“The Narrative” is weaker than you think. And its digital-linguistic hegemony can be manipulated and reforged for our purposes. The current spectacle of the “White Student Union” movement in America is illuminating. Here’s how we made our memes real.

The prevailing hypocrisy that permits non-Whites and sexual outsiders of all flavors to organize subsidized and authorized campus grievance groups, while denying the same to White or male students, is blatant and fragile. Arguments for a “White Student Union” to balance this system clearly hold the moral high ground through the logic of liberalism. Indeed, many mainstream conservatives and even liberals feel comfortable criticizing this obvious double standard—at least, in theory.

Yet in practice, these groups have not really existed, so this tension has remained dormant and unexploited. The anti-White Left implicitly understands the fragility of their narrative frame. They have spent decades priming college students to reflexively attack any spring of European identity that still manages to bubble up within their minds or among their classmates. And it works really well, even as Whites constitute dwindling proportions on campuses and endure increasing anti-White harassment from out-of-control minority antagonists.

Woe to the brave, naïve co-ed who dares to register a White identity group with the petty commissars of their student-affairs committees! No matter how inclusive, respectful, and reasonable his petition to his peers, this student will be doomed for life. He will be a pariah on campus and his career will be ruined before it starts. And all because he wanted to enjoy a little cultural identity and hope for the future with his friends!

No wonder smart White kids don’t touch this stuff. Then there’s the unfortunate selection effect: Because this pursuit has been debased, mostly the debased dare to pursue it. The psychosocial status incentives here are powerful and, until now, self-enforcing.

Someone needed to hack the system. If there is no identity to attack, the normal prohibitory methods break down. In today’s immersive virtual environments of negotiable identities, and algorithmic meme transmission, this fluidity can be used to our advantage.

What was needed was a believable and upright “everystudent” that earnestly believed that openly White associations should be allowed to exist on campus (and in general). They needed to be an amicable and principled mirror image of the minority student groups on campus. Their messaging game needed to be on point and have a loud megaphone. And they needed to have backup—social proof to show the many bewildered White students drinking in the toxic brew of the enraged comment sections that they were not the only ones feeling queasy. The synthetic spectacle then imparts a real impression on observers, some of whom move to join or create real organizations in protest. This is how you meme something into existence.

First, there was Illinois. A Facebook page called the “Illini White Student Union” appeared on November 18th to fight back against what the page called the “black terrorism” of the increasingly-bold #BlackLivesMatter movement, which had blessed the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus with a protest earlier that day.

The media reaction was immediate and shrill. SJWs quickly informed a student reporter, who dutifully clutched her pearls and clucked at the administration to tear down this page at once. Campus spokeswoman Robin Kaler wasted no time in contacting Facebook to have the page removed through whatever quirk of intellectual property would get the job done.

“Disturbing and cowardly,” she called it. It upset Interim Chancellor Barbara Wilson as well, who was moved to email the entire campus to explain that, while the administration supports the right to free speech, they wouldn’t particularly like to see this exact expression. In other words, they Streisanded the whole thing. A silly Facebook page that took all of 10 minutes to create was morning news at the Washington Post by Friday. Clearly, this meme had wings.

The next wave of pages built on the concept’s natural intrigue by using words and numbers to their advantage. There were around 40 or so in all, allowing for some churn in the ban-recreation ratio, in schools spanning the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia, and were created some time after November 20th.

They culture-jammed SJW-speak using Apollonian sensibilities. They spoke of “unapologetically providing a safe space for students of European descent to air their true feelings about the future of our nation,” invoked statistics about the dwindling ethnic composition of Whites on their campus and in their country, and asked their allies of color not to invalidate their historical experience. They invited followers to share their favorite Kraftwerk tracks and adorned their backgrounds with collegiate J.C. Leyendecker prints. You can love all of humanity while looking to “restore the pioneering will and greatness of our unique and virtuous people,” they said. Shouldn’t we be allowed to exist, they asked?

The key was to present the mission as a harmless lamb—one that their hysterical aggressors couldn’t wait to slaughter. Over and over, the pages responded to baseless attacks and outright threats, strongly condemning hatred, discrimination, and violence of all kinds and calling for their attackers to join them to #EndRacism. By integrating the untouchables into the sphere of victimization, these pages disarmed the SJW zombie troops’ first linguistic line of defense.

This evoked many long tirades from commenters about the long history of abuses by European peoples against everyone else (“So you think students of European descent should not be proud of their heritage?”), confused yet emphatic screeds about the reality of White privilege (“So you don’t think White students deserve to feel safe on campus?”), and all-out celebrations of Whites’ imminent demographic decline (“How small of a minority must Whites be before they can organize for their interests?”). But mostly it launched a shit show, as angry POCs and righteous self-hating Whites swarmed the comments with their far too vicious bile. Which left all of the formerly unawakened White students observing these events to wonder: Just what exactly is so controversial about my interests, anyway?

The media was played like a fiddle to broadcast the intended messages. The operators who spoke to journalists spoke carefully, emphasizing the constant death threats they were receiving and their commitment to anti-racism. The same Illini cycle played out, with student papers notifying administrators, who would make some statement denouncing White interests—“The celebration of Whiteness as a race has a particular history of racial violence, and exclusion,” informs María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo of the NYU School of Social and Cultural Analysis—which might generate more coverage in the local news, or in the case of the apparently-well-connected NYU community, all of the major elite gossip rags. (The Gawker piece is a master troll—read it in full.) Clueless reporters often reproduced the entire boilerplate WSU mission statement, but almost all of them couldn’t resist sharing some of the juiciest bits. It was chaos, Leyendecker prints and calls to awaken the European spirit were everywhere, and that’s just how we wanted it.

