Counter-Currents
1,675 words
Part 1 here; Translations: French, Spanish
8. If you were to recommend just one book from the European New Right, what would it be?
If you are to read just one book from the European New Right, Guillaume Faye’s Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance (London: Arktos, 2011) should be that book. Why We Fight is written with the utmost lucidity to reach the broadest possible audience. Faye explains the dangers to European civilization posed by Third World colonization, American-style global capitalism, and liberalism’s poisonous culture of guilt, grandiosity, and resentment.
The core of the book is a “Metapolitical Dictionary” consisting of short, pithy expositions of 177 crucial terms, including such useful coinages as archeofuturism, ethomasochism, and xenophilia. Once you read Faye’s metapolitical dictionary, you will be equipped to tackle other works from the European New Right. We have reprinted a sample selection from Faye’s metapolitical dictionary: “People.”
I don’t agree with Faye on all points, but Why We Fight is the most intellectually exciting and stimulating book I have read in years.
Why We Fight is available from Counter-Currents here and from Amazon.com here
For more on Why We Fight, read F. Roger Devlin’s review here.
9. If one were to read just one book from the North American New Right, what should it be?
The North American New Right is just getting started, so we have produced nothing to compare with the European New Right. But I highly recommend my book New Right vs. Old Right and the first volume of our journal, North American New Right. It is the best of our movement so far, and we hope that it is sufficiently exciting to draw in new writers and spark new debates.
10. What are the best introductory works on the European New Right?
I recommend two books in English on the European New Right:
- Tomislav Sunic, Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right
, 3rd edition, with a Preface by Alain de Benoist (London: Arktos Media, 2011), 264 pp.
- Michael O’Meara, New Culture, New Right: Anti-Liberalism in Postmodern Europe
(Bloomington, Ind.: 1stBooks, 2004), 230 pp.
The Sunic book can be viewed as the undergraduate textbook on the European New Right. The O’Meara book is the graduate textbook: more densely written, but also more substantive and challenging.
11. Who are the most important writers of the European New Right?
These are the European New Right authors I follow most closely and who have been most helpful to me intellectually:
- Alain de Benoist (books, articles & interviews, about)
- Guillaume Faye (books, articles & interviews, co-authored, about)
- Dominique Venner (articles & interviews, about)
- Robert Steuckers (articles & interviews, co-authored)
- Pierre Krebs (books, articles, about)
There are many other worthwhile writers associated with the European New Right, but I am listing only the people I read consistently.
12. Who are the most important theorists to which the New Right in both Europe and North America look for enlightenment and inspiration?
These thinkers are not part of the New Right, but they influence New Rightists a great deal. They are among the most discussed writers at Counter-Currents/North American New Right:
- Friedrich Nietzsche (books on Amazon.com
, excerpts, about)
- Oswald Spengler (books at C-C, books on Amazon.com
- Martin Heidegger (books on Amazon.com
- Carl Schmitt (books on Amazon.com
- Julius Evola (books on Amazon.com
- René Guénon (books on Amazon.com
- Ernst Jünger (books on Amazon.com
- Francis Parker Yockey (books on Amazon.com
Other Rightist authors who have greatly influenced my work — and thus, by extension, the North American New Right — are:
- Kevin MacDonald (books on Amazon.com
- Anthony M. Ludovici (books at C-C, articles & excerpts)
- Savitri Devi (books at C-C, articles & excerpts, about)
- Ezra Pound (articles & poems, about)
- C. H. Douglas (about)
I also draw a great deal of inspiration direct from the words and deeds of such classic Old Right figures as Hitler, Mussolini, Codreanu, and Mosley, as well as Rockwell, Oliver, and Pierce.
13. What is the NANR position on Traditionalism?
This is a particularly important question given that the very name Counter-Currents is drawn from René Guénon by way of Savitri Devi. The North American New Right is unified by a common set of concerns (the demographic decline and destruction of whites), a common aim (the creation of a white ethnostate or ethnostates in North America), and a general metapolitical strategy (the critique of anti-white cultural hegemony and the pursuit of white cultural hegemony). But within that framework, we aim at maximal tactical pragmatism and intellectual eclecticism.
