Counter-Currents
Edgar Fernhout, Schädel, 1935.
1,937 words
The lexicon of mendacious government platitudes has gained another ignominious entry. “Just three weeks to flatten the curve!” they implored one long year ago. Yet after twelve months of authoritarianism and state-enforced solitude, SWAT teams are swooping in to arrest Miami spring break revelers, and lockdown protests from Amsterdam to Kassel are intensifying across Europe. The much-vaunted vaccines seem to have brought us no closer to freedom. The initial justifications for the suspension of liberty will now undoubtedly rank in history alongside such inglorious slogans as “the troops will be home by Christmas” and “diversity is our strength.” Debates continue to rage about the lethality and the origin of the coronavirus, but in truth, these are largely academic discussions now. The coronavirus is not primarily an epidemiological phenomenon, but rather a sociological and political one. Our question should not be “why has this pandemic happened now,” but rather “why have governments and societies responded to it as they did?”
The truth may be that the coronavirus did not blink into existence in Wuhan one year ago. Rather, it had been incubating in the psyche of modern societies for years. The ease with which populations not only acquiesced to governmental restrictions but also wilfully demanded more of them is proof that we had already accepted the premise of the coronavirus lockdowns into our hearts long ago. It is worth noting that almost all the trends and changes that the coronavirus has seemingly unleashed are simply an acceleration of what was preexisting: Atomization, a retreat from the physical world into the digital, a neurotic collective hysteria in the face of death without a spiritual framework, the expectation that the government will provide, a pseudo-religious belief in experts and scientific redemption, and the hyper-politicization of communal activity.
In examining the coronavirus as a social display rather than as a deadly viral outbreak, it is useful to identify who has consistently resisted the lockdown. Primarily, religious communities within the West have continued their lives largely unhindered. Only a few weeks ago, the Orthodox Jewish stronghold of Stamford Hill in London had the highest rate of coronavirus in the UK. Likewise, there have been several high-profile cases of Indian and Pakistani weddings and religious festivals being broken up; and it has not gone unnoticed that cities such as Bradford and Leicester with large ethnic minority populations had disproportionately high Covid-rates. It is popular on the Right to point to this as an example of the failure of multiculturalism, highlighting as it does that immigrant communities do not abide by the laws of the land, and that governments are too timid to enforce them in any case fearing accusations of racism. These points are, of course, true. But this also perhaps says more about Western host societies than it does about those who have chosen to migrate to them.
Handwringing liberals may attribute this difference in ethnic attitudes to the coronavirus to a lack of education and resources, or our insensitivity to alternative cultural values. Translated, this simply means that Jewish, Hindu, and Islamic communities have not been morally intimidated by a disease with a median death rate in most cases beyond the average life expectancy; and they also have been unimpressed by the potential for social ostracization if they do not comply. Of course, this may be because they are beyond public reproach in the West, but their response has nevertheless been a perennial, rather than a modern one. Armored by faith, they have taken a divinely fatalistic view and chosen to continue to celebrate the cycle of life and death — weddings, births, funerals, and birthdays.
The shrill cries of moral indignation about the selfishness of killing grandma have much less weight if you have already accepted that your grandparents will die and so will you.
In a world riven by suffering and temporal chaos, they have opted to make meaningful lives, rather than to potentially live just that little bit longer in the self-imposed cryostasis of Western societies.
You can buy Greg Johnson’s Graduate School with Heidegger here
As these religious groupings continue their surreptitious gatherings in the Mosque or Synagogue, hermit Brits dared to leave their womb-like hiding spots to gormlessly clap the NHS in a pseudo-religious act of worship. Without a metaphysical basis, only the quantity rather than the quality of life has any value, and if nurses and doctors are the high priests of this new religion, then they should rightfully be venerated and doted on. The transition from a government of oligarchic middle-managers to total domination by an unelected scientific cabal was really not that drastic when politics had already been reduced to nothing more than a rationalistic and utilitarian problem-solving exercise. The only thing that political parties seem to disagree on is if the restrictions are tough enough, and if the logistics of policing and vaccination have been sufficiently draconian. No philosophical examinations of the objectives of the lockdown are permitted, but then this is unsurprising in societies that also do not allow the questioning of the sacred cows of demographic replacement, foreign policy misadventures, or the cult of LGBTQ+ rights. The population had already been cowed and pre-programmed to accept new doctrines without question by years of the repression of free speech and independent thought.
This does not, however, mean that the lockdown is unpopular. If there were to be a democratic vote on it, it is likely in many Western countries it would be sustained well into the future, perhaps even indefinitely. In Japan, huge segments of the population have withdrawn from society entirely, living their lives in their bedrooms, supported by their parents or the state, living in a condition of total social shame, arrested development, and hedonistic consumption. The term for this is hikikomori. What at first sight may seem an anomaly of Japanese culture is in fact a glimpse into the future of modern society. We are all hikikomori now. A significant portion of people is in no rush to return to “normality” because normality for them was simply social isolation and alienation with additional demands placed upon them. What does the outside world offer to these people anymore? The answer for an increasing number is soulless, unnecessary, and unfulfilling corporate jobs in an atomized world where no one around you looks like you, set amid the backdrop of interchangeable towns and cities.
Sweden is perhaps the most advanced case of this terminal decay of modernity, yet it had the lightest lockdown restrictions in Europe. This at first seems paradoxical, yet in many ways, it only bolsters the analysis. With its huge migrant population that for reasons outlined earlier would not respect any restrictions, and with its completely atomized and self-censoring society in which nearly 40% of people live alone, formal legal restrictions were perhaps thought to be unnecessary when the vast majority of the population would self-police following the Jantelagen, and the migrant communities would never be compelled to obey anyway.
