Counter-Currents
Overcoming the Bourgeois Mind & Body
Mark Dyal and Nick Fiorello
Giambologna, “Hercules Battles the Centaur Nessus,” 1599, detail, Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence
3,621 words
Portuguese translation here
“I walk among these people and keep my eyes open; they have become smaller and are becoming ever smaller: but this is because of their teaching on happiness and virtue. So much kindness, so much weakness I see. So much justice and pity, so much weakness. Round, righteous, and kind they are to one another, like grains of sand are round, righteous, and kind to one another.” – Zarathustra[1]
This discussion of the relationship between bodily and conceptual vitality began with two historical topics: the “spiritual eugenics” of Fascist Italy and the “proper eugenics” of Lycurgan Sparta. In the former, we saw that the Fascists desired to transform weak bourgeois bodies into bodies capable of bearing the physical, moral, and intellectual weight of the Fascist revolution, thus making physiology central to Fascism. In the latter, we saw Lycurgus demand that Spartans overcome societal decadence by transforming their expectations, and ownership, of their bodies.
The Spartan example, while revealing the lengths necessary for bodily and societal transvaluations of decadent behaviors and values, demonstrated as well the power of the Greek ideal. This ideal, which maintains the interconnectedness of the mind/soul and what they do with the body, led to the simultaneous education of mind and body. Lycurgus promoted character and noble, masculine traits, while limiting avenues to elite status that did not involve the ennoblement of the mind through devotion to warfare and sacrifice for Sparta.
Even in Plutarch’s description of Lycurgan Sparta, written some 600 years after Lycurgus transformed his state and people, one sees the naturalness of the Greek ideal. For nowhere does Plutarch question the idea that ethics and character have something to do with the state of the body. Plutarch was not even surprised that Lycurgus was able to sell such a harsh regime to his people. Perhaps this is just deduction on Plutarch’s (and our own) part. Lycurgan Sparta happened. If there were casualties amongst the Spartan people – after all, moderns are culturally programed to seek out dissent when lofty and rarifying ideals are “imposed” on a people – then so be it. Greek and Roman history, to say nothing of values, have little concern for failures; but instead open up vast spaces of ennoblement and enrichment through examples of greatness – the very point of Plutarch’s Lives.
The Lycurgan view of life, with human aspirations focused on one ideal, is certainly heroic in the Homeric sense of the word; for what was ultimately to become praiseworthy in Greek thought — Platonic harmony and leisurely self-reflection — was in Sparta dismissed as decadent. Competition, strife, power, action, and worldly achievement were Olympian values shared by Lycurgus and the Homeric heroes. And it could be argued that the Spartans and Homer’s heroes are amongst a small handful of Western men who have achieved immortality – something to consider when perusing modern scientific literature motivated by a stark fear of death. While heroism and glory (kleos) are not the point of this paper, they are implicit in Lycurgus’ reforms, for the actions that guaranteed Spartan nobility culminate in them.
Our attention now turns to postmodern science, specifically New Biology and its promotion of epigenetics as a corrective to Newtonian/materialist genetics. In doing so, however, we must be clear: while Mussolini, other Fascist thinkers, and Lycurgus placed the body on the frontlines of a war between flabby decadence and hard nobility, postmodern science tends to understand what is best for the body as what is best for bourgeois man. Thus, we must read its theories and conclusions against the applications assumed by the bourgeois scientists themselves; for harshness, our goal, is not an ideal shared by New Biology, even as its methods demonstrate how transformative it might be for modern man. In other words, we no longer have the luxury and honor of being ennobled through research. In another sense, we have switched from saying Yes to saying No.
Body and Environment
As the Zarathustra epigraph makes clear, Nietzsche understood a direct relationship between the mind, body, and environment. Although he will be discussed thoroughly in the next paper in this series, suffice it to say that Nietzsche understood the human as a series of types created in conjunction with the moral and societal needs of the various forms of human life. Modern men, as he says above, are being made weak by the soft, comfortable, and egalitarian life promised by bourgeois modernity. And while the context was different for Lycurgus, both Fascist Italy and Lycurgan Sparta shared Nietzsche’s assumption about man and society. Epigeneticist (and New Biologist) Bruce Lipton does as well, explaining succinctly that the environment exerts some control over the activity of human genes.[2]
Lipton is working in the shadow of Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, the evolutionist who believed that individual traits acquired as a result of environmental influence could be passed on transgenerationally. In fact, this basic idea of Lamarck, known as “soft inheritance,” forms the very basis of epigenetic science. While Lamarck was influential in the mid-19th century (and again in the mid-20th century), being read with enthusiasm by many of the leading physiologists of the day, his work was discredited amongst evolutionists after the successful publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species in 1859. Many of Darwin’s assumptions, such as the responsibility of passed hereditary factors for controlling offspring traits, were crafted in direct contradistinction to Lamarck. And even though Darwin came to lament the lack of attention paid to environmental factors in the modification of genetic material, modern genetic science came to be dominated by the “determinism” inherent in The Origin of Species.[3]
While “genetic determinism” is given a negative connotation in a postmodernity (popularly) committed to the denial of genetic primacy – at least when racial or gender proclivities for excellence or mediocrity are advanced – in the (genetic) scientific community it has been a major control on methodologies and assumptions. Classical genetics, especially the work of Thomas Morgan and the rediscovered work of Gregor Mendel, was essentially crafted within the conceptual universe of Darwinian natural selection, seeking to identify the hereditary material believed to control organic life.
Crick and Watson believed they found that material in 1953 when they discovered DNA, even going so far as creating the Central Dogma, or primacy of DNA. The primacy of DNA provides the logic for genetic determinism, reducing organic life to a series of DNA-encoded proteins that represent the primary determinant of an organism’s traits.[4] But by the early 21st century, the Human Genome Project (henceforth HGP) cast doubt on the primacy of DNA, demonstrating that there are not enough genes to account for human complexity. While much of 20th-century science assumed a 1-to-1 ratio of genes and the proteins constructive of the human body – which would amount to roughly 120,000 genes – the HGP found instead only 25,000; leaving unaccounted 80% of the genes presumed necessary for human life and behavior.
Geneticist David Baltimore interpreted the HGP results as a call to the primacy of environment,[5] which brings us to epigenetics. Epigenetics, or “control above genetics,” offers an explanatory model capable of answering the questions raised by the HGP. Recent epigenetic research has established that DNA blueprints passed down through genes are not set in stone at birth, but instead respond to their environment. In other words, genes are not destiny.[6] Environmental influences, “including nutrition, stress, and emotion,” can modify those genes, without changing their basic blueprint.[7]
By focusing on the regulatory chromosomal proteins to which DNA strands attach themselves, epigeneticists have been able to discern the physiologic functions of chromosomes independent of DNA, suggesting a more sophisticated flow of information through human cells. Biology, according to this thinking, starts with an environmental signal, then goes to a regulatory protein and only then goes to DNA, RNA, and the end result, a protein.[8]
Because scientific research focused primarily on the DNA blueprint, the contributions to human heredity made by the environment have gone largely unnoticed.[9] These contributions manifest themselves primarily through impulses that activate hereditary diseases like cancer. Genetic predispositions, in other words, are not in themselves causes of disease. In fact, only 5% of those suffering from cancer or cardiovascular disease can attribute their affliction to heredity.[10] But if the environment can trigger disease, it can also prevent disease.
The fluidity and ultimate responsiveness of the genome to environmental factors – be they internal or external to the body – actually brings us back to Mussolini, Lycurgus, and Nietzsche. For while they were not in a position to understand the body in the terms of postmodern science, their insistence on a relationship between body and conception is scientifically justified by epigenetics – especially when we consider the physiological consequences of quantum science.
Cell, Body, and Mind
Einstein revealed that we do not live in a universe with discrete, physical objects separated by dead space. The universe is one indivisible, dynamic whole in which energy and matter are so deeply entangled that it is impossible to consider them as independent elements.
When scientists study the physical properties of atoms, such as mass and weight, they look and act like physical matter. However, when the same atoms are described in terms of voltage potentials and wavelengths, they exhibit the qualities and properties of energy waves; leading to the conclusion that energy and matter are one and the same.[11] For epigeneticists, this model of energy and matter has allowed the mind and body to be reunited, with several scientists – among them Dr. Lipton – seeking to explain how thought, as the energy of the mind, controls the body’s physiology. Lipton’s work has actually demonstrated a direct relationship between thought and the behavior of regulatory chromosomal proteins, making it possible to infer an individual’s ability to override genetic programming.
Each cell is an intelligent being that can survive on its own, as scientists demonstrate when they remove individual cells from the body and grow them in a culture. Likewise, each individual cell performs the biological functions performed by each of our body’s systems. Each eukaryote (nucleus-containing cell) possesses the functional equivalent of our nervous system, digestive system, respiratory system, excretory system, endocrine system, muscle and skeletal systems, circulatory system, integument (skin), reproductive system and even a primitive immune system, which utilizes a family of antibody-like “ubiquitin” proteins.[12]
Like humans, single cells analyze thousands of stimuli from the microenvironment they inhabit. Through the analysis of this data, cells select appropriate behavioral responses to ensure their survival. Single cells are also capable of learning through these environmental experiences and are able to create memories, such as immunities, which they pass on to their offspring.[13]
Lipton believes that it is possible to explain the behavior of humans through better understanding of individual cells. And putting it simply, the human being is just a collection of trillions of cells, each of which is aware of, and responsive to, the environment – including the body’s energy. Ultimately, Lipton points to the primacy of this energy in controlling cell behavior. And, somewhat predictably given his postmodern American proclivities for ecumenicalism, he points to “perception” as a major influence on the direction and contours of bodily energy.[14]
If we believe that there is something useful in epigenetics and the results of Lipton’s cell studies, and we do, then it is certainly not the same use-value assumed by Lipton himself. As quoted above, Lipton is comfortable with the idea that the body and each of its cells can be cared for by controlling “nutrition, stress, and emotion.” However, nowhere in his work is the positive value of the bourgeois form of life questioned in this regard. Dr. Lipton (and certainly not only him) seems to assume that the normalcy of sloth, gluttony, and cultural philistinism that supplies the content of contemporary American life is of positive value to the natural human body, assuming that one properly manages these three environmental factors.
