When Paul Gottfried coined the term Alt-Right, he saw it as an alternative form of Conservatism that would eventually replace the mainstream variety that was ineffective at dealing with society's drift to the Left. He never really envisaged it as Nazism or KKKv2.0.
As I see it, the Alt-Right was initially a tangential development of the manosphere where people who had been "red pilled" about sexuality connected online to discuss other issues which they had been "red pilled" on. Eventually these people reached a critical mass and formed a coherent worldview about the nature of society's problems and started describing themselves as Alt-Right. I've been blogging for over ten years now and was there when it happened. Sure there were nascent elements beforehand, but it was the Internet which enabled the interactions which allowed the critical mass to form.
At the outset the critical mass was racially aware but not racist. It was pro-Western civilisation, which it saw as a good, and pro tradition. It was anti Marxist, anti-PC and anti-sexual ambiguity. And it was, in my opinion, making considerable headway into the mainstream culture. Those who have been following my blog for a while will know that my greatest fear for the movement was that it would be co-opted by the National Socialist elements, who would eventually drive the movement to ruin.
And I was right.
Prior to my warnings, I was getting a steady growth of traffic onto my blog, with about 40k views a month, after my attacks on the Natsocs, my traffic decreased dropped to about 5K views a month on my new posts. Clearly, I had pissed a lot of people off.
What concerned me most was not the drop in my readership but the realisation that many people were quite sympathetic to the ideas of National Socialism and outright Racism and it's a measure of how bad things have become when the opposition to Left evil was a variant of Right evil. Spencer, TRS and others seem to have been given a free pass by a lot of people who should have known better, and the enthusiastic repeated references to Nazism sort of nullified their "irony". The Alt Right was being transformed into American Natsoc v2.0., all with plausible deniability. Furthermore, apart from the nationalistic component of their ideology, there really wasn't much that was "Right" about them at all. They embraced sexual degeneracy, atheism and multiculti for whites only. Victor Orban--a Christian-knew what he was dealing with, cancelling their meeting and putting Spencer in jail.
A lot of other people were concerned with the co-option and hence the formation of the Alt-lite, there still however, wasn't a clear disavowal of the Natsoc element. And I think the view among many of the normies was that the Alt-Right and Alt-Light represented two poles of a spectrum rather than two discrete positions; they were still one unified body. Spencer and his ilk seemed keen not to dispel this notion. Unfortunately, this meant that whenever the Natsocs did anything stupid the rest of non-mainstream Right took the heat as well.
Now I've got my tinfoil hat on at the moment, but all to post
The point of the whole event being, as I see it, to discredit the entire non-mainstream Right and it work. It was a disaster. And justified the Twitter and internet repressions. Expect it to continue.
Furthermore, the post debacle online "agony" seemed to me to illustrate that the Right is still not aware of both the magnitude and nature of the menace it is dealing with. The Right needs to understand that Antifa is the paramilitary arm of the liberal managerial state, it becomes easier to understand events when seen through this lens. Hence the differential treatment by the media and government apparatus.
As I see it, the whole debacle illustrates several major problems with the non-mainstream Right. They are:
1) Lack of a moral compass which allows malign elements to infiltrate the group.
2) High T, Low IQ membership which favours unthinking intuitive action.
3) A lack of an understanding of what it means to be Right.
4) A lack of an understanding of what we are up against.
Still, I regard the events as a strategic victory for the Dissident Right. And by Dissident Right I mean it as Gottfried originally envisaged it. A Right that was built upon the traditions and identity of the West minus the modernistic ideologies trying to infiltrate it. The Charlottesville debacle seems to have pushed enough people to disavow themselves from the Natsocs which makes me think that future infiltration by them will be neutralised. They are now persona non grata.
Furthermore, Trump's dog whistle to the Dissident Right, legitimising the concerns of normal, decent people while criticising the nutjobs shows that there is sympathy for the dissident Right:
All of those people -- I've condemned neo-Nazis. I've condemned many different groups. Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, Robert E. Lee.
