Counter-Currents
3,073 words
Translation: French, Slovak, Spanish
Author’s Note:
The following text is the basis of a lecture delivered in New York City on April 5, 2015 and again at The London Forum on April 11, 2015. As the recording will show, at The London Forum, I rapidly departed from the text and condensed it dramatically to leave time for Q&A. The audio is available on the London Forum’s YouTube channel.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) was a German philosopher, playwright, and essayist. He was also a Freemason. On October 14, 1771 he was initiated into Freemasonry in the Lodge of the Three Golden Roses in Hamburg. Lessing apparently had high hopes for Freemasonry, but he became rapidly disillusioned. In 1776–’77, Lessing wrote Ernst and Falk: Dialogues for Freemasons, which was dedicated to Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, one of Germany’s most illustrious Freemasons.
In the dialogues, I believe that the character of Falk expresses Lessing’s own ideal version of Freemasonry, while the experiences of Ernst represent Lessing’s disappointment with the real thing, namely its snobbishness and occultism. Falk flatly states that no good man should join a Masonic lodge. He does, however, defend a kind of Freemasonry from Ernst’s objections. But what emerges in the process is an unusual form of Freemasonry which is anti-egalitarian, politically conservative—specifically conservative of historical identities and national differences—and based on eternal principles of natural law, which can be known by reason, as opposed to a mystical tradition passed along through initiation. In short, this is not your father’s Freemasonry.
Most Rightists today regard Freemasonry as a subversive institution, opposed to Christianity, monarchy, and nationalism and promoting secularism, republicanism, and globalism. I am, however, increasingly weary of broad-brush reactionary anti-modernism. If I lived in the 18th century, I would have been a Left-wing radical. I think that the separation of Church and state, religious freedom, and political secularism are all good things. I too think absolute monarchy is a bad idea. Monarchy is just fine, though, as long as it is constitutional, i.e., bound by laws and part of a mixed regime which counterbalances it with popular and aristocratic power. I applaud Freemasonry’s contributions to those changes, which I regard as genuine improvements. Progress, if you will.
I also applaud Freemasonry’s contributions to the quest for trans-national institutions that can help mediate conflicts between different states and avoid or abbreviate the scourge of war. However, as a nationalist, I am opposed to globalization, meaning a single world government and/or economic system, because of its destructive consequences: the breakdown of borders, the homogenization of cultures, and the mixture of the races.
Thus I was delighted to discover that Lessing’s Ernst and Falk sets forth a conception of Freemasonry that explicitly rejects global government and wishes to conserve the differences between different nations and states, while remaining fully cognizant that we need institutions to prevent these differences from turning into hatred and bloodshed.
This is a conception of Freemasonry that helps to reconcile competing tendencies within the contemporary New Right, which is divided between advocates of “petty” nationalism, who envision a Europe of a hundred flags, and advocates of “grandiose” nationalism, who dream of a politically unified Europe, from Iceland to Vladivostok.
Ernst and Falk consists of five dialogues. The principal argument is found in the second one. Lessing argues that even if the single best constitution could be invented, this would not imply a single world government. Such a government would be impossible to administer. Thus power would have to devolve upon smaller units. So far, so good: this is textbook conservative political realism, not one-world utopianism.
Lessing goes on to state that the most natural political sovereign units are ethnic groups: Englishmen, Frenchmen, Swedes, Russians, Spaniards, etc. Lessing also recognizes that the differences between nations—which he thinks can in part be explained by climate—would eventually mean differences in constitutions.
Ethnonationalists can applaud this idea as well. We know that the most harmonious and well-functioning society is racially, culturally, religiously, and linguistically homogeneous. We also believe that the best constitution is not a one-size-fits all totalitarian boiler suit, but is rather a unique garment tailored to fit the distinct genius of a people.
But Lessing is also realistic about the problems with ethnonationalism. Ethnicity may unify a state, but it does so at the expense of dividing states from one another, laying the foundations for distrust and discord. We who think that Germans and Italians and Englishmen have too much in common to risk shedding one another’s blood, lament strife among Europeans and think that we need some sort of suprapolitical or transpolitical order to mediate disputes amongst us and coordinate our relations with the other racial and civilizational blocs: Islam, India, Africa, China, etc.