Harshness Destroys Decadence
Epigenetic research points to the fluidity of mass and energy. This fluidity gives us a scientific way of understanding the Greek ideal, as well as a scientific way of explaining what Yukio Mishima understood instinctively about the body: that without resistances, we become spiritually and bodily flaccid and docile.[15] In the spirit of Mishima’s Sun and Steel, we will leave aside “nutrition, stress, and emotion,” at least as bourgeois scientists assume them, and focus instead upon exercise and its role in creating and sustaining vitality. In so doing, we will also demonstrate the great potential of epigenetics as a tool directed against the bourgeois form of life.
Mishima’s attack on modernity was muscularly motivated. In addition to his conceptualization of heroism and the heroic life – both of which required muscles to be achieved – Mishima understood a physiological relationship between words and bodies. The former, he said, are figuratively projected onto the latter; and the body, as the natural repose of words, concepts, and (epistemic) grammatical systems, is a better gauge of a man’s “spiritual” state than his thoughts.[16] This is because the body, according to Mishima, has a closer relationship with ideas than the “spirit.”[17]
Thus, the body will conform to any ideal one holds as its goal. In the Homeric world, nobility required muscle, because heroism was the path to nobility. But taking an epistemic (or a writer’s) approach to Lycurgus’ idealization of heroism, Mishima explained that, without words, bodies would never have conformed to a Greek ideal.[18] Nonetheless, Mishima also followed Lycurgus’ path through physicality to the highest – most ideal – of consciousness. Steel, as he said, teaches what words cannot.[19]
Like Nietzsche, who also used physiological models of consciousness, Mishima’s thoughts on the body truly take flight when one moves from the individual body to the environment in which it is given meaning. Generally speaking, Nietzsche understood that human bodies would reflect the moral and ethical systems in which they lived. Mishima takes a similar approach, understanding that bodies reflect the ideals of the day (in question). Thus, while the Greeks idealized strength and courage – enough so to make these among the most valuable ideals to which a man may aspire – modernity idealizes passive judgment and resigned docility. As such, heroism is made an enemy of the people, history is stripped of singular examples, and men are taught to live in coded systems through which the possible is popularized.[20] Muscles, the basis of heroism, have no value and are resigned to extinction.[21]
In the decadent modern environment described by Mishima, fitness is not the ideal; for fitness is itself bourgeois and decadent – yet another vehicle for promoting hyper-consumption and shallow, self-congratulatory individualism. What is ideal is harshness. It is the body being transformed by resistance (steel) from flaccid and modern to tough and Classical – not for the sake of how it “looks” (even if this is important) but for the sake of the conceptual transformation that must have accompanied that of the apparent. Mishima demands that we consider how many of our conceptual tropes like cynicism and imagination are couched in a sense of physical inferiority and laziness.[22]
Unlike Nietzsche, who – to be read correctly – demands that the reader sees much of the Last Man in himself, Mishima seems more fruitful for those already initiated in the transformative effects of steel. In other words, it is hard to make sense of the transformation Mishima describes unless one has already undergone a similar transformation. Heightened awareness, or consciousness, through physical harshness is something one must experience for oneself.
But, if we briefly turn again to science, we can get a clear picture of how the body reacts to harshness. Restricting our discussion to testosterone alone, it is possible to demonstrate that the mind and body are equally transformed by harsh physical activity. Very intense and brief weight training is the most effective means of promoting large increases in testosterone levels. Testosterone is the main sex hormone in males, not only guiding the libido but also the pleasurable experience of sexual encounters. In addition to sexual functions, testosterone is critical to developing and maintaining muscle and bone mass.
However, studies of testosterone’s impact on the mind also confirm the value of physical harshness for cognition. One of these, published in 2006, demonstrated heightened visual-spatial abilities, cognition/recognition, and senses of vitality and esteem in men with high levels of testosterone (versus estrogen).[23] Chemically, these effects are caused by the impact of testosterone on the hypothalamus, the “nerve center” of hormone production and distribution, and the “command center of the emotions.”[24] Several men with whom we have discussed this paper – including Grammy-winning jazz musicians – pointed to the importance of weight training in the stimulation of creativity, clarity, and concentration.
Like so much of what we have described about the Greek ideal, there is a bidirectional relationship between using testosterone and muscularity. When the body’s muscle mass increases, its metabolic rate – whether active or at rest – increases as well. This means the body has to work harder in order to support the increased muscle. Everything else being equal, the body will utilize more fat for fuel to accomplish this supporting task. This is important because there is an inverse relationship between levels of fat and testosterone, while there is a direct relationship between levels of fat and estrogen. Thus, a high level of fat in relation to muscle mass has a detrimental effect on hormones, vitality, and conception.
Conclusion
It is not the purpose of this paper, the third of a series of four, to argue against the importance of genetics in determining the content of human lives. To the contrary, the paper seeks to explain the importance of the environment and personal behaviors to the proper and optimal functioning of human genetic material. Our hope was to use science, not to justify Nietzsche’s, Mishima’s, Lycurgus’, or Mussolini’s instinctual understanding of the body, mind, and society, but to convince contemporary men to place physiology at the center of a revolt against bourgeois modernity.
Both epigenetics and hormonal science demonstrate that the environment manipulates the body and mind. Through harshness (in this case, intense weight training) it is possible to place considerable distance between oneself and the environment of bourgeois modernity.
The bourgeois form of life creates the bodies it needs – obese, lazy, compliant machines that consume capitalist-invented foods, lifestyles, and pharmaceuticals – with the same regularity and purposefulness of Lycurgan Sparta. Where the one seeks decadence and consumption, the other sought purity and heroism. But even if we agree with Nietzsche that there must be something diminutive about modern bodies when compared to those produced by the pervasive Classical narratives of greatness, nobility, competition, and (standardized) beauty; and even if the modern body has been actively disciplined by dysgenic processes; we still share the same choice as that first generation of Spartan men: weakness or strength.
The modern bourgeois environment directs the body one way, toward softness, disease, and laziness. A revolt against that form of life must transvaluate this process. Epigenetics’ ultimate value lies not only in providing scientific data to support Counter-Enlightenment and Traditional philosophical understandings of the relationship between social-conceptual systems and the form and content of bodies, but also in making it clear that the body plays a critical role in both our enslavement to, and liberation from, bourgeois modernity.
But decadent physiology, as bad as it is, is compounded by the counter-modern belief that the content of our thoughts matches the form of our bodies. Bodily weakness was believed (by Mussolini, Lycurgus, Nietzsche, and Mishima – just to name the figures important to this series of papers) to represent both the cause and effect of conceptual and ethical weakness. Certainly, Mishima’s individualized example of distrust of ideas of the slothful, and Nietzsche’s post-Christian gaze upon the ravages of the “despisers of the body” provide breaks in the sense-making narrative of bourgeois physiological decadence. Ennoblement, as they both remind us, is naturally associated with strength.
Epigenetic science and New Biology seem content to promote bodily invigoration as a means of forestalling physiological enervation, as the mind (for them) seeks the same decadent tranquility and leisure as even the “fit” body. Instead, we are arguing that enervation is the normal state of the bourgeois mind and body and that low testosterone and vitality is a direct consequence of this form of life. What we proscribe for reaching our physiological and conceptual potential is not tranquility and leisure but pain and harshness. This series of papers will conclude with an examination of Nietzsche’s thoughts on this very idea.
Notes
[1] Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Adrian Del Caro, ed. Adrian Del Caro and Robert B. Pippin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 134–35.
[2] Bruce H. Lipton, Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles (Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books, 2005), 69.
[3] Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin: Life and Letters, ed. Francis Darwin (London: Murray Publishing, 1888), 206.
[4] Lipton 61.
[5] David Baltimore, “Our Genome Revealed,” Nature 409 (2001), 814–816.
[6] Paul H. Silverman, “Rethinking Genetic Determinism,” The Scientist (2004), 32–33.
[7] Lipton 63.
[8] Lipton 69.
[9] Carina Dennis, “Epigenetics and Disease: Altered States,” Nature 421 (2003), 686–88.
[10] Walter C. Willett, “Balancing Lifestyle and Genomics Research for Disease Prevention,” Science 296 (2002), 695–98.
[11] Lucia Hackermüller and Stefan Uttenthaler, “Wave Nature of Biomolecules and Fluorofullerenes,” Physical Review Letters 91(9) (2003), 41–47.
[12] Lipton 37.
[13] Lipton 38.
[14] Lipton 16–17.
[15] Yukio Mishima, Sun and Steel, trans. John Bester (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1970), 32.
[16] Mishima 17–19.
[17] Mishima 16.
[18] Mishima 26.
[19] Mishima 28.
[20] Mishima 36–44.
[21] Mishima 26.
[22] Mishima 41.
[23] Dheeraj Kapoor, et al., “Testosterone Replacement Therapy and Diabetic Men,” European Journal of Endocrinology 154 (June 2006), 899–906.
[24] Michael Colgan, Hormonal Health (New York: Apple Publishing, 1996), 18.
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64 comments
While much of 20th-century science assumed a 1-to-1 ratio of genes and the proteins constructive of the human body – which would amount to roughly 120,000 genes – the HGP found instead only 25,000; leaving unaccounted 80% of the genes presumed necessary for human life and behavior.
That’s because (a) genetic programs are in a hierarchical fashion, where one set of genes control the activity of others, (b) alternative RNA processing, particularly alternative splicing, yields multiple protein products per gene, and (c) most of the “non-functional” genome is actually functional:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/pdf/nature11247.pdf
Epigenetics can be a modifier of gene expression, but cannot create new proteins out of non-existent genes. It can only modify the expression of the genetic material that exists, in conjunction with (a)-(c) above. More to the point, epigenetic modifications are not likely going to result in large changes in phenotype. The differences between Nigerians, Chinamen, and Danes are not due to epigenetics.
Each cell is an intelligent being that can survive on its own, as scientists demonstrate when they remove individual cells from the body and grow them in a culture.
That may be the single most stupid comment about science I’ve ever read. Cells are “intelligent” because they can grow in culture? I assume an E. Coli bacterium is a genius then, with such a massive reproductive potential.
Likewise, each individual cell performs the biological functions performed by each of our body’s systems. Each eukaryote (nucleus-containing cell) possesses the functional equivalent of our nervous system, digestive system, respiratory system, excretory system, endocrine system, muscle and skeletal systems, circulatory system, integument (skin), reproductive system and even a primitive immune system, which utilizes a family of antibody-like “ubiquitin” proteins.[12]
“Functional equivalent” are weasel words. There’s virtually no similarity whatsoever between cellular function and bodily function. Most body cells are highly specialized, and do not reproduce. Ubiquitin proteins are “antibody like?” Seriously?