The savvier media flacks eventually coalesced around the narrative that these were an elaborate troll started by neo-Nazis. Oh yeah? Well the good folks at Breitbart just happened to find some “allies of color” that are involved with the WSUs at UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of British Colombia. There are men at Harvard, too. They’ve all got proof. More will come forward as the brouhaha continues—last weeks’s very fair New York Times story will make sure of that. The establishment will soon need to deal with these ideas on their merits, and I, for one, can’t wait to see how they’re going to swing it.

It’s remarkable that this kind of ridiculous, postmodern lulz hunt is what finally moved the Overton Window towards a breeding ground for White resistance on college campuses, but then again we live in absurd times. Might as well adapt.

It doesn’t matter who started them or why, whether it was “real” or a satire, spontaneous or coordinated: A few dozen Facebook pages made the concept of White Student Unions real through manipulated tension and predictable media amplification. Worst-case scenario, this particular incident fizzles out and we learn a few new tricks. If we’re sensitive to opportunities and smart about it, it can be done again. It won’t be as simple as repeating this exact formula for a different issue, although many of the strategies learned here can be modified for other purposes. Be entrepreneurial, be bold, and troll smart. Let’s have some fun with this. Our future is now!

The following was delivered as a speech at the National Policy Institute’s 2015 conference, which was held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on October 31st.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As a start, I would like to quote the Holy Scriptures—and I’m not talking about Donald Trump’s deportation plan.

There is a saying in the Bible which boils down to: “No one is a prophet in their own country.”

And that describes my own situation pretty well. Last time—which happened to be the first time—I was invited to speak before a large audience was two years ago, here in Washington, D.C., at NPI’s conference.

The topic of my talk today is “Dream On.”

As you know, this year’s conference, “Become Who We Are,” is dedicated to the common identity of the European peoples, and I think that the best way to grasp such an old and complex civilization as ours is to focus on its aspirations, its ambitions . . . its dreams.

The implication here is that European civilization can only survive and thrive if it keeps its dreams, its higher goals.

So, what have been our civilization’s higher goals since the Greek Miracle?

Well, with the risk of being a bit simplistic, I would say that what has defined our civilization, and set it apart from the other ones, is a restless quest for self-overcoming.

This European spirit has manifested itself in spectacular achievements in art, science, and politics, but also in more modest fields related to lifestyle.

And though these achievements are still spectacular today, most notably in technology, I am afraid that the key ingredient that has permitted said achievements is missing, and has been missing for about a century now, on both shores of our common ocean.

In short, our civilization has stopped dreaming.

For better and more often for worse, Western rulers have been chiefly preoccupied with being “pragmatic” and “realistic.”

And I think it should be no wonder that they have failed by their own standards.

The politicians who assured us that all we had to worry about was limiting deficits, public spending, taxes and trade imbalance have been presiding over a massive increase in debt, taxes, and public spending.

Those who swore that all we had to do was to give jobs to the unemployed have been sitting idle while jobs were outsourced to developing countries, or to newcomers at home.

The time has come to ask: “How realistic is realism?”

Though any political doctrine worthy of the name should be rooted in reality instead of in utopian abstractions, none can fulfill its mundane goals without a grand vision.

There should be no paradox in the fact that our civilization achieved its highest economic, demographic, and technological growth when it was not obsessed with it, when it had higher goals in mind.

So what happened a century ago? Obviously, the First World War, quickly followed by the Second one, played a crucial role—though not an exclusive one—in this disenchantment.

Since then, as the late Dominique Venner termed it, European civilization has entered into a state of “Dormition.”

Although Venner did not include America in European civilization, I am doing so, and it seems obvious to me that European-Americans, much like their European cousins, have been victims of America’s short-term, material successes.

Politicians love to say—when they run for public office—that “When there’s a will, there’s a way.” And they’re right! The logical consequence is that when there is no will, there is no way.

You may detect a sense of worry in this remark. I am, indeed, worried that those who claim that they would do a better job than the current rulers—i.e. people like us—fail to present an inspiring alternative to the liberal utopia of “a shining city upon a hill.”

As often with the Right, the political movements that endeavour to save our civilization fail to elaborate a political doctrine, and more importantly fail to present a positive alternative to our current dispensation.

As was noted by Alain de Benoist many years ago, the Right is most of the time reacting against the Left, reacting against liberalism, which leads it to being defined by what it is not, instead of by what it is, or rather by what it should be.

This incapacity of the Right to provide European people with a forward and upward-looking alternative has led it to recede and retreat, even when it gained momentary victories.

And I believe that’s where we stand today.

Today, the nationalist and patriotic Right is gaining wide popular support in reaction to the dramatic increase in immigration.

Be it a casino tycoon with a blonde wig on, or the daughter of a controversial politican, or even a loud stockbroker from London’s City, the Right is leading in the polls.

The question remains though: leading to where?

It is worth noting here that even though these politicians can explain in nauseating details complicated things like how they would halt or even reverse immigration if they were elected, they seem unable to answer a simple question, such as: “What America, or Britain, or France, do you want for the 21st century?”.

Maybe this is not such a simple question, after all.

Even more striking, those who seem to have a clear understanding of the present situation, like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, seem unable to think of a way they could look after the well-being of Europe as a whole, instead of simply taking care of their own nation-state.

Even as Orban claims to worry about Europe, with Hungary being a mere component of it, the practical result of his fence-building policy is to fast-track so-called “refugees” to Western Europe.

Similarly, Donald Trump’s “America First” platform dissociates America’s Destiny from Europe’s, despite the fact that America originates from Europe and cannot, in my opinion, survive without it.

By only focusing on the emergency, these leaders are missing the big picture, and even their limited goals will be impossible to attain.

