Viking Supermen

2,272 words

Viking — the word itself still conjures up the stereotypical image of bloodthirsty blonde barbarians, whose rage can only be sated by acts of pillage and rapine. Fortunately, this dated historical perspective has been somewhat revised, and establishment historians now tacitly acknowledge that Norse civilization was much more complex than previously thought, and a lot less one-dimensional. For the purposes of this brief essay, I will explore the warrior spirit of our shared European Viking past so that we might glean lessons applicable to the dire situation the White race currently faces.

If you are familiar with any of my writings, you’ll know that I firmly advocate the study and superimposition of past historical experiences onto present circumstances. Julius Evola presents my view of the usefulness of history succinctly when he posits that exploration of the past isn’t done for the ghoulish resurrection of long-dead peoples or cultures, but rather for the perennial spirit that animates and gives life to both. The Vikings were many things — warriors, poets, explorers, statesmen — and in the dark days to come, I can think of no better “spirit” to invoke and study than that of our intrepid and oft-misunderstood Norse brethren. Like White Nationalism, Norse culture and the ‘Viking Age’ are still a sadly misunderstood phenomena, and this makes their examination all the more relevant. Furthermore, for centuries the Vikings were feared and hated by their non-Norse contemporaries, and later despised by generations of the anti-White academic establishment. All of this has only changed within the past several decades. What does this tell us? It illustrates that like our Viking kin, we White Nationalists will too someday be vindicated retrospectively, because nature favors the victorious, and our cause is glorious.

The Norse, like all Aryan or Indo-European people, were by origin an aristocratic-warrior people whose social structure was ordered hierarchically with an inegalitarian orientation. The Vikings loved competition. This love of competition and natural desire for prestige formed the basis of their racio-spiritual being, and in turn formed the basis of their mighty civilization. This love for competition is evidenced by the Vikings’ martial prowess and the central role combat, both heroic and militaristic, played in the formulation of the Norse ethnos. The Viking desire to engage in combat, to struggle against an opponent, wasn’t confined solely to the battlefield. In his Metaphysics of War Julius Evola posits that in combat, war isn’t necessarily about overcoming an external opponent, but more about the act of “overcoming” in a very broad and generalized sense.[1] The greatest enemies that we face, like our Norse brethren, are our human weaknesses: our fears, our passions, and our baser instincts. To “conquer” these vices through the act of self-overcoming is often more rewarding than engaging in martial combat. In the language of Nietzsche, man is something to be “overcome,” and by channeling our base animal instincts into a vessel for personal transformation, the Viking warrior, just like the postmodern White Nationalist, may become something greater. An old Nordic saying posited that Viking leaders were like bridges, and we postmodern White Nationalists must become “bridges” for our own unenlightened racial kindred, guiding them towards the light of our potential.

Combat, conflict and the love of the struggle are endemic to the White racial soul and are hardwired into our genes. Nowhere does this manifest itself more than among our Germanic/Norse/Viking kindred. Even the etymology surrounding the term “Viking” is itself a point of conflict. Some scholars argue that the term refers to a “raider,” others to a “pirate,” and some even speculate that the term refers to the multitude of inlets that jot the shorelines of Scandinavia. No matter what the actual provenance of the term, one thing is certain: Norse culture thrived on conflict and managed to sublimate this conflict into a force for creation. Moreover, conflict, competition and the struggle don’t have to be ruinous; they can be a force for positive change. Nietzsche, channeling Schopenhauer, informs us that from creation comes destruction, and vice versa, and we White Nationalists should remember this. Our actions have the potential to either create or destroy, but our future is our own to do with what we will.

