Counter-Currents
1,061 words
Translations: Czech, Danish, Spanish
Author’s Note:
This is an excerpt from New Right vs. Old Right. If you haven’t read it, you need to. If you have, read it again and again until it sinks in.
“This ain’t no party. This ain’t no disco.
This ain’t no foolin’ around.”
—Talking Heads, “Life During Wartime”
I have been involved with the White Nationalist scene since the year 2000. My experience has been overwhelmingly positive, but not entirely so. The hardest thing to take has not been the crooks and crazies, but the pervasive lack of moral seriousness, even among the best-informed and most principled White Nationalists. I know people who sincerely believe that our race is being subjected to an intentional policy of genocide engineered by the organized Jewish community. Yet when faced with a horror of this magnitude, they lead lives of consummate vanity, silliness, and self-indulgence.
I am convinced that more people will get involved with our cause if we follow two rules: (1) each person gets to determine his own level of explicitness and involvement, and (2) the rest of us have to respect those decisions. But our cause will never move forward unless we can also persuade people to (1) do everything they can within their own individually determined comfort zones, and (2) expand their comfort zones, so they are willing to take greater risks for the cause. But to do that, we need to grapple with the issue of moral seriousness.
I know White Nationalists who would run down the street in broad daylight shouting “thief!” at the top of their lungs if their car were being stolen. But when confronted with the theft of our whole civilization and the very future of our race, they merely mutter euphemisms in the shadows.
I know White Nationalists who are fully apprised of the gravity of the Jewish problem, who have seen the Jewish takeover and subversion of one Right-wing institution after another, and yet still think that they can somehow “use” Jews.
I know White Nationalists who are fully aware of the corruption of the political establishment yet still get caught up in election campaigns. I know outright National Socialists who have donated far more to Republicans than they have to the movement.
I know White Nationalists who spend $50,000 a year on drinks and lap dances—or $30,000 a year dining out—or $25,000 a year on their wardrobes—or $100,000 on a wedding, yet bitterly complain about the lack of progress in the movement.
I know White Nationalists who tithe significant portions of their income to churches which pursue anti-white policies, yet never consider regular donations to the pro-white cause.
I know people with convictions to the right of Hitler who argue that we should never claim that we are fighting for the white race or against Jewish power, but who still think that somehow our people will want to follow us rather than 10,000 other race-blind, Jew-friendly conservative groups.
I know White Nationalists who believe that our race is being exterminated, yet insist that our enemies “know not what they do,” that they are deceiving themselves, that they are fundamentally people of good will, and that this is all some sort of ghastly misunderstanding.
I know White Nationalists who would never admit to hating anyone or anything, even the vulture gnawing at their entrails.
None of them are being forced to behave this way. All of them are operating within their self-defined comfort zones. All of them could do more, even within their comfort zones. So why do they fail to comport themselves with the urgency and moral seriousness called for by the destruction of everything we hold dear?
I want to suggest two explanations. First, deep in their hearts, they don’t believe that we can win, so they aren’t really trying. Second, and more importantly, they are still wedded to the bourgeois model of life.
People display their true priorities when facing death.
The true intellectual values truth more than life itself. Socrates is a hero to intellectuals because when forced to choose between giving up philosophy or death, he chose death. Most intellectuals do not face that choice, but if they do, they hope they are capable of heroism too, for nothing reveals fidelity to truth more clearly than a martyr’s death.
The true warrior values honor more than life itself. Leonidas and the 300 are heroes to warriors because when faced with death or dishonor, they preferred death. Again, not every warrior faces the choice so starkly, but if he does, he hopes he will choose a glorious death, for nothing reveals fidelity to honor more clearly than a heroic death.
Bourgeois man values nothing higher than life itself. He fears nothing more than a violent death. Therefore, there is no form of heroic death that demonstrates true fidelity to bourgeois values. The true intellectual dies a martyr. The true warrior dies on the battlefield. The true bourgeois looks forward to a comfortable retirement and dying in bed.
Yes, countless American soldiers have died fighting for “freedom,” “democracy,” and college money. But they have been suckered out of their lives by men who think there is nothing worth dying for, so that the bourgeoisie can make money, play golf, and die in bed.