Lessing, furthermore, recognizes that mankind has many different religions, which are not going to disappear any time soon. Religion can unify a people, but again at the expense of dividing them from other religious communities, laying the groundwork for strife.
Finally, Lessing recognizes that within each political community, individuals are divided from one another by differences of power and wealth. Lessing flatly denies human equality. Some men will rule, and others will be ruled. Even if all property were evenly distributed, unequal men will manage their estates differently, and in a couple of generations, there would be extremes of wealth and poverty, which can also cause social strife.
As Falk puts it, “the means for uniting human beings, for assuring their happiness through association, also divide them” (p. 23).[1] A state is united by a common ethnicity, but the ethnicity that unites it also divides it from its neighbors. The religion that unites a group also divides it from followers of other faiths. A social class shared in common also divides us from other classes.
The duty of a good statesman is to protect the interests of his people. The duty of a pious believer is hold to the tenets and observances of his faith. A dutiful father looks after the interests of his family, whether rich or poor. But when destructive conflicts between nations, religions, and social classes arise, harmony can best be preserved or restored by men who are willing to go above and beyond their more particular duties in order to serve the interests of a larger whole.
One can attain peace without rethinking one’s interests simply through conquest or exhaustion. But peace through destruction is costlier than seeking peace through reconciliation, which requires an appeal to more general interests.
Interestingly enough, both Ernst and Falk accept the modern idea that the purpose of the state is to help us achieve our individual ends. They deny the classical idea that there is a common good to which individuals must subordinate their private aims whenever they conflict. Yet only recourse to the idea of a higher good can resolve the conflicts between more particular goods.
Lessing recognizes that within every nation, religion, and social class, there have always been individuals who are not merely dutiful but narrow partisans of their particular groups. Throughout history, these individuals have gone above and beyond their particular duties because they have a sense of obligation to a greater whole.
These individuals, moreover, are not scattered, solitary, and ineffectual. They are united together in a community of their own, a community that transcends national, religious, and social divisions. This community, Lessing’s Falk claims, are Freemasons: “the Freemasons may be these very men who have taken on the job of re-establishing human solidarity, including this in their proper business.”
A concern with human solidarity is above and beyond the proper business, the particular duty, of a man just insofar as he is a Frenchman, a Catholic, and a bourgeois, for example. But it is not above and beyond the duty of a Freemason. Indeed, caring for human solidarity is the duty of a Freemason.
This is the solution to a riddle that Falk poses to Ernst at the end of the first dialogue, namely: “The true deeds of the Freemasons aim at making most of the deeds commonly called good superfluous” (p. 19). Falk also adds that the true deeds of Freemasons are good, indeed superlatively good. The “good deeds” to be made superfluous are equivalent to deeds above and beyond particular duties. They are deeds in service of the common good. Freemasonry makes going above and beyond particular duties unnecessary, by making the common good—human solidarity—the proper duty of the Freemason.
The ultimate goal of Freemasonry, he hints, is a world in which differences of nationality, religion, and class still exist. But the conflicts between them are mediated and harmonized, for the greater good, by a transnational elite. In short, the aim of Freemasonry is not a universal homogeneous state, to borrow Alexandre Kojève’s term for the “end of history,” but a harmonious world in which real diversity flourishes, preserved by real boundaries and distinctions.
Lessing’s conservatism is also evident in his dismissive attitude toward the Freemasons of his time who were avid partisans of the American Revolution. Lessing’s goals were certainly radical and progressive for his time. He opposed absolute monarchy, religious intolerance, and all forms of narrow-minded chauvinism. But he was not a revolutionary, because he had a sense of the limits of human power to change ancient, organic institutions. In the third dialogue, Falk flatly states that mankind cannot be one, and that conflict can never be abolished but only ameliorated:
“Work against” [the unavoidable evils of human difference] may be too strong a word, if it is understood to mean “undo them.” These evils cannot be undone. It would destroy the state. They should not even be made apparent now to those who do not yet perceive them as evils. At most they can be mitigated, by distantly stirring up this perception in people, by allowing it to germinate and send out shoots, by clearing away weeds and thinning out the new plants. Now do you understand why I said that, whether or not Freemasons have always been at work, centuries may pass before one could say “That is what they wrought”? (p. 28)
In the fifth dialogue, Falk says:
The Freemason calmly waits for the sun to rise and leaves the lights on in the meantime, allowing them to shine for as long as they want to and are able. It’s not his way to snuff the candles and when they are extinguished suddenly to realize that the stubs must be relit or other light provided. (p. 40)
The dawn, of course, is the Enlightenment. The candles are the existing institutions. The revolutionary hastily snuffs the candles before the dawn, leaving us stumbling in the dark. The true Freemason has the patience to wait until new institutions emerge. And when they do emerge, there is usually no harm in leaving the old candles lit. For the tourists.
