Radix Journal

Radix Journal

A radical journal

Tag: Liberalism

12 min read
Europe Politics Race

Freedom & The State

12 min read
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12 min read

In order to become free, we must free ourselves from the nightmare of modernity. We must free ourselves from the myths which are utilized in order to make Europeans feel guilty about a past that they should feel proud of, we should feel proud of both the good and the bad just as other races feel pride for their entire history.

In order to become free, we must free ourselves from the nightmare of modernity. We must free ourselves from the myths which are utilized in order to make Europeans feel guilty about a past that they should feel proud of, we should feel proud of both the good and the bad just as other races feel pride for their entire history.

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2 min read
America Europe Politics

It’s Called the Death of the West

2 min read
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2 min read

Now that even our YouTube live streams get shadowbanned like a controversial Twitter account, you will want to use that (not-so-sweet) quarantine leisure to keep up with the latest RADIX discussions!

Now that even our YouTube live streams get shadowbanned like any truly controversial Twitter account, you will want to make sure to use that (not-so-sweet) quarantine leisure to keep up with the latest RADIX discussions!

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14 min read
Culture Identity Politics

Richard Spencer’s Interview with Europe Maxima

14 min read
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14 min read

This interview about Donald Trump, the question of identity, geopolitics, Islam, and other issues originally appeared in a French publication Europe Maxima. Richard was interviewed by Thierry Durolle.

This interview about Donald Trump, the question of identity, geopolitics, Islam, and other issues originally appeared in a French publication Europe Maxima. Richard was interviewed by Thierry Durolle.

Europe Maxima: First and foremost, thank you for answering my questions. To begin this interview, could you introduce yourself and the National Policy Institute to our readers?

Richard Spencer: The National Policy Institute is an independent non-profit think tank dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States and around the world. I am the President and Director of The National Policy Institute and Washington Summit Publishers. I am also the founder and Editor of Radix Journal, RadixJournal.com, and a co-founder of the recently-launched AltRight.com.

Europe Maxima: You are considered by the media as a kind of showcase or spokesman of the now-famous Alt Right. We know that the Alt Right is more of a nebula of different tendencies rather than a homogeneous movement. Where do you fit in this Alt-Right nebula?

Richard Spencer: I coined the term “alternative Right” in 2008 in order to differentiate myself from the failures of mainstream American conservatism. I saw the latter as a purely reactive form, seeking to preserve the status quo as opposed to focusing on passing down key aspects of our ancestral traditions to future generations. I have been referred to as the intellectual vanguard of this movement.

Today, Alt Right is, indeed, an umbrella term to describe those seeking the way out of Liberal Postmodernity dominating the United States and Europe through various means: culturally, socially, politically. Alt Right’s current diversity is a natural state in its early stages of development, as we consolidate our message and improve our communication with likeminded counterparts outside the U.S.

Europe Maxima: Several protagonists of the Alt Right seem to be influenced by the French Nouvelle Droite and particularly by Guillaume Faye and Alain de Benoist. As far as you are concerned, you invited the latter in 2013 to talk about the identity question. What did you learn from the French Nouvelle Droite and do you believe that its influence is that important among Alt Righters?

Richard Spencer: The so-called French New Right has left a tremendous impact on the Alt Right, as have earlier renditions of the Right in continental Europe: from Friedrich Nietzsche to the Conservative Revolutionary thinkers in the interwar period. One of the reasons for this influence is the fact that continental Europe has a rich tradition of right-wing intellectuals as compared to the United States, which has, relative to its population, few. Apart from a number of notable exceptions, today, the Right in the U.S. comprises neoconservatives, libertarians, and paleoconservatives, who either fail to address key questions of identity or do not go far enough in doing so.

Europe Maxima: Except the Nouvelle Droite and some famous thinkers like Julius Evola and Oswald Spengler, we don’t really know American thinkers who influenced the Alt Right. Could you name a few?

Richard Spencer: Some of the notable thinkers of recent times in the U.S. include Sam Francis, Patrick Buchanan, Murray Rothbard, and Paul Gottfried. In various ways, these thinkers criticized Washington’s foreign policy of chaos led by neocons and liberal interventionists, questioned the decline of the West, and examined questions of identity.

Europe Maxima: The Lügenpresse depicts you as a neo-Nazi and a white supremacist whereas you consider yourself a race-realist. Does this mean you want a « nice white country » or that you would accept living in a multicultural country as long as there is no racial and cultural mixing between its communities?

Richard Spencer: I consider myself an Identitarian. I have also repeatedly stated that to move forward, we must discard all ideologies of the past.

Proponents of Liberalism (even those who self-describe as the mainstream Left) refer to anyone who opposes them by using emotionally-charged keywords, including “Nazi.” This shows the power of such keywords to shut down rational discussion, but also the fact that globalist elites and their supporters have been in a state of hysteria about the slow paradigm shift toward identity-focused populism since Brexit and, especially, since Trump’s election and inauguration.

If you look at recent violent protests during Trump’s inauguration or those in Berkeley, you will notice that those who have been attacked—both verbally and physically—are not only people like me, with bold and radical ideas, but also mainstream conservatives wearing red Trump hats. This means that our attackers do not differentiate between us. The explicit nature of this friend/enemy distinction is good: our opponents are hostile and even violent, which should convert more open-minded people to our message.

Europe Maxima: Is race, as a concept, more than simple biological materialism to you? What would be the answer of the spiritual vacuity and nihilism the post-modern white man is afflicted by?

Richard Spencer: I do not subscribe to pure biological determinism. I believe that one’s identity is a complex interplay of nature and nurture: from one’s DNA to cultural and social interactions, and, of course, geography—the sense of rootedness in one’s native landscape.

Our European counterparts must understand the uniqueness of American development: our society is hyper-racialized because our history on this continent involved slavery, various waves of immigration, mainly from Europe and, more recently, from other parts of the world, segregation, and so forth. Whereas some older dwindling immigrant communities such as the Irish certainly exist, the majority of Americans of European descent is not only ethnically mixed but also self-identifies as simply White. This is both their reality in terms of self-perception and in terms of being the Other—when they encounter members of other groups.

In some ways, this perception is similar to Americans of African, Hispanic, and other backgrounds. Yet whereas these minority groups are encouraged to embrace their respective group identities through their own institutions and encouragement by the state, such as Affirmative Action in education, Americans of European descent do not have such mechanisms. It is true that up until recently, White Americans held social and cultural hegemony and did not need their own organizations. This, however, has changed: the combination of demographics, immigration, and Kulturkampf has left many Americans of European descent with a keen sense of dispossession.

Europe Maxima: For a couple of years in France, some people like Laurent Ozon created the concept/neologism “Remigration.” “Remigration” is the return of non-white French people to their countries of origin in a peaceful way thanks to bi-lateral state concords, for example. Do you believe something similar could be achieved someday in the U.S.A.?

Richard Spencer: The Alt Right is in the initial stages of political development. We must use our time wisely rather than biting off more than we can chew in outlining currently unfulfillable political goals. That said, I believe that we, as a group, must act solely in our own interests. By definition, this would leave out those outside it. In theory, this could be achieved by various peaceful and voluntary means. So I am not excluding concepts like re-migration from the list of possibilities.

Europe Maxima: What is your opinion on Islam?

Richard Spencer: In the best circumstances, we could both live and let live.

Framing the question of immigration—or mass migration—to Europe and the U.S. along the lines of Islam is incorrect. Islam is practiced in very different regions around the world: Indonesian Muslims are distinct from those in Lebanon and those in Nigeria. Saudi Arabia practices horrific beheading, while Tatar Muslims in Russians are largely secular adherents to generic Russian-European culture. Thus, this question should not only be framed along the lines of religion but also along the lines of ethnicity, culture, and geography.

That said, with some exceptions of historic, indigenous minority communities, large-scale Islamic migration has no place in Europe. At the same time, Washington and its European allies must stop the ongoing chaos and destruction they have caused in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia creating a seemingly never-ending flow of war refugees and economic migrants, which includes serious criminal elements and even terrorists. It surprises me that when the question of refugees is discussed, virtually no one—not even the self-described Leftist antiwar activists—mentions that the best solution, after ceasing to aid the so-called “moderate rebels” and helping in the struggle against global terrorism, is resettlement of refugees and, perhaps, aid in rebuilding in their own ancestral lands, not in Europe or the U.S.

But then one wonders if it will ever be “live and let live” with Islam, and not “live and let die.”

I’ve generally turned up my nose at the “Islam debates” of the 2000s. On one side, liberals (including George W. Bush) claimed that Islam was a “religion of peace”; on the other side, conservative supporters of Bush and the War on Terror claimed that Islam was a maniacal religion bent on installing Sharia Law in Oklahoma—which is why we should engaged in endless wars for democracy in the Middle East.

Needless to say, both sides are wrong and misguided. But as much as I hate to admit it, because I opposed the Iraq War so vehemently, the conservative side does contain a kernel of truth. Islam—at its full flourishing (for instance, Wahhabi or Salafi Islam—Islam as a political ideology)—isn’t some peaceful denomination like Methodism or religion like Buddhism; Islam is a Black Flag. It is an expansive, domineering ideology, and one that is directed against Europe. In this way, Islam give non-Europeans a fighting spirit and integrates them into something much greater than themselves. Islam is a “civilization” in Huntington’s sense, and a grave danger for European peoples.

Europe Maxima: Racial and cultural tensions are growing more and more in both of our countries along with a general despondency, mistrust towards the political and media elite and the rise of populism. According to you is it because of an economical and social crisis, a political crisis, a crisis of identity, a crisis of Meaning or even everything all together?

Richard Spencer: Current crisis in the West has multiple causes—both immediate and deep-rooted. The former is obvious: the warfare-welfare state creates crises abroad, accepting the results of those crises—migrants and refugees—at home, while benefitting globalist elites with transnational capitalist interests. This perpetual cycle occurs against the backdrop of moral and cultural degeneration: from entertainment culture to suicidal “tolerance.” Even if it were possible in certain cases, refugees cannot be assimilated because there is no viable culture to assimilate them to. The results are horrific.

Yet many critics of our predicament simply want to turn back the clock to the time of three of four decades ago, when things seemed reasonably “okay,” without asking difficult—fundamental—questions. This is wrong. After all, it was that seemingly comfortable time that set us on the trajectory that led us to where we are now.

Others trace the decline of the West to the era of the Enlightenment that spawned ideologies of Modernity; others yet—to the origins of Christianity; while thinkers like Heidegger go as far back as ancient Greece and the framing of Being.

So this time around we must ask ourselves these difficult questions starting with, “Who are we?” and “What is our place in history?”

Europe Maxima: Do you believe the concepts of Left and Right are still valid?