You only have one death. Thus even people who would glory in heroic martyrdom have to choose their battles wisely and make their deaths count. Yes, you have to pace yourself. Yes, you have to save yourself. Yes, you can’t live as if every day were your last.
But these truisms easily serve as rationalizations for cowardice. Because, at a certain point, you have to ask what you are saving yourself for. You can’t take it with you. And ultimately, accomplishments do not come from saving ourselves but from spending ourselves. What we do not give, will be taken by death in the end.
Yet the whole bourgeois dream is premised on evading this simple, grim reality. Bourgeois man seeks eternal springtime and perpetual peace, a “happily ever after” on sunlit putting greens, free of tragic choices and tragic grandeur, free of ideals that can pierce his heart and shed his blood.
But you can’t overthrow a system you are invested in. You can’t challenge the rulers of this world and count on reaching retirement age. You can’t do battle with Sauron while playing it safe. In the face of world-annihilating evil, we can no longer afford to be such men.
22 comments
Well worth reading and re-reading. I suggest the reason for the lack of moral seriousness in those men and women who see what is happening around them and intellectually identify with our cause but do little to help the ‘movement’, is because their assent is solely intellectual without a vital emotional component. We all should be “as mad as hell”, but the emotional conduit is not yet in place.
“Bourgeois man values nothing higher than life itself. He fears nothing more than a violent death.”
Excellent. And yet I’ve know a few suburban types who really would prefer a violent death than be seen shopping at Walmart, or be considered insufficiently sophisticated, or be caught outside the 40-yard lines in political doctrine.
I know a Protestant minister who reports than when he is to conduct a funeral, more often than not he is asked to have someone sing “I Did It My Way.” And in all those years, he never buried anyone who had actually done it his way. Bourgeois man always chooses society’s way.
True heroism is asked only of a few. Of the “cowardly” majority only the following things are asked : 1) Make your personal life in order. Keep yourself physically and mentally healthy. Refrain from drugs, alcohol and unhealthy food. Do exercises. Don’t watch films, TV or porno. 2) Spread the word among your acquaintances. 3) Support the movement regularly financially. 4) Don’t vote for traditional parties. If a pro-White party exists in your country vote for it.
Out cause is difficult but not hopeless. In fact I have the impression that the tide is turning. See the Visegrad countries in central Europe and Italy and Austria. In other European countries anti-immigration parties are growing. An awakening is definitely taking place. Belief in victory can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
I would be more invested and willing to put my life on the line when I have a wife and children. If my goal is to save the white race I should sure procreate. If I advocate white nationalism too much I will reduce my chances of being able to procreate.
I agree the article is worth reading, re-reading with many good points.
The article mentioning money is quite serious, all revolutionary movements depend on money and it usually comes from wealthy benefactors (ie. Soros, or on the other side self-funded Trump). If someone was willing to put up $100,000 lots for actual WN projects and groups there would be a queue of people willing to use it (and some might actually use it well). Funding is necessary as any public pro-white activist will be shut down and hounded out of regular work choices.
That’s a terrific piece.
I just left white nationalism this year and sometimes I still ask myself about cowardice and where I could be now if I had choose to go that path. From the beginning it seemed so unlikely that someone like me would eventually get into white nationalism (I’m Brazilian).
I grew up with people telling me that only the children of european immigrants could be sure about being european. In my case, I knew about my italian ancestry from an early age, but despite having a portuguese name (my great-grandmother did not pass her Italian name to my side of the family) I could not even be sure who they were and when they came here, maybe hundreds of years ago. But then, is anyone 100% white anyway? I thought to myself.
Funny enough, I was introduced to ”racial ideas” first by Karl Marx on his Communist Manifesto and not long after I made my first visit to Stormfront. However, I came to abandon my racial views on less than a year as I felt guilty for thinking so ”mean” about non-whites. Somehow, nationalist ideas never ceased to attract me, but only after watching Jared Taylor on Youtube I was really convinced.
At first I was a more tolerant white nationalist, but the contradiction was too great for me. How could I avoid hating some of my childhood friends for dating outside of their race? Interacial couples deeply depressed me.
Ironically, my girlfriend who happens to be completely ”aryan looking” has a mixed father. Yes, I managed to ignore this for a long time because I just did not believe that was true as I never saw him.