Hint: a book with the title of “Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles” is not exactly where you should go for references to how the biological world works.
“Hint: a book with the title of “Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles” is not exactly where you should go for references to how the biological world works.”
Never heard of the book before, so I did what I usually do in such cases, went to look at the 1 star reviews at Amazon. 75 of them! Oddly enough, the “most helpful” negative review says this:
“That’s the problem with this book in a nutshell; he keeps claiming to have arrived at heretical paradigm-shifting ideas that in the end are either trivial (the membrane is the brain of the cell), scientifically (yet) unverifiable but unoriginal retreads of New Age standards (there is a vibrational energy that communicates between life forms), or fairly undisputable truisms (how you think can affect your physiology). All this presented in the self-congratulatory context of telling his story of transition from academic scientist to proselytizer of the “New Biology” in a traveling road show.”
Hmm, trivial, unoriginal and indisputable; sounds exactly the place to go to find out what biologists already think!
I, for one, never thought I would see the names of Lycurgus and Bruce Lipton appear in the same essay.
Reminds me of an obscure book I found in the bargain bin of a thrift store in Missoula, wherein a Belgian physician synthesized the systems of Émile Coué and Ivan Michurin. Was writ in German, and I believe the title, for those curious, was Das Gesetz des willkürliche Pflanzenglückes.
Dyal and Fiorello have done solid work here. Ted’s “analysis” – which strains for the gnat – deserves a bit of a counterpoint supporting the metapolitical issues that John Morgan addressed.
Ted in blockquote, cites in bold:
Each cell is an intelligent being that can survive on its own, as scientists demonstrate when they remove individual cells from the body and grow them in a culture.
In fact, recent studies have demonstrated that cells DO act with a “group intelligence” of sorts. This was all over the major science blogs, so I won’t bother to point out the obvious.
When I began my study of ecological economics, a wise friend pointed me to “Panarchy,” edited by Gunderson and Holling. This wonderful book helps to define a wide range of the dyamics of living systems, focusing on a new model that complements the traditional model of hierarchy. This model, called Panarchy,” sees the new economic Holy Grail,. sustainability, as something that is “maintained by relationships among a nested set of adaptive cycles arranged by a dynamic hierarchy in space and time – the panarchy.”
The immediate relevance of this new model can be seen if, to use a metaphor, all of your life you have studies macroeconomics. The sole actor, the individual person., the mere “cell” in the organization, is of no import whatsoever, to the classical macroeconomist. It is only the works of the Mass that he uses to explain the world.
And yet, it is just this one person – this one insignificant “cell,” so small and trivial as to be beneath notice – that communicates with other “cells,” and changes the course of the tides macroeconomists study. They do not notice him; yet, his effect, in concert with others, changes everything.
Having digested the gnat, let me note that Dyal and Fiorello have done an excellent job in seeing the bridge between Mind and Body as one that can be intelligently developed, in the formation of the better Foundation for the better among us.
What Yockey called the Vertical Element of Race is an important part of the metapolitical project. All of this building of new soil is to support the new, proper potential of new, better, Life.
Sending money to counter-currents, each and every month, is no less important.
My analysis – without the scare quotes – is telling it like it is with respect to the current scientific knowledge, as opposed to Lipton’s bizarre new age nonsense, which is comical. Making comments about “digesting gnats” doesn’t change science. Not realizing the difference between “each cell” and “groups of cells” doesn’t help the “argument” either.
I wonder if the “major science blogs” would endorse Lipton? Note also how the David Baltimore reference was thrown into the essay in the hope that no one would actually read it – since it doesn’t say at all what the essay’s text says it does. Note also that a major, groundbreaking paper from the ENCODE project is casually dismissed, but the mysterious “major science blogs” are sufficient to “digest the gnat.”
I don’t pretend to be an expert on, say, Guenon and so forth, and leave that to people who have a background in that. It’s remarkable that people who wouldn’t know the difference between a test tube or a graduated cylinder have the confidence to blithely dismiss decades of scientific knowledge in order to justify blatantly ideological objectives. When the leftists do it, we’re quick to label it “pseudoscience.” When the right does it, well, it’s all in a good cause, eh?
I’ll say it again: we’ll have a rough enough time convincing Whites of the legitimacy of racial nationalism. If you’re going to complicate the issue by tying racial activism to superfluous new age rambling, opening racialism to ridicule, then you are doing the cause a disservice.
But what does this gnat know?
What Yockey called the Vertical Element of Race is an important part of the metapolitical project. All of this building of new soil is to support the new, proper potential of new, better, Life.
You do know that Yockey dismissed “vertical race” as unimportant? That this essay, that you praise, supports Yockey, and is actually subversive of “vertical race” concepts?
I can’t speak to the science of this essay, as I don’t know much about it (and I regard it as largely irrelevant), but certainly the overall point is a valid and important one. Some writers at CC tend to focus on “Whiteness” as if the mere fact of possessing White skin, and its associated genetic code, somehow entitles one to be regarded as part of an elite. That is incorrect. Only individuals who are willing to reform themselves – intellectually, spiritually, and physically – are worthy to be called a part of our Cause. Someone who sits around playing Xbox all day while living on Cheetos, cereal and mac-and-cheese, and who happens to be White, and who fears anything outside of the comforts of his neighborhood, is living more as an animal than as a genuine human being, and is a detriment more than an asset. My dream is not to replace our current multicultural society of couch potatoes with a White society of couch potatoes. Our concern must be to reform our people, not just propagate them. This is where the cultural factor of our struggle comes in. It’s not just about being able to discuss Heidegger and Nietzsche and knowing Beethoven’s works (although that can be part of it). It’s also about asking, what is the proper lifestyle for our civilization? Can one really be called part of the struggle if, apart from an interest in the preservation of our people, he or she otherwise live a completely normal present-day American lifestyle – in other words, a sick lifestyle?
Unfortunately, since my own life and work is focused primarily on books, I tend to lead a very sedentary lifestyle, but I have tried in recent months to make more time for physical exercise. When I was younger, that wasn’t so important, but as I approach middle age, the ill effects brought on by physical inactivity become more and more evident. There is no question that it does have an effect on one’s mentality. And Western society at present is a society consisting of, and catering primarily to, obese couch potatoes. We have to overcome it.
Very well said with poetic venom!
“Can one really be called part of the struggle if, apart from an interest in the preservation of our people, he or she otherwise live a completely normal present-day American lifestyle – in other words, a sick lifestyle?”
This is why I have reservations about the prospects for WN in America. Another thing that bothers me is that most ‘Nietzscheans’ I have met in my life are Nietzschean in thought only. Wasn’t the whole point of Nietzsche’s philosophy to form a platform for activity?
As a young man with no family prospects, I left American and moved to this site; I can read and exercise all that I want with the discipline of a Nietzschean Ubermensch.
“Wasn’t the whole point of Nietzsche’s philosophy to form a platform for activity?”
Absolutely. Academia (particularly the non-technical sort) in a lot of ways is escapism; a vice. It’s a way of making a Dungeons and Dragons type respectable (and if he’s now the respectable type than the more extroverted noble type must be devalued). I have an interest in philosophy, but I think many professional academics that debate about Kant or Hume or de-ontological ethics versus utilitarianism are not much different than nerds debating who is better between Batman and Superman, if you catch my drift. Yes, it’s a bit different obviously but in other ways such unqualified praise of “knowledge” creates the same type of people and thus, the same reality. The whole “knowledge” practice becomes mental masturbation which we’re told is a good “thing in itself.” Indeed, as Dyal mentions in this article, Plato (and Socrates as well) thought this escapism was a virtue– indeed, the highest of virtues!
Jonathan Bowden mentioned in one of his lectures how certain left-wing academics realized that the right has a sort eroticism to it that they found to be “dangerous” and at the alluring. (Many actors, for example, love to play Nazis or fascistic characters.) Why is that? Quite simply, because traditionalist ideas are vital rather than purely “intellectual,” detached concepts that are to be used for just mental masturbation or for an ego boost at the cafe as you engage another in conversation or for a mild boost in the interest of “practical utility.” The ideas we’re trying to connect with contain LIFE rather than just sterile, “purely academic” concepts. If a thinker cannot philosophize in the style of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, perhaps it’s all the more to their credit that they wrote fiction like Mishima because the zest wrapped up in all of that is rather the point.
“My dream is not to replace our current multicultural society of couch potatoes with a White society of couch potatoes.”
Can you tell me of anyone who has that dream (or political goal)? Those writers at C-C who focus too much on “whiteness”?
As for myself, I dream of a world where we are replaced by congoid kshatriya!
Perhaps I’ve misinterpreted them, but there are certainly writers and commentators here at CC who are fond of saying things such as “genetics is everything” and who pooh-pooh discussion of other aspects of the problem. To me, that suggests that they believe that as long as we have a civilization where everyone is White, everything will just be peachy keen, sort of like an idealized image of what America was like in the 1950s. They generally don’t offer much of a vision for what a “White Nationalist” society would look like, apart from who would get to stay and who would have to go. I am by no means speaking of all CC writers, of course.
Interesting. I have read quite a lot of white nationalist literature and met many white nationalists during my years of involvement with nationalism, and I have never read or met anyone who suggests a nation of white couch potatoes. Can you tell me of any relevant/prominent writer/nationalist who does suggest that (no trolls, please)?
If we take German National Socialism as an example, they actually had a very healthy physical ideal.
Talk about genetics probably is about defining our in-group, defining our friend and enemy, it doesn’t really say much about what kind of society would best promote those genes – but I believe we can rule out your “couch potato” theory (something similar to NS is brobably a lot better at doing that job). How would you define our in-group, since you apparently exclude white “couch potatoes” (should I interpret that as ordinary working class whites, who don’t study Indian religion?)?
[some WNists] believe that as long as we have a civilization where everyone is White, everything will just be peachy keen, sort of like an idealized image of what America was like in the 1950s. They generally don’t offer much of a vision for what a “White Nationalist” society would look like, apart from who would get to stay and who would have to go.
I think in addition to an ill-defined or at best nascent vision for the future, a serious problem with American WNism is that it to doesn’t have an intellectual “core.” It’s an amalgamation of ideas from many disciplines and intellectual streams, and not always compatible ones, and draws people from many educational and social backgrounds, temperaments and walks of life.