Lessing claims that his thesis is proven by the behavior of the Freemasons of his time, who seek to create a meritocratic community that transcends divisions of nationality, religion, and social class. Lessing claims that Freemasonry is an open conspiracy in terms of its means and goals. But Freemasonry distracts people from its primary project in two ways. First, to distract people from their open, secular agenda, Freemasons promote the idea that they are primarily an esoteric, initiatic religious order. Second, since most people still suspect Freemasons of a secular agenda, Freemasons counter by suggesting they are all about mutual aid and philanthropy, and drinking too much, and wearing funny hats. Lessing insists, however, that the aim of Freemasonry is entirely secular, but also lofty and of utmost seriousness.
The Freemasons’ real deeds are so great and of such long range that centuries may pass before it can be said, “This was their doing.” Yet they have done everything good in the world, note well, in the world. And they continue to work for all the good that is to be in the world, note well, in the world. (p. 19)
This lofty world-historical goal, I suggest, is the creation of a world in which diversity flourishes in harmony, rather than consumes itself in strife.
Freemasonry is an initiatic society, in which a tradition is passed from teacher to student. From the start, however, Falk rejects both initiation and tradition. He does not believe he is a Freemason simply because he has been accepted as a Freemason. Instead, he believes that he is a Freemason because he understands the nature and purposes of Freemasonry. Falk believes that he can know the nature and purpose of Freemasonry without initiation because Freemasonry is “a necessity, grounded in the nature of man and of civil society” (p. 16). If Freemasonry were not grounded in nature, it would be a “superfluity,” a mere convention that could only be acquired from other men. Thus the words, symbols, and rituals of Freemasonry, which are merely conventional, must be external to the true nature of Freemasonry.
This implies that there can be Freemasons in name only: men who have been initiated into Freemasonry but do not understand its true nature and purpose. It also implies that there can be true Freemasons who have never entered a lodge because they have learned their Freemasonry from nature herself. Falk claims the Freemasonry has the same relationship to the Lodge as Christianity to the Church, and it is clear that Falk is a Protestant or even a deist, meaning that he has access to religious truth without the mediation of religious traditions and institutions.
Lessing claims that Freemasonry is as old as human society. This is false if he is talking about historically existing Freemasonry. This makes it clear that Lessing is using “Freemasonry” as a generic term for any form of community that seeks to transcend narrow particularisms of nation, religion, and class. Falk claims that in every society, leading citizens gather together around a table with food and wine to broaden their perspectives, harmonize particular interests, and work for the common good.
Lessing does not offer specific historical examples. How could he, though, if such groups strive for secrecy? He simply deduces the existence of such bodies from their necessity. At the very least, we can say that every society that is equipped to meet the challenges of existence and to flourish must have such bodies. One could interpret the Nocturnal Council in Plato’s Laws as a kind of ideal conservative Freemasonry. But it is merely another theory, not an historical example.
The 20th-century German political theorist Carl Schmitt opposed Freemasonry, but Lessing’s ideal conservative Freemasonry overlaps significantly with Schmitt’s political theory. First, both Schmitt and Lessing recognize that human difference and thus conflict can never be abolished. They can only be ameliorated. Second, both Schmitt and Lessing recognize that the good of a political order requires someone above and beyond that order. For Schmitt, this is the Sovereign, who is empowered to decide when the existing institutions are facing a crisis they are not designed to handle. For Lessing, Freemasons stand above and beyond the existing institutions, resolving conflicts that they cannot handle on their own. This is not the full function of the sovereign, but it is an important one.
