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7 comments

1. Hovhannes says:

   December 5, 2010 at 12:24 pm

   Greg,

   I am glad to see you are planning a WN Manifesto. Such a work is needed.

   But before you do that, I think that you should consider putting together a collection or two of your own essays.

   One collection should contain your more introductory and topical-opinion pieces like “Confessions of a Reluctant Hater” and your comments on Gates, the 2008 and 2010 elections, the Ground Zero Mosque, etc. This sort of collection could be given to people who are just opening up to White Nationalism.

   Another collection could include your essays on movement building, for example your pieces “Theory and Practice,” “First do no Harm,” “White Nationalists and the Political Mainstream,” “Secret Agents,” and your articulations of “metapolitics,” as well as your piece on Christianity and WN and your reviews of Hyde, Covington, and the like.

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   1. Greg Johnson says:

      December 6, 2010 at 2:53 am

      I think this is a very helpful suggestion that I have been mulling over all day. I think that I can produce the first sort of collection from existing essays, and in very short order, actually. Furthermore, doing so would actually help me give greater focus to the series of essays on metapolitics and movement-building that I am writing, which should go into a book of their own. Thank you. This has been enormously valuable.

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2. White Republican says:

   December 5, 2010 at 11:18 pm

   Three items:

   First, is Ernst Jünger: Between the Gods and the Titans based on an issue of Nouvelle École devoted to Jünger? Perhaps the issue of Nouvelle École devoted to American civilisation would be worth translating. I haven’t read it, but the references to it I have read indicate that it is particularly important.

   Second, perhaps a translation of Hervé Ryssen’s booklet, Cinéma sans frontières: comment le cinéma influence nos sociétés, would be worthwhile.

   Third, the idea of a White Nationalist Manifesto is an excellent one, and I’d like to know more about the plans for this book. I have long thought that a book of this kind would fill a major gap in White nationalist literature. Although I don’t think that I could write such a book, I have made various notes concerning such a book, and I should presently dig them up. From memory, some notes I made were:

   1. The book should be written as a book, rather than a collection of articles. This means that (a) the book could have a consistent tone; (b) the ideas of the book could be formulated in the most logical, economical, and effective manner; (c) the ideas of the book could be properly developed and integrated. These things can be done if ideas are organised and developed throughout the length of a book rather than an article or collection of articles. The book should be written in a seamless style.

   2. The book should have a maximum length of around 150 pages or 60,000 words.

   3. The ideas of the book should be simple yet profound. The book should be written so as to work upon the imagination and memory of readers. Roger Scruton remarked that his book The Meaning Of Conservatism (London: Macmillan, 1984) “attempts not to prove a political vision, but to express it—to find a language in which conservatism can be made available anew to those whose instincts compel them towards it” (p. 7). The book should perform a similar function for White nationalism. It should present White nationalist doctrine in an attractive and accessible form.

   4. The book should articulate a Sorelian myth which meets the following criteria: “Though the myth is not a scientific theory and is therefore not required to conform to the facts, it is nevertheless not at all arbitrary. Not just any myth will do. A myth that serves to weld together a social group—nation, people, or class—must be capable of arousing their most profound sentiments and must at the same time direct energies toward the solution of the real problems which the group faces in its actual environment.” (James Burnham, The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom (London: Putnam and Co., 1943), p. 90.)

   5. The book should judiciously adapt ideas from European schools of thought (e.g. the Nouvelle Droite and revolutionary nationalism) relevant to White nationalism. Such ideas should be presented simply, directly, and unpretentiously. Direct references to various schools of thought, thinkers, and publications should perhaps be minimal or absent, as most readers will often be unfamiliar with them and will not be in a position to learn much more about them. (For example, Maurice Bardèche’s work is brilliant, but very few people are familiar with his work.) The book is a manifesto and it should present ideas in a simple and direct manner.

   6. The book should do without scholarly and statistical apparatus (e.g. footnotes, endnotes, bibliographies, tables, graphs). These things would be out of place given the audience, purpose, and character of the book.

   7. The book should perhaps formulate an “open orthodoxy”: a doctrine that is firm where it should be firm, and flexible where it should be flexible. The book should concentrate on the fundamentals of White nationalism. The book should formulate a doctrine that can serve to unite White nationalists.

