Counter-Currents
Kevin MacDonald’s Individualism & The Western Liberal Tradition Part 9: The Moral Argument for White Interests
Ricardo Duchesne
1,390 words
We have now reached the last chapter of Kevin MacDonald’s Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition. This indispensable book argues that both the rise and decline of the West can be explained in terms of the genetically selected predisposition Europeans have for creating communities that emphasize the moral reputation of individuals for honesty, hard work, and fairness, rather than kinship ties and racial identities. The fundamental error of whites was to project onto all human beings their peculiar individualism and moral universalism. whites failed to understand their own history: that only Europeans created moral communities based on universal values, and that non-whites have remained very in-group oriented and ethnocentric throughout their histories. They failed to understand that in the age of mass immigration non-whites view their openness as an opportunity to promote their own ethnic interests.
This is not to say that whites have always viewed themselves in the extremely individualistic and anti-nationalistic manner they do today. Some decades ago, Americans were quite comfortable identifying their liberal nation in ethnic “Anglo-Saxon” terms and imposing strict limits on immigration from non-European nations. They did not think that cultural nationalism was inconsistent with liberal principles. It was really after WWII that whites came to the view that liberalism demanded the integration of multiple races within their homelands. Why did they come to this view?
This is where the inordinate influence of Jews comes into MacDonald’s historical study. The Jews did not create Western liberalism. But in the United States, the focus of MacDonald’s work, Jews were crucially important in the articulation of the argument that America was meant to be a “polycentric” nation populated by multiple races. They came up with the idea that liberalism was inconsistent with the identification of America as an “Anglo-Saxon nation.” They played the leading intellectual role in formulating the idea that all Western nations were meant to be multicultural and that assimilation to a “dominant culture” was a violation of the “human dignity” of immigrants. They pushed the idea that Western nations were founded on racism, patriarchal domination, exploitation of the Third World, and that the mere existence of Western nations without racial diversity was a form of “white supremacy.”
MacDonald is not of the view that whites are inherently condemned to be swamped by non-whites in lieu of their individualism. As we saw in Part 8 of our extended review, whites are still instinctively ethnocentric even while they express adherence to immigrant multiculturalism. Furthermore, and this is the focus of chapter 9, MacDonald anticipates that, as “expressions of anti-white hatred” intensify, whites will start to coalesce as a race. But he cautions against a strategy premised on the expectation that whites will suddenly start behaving in the collectivist manner of non-whites. Whites are not inclined to create kinship-based communities. Therefore, if whites are to join communities that emphasize their racial interests, they need to be rationally persuaded that these race-oriented communities are morally justified. Whites need to be persuaded that their individual self-interests, and their own liberal way of life, are fundamentally threatened by immigrant diversification. As MacDonald writes:
Pro-white activists attempting to combat this moral community [of the Left] must be aware of the very powerful tendency among their constituents toward wanting to be part of a moral community. In particular, they must emphasize that whites have interests that are morally legitimate.
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It is MacDonald’s view that a Darwinian perspective would be an excellent rationally-based argument to persuade whites about the legitimacy of their ingroup interests. As whites face increasing hostility from non-whites, they need to be persuaded that their communities based on social trust, rule of law, scientific objectivity, and equal rights, will survive only within an ethnicized form of individualism.
Darwinian Communities of weird whites
White normies can’t be expected to discard altogether their deeply-seated behavioral inclination for communities based on moral fairness, trust, honesty, and merit. They can’t be expected to create “group-oriented intellectual movements based on dogmatic assertions, fealty to group leaders.” Whites are a different race with a weird personality and intellect. Whites have a unique capacity for analytical reasoning. Whereas the minds of non-whites operate within contextual relationships made up of traditions, kinship interests, and personal inclinations, the minds of whites operate according to rules dictated by the mind’s own rational principles.
The white mind has a capacity for decontextualization; that is, for detaching things from their context, focusing on the inherent traits of objects as such and developing formal rules for explaining and predicting phenomena. The non-white mind, if I may put it bluntly, can’t fully distinguish the subject and the object, the mind and the body, the context and the thing-in-itself. The minds of collectivist non-whites are socially embedded, which means that the collectivist mind tends to be trapped to the surrounding world of prescribed or dogmatically given norms and interests of the kinship group, and thus has a lesser capacity for impartiality, for science, for honesty, for trustworthiness. It is no accident that whites are responsible for almost the entire history of logic, 97% of all scientific findings, the development of abstract symbols in musical notation, arithmetical operations, grammatical rules, and almost all the categorizing, serializing, enumerating, and inferring in science.