Richard Spencer: On the one hand, the political spectrum that everyone is used to is largely outmoded. After the collapse of Communism, Liberalism became the only remaining ideology of Modernity with global aspirations, in which both the mainstream Left and Right represent two cosmetically different versions of the same fundamental trajectory. This is why, for instance, you see many Identitarians who would self-describe as Right with a keen interest in the environment and conservation, i.e. issues traditionally associated with leftist “greens,” or they subscribe to anti-interventionist foreign policy—another putatively “left-wing” cause.

At the same time, in a somewhat abstract, semantic sense we can speak of an eternal Left and Right, where the former is about horizontal movement, destruction of existent norms, decentralization, whereas the latter is about eternity, vertical movement, centralization, consolidation, creative spirit, and monumentality. These semantic forms are cyclical.

Europe Maxima: Donald Trump finally became President of the U.S. What do you expect from him in terms of domestic and foreign policy?

Richard Spencer: My expectation of Trump remains pragmatic and therefore modest. At best, he will face inward in order to attempt to solve a multitude of domestic problems, while adhering to Realpolitik in international relations. I do not expect him to dismantle NATO—despite the fact that this alliance is a Cold War relic—contrary to the paranoid theories of his opponents. But needless to say, the alliance needs to be radically rethought.

For me, Trump is more important as a symbol of the kind of energies he has unleashed instead of his actual policies. He, for instance, recently nominated an Anglo-Saxon Protestant, Neil Gorsuch, for the Supreme Court. In practice, Gorsuch’s decisions will likely adhere to examining Constitutional law. Symbolically, however he represents the founding stock of America as a nascent state, whereas none of the recent selections have been representative thereof. Similarly, Trump’s comments, ranging from those about a reasonable relationship with Russia to explicitly questioning immigration, have provided hope for a future paradigm shift.

Europe Maxima: As the name of our website suggests, we defend the greater Europe. What is your opinion on both Europe as a civilisation and as a (pseudo) political and economic structure names the European Union?

Richard Spencer: If you look at maps of, say, the Holy Roman Empire in the past and the European Union today, there will be quite a bit of an overlap. What this demonstrates is that there is a vast spiritual, geographic, and ethno-cultural entity that we could refer to as Greater Europe. Yet the form of this entity has been filled with different content throughout history. Today, the European Union is a symbol of all that is wrong: from its massive bureaucracy to its culturally destructive policies. What this means is that the form needs to be filled with correct content in line with true European identities and traditions.

I’ve expressed skepticism of “Brexit,” as well as all forms of ethnic nationalism, that is, nationalisms that view fellow Europeans as “The Other.” Whether we like it or not, the fault lines of the 21st century—and beyond—are racial and civilizational. We must address issues and crises on this level; in this sense, we must think and act racially.  How exactly this Identitarian spirit would express itself in terms of political structures remains to be seen.

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Culture Identity Politics

Islam: The Magian Revolution

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Western academics and media-types write a lot of drivel about Islam. Part of the problem is there is a dearth of good information, and a bounty of superficial, politically self-serving…

Western academics and media-types write a lot of drivel about Islam. Part of the problem is there is a dearth of good information, and a bounty of superficial, politically self-serving garbage. But the real problem is misplaced emphasis. Western experts and commenters are used to thinking of history in simplistic terms–as the story of human progress. This model might be a good fit for Euro-American history, it is at least workable. But the progressive model falls apart when applied to the history of Islam. Islam’s heights seem to correspond to the West’s depths, and vice-versa. The “Progress” model causes Westerners to ask the wrong questions about Islamic history. “What went wrong?” “Why has the Middle East been so beset by violence?” “When will Islam adopt modern political and ethical principles?”

This misguided criticism has two faces–liberal and reactionary. Both sides share a simplistic view of history–that millennia-long, worldwide advance of the human spirit. But each side approaches its subject with different motives. Liberals, who dominate public discourse on the subject (surprise), assume the intrinsic goodness of all people. “Islam is peace” (eye roll). They feel good when they can cite examples of seemingly precocious modernism, such as early Muslim rulers’ tolerance (in the strictest sense) for religious minorities. It makes them feel good to contrast these anecdotes with the supposedly unrelenting fanaticism of Euro-Americans throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, the 19th and 20th centuries, up to and including last week. This rosy, Islamophilic picture is not really about Islam. It is just another stick with which to beat guilt into the Euro-American historical conscience.

The liberal position, while dominant, does not go unchallenged. On the other side are the reactionaries. They are “reactionaries” because they have no real position on Islam, they only know that the liberals are wrong, and reflexively counterattack. Theirs is a form of hypercriticism, given to denying long-established facts and trends of Islamic history with little or no justification other than to refute the Islamophiles. Given the current situation in the West, their excesses are understandable. But the reactionaries’ zeal leads them to stake out indefensible positions. Many of them are have ulterior motives–some are pro-Jewish fanatics or apologists for imperialism, others are democratic ideologues. But they share a defect. They lack a healthy, Faustian drive to pursue universal Truth–whether we like its conclusions or not.

Both approaches fail for two reasons. First, neither affords its subject the proper attitude of “sympathetic criticism.” The student must devote himself to understanding a culture on its own terms–learning its languages, reading its history and literature–all the while imagining things from its perspective. Once he has done this, he can render judgment on its ethics, its cultural attainments, and its overall importance to history. This was the approach of the great orientalists of the late 19th and early 20th century. They devoted tremendous intellectual effort to comprehending Islamic civilization, yet they were unafraid to pass judgment on its shortcomings. The liberals have no aptitude for criticism, the reactionaries have none for sympathy.

Second, the liberals and reactionaries neglect the questions of philosophical history. It is from this oversight that they fall into their assumption of perpetual historical progress. But there is a better way. One hundred years ago, Oswald Spengler reframed the discussion of history by tearing down an idea of progress (at least as it is commonly understood). His “Copernican revolution” in historical thought worked wonders for the study of Classical civilization and Europe, but it would prove even more effective for understanding the meaning of Middle Eastern history. Spengler shifted the emphasis away from time and toward Cultures. Following Spengler, we can understand how meaningless most of the questions posed by conventional commenters are, and begin to see Islam for what it really is.

The Magian Reformation

Spengler rejected the conventional historical focus on religions and polities. He saw these as merely superficial expressions of something deeper–the Culture. Cultures, in Spengler’s scheme, are a complex of peoples who share a world-outlook. This outlook–the spirit of a Culture–drives it to produce or adapt a religion. “Religion” is the outward expression of the world-outlook and includes such things as prayer rituals, religious architecture, calligraphy, and sculpture. For example, while Euro-Americans and Korean evangelicals may both be “Christians,” they do not belong to the same Culture, because their world-outlooks differ so drastically, despite their notionally common religion. A present-day American protestant has more in common, spiritually, with a 9th-century Norse pagan than with a modern-day Korean convert, despite professing the same doctrines. Cultures are the basic unit by which to analyze history.

Islam is part of the “Magian” Culture. In his Decline of the West, Spengler defines the Magian Culture as comprising the Muslim Arabs, but also many pre-Islamic Middle Eastern groups such as the Babylonian Jews, the Zoroastrians, the Coptic and Syriac Christians, as well as syncretic/heretical groups like the Manichaeans. It arose around the time of Christ and lasted until the 12th century when the anti-rationalist thinker Al-Ghazali dealt the deathblow to Magian philosophical speculation. All of subsequent Magian history was, in Spengler’s view, “civilization”–grandiose, bombastic, imperial, but sterile. No new philosophical or religious ideas could arise from the Magian world outlook. The culture had run its course.

So the birth of Islam does not represent the foundation of a new religion. It was, rather, a revolution in Magian religious thought. As such, it is analogous to the Reformation in Western history. Like Luther, Muhammad preached a puritanical systematization of earlier currents in the spiritual thought of his Culture. Muhammad and Luther were both anti-clerical, iconoclastic reformers who exhorted their adherents to build a more personal relationship with God. They both made the scripture accessible to the masses–Luther by translating the Bible into the vernacular, Muhammad by “receiving revelations” in easily memorized rhymed prose. After their deaths, their Cultures were unified the culture by marginalizing the earlier creeds and, at the same time, quickly spawning an array of heresies. The puritanical movements unleashed a storm, driving the post-reformation Europeans and post-Islam Magians to conquer half the world in a fanatical outburst of religious fervor–compare that to the religious and colonial wars of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Both movements, to a large degree, cleansed their cultures of foreign influence. Hellenistic influence on the Middle East, while not wiped out, was severely reduced in the first centuries of Islam. The Greek language, long the lingua franca of the Eastern Mediterranean, died out in Egypt and Syria, and later in Anatolia. To use Spengler’s term, Islam ended the Hellenistic pseudomorphosis (false-development) of early Magian Culture, allowing it to come into its own. Likewise after Luther, Northern Europe was free to work out its own cultural development. Free of Rome, the North underwent its own Renaissance. Florence and Rome were replaced by Nuremberg, Rotterdam, and Weimar. The Italian composers of the baroque were, by degrees, superseded by the likes of Bach and Handel. Thus Muhammad is not an Islamic Jesus, but a Luther. His movement, Islam, is a puritanical systematization of earlier currents in the Magian spirit.

Islam needs a Reformation

All this flies in the face of the conventional wisdom. Lacking any deeper insight into the place of Islam in history, the Mass-Media has been promoting a meme, “Islam needs a Reformation” eg: (WSJ and HuffPo). It makes sense superficially. Based on the conventional historical assumptions, one would compare Muhammad to Jesus as founders of world-religions. It follows then that Islam, having gotten a late start, is due for a reformation. After all, it’s been 14 centuries since Muhammad fled to Medina, and about the same duration separates Jesus from Martin Luther. The pre-Reformation Church superficially resembles current-day Islam.

But with a deeper understanding of history, comparing Jesus to Muhammad is preposterous. In contrasting the current state of the West and the Middle East, it would be ridiculous to set the two up as analogs. Jesus no longer matters to Faustian man. When the decadent West looks for myths and heroes, it looks for world-denying saints of Tolerance and Progress. New heroes must spring up or be manufactured–MLK and Gandhi, Anne Frank and Mother Theresa. Jesus would seem to fit the mold, but he is too bound-up in the popular imagination with the distant past. And in the popular imagination, History is Progress, therefore the farther back you go, the more evil everything is. But the West has absolutely no need for heroic men-of-the-world like Luther, so his place in our history is undervalued.

But the reborn Islamic fury, much pondered in the West, is not the necessary outcome of Islam’s doctrines. That the Middle East is still populated by “Muslims” is of less consequence than its stage of historical development. Islam is in winter. For centuries following the Crusades the Arabs and Persians were inactive. Islam’s last great conquests were not carried out by these “core-Magians,” but by the Berbers, Turks, and Mughals. And these imperial peoples could only prolong the agony of Magian decline. After c. 1500, the Magians had no meaningful history. They have endured wars and changes of dynasty, but no revolutions of thought or spirit. Classic histories of Middle East recognized this historical void–in over 750 pages of The History of the Arabs, the Lebanese Christian scholar Philip Hitti devoted less than 100 to anything after the 13th century.