For what will be left of tiny Hungary if Europe collapses? What will be left of America if it separates from its matrix?

Some might rightly argue that Europe as a whole survived the Fall of the Western Roman Empire precisely because the nobility of the time started building castles, which were the Medieval equivalent of today’s gated communities.

I’m sure that Jack Donovan or Keith Preston here wouldn’t mind a world in which private properties would be bordered by signs saying: “Tresspassers will be eaten alive.”

And it is, indeed, the most likely way European civilization will be saved, and reborn.

But if History’s role is to teach us lessons, we shouldn’t forget that while the High Middle Ages were, indeed, the time of small political entities, those entities were able to survive because they were ready to fight together. Clearly the Battle of Poitiers—or Tours as American historians say—rings a bell here.

What happened when they didn’t? Well, you just have to check Spanish History in the 7th and 8th centuries.

What united Europeans then, besides a basic feeling of kinship, was a common faith. Now, I know there are many Christians in this room, and I hope you believe me when I say that I respect your faith, but I don’t think that Christianity can play that role again in the 21st century. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be room for Christians, but that Christianity cannot be this higher goal I was mentioning.

Rather, I think that this question is still open and that to new challenges, new solutions will be needed, and em
erge in time. Usually these solutions arise in times of strife and turmoil.

A few years ago, Counter-Currents’ editor Greg Johnson, who was then editing The Occidental Quarterly, joked that Star Trek Conventions were more likely to give birth to an Ethnostate than White Nationalism. Behind the joke itself, what was implied was that space conquest, as fantastical as it might seem now, would be more inspiring, and thus more likely to draw the best in Europeans, than merely defending the status quo, or the status quo of the 1980s or the 1950s.

There is no stasis in nature, and of all people, those who profess biological realism should be aware of that.

Before we find this new goal that will unite Europeans in a common Destiny—and by “higher goal,” I don’t mean an Ethnostate, which is a means to an end rather than an end in itself—I think we should be open to political developments that might look frightening now, but that we could use to our advantage in the future.

Here I think of course of the European Union. Ironically this “coldest of cold monsters” has a useful role in that it gives Europeans the conscience of belonging to a common family, something which the Jacobin-style nationalisms of the 19th and 20th centuries had almost succeeded in erasing in European memories.

We have every reason to oppose today’s EU, but we should at least embrace the idea of a European Union, and maybe even consider taking it over to turn it into a powerful, and lasting tool.

Likewise, while everybody in this room is opposed for even better reasons to NATO or to the coming Transatlantic Treaty, we should, instead of merely opposing them, provide an inspiring alternative to them. It is the role of thinkers, writers and speakers to do that.

Do we really think that the current system of the nation-states will be any better, when we know for a fact that it has been the stepping stone towards the supranational organisations we decry, with our national rulers managing them collegially?

Clearly, there is room for imagination and creation here, instead of mere reaction.

I could end on that note and then get a bunch of claps, likes, tweets, and maybe even Instagram hearts by suggesting that we all leave this room right now and go storm the White House, or go establish a new Atlantis in Iceland.

I could do that, but I won’t, because prior to any serious political project, there must be a deep and thorough reflection on what one wants.

As some of you know, I have been doing political marketing these past years and among the things I have learned, is the notion that any fundraising campaign must end with what marketers call a “CTA,” a “Call to Action.”

There are whole buildings across the Potomac River where hundreds of people keep themselves busy all week—at least until 5PM on Friday—with crafting these “CTAs,” these “Calls to Action.”

Usually, the “action” elicited is that of sending a check, or even better, an automatic monthly wire transfer.

I would like, instead, to end this talk on a “CTR,” a Call to Reflection.

And I think everyone here should start by asking themselves the basic journalistic questions:

• Who are we?
• What do we want?
• Why?
• Where are we headed?
• How are we going to attain our goals?
• And when will we be able to attain them?

Now, I’ll be happy to take questions, or even better, to get the first answers to the questions I just asked.

Thank you very much.

The recent terror attacks in Paris have brought the cultural differences between Western Europe and the Muslim world into stark relief. Many Europeans who seek to defend their nations against terrorism—as well as the flood of migrants fleeing Syria and other parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa—often assert (or at least tacitly assume) that “Western Civilization” is a superior social and cultural order, especially vis-à-vis the Islamic world.

They are not being honest with themselves.

While the modern “West” might be superior in areas that Europeans value (like technological and economic development, religious tolerance, and artistic expression), it is severely lacking where it counts. In turn, Islam possesses characteristics that will likely make it a more lasting civilizational order.

At some point, whether before the West collapses, or after it has collapsed, some may finally recognize this fact—that Islam is superior to “the West” in the area that determines the future—demographics.

In the contemporary West, children and families are not valued. A stable, two-parent family is mocked as boring or staid. Homogeneous communities, which were once recognized as being essential for a harmonious population, are attacked as insular, narrow, and backward.

This culture of death is now being played out throughout the United States and Western Europe. For example, there are numerous recent examples of German women killing their own children, either because they had no money, they had no room to house them, or they simply didn’t want them.

This situation did not arise in a vacuum. For the last 60 years, Western elites have shaped both government and culture to attack native population growth and to attack the cornerstone of European civilization—the family.

Much of this push to transform both the population and culture can be seen as a response to the death and destruction of the Second World War. Western elites viewed one of the chief causes of the war as Lebensraum (“living space”). Friedrich Ratzel coined this term of human geography, to emphasize the degree to which habitat is a factor that influences human activities and the development of a society.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Western elites sought to attack any form of Lebensraum on the European continent to avoid future wars. In 1952, John D. Rockefeller III created the Population Council, which was dedicated to studying demographics and population growth throughout the world. With heavy cheerleading from the environmental movement, as well as other elites, over the last 50 years, Western nations dramatically reduced their birthrate, under the assumption that this would help save the planet and ensure sustainable societies for their children and grandchildren. The road to hell was always paved with good intentions.