Historically, productive, positive conflict is evidenced if one examines ‘Viking-Age Iceland’. The entirety of the medieval Icelandic society, and by extension its legal system, was based upon the feud. Importantly however, violence was never large scale or widespread, as peer pressure demanded that all involved parties exercise control and moderation. Violence was present, but it was a controlled violence, with legal and socially sanctioned boundaries and codes of conduct. In fact, most disputes were settled during the various semi-annual Althing assemblies, rather than in violent throes of combat. Competition and the violence which occasionally followed it, was healthy and robust, and never genocidal as is the case in most segments of the Third World today. Interestingly and quite miraculously for medieval times, ‘Viking-Age Iceland’ was governed by a social order which lacked any real type of state structure; this is a testament to the relative peace, tranquility, and homogeneous racial harmony that still exerts a great deal of influence over Iceland today. Iceland was populated by a single European people, Aryan although not all necessarily racially Norse, and it was this unity of race which fostered universal accord. Competition was the foundational glue that bound ‘Viking-Age Iceland’ together, and this type of healthy, positive competition is something that we postmodern White Nationalists should strive to cultivate within ourselves. Internal conflict is natural, but only in moderation. Conflict amongst ourselves will only be beneficial if it produces positive change.

The Vikings fought one another with ferocity, in a struggle for prestige, glory, and divine favor, but never in a manner detrimental to the totality of their civilization. The Vikings fought one another so ferociously because to do any less would be an insult and an offense to the Gods. Combat was fierce between Vikings but moderated, and exercised in a manner that showcased their intrinsic physical and spiritual strength. The actions of Nietzsche’s “blonde beast,” like the martial actions of the Vikings emanated not from malice, but from the cultivation of this strength. A defining trait of the Vikings, and of White/European civilization as a whole, is our races’ unique propensity for intraracial, low-intensity conflict. Vikings warred with other Vikings and with other closely related European peoples, but even in times of looting they did so in a fashion that relied upon discipline, control and restraint. In Nietzschean parlance, the Übermensch (‘Overman’ or ‘Superman’) is an individual who has “organized the chaos of his passions” and has done so in their quest for “joy [through positive] self-conquest.”[2] The Vikings mastered their passions, unleashing their rage when appropriate, and sheathing it when not.

The nature of the White Nationalist movement, specifically its small number of adherents, in conjunction with the fringe position it occupies in Western society is mirrored by the historical experiences of ‘Viking-Age Scandinavia.’ During the Viking Age (8th–11th century AD), Norse Scandinavia, and the entirety of Northern Europe, was extremely underpopulated, particularly when compared to the other regions of Europe which had come under Roman control. Some establishment historians have erroneously posited that Viking raiders, explorers and farmers left their homes and ventured into the “wine-dark” northern seas, solely for environmental reasons, related almost entirely to overpopulation. This assertion is childishly simplistic and mired in the unsound historical premises of historic environmental determinism. Race is a prime mover and shaker, and culture is a direct result of racial temperament; to posit contrary notions is disingenuous at best, and is clearly ideologically-driven rather than a reflection of sound historical judgment. Similarly, like our Viking kindred, we in the White Nationalist movement find ourselves outnumbered and misunderstood. If the court historians and “social scientists” of the postmodern age can’t even form an accurate understanding of our history, either because of idiocy or ideology, than the words of Nietzsche reign even truer: “life is the struggle of the many against the few, the commonplace against the rare, the weak against the strong.”[3] Our struggle is within ourselves as individuals seeking self-improvement, within our ‘dangerously’ fractured movement, and with the establishment we seek to change through our metapolitical struggle. If we wish to give battle to the reigning ideologies of the postmodern West, we must first steel ourselves, and then channel our power outward.

