Counter-Currents
1,682 words
Czech version here
Coronavirus is going to change the world. I just hope that I live to see it, along with the people I care about.
I call the Coronavirus the “Globalvirus,” because globalism is the underlying condition that made it all possible.
Liberals are gloating about the possibility that Donald Trump and members of his family have been exposed to Globalvirus. Not only is it the height of bad taste to celebrate such misfortunes, it also invites karmic retribution. After all, the gloaters are not immune to Globalvirus. Think of what people will tweet about them if they succumb.
But there’s nothing wrong with taking a step back and pondering the likely political consequences of Globalvirus.
Let’s hope that Globalvirus stops in its tracks today. Nobody else gets sick. Every sick person recovers. What are the political lessons?
Globalism is bad. By globalism, I mean erasing national borders to ease the global movement of people and goods. It is possible to have national borders and international trade and travel, but nations need to regulate them for the common good of their peoples.
Globalists have not abolished all borders yet. But within the Schengen Zone, they have removed passport controls. Within the European Union, millions of people have moved to other countries for better wages and benefits. The US southern border has been porous for decades, allowing in tens of millions of illegal immigrants. Immigration fraud, visa overstays, and other forms for bureaucratic incompetence or sabotage effectively abolish borders as well throughout most of the West.
Beyond mass migrations, cheap plane tickets encourage enormous amounts of short-term travel for business and pleasure.
But easy global freedom of movement is a very bad thing once a pandemic starts. By seeking to abolish borders and nations, globalist ideologies are the equivalent of constructing a ship without different compartments in the hull. It makes it easier to move around when everything is going well. But when the ship hits an iceberg, there is nothing to slow or stop catastrophic failure.
Borders still exist. What matters is the will to use them. To the extent that societies embrace globalist values, they will be slow to close their borders. Thus more of their people will sicken and die. The root of this hesitation is the conviction that closing borders is wrong.
Once these countries decide that border controls are prudent, they discover that they no longer have the personnel and procedures in place to effectively screen travelers, leading to long lines and crowding, which are ideal for spreading the virus, ensuring that more people sicken and die.
Democracy is bad. Democracy encourages politicians to think only as far ahead as the next election. Since disasters happen only occasionally, every politician knows that they are unlikely to happen on his watch. Since politicians — especially national leaders — have short terms of office, it makes no sense for them to use their political capital planning for events far into the future, especially events that may never happen — especially when they are constantly distracted by current crises, which often result from the failure of their own predecessors to plan ahead.
It is fashionable now to deride the “deep state” for being democratically unaccountable bureaucrats. But in a democracy, only a democratically unaccountable permanent bureaucracy can engage in long-range planning to secure the future against preventable evils. I see no evidence that such a deep state even exists in America today. What we call the deep state are just short-sighted, ultra-partisan hysterics: liberal bureaucrats suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Global “free trade” is bad. Life expectancies for white Americans are now declining, but not for the upper classes. America’s wealth and power are increasingly concentrated in the hands of old people, who are taking more drugs than ever to extend their lives still further. Because businessmen care only about profit, not about the common good of society, and because the American political class no longer puts America First, the vast majority of pharmaceuticals that keep America’s leaders alive are manufactured in China, a hostile global rival. China is capable of blackmailing the United States by threatening to cut off pharmaceuticals. The coronavirus pandemic has finally made clear the utter stupidity of offshoring the manufacture of strategically necessary goods.
Liberalism is bad. Classical political philosophy and untutored common sense recognize that a legitimate government looks out for the common good of a society. A government that serves the factional interests of the ruling class at the expense of the rest of society is morally no different than a foreign invader.
Liberalism, however, unhooks politics from the idea of the common good. Liberalism is the politics of individualism. Individualism declares that only the individual and his interests matter. The idea of the common good is denounced as “collectivism.” Some liberals deny that the common good exists. Others deny that it can be known. Still others claim that the state cannot secure it, so we need to hope that it is secured as an unintended consequence of individual selfishness.
No society was founded on liberalism, not even the United States. No society can function based on liberalism. Liberalism depends on the social cohesion, public-spiritedness, and self-sacrifice of pre-liberal societies while it slowly dissolves them in the acid of individualism. Like a spendthrift pissing away his inheritance, liberalism lives on the social capital built up by non-liberal societies.
It takes a long time to ruin a society, so in normal circumstances, liberals can get away with their self-indulgence and folly. Just as spending one’s inheritance makes one feel prosperous in the short run, liberalism unleashes economic creativity which fools people into thinking that life is getting better as society decays around them.
