Ring Fencing the Dissident Right

Speaking of Spencer and of himself, Gottfried said, “I think it is probably a trick that history plays on thinkers. But I think you’re right—he says that I’m his mentor. I think I’m his reluctant mentor, I’m not particularly happy about it.” He sighed. “Whenever I look at Richard, I see my ideas coming back in a garbled form.”*

A few weeks ago Nick B Steves posted a image which attempted to define the boundaries of the Alt-Right, something I want to make a few comments on.

I want to start off by saying that this is not a dig at Nick, rather it's criticism, in good faith, of several problems that I see with it.

Firstly, Richard Spencer and his ilk own the Alt-Right brand. This ownership hasn't been conferred to him by anyone in particular, but the fact is that mainstream usage of words confers upon them their meaning. To be fair, the Spencerites have always assumed the title but now that the media sees Spencer as the official embodiment of the Alt-Right the mainstream usage of the word has become associated with him and his ideas. And the ideas are certainly not those advocated by Gottfried when he first raised the term.  Spencer, working with the media, have been able to twist its meaning.

What this means is that anyone who is opposed to mainstream "Conservatism" and who is opposed to Aryanism v2.0 needs to find another name to call themselves to stress that distinction in the public sphere. As far as I'm concerned the term, Dissident Right, is as good as any. It's also important for the Dissident Right to make a public disavowal of the Alt-Right, since the Alt-Right's main tactic--assisted by the mainstream media--is to be to claim other non-mainstream Right movements as their own. Given that some of the Alt-Right's positions give the appearance of being in agreement with the Dissident Right this tactic causes conflation errors amongst cognitive misers--i.e. most of the public--who associate all these movements as one.  The odium of Aryanism gets spread onto other movements by this mechanism and people like Gottfried have to spend their time defending themselves from beliefs that they don't hold.

Spencer might be a likeable, courageous and edgy guy, but his ideas and more importantly, the metaphysical garbage they bring with them, are toxic. It needs to be remembered that solution for left wing stupidity is not right wing stupidity and for a Christian like me, materialism repackaged as Aryanism v2.0 is stupid.

Secondly, what this image needs despite the graphic difficulty is a third (z) axis labelled Positivist and Trancedentalist, because this is where the serious ideological battles of 20th Century lay. Spencer's  vision is Positivist;  I'm not, therefore any "Right" that Spencer belongs to mutually exclusive to mine.

The Great Battle in Western Civilisation has been between Christian Transcendentalism and Materialist Positivism. Positivism got the upper hand about the time of World War 1 and has been reigning triumphant since. The major ideological battles within the 20th Century have been between the various positivistic factions and quite simply the argument about how to arrange the deck chairs of societal institutions misses the bigger picture of the ship sinking.  There is no survival of the West without a break from Positivism. Anybody who doesn't grasp this fact is arranging deck chairs.

I feel that the minimum membership criteria for inclusion into a Dissident Right which represents Western Civilisation should be:

1) A belief in the Truth.
2) An intention to calibrate act and understanding towards the Truth.
3) A belief in empirical data.
4) The belief in a Christian Transcendentalism, or at it's very minimum, a non-hostility towards it.

I want nothing to do with the Alt-Right and disavow them.

I belong to the Dissident Right.


*The article from which this quote was pulled  is a lot of rubbish in my opinion, but Gottfried's quote was good.

Merry Christmas

It's been one hell of a year!

To all my long suffering blog readers and commentators, a very Merry Christmas to you all!

Peterson on Biopolitics

Jordan Peterson gave this really good interview with Rebel media with regard to the origin of Social Justice Warriors. It's a very good talk because Peterson is able to expand upon several topics that this blog has touched upon in the past.

In the past, this blog has tried to raise awareness on the subject of System 1 and System 2 thinking. System 1 thinking, the "low effort cognitive state" is strongly influenced by personality and disposition, System 2 being less so. As Peterson--and his assistant--point out in this video, the dividing lines between Conservative and Liberal are based primarily in their dispositional states. In other words, for most people the political divide is as a result of motivated "low effort cognition" and is not the product of dispassionate reasoning on the various aspect of the political economy.  What this means is that politics, for many is an instinctive response, something Orwell directly alluded to when he wrote, "Ingsoc bellyfeel good."

Prior to the First World War, when at least in Europe, power was held by the ruling cultured and educated elite, there was a good chance that political decision making had a degree of rationality about it. However, with the democratisation of the West, the enfranchisement of the masses has meant that when it comes to political decision making, the center of gravity has drifted from the rational to the instinctual.  For the majority, Left and Right are "bellyfeel"--intuitive--associations.

Peterson also goes into the dispositional states which lead to totalitarian personality types, especially with the need for order. Interestingly, Peterson recounts how the Frankfurt school was able to influence psychology in denying outright the existence left wing authoritarianism which has hampered the study of it. This in turn ties nicely with Griffin's recognition that our understanding of Fascism has been strongly influenced by the Marxist nature of academia.

What's really interesting is the how the "maternal" dispositional type steers politics to the Left, or more significantly to "compassionate" societies.  From a biopolitical perspective, Testosterone is the hormone of the Right and Estrogen the hormone of the Left.  Restricting the democratic vote to men resulted in a battle between High T and low T, adding women to the franchise, shifted it profoundly towards "compassionate" big government. That's universal suffrage for you.

Peterson recognises that there are a lot of similarities between Left wing and Right wing totalitarians. The Right aims at homogeneity by exclusion, whereas the Left aim at homogeneity by inclusion. The important point here is that action is strongly influenced by biologically inherited disposition modified by environment.

Peterson recognises that that people see the world through their temperament and some are able to get beyond it, but as the work of  Stanovich, Kahneman and Tversky demonstrate, very few are capable of rationality.  The "temperamental" lens, I think, should be a foundational instrument of the Dissident Right with regards to analyzing the effects of democratic movements in the 20th Century.

It's a very good presentation which I'd strongly recommend my readers to view.

Peterson on Tradition

In the previous post, there was a very interesting segment where Jordan Peterson expounds on the relationship between dogma and innovation. I think this is a very important segment since it highlights a problem that many Rightists miss. While it is quite easy to recognise the errors of liberalism, a rigid Traditionalism is just as toxic.

It's this blogs' contention that Traditionalists were the midwifes of the modern world. By placing Tradition above Truth, the Traditionalists ensured that doctrinal developments which would have given the Faith the capacity to combat the modern world were left stillborn.  Notice how Peterson formulates the the need to be vigilant and observant, and to update Tradition in accordance with the Truth, not fashion or preference.

A good example of this tension between Tradition and Truth is currently at play in the Catholic Church. While I'm not an enthusiastic fan of Francis, and am fully aware of the indissolubility of marriage, there does appear to be at least some Biblical legitimacy for "non mortal" divorce. There is a predictable pushback from the Conservatives against the Pope which I find hilarious, as these same Conservatives were the ones who previously insisted on the need for the faithful to be obedient on the grounds of Papal Authority alone. As I've said before, the Liberals are the easy to identify villains, the less obvious ones are Conservatives, who stop any form of doctrinal development and regard the faith as complete.

The segment in question can be found here.

Social Pathologist Approved

Commentator Greg sent me a Youtube link to this video for which I'm extremely grateful.

Jordan Peterson is a Canadian academic who spoken out against the Gender Pronoun laws in Canada and fully understands where this is going. It's a long video but that last 25 minutes are worth the view.
It also links up with my last post, making TRUTH the cornerstone of Rightist thought.

Peterson is one righteous bastard.

Honour and Respect.