   8. The book should not be published as the manifesto of a particular party or group. The book should be written so that it has a wide circulation among White nationalists and those receptive to White nationalism. The circulation of such a book would probably be restricted if it bears the label of a particular party or group: people will respond to it on the basis of its label and not assess its ideas according to merit.

   9. The book should be formatted and printed to high standards.

   10. The book should be priced for wide circulation.

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   1. Greg Johnson says:

      December 6, 2010 at 2:57 am

      1. The Jünger collection contains an essay from that issue of Nouvelle École plus five later articles.

      2. I shall certainly take all of your suggestions to heart. I would like the volume to be somewhat shorter though, in the range of 100 pages. There will also be a bibliography for further reading.

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      1. White Republican says:

         December 7, 2010 at 5:00 am

         Some further comments:

         1. I used a higher figure of 150 pages because I’m inclined to doubt that it is possible to write an adequate manifesto in around 100 pages and I’m inclined to regard short books as insubstantial. My views on these matters may admittedly be subjective.

         Some books I have read indicate that it is possible to write a good manifesto of around 100 pages. Two of the best works on economism, John Attarian’s Economism and the National Prospect and Guillaume Faye’s Contre l’économisme, are booklets of around seventy pages. Both works are remarkably comprehensive and concise. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals is an excellent little book. Maurice Bardèche’s books, Qu’est-ce que le fascisme? and Les temps modernes, have 195 and 219 pages respectively, but would have half the number of pages if retypeset using 400 to 450 words per page.

         I recently procrastinated as to whether I should get a copy of Jost Hochuli’s Detail in Typography. As a small booklet of 61 pages, it is much smaller than other works on typography, and I doubted that it would be worth the money. It turned out to be surprisingly good.

         It would be possible, but extremely difficult, to write a manifesto of around 100 pages. Writing such a manifesto requires one to have an extremely clear idea of what one wants to say and how one should say it. The character, function, and length of the book would make it very difficult to write. It is a medium of its own and should not be written as an oversized booklet or an undersized book.

         Perhaps it would be sensible to have a writing target of 150 pages and an editing target of 100 pages.

         It may be more difficult to write a short book than a long book.

         2. If the manifesto has around 100 pages, it might be sensible to use thicker paper. This would improve the handling qualities of the book and give it a wider spine on which the text could be made more legible.

         3. It goes without saying that the manifesto should formulate White nationalism in terms of a revolutionary project. I trust that you agree with these passages from Thierry Maulnier’s Au-delà du nationalisme:

         “Si la communauté nationale constitue le seul support valable de toute nouvelle création sociale, ce serait tirer de ce principe une application infiniment inexacte et grossière que d’appeler indistinctement à cette création tout ce qui se réclame du « nationalisme » ou du « patriotisme ». À une époque où la nation nous apparaît en grande partie vidée de sa substance historique réelle, occupée et usurpée par une caste dominante qui abuse de son nom pour la mieux exploiter, et se sert du « patriotisme » comme d’un moyen de mystification et de chantage, il est évident que le « nationalisme » doit faire l’objet d’un examen de conscience particulièrement scrupuleux, et que le « nationalisme » des usurpateurs et des dupes du nationalisme, le nationalisme confondu avec le maintien d’une structure sociale qui étouffe précisément la communauté sociale réelle et la fait lentement dépérir doit être impitoyablement dénoncé. Le nationalisme vulgaire n’est plus que le culte voué à un mot ou l’art de s’en servir, il a cessé d’avoir rien de commun avec la véritable conscience historique de la réalité nationale et la volonté de la faire revivre. Il n’y a pas ou il n’y a plus de nationalisme acceptable, attaché et associé à la volonté de conserver la structure politique et sociale actuelle de la nation, qui n’est rien autre que le processus de désorganisation politique et sociale de la nation. Volonté nationaliste et volonté révolutionnaire se rejoignent dans l’acte de création historique par lequel une communauté reconquiert la possibilité de conduire sa destinée et de triompher dans une synthèse nouvelle des antagonismes qui la déchirent ; la nation ne peut être retrouvée ou refaite que dans la métamorphose libératrice. Il est désormais impossible de justifier le nationalisme dans le cadre démocratique de l’État. Il est impossible de justifier le nationalisme dans le cadre capitaliste de la société. Il ne peut y avoir aujourd’hui de nationalisme, c’est-à-dire de conscience de la continuité vivante de la nation, qui ne soit en même temps révolutionnaire.”