Many participants in our intellectual project are Traditionalists, or take inspiration from Traditionalism, myself among them. But many do not. Thus the North American New Right is influenced by Traditionalism, but we are not a doctrinaire Traditionalist sect.
14. What is the NANR position on Christianity, paganism, and religion in general?
As a movement, the NANR is not doctrinaire on religious matters. But neither do we shy away from religious controversy. Indeed, most New Rightists are intensely interested in religion, even the atheists. The vast majority of NANR writers are non-Christians: atheists, agnostics, neo-pagans, or followers of various Eastern religions.
There are Christians among us, although I am certain that their patience is, at times, sorely tried by those who lay a great deal of blame for our racial decline on Christianity. I think that most of us agree that at the very least Christianity needs a radical new Reformation to bring it in line with the long-term survival and flourishing of our race.
For more on this issue, see:
- Greg Johnson, “The Christian Question in White Nationalism“
- Greg Johnson, “He Told Us So: Patrick Buchanan’s Suicide of a Superpower“
- William Pierce, “On Christianity“
- Alain de Benoist, “Interview on Christianity,” Part 1, Part 2
- Gregory Hood, “The De-Germanization of Late American Christianity“
15. What is “West-Coast White Nationalism”?
West-Coast White Nationalism is my term for the blending of white racial consciousness with liberal or Left-wing positions on such issues as capitalism, environmentalism, zoning, abortion, drug legalization, homosexuality, and religious pluralism. West-Coast White Nationalism is not, of course, confined to the West Coast, but such attitudes are more prevalent here. Furthermore, not every White Nationalist on the West Coast fits this description.
A more accurate term for West-Coast White Nationalism might be the Racially-Conscious Left, although it is a non-egalitarian outlook, and if the Left-Right split is on the essential issue of equality versus inequality, then the Racially Conscious Left really isn’t Left-wing at all. But it may be as far to the Left as one can reasonably go.
The North American New Right is not identical with West-Coast White Nationalism, although there are overlaps. (For instance, I consider myself to be more or less part of the Racially-Conscious Left.) The NANR does, however, seek to encourage the development of West-Coast White Nationalism as part of our overall strategy of pursuing intellectual hegemony by articulating pro-white viewpoints that address all different white constituencies and that can colonize the entire political spectrum.
For more on this topic, see:
- Greg Johnson, “West-Coast White Nationalism“
- Greg Johnson, “Robert Stark on West-Coast White Nationalism“
- Robert Stark Interviews Greg Johnson
16. What is the relationship of the NANR to conservatism?
Most White Nationalists in North America develop out of the conservative movement or milieu. For instance, I was a libertarian, then a conservative, then a White Nationalist, and now I am a member of the Racially-Conscious Left. (Of course, both American conservatism and libertarianism are ultimately species of liberalism.)
The reason that White Nationalists develop out of conservatism is that conservatism itself is not an adequate framework for the preservation of the white race. It is not intellectually adequate, because it is beholden to race-blind universalism and egalitarianism. It is not institutionally adequate, because even if the conservative movement would fight for our race, it loses every important battle.
Unfortunately, most White Nationalists are not fully weaned from conservatism. Thus the NANR is highly critical of conservatism, because we wish to speed along the evolution of White Nationalism into a genuine alternative to the present system.
For more on conservatism, see:
- Nietzsche on Conservatism
- William Pierce, “Why Conservatives Can’t Win“
- William Pierce, “Conservatism or Radicalism?”
- Greg Johnson, “Why Conservatives STILL Can’t Win“
- Greg Johnson, “The Politics of Resentment“
- Greg Johnson, “5 to 9 Conservatism“
- Greg Johnson, “White Nationalists and the Political ‘Mainstream’“
- Greg Johnson, “Explicit White Nationalism“
- Greg Johnson, “Implicit Whiteness and the Republicans“
- Greg Johnson, Review of Tea Party: The Documentary Film
- Michael O’Meara, “The Next Conservatism?”
