Counter-Currents
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow, 1565 (Detail)
1,878 words
If you’re milling around Counter-Currents, you’re probably savvy to the notion that human beings are biological creatures, that we are shaped and molded by our environment’s ruthless Darwinian pressures into our present form. To think this way is heresy in the contemporary West. To consider the possibility that man is subject to the laws of nature offends the prideful sensibilities of our Gnostic and Luciferian elites. To think of oneself as a thread in the great tapestry of being offends the petty individualism of the modern Westerners. We reject human biodiversity, we arrest speakers at human biodiversity forums, and such forums are besieged by vile, black-clad political terrorists. And yet we need to think that way, and men persist in thinking, researching, meeting and discussing because we are drawn to that most ancient of philosophers’ dictum – Know Thyself, so that we may live in accordance with ourselves.
The first order meanings derived from the facts of human biodiversity are well known: there exist racial differences in IQ, probably racial differences in behavioral patterns, and also sexual differences in behavior. This has enormous implications for every human endeavor where the races and nations of man have to be considered in common. You can always take the reductionist and uninspired route which I like to call Rue du Molyneux after its baldest and most obnoxious traveler, but has been pithily named “IQ nationalism” by cleverer men than me. It entails, among other things, welcoming our new Han overlords because their average IQ is marginally higher (or more exactly, the average IQ of a fellaheen China is higher than the average IQ of a severely degenerated West). Or you can delve deep into what makes the Western soul different from that of other men.
The second order meanings derived from the facts of human biodiversity are not to be found in charts of IQ by race, in FBI crime statistics, or in GDP per capita rankings. Rather, they are to be found in thick, dusty books, in soaring cathedrals, in religious fervor, in thunderous symphonies and the infinite vistas of visual art. Acknowledging our debt to the Taylors, Duttons, Sailers, and Rushtons of the world, we seek out the Spenglers, Evolas, Vicos, and Duchesnes, who can teach us the how, the why and the whence of the Tolkiens, Michelangelos, Bonifaces, Tchaikovskys, and Toulouse-Lautrecs. I find that awe is the sense of being humbled and uplifted at the same time. To experience beauty is to experience the numinous. To experience the numinous is to feel human and alive, to have a momentary respite to the suffering and alienation inherent in modern life. Beauty is to the soul what bread is to the body. Whence this outpouring of incomparable beauty? Do lend me your ears, friends, for I have a theory.
White people are ice people. Our ancestors lived in some of the coldest regions of the planet. They lived through the coldest and darkest of winters by the skin of their teeth. Cold winter theory explains our high IQ and low time preference. But once you’ve built the stout hall and kindled the great fire and loaded the storehouse with food to last until the distant spring, what do you do? And here, I believe, the uniquely European love of beauty arose – beauty was something to think about in those long winter nights, where to leave the house meant death. Beauty of tale, song, and vision. Beauty of togetherness. Beauty of warmth.
Man in deep winter is man under siege. Man the hunter, man the walker, and Indo-Aryan man the horselord in particular is a creature which craves the thrill of roaming. The all-American cult of the open road, the steppe nomad’s reverence of the open sky, the Mediterranean reverence for boat and sea, the pilgrims’ journey to Canterbury, all speak of our love of travel, all reflect the great urge to move about unmolested and unconstrained. Western man’s soul is entwined with the Spenglerian prime symbol of a force vector hurling its energies into infinite space. Western man the explorer, Western man the conqueror loves movement. Winter is a hard limit on that urge. The boxed energies of Western man then turn inwards. I believe that the immeasurable depth of the Western soul is derived from this immense energy burrowing ever deeper into the self, in the dark, dead of winter. The claustrophobia of winter creates the dreams which fuel art, faith and joy. Cold is a prison cell. The body is entrapped by low temperatures, it tends towards motionlessness in winter. To move is to expend valuable energy, to leave the house is to expose oneself to the deep darkness of winter. And yet the mind can be neither slowed down nor stopped.