This can lead to people talking past each other. When I argue for a white society and don’t mention the culture, I assume it is understood I want a different culture without having to say it. For me, putting the emphasis on race is about fighting the fight in a logical order (one logical order not the only one). You can’t build new cultures without a minimum number of people participating. To reach this bare minimum, we will need our own “living spaces.” To get our own living spaces, we will need mass political movements that culminate in state power everywhere Euro peoples can be found. And to get mass political movements started, we are going to have to convince people they have common interests, and that if they don’t begin collectively fighting for those interests soon it will mean the end of all they value and with it any hope of creating a new and better culture.
Building a mass movement is necessarily going to require engaging people with a wide variety of outlooks on life, including people who play or have played X-box at some point in their lives and eat chips. That describes pretty much every young white man in America and plenty elsewhere, and not necessarily dumb or shallow ones.
One problem with the folks on the right (not you or anyone at CC but some) who disparage the culture and modern ways of life in general is that they fall into disparaging the people too, and that’s not conducive to building a mass movement. That is, it’s not conducive to solving a basic problem that must be solved if anyone is going to have a chance to change anything. Certainly there is much in this culture that should be disparaged; I find much of it repulsive myself. But it makes no real sense to extend the disparagement to the people, and, again, some who put the emphasis mainly on culture give the impression it’s the people they hate and not the culture.
Does the body,physical strength,reflect the spiritual ,ethical and moral qualities of a man?Does it reflect self-denial, dedication,nobility,discipline,loyalty ?Let us look at today’s athletes, certainly they are not paragons of virtues.
Then why in the antiquities the body, the physical strength was so highly esteemed?
Because the physical strength was a very important factor in their wars. This is not to deny the other qualities as discipline,dedication,love of the country etc.
For the White race to survive spiritual qualities ,self-denial,dedication,moral rectitude,intelligence and above all love to white kinsmen are essential.
Certainly I think Mark would agree that physical fitness alone is insufficient. However, I think what Mark is getting at is the need for a certain mental toughness. For example, a scrawny White guy who is walking down the sidewalk sipping on a Big Gulp, and who encounters a big Black guy walking in the opposite direction, is likely to avert his gaze out of fear if he happens to catch the Black man’s eye. The reason is both because the White guy lacks confidence in his ability to hold his ground against the Black if challenged, as well as all of the cultural conditioning he has been subjected to about Blacks being prone to anger, physically superior and scary. I think most people who are being honest would admit that this is an extremely common phenomenon. One of the ways for Whites to become more confident in themselves is to become physically fit. Eventually, if we actually want to put our ideas into practice, we will have to leave our keyboards behind and come literally face-to-face with people who regard us as enemies, people who will do everything they can to intimidate us. We need to be steeled for that moment, both mentally and physically. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but I can’t think of many battles that were won using pens alone.
I actually did suggest to Mark that he should say something about whether weight training was the ONLY way to achieve this effect. He agreed that it isn’t, but thought it fell outside the scope of this paper.
Ted,
the intelligence of the cell is explained later on in the text as for example the capability to learn and pass on immunities. The growing in cultures is proof of the ability to “survive on its own”.
Also, your comparison to Coli Bacteria makes no sense since nowhere is written that reproduction would have any efect on the DEGREE of intelligence, even if you misread the paragraph.
“most of the “non-functional” genome is actually functional:”
The text that you provided is very carfeful in its conclusions. It just speaks about some kind of unspecified activity but that is not the same as 1 gene – 1 protein. The fact remains as yet that the larger part of the Genome is non-coding.
“(a) genetic programs are in a hierarchical fashion, where one set of genes control the activity of others” Would that not mean that 1 gene is not evenen ENOUGH for 1 protein and less that fewer genes produce a greater diversity of proteins?
““Functional equivalent” are weasel words. There’s virtually no similarity whatsoever between cellular function and bodily function. Most body cells are highly specialized, and do not reproduce. ”
Body cells have the capability to reproduce. That is the whole point. Just because a cell does not actually reproduce it does not mean that it does not have the potential. And of course there are many similiarities between cellular and bodily functions: exactly the ones described in the text. If a monocellular organism uses a whip to propel itself then the whip is the structural equivalent of the fish’s flipper. I do not know what is your point here. Of course the nature of the cell-intern organs is different from the organs of any higher animal, but it serves for the owner the same purpose in a similar fashion. That is the reasen wha an algae can or better to sa: it was in the past) be classified as a plant.
“Hint: a book with the title of “Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles” is not exactly where you should go for references to how the biological world works.”
I am sure nobody here needs your arrogant advice. If you are reading Counter-Currents with any degree of acceptance you already know yourself that official literature on any topic has become questionable for those who actually seek the truth and that of cource includes fanatical, narrowmindend, so-called scientific truth. Just jumping to Wikipedia, picking out any random pdf file without further explanation or summary as you did hints more than clearlyto me that you yourself have no idea what you are talking about.
picking out any random pdf file without further explanation or summary as you did hints more than clearlyto me that you yourself have no idea what you are talking about.
I can assure you I know infinitely more than you on this topic. The post is just new age nonsense, without the slightest scientific backing whatsoever. The PDF file is not “random,” it is the latest, cutting age genomics research. But, you wouldn’t know about that, would you?
Body cells have the capability to reproduce.
But for most of them, they don’t. The most elementary aspects of biology, and you don’t know, and then you accuse me of not knowing what I’m talking about.
The fact remains as yet that the larger part of the Genome is non-coding.
That’s irrelevant. The proteins are encoded by genes. How the genes are expressed may be controlled to some extent by epigenetics, but it’s just modulating the message encoded by the genes.
I am sure nobody here needs your arrogant advice. If you are reading Counter-Currents with any degree of acceptance you already know yourself that official literature on any topic has become questionable..
Reverse snobbery. Just because I call “BS” on obvious rambling, doesn’t mean I’m a close-minded conformist.
Let’s debate next that the Earth is flat. You round Earth no-goodniks! Stop accepting establishment lies!
epigeneticists have been able to discern the physiologic functions of chromosomes independent of DNA, suggesting a more sophisticated flow of information through human cells. Biology, according to this thinking, starts with an environmental signal, then goes to a regulatory protein and only then goes to DNA, RNA, and the end result, a protein.[8]
Er…that’s not what “epigeneticists” study. Further, what function do chromosomes have that is truly independent of DNA? Answer: none. The “thinking” stated here is not one that anyone accepts/accepted, other than perhaps Lysenko, Boas, Yockey, and deluded neo-Marxists currently flirting with “edgy” fascism. Environment and “regulatory proteins” modulate gene expression of information encoded in the DNA. Except for the power of selection, environment is not prior to DNA, it is at best cooperative.
The text that you provided is very carfeful in its conclusions. It just speaks about some kind of unspecified activity but that is not the same as 1 gene – 1 protein. The fact remains as yet that the larger part of the Genome is non-coding.
With respect to eukaryotes (from yeast to humans), it has been known for decades that 1 gene-1 protein is incorrect. Again, decades. A single gene can code for a pre-mRNA that can be alternatively processed to yield a wide variety of proteins. It can be, for example, 1 gene = 10 proteins. No mystery, no magic, old news.
It doesn’t matter that the bulk of the genome is non-coding. The genome that is coding can very well produce the proteins, through mechanisms that are in any high school biology textbook.
Let’s cut to the chase here. I can debate the fine points of cellular differentiation vs. proliferation, or the central dogma, or what have you. But what is the point of this essay?
The point is to promote an ideologically driven assertion that there is an enormous plasticity of phenotype – “Thus, the body will conform to any ideal one holds as its goal. ” – that is extragenetic and environment driven. Terms like “epigenetics” are thrown around and out-dated concepts of “1 gene-1 protein” are asserted in an attempt to convince an audience that doesn’t have the scientific knowledge to know that it’s bogus. When someone with such knowledge points out the flaws, then “reverse snobbery” is asserted (Nietzsche’s “ressentiment”?), to create an emotion-driven reaction of the audience to reject the “smug elitist” (me) and embrace the “open-minded non-conformist” (you).
No one denies that phenotype is a product of both genetics and the environment. No one denies that epigenetics opens the possibility of environmental modulation of gene expression. And I agree that the genetic determinist biological nitpicking of some in the “movement” is too extreme. All agreed. But the body will NOT conform to any ideal. Plasticity is limited, and genes set much, albeit not all, of these limits.
And making assertions that have been out-dated since before most people here were born is not good argumentation.
Am with Ted. There are some serious misunderstandings here. To take the already cited example:
“Each cell is an intelligent being that can survive on its own, as scientists demonstrate when they remove individual cells from the body and grow them in a culture.”
The culture being a substitute environment, obviously, meaning that no, they cannot survive on their own. For the cell, there is no “its own”. That’s why it is a cell and not another species.
One could also merely paraphrase Dyal-Fiorello (who’s he anyhow?) to demonstrate that there’s a lack of substance in this heroistic parade of words: lifting weights is good for you, better than gluttony and sloth, and might make your offspring better at lifting weights. Of course, we will have no idea if the person doing the lifting was predisposed to have capable offspring in this respect.
Considering their sources, the rather heavy ideological purpose of the thing, and the faddish tendency to overestimate epigenetics in general (anything to escape Darwinian ‘passivity’!), the authors are not nearly entitled to a flourish of SCIENCE SEZ SO.
With the secondary claim that “harshness destroys decadence”, however, few to none will be able to find a cogent rebuttal — which is a perfectly Darwinian assertion, by the way. Ditto the coda on the value of higher testosterone.
I have nothing intellectual to add here. Just personal anecdote.
I used to run cross country/track in high school and college.
I still run to this day at thirty years of age, though not as seriously as I once did.
Over the last decade, I’ve had periods where I’ve gone months without running; each time
I inevitably experienced some (albeit very minor) forms of depression. I’ve been told that this is due to the endorphins that the brain releases from this exercise. In other words, during the periods in which I was not running, I was not getting the endorphin boost that my body had become used to and this lack of endorphins was creating “negative” feelings. Of course, it’s tempting to say that I’m confusing the chicken for the egg here in that my not running was a symptom of something deeper itself.
I have somewhat of a personal journal. I find that all my best thoughts (indeed almost all of my thoughts) come to me as I am running or even as I’m on a leisurely walk on the days where I decide to take it easy. Even when I studied in college, I found myself often pacing as I was reading and this is a habit I have retained to this day, particularly when reading something that is conceptually difficult and challenging like philosophy.
I realize that it looks like I’m talking much more about “fitness” and its nice, tidy, bourgeois health benefits here than Dyal’s point about “harshness” and physical conditioning. But my point is that the mind and the body have always had a noticeable integrated and pronounced relationship with one another from my own experience.