- Michael O’Meara, “Three Pillars“
- Michael O’Meara, “Against White Reformists“
- Alex Stark, “We are Not Conservatives“
- Matt Parrott, “‘The Talk’: Conservative Columnist Edition“
17. What is the relationship of the NANR to capitalism?
I have become increasingly convinced that the NANR must chart a path away from all forms of capitalist orthodoxy toward “Third Way” economics (neither capitalism nor communism). This is the least developed area of our project, but it is one of the most important because it will allow the NANR to craft racially-conscious policies that appeal to a wide number of Center-Left constituencies that are currently exploited by the Jewish-minority coalition.
For more on these issues, see:
- Greg Johnson, “Money for Nothing” (podcast version, French translation)
- Greg Johnson, “Thoughts on Debt Repudiation” (podcast version, French translation)
- Greg Johnson, “The End of Globalization” (French translation, Portuguese translation)
- Greg Johnson, “Brooks Adams on the Romans“
- Greg Johnson, “Occupy Wall Street: Big Money and No Ideas“
- Greg Johnson, “The Spiritual Materialism of Alan Watts“
- Greg Johnson, “A Tariff in Time . . . Saves Billions“
- Robert Stark Interviews Greg Johnson on Third Way Economics and Occupy Wall Street
- Brooks Adams, “The Romans“
- Brooks Adams, “Against the Gold Standard“
- Ezra Pound, “What is Money For?“
- Ezra Pound, “An Introduction to the Economic Nature of the United States“
- Carolina Hartley, “Ezra Pound on Money“
- Kerry Bolton, “Breaking the Bondage of Interest“
- Kerry Bolton, “Apartheid: Lest We Forget (or Never Know)“
- Matt Parrott, “The Color of Capitalism“
- Robert Locke, “Japan: Refutation of Neo-Liberalism“
- Hilaire Belloc, “On Usury“
- F. Roger Devlin, “The Family Way“
- F. Roger Devlin, “Bonald’s Economic Thought“
- Lance Hill, “Huey P. Long: Bayou Fascism?”
25 comments
‘I don’t agree with Faye on all points, but Why We Fight is the most intellectually exciting and stimulating book I have read in years.’
Yeah sadly Faye is apparently going soft on the Jewish Question:
‘In 2007, he published La Nouvelle question juive (The New Jewish question) in which he strongly criticized Holocaust deniers and many third positionists and anti-Zionists (such as Alain Soral or Christian Bouchet) whom he accuses of sympathy for Islamism. As a response, he was accused of being a “national-Zionist”.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Faye
Just when more and more people are waking up, thanks to the internet, he has made a really bad 180.
Yes, Michael O’Meara has written a good review of that book: https://counter-currents.com/2011/08/the-new-jewish-question-of-guillaume-faye/
This is certainly where I part ways with Faye, but it is not apparent in his earlier books, although when one looks back at them in light of his later views, one can see signs of things to come.
Faye rightfully ascertains that Islam is a far greater threat to France on every conceivable level than any Jewish cultural or political influence that has existed to large extent since the French revolution who have their own laws and supremacist states within states with their own cultural and ethnic group laws that are incompatible with French or any civilised society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1fG2oO2X8s
So being pro-Israel has a strategic advantage against growing Muslim influence and power in Europe given that the US and Europe are building up Turkey as the next major superpower, in the US they have the second most powerful lobby after Israel, to control the energy resources and corridors that Europe will be dependent upon in the future from the Caspian and among the Turkic ethnic groups in Central Asia that Asia will be dependent upon as well.
The only viable energy corridors that bypass Russia are through Turkey and the new Balkan states (hence the wars) and why Britain and the US as well as the new EU states are or were pushing for Turkeys entry into the EU.
Given its large Navy and growing influence in the Mid East as a model for a democratic Muslim state like support for the insurgency in Syria and its ethnic connections via Ottoman and Caucasus immigration into the Mid East during the Caucasus war of the 19th century it could also act as a major trading partner bridging East and Western economies.