What’s to be done

The liberal and reactionary views of Islam are shallow and polemic. They are worthless as history. Neither framework allows us to understand the relationship between Magian culture and ours because the Magians are actually ahead of us. Their decline did not begin in the 19th century, but in the 11th. Their reformation did not happen in the 16th century, but in the 7th.

Where are we now? Today’s situation resembles the era of the Crusades, with the roles reversed. Like Islam of the 1100s, the West has passed its peak. Our spirit is dying, our philosophy and art have ossified. We find ourselves beset by external enemies, barely able to summon the strength for our own preservation. Like Europe of the 1100s, the Middle East is the matrix of peoples–young, vigorous and aggressive.

What can we look forward to? If the West follows the same trajectory as Islam did after 1100, we are doomed. While Islam expelled the Crusaders and launched counteroffensives on its Eastern and Western frontiers, it only did so because it received infusions of fresh blood semi-civilized converts. These barbarian peoples adopted the outward forms of Magian Culture–Islam–but were unable to revive its spiritual vigor.

So contrary to the common view, the West does not face an ancient religious enemy. Islam died centuries ago–any invocation of its doctrines is now entirely superficial. The Arabs have for centuries wallowed in spiritual decrepitude. The “refugees” are not driven on by religious fervor, but simple greed, lust, and envy. They are not so much religious fanatics as they are zombies. Soulless and decrepit, they swarm to history’s last civilization. Do we still have the spirit to do what needs to be done?

Holland, Tom. In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire. New York: Doubleday, 2012.

Spengler, Oswald, and Charles Francis Atkinson. The Decline of the West: Perspectives of World-history. Vol. 2. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957.

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America Politics Reviews

Review: “Right Wing Critics of Conservatism” by George Hawley

17 min read
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Western Civilization, the #TruConservatives tell us, consists of nothing more than classical liberalism. And American conservatism, insofar as we are offered a definition, is a vague belief in “limited government” and “the Constitution.” These are combined with “Judeo-Christian values,” said to be eternal but actually evolving at a stately pace a few years behind the leftist avant-garde. Knowledge is dangerous for any respectable conservative because if you explore the history of one of your heroes before 1965, you’ll find views on race and identity as bad as anything within that gross Alternative Right.

 

Western Civilization, the #TruConservatives tell us, consists of nothing more than classical liberalism. And American conservatism, insofar as we are offered a definition, is a vague belief in “limited government” and “the Constitution.” These are combined with “Judeo-Christian values,” said to be eternal but actually evolving at a stately pace a few years behind the leftist avant-garde. Knowledge is dangerous for any respectable conservative because if you explore the history of one of your heroes before 1965, you’ll find views on race and identity as bad as anything within that gross Alternative Right.

At the same time, even those on the far Right are often unwilling to identify as such. Instead, they (or we) are “beyond Left and Right” and part of some exciting new paradigm, even though we inevitably find ourselves falling back on those old labels from the French Revolution to describe the politics of today.

Do any of these labels matter anymore? And how can we examine an American conservative movement which constantly reinvents its own history and redefines its supposed “principles?”

The invaluable new book from Professor George Hawley, “Right Wing Critics of American Conservatism,” is an indispensable beginning to confronting these questions. Hawley first came to my attention with his research on voting patterns, demographics, and the impact of the immigration issue in elections. His book on the White Vote, that dominant and yet almost unexamined demographic in American elections, is a starting point for anyone interested in Identitarian politics because it provides the hard numbers behind the voting behavior of European-Americans. It also dispels many of the goofy myths propounded by GOP “strategists” entranced by visions of Detroit Republicans.

Hawley takes on a much broader topic here. In so doing, Hawley has to not only describe the history of the American conservative movement, but define what he means by “Left” and “Right.” Hawley easily dismantles classification schemes based on a person’s view of human nature or the old “individualism vs. collectivism” canard. Borrowing from Paul Gottfried, Hawley says, “The political left will be defined as containing all ideological movements that consider equality the highest political value.” In contrast, the Right is defined as: “[E]ncompassing all of those ideologies that, while not necessarily rejecting equality as a social good, do not rank at the top of the hierarchy of values. The right furthermore fights the left in all cases where the push for equality threatens some other value held in higher esteem.”

This largely fits with what I’ve argued in the past, that the Left “refers to those who hold equality as their highest value, whereas the [Right] refers to those who recognize hierarchy.” This System also avoids the trap that American conservatives are constantly stumbling into, where the Left is simply “anything I don’t like” and the Right is “whatever version of post-1965 Republican slogans won’t get me called racist.”

As Hawley notes, this means thinkers as diverse as Murray Rothbard, Wendell Berry, Pat Buchanan and Alain de Benoist can all be meaningfully characterized as on the “Right,” though they have little else in common. It also implies action – you are only on the Right if you are part of something which “fights the left.”

Though Hawley does not say this, this suggests there are many “Rights,” as each right wing movement has its vision of The Good, The Beautiful, and The True it will fight for. We can talk about the Islamic State or Polish nationalists as both being “right-wing,” even though they would gladly slaughter each other. Though every right wing movement will hold its own source of excellence or morality as supreme, in truth there are as many as there are peoples, faiths, and ideologies. The principle of hierarchy (and opposition to degeneracy, however defined) itself is the closest we can come to defining a singular, universal “Right.”

With this framework, we are able to do what “movement conservatives” can’t and see how “the conservative movement” wasn’t some primordial truth handed down from antiquity but an artificial conglomeration clumsily pieced together for temporary political needs. Hawley identifies the prewar “Old Right,” exemplified by figures such as Albert Jay Nock, H.L. Mencken, and others as libertarian, antiwar, and suspicious of egalitarianism, democracy, and Christian religious belief. In contrast, the postwar conservative movement pieced together by William F. Buckley Jr. was a creature of the Cold War, with a diverse group of thinkers lumped together to oppose international communism, even if this meant, in Buckley’s words, “[accepting] Big Government for the duration… [and] a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores.”

The ideological coherence (such as it is) of the conservative movement today is an effect, rather than a cause – the conservative movement was a tactical creation, something put together to oppose the Soviet threat. And the work of many of the key thinkers present at the beginning, men like Russell Kirk or Richard Weaver, has been all but ignored despite the occasional rhetorical tribute.

This is critical for the modern American Right because it implies a new crisis and could create a new realignment. It has now been almost two decades since the hammer and sickle fell and insofar as there is any wishful thinking about a global revolution led by Russia it’s one coming from the Right. Though there’s been a half-hearted attempt to substitute “Islamofascism” as a way to get the old band back together, we face utterly new challenges based on identity, not ideology. The brutal demographic realities behind the migration crisis could prove to be the key catalyst for a new movement.

Hawley tells the familiar story of the purges which have defined the American Right, a story many of you are already familiar with. The expulsion of the John Birch Society and Ayn Rand and the Objectivists both served as one-offs. However, the conservative movement’s determination to police itself over race is a continuing, and one suspects, never ending drama.

Hawley observes: “The question is why the conservative movement made this about-face on the issue of race. It is worth remembering that during the pivotal years of the civil rights movement the major voices of American conservatism – including Barry Goldwater and National Review – were openly against legislation such as the Civil Rights Act. Some of the most prominent early conservatives defended the social order of the antebellum south.” Hawley accurately characterizes the conservative acceptance of civil rights as a “surrender” and suggests the opposition to candidates such as David Duke was in many ways driven by “embarrassment.” Even National Review couldn’t find many problems in Duke’s platform, just that he used to be in the Klan.

Even after Duke faded, respectable conservatives are constantly forced to confront dissidents who become a little too vocal about racial realities. The purges of Peter Brimelow, Sam Francis, John Derbyshire, and Jason Richwine are all addressed.

Hawley also recognizes race may not be the only issue the conservative movement will retroactively interpret. He slyly observes, “It is not implausible to imagine that within a few decades the movement will try to disassociate itself from the anti-gay marriage stance it promoted during the Bush years, and perhaps even claim that acceptance of gay marriage represented a victory for conservatives.”

There’s also a great deal of attention given to a story paleoconservatives know well, but the younger Alt Right may have never heard of – the battle between Harry Jaffa and M.E. “Mel” Bradford. Hawley identifies Harry Jaffa, a student of Leo Strauss, as one of the first nominally conservative thinkers to argue “equality” itself was a conservative virtue. This is what allows conservatives today to argue with a straight face that Martin Luther King Jr. was actually a “true conservative,” even though, as Hawley accurately observes, conservatives all but unanimously opposed him while he was alive. Jaffa is thus fondly remembered at outlets like The Federalist for pushing the American Right in a pro-Lincoln direction with “all men are created equal” as the defining idea of the country. We might even call Jaffa the Founding Father of Cuckservatism.

Bradford, a Southerner, rejected Jaffa’s push to reinvent the likes of Abraham Lincoln as a conservative hero and instead attacked the “cult of equality.” Hawley writes: “Bradford was concerned with the issue of rhetoric, and he excoriated conservatives for allowing the left to define and redefine America’s most important political values. In order to remain respectability, conservatives have conceded key points to their ideological opponents.”

Plus ça change…

Bradford was famously prevented from securing a post at the National Endowment for the Humanities in the Reagan Administration, despite support from the President himself and Bradford’s hard work in the election campaign. Though Jaffa himself actually supported him, Bradford was vocally opposed by conservative commentators such as George Will (now a leading figure in the #NeverTrump movement) and was ultimately replaced with pudgy simpleton William Bennett. And these kinds of bureaucratic struggles have a huge impact. Egalitarianism and universalist posturing was boosted within the American Right, Bradford died in relative obscurity, Jaffa was lionized and Bennett gets more money to blow at the casinos. (Hopefully Trump got some of it.)

These kinds of struggles continue today. As this is written, protesters are storming the parliament in Baghdad, the latest episode of our more than decade long disaster in Mesopotamia. As Hawley notes, “The mainstream conservative movement was in nearly complete agreement with these policies [the invasion of Iraq].” Yet the “unpatriotic conservatives” who opposed it, were duly purged and were proven correct by the aftermath still struggle for access to the mainstream media and funding from major institutions. Meanwhile, William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer still scream at me from the telescreen every night about what great foreign policy experts they are.

Hawley profiles a number of castaways from different schools of thought, including localists, mainstream and radical libertarians, atheists, and paleoconservatives. Identitarians and white nationalists are also analyzed, though Hawley does feel the need to virtue signal against us, presumably to avoid suffering the fate of his subjects. Overall though, Hawley is fair and informative and his book serves as an excellent introduction to the various subcultures which have ultimately created what we call the Alt Right.