Therefore, if identitarians are to make a case for white racial interests in the face of growing white awareness of their impending marginalization, they must articulate arguments that take into consideration the unique nature of the white inclination for moral communities. It is MacDonald’s conviction that the key to a successful moral argument is to persuade whites to create moral communities with a proper Darwinian understanding of history and in-group interests. The following are some of the key Darwinian lessons whites must integrate into their moral communities:
- That there are genetic differences between peoples, and that despite their individualism and universalism whites have legitimate racial interests like every other race.
- That those communities enjoying higher social trust, lawfulness, political participation, functional schools, and ethnic cohesion happen to be heavily populated by whites with minimal diversity.
- That the moral communities whites cherish based on democratic politics, rule of law, and meritocracy are deteriorating precisely because these communities are increasingly populated by non-whites and dominated by radical Leftist politics.
- That whites are the least morally depraved race on the planet when it comes to political corruption, inequality of rights, and ethnic despotism.
- That low-IQ immigrants are a drain on society and on the ability of white nations to compete in our highly technical world economy, as well as a major cost to white taxpayers.
- That mass immigration brings a downward pressure on the wages of working classes, and that the importation of workers from India and China undermines white high tech workers.
- That immigration and incessant attacks on “white racism” are leading to extreme polarization in politics, civil strife, and eventually civil war across many Western communities, rather than racial harmony and the elimination of human conflict as promised.
- That diversity comes together with increased anti-white hatred and violence against whites.
MacDonald’s book thus comes full circle, in a tightly argued manner, from a very original account of Western uniqueness based on Darwinian principles to a call for white identity politics based on moral Darwinian arguments that appeal to the individualism and the analytical mind of whites to counter the anti-white “monster” the “Left and its big business allies have created.” Criticisms can undoubtedly be directed against Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition. But having studied this book in a thorough manner, I am convinced that MacDonald’s perspective is far more than one viewpoint among other interesting viewpoints. It is an indispensable viewpoint without which white identity politics would lack both a solid scientific foundation and a compelling moral argument that could persuade large numbers of whites about the legitimacy of their ingroup interests.
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Notes
This article originally appeared at the Council of European Canadians.
8 comments
‘Least morally depraved people’ is not going to be an effective argument for those who are committed to being the ‘least morally depraved people’ by allowing themselves to be wiped off the face of the earth by non-Whites. This where demoralization and Christian martyrdom combine to provided a ‘moral’ face on racial suicide.
Well said, and as I always say we need to study our enemies and use their spell against them. Using posters or banners saying for example “It’s OK to be White” helps, but that’s not enough in my opinion.
We need to strengthen our base even more (Ex: BLM can be considered a double-edged sword, alienate some and awaken others) and change this reality in these “Interesting” times in which we live.
But I know that the more
faith and optimism we have, the faster our victory we attract (this is called the Law of Attraction).
Survival is the first morality – Thomas Jefferson. What else do we need, properly understood? It’s not everything, but the foundation of any moral edifice. Sir Arthur Keith’s Law of Amity and Enmity can be considered an extended commentary of this one sentence. Traditional Christianity skillfully blended the two moralities (Christian and Natural, Keith’s Dual Code) perhaps all the more skillfully because not focused on consciously. But of course our foes saw a chink in our armor on this very point, and applied pressure.
As Chuang Tzu said, a centipede was speeding along until someone asked him how he managed his many legs. Not only could he not answer, he could no longer walk either. Other than the profoundly learned, people’s instincts serve them better than their conscious minds on question such as this.
I’m pleased to see that Dr. MacDonald and Dr. Duchesne “Get It” about the necessity of a moral case for why Whites should defend ourselves as a race. One of the defining features of the WigNats is that they insist that Whites do not need to justify our existence, that we should stick up for our race just because its our race. They say that an intellectual or moral defense of the White Race is for spergs and losers.