You take a look at some of the groups and you see and you would know it if you were honest reporters, which in many cases, you are not. Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. This week, it is Robert E. Lee and this week, Stonewall Jackson. Is it George Washington next? You have to ask yourself, where does it stop? You take a look. The night before. They were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee.
As I see it, the left has destroyed its greatest "asset" in its war against the Right, the Natsocs, and done for the non-mainstream Right what it should have done itself a long while ago. The scorecard at the end of the day was, a tactical victory for the Alt-Left, strategic loss for the Alt Right, strategic victory for the Dissident Right.
16 comments:
I have a very hard time seeing public disavowal of "Nazism" or "racism" as something honest, rather than a grovelling to the public moral authority of the liberalism. What's more, I think everybody else does, too, on every side. "Nazism" and "racism" entirely lack meaning apart from statements of loyalty or defection from progressive moral authority. Even when it is honest, nobody receives it that way: you are just speaking a private language, a tactical error, scandalizing listeners.
On an individual level I consider most supposedly "neo-nazi" guys as basically our guys, only confused, because the 3rd Reich did what the Church should have done: optically refuse to submit to progressivism, fighting it to the death as the primal evil that it is, accepting demonization, thereby appearing as the rallying point for reaction. Who can be blamed for considering and rejecting the Church when all clergy and laymen spend their time signalling obedience to progressivism and despising their tradition? We can talk about the foundational errors of NatSoc in materialism and caesaropapism, and why they are ultimately the same thing as what they fought! But a whiff of moral condemnation that looks like it calls upon progressive moral authority... for instance, if we condemn them more forcefully than we do Western liberalism... the meaning becomes a grovel.
Being a Nazi in 2017 is very sane and moral considering the apparent alternatives. We ought to talk about it that way. When we talk as though, e.g. atheism is a more reasonable error, we betray that we still believe in progressive moral authority at heart.
Ioannes Barbarus is correct.
I have a very hard time seeing public disavowal of "Nazism" or "racism" as something honest, rather than a grovelling to the public moral authority of the liberalism.
I really couldn't care less about the Left and their approval of me, it's the normies that matter. There's a bad feeling in the air and people are choosing sides or trying to sit it out. The Left calling the Right Nazi's doesn't matter because the normies regard the Left as being full of shit, especially when they're pulling down statues. What does matter is when the Right parades around with Natsoc flags and KKK members. If not the Left calling the Right "Nazis" that is damaging it's the Right acting like Nazis that is toxic. Normies are never going to buy into that and are going to stay on the sidelines. Americans are basically nice and decent people, and while they might not like particular races, they never want to go back to the "Old days" of racial segregation, or depriving people of their rights because of their race. Not going to happen. Ever.
On an individual level I consider most supposedly "neo-nazi" guys as basically our guys, only confused, because the 3rd Reich did what the Church should have done: optically refuse to submit to progressivism
Dude, that comment shows that you no idea of the Beast that you want to embrace. The 3rd Riech was Modernist in its metaphysics and would have destroyed the Church and the Western Civilisation you want to save. One of the reasons why the Church has bent the knee to Progressivism is due to Traditionalists, yes Traditionalists, who want a return to Medievalism, which ain't coming back due to the changed material and technological circumstances of the modern world. The Traditionalists are like First World War generals who keep harping back to the tried and true techniques of the past, while the modernists are like blitzkrieg generals, infiltrating and destroying all points of resistance. The Church needs to develop new tactics and theology to counter the attack, but this of course, is always resisted by the trads.
My condemnation of Natsoc does not come from progressivism but from Christian theology, i.e. all men are created in the image of God. It just that Christian theology has some foundational errors,i.e. denying the legitimacy of the flesh, where our homophilic--desire for people similar to ourselves--tendencies dwell. A theology which recognises the legitimacy of some of these fleshy desires needs to be developed.