         “La condition première de l’efficacité d’une action politique vraiment créatrice se trouve donc dans la lucidité et la vigilance de la conscience « nationale », dans le pouvoir qu’aura cette conscience de libérer intellectuellement la nation, — avant de la libérer matériellement, — des puissances parasites qui se réclament d’elle pour l’asservir et détournent à leur profit le prestige qu’elle garde encore aux yeux de ses membres. C’est dire que l’effort essentiel du véritable « nationalisme » doit consister non seulement à dissocier l’idée nationale de l’actuelle structure politique et économique de la nation, mais encore à provoquer ou à précipiter l’écroulement de cette double structure pour en faire jaillir une nouvelle organisation nationale. La nouvelle solution nationale des problèmes économiques et politiques de ce temps ne peut être en aucun cas attendue de la puissance sociale actuellement dominante dans la nation et des organes politiques de cette puissance. On peut dire que les institutions politiques et sociales, qui ont constitué longtemps les formes les plus solides de la réalité nationale et les cadres de la durée de la nation, sont aujourd’hui les instruments de sa dissociation et de son affaiblissement continu. État démocratique, société dominée par l’argent, les institutions actuelles n’expriment plus ce qui unit la nation et la perpétue, mais ce qui la consume et la divise. La plus forte réalité de la nation, la forme la plus intense de la vie nationale, la volonté même de vivre de la nation se sont trouvées longtemps incarnées dans la lutte des institutions nationales contre les forces qui tendaient à se rebeller contre elles ; elles se trouvent incarnées aujourd’hui dans la lutte des forces qui se rebellent contre des institutions destructrices. Les institutions existantes, la forme de société existant dans notre pays ont cessé absolument de répondre aux conditions de la vie et de la durée des communautés nationales d’Occident ; elles séparent progressivement la nation de son avenir par l’obstacle de problèmes insolubles et de son passé par la destruction progressive des anciennes fonctions de la vie sociale ; ce n’est plus dans les institutions établies, c’est dans la lutte contre ces institutions et dans la volonté de les détruire que sont incarnées la mémoire et l’espérance de la communauté nationale, son avenir et son passé. Nous en sommes au point où la nation, en tant que puissance millénaire de cohésion sociale et possibilité d’une synthèse sociale nouvelle, est non plus dans l’état de choses existant, mais dans la volonté de le changer, non plus dans les cadres d’un État d’où elle a été bannie, mais dans la conscience des hommes où elle trouve son inépuisable réalité.”

         4. The manifesto should properly address “le système à tuer les peuples” (Guillaume Faye). The critique of Occidental civilisation in general, and American civilisation in particular, made by the Nouvelle Droite are worth developing in an American context.

         5. The book should be written so that it does not age quickly. I have thought that Maulnier’s Au-delà du nationalisme has aged well, even though it was published over seventy years ago, because it concentrates on first principles and uses remarkably few proper nouns.

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3. Junghans says:

   December 6, 2010 at 1:30 pm

   Greg, you certainly can offer autographed copies of Kerry Bolton’s work, though maybe not personalized. All you have to do is use a peel-off /past-in, in the frontispiece. Kerry can autograph, date and number them, and send them to you. Then, you simply have to apply them in the books. This is a method commonly used by Bender Publications and is an accepted form of autographing a book. Incidentally, Kerry has written some great books and monographs that need further distribution in North America and elsewhere.

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4. Rodrigo Penedo says:

   December 26, 2010 at 10:16 am

   Hello… for those of you in the United States who are familiar with Maurice Bardèche i would definitely pick “Sparte et les Sudistes” as his major political work and the most important to be translated. And since those “sudistes” are the men from the old american south i would imagine it could have a peculiar appeal to some of you.

   Greetings from Portugal and keep up with the magnificent work.

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