Lessing’s ideal conservative Freemasonry also overlaps with a Turkish contribution to political philosophy, the idea of the “deep state” (deren devlet). The Turkish deep state consists of a covert network centered in the military and intelligence services but extending into the judiciary and the business sector, and overlapping both with organized crime and the crypto-Jewish Dönmeh community. The purpose of the deep state is to preserve the secular Kemalist constitution against Islamism, Left-wing radicalism, and Kurdish separatism. During political crises, the deep state, acting through the military, has suspended democratic institutions to preserve the Kemalist state.
Every society ultimately has—or will acquire, under conditions of crisis—a deep state, a group standing above and beyond the official institutions, who are the system’s last line of defense. This is a kind of Freemasonry, although for Lessing, the true Freemason is not just a partisan of his own state but serves broader interests. For Lessing, the highest form of Freemasonry would function as the “deep state” of the entire world. World government may be impossible, but its desirable traits can be embodied by Freemasonry.
Lessing’s ideal conservative Freemasonry probably has little to do with historical Freemasonry. But Lessing was not trying to describe existing Freemasonry, he was trying to reshape it. So let’s set aside historical Freemasonry and simply consider Lessing’s idea.
I believe that whites need something like Lessing’s ideal conservative Freemasonry, not just for conflict resolution, but also to serve as the guardian of the laws and the guiding intelligence of our race. In order to survive, whites desperately need vision and long-term planning. We must reject populist suspicion of transnational elites. We will not survive by thinking small and being dumb. We will only survive by thinking bigger and being smarter than our enemies. The best way to defeat an elite is to be a better elite. We will only defeat the enemy’s transnational elite with our own.
Lessing’s vision of a world in which diverse nations, religions, and classes flourish within real borders, harmonized through the work of a broad-minded, transnational elite who make the welfare of the whole their business just is the vision of the New Right.
If European man is to survive with our differences intact, we need a kind of Freemasonry. Indeed, the New Right already functions that way.[2] And if the world is going to survive with its differences intact—if Europe is going to live at peace with the other global civilizational blocs—the most broadminded among us must meet with the most broadminded among them.
So when do we start? If Lessing is right, whenever broadminded people gather to discuss the welfare of the world, Freemasonry is afoot. So don’t ask “When do we start?,” because we already have.
Notes
1. All quotes are from Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, “Ernst and Falk: Dialogues for Freemasons,” a translation with notes by Chaninah Maschler, Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 14 (1986): 1–50.
2. Lessing’s claim that Freemasonry is in fact an open conspiracy points to the later views of Johann-Gottfried Herder, who held that the Enlightenment “Republic of Letters,” rather than a secret society, was the true embodiment of a trans-national elite. I explore the limits of the secret society model and the benefits of a non-hierarchical distributed network model in my “Metapolitics and Occult Warfare.”
16 comments
Greg,
You might like this passage from Eugène Gellion-Danglar’s book La République française et l’Europe (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1875), pp. 73-74:
“If the near-totality of the population of Europe belongs to the Aryan branch of the White race, the progressive branch par excellence, the elite of humanity, it is no less true that it is necessary to distinguish the varied branches and diverse nuances which absolutely refuse to be confounded, but of which it is possible, desirable, and very soon will be necessary to bring together, to unite, to link together in a harmonious ensemble.
“The institution of the United States of Europe, founded on the free consent of the peoples and on respect for the patriotism of each of them, is alone capable of making this rapprochement, this union, this confederation pass from the domain of pure speculation into that of accomplished facts.”
Unfortunately, as Gellion-Danglar went on to remark (p. 80):
“It is profoundly distressing to think that there still does not exist, at the time in which we write, common bases, similar aspirations, and points of contact between the different powers of our Occident sufficient to lead them to a complete entente founded on the principle of the solidarity of nations, and to bring forth, before the eyes of the astonished world, the dream of yesterday, the reality of tomorrow, the United States of Europe. Be that as it may, one can be certain that the signing of a general peace, founded on the principles of liberty and the independence of the great and small European agglomerations, on the holy alliance of peoples open to the voluntary accession of kindred and sympathetic groups, and on the idea, eminently pacific, philosophic, and humane, of the future creation of the United States of Europe, will, when it can take place in such conditions, inaugurate for the world an era of veritable glory, durable prosperity, and certain progress.”
Gellion-Danglar also wrote Les sémites et le sémitisme au point de vue ethnographique, religieux et politique (Paris: Maissonneuve et Cie, 1882).