The fact is: it was never meant to be. Maybe if I had been born somewhere else, maybe. Anyway, I know white nationalists don’t need me. There’s enough conflict and politicians willing to capitalize for you to achieve your goals just by waiting. Things are naturally going so much faster than what everyone expected.
Your story illustrates very well (and they are plenty even in majority White nations) why we need White Nationalism. We do not want to be past the event horizon where nobody will ever be certain anymore about what he is and where his natural inner boundaries lie, and where the all-pervading lack of any differentiation will become internalized as our own understanding of the world.
Like Buddhists live in the world but are not consumed by it, so we can live in an “integrated” environment, but preserve our inner distance towards it, until the time comes for us to create a world that will reflect our inner substance.
”We do not want to be past the event horizon where nobody will ever be certain anymore ” Well, I’m not sure about that.
In Brazil I find most people know whether they are more white or black or whatever and those who don’t know, as long as they don’t look white, the left cheerfully puts in some oppressed group.
Some American white nationalists have recently come up with the saying: ”if someone looks White, sounds White, acts White, says they’re White”.
The mixing in America, I heard, is becoming such a common place that many are now reducing this saying to ”if someone looks white”. This attitude is already prevalent among white nationalists like Jared Taylor, Richard Spencer and Andrew Anglin.
But it was not only the lack of certainty about my origins and the origins of my girlfriend that made me abandon white nationalism, but also the constant exaggerations that made me bitter and desperate.
Of course, ” exaggeration ” is often a matter of perspective, even more so in this highly politicized and virtual post-truth era. However, among the many strategies used by the most vocal white nationalists we find interacial pornography, the disproportionate degree of crimes committed by blacks and the inexorable prospect of becoming minorities if not being extinct from the face of the earth.
While all these things exist, it is true, the proportion in which this exists is exaggerated.
to make whites believe that we are being victimized. This strategy really helps to mobilize a lot of people, I guess. The dailystormer which is the most famous white nationalist plataform to use this strategy has become the most visited white nationalism website.
The problem is that this kind of advertising is toxic. The side effect is often extremely harmful. For instance, I heard so much about intercourse pornography that I became humiliated and demoralized even though I had an extremely beautiful ”aryan” girlfriend. But in fact, if I can rely on my perception, interracial pornography is not even half the most popular porn videos. This means interracial pornography is emphasized exaggeratedly. Also, blacks do commit more crimes, but most whites don’t fall victim for violent crimes commited by blacks on their daily lifes, otherwise most would already be agreeing with the premise of the inherent criminality of blacks. Also, it is not certain that whites will cease to exist with miscegenation and many take this for granted.
Finally, a lot is said here about leftists lacking perspective, but white nationalists lack perspective too and these exaggerations are enough proof. Wanna know why the change you want is taking so long despite multiculturalism being so bad? Because multiculturalism is not so bad YET. Most whites are living very well and only when that changes is that the situation will favor your cause White nationalism is something that was created today but that only will be needed in the future. If things were that bad, don’t you think whites would be spontaneously taking their own side? If the prediction that the quality of life on first world countries will decline as the migration of non-whites increases while whites become a minority becomes reality, then it is obvious that whites will take their own side, even if it is only to defend themselves.
As for me, I’m tired of obsessing about a non-issue. My life is going very well and this is a sign that I do not have to worry about race. Today white nationalists look to me as global warming activists trying to convince me of a problem so far away in the future. Don’t get me wrong, I understand your motivations I still find most of them valid, but I just don’t think it’s such a issue for our time, just like Hitler was wrong about obsessing about jews and race mixing when Germany was 90% pure german.
What kind of “doing well” can serve as a comfort for us when we live in a monstrosity that deep down we all know shouldn’t even exist? The fact that so many people are vested in the system is already well known. The fact that many people will follow it into its doom too. Its all sad and we feel sorry for it, but it is not our duty to “explain away” other’s people bad choices. We do not give green light to racial integration – period. No matter how nicely it is restated and re-framed, no matter how much anybody is “awfully concerned” that someone, somewhere, will feel “offended”. Our life mission is not to make life’s errors sound better. If Sitting Bull choose last stand instead of racial integration, so can we who have better resources, more people, greater strength, greater intelligence and knowledge, and an enemy that is mostly our own creation.