The Traditionalists are like First World War generals who keep harping back to the tried and true techniques of the past, while the modernists are like blitzkrieg generals, infiltrating and destroying all points of resistance.
Better analogy: Trads see the folly of the politics so refuse to fight, Benedict-style, and instead invest in family and culture. In your analogy they would be Americans who refuse to fight WWI at all. Modernists (both left and right) think they can win WWI when nobody can win that war, and nobody can win this one except via demographics.
For all the obsession with politics, it really doesn't matter at all anymore. Trump proved that in 2016. All that matters is identity politics: join a group that hates the enemy more than they hate each other. Soon there will be no "normies" anymore. Fighting for them? Waste of time.
Personally, I welcome more repression of the Right. It's a tactical mistake liberals are making but they can't help themselves. Something to read while you wring your hands about Natsocs & Trads: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-is-more-in-touch-than-you-think/
Americans are basically nice and decent people, and while they might not like particular races, they never want to go back to the "Old days" of racial segregation, or depriving people of their rights because of their race. Not going to happen. Ever.
What about the old days of men having authority over their women? The old days of homosexuality being recognized as an abomination? Americans are basically nice and decent people. Must we already give up on depriving gays of their rights? This is just cuckservatism. The zeitgeist bleeds, we can kill it. Turn the clock back only 30 years and most Americans don't approve of miscegenation. What's 30 years, when against feminism, the clock needs to be turned back 300 years?
It's the ruling class which decides what's reasonable and what's unreasonable. "Not going to happen. Ever." is a decision that the ruling class makes day by day, not a brute fact created by the winds of change.
I won't deny that the 3rd Reich might have wound up doing a comparable amount of damage to tradition and the Church. But I'm talking about the motivations of individual neo-nazis and their sympathizers in 2017, not historical NatSoc. These people are ripe for conversion, only no one's preached the gospel to them, only told them about people being formed in the image of God, which they've long ago learned to tune out as being egalitarian. And it is almost always given an egalitarian interpretation.
Christian theology has some foundational errors,i.e. denying the legitimacy of the flesh
Conventional modern theology, maybe. The tradition didn't face this problem.
My condemnation of Natsoc does not come from progressivism but from Christian theology, i.e. all men are created in the image of God.
In a public context, that's not good enough. You can say those words but what they really mean is "I swear fealty to the progressive cause. Please burn our churches and rape our daughters until we are holy." 9 times out of 10 that's what people mean when they say that, that's what everyone on both sides hears period, so that's what it really means.
How to avoid that? One terrific starting point is affirming the moral superiority of the 3rd Reich over the modern liberal democracies, and NatSoc morality over progressive morality. That clears the air; reasonable discussion can follow.
@MK
Thanks for the Link.
Confirms what all sane people know. Like you, I'm glad that the Left helping purge the Right of its idiots.
@IB
Conventional modern theology, maybe. The tradition didn't face this problem.
And yet Tradition did not stop the birth of progressivism.
But I'm talking about the motivations of individual neo-nazis and their sympathizers in 2017, not historical NatSoc.
I know it's a cliche, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Traditional Catholic theology demands that for an act to be just both the act and the intention must be good.
How to avoid that? One terrific starting point is affirming the moral superiority of the 3rd Reich over the modern liberal democracies
Like choosing between Stalin and Mao. Or Hitler and Mussolini.
You claim to want the restoration of Tradition yet endorse those who explicitly sought to destroy it. The cure for Progressivism is not Integralism. It was tried before and failed.
"It just that Christian theology has some foundational errors,i.e. denying the legitimacy of the flesh, where our homophilic--desire for people similar to ourselves--tendencies dwell. A theology which recognises the legitimacy of some of these fleshy desires needs to be developed."
what do you mean by this?
@Iio Stablet
"what do you mean by this?"