We are currently witnessing a new Lebensraum, which could now be characterized as an “Islamoraum”—the expansion of a foreign culture and people into a defenseless West. And this expansion is seen as necessary for the survival of the invading horde. In the popular press and throughout social networks, discussion of this displacement is being censored and controlled.

And there is no end in sight. Currently, demographers have indicated that world population growth will not stabilize even during this century.

The questions for the Western elites are as follows:

• At what point do you start to defend your own people and your own borders?
• At what point do you start to insist on carving out a living space for your children and grandchildren?
• Where will the French, Germans, Dutch, and Swedes run to when their nations collapse?
• How many rapes must occur? How many native children must be aborted because there is not enough room for two competing civilizations?
• Shall Europeans status on the continent be that of servants to a new dominant population?

Michel Houellebecq’s Submission is a novel of the history of our time. This makes it an “important” novel, perhaps the first one to be written in this century. At its core, Houellebecq is asking his readers, you and me, who we are and where we are going.

For the past decade or so, Houellebecq has been the chronicler of postmodern Western nihilism. His novel The Elementary Particles could be described as F. Roger Devlin distilled into fiction; in Platform, Houellebecq delves into the third-world sex tourism, revealing the emptiness of the lifestyles idealized in Eat, Pray, Love and The Hangover Part II.

And something happens at the end of Platform—an Islamic attack on the pleasure pots of Thailand. (Incidentally, Platform was published about the time of the Bali bombings.) It’s this intrusion of history into the day-to-day—and the examination of the consequences of Western man’s belief that “pleasure is a right”—that elevates Houellebecq above postmodern picture painters like DeLillo and Bret Easton Ellis.

Like in DeLillo’s White Noise, Submission begins in a morally bankrupt academia and ends with greater events engulfing its protagonists. Whereas the chemical spill for DeLillo’s Jack Gladney is merely a prelude to inner strife and soul-searching, for Houellebecq’s Francois, the Islamic takeover of France allows him, perhaps for the first time, to glimpse larger, historical meaning.

Most of what has been written on this book so far has failed to grasp that point. Yes, as The London Review of Books states, this is the work of a “nihilist,” but Houellebecq is a self reflective one. Like Nietzsche, Houellebecq knows that “God is dead, and we killed him.” Unfortunately for today’s champagne socialists and caviar conservatives, one cannot leave a God-sized hole in a civilization and expect it to be filled by McDonalds, Social Security, and endless entertainment.

By now I am sure most readers know the outcome of Submission’s plot. The Muslim brotherhood seizes power and, after an initial struggle with “nativist” elements, bends France to its vision. In doing so, we see feminism destroyed, something like the institution of the family put back together again, and a will reasserting itself over society. At the end of it all, Houellebecq’s vision is less about Islam and its battle with hegemonic liberalism and more about the need of Westerners to align our souls with some social order and, dare I say, “become who we are.”

But this author readily admits, using Islam as a foil for this is either a stroke of genius or quite wrongheaded. For Identitarians and many others on the alt right, France’s eventual “Submission” to Islam in the novel is a hard pill to swallow. But ultimately, the themes Houellebecq forces us to confront are not just those external threats we see and are exposed to every day, but that of the void at the heart of our civilization. As Heidegger cryptically put it, “Only a god can save us,” and our hour is getting late.

Submission: A Novel

By Michel Houellebecq

Platform

By Michel Houellebecq, Frank Wynne

The Elementary Particles

By Michel Houellebecq

ISIS is an interesting group. They have managed to horrify the world–except, interestingly, a large number of Muslims–yet they continue to be in a position to launch apparently stunning attacks on Paris, hold their own against various enemies in the Middle East, link up with fellow travellers, like Boko Haram in Africa, and pump out ever more shockingly violent and disgusting videos. Their latest production—gunning down children en masse—was a new masterpiece is sadistic savagery.

The best way to understand ISIS is to remember the famous quote by Osama Bin Laden:

When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will naturally want to side with the strong horse.

ISIS’s goal is to play the part of the strong horse, but the reality is that ISIS is not actually strong at all.

An appropriate way to think of them is as enhanced cosplayers, acting out a role much bigger than they are—bronies on steroids with Koranic stylings, if you like. Instead of the mighty stallion of the collective Arab consciousness or folk memory, they are, in effect, a shop-soiled and luridly customized version of My Little Pony.

Their power is not positive but mainly negative. ISIS would not exist on the ground if the great powers and the medium-sized powers of the Middle East could line up their ducks. They have only been able to carve out their little caliphate because all the other powers with their pokers in the Middle-Eastern fire—Israel, Turkey, Iran, the Gulf States, the EU, Russia, and America—have created a kind of long-running and rather messy stalemate.

When these various powers manage to hammer out a rough deal, we can expect it to be sealed by the quick extinction of ISIS, and its substitution by Sunni Arab organizations more amenable to Western and world sensibilities.

But when that happens, ISIS will already have served its purpose—to have improved the long-term position of Iraq and Syria’s Sunni Arabs. Any deal in Syria will inevitably have to involve a lot more participation of the country’s Sunnis in government. This is clear from even from the rhetoric of Assad’s main supporter, Russia. Likewise, any deal in Iraq will have to include a degree of autonomy for that country’s Sunni Arab minority—possibly something analogous to the local autonomy that the Kurds in Iraq already have.