Greg – Your speech’s passage that “Lessing’s vision of a world in which diverse nations, religions, and classes flourish within real borders, harmonized through the work of a broad-minded, transnational elite who make the welfare of the whole their business just is the vision of the New Right” is spot on. I believe the fairly good relationships between the parties in Europe vilified as “far-right” and the solidarity they have mostly shown each other in the European Parliament demonstrates that one can be an effective nationalist and understand that position from a global position as well. Of course, the absence of any credible American movement in that global grouping speaks volumes about the scope of our struggle here.
In the American context, for this same reason, I’ve often thought the European-American nationalists should have constructive working ties with African-American nationalists.
When George Lincoln Rockwell, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X Shared the Same Stage
William H. Schmaltz June 25, 1961
http://www.anthonyflood.com/rockwellelijah.htm
I have certainly seen the picture of the ANP leader and other party members in the hall with NoI types, good to have the context now, thank you.
On the larger point, perhaps it is because I have spent a large part of my working life abroad, but I truly feel that the African-American is tied to me and my people in an organic way that, say, Chinese or Indian immigrants are not (and especially not Latinos, who have more than 25 nations of their own in the Western Hemisphere and are not in need of mine). As this country becomes more Latinoized, and blacks writ large experience what Latinos did to them in, say, Compton and learn first hand how black people are treated by Latinos…well, I think we’ll have a nice opportunity then to find a nexus of agreement on a solution.
“I truly feel that the African-American is tied to me and my people in an organic way that, say, Chinese or Indian immigrants are not” And that, while understandable, is a large part of America’s problem. White (European) and Black (African) are totally different heritages and do not belong together. And if everything that the Negro touches quickly turns to shite (see Detroit, St. Louis and a host of other cities, too many to count), it’s rather not surprising that the organic White culture of the USA was the first to fall into cosmopolitan oblivion. By the way, Hispanics may have ‘countries of their own’, although it does not do to always generalize them into one monolithic group, but Blacks in the Americas also have their own nations (Jamaica, Haiti, Belize, the Guyanas, and what wonderful places they are!). Hispanics have been in the US longer and have probably contributed more I imagine. If you, like many Americans, can’t let go of your conventional ties with the Negro versus other groups, including Europeans, then you’re doomed to extinction anyway, and have already inherited the kind of country you deserve.
Leon – You misunderstand me. When I say that I view African-Americans as having more of an organic connection to me and my nation, European-Americans, in a manner that Vietnamese, Latino or Chinese immigrants do not, that does not imply that I wish to live beside them.
What I meant is that when the time comes for a serious struggle for a European-American nation-state and homeland, we may find allies among blacks seeking their own homeland rather than to continue on in a liberal state dominated by Latinos.
Whatever the individual merits of a people or a race may be–and I know quite of lot of talented, decent, honorable men who are black or latino–isn’t relevant. They are not of my nation. However, more than two centuries of living side-by-side have created a large tie between my people and African-Americans.
Believe me, when one lives overseas, especially in Latin America, this becomes blindingly obvious.
@ K. Donoghue: I don’t think I did misunderstand you though. You say that European-Americans have an ‘organic connection’ with Negroes. Since no one can argue that the cohabitation of Europeans and Black Africans in the United States came about organically, I take what you mean to say is that there is a profound and important connection between the two communities, rather than a superficial one. You say that living side-by-side has created a large tie between you and the Negro. You contrast this with ‘immigrants’ but you mention Latinos also. In my opinion, this revealing of a great flaw in contemporary American identity. Putting aside for now that ‘Latinos’ are highly diverse group, ranging from mostly homogeneous mixes of European and Amerindian ancestry like Mexico, to largely Hispanicized European immigrant populations, like Argentina, to total cesspools of miscegenation between Blacks, Whites, Reds, and every other race imaginable (as in Brazil, and the Caribbean). Nonetheless, it strikes me that European-Americans and all ‘Latino’ nations have at least as much in common as they do with Negroes. They were all created by people of Western European heritage in the Americas, who developed their cultures alongside Amerindian Aboriginals, and imported Negro slaves, later freedmen.
