tant que nous n’aurons pas regagné la confiance en nous pour tenter d’assimiler les étrangers, les assimilationnistes conservateurs devraient soutenir un arrêt total de l’immigration. Et nous devons demander : les conservateurs veulent-ils vraiment assimiler nos immigrants les plus récents ? Ces gens peuvent-ils vraiment améliorer l’Amérique ou tout autre pays blanc ?

Franchement, je suis heureux que l’assimilationnisme ait été abandonné quand nous avons ouvert nos frontières au Tiers Monde. Je ne veux pas du tout assimiler des non-Blancs, car plus ils sont assimilés, plus ils se marient souvent avec des Blancs et plus ils gagnent du pouvoir et de l’influence dans nos sociétés. Donc il vaut mieux que leurs communautés restent aussi séparées et aliénées que possible, plutôt que de se mêler au reste de la société. Cela leur rendra beaucoup plus facile de rentrer chez eux un jour.

Mais même si nous regagnions assez de confiance en nous culturelle pour demander l’assimilation, ce n’est pas une chose facile. La plupart des Américains aujourd’hui sont un mélange de souches européennes différentes. Certains pensent : « Eh bien, ce fut facile ». Mais ce ne le fut pas. Même la connaissance la plus superficielle de l’histoire américaine nous enseigne qu’il y eut des conflits énormes quand des groupes très similaires vinrent d’Europe pour s’installer aux Etats-Unis.

Les gens des Iles Britanniques sont très similaires entre eux, génétiquement et culturellement. Ils parlent même une langue commune. Mais les Irlandais n’étaient pas les bienvenus en Amérique, principalement à cause d’une unique différence culturelle : le catholicisme. Mais c’était suffisant pour créer d’énormes conflits et beaucoup de mauvaise volonté.

Ces conflits furent exacerbés quand des groupes encore plus différents culturellement vinrent aux Etats-Unis, venant d’Europe du Sud et de l’Est. A cause de ces conflits, les Etats-Unis votèrent un acte de restriction de l’immigration en 1924, pas pour s’occuper de l’immigration non-blanche, qui était presque inexistante, mais de l’immigration blanche venant d’Europe.

Je suis heureux que l’Amérique ait traversé ces crises et ait réussi à fondre des groupes d’immigrants européens différents en un nouveau peuple : les Américains. Je suis absolument opposé à toute tentative, même sous l’apparence de l’humour, de rouvrir de vieux conflits ethniques en Amérique. Nous sommes tous des Américains maintenant, et la plupart du temps quand des Blancs affichent une identité américaine à trait d’union, c’est simplement une personne d’ascendance européenne mélangée prétendant être un Italien ou un Irlandais ou un Polonais à cause de son nom de famille.

L’assimilation eut aussi d’énormes coûts culturels. Par exemple, les Américains se souciaient énormément des différences entre protestantisme et catholicisme. Pour assimiler de grands nombres d’immigrants catholiques, les Américains finirent simplement par cesser de se soucier des différences religieuses. Nous cessâmes de nous soucier d’un grand nombre de différences historiques et culturelles entre les Européens, c’est seulement ainsi que nous pûmes cesser de nous battre pour celles-ci. L’assimilation culturelle, en bref, efface les différences culturelles. Cesser de nous soucier d’elles est une forme rampante de nihilisme qui nous a aliénés de nos ancêtres, qui nous regarderaient comme des héritiers indignes qui ont abandonné leur héritage culturel.

Donc il est absurde de dire : « C’est du gâteau d’assimiler tous ces groupes européens, donc jetons des Pakistanais et des Somalis dans le melting-pot ! ». C’était déjà difficile d’assimiler d’autres Européens. Donc pourquoi créer des problèmes en important des gens encore plus radicalement différents ? Il n’y a pas de bénéfice égoïste ou d’impératif moral qui nous oblige à transformer nos sociétés en champs de bataille une fois de plus. Spécialement parce que cette fois c’est une bataille que nous ne pouvons pas gagner, puisque des peuples radicalement étrangers ne pourraient pas être assimilés, même si nous le tentions.

Il fut possible d’assimiler d’autres Européens seulement parce qu’ils n’étaient pas si différents, pour commencer. Les Etats-Unis ne réussirent jamais à assimiler les Noirs, les Indiens américains, et les Asiatiques, dont la plupart sont simplement en Amérique, mais n’en font pas partie. L’assimilation blanche fut possible parce que, au-delà de toutes nos différences culturelles, nous sommes génétiquement très similaires.

Les Blancs sont en fait les plus génétiquement similaires de toutes les races, parce qu’il y a eu des moments dans notre histoire évolutionnaire où il y avait très peu d’entre nous, et nous avons tous une ascendance commune. Donc les différences génétiques entre l’Europe de l’Est et de l’Ouest et l’Europe du Nord et du Sud sont très petites, et cette similarité génétique fut suffisante pour combler de vastes gouffres et conflits culturels.

1. La Théorie de la similarité génétique
2.  
3. Philippe Rushton était un psychologue évolutionnaire qui est surtout connu pour son livre Race, Evolution, and Behavior [Race, évolution et comportement]. Il est moins connu pour ses recherches sur ce qu’il appelait la Théorie de la similarité génétique [5]. Quand Rushton me présenta cette idée, c’était dans le contexte d’une relation personnelle. Il dit : « Les contraires ne s’attirent pas, et je peux le prouver avec la science ». Mais il aurait tout aussi bien pu dire : « La diversité cause le conflit, et je peux le prouver avec la science ».

La Théorie de la similarité génétique montre que l’affection, l’harmonie et l’altruisme parmi les humains – et les êtres vivants en général – dépendent de la similarité génétique. Plus deux créatures sont génétiquement similaires, plus probablement elles auront des relations harmonieuses.

L’explication ultime pour cela est l’impératif biologique pour les gènes de se reproduire. On pourrait penser que cet impératif conduirait à un comportement impitoyablement égoïste et compétitif. Mais ce n’est pas le cas, parce que les gènes qui cherchent à se propager sont présents dans de multiples individus. On partage le plus de gènes avec la famille proche, de moins en moins de gènes avec des parents plus éloignés, et quelques gènes avec chacun dans son groupe ethnique et racial plus large.

Donc chaque individu aura une tendance à un comportement coopératif, harmonieux et même altruiste envers ceux qui partagent le plus de gènes avec lui. Les individus sont souvent capables de sacrifier leurs vies pour leurs familles et communautés si cela assure la plus grande propagation de leurs gènes parmi leurs semblables.

Mais l’autre face de l’amour de ses semblables est l’hostilité envers les étrangers. Ainsi les êtres humains et les autres animaux sont prêts à combattre les étrangers pour protéger les intérêts génétiques de leur famille, tribu, nation, et race. C’est le fondement de la politique, et de la politique par d’autres moyens, c’est-à-dire la guerre.

La science derrière la Théorie de la similarité génétique est très forte. Mais nous n’avons pas vraiment besoin des études de Rushton pour prouver cela, parce que nous connaissons tous un phénomène qui montre que la similarité génétique génère l’harmonie : les vrais jumeaux. Les vrais jumeaux ont exactement les mêmes gènes.

J’ai rencontré un jour une paire de vrais jumeaux, et l’un d’eux dit quelque chose de très touchant et mémorable. Ce devrait être le titre d’un livre sur les jumeaux. Il dit : « Nous sommes moins deux personnes qu’un seul œuf divisé ». C’était une indication du niveau d’harmonie entre eux. Simplement en les regardant discuter et interagir, on pouvait voir qu’ils savaient exactement ce que l’autre allait dire, ce que l’autre pensait ; ils pouvaient finir les phrases de l’autre. Et de fait, les études sur les vrais jumeaux, spécialement les jumeaux élevés séparément, démontrent à quel point le déterminisme génétique est vraiment massif et finement détaillé, par opposition aux facteurs environnementaux et culturels [6].

La plus grande harmonie entre deux personnes est l’harmonie des vrais jumeaux. Ils connaissent les idées de l’autre d’une manière telle que même les faux jumeaux ou les frères et sœurs ordinaires ne la connaissent simplement pas. En fait, si vous vouliez créer la société la plus harmonieuse possible, ce serait une société de clones. Bien sûr vous auriez besoin d’un peu plus de diversité génétique si vous vouliez avoir une reproduction sexuelle, mais étonnamment peu. En Islande, on a découvert que les mariages les plus harmonieux et la plupart des enfants les plus équilibrés viennent de gens qui sont génétiquement aussi similaires que des cousins au troisième ou au quatrième degré [7].

La Théorie de la similarité génétique prédirait que les sociétés les plus heureuses dans le monde sont aussi les plus homogènes génétiquement. C’est certainement vrai dans le cas du Danemark, qui est souvent classé comme le pays le plus heureux dans le monde [8] et qui est aussi l’un des plus homogènes génétiquement [9]. La Théorie de la similarité génétique prédit aussi que plus une société augmentera sa diversité génétique, moins elle sera harmonieuse, unifiée, et heureuse. Même si une telle société réussissait d’une manière ou d’une autre à « assimiler » cette diversité croissante dans une langue et un système de valeurs communs, elle serait quand même moins harmonieuse et moins heureuse qu’une société génétiquement homogène. Une société peut accroître sa diversité génétique même en assimilant des gens de la même race, mais l’accroissement le plus spectaculaire de la diversité génétique vient des immigrants de races entièrement différentes. Une diversité raciale accrue rend une société plus faible et moins harmonieuse. La diversité n’est pas une force du tout.

Le Nationalisme Blanc est simplement l’idée d’une société où tout le monde autour de vous est votre parentèle. C’est une société où vous pouvez comprendre vos concitoyens et leur faire confiance. Où vous pouvez coopérer pour poursuivre le bien commun. Où vous aurez envie de participer à de grands projets, même si vous ne les verrez peut-être pas terminés de votre vivant. Où les gens plantent des arbres pour que les générations futures puissent avoir de l’ombre. C’est une société dans laquelle les gens ressentent une identité si forte avec l’organisme politique qu’ils sont prêts à sacrifier leur vie pour lui, s’ils le doivent. Mais le plus important, c’est une société dans laquelle vous pouvez vous sentir chez vous. C’est le but du Nationalisme Blanc : assurer des patries pour tous les peuples blancs.

Sans patries, les gens de notre peuple se sentent déracinés, détachés, et aliénés. Ils désirent être avec des gens de même culture, de même histoire, et de même destin. Mais il y a plus que cela. Ils désirent aussi être avec des gens qui vibrent sur les mêmes fréquences inconscientes profondes de la parenté raciale blanche qui nous réunit tous. C’est ce que le Nationalisme Blanc veut recréer pour notre peuple.