In this deep winter, we find ourselves dependent upon our family and friends. I imagine that the long halls of the old kings were full of huddled people, relying on one another to live through the dead of winter. To be white, to be a creature of the North, meant being with others. Alone, man is easy pickings for Jack Frost and his many ravenous nasties. When philosophers talk of a social contract (or more correctly, a social compact), they do not speak of a document which has been signed and notarized, as the autistic libertarian would have you believe. I’ve observed that relations among friends, and lesser financial obligations function much like the electron cloud theory of the atom. Because of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, one can either measure the momentum or position of the electron, but not both with sufficient precision. For this reason, the electron cloud represents various probabilities that a given electron is in a given position vis-à-vis the atomic core. I believe that petty obligations between friends, including financial ones work in the same way – minor expenses are not exactly tabulated, but a certain amount of giving is expected from those who mean to take in the future or past, adjusted for the ability to give. This is a good way of accounting for the unaccountable, which is to say living in a society of informal giving and taking with a tolerable dose of uncertainty. For this reason, we have the typical European altruism. In its degenerated form, it is the bane of our people, but this is true of every virtue – it becomes a vice in its excess. But I believe that the electron cloud model of mutual obligations among friends is applicable to the mutual obligations between members of human society, especially European society, which relies on communality and altruism far more than other societies.
In order to avoid this very inhumane accounting for giving and taking, in order to not live as slaves to ledgers, we have cultures of giving. And giving, I wager, is one of those things that keeps us sane. We are paradoxically the people most evolved to be communal, due to the harsh winters, and yet the most individualistic, due to the inward direction of our expansionist energies in the days of dark winter. In the dead of winter, Western man falls prey to solipsism and navel-gazing, alienating himself from his friends and family. This inward thinker has somehow found that it is impossible to prove to oneself that other conscious beings exist. I do not know if my friends exist – they might be fever dreams cooked up by a demon intending to deceive me, as per Descartes. How do we square this circle?
It is my belief that love, in all four of its manifestations, is the answer. Love is the soul’s response to the increased perceived probability of the existence of another soul. And love of one’s neighbor must be reinforced – I do not believe in love without physical action. We who intend to live as men, and not animals, must give if we are to take in the future. We give, even without reward, because we hope, in the future, to receive. We give because we want to live as men among men. And the darkest of days, when we are most at risk of forgetting our place among our people are the days of our festivals of giving. Christmas is a celebration of our nature as creatures both individualistic and communal, of men as threads in a great tapestry, but each king under his roof and each dreamer in his soul. We give to feel human.
A grey chill descends upon my city. It looks like another snowless December, as a dense fog envelops the senses and penetrates deep into my garments. I leave my office for my lunch break to meet my wife. We take a stroll by the river. We see some ducks and a black waterfowl which is larger than a duck, but smaller than a swan. We kiss. “Your mustache is wet.” The fog gets everywhere. It carries the cold with it. The sun looks quite eerie through the fog, a whitish ball of light, like the disembodied eye of some ungodly deepwater fish. I hug my dear. The warmth of her body radiates through many layers of clothing. The warmth of her soul reassures me that I am not alone in the universe.
Orthodox Christmas doesn’t come until January. But in deep December, at the Solstice or thenabouts, we celebrate the feast of St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra, Miracle-worker. I am personally associated with St. Nicholas and his feast for more than one reason. St. Nicholas was born to wealth, but he became a monk and gave away all his wealth to the poor. He gave his wealth to three poor girls so that they may have dowries and find husbands and find joy. He snuck gold coins into their socks as they were drying out. But when the youngest was getting married, it was the dead of winter and the house was boarded shut, so St. Nicholas shimmied down the chimney to drop the gold coins in the girl’s socks, which were hanging from the fireplace.