He also slips through some questions which suggest he’s at least confronting the arguments rather than just pathologizing them like some shitlib at The Daily Beast. “Why, for example, is Zionism generally considered an acceptable political position, but an individual who wanted to create a republic restricted to white Christians would be barred from mainstream debates?” he asks. Why indeed.

Hawley does make some mistakes, but much of this is simply a product of when the book was written, before the Emperor descended from the Golden Throne on the escalator at Trump Tower. A typo in which “Young Americans for Liberty” should have read “Young Americans for Freedom” is actually revealing of the focus, as Hawley devotes far more coverage to libertarian and anti-state activists than nationalists. As he argues in his conclusion, “Moderate and mainstream libertarianism is the right-wing ideology most likely to enjoy greater influence in the coming decades,” citing the triumph of figures like Justin Amash. Hawley also speculates about Rand Paul securing the GOP nomination. But all it took to destroy Paul was a New York real estate developer saying he was having a “hard time tonight,” suggesting the fabled “libertarian moment” was always a pipe dream.

Donald Trump is not even mentioned in the book. But of course, before the “Mexicans are rapists” speech, why would he be?

For many on the Alt Right, libertarianism is a kind of gateway drug, a safe way of attacking egalitarianism, the establishment conservative movement, and “the System” more broadly. Most are gradually redpilled. Eventually, you move on, unless you can find a way to be paid for being part of the “liberty movement.”

Hawley writes, “(M)any, perhaps most, of the energetic young activists on the right are decidedly libertarian in their views, and today’s young activists will eventually take on prominent leadership roles in the conservative movement’s leading institutions and within the GOP.” It is more accurate to say that many energetic young activists start as libertarians, but they don’t stay there. It’s questionable whether libertarianism can ever really be a movement for itself as opposed to either a phase in a person’s ideological progression. After all, groups like Students for Liberty now proudly proclaim they don’t care about freedom of association, because homosexual rights, and fighting nationalism is the most important thing. Meanwhile, many of the same people now fantasizing about building Trump Walls and eventually reclaiming Constantinople were screaming about using shiny rocks as currency only a few years ago.

Hawley quotes SFL’s cofounder Alexander McCobin as saying: “We know what’s up for debate, and so we also know what’s not. The justifications for and limits on intellectual property? Up for debate. Racism? Not up for debate.” But as Richard Spencer argued, libertarianism itself was a kind of mask on white identity for some time. That is being abandoned as we get closer to the real thing. Those libertarians who put egalitarianism first, like Cathy Reisenwitz, eventually just become SJW’s. The majority move in our direction.

Who, after all, has a greater impact these days – Students for Liberty, with its multimillion dollar budget, or The Daily Shoah?

Hawley deserves praise for providing a useful introduction for anyone who wants to familiarize themselves with Radical Traditionalism, the European New Right, or the Conservative Revolution without being completely overwhelmed with jargon and occultism. The chapters “Against Capitalism, Christianity and America” and “Voices of the Radical Right” are required reading for anyone on the Alt Right seeking to understand why American conservatism could never succeed. It’s also sobering reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of the pro-white movement. Richard Spencer and the saga of the First Identitarian Congress in Budapest are also outlined.

Still, one can’t help but wish Hawley had just waited a few more months to write this book. So many of the things he suggests as distant possibilities here are actually occurring. For example, Hawley writes, “If the mainstream conservative movement loses its status as the gatekeeper on the right, white nationalism may be among the greatest beneficiaries, though even in this case it will face serious challenges.” According to the hall monitors of the Beltway Right, that’s precisely what’s happening right now.

And ultimately, Hawley recognizes change, of some kind, is coming. He refers to the “calcified” nature of conservative thought, pointing out the rhetoric has not changed since Goldwater. “Only on the issue of race have we seen a dramatic change in the mainstream conservative movement since the 1960s, at least when it comes to public statements,” Hawley writes. Rhetorical blasts against “elites” have become so predictable and stale they no longer have any meaning. Conservatives are simply running out of things to say.

There are also broader historical patterns conservatives are confronting.

First, the Bush Administration “badly damaged the Republican Party’s brand,” and the legacy of that era is something the Beltway Right still seems utterly unwilling to confront. Hawley also brings up the scandals from the Bush years, including Duke Cunningham, Mark Foley, and Tom Delay. (The book was written too early for a reference to the nightmarish case of Dennis Hastert). Bush’s failure to reform Social Security showed conservatives are incapable of meddling with the welfare programs most Americans have grown to accept and rely upon. The Iraq War also fatally discredited the GOP’s perceived foreign policy expertise in the eyes of many Americans.

Second, organized religion is declining in America. The Religious Right is discredited and leaderless. Jerry Falwell is dead and so is D. James Kenned. Ted Haggard is disgraced after a gay prostitution scandal. Homosexual marriage is a reality nationwide. Open borders shill Russell Moore is busy trying to prove Nietzsche right by pushing for more nonwhite immigration. Though Hawley doesn’t go into this, it’s striking how the once powerful Religious Right has been reduced to trying to keep trannies out of bathrooms in the South. (And failing at it.)

Third, and most importantly, is the growing nonwhite population. Hawley argues even if the GOP utterly reversed its position on immigration to try to win Latinos and Asians, “nonwhites are considerably more progressive, on average than whites… even if immigration is completely removed from the table.” Hawley says unless the GOP can create a huge shift in the voting patterns of nonwhites (unlikely given their progressive attitudes) or win a larger share of the white vote, the Republican Party will be unable to credibly contest national elections.

And this is where the Alt Right comes in. This is a reality the conservative movement cannot assimilate. It is an existential threat. The GOP can’t appeal to minorities without entirely abandoning conservative policies. And it can’t appeal to whites as whites without abandoning its universalist pretensions and infantile sloganeering. Though Hawley doesn’t say it, this fact alone is why the American Right’s future lies in Identity. All other alternatives have been exhausted except slow death. And make no mistake – running out the clock while squeezing out a few more shekels is what passes for a strategy within Conservatism Inc.

Reading and studying what Professor Hawley has written is an important first step for all of us. With the rise of Trump, the explosion of interest in the Alt Right online, and the flood of recent mainstream media coverage, there’s a real sense momentum is on our side. Yet we should not be deceived. Dissident forces on the Right have risen in the past and reached levels of power and influence far exceeding what we have today. All have been crushed.

We must understand their ideas, their history, their successes and their mistakes so we can avoid their fate. We don’t want to just end up as footnotes in some future edition.

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The Real Dugin

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Personally, I had once considered these critiques as being essentially valid, but upon a more thorough investigation of Dugin’s writings and thought, I concluded that these critiques were based on flawed premises and assumptions. My intention here is to point out what the most common reasons for denouncing Dugin have been and why they are based on misconceptions and propaganda rather than reality.

Alexander Dugin is by now well-known in “Right-wing” circles of all sorts across the world—whether we are speaking of nationalists, Fascists, traditionalists, cultural or national conservatives, or New Rightists (also known as Identitarians). Upon the translation of his book The Fourth Political Theory in 2012, Dugin has received a significant amount of international attention from anyone interested in Right-wing or Conservative theory. Since then, a number of other essays by Dugin on the topics of Eurasianism (also spelled “Eurasism”) and also the Theory of the Multipolar World (both of which are interconnected with each other and with what he calls the Fourth Political Theory) have been translated into English, among other languages, allowing us a better view into his thought.

There is no need to discuss Dugin’s theories in any depth here, since his own essays achieve that sufficiently. However, a problem has arisen among Right-wingers in the West in regards to Dugin: while many have appreciated his works, a large number have completely dismissed or attacked him and his theories largely on the basis of misunderstandings or propaganda from Dugin’s political enemies. The situation is certainly not helped by the fact that well-known Identitarian writers such as Greg Johnson, Michael O’Meara, Domitius Corbulo, and some others in Europe have denounced Dugin with reasoning based upon such misunderstandings. Personally, I had once considered these critiques as being essentially valid, but upon a more thorough investigation of Dugin’s writings and thought, I concluded that these critiques were based on flawed premises and assumptions. My intention here is to point out what the most common reasons for denouncing Dugin have been and why they are based on misconceptions and propaganda rather than reality.

Position on Race

First, one of the most difficult issues is the claim that Alexander Dugin believes that race has no substantial reality, that it is a “social construct” and must be completely abandoned as a harmful product of modern Western society. Certainly, he critiques racialist theory, but this is not the same as rejecting race entirely (since one can assert the importance of race without resorting to “racism.” See my essay “Ethnic and Racial Relations”). It must be admitted that Dugin has not taken a clear stance on the matter of race, and occasionally makes statements which imply a dismissal of race (although it is significant that, for the most part, he leaves it an open question). On the other hand, he has also made statements implying an appreciation for racial identity to some extent, such as when he wrote the following:

Being White and Indo-European myself, I recognize the differences of other ethnic groups as being a natural thing, and do not believe in any hierarchy among peoples, because there is not and cannot be any common, universal measure by which to measure and compare the various forms of ethnic societies or their value systems. I am proud to be Russian exactly as Americans, Africans, Arabs or Chinese are proud to be what they are. It is our right and our dignity to affirm our identity, not in opposition to each other but such as it is: without resentment against others or feelings of self-pity. (quoted from “Alexander Dugin on ‘White Nationalism’ & Other Potential Allies in the Global Revolution”)

However, let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Dugin truly does believe that race is a “social construct”, as some have assumed. Would this be enough reason to declare Dugin a subversive intellectual in the Right? If this was the case, it would follow by the same reasoning that any past Right-wing intellectual who did not believe in the importance of race (or at least the biological form of race) must also be denounced. This would include such notable thinkers as Oswald Spengler, Francis Parker Yockey, Othmar Spann, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Oswald Mosley, and numerous other Fascist or nationalist intellectuals and leaders who did not place much importance upon physical race. Yet, paradoxically, many of those we see denouncing Dugin today would not do the same for such thinkers. This is not to imply that previous Fascist or nationalist intellectuals are entirely agreeable for us today (in fact, most New Rightists reject Fascism and old-fashioned nationalism), it is only to point out the self-contradiction which has gone unnoticed.

Furthermore, it is important to remember that Dugin clearly believes in the importance of ethnicity and culture and advocates ethnic separatism. Similarly to German Revolutionary Conservative and Völkisch thinkers, Dugin has unmistakably placed the Volk or ethnos as one of the highest values of his philosophy: “The subject of this theory [the Fourth Political Theory], in its simple version, is the concept ‘narod,’ roughly, ‘Volk’ or ‘people,’ in the sense of ‘peoplehood’ and ‘peoples,’ not ‘masses’” (quoted from “The Fourth Estate: The History and Meaning of the Middle Class”). Thus, it is clear that even if he does not value race, Dugin certainly does value ethno-cultural identity. Of course, this is not to say that rejecting the reality of race is not at all problematic, only that it is not enough to denounce a philosopher. However, those who like to claim that Dugin dismisses race as a “social construct” are reminiscent of those who say the same thing about Alain de Benoist, whereas it is clear that Benoist asserts the reality of race and advocates racial separatism–specifically from a non-racist standpoint–in many of his writings, one of the most notable in English being “What is Racism?”.