But in a crisis like a pandemic, when people need to pull together and sacrifice for the common good, the more liberal a society is, the slower and more grudging the response. In normal times, liberalism encourages “Every man for himself.” And in emergencies, liberalism encourages “Every man for himself.” The more liberal a society, the more vulnerable it is to mass death in times of plague.
Diversity, multiculturalism, open borders, & anti-racism are bad. Today’s Left promotes the fake moral absolute of “openness” to “otherness,” from which they deduce such imperatives as diversity, multiculturalism, open borders, and anti-racism. Racism and xenophobia are thus absolute evils.
Thus as soon as Globalvirus cropped up, the Left created a moral panic about the dangers of “racism” and “xenophobia.” Leftists are more concerned with protecting the Chinese from racism than with protecting their own neighbors from a deadly plague. Societies in which the Left is powerful will thus be more vulnerable to mass death in times of plague. But people in the grip of moral fanaticism can’t see that.
Obviously, openness is not an absolute good if it allows in a plague. Which means there is a good kind of xenophobia, namely the xenophobia that protects us against the plague. There’s a good kind of racism, namely the racism that protects us against the plague. After Globalvirus, charges of racism will no longer be moral kill shots. The proper response will be, “Yeah, but it is the good kind of racism — the good kind of xenophobia.”
In times of plague, diversity and multiculturalism are dangerous burdens, for they decrease social trust and solidarity, which are necessary for disciplined and effective public health measures like quarantines, curfews, and testing.
Conservatism is bad. Conservatism in America is just classical liberalism. In terms of their core convictions, significant numbers of American conservatives are simply libertarians who are morally opposed to any form of government intervention in the “free market.” Even non-libertarian conservatives think primarily in terms of the economy. Furthermore, Donald Trump has bet his reelection on a good economy, which means that his more cultish followers are highly invested in good economic news.
Thus American conservatives are more concerned with protecting the economy from “panic” over Globalvirus than protecting the American people from the virus itself.
The most astonishing thing about the Globalvirus crisis is seeing how deep the free-market programming runs. Even people who are basically National Populists like Ramzpaul and the Zman have been running what I call the “Republican dad script,” minimizing the danger of the virus and worrying instead about protecting the economy from people who wish to protect their lives, and the lives of their loved ones. This “dad script” strikes me as equal parts alpha signaling and paternal concern for their 401Ks.
Republicans are not unreasonable in their suspicion that the Left — including the mainstream media — are using the Globalvirus against Trump. But that still doesn’t mean it is not a serious health problem.
This kind of thinking has consequences. Polling data indicates that Republicans are significantly more likely to minimize the dangers of Globalvirus than Democrats, which means that Republicans, as well as their friends and families, are more likely to get sick and die. It also means that Republicans are more likely to support ineffectual or tardy responses to the crisis, which will ensure that more people die.
The market will come back. The people who will die because of Republican greed and complacency will be gone forever.
President Trump’s initial response to Globalvirus was weak, probably for two reasons.
First, the Left was quick to stigmatize basic, common-sense preventative measures as “racism.” Unfortunately, Trump and the Republican Party are unwilling to challenge the fake moral absolutes of the Left. Instead, they think it is clever to argue that the Democrats are the real racists.
Second, in order to work with Republicans, Trump has increasingly adopted their agenda, betting his reelection almost entirely on a strong economy. Thus when the Globalvirus first hit, he was more concerned with protecting the economy from the virus than the American people.
Fortunately, it looks like more sensible voices have prevailed.
Even if the Globalvirus stops today, we are looking at a world in which nationalism is stronger and the anti-nationalist forces of globalism, democracy, liberalism, conservatism, and the diversity cult are weaker. So stay safe, stay sane, and let’s hope we are all around to enjoy it.
Enjoyed this article?
Be the first to leave a tip in the jar!
34 comments
…and stay home!
By the way, this site and this site only has been very slow to load today.
Yea its super slow for me as well.
Mine too and the only site that is slow
You are correct. And it’s still slow today. Perhaps Webnet Flu?
We are dealing with a DDOS attack. If things seem slow, just take a deep corona-breath and count to five.
Thought it was something like that. But we won’;t let anyone stop us from getting here
A paragon of mind of speckless clarity and logical, cogent, and convincing reasoning. One simply can’t find an essay that is more pertinently, potently, and intelligently argued. Greg again regales us readers with his distinctive and seamlessly coherent, gimlet-eyed, and razor-sharp narrative and analysis, a paradigm of discourse in the White nationalist intellectual circles. This essay should be widely read and circulated. It will spread like a wildfire and illuminate and win over many hearts.