In the West, St. Nicholas is Santa Claus, and Santa Claus is a composite figure – not only is he the kind and giving Bishop of Myra, but he is also an avatar of the All-Father, of Odin, who was himself a wanderer and miracle-worker. Santa Claus is many things, but he embodies the principle of giving, of belonging and good cheer even as the days grow ever shorter, even in the longest nights around the Solstice.
The cold, the snow, the darkness, the endless sky have sculpted European man. We are children of winter in a way no other people are. We love winter like no other people do. We fight with snowballs, we ski, we sleigh and we build snowmen. American children look to snow to give them respite from the tyranny of government schools, if even for a day. There is a beauty to a winter night that is to be found in no other landscape image. The European soul is the product of the winter night. It is warm, tender, yet rough and adventurous, both individualistic and communal, at peace with contradiction and uncertainty, basking in that greatest joy of winter — the communal dream of spring.
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18 comments
With all of the false and poisonous spew issued from the demonic anti-Whites, I find work such as yours so very precious. There is no falseness. It is both true and sincere. Reassuring and uplifting too. Much gratitude for your gift!
You are indeed a gifted writer
I like winter, and having indoor temps below 70 degrees, so I can wear sweaters, which are fine and not ugly or Jimmy Carterish, AND save on heating bills. Sometimes reading blogs like this I will see a comment saying the way to get rid of tropical people from our countries is to “turn off the heat.” I don’t think that will work. A perennial article in the NY Times is about a tenement in the South Bronx or some other slum in which the tropical tenants have been living without heat for weeks, months, or years. Yet they still stay there, and don’t go back to the Caribbean or Guinea. This is a testimony both to how good, still, it is to live in a white country, and to how horrible it is to live in a tropical “Eden.”
Where I work they had an “ugly sweaters” contest at the holiday party, which I did not attend. This was dumb because no one wears sweaters where I work, because complaints from tropical employees, most of them elderly black women, dictate that the temps are usually above 80. White people are forced to open windows near their workspaces even when it’s 20 outside because of the overheating, which must cost a fortune. I bet the ugly sweaters thing was a jibe at whites. You know, sweaters are “corny.” But as everyone knows, Rosa Parks’s son Matthew Henson discovered the South Pole, so let’s all laugh at the stupid white folk.
It’s very stuffy in London right now. I hardly need a sweater. Doesn’t seem very Christmassy.
“Ugly sweaters” is probably an anti-white canard.
You have got that right.
Such an interesting article. But I see us coming undone less by the presence of nonwhites from warm places, and more by our determination to avoid the cold, i.e., rejecting that which made us what we are. White people don’t belong in south Texas, Florida, Mexico, Ecuador, South Africa, Australia, etc. Those who do remain in parts of the world with cold winters have central heating, heated garages, heated cars, heated everything, even heated gloves and driveways (to melt the snow; heaven forfend you have to wield a snow shovel.) To leave the house doesn’t automatically mean death any more.
Except for some farmers, ranchers, people who don’t have reliably warm homes and those who must go outdoors for various reasons, most white folks trip all over themselves attempting to completely avoid or greatly minimize the climate conditions which made our ancestors such wondrous creatures in the first place. However, these conditions, predictably, prompted the urge to develop ways to be removed from them. You can’t accuse white people of being able to see into the future.
But now that we have the goodies which protect us from Nature, what do we do with our mental and physical energy? Look around you for the answer. A culture of entertainment + a fixation on sex in all its perverted forms (and I’m not talking about homos here, who’ve been around for aeons; what today passes for sex among males and females is bizarre – battery assisted devices, etc. are apparently a $15 billion-dollar business in Amerika).
To save ourselves, we have to get used to being physically uncomfortable again in the manner of our ancestors. Just blaming darkies and jooze won’t cut it. JMO.
I doubt the premise that white people are ice people. Asians tend to be more cold adapted than Europeans, and their higher I.Q.s and behavioral traits seem to fall in line with that.
Yes, that occurred to me, too. The abos managed to live in the far north, without technology, for aeons and they are Asian. Maybe the difference is that they stayed there, never advancing, whereas white people developed technology to enable a few of their own kind to endure those places as well.