Empire vs. Imperialism

The second problematic notion about Dugin is that he is an advocate of a type of Russian imperialism, usually suggested being of a Stalinist and Soviet type. However, this claim has no basis in fact, since he has renounced Soviet imperialism and has also distinguished between true empire and imperialism (which also made by Julius Evola and many other Traditionalist and New Right authors). In his essay “Main Principles of Eurasist Policy,” Dugin has asserted that there are three basic types of policy in modern Russia: Soviet, pro-Western (liberal), and Eurasist. He criticizes the Soviet and Liberal types while advocating the Eurasist policy: “Eurasism, in this way, is an original ‘patriotic pragmatism’, free from any dogmatics – be it Soviet or liberal… The Soviet pattern operates with obsolete political, economic and social realities, it exploits nostalgia and inertness, it lacks a sober analysis of the new international situation and the real development of world economic trends.” It should be clear from Dugin’s analysis of different forms of political approaches that his own viewpoint is not based on the USSR model, which he explicitly rejects and critiques.

Moreover, it is often overlooked that when Dugin advocates a Eurasian empire or union, there is a distinction between a true empire—in the traditionalist sense—and imperialism, and thus an empire is not necessarily an imperialistic state (for a good overview of this concept, see Alain de Benoist’s “The Idea of Empire”). Unlike domineering and imperialistic states, the Eurasian Union envisioned by Dugin grants a partial level of self-government to regions within a federalist system:

The undoubted strategic unity in Eurasist federalism is accompanied by ethnic plurality, by the emphasis on the juridical element of the “rights of the peoples”. The strategic control of the space of the Eurasian Union is ensured by the unity of management and federal strategic districts, in whose composition various formations can enter – from ethno-cultural to territorial. The immediate differentiation of territories into several levels will add flexibility, adaptability and plurality to the system of administrative management in combination with rigid centralism in the strategic sphere. (quoted from “Main Principles of Eurasist Policy”)

Of course, it must also be remembered that Dugin’s vision needs to be differentiated from the policies of the present Russian state, which, at this time, cannot be said to adequately represent the Eurasists’ goals (despite the influence of Eurasism on certain politicians). Furthermore, it should be mentioned that while Dugin currently supports president Putin, it is clear that he does not uncritically accept all of the policies of Putin’s government. Therefore, a sound analysis of Dugin’s proposed policies will not equate them with those of the Russian government, as some of his critics have erroneously done.

The “West” as the Enemy

Another common misconception is that Dugin is hostile to Western European civilization and even advocates its complete destruction. It is important to recognize that Dugin’s conception of the “West” is similar to that advocated by the European New Right (in the works of Pierre Krebs, Alain de Benoist, Guillaume Faye, Tomislav Sunic, etc.). The “West” is not a reference to all of Western-European civilization, but rather to the specific formulation of Western-European civilization founded upon liberalism, egalitarianism, and individualism: “The crisis of identity […] has scrapped all previous identities–civilizational, historical, national, political, ethnic, religious, cultural, in favor of a universal planetary Western-style identity–with its concept of individualism, secularism, representative democracy, economic and political liberalism, cosmopolitanism and the ideology of human rights.” (quoted from the interview with Dugin, “Civilization as Political Concept”).

Thus, Dugin, like the New Right, asserts that the “West” is actually foreign to true European culture—that it is in fact the enemy of Europe: “Atlanticism, liberalism, and individualism are all forms of absolute evil for the Indo-European identity, since they are incompatible with it” (quoted from “Alexander Dugin on ‘White Nationalism’ & Other Potential Allies in the Global Revolution”). Likewise, in his approving citation of Alain de Benoist’s cultural philosophy, he wrote the following:

A. de Benoist was building his political philosophy on radical rejection of liberal and bourgeois values, denying capitalism, individualism, modernism, geopolitical atlanticism and western eurocentrism. Furthermore, he opposed “Europe” and “West” as two antagonistic concepts: “Europe” for him is a field of deployment of a special cultural Logos, coming from the Greeks and actively interacting with the richness of Celtic, Germanic, Latin, Slavic, and other European traditions, and the “West” is the equivalent of the mechanistic, materialistic, rationalist civilization based on the predominance of the technology above everything. After O. Spengler Alain de Benoist understood “the West” as the “decline of the West” and together with Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger was convinced of the necessity of overcoming modernity as nihilism and “the abandonment of the world by Being (Sein)” (Seinsverlassenheit). West in this understanding was identical to liberalism, capitalism, and bourgeois society – all that “New Right” claimed to overcome. (quoted from “Counter-hegemony in Theory of Multi-polar World”)

While Dugin attacks the “West” as modern liberal civilization, he simultaneously advocates the resurrection of Europe in his vision of the multipolar world: “We imagine this Greater Europe as a sovereign geopolitical power, with its own strong cultural identity, with its own social and political options…” (quoted from “The Greater Europe Project”). Similarly to the previous statements which we have quoted, he asserts here that European culture has multiple ideological elements and possible pathways in its history which are different from the liberal model: “Liberal democracy and the free market theory account for only part of the European historical heritage and that there have been other options proposed and issues dealt with by great European thinkers, scientists, politicians, ideologists and artists.”

Domitius Corbulo has argued, based on statements Dugin made in The Fourth Political Theory that liberalism and universalism are elements which run throughout Western civilization, that Dugin condemns Western-European culture in its entirety. However, it is important to recognize that these arguments are largely borrowed from Western-European authors such as Spengler, Heidegger, and Evola. These authors also recognized that anti-universalist, anti-liberal, and anti-materialist elements also exist in Western-European culture, and thus that there have always been other paths for the destiny of this culture. It is evident that Dugin would assert the same fact from his essays which we have cited here (as well as books not yet available in English, such as ¿Qué es el eurasismo?, Pour une théorie du monde multipolaire, or in Russian in Четвертый Путь, among others). It is important to remember here that The Fourth Political Theory is not a complete and perfect statement of Dugin’s thought, and that what he says there must be balanced with what he says in his other works.

It is often assumed that, considering his hostility to the liberal “West,” Dugin also advocates a complete destruction of the United States of America, which is seen as the epitome of the “West.” However, the very essence of his theory of the multipolar world is the idea that each civilization and nation must be granted the right to live and to determine its own destiny, political form, and way of life. For this reason, Dugin advocates the global combating of American cultural and economic imperialism, which denatures non-Western cultures. However, in the multipolar scheme, the United States also has the right to exist and to choose its own path, which means allowing the American people the right to continue the liberal model in the future, should they desire to do so. Of course, the liberal model would naturally be discouraged from abroad and be limited in its influence. This position can be drawn from Dugin’s key essays explicating the Theory of the Multipolar World: “The Multipolar World and the Postmodern” and “Multipolarism as an Open Project”.

The Fourth Political Theory vs. Reactionary Traditionalism

Some writers, such as Kenneth Anderson (“Speculating on future political and religious alliances”), have interpreted Alexander Dugin’s thought as a form of Radical Traditionalism (following Julius Evola and Rene Guenon) which is completely reactionary in nature, rejecting everything in the modern world–including all technological and scientific development–as something negative which needs to be eventually undone. This interpretation can be easily revealed to be incorrect when one examines Dugin’s statements on Traditionalism and modernity more closely. It is true that Dugin acknowledges Traditionalist thinkers such as Evola and Guenon among his influences, but it is also clear that he is not in full agreement with their views and advocates his own form of conservatism, which is much more similar to German Revolutionary Conservatism (see The Fourth Political Theory, pp. 86 ff.).

Unlike some Traditionalists, Dugin does not reject scientific and social progress, and thus it can also be said that he does not reject the Enlightenment in toto. When Dugin criticizes Enlightenment philosophy (the ideology of progress, individualism, etc.), it is not so much in the manner of the Radical Traditionalists as it is in the manner of the Conservative Revolution and the New Right, as was also done by Alain de Benoist, Armin Mohler, etc. In this regard, it can be mentioned that critiquing the ideology of progress is, of course, very different from rejecting progress itself. For the most part, he does not advocate the overcoming of the “modern world” in the Traditionalist sense, but in the New Rightist sense, which means eliminating what is bad in the present modern world to create a new cultural order (“postmodernity”) which reconciles what is good in modern society with traditional society. Thus Dugin asserts that one of the most essential ideas of the Eurasist philosophy is the creation of societies which restore traditional and spiritual values without surrendering scientific progress:

The philosophy of Eurasianism proceeds from priority of values of the traditional society, acknowledges the imperative of technical and social modernization (but without breaking off cultural roots), and strives to adapt its ideal program to the situation of a post-industrial, information society called “postmodern”. The formal opposition between tradition and modernity is removed in postmodern. However, postmodernism in the atlantist aspect levels them from the position of indifference and exhaustiveness of contents. The Eurasian postmodern, on the contrary, considers the possibility for an alliance of tradition with modernity to be a creative, optimistic energetic impulse that induces imagination and development. (quote from Eurasian Mission, cited in Dugin, “Multipolarism as an Open Project”)

It should be evident from these statements that Dugin is not a reactionary, despite his sympathy to Radical Traditionalism. In this regard, it is worth mentioning that Dugin also supports a “Third Positionist” form of socialism as well as a non-liberal form of democracy. In regards to socialism, he has written that the “confusion of mankind into the single global proletariat is not a way to a better future, but an incidental and absolutely negative aspect of the global capitalism, which does not open any new prospects and only leads to degradation of cultures, societies, and traditions. If peoples do have a chance to organize effective resistance to the global capitalism, it is only where Socialist ideas are combined with elements of a traditional society…” (from “Multipolarism as an Open Project”). Whereas some have accused Dugin of being anti-democratic, he has plainly advocated the idea of a “democratic empire”: “The political system of the Eurasian Union in the most logical way is founded on the ‘democracy of participation’ (the ‘demotia’ of the classical Eurasists), the accent being not on the quantitative, but on the qualitative aspect of representation” (quoted from “Main Principles of Eurasist Policy”; see also the comments on democracy in his “Milestones of Eurasism”).

References to Leftists and Cultural Marxists

Finally, one of the most recent attacks on Alexander Dugin is based on his reference to Cultural Marxist and “Leftist” philosophers, which is seen by some as an indicator that Dugin himself is sympathetic to Cultural Marxism (see Domitius Corbulo’s “Alexander Dugin’s 4th Political Theory is for the Russian Empire, not for European Ethno-Nationalists”). However, Dugin has clearly pointed out that while he uses ideas from Marxist and “Leftist” theorists, he rejects their ideologies as a whole: “The second and third political theories [Fascism and Marxism] must be reconsidered, selecting in them that which must be discarded and that which has value in itself. As complete ideologies… they are entirely useless, either theoretically or practically.” (quoted from The Fourth Political Theory, p. 24).