But while things remain unresolved, ISIS will continue to larp as the proverbial strong horse, acting like an alpha even when they are much nearer the other end of the alphabet. Videos of children on fire and homosexuals flying off high buildings, and other actions horrifying to the tender sensibilities of the mollycoddled West, will continue to seep out into the porous and viral media or the Internet age and mix with more traditional news reports of terrorist atrocities like Paris, making ISIS’s little pony look like a mighty beast and even one of the horses that carry the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

All this is possible simply because ISIS have their own little “safe space” created by the interstices and disjunctions between the competing interests of several powers. If either side or sides of this stand-off were dominant, ISIS could simply not exist. If the pro-Assad group–mainly Russia, Iran, Shiite Iraq, and Hezbollah—were dominant, ISIS would soon be wiped out. But even if the Gulf States, Turkey, Israel, and America got their way, ISIS would also have to go, as those powers would require a more moderate Sunni face to front their new regime in Syria. Either way, ISIS would not survive. The way to think of ISIS, therefore, is as an entity growing out of the combined shadows and disagreements of all of these powers.

And while they continue to exist in this shadowland, they will continue to play the strong horse. The attack on Paris was a perfect way of doing this. Just eight men, a few Kalashnikovs, and some explosives were involved, yet they were able to create a massive media footprint and have an enormous global psychological impact. The fact that they were attacking extremely soft targets in what is in effect a partial or future Islamic country is neither here nor there.

In the shock utterances of reporters and the mass uploading of hundreds of millions of French flag filters to Facebook, the impressionable masses of the Muslim world, both in their old homelands and new ones across the West, would have smelled the sweat and heard the snorting of Bin Laden’s strong horse—even if behind the curtain it was just the Islamic world’s version of My Little Pony.

Those of us on the nationalist or identitarian Right are maddened by this modern world. First, we are enraged by the violent and coercive destruction of our European homelands, through alien settlement, mass rape, violent criminality, and, as we have just seen again in Paris, bloodthirsty terrorism. Yet, as maddening as this is, we are often yet more enraged by those who, whether blindly or consciously, are enabling our doom: The liberals.^[1]

Let us consider, however unpleasant, the liberal mind and its beliefs for a moment:

1. Continuously import Muslims (and other unassimilable non-Europeans).
2. Destroy Muslim nations (Palestine, Iraq, Libya, and Syria).
3. Be very, very surprised—nay, “deeply shocked,” in the words of the ruling German Chancellorette—when a small minority of Muslims (and it only takes a very small number) murder Americans, Frenchmen, etc., en masse.

Rinse and repeat.

Albert Einstein is supposed to have said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” (He didn’t, but it doesn’t matter.)

This enrages us. No, no one has a right to be “surprised,” “shocked” or anything of the sort when Blacks or Muslims murder Europeans or rape European girls. Leftists, whose appetite for smug pseudo-moral posturing knows no bounds, even exploit the tragedy to shame nationalists and identitarians for proposing concrete solutions to the problems of inter-ethnic strife.

And yet, even as my blood boils, I cannot help but understand the liberal “steeple” among us—you known the feminine types, changing their profile picture to a rainbow flag one day, a #JeSuisCharlie the next, etc. All societies are necessarily made up, in their overwhelming majority, of this conformist, follower, slightly dim-witted sort.

No, let us save our rage for those who mislead them: Our cultural and political elites, whether they be of European or foreign blood. Our people have become wholly brainwashed. They have had anti-nationalist, “anti-racist,” and Holocaust-centric values beaten into their heads from the day they were born, by their television screens, their radio stations, their newspapers, their left-wing teachers and professors, and often their friends and family, too.

And so, the liberal masses suffer, too. For the real world never corresponds to the lies of egalitarianism and multiculturalism. And our people, our liberal steeple, then suffer from cognitive dissonance, from the contradictions between their ideology and reality. They become hungry for anything that could comfort their theology: They look for scapegoats. And the hostile elites that rule the West—the Paul Krugmans and the Emmanuel Todds—are happy to provide a ready-made scapegoat: ethnocentric Whites, Christians, conservatives, nationalists, et al.

Man is not foremost a rational animal. I rather think of him as an animal merely capable, at his best, of rationality. We learn the hard way. Old beliefs die hard. Max Planck once said: “Science advances one funeral at a time.”

In truth, I had hoped to write something positive. I had been so energized, so inspired, made so optimistic by the National Policy Institute’s recent conference in Washington. And, actually, I remain boundlessly optimistic. The people there could only convert you to such optimism, to an ineradicable faith in Greater Europe. Even if we fail in the short term, even if our people remain comfortable and blind, even if our children and grandchildren become a minority in the United States, in Great Britain, and Continental Europe, I remain optimistic.

Boundlessly optimistic! Talk to a U.S. Marine, he’ll tell you how the Armed Forces’ combat roles are overwhelmingly manned by Whites. Read of William Shockley’s and Steve Sailer’s solutions. Watch (and rewatch) Mishima and The Battle of Algiers. Above all, meet, organize, take that energy, evident at “Become Who We Are,” and cultivate it, live it, try to be with it at all times.

Here is the truth our enemies are only too aware of. If we Europeans awaken to our identity, our interests, and our heroic potential destiny, nothing can stop us. Certainly not some inbred Levantine tribe. If European Man should die, it will not have been because of the strength of Africans or Muslims, but because he had already been enslaved to the selfishness and cowardice of bourgeois comfort, because the will-to-life had already been extinguished in his soul.

But we will not allow that. We on the Right have already seen the evil dream of the hostile elites who rule the West: to destroy our nations and turn them into hellish mongrel lands, a cross between Yugoslavia and Brazil, filled with rape, violence, and inexpiable tribal hatreds. They believe they can hold things together with a multiculturalist dictatorship, with reinforced surveillance, censorship, and persecution of nationalists.