George Friedman of STRATFOR (yes I know he’s Jewish) gives a good summary of the next 100 years from his 2008 book and how he predicts the geopolitical landscape will develop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIwZsbBXpNQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmzRSUSoShI
Jews are the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world. Thus they do not need allies among the marginal, impoverished European nationalist movements and parties. If Jews really feared Muslims more than whites, they would not have planted their ethnostate in a sea of Muslims. If Jews wanted to halt Muslim immigration into Europe, they could get the ruling parties all over Europe on board in a matter of weeks. Ergo, the only reason Jews seek alliances with European nationalists against Islam is to subvert European resistance.
I deal with these issues at greater length in my essay “White Nationalism and Jewish Nationalism”: https://counter-currents.com/2011/08/white-nationalism-jewish-nationalism/
Greg, do you think that mainstream conservatives try to label some ideas as leftist or “liberal” that really aren’t that “liberal” at all? If so, what do you think are some examples.
The hippie counter-culture of the 1960s can be characterized as equal parts Marcuse and Tolkien. The Tolkien stuff — localism, agrarianism, back to the land, back to nature, love of the simple life, organic food (known to our ancestors simply as “food”), walkable communities, human scale architecture, environmental sustainability, recycling — are all stigmatied by the Rush Limbaugh/Chamber of Commerce/National Review Right as Left/liberal. But they are just a resurgence of healthy, natural, traditional European culture and folkways.
Greg,
Apparently, the whole “hippie” movement was rooted, quite literally, in the German Natural Culture movement at the turn of the last century. Hesse, Rilke and Kafka lived in communes, grew organic food, played folk songs on guitars, etc.
Amazon:
“Anyone influenced by counterculture, and all students of history and sociology, will want a copy of Children of the Sun, or, at the very least, Kennedy’s scaled down pamphlet version Hippie Roots and the Perennial Subculture, if only for the gorgeous photographs of the freaks of old, and the documentary/psychedelic art by German painter Fidus (1868-1948). No less thrilling are the revelations about Ascona, a counterculture settlement peopled by the likes of Hermann Hesse, Carl Jung, Isadora Duncan, D.H. Lawrence, Arnold Ehret and Franz Kafka in the early decades of the twentieth century. Kennedy notes the influence of the naturists upon Gandhi, and the dawn of the ecology, naturopathy, and youth hostel movements, including an astonishing environmental manifesto by Goethe.”
Apparently, the original “California hippie” was a German immigrant!
“Kennedy points out that feminism, vegetarianism, pacifism, communitarianism, organic farming, earth spirituality, fasting, raw food diets, and nudism flourished among these German counterculturals, some of whom moved to subtropical parts of the USA, often southern California, to avoid the rising imperialism and materialism of their homeland at the turn of the century. Settling in (then) remote areas of pristine beauty, including Tahquitz Canyon, near Palm Springs, they mentored the American naturists known in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s as Nature Boys. The most famous of these were eden ahbez, who wrote the jazz standard “Nature Boy,” and Gypsy Boots, who appeared often on the Steve Allen Show, and influenced countless baby boomer hippies through his writings, performances, and recordings.”
The Tolkien stuff — localism, agrarianism, back to the land, back to nature, love of the simple life, organic food (known to our ancestors simply as “food”), walkable communities, human scale architecture, environmental sustainability, recycling — are all stigmatied by the Rush Limbaugh/Chamber of Commerce/National Review Right as Left/liberal.
Significantly, principled opposition to Sauron is also stigmatized by Rush Limbaugh, Chamber of Commerce types and the National Review – among others.
Who can forget William F. Buckley’s purges or the magazine length article in the December 1991 issue of The National Review, “In Search of Anti-Sauronism”?
Yes, we really do need to so something about the Orc lobby.
Kafka and Rilke didn’t live in communes, nor did they play folk songs on guitars.
FAQs are often derided for their childish and non-literary tone, but they are actually the most efficient way of organizing complex information and addressing oppositional arguments, besides qualifying as Platonic rhetoric (ask yourself the question, then answer it).
Very well done, Greg.
Yes, Thomas Aquinas was a great Master of this form.
Yes, I was brought a great length across the libertarian-to-conservative-(later, eventually)-to-racialism continuum by Jim Kalb’s Conservatism FAQ, and others by him.