If one notes that Dugin occasionally makes use of Marxist thinkers, then it should not be overlooked that he places even more importance on Right-wing thinkers, who clearly form the greater influence on him; the intellectuals of the Conservative Revolution (Heidegger, Schmitt, Moeller van den Bruck, etc.), the Traditionalist School (Evola, Guenon, Schuon, etc.), the New Right (Benoist, Freund, Steuckers, etc.), and the conservative religious scholars (Eliade, Durand, etc.). Furthermore, Corbulo objects to Dugin’s use of Claude Levi-Strauss’s work, yet respected New Right thinkers like Alain de Benoist and Dominique Venner (see Robert Steuckers, “En souvenir de Dominique Venner”, citing Venner’s Le siècle de 1914) have also referenced the ideas of Levi-Strauss on matters of culture and ethnicity, among other authors that Dugin uses, such as Jean Baudrillard.

In a recent interview, Dugin has clearly agreed with the European Right’s position on immigration (which advocates the restriction of non-European immigration), mentioning the threat that liberal cosmopolitanism brings to European culture: “The immigration changes the structure of European society. The Islamic people have very strong cultural identity. The European people weaken their own identity more and more in conscious manner. It is human right and civil society individualistic ideological dogma. So Europe is socially endangered and is on the eve to lose it identity” (quoted from “The West should be rejected”). Thus, when we take a less biased view of Dugin’s writings and statements, it is clear that his overall position is very far from that of the Cultural Marxists and the New Left.

From our examination thus far, it should be obvious that there are too many misconceptions about Alexander Dugin’s thought being circulated among Right-wingers. These misconceptions are being used to dismiss the value of his work and deceive members of Right-wing groups into believing that Dugin is a subversive intellectual who must be rejected as an enemy. Many other important Right-wing intellectuals have been similarly dismissed among certain circles, due to practices of a kind of in-group gleichschaltung, closing off any thinker who is not seen as readily agreeable. It is important to overcome such tendencies and support an intellectual expansion of the Right, which is the only way to overcome the present liberal-egalitarian hegemony. People need to take a more careful and unbiased look at Dugin’s works and ideas, as with other controversial thinkers. Of course, Dugin is not without flaws and imperfections (
nor is any other thinker), but these flaws can be overcome when his thought is balanced with that of other intellectuals, especially the Revolutionary Conservatives and the New Rightists.

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America: Imagine the World Without Her

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With that in mind, we have to ask just how many would-be conservatives became liberals because of the seemingly willed stupidity and dorkiness of Conservatism Inc. Dinesh D’Souza’s latest documentary is another chapter in this sordid tale of political buffoonery.

How can any well-adjusted, thinking person still associate with official conservatism?

People often choose their political affiliation for social, rather than for ideological reasons. They want to align with groups that are smart and successful. With that in mind, we have to ask just how many would-be conservatives became liberals because of the seemingly willed stupidity and dorkiness of Conservatism Inc. Dinesh D’Souza’s latest documentary is another chapter in this sordid tale of political buffoonery.

America: Imagine the World Without Her has the same flavor as the latest batch of evangelical movies, and rivals them in its lack of intellectual cleanliness. It features two squishy songs (here’s one) by acoustic guitar-wielding boy-men that are more fit for a middle school revival than a documentary that attempts gravitas, and D’Souza talks about the American founding as though it were the Immaculate Conception.

But that should come as no surprise when the film sets to perpetuate the myth of America as the glorious proposition nation that has overcome the universal faults of the world. Like the Messiah, America was created to expunge the universal sins of the world and offer man the promise of living in a merchant paradise. D’Souza also promotes the myth that the old-timey America can be restored and the 1950s can be carried on for all of eternity—as long as we vote Republican and live up to the Constitution.

With this in mind, the only people who should enjoy this movie are over the age of 50 or diehard believers in the conservative movement. D’Souza himself compounds this problem by attempting to inject himself into every scene of the movie.

Just as viewers can’t escape seeing Michael Moore’s corpulent figure in his films, D’Souza’s turtle-like resemblance is nearly as aesthetically unpleasing. The close ups of his smarmy face reveal his unbearable narcissism to many viewers.  His sense of victimization and his depiction of himself as some kind of martyr for conservativism widens the problem. But the real D’Souza is just an immigrant plagiarist felon with no original ideas. He even stole the opening credit scene from Conan The Barbarian—paradoxically, as the film’s message denounces the value of conquest.

The film’s subtitle—Imagine the World Without Her—is misleading as the real purpose of the film is to address leftist accusations that America was built on conquest and theft. Except for the introduction, which dramatizes George Washington being gunned down by a British sniper, we never are shown the path of what the world would be like without the United States.

Instead, the film focuses on combating five alleged charges that the left promotes against America. They are: America committed genocide against the Indians and stole their land; America waged an unjust war against Mexico and stole their land; America enslaved millions of blacks and stole their labor; America practices imperialism and has stolen resources from around the globe; and America practices capitalism, which is an unfair economic system that favors the wealthy over the poor and is theft enshrined as economics.

The heroes of the film are George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and (naturally) Martin Luther King Jr. The bogeymen are Howard Zinn, Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton, Saul Alinsky, and, of course, Barack Obama. This is history according to conservatives.

D’Souza response to the charges postulated by Zinn’s A People’s History to the United States is simple—those faults are attributable to the universal conquest ethic which America has overcome by adopting the ethic of the merchant. This is in many ways an inversion of the caricatured leftist thinking D’Souza maligns—the parts of American history which violate his moral sensibilities are attributed to universal failings, while the virtues of America, however, are peculiar only to her. And he answers all charges with this mentality.

The Indians practiced conquest as well and Americans sometimes bought their land legally, thus no harm done. Mexico oppressed Texas, we answered the call to save the Southwest, and we gave back most of the country to Mexico, thus no harm done. Slavery was wrong, but blacks can now be great entrepreneurs and we sacrificed 600,000 lives to end it, thus no harm done. Our foreign wars have been on behalf of freedom and we have never exploited countries for resources, thus no harm done. Finally, capitalism is an amazing system that benefits everyone and depends on hard work, thus no harm done.

Unfortunately for D’Souza, all of his rebuttals the left can easily dismiss and they glaringly overlook facts that Zinn and others use for their critical arguments of American history. But that doesn’t matter since this film is an exercise in mythmaking and anything that would undermine the notion that America offers opportunity to all and was founded by entrepreneurs, rather than conquerors, is not expected to be offered.

For the main argument D’Souza uses to praise America is that it took a different path from that of every other nation in human history—that it did not base itself on the “conquest ethic.” America, according to D’Souza’s, based itself on the merchant ethic instead. This ethic placed profit, security, comfort, and materialism above the martial virtues of conquest. The movie acts as an exposition in the merchant mindset—merchant values above all others. For him, the real heroes of America are its entrepreneurs, not its warriors. To emphasize that America is on a different path, he points out that the entrepreneur was frequently far down in the caste system in every Traditionalist society and cites quotes of Traditionalist thinkers disparaging enterprise as less noble than theft to drive home his thesis. On the other hand, the businessman is the pinnacle of American society and entrepreneurship is treated as sacrosanct.

In many ways, the criticisms that Zinn makes of America as a nation based on conquest is what makes the nation worthy of any respect. A country in order to survive has to emerge out of violence and struggle. You either fight, or you die. The fact that a few frontiersmen from the British Isles were capable of taking over an entire continent is something that should be celebrated, not overlooked in favor of entrepreneurs who pushed hair care products to black women (which is one of America’s heroes). Our side probably agrees more with Zinn’s assessment of America rather than D’Souza’s, as well as the actual facts of history.

Considering D’Souza’s intended audience, he adds that America bases itself on low-church Protestantism and how the only cultural heritage America has is how its population was more likely go to church and provide private charity. Thus, when D’Souza wants to pinpoint the “quintessential American,” he chooses Star Parker. Parker is a Black conservative scammer extraordinaire who racked up multiple abortions early in life while living on welfare. She then found Jesus and has become an entrepreneur in conning White conservatives out of their money by promising to do outreach to the Black community. That’s America folks.

This goes perfectly well with D’Souza’s celebration of America as the only true proposition nation, where even non-White plagiarists like himself can make a buck. For this argument, he doesn’t use his smarmy self to make the point—he uses a speech by U2 singer and perpetual Africa activist Bono to state the thesis instead.

 Here are some “highlights” from Bono’s speech:

  • “America’s an idea, isn’t it? I mean Ireland’s a great country, but it’s not an idea. Great Britain’s a great country; it’s not an idea.”
  • “That’s how we see you around the world—as one of the greatest ideas in human history. Right up there with the renaissance, right up with crop rotation and the Beatles’ White Album.” 
  • “The idea is that you and me are created equal…the idea that life is not meant to be endured, but enjoyed. The idea that if we have dignity, if we have justice, then leave it to us, we’ll do the rest.”
  • “This country was the first to claw its way out of darkness and put that on paper.” 
  • “I know Americans say they have a bit of the world in them, and you do–the family tree has lots of branches. But the thing is, the world has a bit of America in it, too. These truths–your truths–they are self-evident in us.”

Instead of a nation united by blood, culture, and soil, we’re a nation bonded together by abstract principles of commerce and comfort. I can’t imagine a more damning argument against the American idea.

The film concludes by focusing on Saul Alinsky and his acolytes’ nefarious plan to destroy these ideas and turn America into a socialist dystopia that hates the Constitution, and how Obama is now going after dissenters—like convicted campaign fraudster D’Souza. Unfortunately for D’Souza’s intentions, Alinksy comes off as by far the coolest guy in the movie. He has gravitas, he has balls, he has ideals, and he seems to oppose all of the stupidity and childishness promoted for the past two hours. After seeing this movie, I’d rather be an Alinskyite than a conservative.

The stupidity and childishness that underlies this film drives intelligent people into the arms of the Left. The movie made me want to become a liberal. He only has a place for the entrepreneur. The laborer and employee have no significance. Conquest is immoral and consumerism is awesome. Go to a mega church and make a buck off pointless products. That message makes my very being revolt in anger.

From the triumph of merchants over conquerors to the glorification of the proposition nation, Identitiarians have little in common with this film’s ideas. It puts into visual form the vast differences between us and our conservative peers, and dispenses with the illusion that they will ever come to radical thought with their own devices. The state and culture despise the aging Middle Americans who will take to this film, while those same audience members cling to the America that is no longer their
s. These people need to be shocked out of their stupor and wake up to the reality that this is no longer their country and the ideas promoted by schlock like America should be discarded into the dustbin of history.

They need to start imagining the world without America—because their world is about to get worse with her still around.