I’ll grant them this: Whites don’t need to morally defend our race to other races, but we DO need to morally defend our race to our own people. Normies will never, in a million years, defend Whites just because its their own race, and frankly, nor should they. We box ourselves into an indefensible position when we try to explain away White Leftists and their destructive ideology. The WigNats want us to ignore the character and morality of other Whites altogether, which basically makes us no different then Negroes. “My race, drunk or sober” should NOT be the White Nationalist rallying cry, especially since its tied to a Leftist/Collectivist agenda known as National Bolshevism that is utterly alien to the White individualist spirit.
If regular Whites ever accepted in their minds and hearts that…
1. Everything they love and cherish – “Liberalism” as the WigNats call it – is only possibly through the genetic preservation and continuation of the White Race.
2. Whites are a good, distinct people with character traits unique to us that make us inherently different – although not necessarily “better” – from other races.
…then things would begin to click in their minds, the dominoes would fall into place, and the tide would start to turn. “My race, drunk or sober” reduces us to primitive tribesman. We are better than that.
It’s a Foundation. A staircase depends on its first step. A skyscraper on its first floor. You want to skip this step and have something else for a first step? Oh, folly. Many will never get beyond this first step and if you replace it, you’ll get the ideologues we see out in the streets, educated far beyond their capacity.
I don’t say there isn’t more, but why are you so against the most basic? If we start with ability, then we become like the East Asian IQ junkies with their Asian wives. Or the Jew lovers of American Renaissance. Or if you love sports, then of course the great Black ability in so many.
If we need a rationale to defend ourselves, it’s indicative of an already dangerously weakened life force. One who makes this error, will make many more. If your mother was attack, would you not defend her? Or would you stop and think if she was the best mother or deserved defending? Simple as that.
Zen is above morality but morality is not below Zen. (Phillip Kapleau). Likewise, love of one’s culture is above love of one’s people, but love of one’s people is not below love’s one’s culture. Or do you want the scent without the flower? It’s a seamless garment. The most natural thing in the world. Why do you seek to rend it?
Jaego,
I’m against it because Whites don’t have this basic instinct. If we did, we would have woken up by now and taken back our homelands. We put up with things that previous generations never would have tolerated, like that 5 year old boy in Minnesota who was thrown off the top balcony of Mall of America by some Negro, and I believe the reason we tolerate stuff like that is because, after WW2, we accepted and internalized the propaganda that defending the White Race – our own race – was morally illegitimate. Dr. MacDonald wishes to confront this mental roadblock, where well-meaning but mistaken individuals like yourself think we can appeal to instincts that no longer exist in Whites anymore (or if those instincts do exist, they are so weak that they are ineffective and therefore useless).
What’s so wrong with this as long as we don’t slobber over other races and put them on a pedestal? Acknowledging the inherent talents and abilities of other races serves two purposes:
1. It reaffirms the biological reality of race, which is in direct conflict with one of the core religious beliefs of Leftists and Conservatives alike: That race doesn’t exist, that all humans are exactly the same biologically and have no inherent differences. The day we give up this fight is the day that Race truly ceases to have any significant meaning.
2. It gets us off the hook – at least to a degree – from the damning, “Drop Mic” accusations of “White Supremacy.” We’ve already forced the enemy to give White Supremacy a new definition entirely in order for it to have any plausible meaning. For generations, White Supremacy meant one of two things:
a. The idea that Whites are literally superior to non-whites in some quantifiable or abstract way (civilizational development and impulse control would fall under this purview)
b. A system such as Slavery, Segregation or Apartheid in which Whites are legally superior over non-whites, who live under a subordinated, second class citizenship. That this would foster resentment and hatred among non-whites towards Whites should have been obvious, and our ancestors made a huge mistake by arrogantly assuming that this resentment would never come back to bite their descendants in the ass.
Since these White Supremacist systems obviously no longer exist, and since no normal White person believes in their hearts that Whites are inherently superior to non-whites, the enemy had to redefine White Supremacy from the above two definitions to “any system in which Whites have better livelihoods than non-whites.” They call this White Privilege, and then proceed to site a bunch of stats and anecdotal situations about how Whites have it better off than non-whites.
In the last 6 years since the Michael Brown shooting in 2014, the enemy has made devastating cultural advances by repeating this narrative over and over again. Your average White person, who until 2014 probably would have said racism and white supremacy were things of the past, has now been convinced that Whites still have unfair advantages over non-whites, and that non-whites live under an oppressive system designed to keep them down and humiliate them.