Nous sommes pour la fraternité et l’appartenance. La diversité nous les enlève. C’est ce qui ne va pas avec la diversité.

Notes

[1] https://www.army.mil/article/6405/gen_casey_announces _creation_of_diversity_task_force

[2] http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2005/08/lee-kuan-yew-interview.html

[3] Robert D. Putnam, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century,” Scandinavian Political Studies, 30 (2007), p. 153.

[4] Tatu Vanhanen, Ethnic Conflicts Explained by Ethnic Nepotism (Stamford, Conn.: JAI Press, 1999).

[5] J. P. Rushton, “Ethnic Nationalism, Evolutionary Psychology, and Genetic Similarity

Theory,” Nations and Nationalism 11 (2005): 489–507.

[6] Nancy Segal, Born Together―Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012).

[7] https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080207/full/news. 2008.562.html

[8] https://www.livescience.com/62150-why-denmark-is-happiest-country.html

[9] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161011131428.htm

Ce texte constitue le chapitre 10 de The White Nationalist Manifesto (Le Manifeste Nationaliste Blanc) de Greg Johnson, publié aux USA en 2018.

Pour toutes commandes de livres de Greg Johnson, se rendre sur le site http://www.counter)currents.com

 

Remembering Guillaume Faye: November 7, 1949–March 7, 2019

By Greg Johnson

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

Today is Guillaume Faye’s first birthday since his death earlier this year after a battle with cancer. Faye had been sick for some time, but he was so focused on writing what will now be his last book that he postponed seeing a doctor until it was complete. When he finally sought medical attention, he was diagnosed with stage four cancer. There is no stage five. Guillaume Faye gave his life for his work, and his work for Europe.

Faye, like New Rightists and White Nationalists in European societies around the globe, was motivated by a sense of danger: the reigning system — liberal, democratic, capitalist, egalitarian, globalist — has set the white race in all of its homelands on the path to extinction through declining birthrates and race replacement through immigration and miscegenation. If we are to survive, we must understand this system, critique it, and frame an alternative that will secure the survival and flourishing of our race. Then we need to figure out how we can actually implement these ideas.

I like Faye’s approach for a number of reasons.

First, Faye thinks big. He wants to take all of Europe back for Europeans. I completely agree with this aim. Furthermore, to secure the existence of Europe against the other races and power blocs, Faye envisions the creation of a vast “Eurosiberian” Imperium, stretching from Iceland to the Pacific, with a federated system of government and an autarkic economy. He believes that only such an imperium will be equal to the challenges posed by the other races in a world of burgeoning populations and shrinking resources. As I argue in my essay “Grandiose Nationalism ^[2],” I think that such ideas are neither necessary nor practical and they entail dangers of their own. But nobody can fault them for visionary boldness.

Second, Faye thinks racially. His answer to the question “Who are we?” is ultimately racial, not cultural, religious, or subracial: white people are a vast, extended family descending from the original inhabitants of Europe after the last Ice Age. There are, of course, cultural and subracial identities that are also worth preserving within a federated imperium, but not at the expense of the greater racial whole.

Third, Faye is not a Luddite, primitivist, or Hobbit. He values our heritage, but he is attracted less to external social and cultural forms than to the vital drives that created them and express themselves in them. He also wishes to do justice to European man’s Faustian drive toward exploration, adventure, science, and technology. His “archeofuturism” seeks to fuse vital, archaic, biologically-based values with modern science and technology.

Fourth, Faye turns the idea of collapse into something more than a deus ex machina, a kind of Rapture for racists. We know a priori that an unsustainable system cannot be sustained forever and that some sort of collapse is inevitable. But Faye provides a detailed and systematic and crushingly convincing analysis of how the present system may well expire from a convergence of catastrophes. Of course, we need to be ready when the collapse comes. We need a clear metapolitical framework and an organized, racially conscious community to step into the breach, or when the present system collapses, it will simply be replaced with a rebranded form of the same ethnocidal regime.

Fifth, Faye is a strong critic of Christianity as the primary fount of the moral universalism, egalitarianism, and individualism that are at the root of our decline.

The only really fundamental disagreement I have with Faye was on the Jewish question. His views are closer to those of Jared Taylor, whereas mine are closer to those of Kevin MacDonald.

I only met Faye once, at the 2006 American Renaissance conference, where we had a couple of enjoyable conversations. We corresponded occasionally before and after that meeting. One of my treasured possessions is a copy of Faye’s first book, Le Système à tuer les peuples (Copernic, 1981), which he had given to Savitri Devi. Unfortunately, he was never able to locate his brief correspondence with Savitri. Perhaps it will come to light in his papers, which should be carefully preserved. If European man has a future, it will be due in no small part to Faye’s works. He belongs to history now, and future European generations will look dimly upon us if we fail to conserve and carry on his legacy.

I wish to draw your attention to many pieces by and about Faye at Counter-Currents.

By Guillaume Faye:

• “Call to Young Europeans ^[3],” trans. Greg Johnson (Translations: Czech ^[4], Greek ^[5], Portuguese ^[6], Spanish ^[7])
• “The Cause of the Peoples ^[8]?,” trans. Michael O’Meara
• “The Conquest of Europe Begins ^[9],” trans. Guillaume Durocher
• “Cosmopolis: The West as Nowhere ^[10],” trans. Greg Johnson
• “From Dusk to Dawn ^[11],” trans. Michael O’Meara
• “The Essence of Archaism ^[12],” trans. Irmin Vinson
• “The Geopolitics of Ethnopolitics: The Concept of Eurosiberia ^[13],” trans. Greg Johnson
• “Guillaume Faye on Nietzsche ^[14],” trans. Greg Johnson (Czech translation here ^[15])
• “The Intentional Genocide of European Peoples ^[16]?,” trans. Greg Johnson (Spanish trans. here ^[17])
• Interview on Dominique Venner ^[18], trans. Greg Johnson (Spanish trans.)
• Interview with Guillaume Faye ^[19]
• “The Islamic Conquest of Europe ^[20],” trans. Irmin Vinson
• “Islamism is Less Dangerous than Islam ^[21],” trans. Greg Johnson
• “Jihadist Carnage in Paris,” Part 1 ^[22] (Spanish trans ^[23].), Part 2 ^[24], trans. Greg Johnson
• “The Lesson of Carl Schmitt ^[25],” with Robert Steuckers, trans. Greg Johnson
• “Macron: Artifact and Puppet ^[26],” trans. Guillaume Durocher
• “Mars and Hephaestus: The Return of History ^[27],” trans. Greg Johnson (Russian translation here ^[28])
• “The Migratory Invasion,” Part 1 ^[29] (Spanish trans ^[30].), Part 2 ^[31] (Spanish trans ^[32].), Part 3 ^[33] (Spanish trans ^[34],), trans. Greg Johnson
• “On the Essence of War ^[35],” trans. Greg Johnson
• “On the Russian Annexation of Crimea ^[36],” trans. Greg Johnson (Czech trans ^[37].)
• “People ^[38]” (from Why We Fight)
• “State and Society ^[39],” trans. Greg Johnson
• “Ten Untimely Ideas ^[40],” trans. Michael O’Meara
• “Traditionalism: This is the Enemy! ^[41],” trans. Greg Johnson
• “Tribute to Dominique Venner ^[42],” trans. Greg Johnson (Translations Czech ^[43], Greek ^[44], Spanish ^[45])
• “Trump: Revolution or Simulacrum?” Part 1 ^[46], Part 2 ^[47], Part 3 ^[48], trans. Guillaume Durocher
• “Ukraine: Understanding the Russian Position ^[49],” trans. Greg Johnson

About Guillaume Faye:

• Francis Alexander, “Toward Euro-Siberia ^[50]” (Portuguese translation here ^[51])
• F. Roger Devlin, “The Rectification of Names: Guillaume Faye’s Why We Fight ^[52]”
• F. Roger Devlin, “A Serious Case: Guillaume Faye’s Archeofuturism ^[53]”
• Jack Donovan, “‘Corporatism’ or Mercantilism? ^[54]”
• Ricardo Duchesne, “The European New Right and its Animus Against Western Civ ^[55]”
• Georges Feltin-Tracol, “Back to the Future: Guillaume Faye’s Archeofuturism ^[56]”
• Andrew Hamilton, “Pan-Nationalism ^[57]”
• Thomas Jackson, “Life After the Collapse: Guillaume Faye’s Archeofuturism ^[58]”
• Greg Johnson, “Grandiose Nationalism ^[2]” (Translations: French ^[59], German ^[60], Russian ^[61], Spanish ^[62])
• Greg Johnson, “Project Septentrion: The Last Line of Defense ^[63]” (French originals here ^[64])
• Greg Johnson, “Review of Michael O’Meara’s Guillaume Faye and the Battle of Europe ^[65]” (Czech translation here ^[66])
• Greg Johnson, “Theory and Practice ^[67]” (Translations: French ^[68], Polish ^[69])
• Julian Langness, “Desired Storms: Guillaume Faye’s The Colonisation of Europe ^[70]”
• Robert Lind, “A Field Day for the Titanic Pessimist: A Review of Guillaume Faye’s Archeofuturism 2.0 ^[71]”
• Michael O’Meara, “Europe’s Enemy: Islam or America? Guillaume Faye’s Le coup d’Etat mondial ^[72]”
• Michael O’Meara, Foreword to Guillaume Faye’s Archeofuturism ^[73]
• Michael O’Meara, “Guillaume Faye and the Jews ^[74]”
• Michael O’Meara, “The New Jewish Question of Guillaume Faye ^[75]”
• Michael O’Meara, “Preparing for World War III: Guillaume Faye’s Avant-Guerre ^[76]”
• Michael O’Meara, “Sex and Derailment: Guillaume Faye’s Sexe et Devoiement ^[77]”
• Michael O’Meara, “The Transitional Program: Guillaume Faye’s Mon Programme ^[78]”
• Michael O’Meara, “The Widening Gyre: Guillaume Corvus’ La convergence des catastrophes ^[79]”
• Christopher Pankhurst, “Guillaume Faye’s Archeofuturism 2.0 ^[80]”
• Christopher Pankhurst, “Guillaume Faye’s Sex and Deviance ^[81]”
• Michael Walker, “Guillaume Faye’s Archeofuturism ^[82]”

 

What is the Alternative Right?

By Greg Johnson 

Ex: http://www.counter-currents.com 

Author’s Note:

This is the opening essay of a forthcoming anthology called The Alternative Right.    

The Alternative Right does not have an essence, but it does have a story, a story that begins and ends with Richard Spencer. The story has four chapters. 