But they cannot succeed. The enemies of our people fear one thing above all: White men meeting, discussing, and organizing to defend their interests. And they have every reason to. Let the cells of the “spiritual Ethno-State,” the vanguard of awakened Europeans, crop up and spread everywhere across our ancient civilization. We have nothing to lose, and a world to gain, if only we will it!

The fight for justice is never over, of course, but it has achieved a small victory in forcing the resignations of University of Missouri system President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor Richard Loftin. By now, you have probably already heard why they had to go. Since the start of the Fall semester, there have been two different instances in which Whites called a Black student, or in one case, a group of Black students, niggers. Twice! That is a trend. That is dangerous.

Naturally, a group of Black collegians decided to voice their concerns to then-Mizzou President Wolfe. So they tried to get his attention by blocking the route of his car during the annual Homecoming parade, but this only led to further racist outrage. No, they were not arrested, but instead of stopping the parade right then and there so he could hear their righteous demands, the students were removed, and Wolfe went on his way, waiving at the children or whatever it is they do at those things. (I should add in passing that at Mizzou, my alma mater incidentally, Homecoming is an even bigger deal than at most schools; the Homecoming tradition, now observed all over the country, was first started by MU.)

Then, on Oct. 24, it was discovered that some Shitlord had redecorated a wall in one the dorms with a Swastika made of feces.

Since all of this happened on Wolfe’s watch, he had to go. Black students began staging protests, one Black graduate student decided to go on a hunger strike until Wolfe stepped down, and then last Saturday, 32 Black Mizzou football players went on strike. Wolfe was gone by Monday. Wolfe could have revoked the players’ scholarships, he could have done a lot of things to fight back, but . . . well, you know the type. Maybe he received a golden parachute, which would make the situation even worse, because his cowardice deserves no reward of any kind.

No one is alleging that Wolfe has any personal connection the perpetrators. And so a rational person might wonder why the actions of a few locals should have cost Tim Wolfe his job. The answer is that we are not dealing with rationality. That is my point here. University life, which ought to be the most rational sphere in society, is now among the least. For Christ’s sake, the Professor in the viral video who called for “muscle” to remove a reporter from the protest site is a Professor of communication!

A similar situation is playing out over at the Mizzou of Connecticut, Yale. At Yale, every residence hall has a live-in Professor to guide the intellectual life of the hall. (At Mizzou, we did not have such a nurturing arrangement. We simply had R.A.s, who were just fat kids who might issue smoking-in-the-dorm citations and question you about why the couch in your room looks just like one that used to be in the lobby, but who otherwise left you to your own devices.) Anyways, in one of Yale’s resident colleges, husband and wife Nicholas and Erika Christakis, both teachers at that University, share this mentoring task.

Apparently, some residents of this hall complained to the couple that University administrators were taking the fun out of Halloween by advising them to avoid certain costumes. So Mrs. Christakis, who, as a Professor of early childhood education, would seem more than qualified to speak on such an issue, sent out a thoughtful email in reply. College students are probably mature enough to decide for themselves what costumes to wear . . . if it is alright for an eight-year-old blonde girl to dress as a non-White Disney Princess, who is to say at what age it is no longer acceptable? . . . perhaps we should be encouraging imagination, not restricting it . . . These were the kinds of reasonable things she said in the email. Ultimately, she concludes that we should not be forcing our “Hallowenish” standards on each other. That is obvious, I think.

Her husband added, “if you don’t like a costume someone is wearing, look away, or tell them you are offended. Talk to each other.” Again, this seems pretty obvious. If you are a sane and civilized person, those are pretty much your only two options.

Regrettably, it can no longer be taken for granted that Yale undergrads are sane and civilized. And now many of them are demanding that the couple resign their posts. In the words of one student, whom I am guessing considers herself a Strong Black Woman, and who is probably quite strong:

Then why the fuck did you accept the position?! Who the fuck hired you?! You should step down! If that is what you think about being a master you should step down! It is not about creating an intellectual space! … Do you understand that? It’s about creating a home here.

Creating a home and an intellectual space were once thought to be compatible, but as the Tragedy of the West unfolds, this appears less and less true. Free speech and rationality are fading away in the name of tolerance.

I do not have a personal blog to remind you of my past wisdom, and I do not want to be one of those writers who produces the same story over and over, only with different characters. So if you are interested in placing these examples of academic degeneration in a larger societal context, see here.

But back to Mizzou and Columbia for a moment though. The image many in the media are promoting about Columbia, that it is an only semi-reconstructed Southern town, is flat-out silly. It is possible that since Ferguson the town has become more racially tense, but when I was there less than a decade ago, it was, for better and worse, a picture of American normalcy—college edition.

My first semester there, three differences from back home stuck-out to me.

1. People were a bit nicer and a bit smarter.

2. The distribution of personality-types and fashion-styles was much more narrow. I think MU acceptance letters must have come with complimentary Northface jackets. I must have forgotten to check that box on my admissions form.

3. Back home, bathroom graffiti was mostly curse words and racial slurs; at Mizzou, it was debates about religion and between Greeks and non-Greeks.

In hindsight, these seem like the kind of differences that must be noticed by millions of kids arriving on campuses around the country every year. So in other words, Columbia is a normal American college town.

I heard very little in the way of racist commentary from my fellow students, even though it was known that I was a safe-space for the airing of such views. On my subjective racism-scale, I would rank Columbia as a bit less racist than Chicagoland, and a bit more so than Madison. And that might even overestimate Columbia’s racism, because people there are much more likely to be open-books than in those other two places.