I was irretrievably struck by the lucidity and plain common sense of his answers. This was especially so since I was used to a stifling pressure and urgency to believe that non-liberal, rightist answers were not logical or thinkable in the slightest degree, let alone moral.
If Faye’s Why We Fight functions like that at all, it’s one less task to be undertaken.
Regarding the statement West-Coast White Nationalism is my term for the blending of white racial consciousness with liberal or Left-wing positions on such issues as capitalism, environmentalism, zoning, abortion, drug legalization, homosexuality, and religious pluralism While I have an opinion on each item the only one I could really disagree with from a NANR perspective is abortion. I say that for if we are to increase, or even maintain our numbers, we can hardly support aborting new members. I suppose I should say the same about homosexuality but “the war between the sexes” is so bad it is kind of understandable. But that is what I like about Counter-Currents for rather than condemning people the movement is more interested in where we are and how did we get here and where should we be. Seems sensible to me.
“Racially-conscious left?” Oh yes, I like it. I recently found my coffee-stained and red pencil under-lined copy of Nikolai Berdyaev’s “Slavery and Freedom”. He was kicked out of the Soviet Union. As I was looking through it, I thought, ‘no wonder I could no longer talk to marxists’. Yet I have found so much of the far right to be so rigid and dogmatic.
The nostalgia for the fifties drives me up the wall.
Recently I told my German friend that I had read Mein Kampf and I didn’t think he was a monster or the devil incarnate. She grew up in Germany during the Nazi era and told me that she had loved the programs that she attended but that Hitler did go too far. I guess she had to say that. We both agreed we had been brainwashed during our youth. She did receive alot of undeserved hatred when she came to Canada, from guess who? Anglo Saxon puritans with their pompous, pretentious judgements. I knew exactly what she meant having grown up with them.
I lived in a ‘commune’ at university ( a bunch of us renting a house) and no it was not orgies every night. We were political you know which is much more important. Usually it was an argument about who left the mess in the kitchen and who neglected to water the plants under the grow lamp.
Having said all that, becoming racially aware was part of the puzzle I did not have. It changes everything. I can now look back with a more impersonal perspective. I regret nothing. I have stepped over that.
17. What is the relationship of the NANR to capitalism?
Speaking of capitalism and Jewish exploitation, this item hit the wires a couple of weeks ago.
“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws. — Mayer Rothschild”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/transatlantic-alliance-between-rothschilds-and-rockefellers-for-wealth-management-7805035.html
With Lehman Brothers history and Goldman Sachs actually weakened due to its high visibility as one of the few powerful financial institutions left after the diasters of 2008, the Jews now need to tie up some lose ends and re-assure themselves of Total Hegemony with this Rothschild-Rockefeller deal.
The west coast white nationalism idea really appeals to me. I am health conscious, like to live in cities, eat well, enjoy nature and don’t gain intellectual or spiritual foundation from Leviticus or other Hebrew neurotics. Europeans built the greatest cities. Now we’re going to live in gated suburbs? No thanks.
Thomism posits that one who is sincere in the desire for an end will will the means thereto. Thus to will the End is to will the Means. This accords with Mr Covington’s complaint that Whites aren’t yet serious about securing their surival since they haven’t adopted a means or a plan yet en masse. And working it the other way, since the Judeo-Masonic Elite have willed the Means they have willed the End, our End.
Jaego Scornze in blockquote:
Fascinating observation. I wasn’t aware this was part of Thomism. I am even more impressed by the Scholastic. This is incorporated in the philosophy of the Nietzsche-like character of Elvira Naldorssen, in Sterling’s “Domination” trilogy.
They have been “suggested” into committing the functional equivalent of suicide. This is a function of demoralization. The only counter is remoralization. The only effective multigenerational Institution seems to be a new Church, founded on a restatement of Christianity.
Again, only Harold Covington has the comprehensive temporal solution.