First the term “Alternative Right” was coined in 2008. Then the Alternative Right webzine was launched on March 1, 2010 and ran until December 25, 2013. When it was first coined, the Alternative Right simply referred to an alternative to the American conservative mainstream. When it became the name of a publication, it functioned as a broad umbrella term encompassing such schools of thought as paleoconservatism, libertarianism, race-realism, the European New Right, Southern Nationalism, and White Nationalism. By the time the Alternative Right webzine was shut down, however, the term Alt Right had taken on a life of its own. It was not just the name of a webzine, but a generic term for Right-wing alternatives to the conservative mainstream.

The second chapter is the emergence in 2015 of a vital, youth-oriented, largely online Right-wing movement. This movement encompassed a wide range of opinions from White Nationalism and outright neo-Nazism to populism and American civic nationalism. Thus this movement quite naturally gravitated to the broad generic term Alt Right. The new Alt Right threw itself behind Donald Trump’s run for the presidency soon after he entered the race in 2015 and became increasingly well-known as Trump’s most ferocious defenders in online battles, to the point that Hillary Clinton actually gave a speech attacking the Alt Right on August 25, 2016.

The third chapter is the Alt Right “brand war” of the fall of 2016. The Alt Right “brand” had become so popular that it was being widely adopted by Trumpian civic nationalists, who rejected the racism of White Nationalists. White Nationalists began to worry that their brand was being coopted and started to push back against the civic nationalists. The brand war ended on November 21, 2016 at a National Policy Institute conference with the incident known as Hailgate ^[2], in which Richard Spencer uttered the words “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” and raised his whiskey glass in a toast, to which some people in the audience responded with Hitler salutes. When video of this went public, civic nationalists quickly abandoned the Alt Right brand, and the “Alt Lite” was born.

The fourth chapter is the story of the centralization and decline of the Alt Right, largely under the control of Richard Spencer. This period was characterized by polarization and purges, as well as the attempt to transform the Alt Right from an online to a real-world movement, which culminated at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 11–12, 2017. Both trends led the Alt Right to shrink considerably. Some abandoned the brand. Others abandoned the entire movement. The remnant has retreated back to its strongholds on the internet. As of this writing, there is no fifth chapter, and the Alt Right’s future, if any, remains to be seen. Like cancer, there may be no stage five.

1. The Invention of a Brand

The Alternative Right brand first emerged in the fuzzy space where the paleoconservative movement overlaps with White Nationalism. The term “paleoconservatism” was coined by Paul Gottfried, an American Jewish political theorist and commentator. Paleoconservatism defined itself as a genuinely conservative opposition to the heresy of neoconservatism.

The paleoconservative movement was a safe space for the discussion and advocacy of everything that neoconservatism sought to abolish from the conservative movement: Christianity, tradition, America’s white identity, an America-first foreign policy, immigration restriction, opposition to globalization and free trade, the defense of traditional/biological sexual roles and institutions, and even—although mostly behind closed doors—biological race differences and the Jewish question.

Aside from Gottfried, the leading paleocons included Samuel Francis, who openly associated with White Nationalists; Joseph Sobran, who was purged from National Review for anti-Semitism and who also openly associated with White Nationalists; and Patrick Buchanan, who stayed closer to the political mainstream but was eventually purged from MSNBC for “racism” because his book Suicide of a Superpower ^[3] defended the idea of the United States as a normatively white society.

William H. Regnery II (b. 1941) is a crucial figure in the rise of the Alt Right because of his work in creating institutional spaces in which paleoconservatives and White Nationalists could exchange ideas. Lazy journalists repeatedly refer to Regnery as a “publishing heir.” In fact, his money came from his grandfather William H. Regnery’s textile business. The conservative Regnery Publishing house was founded by Henry Regnery, the son of William H. Regnery and the uncle of William H. Regnery II. (In 1993, the Regnery family sold Regnery Publishing to Phillips Publishing International.)

In 1999–2001, William H. Regnery II played a key role in founding the Charles Martel Society, which publishes the quarterly journal The Occidental Quarterly, currently edited by Kevin MacDonald. In 2004–2005, Regnery spearheaded the foundation of the National Policy Institute, which was originally conceived as a vehicle for Sam Francis, who died in February of 2005. NPI was run by Louis R. Andrews until 2011, when Richard Spencer took over. Both the Charles Martel Society and the National Policy Institute are White Nationalist in orientation. The Occidental Quarterly is also openly anti-Semitic.

But at the same time Regnery was involved with CMS and NPI, he was also working with Jewish paleocon Paul Gottfried to create two academic Rightist groups that were friendly to Jews. First, there was the Academy of Philosophy and Letters,[1] ^[4] of which Richard Spencer was reportedly a member.[2] ^[5] But Regnery and Gottfried broke with the Academy of Philosophy and Letters over the issue of race, creating the H. L. Mencken Club, which Gottfried runs to this day.[3] ^[6] The Mencken Club, like the Charles Martel Society and NPI, is a meeting ground for paleoconservatives and White Nationalists, although it is also friendly to Jews.

Richard Spencer began as a paleoconservative, entered Regnery’s sphere of influence, and emerged a White Nationalist. In 2007, Spencer dropped out of Duke University, where he was pursuing a Ph.D. in modern European intellectual history. From March to December of 2007, Spencer was an assistant editor at The American Conservative, a paleoconservative magazine founded in 2002 by Scott McConnell, Patrick Buchanan, and Taki Theodoracopulos in opposition to the neocon-instigated Iraq War. By the time Spencer arrived, however, Buchanan and Taki had departed. After being fired from The American Conservative, Spencer went to work for Taki, editing his online magazine Taki’s Top Drawer, later Taki’s Magazine, from January of 2008 to December of 2009. Taki thought his magazine was stagnant under Spencer’s editorship, so they parted ways. With money raised through Regnery’s network, Richard Spencer launched a new webzine, Alternative Right (alternativeright.com) on March 1, 2010.

The phrase “alternative right” first appeared at Taki’s Magazine under Spencer’s editorship. On December 1, 2008, Spencer published Paul Gottfried’s “The Decline and Rise of the Alternative Right ^[7],” originally given as an address at that year’s H. L. Mencken Club conference in November. Spencer claims credit for the title and thus the phrase “alternative right,” while Gottfried claims that they co-created it.[4] ^[8] The Alternative Right in decline is, of course, the paleoconservative movement. The Alternative Right on the rise is the more youthful post-paleo movement crystallizing at the Mencken Club and allied forums. The Alternative Right webzine was to be their flagship.

The Alternative Right webzine had an attractive design and got off to a strong start. I particularly respected Spencer’s decision to publish Steve McNallen and Jack Donovan, important writers who were anathema to Christians and paleocons. But after about six months, the site seemed to lose energy. Days would go by without new material, which is the key to building regular traffic, and matters were not helped by the site layout. Instead of simply putting new material at the top of a blog roll, the site had a host of departments, so one had to click six or eight links to discover that there was no new material. After doing this for a couple of weeks, readers would stop coming, waiting to hear about new material by email or on social media. By the beginning of 2012, Spencer had lost interest in editing the webzine. On May 3, 2012, he stepped down and handed the editorship to Andy Nowicki and Colin Liddell.

However, in 2013, Spencer was embarrassed by negative press coverage of one of Liddell’s articles and realized that he would always be linked to Alternative Right, even though he no longer had control of its contents. On Christmas day of 2013, Spencer shut Alternative Right down without consulting or warning Nowicki and Liddell. The domain address was repointed to Spencer’s new webzine, Radix Journal, which would never become a household name. Then, after another strong start, Radix too slumped into a low-energy site.

Nearly four years of articles and comments at Alternative Right—the collective contributions of hundreds of people—simply vanished from the web. Nowicki and Liddell salvaged what they could and carried on with the Alternative Right brand at blogspot.com, although their site had few readers and little influence. In 2018, embarrassed by the decline of the Alt Right brand, they changed the name to Affirmative Right.

Spencer’s greatest mistake in shutting down Alternative Right was not his high-handed manner, which caused a good deal of bitterness, but the fact that he pulled the plug after its name had become a generic term. Just as the brand “Xerox” became a term for photocopying in general, the brand “Hoover” became a verb for vacuuming in general, Sony’s “Walkman” became a generic term for portable cassette players, and “iPod” became a generic term for portable mp3 players, the Alt Right had become a generic term for a whole range of radical alternatives to mainstream conservatism. Imagine Xerox rebranding with a weird sounding Latinate name like Effingo once it had become synonymous with its entire industry.

The beauty of the Alt Right brand is that it signaled dissidence from the mainstream Right, without committing oneself to such stigmatized ideas as White Nationalism and National Socialism. As I put it in an article hailing Alternative Right to my readers at TOQ Online:

I hope that Alternative Right will attract the brightest young conservatives and libertarians and expose them to far broader intellectual horizons, including race realism, White Nationalism, the European New Right, the Conservative Revolution, Traditionalism, neo-paganism, agrarianism, Third Positionism, anti-feminism, and right-wing anti-capitalists, ecologists, bioregionalists, and small-is-beautiful types. . . . The presence of articles by Robert Weissberg and Paul Gottfried indicates that Alternative Right is not a clone of TOQ or The Occidental Observer. (Not that anybody expected that, although some might applaud it.) But that is fine with me. It is more important to have a forum where our ideas interface with the mainstream that to have another Occidental something-or-other.com.[5] ^[9]

Obviously, a term as useful as Alternative Right was going to stick around, even after being abandoned by its creator. Writers at Counter-Currents, the Alternative Right blogspot site, and even Radix kept the concept of the Alt Right in circulation in 2014 and the early months of 2015, after which it caught on as the preferred name of a new movement.

2. The Emergence of a Movement

The second phase of the Alt Right was quite unlike the first. The new Alt Right had different ideological origins, different platforms, and a radically different ethos. But it rapidly converged on White Nationalism and carried off some of its best ideas, as well as the term Alt Right. Then it became an international media phenomenon.

In terms of ideology, the first Alt Right was heavily influenced by White Nationalism and paleoconservatism. But the new Alt Right emerged largely from the breakdown of the Ron Paul movement, specifically the takeover of the libertarian movement by cultural Leftists, which drove culturally more conservative libertarians to the Right. (In 2009, I predicted that people in the Ron Paul movement would start moving toward white identity politics, so I sponsored an essay contest on Libertarianism and Racial Nationalism at The Occidental Quarterly, which I edited at the time, to develop arguments to ease the conversion of libertarians.[6] ^[10]) Other factors driving the emerging racial consciousness of this group were the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown controversies, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the beginning of the migrant crisis in Europe.