”What kind of “doing well” can serve as a comfort for us when we live in a monstrosity that deep down we all know shouldn’t even exist?”
Only someone who has never tasted the ”good life” could say something like this or maybe you just don’t allow yourself to enjoy it.
”monstrosity” So interesting you decided to use this world, it seems that your position as a white nationalist is indeed aesthetic as much as it is logical, if not more. Nothing wrong with this, except you do not admit it, but I understand, one has to imagine that good recruiting message does not include competing arguments.
During my 2 years of white nationalism, I eventually became aware that my positioning was largely based on aesthetic issues, which relate only to my own preferences. For some time I even became so so averse to anything outside my preferences, that the mere presence of a non-white person caused me severe discomfort.
Today all I can say is that the more I learn about racial issues, the more complex it seems to me to define the barriers between nature vs. nurture, especially as the academy becomes more biased. Nevertheless, it seems to me that while the trends are real for the various racial stereotypes, what is worse in each group seems to be exaggerated by everyone – that’s my perception.
And yes, it is possible to build an ideology based on race and it seems that the present world provides fertile ground for such ideologies, but I must say that what really matters to me now is the courtesy, education and personality of people. Dignity, character, morality, religion, and economics seem to me to be much more important matters.
Wow, That last paragraph . Excellent. In Christ, Gg Mo
Great Article, You don’t want to be too serious like Andrew Hamilton (which was more serious with a depressing element if I recall).
…and I’ll just be clicking over to the bookstore and ordering New Right Vs. Old Right now. If you’ll excuse me.
The rise now of populism is due the losing of the middle-class status (i.e., bourgeois life-style) by a large part of the European population as the globalization unfolded in the last decades.
The bourgeois can be deadly serious, and very right-wing/’fascist’, if his standard of living decreases and he is threatened by the prospect of sliding into poverty (or at least sliding into ‘low-class’ since this is relative).
The opposition to immigration is also driven by the competition for jobs and by the loss of the comfort of living in a ‘civilized’ social environment where one can comfortably pursue his individualistic and egotistical/hedonist values.
You are speaking entirely in terms of Marxist over simplifications.
This doesn’t quite seem to touch on two of the biggest factors that are apparent to me: family protection and morale.
My husband is as thoroughly ideologically convinced of ethnonationalism, anti-modernism and anti-materialism as I am. But where I feel urgently compelled to do something — and I’m trying to figure out what it could be — to promote these ideals, he has no energy for it and few resources to draw on.
He is primarily concerned with the family we’re starting, and that we can work on making our little part of the world a better place, which is the mentality that’s helped him get out of the suicidal place he was in only a few years ago. It’s also a practical focus, since we’re both only just starting to become economically self-sufficient, while recovering from pasts that have left us both scarred and a little uncertain on our feet as we try to create something that we don’t have a model for from our own parents.
He’s still overcoming depression (to a lesser extent, so am I) which has been an obstacle for us in pursuing our own best interests — a greater struggle beyond ourselves is something else again.
I’m hoping that the pure joy I see on his face whenever we talk about the fast-approaching arrival of our first child, will translate into an invigorating optimism and determination to do more to safeguard our family’s future not just for tomorrow but for decades and centuries to come.
At the same time, we know this personal stake he’ll now have in the future of the world will also limit both of us in new ways whenever we’re faced with any potential risks to the wellbeing and security of our family.
These concerns aren’t an excuse for not contributing in relatively safe ways (e.g. financially) but they will be forefront in our minds whenever we challenge ourselves to do more to live up to our ideals.
The point about morale can’t be underestimated, either. Modernity is calculated to psychologically break people, and it works. I hope we can draw strength from our new family lifestyle to become more seriously invested in the world’s bigger problems, without becoming overwhelmed.
And that’s just us, who’ve found each other and are starting to build something that motivates us and helps us not to despair. So many people feel completely alone in this and with nothing concrete to grasp onto or ground them.
But all that said: if you are talking about people with comfortable lifestyles and fewer personal issues to overcome who are just lazy or preoccuped with the aspects of modern materialistic life that appeal to them, then yeah, give them hell. We need to aspire, we need to strive, and we need to challenge and expect more from each other.