One area where I’ve always been weak is diet, though. My exercise has curbed the negative effects of my terrible eating habits. But I have considered giving up running in the interest of strength training which I think would be more rigorous and less fitnessy and leisure-like. Perhaps that would actually force me into eating better, heh.
I will say that I don’t think it’s any coincidence that spiritually hungry people often choose “spartan”-like living conditions in the woods; by the same token, many of them dive into books even while living on the grid. It’s as though they are addressing the same drive from two different angles or perspectives. Certainly, we give more weight to the latter approach (books and “knowledge” or “truth”) and that is perhaps an error in Western thought going back to Socrates that everyone brings up on these type of websites.
Bingo! That’s why I felt Mishima was preaching only to a choir – it is something you have to experience. Nietzsche: never wake in the morning and read a book; never trust a thought that came to you at rest. I write, then go to the gym, and inevitably the faults or successes of what I’ve written become clear.
Also, harshness is sort of semantic, here. We were trying to use Nietzsche’s language as a way to create distance from the bourgeois “fitness,” which wants fitness as its own reward (but not really – just as nothing in the bourgeois life is neutral even if presented as such).
Thanks everyone for the comments. I haven’t checked the Sparta comments but will do so later. Been swamped with the Nietzsche-conclusion. A NOI
Mark, I know you are writing for men, but women can benefit too especially those of us who have discovered White Nationalism.
Dissociation is hard because it has a mental health connotation. You know dissociative personality disorder and when one first starts detaching from the society one cannot stand, one can be very vulnerable. For me walks in nature are the best antidote. However, I have found The I Ching to be invaluable too. This one is about nurturing the superior parts of oneself both mind and body. (I hope you are not offended)
http://www.wisdomportal.com/IChing/Hexagram27.html
“Bingo! That’s why I felt Mishima was preaching only to a choir – it is something you have to experience.”
I think this is why our thinking is so scary to liberals. This acknowledges at some level that it’s not about sitting a person down and using “reason” to get a person to understand something. It’s about realizing that certain people (like Mishima) are more fit to lead (from our perspective) than others. When thought about in such terms, it becomes a bit more understandable why liberals are skeptical of us. But they’ve had a good century to let their ideas play out and it’s been a disaster.
“Also, harshness is sort of semantic, here. We were trying to use Nietzsche’s language as a way to create distance from the bourgeois “fitness,” which wants fitness as its own reward (but not really – just as nothing in the bourgeois life is neutral even if presented as such).”
Much of the fitness industry seems to thrive off of people’s desire to live a hedonistic lifestyle; it’s about “eating what you want and looking great” or “impressing others with your body”; the aims of modern fitness seem to be strictly material and “low.” There does not seem to be any deep spiritual reflection on why it is you’d want to look good versus looking like a fat slob. But when everything is so individualized, people are bound to think of exercise in immediate, pragmatic terms.
I am a hardcore determinist.
I don’t want to use the customary roughly estimated percentages to explain my position, so I will use an audacious analogy instead. The PC gamers among us who played the much acclaimed Mass Effect series know of the geth, a race of indestructible sentient machines whose bodies are only platforms where the collective hivebrain is downloaded. Some platforms are stronger, heavier, lighter, more agile, more intelligent, more resistant to radioactive hazard, more dexterous than others, and so own. I conceive the human body and brain as platforms too, platforms which are given willpower and emotional drives (the atheist vision)/free will and a sense of purpose (the theist vision). Just as the downloaded hivebrain cannot make a slow and heavy geth platform rush toward an objective or a door that is closing, willpower or free will alone cannot make a crippled, retarded, ugly and blind human platform find a pretty woman to marry, win a race against Usain Bolt or invent a new useful technology.
Despite the fact I am a hardcore determinist, I do not condemn outright the views expressed above… DNA and cells are so complex that a definitive position on the matter is hubris. I would gladly criticize them, though. The authors seem to confuse neural plasticity with modifications in the DNA (two entirely different matters, as neural plasticity cannot create new proteins or grow yourself new organs), and they seem to happily dwell into mystic pseudoscience to make their points.
We’ll all agree that personality changes over time in humans, or that important events in a lifetime can affect one’s outlook on things terminally… but all that happens inside neurons, not inside DNA molecules!
We need eugenics – plasticity is a personal thing to cultivate in one’s lifestyle. Muscles are easily gained and easily lost: the inner strength should be paramount. Some exercise is important but past a certain point, it’s like a focus on rims and not the engine. The Will energizes the body. And the will is unleashed by the mind, thus the importance of Philsophy and the life of the mind. The Spartans made a mistake: excessive Yang leads to Yin. They were ruled by their women ultimately as Aristotle pointed out.
And too much exercise after middle age will lead to an imporverishment of the mind and brittleness and injury in the body. We must be humble and accept the East knows more about the body: Tai Chi, Yoga, Chi Kung are among the best exercises for energetic longevity. The superhuman vitality of Socrates came from within not from pushups etc. But harshness or asceticism can certainly be an aid to this life. And this includes diet, control of the senses, and at least some degree of chastity or sexual restraint for those in relationship.
The Chinese say one drop of semen is worth 100 drops of blood. And after ejaculation, Balzac would say there goes another book that will never be written.
As a Biology Major, I find epigenetics interesting. Bruce Lipton’s work is very vague, however, and overly optimistic (I have a feeling he’s a leftist and multiculter). If anyone has read his work, I think you would have to admit that he spreads a minimum amount of evidence very thinly to make his case.
Perhaps someone here could comment on what relationship epigenetics has to esoteric subjects (like alchemy)? The relationship between electricity and the body is fascinating.
If the caduceus is really a sacred symbol for DNA, surely the Aryans and Vedic peoples new more than we today.
I have done some research on Dr. Lipton. The techniques people like him use to spread their ideas are commonly used by those pushing varied “new age” memes.
First, their books are targeted to people who do not have any extensive scientific training. Individuals who do have such training immediately realize the emptiness of his claims – not so much that it is wrong (although some is), but that it is out-dated or completely irrelevant.
Second, to deal with criticism and to appeal to the audience, these folks portray themselves as the underdog, as (sometimes persecuted) maverick scientists, whose genius insights are arrogantly dismissed by close-minded smug elitist scientists, who stand in the way of true progress. To further appeal to the audience, and touch upon the very human need to feel as one of an “initiated elite” in possession of special knowledge (Kurtagic has written about this), these folks promote the feeling the if one reads their books, one will know more about the “real truth” than all those pointy-headed intellectuals wearing labcoats in their ivory towers.
Then throw in some scientific jargon, and pose as “unsolved mysteries” issues resolved decades ago and found in any good Intro Bio textbook. Talk about great discoveries – the environment controls the cell from the membrane! The membrane is important! – which essentially is nothing more than the well-studied phenomenon of cell signaling, integral to all understanding of basic cell biology.
Then talk about technical issues that the reader has no personal experience in. A cell can grow in culture! It will reproduce! Actually, the vast majority of human cells put in culture will do absolutely nothing, except eventually die. Cell culture is usually performed with cancer cells (and even here, it’s often very difficult to establish a new cell line from human tumor tissue), or normal cells artificially immortalized by introduction of viral genes. The vast majority of human cells are differentiated and have totally lost the ability to reproduce, except in highly artificial conditions in the laboratory. Of course some can reproduce. Stem cells. If the liver is damaged, cells can start replicating. That is true. But the vast majority of cells do not reproduce – except under very abnormal or artificial circumstances. Does the latter mean that they have the “potential” to reproduce? Yes, the same as a human as the potential to live on the surface of the moon, after the billions spent on the Apollo program.
But, these are details. The main problem is that right-wing pseudoscience is no better than the left-wing variety. Racial nationalism itself is considered “bizarre” by most people; adding extra layers of strange beliefs does us no good.
Look at the Republicans. They have problems with young Whites and blue state educated Whites. Yes, we can talk about “liberal media brainwashing,” and “leftist college professors influencing young people,” and all the other excuses. The problem is that “conservative Republicans” often live up to the stereotype. When Republican candidates ramble that the Earth is several thousand years old and that “embryology is evil,” or that tween (10-12 year old) girls suddenly become “retarded” after taking a Gardasil vaccine (evidence?), or such things, the implication is that these people are – and I’ll be blunt here – ill-educated, dumb crackpots who don’t know what they are talking about, similar to Palin’s ramblings in 2008 from everything from foreign policy to seeing Russia from her backyard.
It’s one thing to be open-minded. Perhaps future discoveries will vindicate Lipton, and, if so, I’ll be the first to congratulate him. But as of today, his work is nonsense, and more than that, transparent nonsense, for the reasons discussed above.
A real racialist movement will need “materialist scientists” as much as “traditionalists.” Pretending as if those people are all close-minded conformists hiding the truth is not going to advance the cause. And the stereotype of the close-minded scientist is in most cases not true – skeptical yes, demanding evidence yet, but not the way some here portray them.
True, you have some who are, the leftist race-deniers being prominent among them. But others are different. Wheeler’s support of Everett’s “multiple worlds” hypothesis of quantum mechanics is a perfect example of the latter. Wheeler, an established scientist, disagreed with the theory of the younger Everett, writing his thesis. Despite this disagreement, Wheeler promoted Everett’s work so vigorously that many thought Wheeler was a supporter. No, he just thought the work had merit and needed to be taken seriously. It works that way more often than not. Not always of course, but more often than not.
The reason scientists don’t take Lipton more seriously I think says more about Lipton than it does the scientists.
David Baltimore’s comments, free online:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v409/n6822/full/409814a0.html
I see nothing there that states he believe in the primacy of the environment in any manner consistent with Lipton’s ideas. Baltimore expresses surprise at some findings, and suggests that more work is needed to ascertain how the complexity of life develops.
I don’t have the time right now to elaborate on it more in depth, but it’s a wonderful article.
“Perhaps future discoveries will vindicate Lipton, and, if so, I’ll be the first to congratulate him. But as of today, his work is nonsense..”
This is where your rank hypocrisy come into the picture Teddy. You utilize Science as evidenced in these forums, to insult and belittle those with whom you disagree. Hurling moral thunderbolts at them for not bowing before its altar. Yet you admit, you will be subject to whatever decisions “Science” makes in the future…about any subject I assume.