The first Alt Right emerged from a milieu of dissident book publishers and print journals, quasi-academic conferences where speakers wore coats and ties, and middle to highbrow webzines. The new Alt Right emerged on social media, discussion forums, image boards, and podcasts, with the webzines coming later. The most influential incubators of the new Alt Right were 4chan and 8chan, Reddit, and The Right Stuff, especially its flagship podcast, The Daily Shoah, and affiliated discussion forums.

The new Alt Right also had a very different ethos and style. While the first Alt Right published reasonable and dignified articles on webzines, the new Alt Right’s ethos was emerging from flame wars in the comment threads below. Whereas the first Alt Right cultivated an earnest tone of middle-class respectability, avoiding racial slurs and discussing race and the Jewish question in terms of biology and evolutionary psychology, the new movement affected an ironic tone and embraced obscenity, stereotypes, slurs, and online trolling and harassment.

There were also generational differences between the two Alt Rights. The first Alt Right was the product of a Gen-Xer under the patronage of people born in the Baby Boom and before, who actually had memories of America before the cultural revolution of the 1960s and the massive demographic shifts after 1965, when America opened its borders to the non-white world. The new Alt Right consisted primarily of Millennials and Gen-Zs, some of them as young as their early teens, who were products of a multicultural America with rampant social and familial decay, sexual degeneracy, and drug and alcohol abuse. The first group tended to be conservative, because they had memories of a better country. The latter group had no such memories and tended toward radical rejection of the entire social order.

In 2013, I argued that White Nationalists needed to reach out to significant numbers of white Millennials who had graduated from college during the Obama years, often with crushing debts, and who found themselves unemployed or underemployed, and frequently ended up living at home with their parents.[7] ^[11] I believed that White Nationalists had better explanations for and solutions to their plight than the Occupy Movement, and this “boomerang generation” could be an ideal “proletariat,” because they were highly educated; they were from middle and upper middle class backgrounds; they had a great deal of leisure time, much of which they spent online; and they were angry and disillusioned with the system, and rightly so.

As is so often the case, our movement’s outreach gestures went nowhere, but the logic of events drove these people in our direction anyway. Boomerang kids became a core group of the new Alt Right known as the “NEETs”—an acronym for Not in Education, Employment, or Training. When these NEETs and their comrades focused their wit, intelligence, anger, tech savvy, and leisure time on politics, a terrible beauty was born.

The Gamergate controversy of 2014 was an important trial run and tributary to what became the new Alt Right in 2015. Gamergate was a leaderless, viral, online populist insurrection of video gaming enthusiasts against arrogant Leftist SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) who were working to impose political correctness on gaming. Gamergate activists turned the tables on bullying SJWs, brutally trolling and mocking them and relentlessly exposing their corruption and hypocrisy. Gamergate got some SJWs fired, provoked others to quit their jobs, and went after the advertisers of SJW-dominated webzines, closing some of them down.[8]^[12]

Gamergate is important because it showed how an online populist movement could actually roll back Leftist hegemony in a specific part of the culture. Although not everyone involved in Gamergate went on to identify with the Alt Right, many of them did. A leading Gamergate partisan, for instance, was Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart, who later gave favorable press to the Alt Right and is now a prominent Alt Lite figure. Moreover, Alt Rightists who had nothing to do with Gamergate eagerly copied and refined its techniques of online activism. Indeed, I would argue that Gamergate was the moral and organizational model for the Disney Star Wars boycott of 2018, which tanked the movie Solo ^[13] and cost Disney hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

One of the best ways to understand the evolution of the new Alt Right is to read The Right Stuff and listen to The Daily Shoah from its founding in 2014 through the summer of 2015, when Donald Trump declared his candidacy for the President of the United States. The members of The Daily Shoah Death Panel began as ex-libertarians and “edgy-Republicans” and educated themselves about race realism and the Jewish question week after week, bringing their ever-growing audience along with them. In February of 2015, Mike Enoch attended the American Renaissance conference and afterwards started calling himself a White Nationalist.

By the spring of 2015, this new movement was increasingly comfortable with the term Alt Right.

When Donald Trump declared his candidacy for the US Presidency on June 16, 2015, most White Nationalist currents found common cause in promoting his candidacy. Trump advocacy encouraged cooperation and collegiality within the movement and provided a steady stream of new targets for creative memes and trolling, and as Trump’s candidacy ascended, the new Alt Right ascended with him.

In July of 2015, in the runup to the Republican Primary debates, the new Alt Right scored a major victory by injecting a meme that changed the mainstream political conversation: “cuckservative.” The inception of this meme was at Counter-Currents when on May 2, 2014, Gregory Hood referred to “cuckhold conservatives like Matt Lewis.”[9] ^[14] At this point, many in the media and political establishment realized that a genuine alternative to the mainstream Right had arrived.

The new Alt Right became skilled in using social media to solicit attention and promote backlashes from mainstream media and politicians. This attention caused the movement to grow in size and influence, reaching its peak when Hillary Clinton gave her speech denouncing the Alt Right on August 25, 2016.

An older generation of white advocates saw the notoriety of the Alt Right as an opportunity to reach new audiences. Jared Taylor, who was never thrilled with the Alt Right label, wrote about “Race Realism and the Alt Right.”[10] ^[15] Kevin MacDonald wrote about “The Alt Right and the Jews.”[11] ^[16] Peter Brimelow spoke at National Policy Institute conferences. David Duke began circulating memes.

Although I prefer to describe myself with much more specific terms like White Nationalism and the New Right, I always appreciated the utility of a vague term like Alt Right, so I allowed its use at Counter-Currents and occasionally used it myself. But whenever I use “we” and “our” here, I am referring to White Nationalism and the New Right, not the fuzzy-minded civic nationalists and Trumpian populists who also came to use the term Alt Right.

Some have dismissed the Alt Right as a Potemkin movement because it was small, existed largely online, and grew by provoking reactions from the mainstream. But this ignores the fact that America is ruled by a tiny elite employing soft power propagated by the media. So if the Alt Right is somehow illegitimate, so is the entire political establishment. The new Alt Right was a perfect mirror image of the establishment media: it was a metapolitical movement that promoted political change by transforming values and perceptions, but it was promoting change in the opposite direction by negating the establishment’s values and worldview.

The Alt Right’s particular tactics were dictated by the asymmetries between itself and the mainstream media. They had billions of dollars and armies of professional propagandists. We had no capital and a handful of dedicated amateurs. But new software gave us the ability to create quality propaganda at home, and the Internet gave us a way to distribute it, both at very little cost. The establishment’s vast advantages in capital and personnel were also significantly negated by the facts that the multicultural consensus it promotes is based on falsehoods and can only cause misery, and the people who control it are weakened by arrogance, smugness, and degeneracy. They are easily mocked and triggered into self-defeating behavior. Our great advantage was telling the truth about liberalism and multiculturalism and proposing workable alternatives. As long as we could stay online, and as long as we attacked from our strengths to their weaknesses, we went from success to success.

But many in the movement were not psychologically ready for success.

Notes

[1] ^[17] https://philosophyandletters.org/ ^[18]

[2] ^[19] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/hes-spent... ^[20]

[3] ^[21] http://hlmenckenclub.org/ ^[22]

[4] ^[23] Thomas J. Main, The Rise of the Alt-Right (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2018), p. 63.

[5] ^[24] Greg Johnson, “Richard Spencer Launches Alternative Right,” TOQ Online, March 2, 2010, https://web.archive.org/web/20161204105956/http://www.toq... ^[25]

[6] ^[26] The essays appeared in The Occidental Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 1 (Spring 2011).

[7] ^[27] Greg Johnson, “The Boomerang Generation: Connecting with Our Proletariant,” Counter-Currents, August 23, 2013, https://www.counter-currents.com/2013/08/the-counter-curr... ^[28]

[8] ^[29] For a fuller account of Gamergate, see Vox Day’s SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (Castalia House, 2015).

[9] ^[30] Gregory Hood, “For Others and their Prosperity,” Counter-Currents, May 2, 2014, https://www.counter-currents.com/2014/05/for-others-and-t... ^[31]

[10] ^[32] Jared Taylor, “Race Realism and the Alt Right,” Counter-Currents, October 25, 2016, https://www.counter-currents.com/2016/10/race-realism-and... ^[33]

[11] ^[34] Kevin MacDonald, “The Alt Right and the Jews,” Counter-Currents, September 13, 2016, https://www.counter-currents.com/2016/09/the-alt-right-an... ^[35]

[12] ^[36] George Hawley, Making Sense of the Alt-Right (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), p. 68.

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

URL to article: https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/10/what-is-the-alternative-right-part-1/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: https://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/AltRightMockupRedLeather.jpg

[2] Hailgate: https://www.counter-currents.com/2016/11/the-alt-right-obituary-for-a-brand/

[3] Suicide of a Superpower: https://www.counter-currents.com/2011/11/he-told-us-so-patrick-buchanans-suicide-of-a-superpower/

[4] [1]: #_ftn1

[5] [2]: #_ftn2

[6] [3]: #_ftn3

[7] The Decline and Rise of the Alternative Right: http://takimag.com/article/the_decline_and_rise_of_the_alternative_right/#axzz5TWrt0Ptw

[8] [4]: #_ftn4

[9] [5]: #_ftn5

[10] [6]: #_ftn6

[11] [7]: #_ftn7

[12] [8]: #_ftn8

[13] Solo: https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/05/solo-a-star-wars-story/

[14] [9]: #_ftn9

[15] [10]: #_ftn10

[16] [11]: #_ftn11

[17] [1]: #_ftnref1

[18] https://philosophyandletters.org/: https://philosophyandletters.org/

[19] [2]: #_ftnref2

[20] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/hes-spent-almost-20-years-funding-the-racist-right-it: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/hes-spent-almost-20-years-funding-the-racist-right-it

[21] [3]: #_ftnref3

[22] http://hlmenckenclub.org/: http://hlmenckenclub.org/

[23] [4]: #_ftnref4

[24] [5]: #_ftnref5

[25] https://web.archive.org/web/20161204105956/http://www.toqonline.com/blog/richard-spencer-launches-alternative-right/: https://web.archive.org/web/20161204105956/http://www.toqonline.com/blog/richard-spencer-launches-alternative-right/

[26] [6]: #_ftnref6

[27] [7]: #_ftnref7

[28] https://www.counter-currents.com/2013/08/the-counter-currents-2013-summer-fundraiser-2/: https://www.counter-currents.com/2013/08/the-counter-currents-2013-summer-fundraiser-2/

[29] [8]: #_ftnref8

[30] [9]: #_ftnref9

[31] https://www.counter-currents.com/2014/05/for-others-and-their-prosperity/: https://www.counter-currents.com/2014/05/for-others-and-their-prosperity/

[32] [10]: #_ftnref10

[33] https://www.counter-currents.com/2016/10/race-realism-and-the-alt-right/: https://www.counter-currents.com/2016/10/race-realism-and-the-alt-right/

[34] [11]: #_ftnref11

[35] https://www.counter-currents.com/2016/09/the-alt-right-and-the-jews/: https://www.counter-currents.com/2016/09/the-alt-right-and-the-jews/

[36] [12]: #_ftnref12

 

Technological Utopianism & Ethnic Nationalism

By Greg Johnson

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

 ^[1]Author’s Note:

This is the text of my talk at the fourth meeting of the Scandza Forum in Copenhagen, Denmark, on September 15, 2018. In my previous Scandza Forum talk ^[2], I argued that we need to craft ethnonationalist messages for all white groups, even Trekkies. This is my Epistle to the Trekkies. I want to thank everybody who was there, and everybody who made the Forum possible. 