I am amazed that so many recommend Faye as essential reading among New Right authors. I have never been so disappointed as when I read Archeofuturism by Faye and I did not find Why We Fight much better. First of all I think hes a terrible author and without the excellent work by Arktos his books would be unreadable. Secondly I find his narcissistic complaining about the European new right to be immature to say the least. I find that much of his reasoning is suffering from simplistic distortions and some are frankly just ridiculous, like the suggestion that 80% of the population should live on a pre-industrial level while 20% live on a technological level (AF, p84) or that all the nations of Europe should cease to exist and form a supranational empire with Russia against America (WWF, p25) and promoting an Orwellian vision of world blocks, not as an inevitable future outcome but a preferred one (AF, p83) and mostly the rejection of Jewish influence on American policy towards Europe in favor of an “Islamo-American pact” as the reason for Europas current situation (WWF, p25, p65) just to name a few.
To explain my self a bit better (in all humbleness) I share my own opinions on these matters. I find the concept of Archeofuturism to be a good one, just not Fays version of it. I agree that naturalism could and should be an option for certain areas of the world, just not Fays simplification of the issue. I do think regionalisation is preferable in some areas including Europe (such as Belgium, Romania, Bulgaria etc) just not Fays ridiculous total eradication of nation states. I do think European intergovernmental joint operation is preferable in certain areas (such as defense, environment etc) just not as a supranational totality under Russian leadership (which would be the case with Fays vision). I dont see why world blocks would be preferable at all, and I certainly dont see America as the big enemy any more than I see the current establishment of all “western”, ie white countries as ethno-masochistic ie globalistic.
I find Pierre Krebs book Fighting For The Essence a better summation of the struggle for Europe or TomSunics, Against Democracy and Equality. But maybe a concise summation of what our struggle for a global European renaissance is all about would be a good project for someone up to the challenge.
Regarding question 16, Greg Johnson should have added that, in addition to being intellectually and institutionally inadequate, contemporary conservatism is also spiritually inadequate. It lacks the will to fight; it is led by cowardly careerists who crave respectability, money, and votes; it concerns itself with play-acting rather than real politics; it concerns itself with trivial rather than substantive issues. Its conservatism is shallow and retrograde, effectively seeking to preserve the liberal order of the past, rather than to create a new order.
These deficiencies are at root a matter of character rather than ideas. I believe that William Pierce observed that conservatives tend to be essentially authoritarian, conformist, unprincipled, short-sighted, and parochial. Their fear and hatred of genuine radicalism is greater — much greater — than their fear and hatred of those in power. They always take the path of least resistance. They will sooner shun us, condemn us, and denounce us than work with us. They will sooner collaborate with the system than fight it. Their opposition is illusory, their collusion is real.
It’s foolish to board a bus when it’s going to the wrong destination and you can expect to be thrown under it.
That said, I think there is merit in the conservatism of some thinkers — such as Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Samuel Francis, and Thomas Molnar — but one is dealing with conservatism of a very different character here.
I also think that many people who loosely identify with contemporary conservatism — and, mutatis mutandis, other ideologies and movements — do so for want of something better, something we must work to provide. What I have said about the character of the contemporary conservative movement or milieu is not necessarily true of the character of these people. The spirit and temperament of people is often more important than the ideology they profess.
Many contemporary ideological and political divisions and alliances are unnatural and therefore fragile. It’s time to show that they are useless, dangerous, and obsolete. There’s no reason, for example, why concerns such as those listed by Greg Johnson — “localism, agrarianism, back to the land, back to nature, love of the simple life, organic food (known to our ancestors simply as ‘food’), walkable communities, human scale architecture, environmental sustainability, recycling” — must be bound up with dogmas and objectives associated with leftism, such as those of egalitarianism and angelism (i.e. the idea that man is naturally good or perfectible). In fact, these concerns would be better served by an organicist, identitarian, anti-rationalist, anti-economist, and anti-globalist worldview and way of life that many contemporary environmentalists and conservatives would condemn as “eco-fascist.”
Thank you. These are all good points.