But wait…wait. Do you accept the “scientific” consensus on race that exists today? Or do you dissent? If you dissent? Why? Are you a flat earther? What gives you the ability to disregard what most scientists say on race? While at the same time you insult others for denying what most scientists say on other subjects? Indeed, if I were to substitute your ravings on these forums, with the typical college biology professors discussions on race they would be identical…except you would be the one being belittled, and being equated with creationists and flat earthers. Yep, there is the phenomenon of “cafeteria” Catholics, and “cafateria” scientists it seems. Pick and choose what you want to serve what ever agenda strikes your fancy at any given point in time.
“And the stereotype of the close-minded scientist is in most cases not true”
Excellent. Its good to know you are not “close minded” about your racism. Even though you are denying modern science by claiming racial differences really do exist, its good to know that you could be convinced that all of this “racial” stuff really is a mere social construct with no biological basis at all. After all, to the good little scientist…”truth” is a perpetually moving target that can change at any time. Indeed, it seems that your beloved “scientific” truth changes with the whims of the people.
“A real racialist movement will need “materialist scientists” as much as “traditionalists.”
I don’t think so. I don’t need a Science book to know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. That I can eat the apple from the tree, and that if I jump, I will come back down. And I sure as hell don’t need to read Rushton to know that my people are drastically different from the black folks that live down the road from me. I think some scientists are always a good thing though (but there is no reason for them to be materialists). Our people will always need to give the nerds something to do. While they are all a flutter “proving” things we already know, they can also invent a few toys to help the real men get about the work of saving and preserving our people.
This is a weak parallel. Are you a religious man? The hackneyed claims “science isn’t infallible, scientists make errors, scientists have biases, scientists are “materialists”” are often a refuge of religious people. Science still cuts through reality better than any alternative whatever problems it may have.
I’ll explain very simply. Race denial can be proven, scientifically, to be wrong. There is no doubt whatsoever, that “human population groups” differ genetically (and by morphology), and that those differences correlate well with the major racial groups that people recognize. “Race denying scientists” are promoting the pseudoscience of the Left, and although they utilize the status of their positions to lie to the public, they cannot change the underlying reality that is there to be discovered by anyone who has the tools to do so.
Likewise, this essay, and the misinformed individuals defending it, are promoting the pseudoscience of the right. Things are said which are simply not true. They are as untrue as stating that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Lipton and his followers depend upon their readers simply not knowing information that can be found in any bio textbook.
But – aha! – you say, those same textbooks say there is no such thing as race. But, you know, anyone can get a DNA analysis from a commercial test such as 23andme, and have the capability to observe the reality of differences between groups. The tools exist to show the race deniers are wrong. The tools also exist to show that Lipton and this essay is wrong.
Unless we are dealing with Marxist deconstructivism here, the bottom line is that there is knowledge that we can obtain about reality by using the right tools. To put it another way – I know Lipton and this essay is wrong because when I do cell culture (and I do) I can see for myself what the reality is. When I see the data from population genetics, I see patterns that correlate to race. It’s not just what is written in books, or what people say.
It’s about what actually is.
Now, I understand not everyone is in the position to do cell culture. What’s remarkable though, and I’ll say it again, are people who wouldn’t know which end of a tissue culture hood is up confidently arguing points that are not only objectively wrong, but of which they know nothing and have no experience.
I don’t think so. I don’t need a Science book to know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. That I can eat the apple from the tree, and that if I jump, I will come back down. And I sure as hell don’t need to read Rushton to know that my people are drastically different from the black folks that live down the road from me. I think some scientists are always a good thing though (but there is no reason for them to be materialists). Our people will always need to give the nerds something to do. While they are all a flutter “proving” things we already know, they can also invent a few toys to help the real men get about the work of saving and preserving our people.
A classic case of reverse snobbery. The salt of the Earth don’t need any of ‘dem pointy-headed intellectuals tellin’ you ‘nothin!
Yes, indeed, all you types “already knew” the germ theory of disease, quantum mechanics, relativity, chemical reactions, biomedical science, etc. ‘Dem nerds are just building toys based upon your hard-earned knowledge, gleaned from looking at those sunsets, as you eat an apple and contemplate the universe.
Ted,
“When someone with such knowledge points out the flaws, then “reverse snobbery” is asserted (Nietzsche’s “ressentiment”?), to create an emotion-driven reaction of the audience to reject the “smug elitist” (me) and embrace the “open-minded non-conformist” (you).”
1.) You did not point out the flaws. Rather, you constantly misread.
Although the article and myself ( expressis verbis) told that cells have the CAPABILITY to reproduce you try to refute that by telling me that they DO NOT actually reproduce. One point does not have anything to do with the other and I myself wrote: “Just because a cell does not actually reproduce it does not mean that it does not have the potential” Do not false poinst that were introduced by yourself and do NOT put those into the mouth of others. That includes your transparent attempt to associate us with Flat-Earth-Theory.
2.) You wrote: “Hint: …… ” / “single most stupid comment” etc. The whole style is totally unusual for me to read on Counter-Currents. I expect ego-driven Mrknowitalls rather in the newspaper commentary section than here. That has nothing to do with snobism except on your side.
3.) You are no smug elitist. How could you since you already lack the basis of this, namely being part of the elite. Smug seems to be another bad choice of words. I found your answers rather rude. Broadsword, not rapier.
You have no idea who I am nor do I know who you are except for some emotional and ill-tempered accusations. It is a complete mystery to me how you would deduce some kind of superior knowledge from the few lines of an anonymous writer like me. Completely unscientific approach that lets the whole of your posts appear dubious.
Personal note:
You consider yourself the elite? I will not grant you that. Rather, you yourself seem to be the conformist, according to your own words: But here is what I think: You will never anymore belong to THEM, no matter how hard you work to be a “materalist”. You are just repeating the conservative tragedy as farce.
Putting aside your ad hominem, the point remains that you have no idea what you are talking about. Virtually EVERY “scientific” assertion made in the essay, and your comments, is wrong. With respect to the essay, I also note for the record that the David Baltimore reference, in the context used, is outright fraud – and it has been linked to here for everyone to read.
Although the article and myself ( expressis verbis) told that cells have the CAPABILITY to reproduce you try to refute that by telling me that they DO NOT actually reproduce.
Can you read? I stated (again at post of 4:37 on 11/16/12) that most cells in the body do not have the CAPABILITY to reproduce, except under the most artificial of circumstances. And since the point of the essay is to assert a natural ability – or “capability” – of “intelligent” cells to reproduce, then the essay, and you, are WRONG. Understand? Again: under natural circumstances, the vast majority of cells in humans DO NOT HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO REPRODUCE. They are differentiated. They do not reproduce. They cannot reproduce within the human body, nor in cell culture, unless modified, via transfection of genetic foreign material, etc. or other experimental manipulations in culture, to an extent that they are no longer the original human cell of the body. Repeat: no longer the original cell. If you can show otherwise, that all/most of the cells of the human body have an innate natural capability to reproduce, then I congratulate you on your future Nobel Prize.
You consider yourself the elite? I will not grant you that. Rather, you yourself seem to be the conformist, according to your own words: But here is what I think: You will never anymore belong to THEM, no matter how hard you work to be a “materalist”. You are just repeating the conservative tragedy as farce.
My body of work in the “movement” – in this forum of others – over a period of ~ 10 years, is a matter of record, of which Greg Johnson, among others, is well familiar. Besides a complete lack of understanding of the subject material being debated here, I’m uncertain what your “contributions” are. I care not what you “think.” Insofar as I know, you’re just another “movement” buffoon with a juvenile pseudonym.
Let’s take a look at that “capability” –
http://www.nature.com/nprot/journal/v7/n12/abs/nprot.2012.115.html
So, after “3–4 weeks (!!) of “reprogramming” using “retroviral delivery of exogenous factors” – a yield of “up to 4% ” of cells are obtained that have reproductive potential.
And, what of the renal cells actually existing in the human body? What is their capability to reproduce? Zero. If put in cell culture, without a month’s worth of artificial laboratory manipulation – zero capability. And even with that manipulation, the yield is low. Not very “intelligent” of said cells. They seem intellectually backward, indeed.
John Morgan wrote:
Unfortunately, since my own life and work is focused primarily on books, I tend to lead a very sedentary lifestyle, but I have tried in recent months to make more time for physical exercise. When I was younger, that wasn’t so important, but as I approach middle age, the ill effects brought on by physical inactivity become more and more evident. There is no question that it does have an effect on one’s mentality. And Western society at present is a society consisting of, and catering primarily to, obese couch potatoes. We have to overcome it.
One of the solutions to that – become a farmer!! It’s a surefire way to keep slim! Lots of physical work involved.
“I walk among these people and keep my eyes open; they have become smaller and are becoming ever smaller: but this is because of their teaching on happiness and virtue. So much kindness, so much weakness I see. So much justice and pity, so much weakness. Round, righteous, and kind they are to one another, like grains of sand are round, righteous, and kind to one another.” – Zarathustra[1]
Strength has its uses but the dove can conquer where the eagle cannot penetrate. Tertullian is alleged to have said that regions in Britain which had never been penetrated by the Romans had been subdued to Christ.
Classic Sparkle said “For men it should be the first place you go. The programs here are excellent: http://stronglifts.com/ As a man you should be deadlifting and squatting. Period.”
Or maybe as a man, you should just get a job that requires you to use both your body and your brain on a daily basis!
From my biased point of view I believe that we are designed to physically work and work hard, outside in the varied elements – not in some cubical, factory or office hiding behind some keyboard or for that matter sweating out in some gym (didn’t Tyler Durden equate this to ‘mere masturbation in Fight Club?).
If that is your job I recommend that you quit straight away as I can guarantee it’s killing you – in both mind, spirit and body.
I would strongly recommend to all serious white nationalist’s to engage in some form of healthy employment outside – real work ultimately makes real men and women.
It both engenders work place camaraderie, class unity whilst also increasing one’s physical strength, increasing one’s stamina and endurance, ultimately aiding the will to survive.
The German N.S labour force offers an excellent example from which we could learn.
Forget the weight lifting ‘drama’ and go and get your self a shovel, dig a ditch or similar -daily.
Why do you think the NS encouraged and praised the peasant farmers?
Because they were the closest thing to the ‘blood and soil’ – as well as being those most tuned into the traditional and sustainable ways of our ancestors.
I am ardently of the opinion that if you can not work outside under any of the harsh natural conditions then your place in the future will probably be forfeited.
In all truth how many of us reading this can actually look in the mirror and say that we are are ‘fit for purpose?’
I see. White nationalists are going to get the power to influence society and overturn the system by quitting their professions, disdaining education, and digging ditches for our Jewish and Asian overlords.