The predominant role of philosophy in Christian theology has resulted in an emphasis with regard to the rational aspect of human nature. Rationality is meant to override human nature without any regard to human nature, which is seen as hostile and and something to be subdued. Human nature always has to submit to rationality, with the assumption that rationality is always justified. This sets up the preconditions where ideology (which arises from rationality) is meant to trump human nature.
It's my opinion this prejudice in Christian theology is borrowed by other ideologies to bring about their version of the "New Man".
Take for example the subject of Racism. All the research out there suggests that human beings are intuitively homophilous. i.e. have a preference for their own kind. Christian theology rightly, as it currently stands, disavows racism, therefore Christians are meant to "suppress" their homophilous tendencies by the rational exercise of the will over their nature. Nature has no rights. In fact, since homophily would seem to point in a direction which is contra divine revelation and some would say that homophily is a disordered nature. It never occurs to the religious that their understanding of God's view of racial relations may be wrong.
We may not agree all the time, but when you're spot on, you are spot. on.
>Better analogy: Trads see the folly of the politics so refuse to fight, Benedict-style, and instead invest in family and culture. In your analogy they would be Americans who refuse to fight WWI at all. Modernists (both left and right) think they can win WWI when nobody can win that war, and nobody can win this one except via demographics.
Family and culture is how christians won a foothold in Rome, in fact the home church has been istrumental in evangelism and church growth from the inception of christianity to the rapid growth of christianity in china. The problem is that they're 'pietists', they maintain their outward piety after a certain fashion but have no inward love of it and don't defend or prosyletize it, their children will receive a watered down version of their culture and values and so on.
While they're unthinking pietists I've seen the growth of thinking pietism on the *chans and alt-right/dissident right. People consciously realizing the pro-social benefits of religion and specifically christianity and trying to create a neutered version of it or attending church while essentially winking at the whole idea of believing in it beyond its practical social benefits. "God aint real but he sure makes people nice to each other", it's like in that book on masculinity and the church where the author notes that large amounts of hispanic christians refuse to attend church but insist that their wives/gfs do because they believe it keeps them faithful.
And demographics will no more rechristianize the west than false piety, if demographics didn't save or preserve the jews, the chosen people, it won't do any better for anyone else.
@Anon
In your analogy they would be Americans who refuse to fight WWI at all.
No, my position is that they use the wrong tactics to fight and they insist that everyone else use the same tactics as they do.
SP: my position is that [Trads] use the wrong tactics to fight and they insist that everyone else use the same tactics as they do.
WTF? I know zero Trads who "insist that everyone else" use their tactics. This must be projection.
Many point to Trads as some sort of "establishment". The Left to create some enemy to fight since they own the culture (as Zippy points out). The Right to blame somebody, anybody, for their loss (this seems to be more your and Dreher's style).
I'm a Trad (by my own definition YDMV; my own is RCC moral values from Ignatius to the 34 saints canonized by Pope Francis). And we all have ZFG about what "tactics" anyone uses to fight the Left. Why would we? Our modern problems are entirely self-inflicted: secularism, birth control, pursuit of wealth/leisure. Said another way? I know my people by doctrine, average family size, and home-SF per person. Their tactics match mine, and always turn inwards first. Everything else is mere deck chairs on the Titanic. We look into Vader's severed helmet to see our own faces looking back at us. Said anther way: never have Western Christians had it easier. Yet never has it been so ugly or some and so wonderful for others. The necessary tactics are obvious. QED.
In more positive news, I would be curious to hear about your European travels, although I understand if you feel reluctant to provide details because of privacy issues. As you know, I have a special place in my heart for the region, and always like to hear about the voyages there of others.
@Jason
I hope to make some comments in the future. The place really is interesting.
TSP - What does matter is when the Right parades around with Natsoc flags...
I see just one guy turn up in all the Google image search pics. He doesn't seem to be with anyone else. From what little I've read, no one who was there knows who he is. Possibly odd that his flag is creased in a way that looks like he just bought it.
Literal false flag?
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