And yet they seem so alien to you, in contrast to the Negro, presumably because the former do not speak English while the latter does. This tells me that Americans, even White Nationalists, still cling to superficial markers of identity, such as language, a handful of recent customs, and of course, ideology, when deciding their politics. This in my view is a deep threat to the development of a stronger, more potentially organic and profound identity based on heritage, deep culture, and deep history. Do you, for example, feel as many so-called ‘American nationalists’ do, more in common with your local Negroes than with your cousins across the Atlantic; Britons, French, Germans, Russians, Hungarians? It wouldn’t be surprising if you did, but then that’s the sort of superficial, rootless cultural identity that needs to be opposed, and destroyed if European people (Whites) are ever to recover from their decline, or even just survive extinction.
Now acknowledging the potential benefit of a political alliance does not imply any sort of ‘organic connection’. While I’m all for an alliance with Black separatists if it does us any good, and I admit I do rather respect the NOI, your notion of ‘American identity ‘ shall we say, seems to preclude any possibility of dealing with Latino nationalists as well. I don’t see any reason why that should be. No, latinos are not going to ‘dominate the country’, that’s a sick joke. Yes, latinos are going to keep pouring across the Southwest border so long as we continue to let them. But at this point, I think it’s obvious to most nationalists that the US was far too big to work anyways. Maybe we ought to tell Mexicans they can have that dried up part of the country they claim was once theirs, so long as they allow us to a draw a permanent line before the cooler climes where our kind belongs. In principle, it’s the same thing as Black separatism.
You’re being over-emotional, I think. The article clearly states that Lessing’s idea of Freemasonry was totally imaginary and distinct from historical Freemasonry, which as you said, became a Jewish project early on. However, I must admit the statement “I applaud Freemasonry’s contributions to those changes [from monarchy to a secular mixed regime]” gave me pause. What exactly were these contributions made by historical Freemasonry, and just what did they look like? Do they include the alleged involvement in the American Revolution, which Greg Johnson earlier expressed negative feelings for? Personally, I too prefer a mixed and religiously tolerant regime to a theocracy, but I have to wonder if there was ever a time when Freemasons’ allegiance lay with European man, and not the Jew-friendly and abstract ‘rational man’ of Enlightenment imagination.
That’s not true. As late as 1952, Jews were excluded from lodges in Sweden and some Grand Lodges in Germany.
‘Historical Freemasonry’ – however genuine its spiritual foundations may have been – bears all the marks and has the character of the third caste, the artisans, builders, and merchants (which can be seen in its symbols and terminology), and so it was susceptible to subversion, especially after 1717. It was not fundamentally a Jewish project. Pointing out some of the Jewish symbols (or at least those associated with Jews) or terminology used in Freemasonry or notable Jewish Freemasons does not prove a fundamentally Jewish heritage. If it did, we could also say the Catholic Church was a Jewish project. At most we can say that Freemasonry as a phenomenon was in some major ways more agreeable to the modern spirit than the latter institution, and was naturally attractive to the architects of modernity, with many Jews being among them.
I don’t know for sure but I sense that the freemasonry wasn’t a Jewish project from the beginning, as it was a universalistic one. So the Jews were able to infiltrate and subvert.
Anyway, if it was a Jewish project from the beginning, many Freemasons were unaware of that.
As a Romanian example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasile_Ursu_Nicola, undoubtedly a Freemason wanted freedom for his enslaved people. He was a honest Freemason trusting his pal from the temple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor so he finished broken on the wheel.
Anyway the gold river from this area http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C8%9Aara_Mo%C8%9Bilor toward the Viennese Rothschild’s flew unabatedly. Ursu Nicola was exactly from this region. (As a curiosity two Jewish faction are disputing the gold from this area again; I mean right now).
There are few more nationalist-Freemasons in the Romanian history, most of them died either horrible or in terrible poverty. Anyway, after 1870 I think the Jewish control of the Romanian Freemasonry was complete, no known Freemason having an anti-Jewish stance.
I don’t know how much more explicit I could have been that Lessing is not talking about historical Freemasonry, and a fortiori, he was not talking about the future history of historical Freemasonry.
That was perfectly understood. Your texts are always clear and beautifully written. And I do thank you for that. I know that you might have expected more comments on Lessing’s idea than the historical Freemasonry.
My argument was that even the historical Freemasonry for some time, or at least individual Freemasons worked in Lessing’s sense. (I can name few Romanian Freemasons that worked this way to some degree). So, their deeds deserve attention and second, what was wrong just from the beginning that allowed the subversion. If it is to start such an association.