The idea of creating a utopian society through scientific and technological progress goes back to such founders of modern philosophy as Bacon and Descartes, although the idea was already hinted at by Machiavelli. But today, most people’s visions of technological utopia are derived from science fiction. With the notable exception of Frank Herbert’s Dune series ^[3], science fiction tends to identify progress with political liberalism and globalism. Just think of Star Trek, in which the liberal, multi-racial Federation is constantly battling against perennial evils like nationalism and eugenics. Thus it is worth asking: Is ethnic nationalism—which is illiberal and anti-globalist—compatible with technological utopianism or not?

My view is that technological utopianism is not only compatible with ethnic nationalism but also that liberalism and globalization undermine technological progress, and that the ethnostate is actually the ideal incubator for mankind’s technological apotheosis.

Before arguing these points, however, I need to say a bit about what technological utopianism entails and why people think it is a natural fit with globalization. The word utopia literally means nowhere and designates a society that cannot be realized. But the progress of science and technology are all about the conquest of nature, i.e., the expansion of man’s power and reach, so that utopia becomes attainable. Specific ambitions of scientific utopianism include the abolition of material scarcity, the exploration and settlement of the galaxy, the prolongation of human life, and the upward evolution of the human species.

It is natural to think that scientific and technological progress go hand in hand with globalization. Reality is one, therefore the science that understands reality and the technology that manipulates it must be one as well. Science and technology speak a universal language. They are cumulative collaborative enterprises that can mobilize the contributions of the best people from across the globe. So it seems reasonable that the road to technological utopia can only be impeded by national borders. I shall offer three arguments why this is not so. 

1. Globalization vs. Innovation

I define globalization as breaking down barriers to sameness: the same market, the same culture, the same form of government, the same way of life—what Alexandre Kojève called the “universal homogeneous state.”

As Peter Thiel argues persuasively in Zero to One ^[4], globalization and technological innovation are actually two very different modes of progress. Technological innovation creates something new. Globalization merely copies new things and spreads them around. Thiel argues, furthermore, that globalization without technological innovation is not sustainable. For instance, it is simply not possible for China and India to consume as much fossil fuel as the First World countries, but that is entailed by globalization within the present technological context. In the short run, this sort of globalization will have catastrophic environmental effects. In the long run, it will hasten the day when our present form of civilization collapses when fossil fuels are exhausted. To stave off this apocalypse, we need new innovations, particularly in the area of energy.

The most important technological innovations of the twentieth century are arguably splitting the atom and the conquest of space. Neither was accomplished by private enterprise spurred by consumer demand in a global liberal-democratic society. Instead, they were created by rival governments locked in hot and cold warfare: first the United States and its Allies against the Axis powers in World War II, then the United States and the capitalist West versus the Soviet Bloc until the collapse of Communism in 1989–1991.

Indeed, one can argue that the rivalry between capitalism and communism began to lose its technological dynamism because of the statesmanship of Richard Nixon, who began détente with the USSR with the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks in 1969, then went to China in 1971, lessening the threat that the Communist powers would recoalesce into a single bloc. Détente ended with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative could have spurred major technological advances, but merely threatening it was enough to persuade Gorbachev to seek a political solution. So the ideal situation for spurring technological growth is political rivalry without political resolution, thereby necessitating immense expenditures on research and development to gain technological advantages.

Since the collapse of Communism and the rise of a unipolar liberal-democratic world order, however, the driving force of technological change has been consumer demand. Atomic energy and sending men into space have been pretty much abandoned, and technological progress has been primarily channeled into information technology, which has made some of us more productive but for the most part just allows us to amuse ourselves with smartphones as society declines around us.

But we are not going to be able to Tweet ourselves out of looming environmental crises and Malthusian traps. Only fundamental innovations in energy technology will do the trick. And only the state, which can command enormous resources and unite a society around a common purpose, has a record of accomplishment in this area.

Of course none of the parties to the great conflicts that spurred technological growth were ethnonationalists in the strict sense, not even the Axis powers. Indeed, liberal democracy and communism were merely rival visions of global society. But when rival visions of globalization are slugging it out for power, that means that the globe is divided among a plurality of different political actors.

Pluralism and rivalry have spurred states to the greatest technological advances in history. Globalization, pacification, and liberalism have not only halted progress but have bred complacency in the face of potential global disasters. A global marketplace will never take mankind to the stars. It will simply distract us until civilization collapses and the Earth becomes a scorched boneyard.

2. Innovation vs. Cost-Cutting

In economics, productivity is defined as a mathematical formula: outputs divided by inputs, i.e., the cost per widget. Mathematically speaking, you can increase productivity either by making labor more productive, chiefly through technological innovation, or simply by cutting costs.

Most of the productivity gains that come from economic globalization are a matter of cost-cutting, primarily cutting the costs of labor. The Third World has a vast supply of cheap labor. Economic globalization allows the free movement of labor and capital. Businesses can cut labor costs by moving factories overseas or by importing new workers to drive down wages at home.

Historically speaking, the greatest economic spur to technological innovation has been high labor costs. The way to raise labor costs is to end economic globalization ^[5], by cutting off immigration and by putting high tariffs on foreign manufactured goods. In short, we need economic nationalism. Indeed, only economic nationalism can lead to a post-scarcity economy.

What exactly is a “post-scarcity economy,” and how can we get there from here? First of all, not all forms of scarcity can be abolished. Unique and handcrafted items will always be scarce. There will only be one Mona Lisa. Scarcity can only be abolished with identical, mass-produced items. Second, the cost of these items will only approach zero in terms of labor. Basically, we will arrive at a post-scarcity economy when machines put everyone involved in mass production out of work. But the machines, raw materials, and energy used in production will still have some costs. Thus the post-scarcity economy will arrive through innovation in robotics and energy production. The best image of a post-scarcity world is the “replicator” in Star Trek, which can change the atomic structure of basic inputs to materialize things out of thin air.

Of course workers who are replaced by machines can’t be allowed to starve. The products of machines have to be consumed by someone. Production can be automated but consumption cannot. It would be an absurdist dystopia if mechanization led to the starvation of workers, so consumption had to be automated as well. One set of robots would produce things, then another set of robots would consume them and add zeroes to the bank balances of a few lonely plutocrats.

To make the post-scarcity economy work, we need to ensure that people can afford to buy its products. There are two basic ways this can be done.

First, the productivity gains of capital have to be shared with the workers, through rising wages or shrinking work weeks. When workers are eliminated entirely, they need to receive generous pensions.

Second, every economic system requires a medium of exchange. Under the present system, the state gives private banks the ability to create money and charge interest on its use. The state also provides a whole range of direct payments to individuals: welfare, old-age pensions, etc. A universal basic income ^[6] is a direct government payment to all citizens that is sufficient to ensure basic survival in a First-World country. Such an income would allow the state to ensure economic liquidity, so that every product has a buyer, while eliminating two very costly middlemen: banks and social welfare bureaucracies.

All of this sounds pretty far out. But it is only unattainable in the present globalized system, in which cost-cutting is turning high-tech, First World industrial economies into low-tech Third World cheap-labor plantation economies. Only economic nationalism can spur the technological innovations necessary to create a post-scarcity economy by raising labor costs, both through immigration controls and tariff walls against cheap foreign manufactured goods.

3. Ethnonationalism & Science

So far we have established that scientific and technological progress are undermined by globalization and encouraged by nationalist economic policies and the rivalries between nations and civilizational blocs. But we need a more specific argument to establish that ethnonationalism is especially in harmony with scientific and technological progress.

My first premise is: No form of government is fully compatible with scientific and technological progress if it is founded on dogmas that are contrary to fact. For instance, the republic of Oceania might have a population of intelligent and industrious people, an excellent educational system, first rate infrastructure, and a booming economy. But if the state religion of Oceania mandates that the Earth is flat and lies at the center of the universe, Oceania is not going to take us to the stars.

My second premise is: The advocacy of racially and ethnically diverse societies—regardless of whether they have liberal or conservative regimes—is premised on the denial of political experience and the science of human biological diversity.

The history of human societies offers abundant evidence that putting multiple ethnic groups under the same political system is a recipe for otherwise avoidable ethnic tensions and conflicts. Furthermore, science indicates that the most important factors for scientific and technological advancement—intelligence and creativity—are primarily genetic, and they are not equally distributed among the races. Finally, Genetic Similarity Theory predicts that the most harmonious and happy societies will be the most genetically homogeneous, with social conflict increasing with genetic diversity.

Denying these facts is anti-scientific in two ways. First and most obviously, it is simply the refusal to look at objective facts that contradict the dogma that diversity improves society. Second, basing a society on this dogma undermines the genetic and social conditions necessary for progress and innovation, for instance by lowering the average IQ and creating greater social conflict. Other things being equal, these factors will make a society less likely to foster scientific and technological innovation.

My third premise is: Ethnonationalism is based on both political experience and the science of human biological diversity—and does not deny any other facts. Therefore, ethnonationalism is more compatible with scientific and technological progress than are racially and ethnically diverse societies—other things being equal.

Of course some research and development projects require so much money and expertise that they can only be undertaken by large countries like the United States, China, India, or Russia. Although we can predict with confidence that all of these societies would improve their research and development records if they were more racially and culturally homogeneous, even in their present states they can accomplish things that small, homogeneous ethnostates simply cannot dream of.

For instance, if a country of two million people like Slovenia were to adopt ethnonationalism, it would probably outperform a more diverse society with the same size and resources in research and development. But it would not be able to colonize Mars. However, just as small countries can defend themselves from big countries by creating alliances, small states can work together on scientific and technological projects too big to undertake on their own. No alliance is stronger than its weakest member. Since diversity is a weakness and homogeneity is a strength, we can predict that cooperative research and development efforts among ethnostates will probably be more fruitful than those among diverse societies.