This goes back to Greg Johnson’s piece on Suicide of a Superpower, in particular his remark that
… Buchanan has the brazen effrontery to assert that Europe civilization is identical to Christianity …
I don’t have the text in front of me, but I do recall Buchanan’s would-be coup de gras statement in favor of the Christianity’s cultural supremacy was to quote (I think) Belloc, to the effect that “Christianity is the mother tongue of Europe.”
I wonder how Buchanan overrode the dissonance of pagan (or at least non-Christian) implications embedded in that statement, or even if he simply meant to leave them there for others to notice and pick up on.
A few random comments I’d like to make:
1. As I see it, the works and ideas of the thinkers who influence the North American New Right are not to be regarded as holy writ or inviolable dogma in the manner of revealed religions (“Thus saith the Lord”). They provide us with a quarry rather than a system. We are free to selectively adopt, reject, and adapt the ideas of these thinkers to serve our own interests, and to correct them in the light of our knowledge.
This approach has its risks: it can be conducive to excessive eclecticism and intellectualism, rather than the weaponization of ideas. It’s easier to create an intellectual menagerie than to practice effective metapolitics.
Fidelity to our work should be more important than fidelity to a given thinker or book. Our work should have an organic, expansive, and evolutionary character. It requires the “severe effort of many converging wills” — to use a phrase of Peter Kropotkin — but it cannot be conducted effectively according to an “apparatus logic.”
The weaponization of ideas requires their effective popularization and politicization. (I might address these issues later by writing about Jacques Ellul’s ideas on “political facts” as well as François Duprat’s publishing model.) Our ideas are too important to be limited to an audience of intellectuals or confined to books. They must impregnate the discourse and psychology of a movement if they are to inspire and guide creative action.
The weaponization of ideas requires many forms of work. Perhaps the North American New Right should serve more as a research and development facility for such ideas, rather than as a factory or an armory. The former is concerned with development and assessment, the latter is concerned with mass production and distribution. These functions require different structures, methods, and criteria.
Guillaume Faye’s formula of “intellectual and cultural propaganda combined with electoral and political mobilisation” is sound, but it requires a cultural and social symbiosis that is very difficult to establish and very easily disrupted. It’s easy for people to privilege their own work and to misunderstand and denigrate that of others. It’s easy for intellectuals to be contemptuous of activists (“stupid proles”), and activists to be contemptuous of intellectuals (“effete scribblers”), because they have different temperaments and focus on different things. To borrow a metaphor from Julius Evola, some prefer to use a bow and arrow, and others prefer to use a bludgeon. Symbiosis requires a certain degree of development, a certain harmony of functions, a certain common orientation, a certain common language and spirit, and a certain tradition.
2. I disagree with Guillaume Faye on several points, notably his position on the Jewish problem, but also such things as his hostility to “décroissance” or “de-growth” (which is analogous to Herman E. Daly’s “steady-state economics”), certain of his views concerning the U.S. and its institutions, and his rather crude catastrophism. Nevertheless, I don’t feel obliged to dismiss his work as worthless because of such disagreements.
3. While some of Friedrich Nietzsche’s views are unsound, many of his values are sound, and his views can be put “right side up” (to use Karl Marx’s expression regarding Hegelianism) in the light of his values. Perhaps someone with a good knowledge of Nietzsche’s thought should write an article addressing these matters.
In an interview recently published at Euro-Synergies, Guillaume Faye remarked:
“The entire philosophy of Nietzsche is based on the logic of the living: the selection of the strongest, the recognition of vital force (conservation of one’s lineage at all cost) as the supreme value, the abolition of dogmatic norms, the pursuit of historical grandeur, the esthetic conception of politics, radical inegalitarianism, etc.”
“Even if the practical positions of the right and the left can vary, the values of the right and the left nevertheless exist. Nietzscheanism evidently is on the right. Nietzsche execrated the socialist mentality, the herd morality. But this does not mean that the people of the extreme right are Nietzscheans, far from it in fact. For example, they are universally anti-Jewish, a position that Nietzsche denounced and deemed stupid in several of his texts and in his correspondence . . .”
Given that the Jews are the foremost opponents of Nietzschean values among us, a thoroughgoing Nietzscheanism demands anti-Semitism, regardless of what Nietzsche wrote on the matter.
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