The most morally serious thing you can do is keep building your life and family together. You are among the lucky ones of your generation. Montaigne once said that one of the rare pleasures of living in a decadent society is feeling oneself immune. From what you said, you aren’t exactly immune yet, but you are on the right path.
Thanks for a very thoughtful comment.
Stepping up or stepping out as individuals committed to the movement is martyrdom. We need several dramatic public events, one after another after another, after another.
Blogging, if that’s all there is, will grow too slowly to stop the onslaught. Scandza forums, Amren conferences a few more publications making and distilling the same arguments will get us where exactly?
There’s no Lega, AfD nor FN here. We need to attempt to establish a white nationalist party knowing our first attempts will fail badly and at great cost to probably 1000s of us.
The “Manifesto” and other publications can be our “campaign literature “. But more conferences and more books making the same argument umpteenth times is not going to get us any closer to victory.
CVILLE was a defeat for those who attended and for anyone who had a public face attached to our movement, but was it really a defeat?
It increased the awareness of our movement by several fold and over time its reassessment has swelled our ranks.
The Alt Right now has more out right male sympathizers than there are Jews or Corporate toadies in the US.
Millions more are now on the edge of taking those few final steps IF THEY SEE PEOPLE WILLING TO FIGHT AND RISK EVERYTHING.
We’re a mimetic species. Take bold steps and many will follow…and many more will follow them…and so on.
Someone needs to run for president and we all understand who that someone is. Yes, I mean RS. We need someone both articulate enough and pugnacious enough to deal with what will be a very rough and tumble campaign. Someone who may very well get himself killed.
This also means we need to bury the hatchet and work together no matter how distasteful that may be. Imagine a brown president and a brown cabinet out to obliterate us.
Is he really so bad? Really?
We’ll fail, probably loose everything, end up broke, in jail or worse.
But 10s of millions of our tribe will see our commitment, how we conducted ourselves, what we were willing to risk, and how our enemies engaged in every conceivable abuse to destroy us, exposing themselves and their ends to a point that no white person can any longer afford to ignore.
At that point white nationalism will become the hyWhyte default position.
A presidential run will be extremely public. The press will try to ignore it but the neolithic left and their hysteria will focus all of the press in our direction.
It would be nice if we could eke out another 4 years with Trump, but he’s more of a liability now. He’ll probably get his big beautiful fence but at what price? An amnesty deal for millions? If that’s the cost or if he can’t even manage a fence then we definitely need to run a campaign.
I read your column as both a frustration with our stagnation and a need for bold steps. I agree. But those steps need to be very bold and taken not as individuals but as a group.
You’re the more mature one. You’re the one who should make the first overture .
Your comment is a distillation of every wrong idea that leads the American movement to disaster after disaster. If people did not sincerely believe these ideas, the enemy would pay people to promote them, because they so reliably set the movement back. So I am going to just comment on your piece paragraph by paragraph so readers can better identify and combat this nonsense.
The question is what kind of public events: low risk, high reward, strategically sound events like those done by Identity Europa? Or strategically unsound, high cost, low reward, ecumenical retard rallies like Charlottesville, Pikeville, etc. which are open to being photobombed by TWP, KKK, Nazi, and other toxic brands? The first principle of activism, like medicine, is not “Do something!” but “First do no harm.” So far, you have not demonstrated enough thoughtfulness to convince me that you would do no harm.
1. Blogging and other forms of propaganda are never all there is, but they are a necessary preparation. Most whites oppose us. Large numbers of whites want to censor and jail us. We can’t defeat them politically. The only way we can defeat them is to have more even forces. To do that, we need to persuade people to stop supporting the enemy and start supporting us. That is what blogs, podcasts, YouTube, propaganda of the deed, etc. are for. We need to do it more, until we are no longer a tiny minority.
2. You have a false sense of urgency. We have decades to get things turned around, one way or another, although the window for doing that within the present US system is probably already closed.
3. If we don’t have time to do it right, doing it wrong won’t save us.
1. We have none of these things because we don’t have enough people or money here. To get those we need to change minds– to get more people on our side. To do that, we need more metapolitics, not a political party.
