49:03 / 112 words
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Greg Johnson interviews Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute and Washington Summit Publishers about his new webzine Radixjournal.com. Topics include:
- The aims of Radixjournal.com
- The relationship of the webzine to the Radix print journal and Radix publishing imprint
- The future of print publishing
- The upcoming Radix volume on Pop Fascism
- The controversial end of Alternative Right
- 2014 plans for NPI, WSP, and Radix
We apologize for the audio quality of Richard’s portion of the interview, which sounds a little garbled and clipped on the low end.
33 Comments
Can we use a little will to power and put aside our differences for the sake of the race? Every race is a race of jerks, so let’s just be above it all.
Richard is a well brought up highly educated European American. His people terminate business and social arrangements in a more mature and considerate manner. This affair reminds one of an ‘African no’.
Spencer, as ever, talks very sweetly but says a lot of crap. There is no denying the man’s charm, just as there is no denying the charm of many popular politicians and successful used-car salesman, but basically all he is saying is:
“I killed a perfectly good site with hundreds of articles, tens of thousands of regular readers, millions of hits, and one of the few brands for dissident viewpoints because I was too lazy to edit, not every article was ideal to how I want to be perceived, and – boo hoo, sob – Rachel Maddow criticized me.”
Plus: “I destroyed important personal alliances that will now be almost impossible to rebuild while pissing away much of my credit in the movement simply because I was too egoistical to see AltRight as the collective effort that it was.”
Richard’s communication skills would have been better served keeping Andy and me in the loop rather than trying to charm the Counter-Currents audience so that we could have worked out a solution that served all our interests as well as those of the wider movement.
My anger at Spencer (and also that of Andy, who is one of the most mild-mannered people I know) is genuine and something I have to deal with in a way that does the least harm to our movement, but I also hope that the fact that it exists will continue to surprise Spencer (who reveals an interesting blind spot in that he never expected it) and help educate him into turning down the glare of his ego enough to see some of his faults in this matter.
Essentially I wish him and Radix well so long as he gives up his insane quest to found his new venture on the mangled corpses of his previous venture.
Colin, I will allow you one swipe at Richard because he took one at you, but it ends here.
I hope you guys eventually apologize to one another (because you both have legitimate grievances) and hug it out, for the greater good.
Let me also state, for the record, that if I ever decide to stop publishing CC/NANR, I will simply mothball the site, keep it online forever, and give all authors carte blanche to republish their work as they wish. I don’t think that will happen, though, but it needs saying.
I wonder why Mr. Spencer chose the word “Radix”.
Is it connected with the word ‘radical’?
Yes, radical is derived from radix, which is the Latin word for “root” or “foundation”, “origin”.
In Richard Spencer’s own words:
Richard Spencer strikes me as the professional. Why in the world would you want to repeat his mistake and establish a business relationship with Collin Liddell? Liddell has attacked you and ridiculed you. He didn’t have the judgment not to publish “Is Black Genocide Right”? And in the aftermath of this unfortunate business dispute about a web site, he’s the only one being unprofessional. He speaks in terms of dicktators and just told us Spencer is “too lazy” to edit?
There is something juvenile and reckless about this man. In one of those Hitler threads, I’m pretty sure I remember him boasting that he has enough personal wealth to be set for life and therefore not give a shit about the consequences of actions. That remark said more about him than I think he realized. He does come across as trust fund loudmouth at times.
I don’t propose establishing a business relationship with Colin, beyond publishing him from time to time.
Hey, I liked this interview, and I appreciate that you got Richard to talk more about the issue. I pretty much agree 100% with what Richard said about Colin. The guy definitely has self-control issues, but he is a very good writer when he’s being edited and held to very high expectations. It’s a shame he doesn’t hold himself to high expectations, because he can definitely meet them.