Over the Halloween weekend, the National Policy Institute hosted its conference entitled “Become Who We Are,” in a city that is not-so-affectionately referred to as “the belly of the beast.” In the seat of American imperial power in Washington, D.C., an elite collection of the self-aware European diaspora came together to discuss issues affecting our growing movement, to hear enlightening presentations from its leaders, and to get to know one another in preparation of building regional and local networks.

But what does the title mean? Are we not already “who we are?” The phrase is immediately borrowed from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which the eponymous character remembers, alone on a mountaintop, how he counseled himself to “become what you are!” The eminent 19th century German philosopher and himself a student of the Greek language, however, borrowed this from Pindar of Thebes, one of the Nine Lyric Poets, in the Ancient’s second “Pythian Ode.” In it, Pindar advises the victorious chariot racer Hieron to “Learn and become what you are.” As the conference’s keynote speaker thundered this weekend: before we can do, we must first know.

In fact, looking back on my arrival at the weekend’s first event —a luxurious three-course dinner along with an open bar—my first impressions from the fellow guests were that everyone surrounding me was highly educated. Security stood like a statue outside our completely-booked room, and I saw a number of additional chairs brought in. I never felt crowded though, and leaned in as I caught up with old comrades or introduced myself to friendly newcomers over White Russians. Richard Spencer smiled and nodded as I remarked that a packed venue was a good problem to have. As he addressed the guests, he highlighted how many present were Millennials.

The following morning I walked to the conference with a number of other young men, most of whom were attending one of these events for the first time. As we neared the National Press Club, I eagerly scouted out if I could distinguish any of the local vagrants as bothersome Antifa. I know, I know, that task is virtually impossible, though I did begin to see some gaze at us with mouths agape. I stared back as I entered, wondering if they even cared to move. One eventually followed and said “Hey!” as the doors closed behind us. Not the most exciting entrance, but I did hear some others were sprayed with silly string. The horror.

To make up for being let down by those who would deem themselves our opponents, I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Kevin MacDonald speak in person for the first time. His topic was the Origins of the White Man. What struck me most about MacDonald’s talk were not the prehistoric origins of our people, but how our healthy and subconscious instincts for self-preservation are suppressed by conscious puritanical moral ideals of universalism. MacDonald argued that we are (or at least many of us are) by nature egalitarian as this was a useful instinct in societies of warrior bands or Männerbunde. This instinct can itself be suppressed in the future by a newly hegemonic and conscious ideal of group interests that are morally valid. Taking to heart the lesson that we are a moral people and that our cause can and must be portrayed as such is perhaps the most important point that was made the entire weekend.

Richard Spencer was next in his well-prepared “Political Theology” speech, in which he argued that people are now being exposed to the truth, or “red-pilled”, not just by us, but reality. The present circumstances are so obviously against the interests of Europeans that it can no longer be ignored. This makes our message all the more potent and harder to obscure by our enemies. Spencer, much like fellow traveler Alex Kurtagić, believes that an alternative dream to the one offered by the Left must be offered in order for us to reach the top of the mountain. Who we are now is not nearly enough. What we can possibly become is the only thing we will settle for. Like the first speaker, Spencer offers a message that must be accepted if this movement is to ever grow, let alone attain power: Pragmatism is unrealistic; idealism is the only thing that will bring us success.

Professor Keith Preston followed with a cutting criticism of identity within the American system. People must be a subject of the state, they can identify with their job, and they can identify with what they consume. Preston is rooted in National Anarchist circles, and like Jack Donovan, he is independent of the movement but adds important contributions that are always interesting. What stands out to me as an Identitarian, however, are the racial exceptions to these rules. Yes, a man can identify as a student or an engineer, for example, but there are also plenty of student or engineering associations that are based around racial and ethnic lines, so long as these are not White student unions or White engineering associations. Such identities are allowed because the political losers have so much to give up to the political winners that this transfer of wealth, status, and power is explained away as trivial. Indeed, you only have to look at the undue moral authority groups like Black Lives Matter have within the poisoned mainstream to witness how untouchable they can be. Bernie Sanders infamously surrendered without a fight to that group at a rally of his a few months ago, and stood by as his actual supporters were labeled as “liberal white supremacists.” Hillary Clinton herself waited some time before finally ejecting Black Lives Matter protestors from her own rally.

Lunch was served, and attorney Sam Dickson spoke on Southern identity and the recent attacks it has suffered at the hands of its enemies in the media and government since the deplorable shooting committed by Dylann Roof. Instead of laying the blame on the murderer where it belongs, the Left’s attack on all of Southern identity in response to the shootings is reawakening or stirring it up more than ever.

Dickson recounted his experiences of running into groups that identify as Southern but have no honor or dignity. Obese men in overalls and unkempt beards playing banjos do nothing but replace Southern pride with disgrace. Clearly, such men who seize onto caricatures of the South are forgetting any authentic heritage their ancestors left them. They instead adopt self-images conjured up by the same people who are now campaigning to remove the Confederate flag from all areas of public life. Avoiding such traps is of paramount importance in any political movement, but especially ones such as ours where we do not have fair access or coverage by the larger media. From what I can tell, the biggest challenge Confederate flag supporters present our movement is that the majority are attached to the current dispensation, more so than many other groups. Convincing the subculture of Confederates and its parent culture of traditional American masculinity to move on from the current system and think radically may actually be a bigger challenge than converting liberals.

Roman Bernard, one of two speakers from France, most likely surprised many in the audience initially when he looked with optimism to the European Union. The international institution is among the most anti-White European organizations on the planet, yet Bernard emphasized that nothing happens in the EU without consent from its member states. It is possible that the EU could be surreptitiously deviated from its present course into a path that favors the interests of European Man.