2. When was the last time a third party accomplished anything in the US, aside from tipping elections to the major party most opposed to it? We would have a much better chance of making an impact in the US if we influenced the Republicans and Democrats to adopt our ideas — through more propaganda. Or if our people captured the Republican party.
3. We are less likely to accomplish any of that if we put money into another marginal political party, especially “at great cost” to thousands of us. Every cent spent on political campaigns is better spent simply on propaganda.
4. Don’t we already have the American Freedom Party? What has it accomplished? At what cost?
I disagree. We are making progress by changing people’s minds. The retard rallies of 2017 set us back.
At this point I know you are a liar. There is no objective evidence that Cville has “swelled our ranks” and there is plenty of objective evidence that it has decreased them. One stat in particular surprised me. Since Cville, Alt Right podcasting has been cut in half. Within my social media sphere, more than 100 people went dark after Cville, and my contacts were likely underrepresented at rallies. The 2018 Amren had fewer people than the 2017 conference, which was shortly before Cville.
It is clear that the movement needs to do fine grained empirical studies and publish them to assess the impact of events, so we can prevent liars like you from claiming that “[Propaganda disaster X] was actually good for the movement.”
This is precisely the thinking that led to Disasterville. “Sure, there are more of them than there are of us. Sure, we are going to the enemy’s turf. Sure, the local and state authorities are opposed to us. Sure, the antifa have had months to prepare a welcome. Naw, we don’t have any lawyers who can practice in Virginia on site in case of legal problems. Naw, we have not given any basic advice to attendees on what to do if they are attacked by antifa or come into contact with law enforcement. But check out my haircut, khakis, and tiki torch. Check out my Kekistani flag. Check out my plastic stahlhelm. We’re going to look so good on TV getting our asses handed to us by junkies and fatties that millions will rally to our cause. We are a mimetic species, after all. We’re poised to conquer a continent.”
What a joke.
Wow you’re really selling this. Again, the road to Disasterville is to charge the enemy’s stongest defenses in the hope that people will be inspired to destroy themselves in the same stupid way.
Yeah, I am sure that is what Vermin Supreme tells his legions too.
The mature thing for the American movement is to invest in individuals and organizations that are changing minds and bringing people over to our side, as opposed to failures who only bring shame upon us. Here’s my short list:
1. Counter-Currents and me
2. American Renaissance and Jared Taylor
3. VDare and the Brimelows
4. The Occidental Observer and Kevin MacDonald
5. Identity Europa and Patrick Casey
6. Red Ice
You should not necessarily infer that I have a problem with those individuals and initiatives that are not listed here.
Greg, a couple questions come to mind reading your exchange here:
Do you and any of the other five outfits on your short list coordinate your publishing and production efforts? Perhaps it’s better to remain dispersed and less fragile than try to make a larger entity that simply paints a larger censorship target for itself. Anyway, just wondering if a more focused, organized effort among the top content creators in the dissident right is ever a topic of discussion or interest.
I can understand the original commenter’s frustration of looking for an answer to the question ‘Now what?’ once a person comes to believe in the rights of white people to exercise sovereignty in their homelands, nevermind the ideological details. Assuming one already is a patron of efforts such as CC or the others you listed, what do you think is the next most important step in expanding one’s comfort zone to further the cause? What would be your general orders to the troops for the next year?
We don’t coordinate our efforts. Indeed, we seldom communicate or meet. Part of it is that we are so damned busy keeping things going that we really don’t have time to. Nevertheless, we generally follow one another’s work, and so if a good book, article, or meme pops up one place, the others see it and run with it to whatever extent that makes sense. Honestly, I think it works best this way. But an annual summit conference would be a good thing if we could manage it.
My general orders for 2019 are:
1. Be the best possible version of yourself. We are fighting for the renewal of our race and civilization, so embody the change you want to create.
2. Support people who are doing good work and shun those who do bad work. Support includes giving money but also (1) sharing their work and (2) sticking up for them when attacked.
If you are doing 1 & 2 and want to do more:
3. Begin to meet other like-minded people in your area. Do it with care and discretion, of course, because there are bad people in this movement and bad people infiltrate the movement. But we need to build new communities and networks of trust.
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