The civilized/developed far north is a place where white people run to when they have no choice. However, none of them really likes it; they can’t truly thrive; they leave as soon as they can find better economic opportunities in the more southerly, 4-season areas in keeping with their genetic heritage, or, if they are sissies, Texas, Florida, California, etc. I know a few such white people.
I doubt the Asians had higher IQ than Europeans at their peak. Today’s Asians (who are relatively ascendant) have higher IQ on average than today’s Europeans (who are relatively degenerate). All that being said, both races have been exposed to cold as a stimulus and are more related to each other than either is to Africans and Australoids, and I have my own theories on where and why we diverged, as well as the full implications and scope of the divergence.
It’s definitely a subject worth addressing and it will be addressed in the future.
The bolder the haters of white people become – the easier it is to prove to racially unaware white people that they need to wake up and start loving their own kind above money and the false god of egalitarianism. Our story is not of hating non-white, it’s about loving our own people and defending ourselves against those that hate US.
You describe a true observable phenomenon that has been very helpful to me and others in my circles.
I agree totally. I have lost 2 or 3 long-time friends since the 2016 elections, to ‘socialism’ or ‘the Left’, which is obsessing so many in these days, and I am walking on eggshells with several others. I am older and I am facing a life alone, which scares me no end. I live in Los Angeles, which is the center of multiculturalism and mobs of minorities. I like the weather, though the air has finally given me COPD, but I have no idea where to move. I sure hope we — the whites — get organized soon and begin building some communities. I have a large library of books on European history, culture, etc., to donate to a community effort, as well as pensions to pay rent. But I haven’t a friend left — even the roommates I have now are entranced with Socialism and New Age, though they haven’t hardly a cent to their names. Our white society is seriously fractured, and we are using our ‘altruistic kindliness’ on strangers rather than helping our own. However, ever optimistic, all will turn out well for us. And turn up the furnace.
Great article. I came across the painting Hunters in Snow in Vienna at one of the museums. There was a lady copying the painting and having grown up playing ice hockey , I was intrigued to notice that in the distance one observes what looks like children, not only skating on a pond, but using bent implements like hockey sticks and even what loooked like a puck. In a depiction from 1565 , I find this stunning because its my understanding that modern ice hockey traces its roots to competition between the various ethnic groups of late 19 th century Montreal. The copier/ painter also believed the figures were playing a version of ice hockey.I bought a copy of the painting and gave it to my brother. Sort of wished I kept it.
Growing up as a European diaspora in the southern part of the world is torture. While I saw snow once a year for my entire childhood going on vacations, just living in a land without winter is as demoralizing as it gets. Like living in a radioactive environment, where every day you absorb something that your body rejects. Nowadays I can’t go on vacations anymore. Another year without snow and I might go insane.
Great article.
My family moved to South Carolina when I was nine, so I know exactly what you are talking about. The climate is all wrong for me here. My thoughts turn toward moving to somewhere colder every two days or so. Maybe I will one day.
I’m adding this link to the Seasonal affective disorder Wikipedia page, with the hope that people will be brought here by search engines before they fall into the clutches of (((psychiatry))).
“The blue feeling experienced by… sufferers can usually be dampened or extinguished by exercise and increased outdoor activity, particularly on sunny days, resulting in increased solar exposure.”
Translation: go outdoors in crisp white mornings, shortly after sunrise, and run for an hour. After about 10 minutes, you will start feeling a rush of energy and a sense of elation, and it will stay with you for several days. It works, every. single. time. People who didn’t have this reaction to snow and cold were eaten by wolves on the steppe.
But here’s the problem: crisp white mornings are increasingly rare in Central Europe. Climate change is not going to be kind to us.
Nowadays Budapest feels like living in a Dawid Planeta painting from November to March.
(I suspect ASMR also has something to do with how snow absorbs noises.)
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