Now someone might object that one can improve upon the ethnostate by taking in only high-IQ immigrants from races. Somehow Americans went to the Moon without importing Asians and Indians. Such people are being imported today for two reasons. First, importing foreign brains allows us to evade problems with producing our own, namely, dysgenic fertility and the collapse of American STEM education, largely due to political correctness, i.e., racial integration and the denial of biological intelligence differences. Second, the productivity gains attributed to diversity in technology are simply due to cost-cutting. But the real answer is: The Internet allows whites to collaborate with the best scientists around the world. But we don’t need to live with them.

To sum up: The idea that technological utopia will go hand-in-hand with the emergence of a global homogeneous society is false. The greatest advances in technology were spurred by the rivalries of hostile political powers, and with the emergence of a unipolar world, technological development has been flagging.

The idea that technological utopia goes hand-in-hand with liberal democracy is false. Liberalism from its very inception has been opposed to the idea that there is a common good of society. Liberalism is all about empowering individuals to pursue private aims and advantages. It denies that the common good exists; or, if the common good exists, liberalism denies that it is knowable; or if the common good exists and is knowable, liberalism denies that it can be pursued by the state, but instead will be brought about by an invisible hand if we just allow private individuals to go about their business.

The only thing that can bring liberal democrats together to pursue great common aims is the threat of war. This is what sent Americans to the Moon. America’s greatest technological achievements were fostered by the government, not private enterprise, and in times of hot and cold war, not peace. Since the end of the Cold War, however, victory has defeated us. America is no longer a serious country.

The solution, though, is not to go back to war, but to junk liberalism and return to the classical idea that there is a common good that can and must be pursued by the state. A liberal democracy can only be a serious country if someone like the Russians threatens to nuke them every minute of the day. Normal men and normal societies pursue the common good, because once one is convinced something really is good, one needs no additional reason to pursue it. But if you need some extra incentives, consider the environmental devastation and civilizational collapse that await us as the fossil fuel economy continues to expand like an algae bloom to its global limits. That should concentrate the mind wonderfully.

The idea that technological utopia will go hand-in-hand with global capitalism is false. Globalization has undermined technological innovation by allowing businesses to raise profits merely by cutting costs. The greatest advances in manufacturing technology have been spurred by high labor costs, which are products of a strong labor movement, closed borders, and protectionism.

Finally, the idea that technological utopianism will go hand-in-hand with racially and ethnically diverse societies is false. This is where ethnonationalism proves its superiority. Diversity promotes social conflict and removes barriers to dysgenic breeding. The global average IQ is too low to create a technological utopia. Global race-mixing will make Europeans more like the global average. Therefore, it will extinguish all dreams of progress. Ethnonationalists, however, are actually willing to replace dysgenic reproductive trends with eugenic ones, to ensure that every future generation has more geniuses, including scientific ones. And if you need an extra incentive, consider the fact that China is pursuing eugenics while in the West it is fashionable to adopt Haitian babies. Ethnonationalism, moreover, promotes social harmony and cohesion, which make possible coordinated efforts toward common goals.

What sort of society will conquer scarcity, conquer death, and settle the cosmos? A society that practices economic nationalism to encourage automation. A homogeneous, high-IQ society with eugenic rather than dysgenic reproductive trends. A harmonious, cohesive, high-trust society that can work together on common projects. An illiberal society that is willing to mobilize its people and resources to achieve great common aims. In short, if liberal democracy and global capitalism are returning us to the mud, it is ethnonationalism that will take us to the stars.

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

URL to article: https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/09/technological-utopianism-and-ethnic-nationalism/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: https://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/AstoundingSciFi.jpg

[2] previous Scandza Forum talk: https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/04/redefining-the-mainstream/

[3] Frank Herbert’s Dune series: https://www.counter-currents.com/2014/08/frank-herberts-dune-part-1/

[4] Zero to One: https://www.counter-currents.com/2016/10/notes-on-peter-thiels-zero-to-one/

[5] end economic globalization: https://www.counter-currents.com/2015/12/the-end-of-globalization-2/

[6] universal basic income: https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/01/money-for-nothing/

Postmodernism vs. Identity - Greg Johnson’s talk at The Scandza Forum

Scandza Forum Oslo, 2017

Postmodernism vs. Identity

Greg Johnson’s talk at The Scandza Forum in Oslo, July 1, 2017.

Red Ice TV

Greg Johnson speaks at the Scandza Forum in Oslo, Norway on July 1, 2017.

Support our work and get full access to our archives at http://redicemembers.com
Subscribe and stream or download over 1000 programs, videos, films, Insight episodes, Red Ice TV & Weekend Warrior.

More Red Ice TV, Radio & 3Fourteen:
https://redice.tv/

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/redicetv
Like us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/RedIceCreations
Listen to us on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/red-ice-radio
Listen to us on Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/show/red-ice...
Subscribe to our YouTube: https://youtube.com/user/RedIceRadio
RSS feeds: https://redice.tv/rss

Join Erkenbrand This September!

Join Erkenbrand This September!

 

Author: Guillaume Durocher

The West is crumbling, our lands are being invaded and the best politics can offer us in the Netherlands is a civic nationalist funded by foreign money. It is long past time we got together and started getting organized. Online activism is great, but we have to take the next step and make connections in the real world. The Alternative Right, while born in the English-speaking world, must ultimately be dedicated to saving all the European peoples.

We have set up Erkenbrand for exactly this purpose, to bring people together. We are organized as a study society where we can have intellectual discussions each month about subjects related to our current situation, and more importantly socialize and make new friends. We started off small, but we are growing rapidly. We aim to bring together like-minded people who work together to further our cause: not only politically, but also to build a tight-knit group of men who can count on each other.

At our last meeting, attended by around 40 people, we discussed the future of the European peoples and how to deal with SJWs, on the basis of Vox Day’s book SJWs Always Lie. We more generally want to create a new culture which promotes a healthy lifestyle and strong communities for our people. We ended our formal talks with an inspirational speech in which we also called for action. Action to contribute to the new culture by producing articles, videos, memes, etc.

We regularly publish articles on our site on various subjects related to the Alt Right and Dutch history and culture.

On September 27 in Rotterdam, we are organizing a conference with well-known American speakers such as Greg Johnson and F. Roger Devlin. It is time to get away from the keyboard and bring the struggle to real life. Help us build a foundation for the future by joining Erkenbrand!

For more information about the event, email us at: [e-mail]

“Giambattista Vico and Modern Anti-Liberalism”

Counter-Currents Radio
Vico & the New Right

This is Greg Johnson's lecture

“Giambattista Vico and Modern Anti-Liberalism”

delivered at the London Forum on Saturday, September 27, 2014. 

 

To download the mp3, right-click here ^[2] and choose “save target or link as.”

To subscribe to our podcasts, click here ^[3].

 

---

 

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

 

URL to article: http://www.counter-currents.com/2014/10/vico-and-the-new-right/

Greg Johnson’s New Right vs. Old Right

Foreword to Greg Johnson’s New Right vs. Old Right

By Kevin MacDonald

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

Perhaps it’s best to start off with what New Right vs. Old Right ^[2]is not. Greg Johnson does not assail his readers with statistics to prove the Jewish role in the decline and impending fall of whites in America and elsewhere. He does not discuss the corruption of the media and the academic world and how they got that way. He does not discuss data on race differences in IQ and criminality to explain the behavior of non-white America. He doesn’t aim to refute the current mantra that race is nothing more than a social construct designed to provide white people with unearned privilege.

Those intellectual battles are over, and we have won, although the mainstream media and academic world continue to promulgate cultural Marxist blather as if it were a set of truths set in stone. The starting point for NRvOR is that the media, the academic world, and the political process are hopelessly corrupt. So where do we go from here?

Greg Johnson’s basic point is that we must work to create a metapolitics of explicit white identity—that is, a movement that will develop “the intellectual and cultural foundations for effective White Nationalist politics in North America, so that we can ultimately create a white homeland or homelands on this continent.”

Greg is one of the reasons why I think this is a feasible project. A very great reason for optimism is that there are so many intelligent, well-spoken people who “get it”—who understand that whites around the world are in decline and that there will be dire consequences if whites are unable to establish white homelands. People like Greg Johnson are part of a hugely important trend. I have recently met a great many young, intelligent, well-educated, and well-spoken people at conferences dedicated to activism on behalf of the interests of white America—the exact opposite of the image of uneducated, violent males sporting swastikas and missing a couple of teeth that has been so carefully crafted by our hostile elites.

Despite growing up with a constant barrage of multicultural, anti-white propaganda beginning in elementary school, these individuals understand that at this point America is an unfolding disaster as whites are increasingly displaced throughout the economic and political spectrum. They are acutely aware that whites are a minority of births in America and that whites will be a minority within their lifetimes—a minority with diminished prospects and increasingly victimized by the non-white majority, many of whom retain historical grudges against white America. It is very likely that the America of the future will be beset with chronic conflict among different racial/ethnic groups. The idea that America or the West can avoid such conflicts as their societies become ever more factionalized is magical and utopian.

The goal, therefore, is not, a “supremacism” that is in any way invidious. Rather, “the best way to ensure peace and good will among peoples and preserve human racial, cultural, and religious diversity is to give each distinct group a homeland where it can live and develop according to its own distinct nature and destiny.”

This is an attitude that seems to me to be pervasive in the white advocacy movement. It at once defuses a very effective bit of rhetoric of the Left—repeated with predictable regularity by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. We are white advocates, people who, as Greg phrases it in several places following Michael Polignano, “take our own side” in issues of racial/ethnic conflict. And in taking our own side, we are doing exactly what racial/ethnic groups have done from time immemorial. No one accuses the Koreans of “Korean supremacism” for adopting policies aimed at retaining Korean demographic and cultural predominance. And imagine the horror by Western elites at a proposal to flood African countries with whites so that native Africans cease to be a political majority.

Make no mistake about it. The policies that are making whites minorities in lands they have dominated for hundreds or (in the case of Europe) thousands of years are not driven by utopian dreams of a raceless future, except among gullible, intimidated whites. The non-whites who are so enthusiastically embracing the decline of white political and cultural power are driven by hatred toward whites as a people and as a culture. This is a major theme of my writing on Jewish influence, and apparent as well in a host of non-white intellectuals and activists.

Greg Johnson received his Ph.D. in philosophy, and it shows. His forte is the well-developed argument presented in a lucid, easily understood style. There will be no complaints about this book being filled with turgid prose. And I can’t find any major disagreements.