The impending struggles will be difficult, but nothing easy is worth overcoming, and as such we can learn a great deal from our Viking patrimony. One of the key military advantages enjoyed by the Viking warrior was their disciplined use of creativity in battle. Viking raiding parties even the so-called “Great Heathen Army” that invaded England and eventually brought about the establishment of the “Danelaw” were relatively small in size, and therefore required a bold and ingenious combat strategy to overcome their numerically superior foes. By disregarding conventional military stratagems Viking raiders were able to triumph over larger and more complex military forces. We adherents of White Nationalism find ourselves in a similar plight. The White race is contracting in terms of proportion of the total global population, while as a movement White Nationalism is marginally growing, but beset with countless enemies. We are in a siege-like situation and military theory posits that we must force conflict, so as to breakout by any means necessary. Like our Viking ancestors, we in the White Nationalist movement should be developing and pursuing new and unconventional streams of thought. The use of memes as a communication medium to promote metapolitical change is an expression of the White racial propensity for the unorthodox, and worthy of our Viking ancestors. In the upcoming struggle disciplined creativity will be our guiding light, our key to victory, and as such we should wield it forcefully.

The creative prowess of the Norse Vikings was constantly honed and refined by the harshness of their world. While in the postmodern age of the bourgeoisie, those of us in the so-called ‘Western’ first world don’t usually have the opportunity to test our mettle, and as a result of the ubiquity of comfort, the razor-sharp blade of the collective White intellect has been significantly dulled. Useless knowledge has increased, while practical knowledge and common sense is at an all-time low. However, those of us in fringe movements like White Nationalism possess a competitive advantage, as we operate in an environment tinged with danger and conflict. The danger isn’t always of the mortal variety, it is however an epigenetic stressor which has the potential to catalyze positive phenotypic changes. Nietzsche was a Lamarckist, and though large portions of the idea of ‘Lamarckian inheritance’ have been scientifically discredited, most White Nationalists would agree with the theory’s notion that race and culture are inextricably interconnected. The environmental stressors gifted to the White racialist movement by the haphazardness of our fringe social status has endowed our movement and its members with the potential for evolutionary adaption. This adaptive process isn’t going to grant anyone superpowers, but it will however provide the members of the movement with a slight evolutionary edge; at least for those of us who are strong enough to endure. This potential evolutionary advantage is increased considering the magnificence of our White/European genetic patrimony. Our Viking ancestors lived in a world of tremendous hardship, and it was this impoverishment of comfort and stability that made them strong. The struggle that we 21st-century White Nationalists face is of a different magnitude, but a serious hardship nonetheless, and we would do well to charge valiantly into the fray and embrace the pain and adversity.

The White/European predisposition for heterodox thinking is rooted in our people’s unique ethno- and evolutionary history. The great prophet of decline Oswald Spengler speculated that the Nordic (Aryan/Indo-European/European) soul was forged in the “harder struggling” environs of the “Nordic steppe,” and though I am not an environmental determinist, I would hold that this is partially true.[4] In the early Indo-European world, and even later in the Norse world of the Viking Age, the love of competition, permeated by the struggle of low-intensity conflict and in conjunction with the extreme climes of Northern Europe, gave birth to an inegalitarian and hierarchical society of aristocratic-warriors and heroic individuals. These individuals favored deed and action over the pettiness of mere physical existence and material comfort. The cumulative tempering effect of all of these forces gave shape to the White/European man, whose desire to transcend the biological and the material, whose penchant for a grounded abstract, became a proclivity for transcendence through self-overcoming. The White race’s ability to think clearly and creatively, harnessing our inner ‘Faustian’ nature has always been our people’s greatest strength, and we would be wise to continue to harness that which has always made us strong. As White Nationalists, we’ve dedicated ourselves to representing the highest, most transcendent attributes of our race, and the utilization of our ‘Faustian’ spirit in the service of a cause greater than our individual egos should be one of our greatest ideals. Ernst Jünger proclaimed that the underlying principle of the modern world is the centrality of pain. By experiencing and embracing hardship we have much in common with our Viking and Indo-European ancestors, and as such possess the potential for yet-undreamed-of greatness. Adolf Hitler once said that the Aryan “is the Prometheus of mankind” and I can conjure up no better epithet to describe the collective awesomeness intrinsic to our blood.

Notes

[1] Julius Evola, Metaphysics of War (United Kingdom: Arktos, 2011).

[2] Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975).

[3] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power (Farmington, MN: Free Thought Books, 2015).

[4] Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991).