I agree completely. I am forwarding it to everyone, even liberals, but as a copy/paste, not a link (and without any citations). I want to see reactions without anyone’s knowing that the source is CC. IMO, this is a very moderate and reasonable and in fact unarguable essay, a classic example of how white nationalist discourse should be conducted (ie, sans racial epithets). We’re lucky to have people of the quality of Johnson (and Jared Taylor, Kevin MacDonald, etc) writing for our cause.
I think any one person’s reaction to this situation depends upon their level of fatalism. What I mean is that there are reasonable things to do to limit one’s exposure and for the authorities to do to limit the spread of the virus. However, that may not be enough. That doesn’t mean we don’t try, but it also doesn’t mean that we should assume that because we ‘do what we’re supposed to do’ that we’re in the clear. I think it’s fair to say that virtually everyone relies of the ‘economy’ in some way for their survival and that putting people out of work or forcing them to discontinue business on a mass scale may actually turn out to have had adverse effects on the survival of some persons who never encountered the virus at all. I feel for the folks who have been put out of work, with no immediate source of income and many uncertainties regarding their future, especially my White brothers and sisters in the ‘service’ industries that have been shuttered virtually without warning all over the country.
With interdependence there is risk. Globalization pushed interdependence to an astonishing level and, as a consequence, raised the level of risk to an astonishing level. In the end, a highly contagious disease with significant mortality is, really, almost the perfect instrument for the destruction of Globalization.
Some real conservatives have long been predicting that a pandemic might be the only way to get liberal (progressive and neoliberal) elites to finally embrace real borders.
A plague on ALL liberalism, progressive and neoliberal! (NB: I still strongly support free market economics, but as I have been arguing since the late 80s, it should be NATIONAL Capitalism, or, “Capitalism in One Country” [more educated persons will recognize the provenance of that anti-globalist slogan]. Economic globalization sucks.)
Support your local conservative farmer and stock up on food. E.g. meat for the freezer.
“Leftists are more concerned with protecting the Chinese from racism than with protecting their own neighbors from a deadly plague.”
Chinese food markets are breeding grounds for these pandemics because they are unsanitary and have a lot of wild, undomesticated animals literally living on top of each other. Since the bubonic plague the Chinese have been exporting deadly diseases. There should be a task force to mandate these creeps stop keeping animals in such bad conditions. Even back in the middle ages the diseases they incubate could spread far and wide, so this is not a new problem.
In a way, the Coronavirus slowing down American commerce seems like karma for the past four decades. The Chinese have subjected their own citizens to de facto slavery, making them make cheap plastic stuff for westerners who are mostly white. A lot of the gains in productivity we think are from inventions and technology are actually from Chinese people being tormented their whole lives, working at a menacing pace for very little money. I belive what rich whites and Jews have done to the Chinese–with the help of Chinese leaders of course–is worse than what whites in the south did to blacks. One day it will be remembered similarly. It is not free market but whitewashed slavery.
yeah, Jack Ma certainly looks like a slave.
it seems like a very strong and bad flu, but not even to the level of the swine flu just yet. lest we forget, in the times of the spanish flu, the medical breakthrough of the day was aspirin (and didn’t work for that particular disease even).
it does seem weird that both iranians and descendants of etruscans and lombards are overrepresented outside Asia. been told the semites are vulnerable too though, and thus are weeks away from a cure. either way, food for thought…
at any rate, care for those with lower defenses or other diseases (smoking, bad diet, high blood pressure). most others will carry the virus fine. heck, some kids may do so on purpose, the boomer remover meme and all…
we shall see what happens in a couple weeks, if the measures were enough to gain some immunity and/or vaccines in time. hope it doesn’t get to mass chips for everyone, heard they’re giving it a try in Sweden… though, yes, the Chinese virus is the Chinese fault, whites need to stop their suicidal grungy self, come to Jesus or Thor or whatever, but stand up in the face of this crisis and defend their race…
and I say this as an emigrant castizo from a Latin republic getting browner and browner, family trapped in brown fascist lockdown hysteria amidst the unsanitary brown world, imposed by the left-moderate brown-friendly government that loves bringing Chinese experts and keep us in austerity with the IMF; and on the other hand the rich globohomo and neocon whites that also brought the virus from their Alps vacays, and which are now heading the case counts – may be a curse on some of the Latin elites, but these happen to be white, so hopefully at least some remain and learn a lesson…
although, again, outside 3-6 countries, it seems it can be contained. i do fear much more for the aged and sick whites of Europe and North America. seems the black and brown get it less, however LatAm and Africa are just getting patients so we shall see. it’s not like their old survive as long, specially in Africa…
The virus is likely a negative externality of the Chinese Wuhan food market where wild animals are crammed together in unsanitary conditions. These animals would never be so close in nature, as the bat and pangolin were who served as vectors before it jumped to humans. Superstitious Chinese medicine may have also led to the bubonic plague. Keeping animals like this needs to be banned forever.