I was particularly struck by several points. For example, unlike the European New Right, Greg is an advocate of white racial nationalism:

insofar as the breakdown of European national identities and the blending of European stocks in our North American context forces us (1) to give greater place to biological race and other deep roots of common European identity, and (2) to put greater emphasis on the Jewish question, given the role of American Jewry in promoting anti-white policies both in the United States and in white countries worldwide.

Right. As a biologist, there is always the tendency to see matters like race as a decontextualized matter. DNA, after all, is DNA. But American whites are indeed a very intermixed lot—a successful example of a European melting pot. In effect, we have created a new biological reality not present in any European country.

Nevertheless, we must remember that Europeans are in general closely related biologically, particularly in the north and east of Europe, as recent data continue to show. Indeed,

typical pairs of individuals drawn from across Europe have a good chance of sharing long stretches of [identical genes] by descent, even when they are separated by thousands of kilometers. We can furthermore conclude that pairs of individuals across Europe are reasonably likely to share common genetic ancestors within the last 1,000 years, and are certain to share many within the last 2,500 years.[1]

The white race is indeed a biological as well as a cultural reality. This biological reality forms a powerful basis for a scientifically based understanding of a commonality of interests wherever whites are living, whether in Europe or in the European diaspora.

And, yes, although the organized Jewish community has pursued the same set of policies favoring displacement-level immigration and multiculturalism throughout the West, Jewish influence varies in different Western societies. This brings up the need for developing a good model of cultural diffusion within the West. For example, academic culture is self-consciously international. If indeed the main impetus for the leftward shift is Jewish involvement in the Left beginning in the United States with the movements described in The Culture of Critique, it is not at all surprising that this culture spread to other areas with less Jewish influence given the pre-eminence of the U.S. in the post-World War II Western world. An aspiring academic in, say, Norway or Finland, who subscribes to a White Nationalist worldview would find himself ostracized from international academic societies, while countrymen who subscribed to the reigning cultural Marxism would find international recognition.

The same phenomenon occurs in the political realm, as, for example, when Austrian politician Jörg Haider joined a coalition government in 2000. This resulted in huge international pressure, with EU member states refusing to cooperate with the Austrian government and Israel withdrawing its ambassador. The assault on the Golden Dawn party in Greece is a more recent example. Any Western government that opposed continued immigration and multiculturalism would be subjected to similar pressures.

The culture of Western suicide exists throughout the white world, and dominating the most powerful country in the West goes a very long way to dominating the entire Western world, particularly given the fact that Jews often control media even in countries with very tiny Jewish populations, as with the Bonnier family in Norway and Sweden.

Greg does not shy away from discussing difficult issues having to do with National Socialism, supporting the ideal of an organic, hierarchical, meritocratic society dedicated to advancing the interests of whites and rejecting “party politics, totalitarianism, terrorism, imperialism, and genocide.”

I agree entirely. It’s a very good strategy to confront such issues head-on rather than to leave them to be discussed solely by our enemies. It’s the same with the holocaust. The holocaust is simply not important for white advocacy, and whatever happened is not the responsibility of any living whites; it’s something that must be simply “stepped over,” to use Jonathan Bowden’s felicitous phrase. Even if the holocaust were proved to have never occurred to the satisfaction of one and all, there is more than enough resentment by Jews about their past in Europe and the United States to fuel the hostility toward the West that has been such a prominent feature of the organized Jewish community and so many influential Jewish individuals. The reality of Jews as a hostile elite aiming to displace white elites throughout the West would not change at all.

I should think that it would be uncontroversial that the white advocacy movement must be metapolitical, since there is a crying need to build up a self-confident, prideful culture than can eventually become mainstream. Greg’s argument that it is premature to pursue nationalist party politics—that at this point the money can be better used in education and organizing—will be more controversial. The question is whether these are really incompatible goals and, as Greg rightly notes, “We share the same broad aims, but we differ as to the best means of achieving them. We need to acknowledge these differences frankly, then divide our camp and pursue our common aims by the various paths that seem best to us.” Different ways should be attempted in the hope that eventually something will work. In the meantime, we must be as inclusive as possible.

In fact, nationalist parties have made substantial headway in Europe, and many observers are expecting a significant representation of nationalist parties to result from the 2014 European Parliament elections. With increasing success, the messages of these parties have inevitably become more widely known. Significantly, these parties have not developed with an explicitly pro-white or pro-ethnic nationalism agenda, but have rather attempted to stay under the radar of political correctness on race and on Jewish influence, basing themselves on an implicit ethnic nationalism that opposes immigration and multiculturalism for a whole host of reasons apart from the danger of ethnic swamping that is in fact lurking in the background. Not surprisingly, these messages are often most effective with the white working class, the group that has suffered the most from the immigration tsunami.

Indeed, I believe that model of change that I think most probable is that the revolution will begin in Europe with the success of one of these parties, particularly if it occurs in a pivotal country like France where there is a clear possibility that the Front National will obtain power, and in a context where other nationalist parties have substantial representation in other areas of Europe so that an effective countermovement of isolation and ostracism cannot develop. I think we are rapidly approaching such a situation now. Compared to America, Europe has the advantage of very ancient cultures and identities that are mortally endangered by this new dispensation. Once such a party gains power, then more explicit messages of ethnic and racial interests may become more acceptable, paving the way for more the dissemination of a theoretical framework based explicitly on ethnic interests.

I worry that in the absence of near-term political goals, a purely metapolitical movement is in danger of being a detached inward-looking, even self-serving elite. For one thing, the Left is completely in control of the academic scene and very actively— indeed passionately—polices any deviation from political correctness. This is quite unlike the situation in American universities where Franz Boas was able to control academic anthropology by the early 20th century, and several of the New York Intellectuals obtained positions at elite universities well before 1960. This is a very formidable barrier to the spread of an elite culture of white identity given the close relationship between universities and intellectual life in the West. There was no complaint from the academic world when the 1965 immigration law opened up immigration to the United States to all peoples of the world. Indeed, in several Western countries, Australia comes to mind, the movement to open up immigration to non-whites originated in the universities.

Even in America, with so many barriers against us, political action inside or outside the context of the electoral process could be a positive force for change. Americans need to see noisy, intelligent, attractive, committed white people marching in the street with signs opposed to immigration, multiculturalism, and the strident ethnic politics of other groups; there is a need for a steady drumbeat of political advertising where pro-white themes, whether explicitly white or not, are repeated over and over to the point that they become part of the furniture of life even if winning elections remains a distant goal.

Such movements may be particularly important for whites with less education who may be turned off by an elite culture of white identity. The white working class in fact has been the prime loser in the cultural changes promoted by our hostile elites. A great many of them are angry and, with less to lose than so many well-educated whites, they are an important natural constituency.

In any case, I wholeheartedly agree that we have to be open to a diversity of approaches.

Greg’s essay, “The Moral Factor,” raises the important issue of moral motivation which I think is an aspect of Western uniqueness. One does not see Chinese people agonizing over the fact that the Han Chinese greatly expanded their territory at the expense of other peoples. Nor does one see the Bantu peoples of Africa worrying about the ethics of displacing other African peoples as they spread far and wide from their homeland in Central Africa, including into South Africa where their treatment at the hands of white South Africans became Exhibit A for white evil during the apartheid era; nor do the Bantu-speaking peoples agonize about the widespread practice of slavery in Africa. Arabs do not apologize about their conquests in the name of Islam or their centuries-old role in slavery and the slave trade. As Greg notes, the Spaniards have apologized for the Reconquista that expelled the Muslims from Spain, but there are no apologies from the Muslims for the Conquista.

Whites are the only people to abolish slavery, and a great many of the activists and the fundamental popular sentiments so crucial in the ultimate victory over slavery were motivated by moral idealism, including especially empathy for slaves.[2] They did so despite very real costs to many individuals and to society as a whole, and all this occurred before the rise of the Jewish hostile elite. Indeed, this unique characteristic of whites is exploited by Jewish intellectuals for their own hateful ends. My basic theory is that this is a holdover of Northern European hunter-gatherer culture, where one’s status in a group is based on reputation for moral behavior (honesty, fair dealing) rather than on kinship relations—an aspect of Western individualism.

So I agree that “even if White Nationalism is politically meaningful, people will resist it if they think it is immoral. But they will move heaven and earth to establish white homelands if they think it is the right thing to do.” We must win the moral battle. The problem is that “our people overwhelmingly believe that our cause is unjust.” And yet, the moral argument for white survival is obvious and compelling. Fundamentally, our basic survival as a people and as a culture are threatened. As Greg notes, “the present system is not merely anti-white, it is genocidally anti-white.”

That’s enough for me to mark the present system as utterly depraved morally. It is profoundly immoral to inflict multiculturalism upon the white populations of the West, given that  ethnic conflict is absolutely predictable, based upon everything we know of the bloody history of ethnically divided societies. This is especially the case given that support for multiculturalism and support for their own demographic and political eclipse have never been majority views among whites. Whether in Australia or New Zealand, North America or Europe—in every case throughout the West, immigration and multi-culturalism have been projects of media, academic, and political elites. These changes have been top-down, not at all bottom-up.

We must pay more attention to the morality of infringing upon the legitimate rights and interests of the white majority. Everyone has rights and everyone has interests. The interests and rights of whites as a majority are no less morally legitimate than those of any other group. Whites must jettison the ideal of moral universalism and ask what is good for the future of whites.

On the basis of this collection of essays, Greg Johnson has a compelling vision of the impending disaster facing the people and culture of the West and what we can do about it right now. It is presented in a highly readable, well-argued manner that at once shows the power and confidence of the developing metapolitical culture of a Western renaissance. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

January 15, 2014

Note:

Greg Johnson’s New Right vs. Old Right is available for purchase here ^[2].

Notes

1. Ralph Peter and Graham Coop, “The Geography of Recent Genetic Ancestry across Europe,” PLOS Biology, vol. 11, no. 5 (May 7, 2013): e1001555. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.100155

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001555&representation=PDF ^[3]

2. Kevin MacDonald, “Empathy and Moral Universalism as Components of White Pathology: The Movement to Abolish Slavery in England,” The Occidental Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 2 (Summer 2013), pp. 39–63.