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‘Black’ Metal

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What makes them so special that they have been embraced by the larger public that holds contempt for metal? Meet the band members–who are all Black pre-teens living in trendy areas of New York City.

There’s a decent chance you’ve heard of the latest metal sensation Unlocking the Truth. After one viral YouTube hit, they have landed a seven-figure record deal, played at major music festivals, and are now even getting their own documentary.

What makes them so special that they have been embraced by the larger public that holds contempt for metal? Meet the band members–who are all Black pre-teens living in trendy areas of New York City.

You could say they’re their own version of “black” metal.

It is shocking to see one group of kids go from being an oddity on the streets of New York to Coachella in literally a matter of a month. It’s is obvious that they owe their success due to the tastes of White liberals.

While the three youngsters are certainly skilled for their age, their music is basically a more generic take of Mastodon and isn’t anything special. However, most will admit that it’s not the originality of their music that got them signed, but the mere fact that it’s played by “adorable” black pre-teens.

I’m positive that there are a dozen such bands composed of White pre-teens who are equally as skilled and equally adorable. But they aren’t black and they can’t be used to make a point. The idea that blacks are musically superior to Whites and invented all music is constantly forwarded in contemporary society. Unlocking the Truth (what a name!) brings this full circle by performing implicitly White music that mainstream society doesn’t like. This band makes metal appealing to SWPLs, who would otherwise be listening to eunuch rock and Hip Hop. SWPLs are fine with aggressive Black music, just not aggressive White music.

Thus, we have ugly Brooklyn hipsters cheering on the boys as they play on a city street and SWPLs forming an ironic circle pit as the band plays at Coachella. They don’t want Bolt Thrower or Watain playing before them because they’re too serious, too White, and too threatening. They want Unlocking the Truth because they’re ironic, Black, and “cute.”

Let’s hope they’re not the beginning of a horrific trend and this is just a flash in the pan.

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The Last War Against the Last Man

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Can we restart history after all?

Can we restart history after all?

Daniel McCarthy has written a remarkable essay in The American Conservative questioning Francis Fukuyama’s thesis of The End of History.  McCarthy challenges the assumption that the Hegelian process of History has come to an end with the worldwide triumph of liberal democracy. McCarthy contends that the so called “end of history” is simply a product of Anglo-American world hegemony–and points to the rise of anti-liberal systems such as fascism when this hegemony was challenged. He concludes:

Liberal democracy is unnatural. It is a product of power and security, not innate human sociability. It is peculiar rather than universal, accidental rather than teleologically preordained. And Americans have been shaped by its framework throughout their history; they have internalized liberalism’s habits and rationales. Not surprisingly, they have also acquired the habits and rationales of empire—and now they must understand why.

In short, “liberalism means empire.”

While Fukuyama’s work is mostly driven by ideas, McCarthy’s thesis is driven by geopolitics. McCarthy bases a large amount of his thesis on the common geopolitical assumption that land based, imperialist, militaristic powers practice a more anti-liberal form of social organization. In contrast, the offshore-balancing Atlanticist powers of Great Britain and the United States did not face the constant existential threat of invasion and therefore, were more willing and able to permit free speech and develop liberal institutions–at least most of the time. 

McCarthy’s thesis, true to what one would expect from The American Conservative, is that one of the great threats to liberalism comes from its most militant defenders–the neoconservatives. Their insistence on spreading liberal revolution by force is challenging the entire security system that guarantees liberalism by introducing catastrophic instability. McCarthy writes:

The conservative realist knows that America will not be anything other than broadly liberal and democratic for a long time to come, and liberal democracy requires a delicately balanced system of international security upheld by an empire or hegemon. This balance is apt to be upset not only by some rampaging foreign power—by a Napoleonic France or a Nazi Germany or Soviet Union—but also by our own revolution-loving, democracy-promoting liberals.

Of course, what if you don’t want to safeguard liberal democracy–and aren’t particularly happy about America being liberal and democratic either? McCarthy identifies George Kennan and Pat Buchanan as examples of anti-liberal anti imperialists. While they “are among our greatest critics, they are also among our most neglected. They preach what a liberal nation will not hear.”

Most readers will read this and come away with a greater appreciation of the fragility of the international order and the need for prudence in foreign affairs. A thinker of the New Right may accept McCarthy’s premise but come to a different conclusion. After all, we are not so much fighting Islamization, egalitarianism, or dysgenics as we are fighting that most terrible of all conjurations–the Last Man. 

Therefore, if McCarthy is correct, we should know hope–this too shall pass, and Western Man will once again have the chance to walk the upward path unrestrained by liberalism, classical or otherwise. Will liberalism fade with the end of the American Empire? We can only hope. 

The Persistence of the Last Man

But is McCarthy right? Before judging, it’s necessary to clarify that Fukuyama’s thesis has been widely misinterpreted by many commentators—who think it was “disproved” by September 11, the persistence of authoritarianism, or Islamic fundamentalism. There has also been some whining from leftists who will point to poverty or inequality as disproving what they see as American triumphalism.

American hegemony or some kind of democratic utopia wasn’t what Fukuyama was defending. He simply stated that liberal democracy represented a universal ideal that most governments feel the need to pay lip service to and that provides a rhetorical framework for people to express their yearning for dignity as a human being. Whatever authoritarian holdouts remain, this thesis remains essentially true in 2014, as even countries like Belarus, Iran, and China use democratic trappings to justify their system.  

Though Islamic fundamentalism and the yearning for a caliphate is a theoretical rival, in practice such an opinion is relegated to the fringe of the Islamic world, as even most “fundamentalists” mobilize via political parties that participate in elections, a la the Muslim Brotherhood. The new “Caliphate” of ISIS has its fiercest rival in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The fact that stating “I am a man” or “We are human beings” is considered some kind of compelling political statement shows the power of Fukuyama’s argument. 

However, though Fukuyama generally supports democracy, he had the integrity to say that there was the possibility of a challenge. Interestingly, Fukuyama held that the most compelling challenge to the worldwide system of liberal democracy could only come from the Nietzschean Right. The Last Man–the men without chests who prize safety, comfort, and consumption–are contemptible creatures, and the “dignity” they secure through democracy may not seem enough to some individuals.  Fukuyama writes that the striving for megalothymia is the great danger to liberal democracies, and it requires safe outlets.  Interestingly, he notes that “for most of post-historical Europe, the World Cup has replaced military competition as the chief outlet for nationalist strivings to be number one.” 

More importantly, Fukuyama recognizes that “liberal democracies… are not self-sufficient; the community life on which they depend must ultimately come from a source different than liberalism itself.” Citizens need an irrational pride in their own institutions in order for the largely rationalistic ends those institutions serve to be fulfilled. Absent that pride, the institutions cannot be maintained and Fukuyama has since written about the tendency of democracies, including the United States, to fall into “political decay.”

Nevertheless, Fukuyama wrote this year that:

No one living in an established democracy should be complacent about its survival. But despite the short-term ebb and flow of world politics, the power of the democratic ideal remains immense. We see it in the mass protests that continue to erupt unexpectedly from Tunis to Kiev to Istanbul, where ordinary people demand governments that recognize their equal dignity as human beings. We also see it in the millions of poor people desperate to move each year from places like Guatemala City or Karachi to Los Angeles or London.

Even as we raise questions about how soon everyone will get there, we should have no doubt as to what kind of society lies at the end of History.

It hurts to say it, but from the standpoint of 2014, Fukuyama is right. The eternal temptation any commentator is to confuse what we hope to be the case with what is the case. I hope Fukuyama is
wrong.  I fear that he is right. 

McCarthy suggests that all of this is less the working out of some grand historical pattern than an accident of history. If societies are under threat, the premises that underlie liberal democracy will be abandoned and societies will (presumably) return to more traditional arrangements where social choice is limited in order to safeguard the existence of the state. 

However, since 1989, the “men without chests” have only grown in number. While Fukuyama lightly says that nature itself will impose limits on egalitarianism, we now live in a society where “fat shaming” and pregnant men are part of the daily conversation.  Although the tendency to megalothymia is still a driving force in our culture (for God’s sake, witness Kanye West), liberal democracy has been remarkably adept at assimilating every attempt at social rebellion or self-expression into simply another form of consumerism. This is less a function of collective security than individuals taking the ideological premises of liberal democracy to their logical conclusions.

More importantly, if McCarthy is right, threats to security would prompt illiberal tendencies in American life. Yet the response of the West to 9/11, terrorist bombings in England and Spain, and demographic transformation of host populations has been an even greater emphasis on tolerance and multiculturalism. Though government surveillance has grown, none of it is being directed towards the maintenance of traditional Western identity or the restoration of Authority. Instead, it’s being targeted at those reactionary elements of the population who insist on maintaining their national identities. As Mark Steyn put it, “Just as the AIDS pandemic greatly facilitated societal surrender to the gay agenda, so 9/11 is greatly facilitating our surrender to the most extreme aspects of the multicultural agenda.” For most people in the West, the literal replacement of entire national populations with the debris of the Third World is either not worthy of notice, or is actually a cause for celebration.

This does not mean we are living in a classical liberal paradise. On the contrary, the state controls more of our lives than ever before, and even a casual glance through the morning paper makes one pine for the return of George III or even Nero.  Yet in the kinds of freedoms ordinary Westerners favor–consumption, obscenity, entertainment, and sex–Western Man is “free.” The prominence of homosexual and other movements of sexual “liberation” indicates that sexual freedom is now the only freedom that seems to matter. Liberal democracy has triumphed because it provides limited government for the things modern people care about–the freedom to intoxicate, rut, and consume their way into a meaningless oblivion.

Though McCarthy references the “Red Scare” as an example of how even liberal America can abandon liberalism when under foreign threat, he does not bring up the never ending “Brown Scare” raging throughout the West, where physical attacks, workplace discrimination, and even blunt government repression are all justified in the name of fighting racism. 

In this never ending climate of hysteria, we see the one thing Fukuyama got wrong–it is not “community” that is the illiberal value on which democracy relies.  It is a constant war footing against fascism, Traditionalism, and racism as expressed in law codes throughout the West and organized anti-White hysteria in the Third World. Liberalism relies upon whipping up continuous hatred against prospective anti-liberals. The rights of church or family are swiftly abandoned if government repression is performed in the sacred name of “anti-fascism.” And although some of it may just be acquiescence due to fear, the fact remains that more people believe in anti-racism in the West than sincerely believe in God–and those that believe in God probably believe He and anti-racism are the same thing. Indeed, we may have something worse than the Last Man—the Proud Cuckold who is willing to fight, but only in defense of his own degradation. 

Is there an Asian exception? Asia will be the powerhouse of the global economy in the next century, and Asians have not fallen for the poison of mass immigration or national self-loathing–yet.  However, Japanese and South Korean culture can hardly be called more edifying than the pop culture of the West.  Nor is there a real ideological alternative to liberal democracy taking shape in the Asian Tigers or even in China.  While there may not be the same kind of racial replacement taking place, the Asian nations are slowly transforming into economic administrative units just like the nations of the West. 