Freemasonry is a very emotional issue in our milieu, even more so in France where so many are descended from those who felt the guillotine. It is hard to keep online discussions on track when it comes to emotional issues.
The point is, can a Secret Society(ies) serve our purposes in an intermediate stage between today (unorganized virtual intellectual community) and the days before we take power (political party, militia, and/or a combine of senior military officers)?
The answer is “Yes”!
A lobby on K Street is not an option for us like it is for other intellectual movements in a similar stage of development.
Objective study of Secret Societies, both European (Masons, Carbonari, Golden Circle, etc.) and non-European (Triads/Hongmen, Muslim Brotherhood, politicized Shi’a Sects and Sufi Tariqa, etc) will be very useful in in getting it right. This is a good start.
I know the conversation continues in the back rooms of pubs and restaurants, which is where it is most fruitful.
It is hard to work this out online without looking more like we are writing a sci-fi novel by committee than building a movement.
Leon – You are mostly arguing with yourself at this point, taking issue with things I haven’t said and assuming points that are nowhere near reality. No, I don’t think that blacks have a closer relationship with European-Americans than Latinos because blacks speak English and Latinos don’t. As it happens, my Spanish is fine, I read the Spanish language press daily, my evening news is Univision’s (much better than any other major broadcast, btw) and I have lived and worked in two of the great capitals of South America.
The point is minor. I think it is so, you do not; yet, we both want a European-American national state in North America without either, so take it a little easy comrade. We don’t want to do the Leftist ideological Judean-People’s-Front, People’s-Front-of-Judea splitter routine.
The only thing I will say on your points is this: Nice non-racist white people use a web site called city-data to secretly look up race data on neighborhoods and schools, and it is a very useful resource. Go ahead and pick 5 small town in the West, Pac NW, Mid-West or South, you know, where you clearly don’t live and, so, don’t realize the magnitude of the changes. Drill down to racial breakdown in the elementary school system.
This was a great talk – but I did not fully understand it. I understand the written word better than the spoken word – so reading it has been very helpful to me.
It is surely right that we must fight globalist elitism with a different kind of globalist elitism. Fight fire with fire.
One thing I would query is whether conflict, war, bloodshed, etc. is altogether damaging. It seems to be necessary to human societies – I am not sure that eliminating it is A) possible or B) desirable.
I have just come back from a live screening in a cinema of the Globe Theatre’s production of Julius Caesar. This is an awful play in many ways, though the language is superb, as always with Shakespeare. It is quite dreary in some respects – the bloodshed is relentless. All the same, it is kind of uplifting. In a similar paradox, the role of women is secondary, yet somehow immensely important – almost BECAUSE it is entirely secondary.
Lessing is an admirable playwright, and his exploration of Freemasonry (outside his plays) is equally admirable. Yet it is difficult to avoid comparing him with Shakespeare, and finding that Shakespeare – whose spelling was erratic and whose ideas whirled about in an equally unpredictable and chaotic manner – is so far ahead of the game as to be in a different league altogether (a league of one, possibly, so not a league really).
I had forgotten that Julius Caesar opens with some banter between Flavius, Marullus and “certain commoners”. The banter centres around the types of profession which were central to the original FreeMasons (who were simply the old medieval Guilds, with Masons being the most important). “Being mechanical, you ought not walk Upon a labouring day without the sign
Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?” One of the commoners is a carpenter, another a cobbler. Then the play moves away to affairs of state, and the commoners do not feature, except as a rather awful rabble inclined towards kangaroo courts.
Yet Shakespeare, given a gentleman’s education by a glove-maker father who wanted his son to move upwards, clearly retained a soft spot for his roots, despite his posh classical education bought with “new money”. Lessing greatly admired Shakespeare, and did a lot to make him popular in Germany. It seems possible that although Lessing was not a tradesman’s son himself, he shared Shakespeare’s respect for people very unlike himself. Both men also shared a respect for elites – provided they were not corrupted by too much ambition. These shared convictions seem crucial to Nationalism – and I think this might be why this talk was really stimulating. It is easy for Nationalism to become National Socialism – but is this really the right direction for Nationalism to take?
Edith, thank you for your very thoughtful and kind comments. I am between trips, totally tired, and not up to the task of an equally thoughtful comment.
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