Pretty sick inversion of reality, huh? Except it’s not. This narrative is perfectly plausible if one assumes that, as Thomas Jefferson said, “All Men Are Created Equal.” Vastly unequal outcomes that favor Whites + the belief Whites are no different than other races = The system must be stacked in favor of Whites = We still live under a White Supremacist system. It’s a simple yet brutally effective logic, and the only way it can be undone is if normal Whites accept the two points that I explained in my comment above.
By highlighting the talents of other races, we show any eyes of normal people watching us that we aren’t pushing a haughty narrative of “Whites are better at everything,” and we also show that we aren’t interested in establishing a White Supremacist system in which Whites lord it over non-whites. (Richard Spencer is an exception, but then again, he’s a garbage human being who lacks all the positive characteristics traditionally associated with White Men). We’ll have to answer hard questions one way or another – as I said, there’s no way to counter the White Privilege narrative without resorting to a narrative based on Human Biological Diversity – but it’s crucially important that Normies don’t see us as dangerous lunatics, and since 2015, we’ve dropped the ball BADLY on that, for which the WigNats like Spencer are to blame.
A dangerously weakened life force is already clear and present. What matters now is how we deal with it and revive it. Whites have made it clear that they’ve moved past “racism” and “white supremacy.” They will see anything that comes out of our mouths as secretly pushing a hostile, hate-filled agenda. What we must do is lower their guard and plant the seeds in their mind of why they need what we are advocating. Right now, they don’t feel they need it and therefore are not interested in it. But that will change as time goes on.
The upside of the last 6 miserable years is that there are many more Whites who are racially awake now then there were in 2014, and guess what: Contrary to the WigNat obsession with the dubious marketing tactics of Edward Bernays, Whites are NOT play dough that can be molded by the media to believing whatever is desired. If talents and characteristics are inherited/biological, then this must mean that some Whites will be more susceptible to media propaganda while others will be more immune to it. Reality will indeed redpill many Whites as we move through the 21st century. The question is whether there will ever be a critical mass of awakened Whites that can be harnessed into a true resistance against an enemy intent on our extermination. I must admit, I’m pessimistic about this prospect, but right now, it’s our only hope.
Defending your race does not illicit the intense feelings and instincts that defending your mother or your family does. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
Because it’s no longer self-evident like it was before that Race and Culture are tied together like a DNA strand. Whether you like it or not, 99% of the White Race believes that everything we love and cherish can be conserved and will continue even if we all become a miscegenated, mocha colored race of indistinguishable individuals.
In fact, I’d venture to say that most Whites, if they were being blunt and honest, would admit that they don’t think Whites are going to disappear at all. They don’t have a problem with miscegenation because in their minds, Whites aren’t actually going to breed themselves out of existence anyway. They believe that in 500 years, the world will still be full of people who look like Henry Cavill or Margot Robbie. We all know it won’t be, but trying telling Normies that.
We have to deal with our race where they are, not where we think they are or where we’d like them to be. Appealing to instinct won’t work. We must appeal to them morally and intellectually in order to win. If that is a hopeless cause, then so is the entirety of the White Nationalist Movement.
Good reply. Things certainly haven’t been going our way and indeed, our instincts may have atrophied – or perhaps were never as strong as other to begin with. I believe MacDonald believes the latter.
Personally, I fully accept that other races are sometimes better than us in some ways. I hope I didn’t imply in some way a naive supremacism that I do not feel or believe. For example, Blacks of the Kalenjin ancestry in East Africa are by far the greatest distance runners in the world apparently. So much so that no White Man has a chance against them. My reaction to this is to simply note it and then not bother following the sport.
Your analysis of the intellectual bind they have us in is correct. I’m not even sure what we are arguing about! Maybe “wignat”? Is this, per chance, wigger nationalism? Please rethink this incendiary acronym. It may obscure the fact the you have much to offer.
Beyond that, I have to admit you are right that the things that move me and those like me don’t seem to matter to most Whites anymore. So I think I better refine my approach, perhaps starting by ordering this book. Thanks for the helpful criticism.
One caveat: You say most don’t care what “we” look like as long as our culture goes on. And you also say that most think we will go on as a race, not knowing our demographic peril. Two different strands here. Some people may believe both simultaneously, for which the MacDonald program is called for. Or of course for those who don’t think race matters. For the others, maybe a simple breakdown of the rate of immigration in all White nations and the low White birthrate, in all White nations, might suffice. Numbers has a superb video in this regard.
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