In some ways, I think the internet has done a great job of weeding out people like Colin from high influence in public discourse. I’ve read some of Karl Marx’s letters, and he also can get really nasty and vitriolic, despite being a brilliant (albeit obviously wrong) thinker and good writer. If the internet existed during Marx’s time, he probably would have gotten into a bunch of stupid flame wars and made everyone go, “Man, this Karl Marx guy needs to shut up. I certainly wouldn’t but any of his books — he’s much too butthurt.”
And of course all the criticisms toward Richard are valid, I think. He obviously hurt people’s feelings.
The only one who really looks good in the fallout of all of this is Andy Nowicki.
A toast to Andy!
Point well taken, but I have to point out that Marx actually did a fair amount of “flaming” even without the help of the intertubes. He and Engels had a cottage industry of writing ponderously Germanic “funny” attacks on anyone who dared to think for themselves: Bauer, Proudhon, Stirner, etc.
For decades, Stirner was known only as the subject of Marx’s ire, in a book about 3 times the size of Stirner’s own (called “St. Max”, ahahahah, get it? No?)
It all goes back to the Christers, who I think originated the concept of the ‘flame war’ by simply burning their opponents’ books, leaving scholars with no record of their enemies except their own “refutations.”
Hahaha, I suppose you are right! Although according to this wikipedia article I just accessed, their anti-Stirner tirade in its whopping 500-page entirety was not published until the 1930s — probably for the greater good of the universal proletariat.
Trolls of the world, unite!
I believe Richard was afraid of the flak he received from the Left and Rachel Maddow. The way he did it was wrong and he needs to apologize to Colin. Colin’s angry reaction is justified.
There’s nothing wrong with Richard being embarrassed and irritated by being held responsible for things that were published on Alternative Right after he left it. I completely sympathize with him. I neglected to mention it in the interview, but there was a brief period when Hunter Wallace (!) was put in charge of TOQOnline after I was fired from The Occidental Quarterly. Of course he didn’t last long. But frankly, I would have preferred to burn it down than see him squatting in the house that I built.
But it is easy to avoid these sorts of conflicts. Cyberspace is infinite, after all. So why fight over little patches of it as if it were physical ground? When the owner of a site wants to end it, other people can put websites online very quickly and very cheaply.
Yes, brands and established audiences are important. But in cyberspace, these things rise and fall rather quickly, so whenever there is a conflict, the smart thing is to split and set up different shops. The system regards us as a cancer. Well, let’s start thinking like one. The faster we divide and metastasize, the quicker we will kill it.
Start thinking like a Cancer: now that’s a powerful image and one worthy of a lot of thought. Any White Nationalist Oncologists out there? That would make a hell of an article.
Excuse me, but what about the readership? I see no new articles for weeks and finally realize something is amiss and have to do a Sherlock Holmes impression to find out whats going on. It seemed as if that detestable philosemite that is always threatening to become a moderator finally did. Enormously unprofessional, self centered, and not at all cricket is how it seems to me. I understand wanting to protect ones “brand”, but this comes of as essentially allowing Rachel Maddow to shut down a valuable resource and an interesting community of regular commentators. To say this was handled poorly would be a supreme understatement.
The eternal fate of right-wing groups who multiply by cell division.
I couldn’t help this impression, but in last months before the plug was pulled the commentariat of AltRight seemed to be made up 80% of obnoxious, narcisstic retards with flashy costume Nazi avatars.
That was my impression too.
After listening to this and “Silent Night of the Long Knives” I think it’s obvious that Richard is too clever by half. Why he thinks Radix as a brand is better than Alternative Right I don’t understand. Radix sounds like a new line of kitchen stoves, Alternative Right is a perfect encapsulation of the mindset of the movement. To me, it seems that he’s created more work and enmity for himself.
I think “Radix” is not a very clever choice as a title. For anyone who isn’t familiar with Latin it sounds way too odd without being catchy, and for anyone who is it is a bit all-too sophisticated and pretentious.
I agree that it is an inferior brand to Alternative Right, but I think that Richard really feels the brand has been ruined.
