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The National Policy Institute’s 2013 Leadership Conference will be held at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC on October 26th, with related events on Friday the 25th and Sunday the 27th. There is still time to register online at http://www.npiamerica.org/2013-conference.
Though there’s much talk about “identity” in political debates these days, it’s not always clear what we are talking about. Is identity defined by Race? Language? Religion? Ethnicity? Nationhood?
The National Policy’s Institute (NPI)’s coming conference, After the Fall: the Future of Identity, will raise such questions and provide the audience with important perspectives.
While the entire Western world is facing similar and inter-related challenges nowadays—from mass non-European immigration to financial bankruptcy, from cultural debasement to social atomization—the identity of “the West” that is at stake is not clearly understood. Often, what is meant by “the West” is its neoconservative conception: liberal democracy, human rights, and cultural and religious pluralism. (Paul Gottfried has quipped that when neocons say “the West,” they seem to mean the Upper West Side.) Since this “West” doesn’t recognize race, or culture in the full sense of the word, it knows no border. It is all too often conflated with the Occident, which has a history of its own and is embodied by a particular people—the European people.
The “West” as defined by mainstream discourse is challenged by Third World immigrants today. They might be willing to benefit from the delights of a technologically advanced society, but for most of them, they keep seeing themselves as members of distinct cultures, with different and often competing interests. They rarely adhere to the liberal values that, we are supposed to believe, define our identity. Quite often, they can even outright reject them.
Third World immigration also represents an existential threat to the historic Occident. The “interesting times” ahead will thus require a reassertion of the historic Occident by European peoples, in place of the globalist “West” that makes them unable to resist their dispossession.
Indeed, the logical affirmation of their racial and cultural identity by non-European immigrants calls for a similar awakening among Western people. But before this development is possible, or even thinkable, we have to reflect on what exactly is threatening North American and European nations today, and what they should stand for. We also have to ask ourselves if the way Westerners have defined themselves since the American and French Revolutions of the late 18th century (nationhood and citizenship) is still relevant today, or if something both wider in terms of civilizational unity and narrower in terms of local community is needed.
To help our audience in that reflection, French philosopher Alain de Benoist, one of the founders and leading thinkers of what is known in Europe as the New Right, will be the keynote speaker of the conference. He will speak on “False Identity,” and will thus address the problem of restricting European civilization to a set of abstract, uprooted and most often illusory “values.”
Croatian-American writer Tomislav Sunić, who has been the link between the European New Right and the American Alternative Right, will complete De Benoist’s lecture and outline a way beyond nationalism as defined by the current nation-states. Sunic is a long-time advocate of pan-European nationalism.
Another notable speaker will be Swiss author Piero San Giorgio, who gained fame in Europe for his book Survivre à l’Effondrement économique (Survive—The Economic Collapse), which has been translated into English by NPI’s sister organization, Washington Summit Publishers, and will be released this Autumn. San Giorgio, who was a successful businessman in Geneva, made a career move to study the global economic system and concluded to its unsustainability, given its dependence on ever-expanding populations, debt, and resource exploitation. The West, as we have known it since the end of the Second World War, seems to have extinguished all its resources, human, financial and moral, but the people who carry its heritage have to find a way forward and upward, beyond the likely difficult times they are going to live in the near future.
Alex Kurtagić, who delivered a memorable speech at our first conference in 2011, “Masters of the Universe,” will add on this issue with a talk entitled “The End of the World as We Know It.” Though the collapse of the current prevailing system seems inevitable, Western people must not rely on it as a solution and be active, now, in building the post-collapse world. This necessarily begins with a moral critique of egalitarianism, and the formulation of an ethics that permits the continuity of our uniqueness as a particular expression of humanity. But few realize the importance of the ethical battleground, and leave it all to economics and some sort of magical “awakening.” Indeed, in his novel Mister, Kurtagić imagined a not-so-distant world (Europe in the 2020s) where the collapse unravels without altering the dispossession of Western people in their own homelands.
Author of The Way of Men Jack Donovan will give his own, original perspective on the coming collapse, seeing in it an opportunity to reassert manly virtues and honor, a field in which he has become a renowned expert.
Other speakers include Sam Dickson, whose speech will be about “America: The God that Failed” and Roman Bernard and Richard Spencer, co-hosts of the conference. Bernard will speak on the “generational problem” in nationalist movements.
Discussion panels will also feature John Morgan, editor-in-chief of Arktos Media; novelist Andy Nowicki, who is co-editor of Alternative Right; Matt Parrott, director of Traditionalist Youth Network and Counter-Currents.com contributor; and Mark Hackard, expert in geopolitics and foreign affairs and contributor to AlternativeRight.com.
Schedule
Friday, October 25th
Supporters dinner (7:30 PM), followed by a cash bar from 8:30 PM to 10:30 PM.
Saturday, October 26th
“After the Fall: the Future of Identity” (9:30 AM–6 :00 PM), Ronald Reagan Building : the full conference, which includes coffee breaks, a plated lunch, and heavy hors d’œuvre at the end of the day.
Cocktails (8:00–10:30 PM).
Sunday, October 27th
Louis Andrews brunch (10:00 AM–12:00 PM).
Registration (http://www.npiconferences.net)
Regular admission—$205 (Discounted student admission—$135)
Regular admission includes all Saturday speeches, a plated lunch, coffee break, and heavy hors d’œuvre after the conference.
The Louis Andrews Circle—$285 (Discounted rate for students—$235)
The Louis Andrews Circle is named in honor of NPI’s and Washington Summit Publishers’ former director and editor, Louis Andrews (1942–2011).
The Circle features all the benefits of regular admission and also grants you access to the Supporters’ Dinner on Friday night as well as the Sunday brunch.
The Louis Andrews Circle is an excellent choice for those who want the full experience of the event, as well as those interested in meeting the people behind the conference and discuss the future direction of NPI.
Nota Bene:
Student tickets are limited to 15; student-ticket holders must present valid identification from a college or university when entering event.
Regular-admission holders will have the opportunity to upgrade their tickets to the Louis Andrews Circle at the event.
Offline registration
If you prefer to register via mail, please send us a check covering registration and hotel reservation expenses, as well as your name and contact information:
The National Policy Institute
PO Box 1676
Whitefish, MT 59937
Lodging
Washington, DC, and the surrounding area features many opportunities for lodging, at various price levels.
NPI has made arrangements with a charming hotel that features excellent dining; it will host the Friday dinner, Sunday brunch, and both meet-and-greet sessions. It is thus the most convenient option for those traveling to the DC area.
In order to maintain discretion, attendees will be informed of the name and location of the hotel in the week preceding the conference.
Guests at the hotel have two options:
- Standard—$139 + 14% tax ($19.49)
- Suite—$189 + 14% tax ($26.46)
The Standard rooms feature one queen bed. The suites offer one king bed as well as fold-out couch to better accommodate two people.
All registration can be made through NPI.