I hate that people are dying from this and worry about my older relatives, but I love the economic fallout. The drug of consumerism is numbing whites to their racial absorption into the rest of the world. When I see stores vacant, it gives me hope that people will begin to care about race again, because while Corona may kill some people, mass immigration will make whites extinct, and the loneliness caused by our tower of Babel society has certainly led to many premature deaths.
There’s a quote from John Jay that’s always stuck with me about the constitution being a disaster in a society without religion. Can’t seem to find it now. But your point about liberalism dissolving the social bonds of traditional culture are spot on. Great article.
The corona virus panic is a welcome opportunity for the elites to cover up their failures of the last decades and blame the downfall on some pissy flu virus whos lethal victims are in average 80 years old and have pre existing conditions. The death toll of 8.800 is not enough to solve any real problems despite targeting the weak, sickly, old and overweight. In a year it will be back to status quo the same way people learned nothing from the spanish flu or the hong kong plague when people vote not just with but for their wallet.
” … there is a good kind of xenophobia, namely the xenophobia that protects us against the plague. There’s a good kind of racism, namely the racism that protects us against the plague. After Globalvirus, charges of racism will no longer be moral kill shots. The proper response will be, “Yeah, but it is the good kind of racism — the good kind of xenophobia.”
No, that is not the proper response. It is still apologetic. It still acknowledges the globohomo values while begging for the right to occasional exceptions: “Well, yes, racism and xenophobia are the worst things in the universe, and I’ll have nothing to do with them usually, but please tolerate them a little every time there is a plague.”
You still have the beaten-down mentality.
I would like to fathom the psychology/thinking of people who leave these sorts of comments.
I think your default assumption is that strength = nihilism, such that it is weak to acknowledge differences between good and evil.
How does his comment reveal a nihilist worldview to you? I read it in quite the opposite way: “Xenophobia is always good”. That’s a sound moral statement. To express it in the vocabulary of the current issue, it is the immune system of our society that isolates foreign bodies and expells them from the system.
Surprised you judge his comment in that way because in your article you wholeheartedly support a rejection of the moral underpinnings of Conservatism Inc and liberalism.
It’s one of your best articles I’ve read, btw, Mr. Johnson. I have had a suspicion that you would write an article about that topic soon and I’m not disappointed. It’s a very useful writeup of this issue for our side.
Echoing Elliot Rosewater’s opinion of Kilgore Trout, I say that Greg Johnson should be president of the world.
Day 3 of self-isolation and I’m already going stir crazy. Us extroverts are gonna start dropping like flies, mostly from boredom-induced suicides and accidents.
This article is far off.
Perhaps in an attempt to stave off negativity in our circles, counter-currents is publishing optimistic articles. But the problem with optimism is the same as pessimism: it pre-commits you to a conclusion.
In order to see how corona will change the world, we should look at CNN and New York Times. We should see what Instagram “influencers” say. What is that?
– airport testing, NOT closed borders. They do not want to close airports, they are peeved about that. They want anything but that. Instead, their plan to stop travelers from spreading plague is to have travelers be tested for free.
– more free testing in general. They want everyone tracked; there is a hint of authoritarianism.
– nationalized healthcare, because this is necessary for such intense testing and large-scale responses, and because people are scared of hospital bills.
– remove Republican Party. Every misstep of every Republican politician has been noted, and people are further convinced that the Trump admin and Fox News-ers cannot be trusted. They are convinced that the Republicans have dragged their feet for months instead of preparing a big counterstrategy.
– globalism is not needing to be rolled back, it is inevitable. “Viruses know no borders! Climate change knows no borders!” To CNN, This is not proof that globalism failed, it is proof that global governance is needed to handle “global threats.”
– “Virus borders” can be agnostic of national borders, as done in China. The need for borders for viruses does not imply nationalism, it could happen in a one-world-government.
This Is the real response. Sorry optimists. It is not how you think.
It depends on how many doctors will die. It is as simple as that.
Many casualties among the doctors, they will think deeper about the risks and advice accordingly. Otherwise they will see another great income venue and advice accordingly.
The same applies to politicians.
The optimists here see this virus as an opportunity to get rid of globalism, while we pessimists worry that it’s a globalist plot to impose martial law on the West. Don’t get me wrong: I hope Greg is right; I just fear that he isn’t.