The overall comments on this thread (and previous experience here) is starting to give me the full measure of the Counter Currents commentariat.
I have some hard thinking to do.
Hi Ted,
actually I would say that you have missed the point, and quite possibly seeing your last remarks on purpose.
I did not mention “disdaining education” or “digging ditches for our Jewish and Asian overlords”, I mentioned hard physical work in the elements that increases the will to survive, their is a difference.
Education is both academic and physical, it is not a case of either or.
Do you see farmers, small holders etc as mere ‘bumpkins and yokels’ then, and as mere pawns of “our overlords”?
Do you really believe that the N.S labour services and it’s many off shoots created mere ‘slaves’, or did it create a generation of brave, honourable and courageous folk who had the ‘will’ to fight and defend their ideological foundations, and ultimately their race!
Yes, I agree you do need to do some hard thinking ….
I don’t see the parties who have power — the Jewish, Asian and white liberal technocratic elite — doing harsh physical work.
Quote by Lew : “I don’t see the parties who have power — the Jewish, Asian and white liberal technocratic elite — doing harsh physical work.”
That is quite true. They are “flabby sadists”, and they have created a culture that reflects their sickly disposition. Because of the cultural morass, the elite is not recognized for the “Ring-wraiths” they are. We shall have to show that there is a far healthier alternative. If we want to replace them, we shall have to expose them, we shall have to show the contrast between us and them. Therefore we have to become healthier, stronger in body, will and spirit. Fascism has an erotic attraction precisely for this reason. This erotic attraction must be used to gain political power.
As an appendix to my last comment I would just like to add an extract from THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM by BENITO MUSSOLINI (1932)
” I believe that if a people wish to live they should develop a will to power, otherwise they vegetate, live miserably and become prey to a stronger people, in whom this will to power is developed to a higher degree. (Speech to the Senate, May 28, 1926).”
Concerning the N.S labour service its worth checking out the following pdf,
here.
c.f. Vilfredo Pareto:
I have one more parting (in every sense) comment to make here. Who’s really copying the conservative farce? I’ll give you my opinion, and if it offends, that’s all to the good, because some need a wake-up call. I just hope it passes through moderation.
Look at the Republicans. For all the discussion of why they are failing, and why they didn’t get more White support, the analysis left out some things here. Yes, their plutocratic economic policies turned off the working class. Yes, their constant betrayals on race turned people off as well. But – and I know this at least anecdotally from people I know – the GOP also alienates highly educated professionals who dislike minorities, are at least “implicitely white,” and are borderline racist.
The GOP gives the impression of being the party of backwoods ignorance, of the willfully misinformed, of people who don’t use computers, of people who know nothing but NASCAR, smoking and drinking, “good old boys” whose “real world” “knowledge” and “salt of the Earth” ways are far superior to all the beta male “nerds” out there in their Ivory Towers.
Palin with her asinine folksy eye-winking “Mama Grizzly” stupidity (“you betcha!”), seeing Russia from her house, Bachmann saying with a straight face that tween girls become instantly retarded after getting a Gardasil vaccine, congressmen saying the Earth is “9000 years old” and that “embryology” is evil, politicians saying that women who get raped can’t get pregnant, hostility to all science, all empiricism, all education, leaving the playing field to Jews and Asians who are upwardly mobile and who run the show, while we are advised to “get out in the open” and “dig ditches.” People here whose knowledge of science is less than that of a well informed middle school student proudly and confidently assert objectively wrong statements that go against decades (or more) of careful work by (mostly Western and White) scientists. People who, like the Palins and Bachmanns, are proud of their ignorance, disdainful of education. “Real men” are going to “fight for our people.”
Yes, in the 60s and 70s and 80s, when the country was taken away, when coloreds burned down cities, when levantines opened the immigration floodgates, all these “real men” sat on their asses and did NOTHING. They voted for Nixon, and Reagan, and Bush, watched their football games, drank beer and belched and watched their patrimony be stolen.
You know who’s a “real man?” Kevin MacDonald, a professor, who’s worth a million of the “Joe Sixpacks” who talk big at the bar but wet their pants when a Negro walks by. Another real man is Frank Salter, who put forth a scholarly theory that worth more than all the so-called “real men” whose idea of “saving the race” is fantasizing about “intelligent cells,” debating whether weightlifting or ditch-digging will be the savior of young White men, while the young Jewish and Asian men are going to law school or becoming doctors or what have you, and THEY ARE LAUGHING AT ALL THE “REAL MEN” as they steal your country.
And when a “nerd’ – who is on your side – tells you that, honestly, you don’t know what you’re talking about and that, like the Palins and Bachmanns, you are going to alienate potential recruits, all you can do is make asinine comments about eating apples or digesting gnats.
It may be a cliche, but KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. The Jews took over using their brains. Our ancestors conquered a world not only by using brawn but by coupling brains and a thirst for knowledge with the strength of character to take what they wanted, by turning outwards, by being “faustian,” not by turning inwards and embracing ignorance.
But I’m only a gnat and a nerd, so I can be safely ignored. Go back to your “real man” activities, that have such a great record of success.
Ted,
I think you took a trollish tone off the bat, and were treated like a troll. That’s a shame, because I also think some of your criticisms were legitimate, and could have informed some future revisions or corrections to what I thought was, overall, a very good piece. I like Mark’s work a lot, and I have really found this series inspirational, and I understand what he was trying to do with it. Frankly, I think the majority of the science could be pulled out, because the ultimate message is that harsher environments create harder men, and I don’t think that’s a message anyone here would disagree with.
That aside, your “real man” comments here are as emotional and silly as anything you are criticizing. Really, a “real man” is an academic who stands up for what he believes in on paper? OK, Michael Kimmel. Can we dispense with the teen movie jock vs. nerd thing?
Mark is an academic using his skills here, AND saying men should be strong and courageous. I’m on board with smart AND strong. I think everyone here is. If you want to try to beat your enemies at swindling, double-talk and manipulation…what’s the point of fighting them? Why not just join them?
As for the comments…people need to relax about the importance of comments. Having written many articles and reviews over the years, and watching traffic numbers, I can say that frequent commenters are always a tiny percentage of any site’s readership, and not necessarily representative of that readership. If I thought the commenters on some of the sites I write for were the only people reading my work, I would never write again.
Posted by “Bill” on October 15, 2012 at 6:18 pm
I’ve never understood the obsession with “Science”. The same people who constantly bemoan the faith of “believers”…have never measured the earths distance to the sun, have never actually seen the shape of the earth, and have never looked into what degree the earth really tilts. Meaning, faith takes many forms, and just accepting what you are told is really easy to do. Especially in an age where science reigns supreme.
Science is simply the myth of the age (and I am not using myth in the pejorative sense..i.e. myth equals lie). In other words, science is that over riding philosophy or dogma that contextualizes and engulfs modern mans existence. It provides meaning, a sense of purpose, and a belief that we can truly understand the nature of the world around us.
Unfortunately, there is a problem. The modern myth of our era is inherantly unknowable to the vast majority of our people, and what is known, has been sanitized and rewrote so as to better control us. The same people who tell us we evolved from monkeys tell us that race is a “social construct”. The same people that offer us the “Big Bang” theory, offer us social and biological egalitarianism. It seems to me that many a materialist White Nationalist picks and chooses when he wants to listen to “science”, and when he wants to speak of scientific distortion and manipulation in order to further an agenda.
The Youth of a Nation should be require to render service – no exceptions. None, except physical disability in which case they can do something else. Such service will tie the Nation together, balance imbalanced characters, humble the arrogant, strengthen the weak, and hopefully help the future leaders see who the People are.
“Race denial can be proven, scientifically, to be wrong.”
Interesting. Though, my point is proven without even an attempt to answer. You claim that one must accept what “science” says. When I demonstrate that you don’t…by your own standards (which standards you claim are “what them thur scientists say at the moment”), you simply neglect the point, and double down saying “eh, you can disagree with what science says if you really really think its wrong”. I just want you to afford others the same liberties you assume.
“It’s about what actually is.”
Sorry Ted, its not. As the vast majority of racial egalitarians prove, who use biology to demonstrate their version of what “actually is”. Of course, your protestations further prove my point. What “actually is” for you, is not what “actually is” for the vast majority of scientists. You have to get over this naive view that science is functionally different from any other epistemology, that it is not subject to the same human foibles that beset other mythologies.
Now, to over come this blatant contradiction, you just state that your “version” of science is more “scientific”. Indeed. It reminds me of the never ending battles of the biblical literalists fighting over infant baptism, or Calvanism, or the end times. Each claiming they have interpreted the Bible better than the other. The Scientific fundamentalists and the Biblical fundamentalists suffer from the same myopia. Neither can fathom a world in which there are other avenues of knowing truth.
Now, I see that you are apparently leaving us because we are all to dumb for you. Very well. Though, your parting rant is as stupid and ill intentioned as most of your posts.
” proudly and confidently assert objectively wrong statements that go against decades (or more) of careful work by (mostly Western and White) scientists.”
Yes, us evil racists do stand against the pronouncements of modern scientists. They tell us to deny reality, in favor of their unwarranted speculations on race. I see that you enjoy throwing around the “your method doesn’t work” argument. Very well. How has the biological jargon of scientists fared in regards to our people? Have your arguments held sway? If anything, it appears that our folk have an aversion to the notion of race as nothing but biology, and rightfully so. This is something that all WN materialists are going to have to understand. If race does not equal culture, custom, ancestry, and myth…..then it will equal nothing to our kind. In fact, the pronouncements of “scientists” have now done more to harm our people, than help. That you cannot see this, is frightening.
The rest of your farewell is typical of your ilk. But let us at least state the truth to contradict your hysteria.
I will gladly put my academic credentials up against anyone in your “WN” movement. Though I can’t help but think that your cult like attachment to the modern educational system plays into the hands of our enemies. The old saying applies here, if you allow your masters to educate you, you will always be a slave. If you honestly believe that herding our children into these “institutions” is going to be the definitive answer, then I would say that you are next to useless. Education is important, but it will not be what saves our people.
I see that my “real men” comment really shook you. But as usual, you have twisted it and used it to cover your tracks. Kevin MacDonald is a brilliant man, and I hope he continues unhindered in his efforts and works. Interestingly enough though, I have never seen him mock those who may take a different view of what is best for our people. Nor does he routinely enter forums such as these and insult those he disagrees with. In fact, it seems his goal is to work in whatever way possible to help his kind. You on the other hand, seem more interested in other things, and your attitude shows it. You are so thick, that you cannot even see what many in this thread have stated. Its not that we are upset that you know a few things that sound all “sciencey”…its that we don’t like assholes. If you think that your tut tut style which simply assumes you are the only one who knows anything, and that your chosen discipline is the definitive end of knowledge, is the means by which you are going to best serve your kind….please continue. But don’t be so crude as to think that others are going to sit idly by and pass up a golden opportunity to put a punk in his place. That’s what real men do after all.