---

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

URL to article: http://www.counter-currents.com/2014/02/foreword-to-greg-johnsons-new-right-vs-old-right/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/NewRightOldRight1crop1.jpg

[2] New Right vs. Old Right : https://secure.counter-currents.com/new-right-vs-old-right/

[3] http://www.plosbiology.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001555&representation=PDF: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001555&representation=PDF

 

New Right vs. Old Right

Greg Johnson
Foreword by Kevin MacDonald
San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2013
248 pages

Kindle E-book: $5.99

Nook E-book: $5.99

Hardcover and paperback release date: February 21, 2014

hardcover: $35 

Quantity:  

Note: The first 100 hardcovers ordered through this site will be numbered, signed, and personalized by the author. Unless otherwise indicated, the books will be personalized to the name that appears on the purchaser’s mailing address.

paperback: $20 

Quantity:  

Dr. Greg Johnson draws upon the ideas of the European New Right to promote a new approach to White Nationalist politics in North America. New Right vs. Old Right collects 32 essays in which Dr. Johnson sets out his vision of White Nationalist “metapolitics” and distinguishes it from Fascism and National Socialism (the “Old Right”), as well as conservatism and classical liberalism (the “Phony Right”).

Dr. Johnson rejects the Old Right’s party politics, totalitarianism, imperialism, and genocide in favor of the metapolitical project of constructing a hegemonic White Nationalist consciousness within a pluralistic society. He argues that White Nationalists are too dependent on the model of hierarchical organizations and need also to work on creating resilient lateral networks. He offers New Rightist answers to a number of disputed questions within the White Nationalist community, including white culpability for our decline, Hitler and National Socialism, the Jewish question, the holocaust, the role of women, Christianity vs. paganism, and the relationships of populism, elitism, and democracy. He sets out some basic principles for creating a growing, resilient, networked movement. Finally, he criticizes distractions and dead-ends like “mainstreaming,” conservatism, “premature” populism, and political violence.

Engagingly written and constructively critical, Greg Johnson’s New Right vs. Old Right is an important contribution to the emerging North American New Right.

Praise for New Right vs. Old Right

“Greg Johnson’s basic point is that we must work to create a metapolitics of explicit white identity—that is, a movement that will develop ‘the intellectual and cultural foundations for effective White Nationalist politics in North America, so that we can ultimately create a white homeland or homelands on this continent.’ Greg is one of the reasons why I think this is a feasible project. . . . Greg received his Ph.D. in philosophy, and it shows. His forte is the well-developed argument presented in a lucid, easily understood style. Nobody can complain about this book being filled with turgid prose. And I can’t find any major disagreements.”

—Kevin MacDonald, from the Foreword

“In New Right vs. Old Right, Greg Johnson lays out his vision for a pro-white movement more focused on ideas, education, and communication than on politics or thuggery. True to this vision, his writing is extremely accessible. Throughout this collection, Johnson breaks down complex philosophical concepts and challenging ideas into tight, efficient sentences and effective explanations. Johnson doesn’t drone on trying to sound clever. Like an enthusiastic professor, he truly wants his readers to understand why he believes it is morally right for whites—and all peoples—to determine their own collective destinies.”

—Jack Donovan, author of The Way of Men

“Dr. Greg Johnson’s New Right vs. Old Right delineates the differences between two ‘Rights,’ without repudiating the common philosophical origins of both in opposing egalitarianism and other passé ideologies that continue to dominate much of the world. The primary value of this collection of essays, however, is that Dr. Johnson asks the perennial question, from our side: “what is truth?” In doing so he lays the foundations for a morality of the New Right. This book is therefore unique in the English-speaking Rightist milieu that was, for much of the post-1945 era, poorly served in comparison to its counterparts in Europe. As such, Dr. Johnson’s book will be of relevance to many beyond the North American New Right, of which he is a founding father.”

—Kerry Bolton, author of Artists of the Right

“Greg Johnson’s New Right vs. Old Right is an important compilation that describes the North American New Right and explains how ‘this thing of ours’ differs from both the Old Right and the European New Right.

“Old Right terms like ‘National Socialism’ and ‘fascism’ do not accurately describe what we believe. We reject the narrow nationalism of the Old Right in favor of pan-Europeanism, and we also reject the totalitarianism and apocalyptic visions of bloodshed and genocide that are associated, rightly or wrongly, with Old Right thought and that are promoted by modern-day Nazis.

“On the other hand, the North American New Right differs from our European New Right counterparts: we reject their emphasis on narrow nationalist particularisms, their Continental existentialism that eschews Anglo empiricism, their naïve knee-jerk anti-Americanism, and their weakness on biological race and ‘the JQ.’

“The North American New Right is a new movement, neither constrained by a reactionary idealization of the nationalist past, nor beholden to the intellectual errors of the today’s Old World nationalists.

“You may not agree with everything in this volume. But there is no rigid ‘party line.’ There’s much room for discussion, disagreement, and debate as we articulate our worldview. We are still feeling our way around in the dark that precedes the new dawn, attempting to find our way on the proper path.

“This work represents an important signpost along that path. So, agree or disagree, I am confident that the readers will find this volume useful and illuminating. I invite the reader to join us in our crusade to reshape the future.”

—Ted Sallis

CONTENTS

Foreword by Kevin MacDonald

1. Introduction

Politics and Metapolitics

2. New Right vs. Old Right
3. Hegemony
4. Metapolitics and Occult Warfare
5. Theory and Practice
6. Reflections on Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political
7. The Relevance of Philosophy to Political Change
8. The Moral Factor
9. The Psychology of Conversion

Disputed Questions

10. Our Fault?
11. The Burden of Hitler
12. Dealing with the Holocaust
13. White Nationalism & Jewish Nationalism
14. The Christian Question in White Nationalism
15. Racial Civil Religion
16. That Old-Time Liberalism
17. The Woman Question in White Nationalism
18. Notes on Populism, Elitism, & Democracy
19. The Perils of Positive Thinking
20. The Politics of Resentment
21. “Worse is Better”

Building a Movement

22. Learning from the Left
23. Explicit White Nationalism
24. Secret Agents
25. The Psychology of Apostasy
26. First, Do No Harm

Distractions and Dead Ends

27. White Nationalists and the Political “Mainstream”
28. Why Conservatives STILL Can’t Win
29. Status Competition, Jews, and Racialist Mainstreaming
30. The Laugh Test
31. Premature Populism
32. On Violence

Index

About the Author

Greg Johnson, Ph.D., is the Editor-in-Chief of Counter-Currents Publishing Ltd. and its journal North American New Right. He is author of Confessions of a Reluctant Hater (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2010) and Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2012).

 

Hegelian Reflections on Body Piercing & Tattoos

A Little Death:
Hegelian Reflections on Body Piercing & Tattoos

By Greg Johnson

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

It is safe to say that urban youth culture in the contemporary West is pretty much saturated with hedonism. Yet in the midst of all this hedoism, tattooing and body piercing are huge industries, and they hurt.

It is, moreover, shared pain, broadcast to and imposed upon all who see it. It is natural for human beings to feel sympathy for people in pain, or who show visible signs of having suffered pain. Perhaps this is a sign of morbid oversensitivity, but I believe I am not the only person who feels sympathy pains when I see tattoos and piercings, especially extensive ones. Sometimes I actually shudder and look away. Furthermore, am I the only one who finds tattoos and piercings extreme sexual turn-offs?

Sexual sadism and mascochism fit into a larger hedonistic context, since the are merely intensifications or exaggerations of features of normal hetrosexual relations. But what is the place of the non-sexual masochism of body piercing and tattooing in a larger hedonistic society?

This question first occured to me when I saw Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, in which Jody, the wife of the drug dealer Lance, launches into a discourse about piercing. Jody, it is safe to say, is about as complete a hedonist as has ever existed. Yet Jody has had her body pierced sixteen times, including her left nipple, her clitoris, and her tongue. And in each instance, she used a needle rather than a relatively quick and painless piercing gun. As she says, “That gun goes against the whole idea behind piercing.”

Well then, I had to ask, “What is the whole idea behind piercing?” Yes, piercing is fashionable. Yes, it is involved with sexual fetishism. (But fetishism is not mere desire either.) Yes, it is now big business. But the phenomenon cannot merely be reduced to hedonistic self-indulgence. It is irreversible. And it hurts. And apparently, if it doesn’t hurt, that contradicts the “whole idea.”

For Hegel, history begins when a distinctly human form of self-consciousness emerges. Prehistoric man is merely a clever animal who is ruled by his desires, by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, including the desire for self-preservation. When we enjoy creature comforts, however, we are aware of ourselves as mere creatures.

But human beings are more than clever animals. Slumbering within prehistoric man is a need for self-consciousness. To see our bodies, we need a mirror. To see our self also requires an appropriate “mirror.” For Hegel, the first mirror is the consciousness of others. We see ourselves as we are seen by others. When the reactions of others coincide with our sense of self, we feel pride. When we are treated in ways that contradict our sense of self, we feel anger. Sometimes this anger leads to conflict, and sometimes this conflict threatens our very lives.

For Hegel, the duel to the death for honor reveals the existence of two different and conflicting parts of the soul: desire, including the desire for self-preservation, and honor, which is willing to risk death to find satisfaction. For Hegel, the man who is willing to risk death to preserve his honor is a natural master. The man who is willing to suffer dishonor to preserve his life is a natural slave. For the master, honor rules over desire. For the slave, desire rules over honor. Hegel sees the struggle to the death over honor as the beginning of history, history being understood as a process by which human beings come to self-understanding.

Of course not every road to self-understanding involves an encounter with death. But the primary means by which we understand ourselves is participation in a culture, and civilized life entails countless repressions of our physical desires, countless little pains and little deaths.

According to Hegel, if history is a process of self-discovery, then history can end when we learn the truth about ourselves and live accordingly. And the truth is that all men are free. Hegel’s follower Francis Fukuyama became famous for arguing that the fall of communism and the globalization of liberal democracy was the end of history. But he also followed Alexandre Kojève, Hegel’s greatest 20th-century interpreter, who argued that the end of history would not bring a society of universal freedom, but a society of universal slavery: slavery in the spiritual sense of the rule of desire over honor. And that is a perfect description of modern, hedonistic, bourgeois society.

But there is more to the soul than desire. Thus man cannot be fully satisfied by mere hedonism. The restless drive for self-consciousness that gave rise to history in the first place will stir again. In a world of casual and meaningless self-indulgence, piercing and its first cousin tattooing are thus deeply significant; they are tests; they are limit experiences; they are encounters with something—something in ourselves and in the world—that transcends the economy of desire. To “mortify” the flesh literally means to kill it. Each little hole is a little death, which derives its meaning from a big death, a whole death, death itself. Thus one can see the contemporary craze with body modification as the re-enactment of the primal humanizing encounter with death within the context of a decadent and dehumanizing society. History is beginning again.

---

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

URL to article: http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/03/a-little-death-hegelian-reflections-on-body-piercing-and-tattoos/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/canovaamorandpsyche.jpg