The model we are working off for the Coronavirus is the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, which had a similar lethality and species to co19(positive sense RNA). That was before significant “globalism” or open borders. I think the precautions are reasonable and should not be too dangerous to the economy. We can contain it and soon a vaccine will be found. Revert to an earlier style of living. Walk in the woods. You can still talk on the phone, even FaceTime and Skype. play video games. This too will pass.
I would like to offer a defense of the RamzPaul/Republican Dad position:
It’s one thing to go into total shut down mode for a short length of time, which is what’s happening in the USA right now. Sportsball is completely shuttered – the NCAA cancelled its yearly March Madness tournament, while the NBA and NHL seasons are on hold until at least late April. The malls and move theaters have closed down, and restaurants have been restricted to takeout, delivery, and drive thru. And of course, the grocery stores are being flooded with panicked shoppers as they hoard toilet paper, paper towel, hand sanitizer, etc.
If the corona shut down lasts only 30 days, and if life starts returning to normal by the end of April, then it’s not a big deal. The stock market will bounce back like it always does, people will return to work, and life as we know it will go back to what it used to be.
BUT, if the corona shut down lasts indefinitely, and if people are out of work and not producing goods and services, and if we are reduced to living off unemployment insurance and emergency UBI/Yang Bux, all while the National Guard patrols our streets, then it would be better to just drop all emergency measures and let Corona Chan have her pound of flesh. The worst estimates I’ve seen from that are 4 million dead Americans. By contrast, the influenza epidemic of 1919 killed 25 million Americans, in a country that was less than half its current population.
Simply put, there is a worse scenario potentially at play here than the Corona Virus, and I suspect that’s what the RamzPaul types are getting at. It’s not just about the stock market or their 401K. It’s about not voluntarily surrendering life as we know it for the false promise of security, which we lost the moment the first infected Chinese national stepped foot on North American soil.
Yes, these are the lessons that I hope whites (and all races for that matter) take away from this. Well written as usual, Dr. Johnson. A pleasure to read.
A brave and most timely article:
“Democracy is bad. Global free trade is bad. Globalism is bad. Diversity, Multiculturalism, open boarders and anti-racism are bad.”
One applauds: “In a democracy, only a democratically unaccountable permanent bureaucracy can engage in long-term planning to secure the future against preventable evils.” Bravo.
Third installment of COVID-19 article. On mRNA, Event 201, and predictions:
https://www.culturecritique.com/environment-health/covid-19-an-engineered-virus-part-3/
Greg? Why doesn’t the reply button work?
What specifically is the problem?
Exactly nothing happens, although the page does shift a bit when reply is hit. The device I’m using is a month-old iPad (Feb. 2020) with the latest ios update.
What’s insane is the stuff the democrats have been trying to put into the coronavirus relief bill. Insane amounts of affirmative action. They want a type of anti-white, racial socialism. Control over the economy for the benefit of non-whites, at the great expensive of whites.
The economic problem with the coronavirus shutdown is it will wipe out small businesses unless they are bailed out by the government. The thing we really want is to strengthen the middle class small businesses as opposed to big businesses. An economically independent middle class is the bedrock of a republican (small r) system, this will be the final nail in the coffin as this class has been declining for a long time. Maybe it was inevitable.
This could be the beginning of a national populist era where the economy is regulated in our favor- at least somewhat, or it will be the precise opposite and a catastrophe; if Biden wins in November. I don’t believe the Dems can take the Senate, but Biden could use executive orders to force things through.
Are we living through the “acceleration?”
The example of the classical world
https://www.ilprimatonazionale.it/cultura/senso-caos-amor-fati-coronavirus-nuova-configurazione-spirituale-151954/
What is interesting, however, is whether an imaginary, a vision, an idea of society and destiny spiritually oriented in the opposite direction can emerge from the crisis. In a sense, that is, classic and properly European. Obviously this is not an intellectualistic operation that can be resolved, coldly, in a banal journalistic article. However, some traces for a job in this sense can be hatched in an angel’s flight.
The first lesson to be learned tells us that individual health is inextricably intertwined with Salus publica. In Rome, Salus was a divinity of Sabine origin who had a direct relationship with the well-being and happiness of the state. He also had a special relationship with Pax and Concordia. Only later did Salus begin to preside over individual health. Of course, today coronavirus has hit all over the world: healthy and unhealthy states, of any orientation. But the Italian experience tells us that personal health also depends on the health of the state: the health of its health system, of its territorial offshoots, of its decision-making articulations.
Comments are closed.
If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.
Note on comments privacy & moderation
Your email is never published nor shared.
Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.
Paywall Access
Lost your password?Edit your comment