The Return of History

Can the Last Man be killed off?

Radical Traditionalists believe in the cyclical nature of history and that an age of decadence and collapse is necessary before a purging fire and rebirth. Civilizations become decadent and are overwhelmed by stronger and culturally healthier outsiders, like the Germanic barbarians that sacked degenerate Rome. McCarthy’s thesis ultimately depends on the existence of external blocs that will eventually displace the American Empire.

Unfortunately, this theory presupposes civilizations, states, or nations are still in competition. To those that rule Europe, it really does not make a difference if national populations are replaced or traditional cultures annihilated. To paraphrase Sam Francis, most elites in history have had a stake in the survival of the society and were therefore conservative, but the new managerial elite actually depends upon social deconstruction as the basis of its power. Absent sweeping revolution, the end of the military hegemony of the United States or even the end of Western Civilization doesn’t really challenge the position of the financial interests that are increasingly functioning as part of one global unit. 

Many of the great security problems of the past seem unlikely to return, even if America disappeared altogether. With the creation of the common market, who can imagine France once again warring with Germany? At the same time, the very same leaders that seem most enthusiastic about the American Empire and its ability to make war, like Senators McCain and Graham, are the also the most indifferent about violations of sovereignty that would have had a Bismarck or even a Metternich mobilizing the troops. The interest of “empire”–as defined as the security arrangement that underlies the global economy–is not the same as the interest of America, even to American government officials. 

Empire, as McCarthy noted, is valuable because it facilitates systems of global trade. Is American hegemony really necessary to maintain that system? While the relative decline of the West compared to Asia will change the makeup of the international financial elite, there’s nothing to suggest than an international financial system ca
n’t facilitate that transformation peacefully. More importantly, there’s nothing to suggest that Western populations would even resist large scale displacement, provided they were still given an outlet for consumption and sex. America may go away–but the Empire that sustains liberalism is now international in scope, and it is based out of banks and media outlets, not airstrips or barracks.

I see nothing inevitable about the end of the End of History. In fact, I think it can stumble on all but indefinitely.  As Fukuyama posits, even in the face of incredible disaster or the fabled “collapse,” people would hasten to reconstruct it. We have an elite that is fueled by the monetization of humankind’s basest instincts–and those are not going away anytime soon. 

“The Ride Never Ends” – Unless We End It

Is there hope? As Fukuyama suggests, it is the Right–those who actually wish for the destruction of global liberalism–that can offer the only challenge. This cannot be primarily an economic challenge, but a challenge of spirit, a contention that the life liberal democracy offers us is simply not good enough.   

What the collapse of American Empire would offer is only an opportunity. It might open up a vacuum that would give competing creeds, power centers, and systems opposed to classical liberalism an opportunity to offer their alternatives. But even if America somehow collapsed tomorrow with its media, educational system, and law enforcement, there’s no reason to suggest that the leaderless masses would do anything other than try to build it back up again. And there’s no guarantee that the Empire would even be interrupted in its repression against the authentic Right–it would simply change how anarcho-tyranny is administered. 

Still, I hope Dan McCarthy is right. His pessimism is actually optimism to a Man Against Time.  But the lesson to be learned is not to wait for the collapse. It’s to live our lives in accordance with the principles that we wish to see in the world. It’s to build the alternative in the real world with every action we take. And it’s to wage a war by any means necessary from within the core of the democratic world itself against the Last Man and all he represents, holding before us the distant hope of that victory which can start the world again.  

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The Bright Side of Illegal Immigration

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Illegal immigration might not be so bad after all.

Originally published November 2012 at Jack-Donovan.com

I had an epiphany a couple of months ago.

After looking over their shoulders, some co-workers started complaining about all of the illegals in our industry. As their go-to right-wing ideologue, I smiled, took a deep breath, and mentally arranged my collection of completely legitimate complaints, theoretical objections, snarky cheap shots and racist laughs.

Then it hit me.

Illegal immigration might not be so bad after all.

Sure, every group is defined by its borders, and you can’t make rational decisions—let alone collective decisions—for a group if you don’t know who is in and who is out. It doesn’t matter if the group is a team, a tribe, or a nation. If your group has open boundaries, it really isn’t a group at all. Your group, if it is even your group, is loosely “whoever shows up at any given time.” That makes it virtually impossible to maintain security or do any kind of meaningful long-term planning. People who simply come and go as free agents share no common culture or connection. Everyone, at least theoretically, is just passing through. It doesn’t make sense to run any group that way.

“Who’s on your football team?”

“I guess those guys out there.”

“Do they know the plays?”

“I doubt it.”

“Do they know the rules of football?”

“Can’t be sure.”

“Can you talk to them?”

“I can try. Oh, wait. There’s another one. And those two look like they’re leaving.HEY! You guys!”

(Points and gestures.)

“This is going to be a great game.”

Illegal immigration also hits me where I live. I like to do simple, honest jobs. I drive a delivery truck so I don’t have to swindle people, or tell lies, or send passive-aggressive emails cc-ing someone’s supervisor. I can write what I want and I don’t have some prissy Human Resources busybody reading my blog. The thing about simple, honest work, though, is that it generally doesn’t require a lot of experience or educational background, and usually requires some physical labor. In most places in America, that puts me in direct competition for jobs with illegal immigrants.

Illegals are happy to work 60 hours a week. They’ll take split shifts and split days off. They’ll work days and nights and graveyard shifts. They’ll do whatever you tell them to do, whether it’s the job you hired them for, or scrubbing a toilet. Illegals will let you talk to them like morons, whether they’re morons or not. They’ll whistle while they work like good little dwarves, they’ll stick around forever, and they’ll do it all for peanuts.

Why?

Because they don’t have a lot of other options.

Who cares if they can’t speak English at an elementary school level? They’re cheap!

Lift-o, the boxes-o!

Ándale! Ándale! Arriba! Arriba! Arriba! 

The presence of “undocumented workers” or illegals with fake paperwork in an industry translates to worse hours and lower pay for anyone else working in their industry. Illegals raise an employer’s expectations of how much his labor dollar will buy, and lower what he expects to offer in terms of benefits and accommodations. Why should he treat you with respect when he can treat Pedro like shit and get the same work done, and for half as much money?

Uncontrolled immigration is bad for security and long-term planning. It lowers quality of life for working people. It creates disharmony and ethnic tension. It grinds my gears because I want things to make sense, and poorly managed immigration just doesn’t make sense for a nation if you want the best for the people of that nation—if you want that nation to succeed.

But, what if you don’t want it to succeed? What if you want your nation to fail?

If, as Richard Spencer recently wrote, one’s aim is to “actively disengage from this equally evil and stupid political system,” and the idea is to hasten the failure of that system, then why get your chonies in a bunch about a big, fat wrench in the works like illegal labor?

Instead of blustering on about all of the ways that it darkens the nation, I’ve decided to look for the bright side of illegal immigration.

Because it has failed to secure its borders and enforce its own immigration laws to protect the interests of its citizens, the United States government has undermined its own authority and created a nation of bourgeois criminals. Instead of respecting the rule of law, millions of average, hard working Americans have chosen to ignore the law and abandon any sense of community and allegiance to each other. To make a profit, they hire foreigners because it’s cheaper and easier than hiring their neighbors’ kids and the people they grew up with. In a sane country, we’d hang these people for treason—or at least socially shun them—but America stopped making sense a long time ago. One wonders if a nation built on merchant morality and short-term profit seeking ever made much sense.

You can’t even blame illegal immigration on big, global corporations. Small businesses might hire the document challenged to compete with big business prices, but hiring illegals isn’t GloboCorp’s game. GloboCorp has enough pesos to outsource labor anywhere in the world. GloboCorp screws over working people and undermines the state in completely different way.

No, the businesses that create a market for illegal labor—the businesses that lure illegal immigrants into America—are small businesses. It’s mom and pop who are hiring Juan instead of John. Conservatives love to condemn about illegal immigrants and sing the praises of small businesses, but it is small businesses who hire workers under the table and build their whole business models on breaking the law. Then they call their confessions to drive time talk show hosts and look for absolution by complaining that in a country with a high unemployment rate, they simply can’t find any Americans who are willing to do hard work. I’m not saying a lot of young Americans aren’t lazy or entitled, but if as an employer you feel entitled to treat your employees like refugees from a Third World Country, why would any First World workers want to work for you? The grass gets cut both ways when you pay minimum wage (or less).

I’ve been in a lot of snazzy restaurant kitchens over the years. I know for a fact that at least twenty percent of the folks washing your dishes and prepping your $30 entrees can’t pass The Roy Rogers Test.

(If you can’t say the R’s in Roy Rogers, you probably weren’t born on this side of the Rio Grande, and if you’re washing dishes, you probably didn’t go through the lengthy and complex legal immigration process. The Roy Rogers Test is probably about as accurate as E-Verify.)

Illegals with fake paperwork are stocking your warehouses and picking your potatoes and setting up the white tents for your fairy tale weddings. So many people are somehow involved in turning a blind eye to illegal labor. It’s not just some swaggering dickhead plantation owner with a big brass belt buckle; it’s also his sweet old accounting lady and the chipper bilingual stooge he hired to manage the operation. It’s Bob the Builder with his pickup truck. It’s all of the regular white guys like me who just shrug their shoulders, accept it as reality, and end up teaching their customers words like “celery.” We all know what’s up. As with Prohibition, almost everyone is somehow wink-and-nod complicit in this crime that unde
rmines the rule of law in America. And, instead of enforcing the law and protecting the interests of the nation as a whole, every President from Reagan to Obama has allowed this middle class anarchy to flourish. They even dangle amnesty in front of illegals every few years to reassure them that crossing the border was a swell idea, after all.

Illegal immigration may be slowing down, but it’s still happening, and millions of legitimate American citizens remain out of work while employers hire illegals instead of Americans.

People try to say that America is simply “changing,” but that’s the liberal language of passive resignation. It’s like convincing yourself that getting prison-banged by Bubba is merely “changing” the shape of your lower intestine. America isn’t simply “changing.” It’s getting torn apart from the inside, it’s bleeding internally, everyone is looking the other way, and no one is coming to help.

Illegal immigration is killing my grandfather’s America, but that America is never coming back.  The bright side I see is that this is all part of the process of creating a failed state—a state where no one believes in the system, where the government is just another shakedown gang, where no one confuses the law with justice. A state where there is no such thing as a law-abiding citizen, a state full of middle class criminals. A state where overregulation and corruption, combined with a lack of the will and the resources to enforce the law, leads to widespread civil disobedience.

In a failed state, we go back to Wild West rules, and America becomes a place for men again—a land full of promise and possibility that rewards daring and ingenuity, a place where men can restart the world.

Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers.

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