Lastly, so as to be clear. A hearty study of the natural sciences is indeed good and healthy. Yet, as G.K. Chesterton once said..the problem with science is, that it doesn’t know its place. Our modern era demonstrates this. The (natural) sciences, without the benefit of the other traditional “sciences”, will be used as a mallet to destroy our people, as it is today. Science can either be a tool or a toy. It is a tool when it allows us to be more fully human and more fully “ourselves”…and it is a toy when it is merely used to titillate and satisfy a base curiosity. The problem is not science per say…it is the ideology of “scientism”, and that is the falsehood you have wrapped yourself in Ted.
In this day and age of extreme specialization, scientists are often the last people to ask about the meaning of their research. They are too busy, too narrow, and in any case always have their hands out for grants. It’s not their main business to begin with – meaning is the province of Philosphy.
Now Darwin being a man of letters as well as a scientist could see the implications of his findings. Such men were not rare back then. But his modern and unworthy descendants are cultural Marxists are unable to look at anything with unjaundiced eyes. To them Man is an animal except when it comes to the brain and race. Then suddenly they become very ideological and disembodied in their thinking – as if the brain isn’t a physical organ. So they are willing to consider the physical differences between the races but not psychological.
What a great essay! The notion of harshness speaks to my soul, as it were. Though it should be stressed that it concerns in the first place physical harshness. Whether that translates into spiritual harshness depends on what the circumstances call for.
It is really shocking to our bourgeois minds that comfort is NOT the way to happiness. So what is the way to happiness then? I would say: the exercise of the will, especially over the body. Power is the result, but happiness already resides in the exercise of the will itself.
In our corrupt and decadent society, this intimation is distorted into a fascination with cruelty, sadism, and violence for the sake of violence. Preferably watched from a comfortable chair. Power is solely seen as being able to command other people. No thought is given to power as an inherent quality of a person.
Physical harshness, properly understood, seems the perfect antidote for this kind of flabby sadists. It is also a solution for procrastination and depression, something I suffer from. I have immediately taken up jogging again, and the results are immediate and astonishing. I should have realised this before. I should have remembered the elation I used to feel after Kendo or Ballet class, even if I had performed badly. (by the way, if Ballet seems too soft for real men, just try it. You may be surprised how tough it is, physically).
The notion that physical harshness is essential to “spiritual” development is also deeply engrained in Zen. The long sessions of unmoveably sitting still in the Lotus posture often result in excruciating pain, but also an enormous effect on the spirit. The body can give insights where the reasoning mind is lost in paradoxes. But here too you have to experience it, as words cannot explain it. Words are like the servant who can lead a horse to the river, but only the horse can drink.
Zen leads me to Yukio Mishima, for whom I have had a long time fascination. I did understand why, but this essay may give the explanation. Mishima was in his younger years a weakling, a writer who was fascinated by cruelty, sadism, violence and the fascism of Japan before 1945, while being thoroughly bourgeois in his life style. His first book, “Confessions of a Mask” is a fascinating account of this. Mishima did not remain in this morass, however. He finally put his fascist ideas into practice, he put physical harshness at work, and through exercise became a very strong man and a true fighter against modernity. This development is beautifully described in “Sun and Steel”. This may be regarded as the sequel (and happy end) to “Confessions of a Mask”.
I would recommend reading both books to anyone like me who is mired in an ineffective bourgeois life style, but whose interest is still piqued by cruelty, violence and fascism. These books show a way to let these elements come to their own, which is (physical) harshness. To paraphrase Pascal: ” Le corps a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point”.
Nice substitution. I find the same: the Spirit sometimes seem to jump over the mind and inform the feelings and the body. To know, the mind must humble itself and inquire from its instruments. And in any case, as the Man plays the instrument, the instrument plays him.
I was on Amazon Books scrolling through White Nationalist links and reviews. A guy named Wyatt Kaldenberg said of David Lane, he was a Wotanist, I’m an Odinist. Big difference. Do you have any idea what he meant by that?
I’m curious, does anyone have any thoughts on Eric Voegelin’s theory of race (which seems to be somewhat comparable to the content of this essay)?
Jaego Scornze in blockquote:
I suspect Kaldenberg is (was) a friend of Terrible Tommy Metzger, who did the A. Wyatt Man cartoons for him. I suspect the difference between Wotanist and Odinist might be the difference between a god acting as a force of Nature (Wotanist), and a God acting within Nature; the one, general, the other, much more specific in terms of identity. Possible, to some, Odin would be a Wotanist!
On the other hand, it may be, in practice, a distinction without a difference. Yet, the stronger truth is that most of us really do not understand Pagan Dieties, much less the Northern Mysteries, at all well. I suspect the number of people who could accurately describe this religious system would be few, indeed, in America.
I am sometimes amazed at how far the spiritual development of David Lane grew, in terms of the sources he had access to. He was clearly extraordinarily devoted to resolving these issues. Talents from past lives, perhaps, that he did not have the time, or teacher, to transform into capacities.
He might be seen, in part, as the mirror of Malcom X. Malcom knew Christianity, at the Institutional level, wasn’t effective enough for the Black community. His answer became Islam, in several of its variants. A natural politician, a natural master of public relations, Malcolm saw, but did not have the framework to see more deeply into the heart of the matter.
So, too, I suspect, for David Lane. Given time and a disciplined framework, he could have formed the foundation for a new, restored, vitally Masculine Christianity, using the power of the Pagan systems to transform the epistemological foundation of Christianity into a new, more effective, Christianity, one that Nietzsche would possibly find acceptable. Some leading thoughts for some of us to work with, perhaps.
Regardless, his temporal absence leaves us all the poorer.
A quick comment: in my outline of an alternative history of White Nationalism, centered around the Northwest Republic, I always saw Lane as the man who helped to develop the Next Christianity, and saw to its very dynamic outworking in the political, economic, and social systems of his new community. I still see him in this light.
Perhaps, one day, in his next incarnation…
Ted, while I appreciate your willingness to fight for a science that has done us no favors, I must admit to not having read any of your posts but the first. If you’ve hence given your credentials I’m sorry to ask for them here. Not that it matters to me, but our friend ‘uh’ has let his plebeian instincts shine through by attacking Nick Fiorello’s right to have suggested the scientific aspect of our paper.
Let me tell you, uh, if that is your real name, who is Nick Fiorello. He is a MAN that is willing to use his real name in our circles without thought of the personal and financial burdens this act may create. While, like you, he has no phd, he watched the academy’s attempt to turn me into an enemy of our people and thus knows all too well that truth regimes are real and actively self-protective. He has seen this in his own work, which focuses more on anatomy and bio-mechanics than genetics, in high level athletic and physical training. Anyhow, he’s been around the NR as long as me, and has finally decided to contribute to our renaissance. This paper coincided with a period of seclusion for the man, so hopefully soon enough he will grace us with a defense of his sources. In the meantime, I’m sure you and Ted will help our cause immensely by taking the side of bourgeois science.
Just isn’t good science bro. Nothing plebeian about it. A strong case might be made, however, that science is and must be both plebeian and bourgeois, at the very least humdrum. Takes a lot of time, patience, precise conditions, funding, resources, and usually, a seated posture. The fun thing about modern scientific research, as it concerns humanity, is that it always comes out in favor of our values — an ongoing archive of which is kept over at Heartiste. So while the process is bourgeois, and the researchies bourgeois, and the readers bourgeois — do you not also inhabit a town? — the results are invariably darwinian, chimpish, downright dark.
I agree with that. I’m certainly not suggesting that just because we are WN we should settle for poor scholarship. Our expertise in all fields of thought and action speaks for itself. But I don’t think we’ve done a disservice to scholarship, only attempted to use some non-mainstream sources. If Lipton believes cell walls are more active or ‘intelligent’ than other scientists, I’m not sure what the big deal is. As those who know me could figure out, I focused on turning a pile of research into a narrative that I thought would be useful for convincing our people that the state of our bodies is directly related to the state of our instinctual and conceptual ‘health.’
I don’t want to sell out Nick and his interests. Instead, I’ve tried to incorporate them with my own. My only beef with anything said here was your (whoever he is) kind of remark. That and the anonymity thing, which does the NR a serious disservice. More on that soon.
Finally M, you know me. No one gets a free pass with me. If I vouch for someone they are legitimate. Nick knew that these New Bio people were going to be a problem. I might have exaserbated the level of hostility with some of my interpretations of scientific data. Fine. But if this article gets even one of our people to create some distance between themselves and the bourgeois form of life then my work is done. (I just can’t see anything you and Ted have said having the same impact.)
There is a business plan here for all you entrepreneurs to flesh out.
Tired of mindless workouts on the treadmill staring at the TV?
Education + exercise at one place
“Counter-Currents Gyms”
“We know that adaptive processes stimulate organs and functions, that the more effective way of improving tissues and mind is to maintain them in ceaseless activity. The mechanisms, which determine in certain organs a series of reactions ordered toward an end, can easily be set in motion. As is well known, a muscular group develops by appropriate drill. If we wish to strengthen not only the muscles, but also the apparatuses responsible for their nutrition and the organs which enable the body to sustain a prolonged effort, exercises more varied than classical sports are indispensable. These exercises are the same as were practiced daily in a more primitive life. Specialized athletics, as taught in schools and universities, do not give real endurance. The efforts requiring the help of muscles, vessels, heart, lungs, brain, spinal cord, and mind—that is, of the entire organism— are necessary in the construction of the individual. Running over rough ground, climbing mountains, wrestling, swimming, working in the forests and in the fields, exposure to inclemencies, early moral responsibility, and a general harshness of life bring about the harmony of the muscles, bones, organs, and consciousness.” – Alexis Carrel, “Man, The Unknown”
A couple of relevant items:
1) “Adaptive mutation: implications for evolution” (Bioessays. 2000 Dec; 22(12): 1067–1074): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2929355/
2) “Like father like son. A fresh review of the inheritance of acquired characteristics” (EMBO Rep. 2007 Sep; 8(9): 798–803.): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1973965/
I also found this interesting: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2021155/
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