In order however to accomplish this Herculean task, I imagine another one must be completed: convincing the populist or nationalist political parties that are most likely to support our message of taking our side to start taking each other’s side as well. European Parliament political groupings of nationalist parties have historically proven unsteady on their feet. A track record of cooperation across national boundaries is a necessity before pro-Europeans can successfully engage an elite international organization that already has a firm anti-white identity.

One Frenchman followed another with the keynote speaker, Guillaume Faye, giving his optimistically-titled talk, “Why We Will Win.” Faye’s enthusiasm and passion was definitely an inspiration, according to one attendee asking a question following the presentation. He argued that the attacks of non-Whites against Whites in our own countries are becoming impossible to ignore or for the current governments to handle and explain away. As Greg Johnson has pointed out, those who are fighting us are already working at full capacity. One break in the dam could unleash unstoppable white waters that would wash out the present system. Faye believes like we all do instinctively that we are better than our enemies. Spencer argued as much in a recent podcast, saying plainly that if we merely had the right ideas, the problems facing our people could be solved practically overnight. Islam is not a threat to a self-confident civilization.

A live podcast followed, featuring Spencer, Henrik Palmgren of Red Ice Radio, Lana Lokteff or Radio 3Fourteen, and Mike Enoff of The Right Stuff in sunglasses that would fit right in on the red carpet. Conversation was light and began with an expressed disappointment in the meager display of riffraff outside the building, and winded on towards more serious reflections. Questions from the audience were a sizable portion of the panel discussion, and it is fully anticipated that including talks of this format will become a mainstay at our events.

The conference broke for two hours, returning to the National Press Club room used earlier this February for the evening portion in a more relaxed setting. A light dinner was available along with wine, beer, cocktails, and mixed drinks. After some time unwinding from the day’s events, Spencer addressed the crowd as a Cuckservative in what could be called the best Lindsey Graham impression I have ever seen and heard. A text message alerted our Cuckservative-in-Chief that two of his adopted Haitian children had let loose on a murderous rampage at an Apple store, and the world was a number of Geniuses shorter.

He yielded the floor to Jack Donovan, and a hush fell over the men and women circled around him. The lessons he imparted to us would aid us to think tribally. While we can sympathize with strangers, we must not shed tears for them. In looking at who is us, barbarians cannot think of criminals as a type of person, but as a designation by the State. Should we become powerful enough, the State could designate us all criminals. I wondered, would that stop us? It could certainly be a blow to a movement that is clearly made up of high-status individuals. It would not be a blow to a movement that derives its status from its own members and those it hopes to reach.

Donovan’s words sounded like an ancient wisdom shared over a campfire in a northerly encampment, in the hopes that they would strengthen the students gathered for the many trials to come. He reminded us of our own ancestors’ strength and raised our cheers as he reminded us that all people have done horrible things, and those we descend from are not any more evil just because they were better at it than all the rest. If we are to be barbarians, we must loot and plunder, to take what is ours. “Let me be a friend to my friend; but I will be an enemy to my enemy, and pounce on him like a wolf, treading every crooked path.” In doing so, we must offer no apologies, no arguments, and no explanations. Such things belong within the tribe.

Live music by Robert Taylor followed, with much of the crowd singing along and listening intently while others allowed it to serve as a lively backdrop to their conversations. As our time at the Press Club came to a close, we left as a group and were greeted in the street by a few Antifa protestors. I recall only seeing a handful, with one shouting something in a peculiar accent that one usually only hears among mentally troubled group homes. One light-skinned, lanky man wearing a mask could not even be bothered to raise his voice as he muttered “white supremacist.” Spencer confronted one face-to-face as the conference-goers streamed by. After I was a few blocks away, I saw several police cars arrive, and I heard later that one female Antifa was hauled away kicking and screaming. All in all, any costs they attempted to impose on us for our gathering were mild in effect and pathetic in attempt.

Naturally, the fellowship and drinking continued in dozens of smaller groups across various bars and hotels. I had a splendid conversation with an artist from New York who was about to go on his first hunting trip, and I recommended to him the wonderful documentary hosted by Roger Scruton, “Why Beauty Matters.” Eventually, it was time to retire.

The last event was the brunch the next morning. After most had finished eating, Spencer took feedback from the room. A number of suggestions were offered, among them including workshops at future conferences centered on particular topics. Such topics could be strategies for approaching potential allies for our cause. A common theme was that we must continue moving in the direction of being not just an intellectual movement but a cultural one. Sam Dickson emphasized the importance of folk music in building camaraderie. As someone who does not have much experience with folk music, I can still vouch for its power as I have personally witnessed it become the life of the party, pulling me in with its passion and authenticity. We committed to each hosting our own local gatherings, even if that meant beginning with just a few people.

As I left D.C. for home, the memories racing through my head kept pointing to the same conclusions for the weekend: growth, maturity, and success. I have gotten something out of every conference I have been to, and while this event stands on the shoulders of giants, I cannot help but say that this was the best conference of ours that I have experienced. Speakers and attendees did not have to wait for me to say it to express the same sentiment themselves. Such is the inevitable result of highly-motivated and talented people, mostly young, gathering for a common and just purpose.

The trajectory of NPI events is also self-evident. Beginning in a modest room of the Ronald Reagan Building, moving to a larger and more elegant room at the National Press Club this past February, and finally transitioning to The Press Club’s largest hall this Halloween, steady growth has rewarded the diligent efforts of the conference’s speakers and the many men and women that have contributed along the way. The challenge we acknowledged lay before us was to take this spark and light others around the country, transforming excitement into persistent momentum as we widen and deepen our networks and sharpen our talents. Indeed, that is a challenge for every single man and woman reading this, so that when we look back on our deeds as we clawed and scratched our way to the top of the mountain, we may know that we worthed ourselves of the heights we were destined to attain. We might then say on our way, as Pindar said, “O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.”