In the “What I Was Thinking” podcast on the Radix Journal site, Richard Spencer explains why he did this, and it wasn’t a branding issue. Radix is a more radical concept, and the world “right” was deliberately avoided to steer clear of the entire right-left divide inherited from the French Revolution. Radix is the next step beyond Alternative Right, not a continuation of Alternative Right under a different name. It’s intended to do more deep thinking and promote a radical new vision of a future society, which is not what AR was all about.
I generally liked Alternative Right – the concept was good, and there’s certainly a place for a webzine covering that ground. However, Richard is no longer interested in doing that any longer, so there is no reason for him to continue it. As a radical, I’m more on the same wavelength as Radix, so I hope it works out well and turns out to be what Richard envisions.
Izak wrote:
The only one who really looks good in the fallout of all of this is Andy Nowicki.
A toast to Andy!
Seriously? Andy was possibly the worst thing about Alt-Right. Have you seen his latest piece on masturbation?
http://alternative-right.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/wank-yankers-new-frontier-in-marriage.html
The guy’s a total dork who made Alt-Right look silly, amateurish, and uncool.
It’s understandable that Richard would want to distance himself from this rubbish.
I personally can’t stand Andy’s blog posts. He seems far more concerned with blogging about the same sexual themes over and over than thinking about the bigger picture — which includes variety and breadth. To put it gently: one gets the feeling that his own personal hobby horses are the driving force behind most of his work on these topics, not any loftier or more practical ideas.
I’ve never read one of his novels, so they could be amazing for all I know. As a blogger, however, he just doesn’t seem to have much to say. I’m not defending his blog posts.
I’m defending his decision to avoid stupid flame wars over questionable business decisions.
Gee, I thought sneaky stab your friends in the back and then blame them was what teenage girls and church ladies did.
Only I can resolve this.
Bondi Beach, Sydney, December 2014.
Colin and Richard agree to meet at sunset and beat the shit out of one another until the sun disappears in the west.
After, we scoop up all the bikini-clad women in sight, and head to the nearest watering hole.
I’d pay to see.
That’s actually much better than how we tend to handle things, with petty backbiting and hissy fits.
The unfortunate thing about it for me is actually the end of the Vanguard Radio podcasts. Talk and writing in the alternative right is often so focused on the “heavy” topics, that a lighter touch like the Vanguard podcasts was very welcome. In those shows, Richard, Colin and Andy seemed like friends, and I found their discussions entertaining for this very reason. Even their voices, a combination of high (Spencer and Liddell) and low (Nowicki) worked well together. To my mind more podcasting focusing on culture and lighter topics, in an informal format, would be most welcome and perhaps, with the right combination of personalities and intellects, less onerous to produce. Maybe that’s something to consider here at CC.
I’m sorry but i just stumbled into all of this recently…& stuff like this has my eyes go wide & i say: ‘What…on…earth???’ (I just read the Andy Nowicki thing & i just want to say 1) maybe he was exhausted when he wrote that, 2) altho i get it i still have to say ‘I fear for their sanity!’ — Cow in Cow&Chicken) I spend sometimes 8-16 hours reading til i have eyestrain trying to reconstruct this stuff to the point that i have any idea what you folks are talking about. I hope & pray CC doesn’t go down in flames. Maybe someone could write a primer of “The Essential Stuff You Need To Know For Those Of You Who Are Movement-Clueless & Just Joined Us 5 Minutes Ago”…? Btw I know basic Latin but I too had the kitchen-appliance reaction to ‘Radix’.
“Radix” really isn’t the most common Latin word. I know it from studying the Vulgate: “Radix malorum est cupiditas” = Greed is the root of evil. Chaucer has the Pardoner quote that one ironically in the prologue to his tale.
A newbie’s guide to what Greg Johnson likes to call “this thing of ours” is a good idea, perhaps in the form of a pamphlet no longer than the Communist Manifesto. The very gifted Gregory Hood would be an excellent choice to write it.