All of this illustrates one fundamental realization: the incentive structures of Western societies have drastically changed over the past few decades. Wealth acquisition, passing on your genes to the next generation, and gaining social standing in the local community have been replaced by virtue-signaling and climbing the ladder of social clout in the global, digital community. We live online. Our community is our Twitter feed, our gaming group, our curated Instagram photos. This is not a particularly original or compelling assessment by itself, but we must also understand that the nature of digital life has changed. Where once social media was pitched as a medium to connect with and keep in touch with real-world friends, it is now a vehicle for conformity, groupthink, and passivity. This is underscored by one subtle, but very important change in the language of social relations. No longer are others friends as they were at the dawn of social media, but are instead now merely followers.
Online social interaction has ceased to be bi-directional and reciprocal; it is that of the devotee and the cult leader. It is a slave and master mentality. It is therefore unlikely a sudden revolt against the popular consensus will spring from those who even in their private online domain are passive cheerleaders. The fact is the physical world has lost its grip over the modern imagination. Going out to earn a living is an almost archaic activity when we are inching towards states so all-encompassing that they will provide a universal basic income driven by fiat money printing. The rise of Bitcoin is a reaction to the feeling that our economies are a giant fiction, running up debts that are never intended to be repaid, presided over by a handful of oligarchs with more wealth than we could ever even imagine. Under these conditions, heading outside and into the office seems terribly outmoded. Likewise, in the digital age, sex has been relegated to a solo activity as pornography supplants procreation for the OnlyFans generation. In the West, there are fewer and fewer communal anchors as pubs and churches close. All of this contributes to the feeling that there is nothing out there in the world of any value, and so the loss of the freedom to go outside and to associate for many has been more an inconvenience than a matter of life and death.
Mortality salience does, however, play a huge role in the current crisis.
Preying on health fears to instill compliance with governmental policy has proven so wildly successful precisely because the population is already so primed to believe that it is at risk. This is because it is. An obese, aging, mentally- and chronically-ill populace is already well versed with an internalized fear of their own incapacitation and demise. Playing on that is the perfect PR strategy, one that would have been inconceivable in a strong and virile society.
All of these factors have contributed to how the coronavirus took over the world, and collectively, they spell a long winter for human liberty. The freedoms we have lost may possibly be incrementally restored in the coming months and years, but we have shown ourselves amply willing to abandon our rights and painstakingly slow to ask for them back. There is no reason to believe an event like the coronavirus could not happen again. We live in an era of chronic rather than acute politics where narratives linger on for months and years. The underlying cultural and societal malaise, the collective neurosis, and the spiritual death of vast swathes of the West will not quickly be reversed.
Our only recourse is to begin to re-root ourselves in a Heideggerian authentic life, to seek out like-minded individuals, and to build robust and resilient communities that can thrive in this bleak existential landscape. As others live their lives in stasis, we must instead embrace reality with vigor — and work to take it back.
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13 comments
Brilliant essay. All the ills of the modern world – “Atomization, a retreat from the physical world into the digital, a neurotic collective hysteria in the face of death without a spiritual framework, the expectation that the government will provide, a pseudo-religious belief in experts and scientific redemption, and the hyper-politicization of communal activity” – are merely highlighted by the coronavirus panic. When I first began pushing back, right when it started, I had people accusing me of being utterly cavalier about others’ lives and deaths. Gradually, many began to accept that tradeoffs are a part of communal human life. But far too many, still, demonstrate that “neurotic collective hysteria in the face of death.” I am in no great rush to die, or deal with the loss of my husband or sons. But a refusal to accept that humanity has an endpoint, and that death is an integral part of life, is just as primal a belief for the Dissident Right as is the rejection of egalitarianism. Neither God nor nature made us equal or immortal. Accept it and deal with it, and get out of the way.
Covid is real and it annoyed the shit out of me that people on the Right were resistant dismiss it as a hoax. Especially when you consider their concern about their demographic decline. Considering it’s effects on the elderly, I saw it as sort of a dream come true for the “old white people need to die so we can finally have progress”. I know it’s real as my other half works at a hospital in administration.
However, Covid also made me realize the difference between conservatives and liberals. The area I was living in when Covid was at it’s height was sickeningly liberal. Mostly due to the white liberal implants. I’d engage in conversation with them at times and they would often blame “republicans in fly over” states. Yet these hypocrites were in and out of each other’s apartments, having parties and clearly hooking up with different sexual partners on a weekly basis with no masks on once the sun went down….and the Mexicans would have massive parties complete with Mariachi bands and not a single mask in sight.
Republicans are outward with their believes. Liberals publically put on a front and are often very different behind closed doors and if you live in a place like LA, you’d be surprised at how many of them once they learn how you feel start to use you as a therapy couch and will even privately admit to you that in CA, they HAVE to publically be liberal. One wrong social media post could result in job loss.
Whatever the state of the virus’ physical properties, the whole ‘Covid Overreaction’ has indeed been one epic hoax, scam, sham, hustle, con or whatever you wish to call it. It does seem that many are so utterly terrified of death (or have been told to be) that any measures are worth it. Even if it crushes small business. Even if it restricts almost every freedom these people had known, and permits government micro-management of lives.
Your point about the differences between liberals and conservatives is interesting. I have not found this to be the case, but then again, perhaps I only know ‘conservatives’. These days, as you know, most conservatives mask their true feelings just as much a liberals.
Interesting. Are hospitals still getting that 30K of federal money for every “covid” death? Did your other half benefit from that in any way? In any other time, that would be called conflict of interest.
Whenever someone discussing the covid hysteria humble brags by claiming that they themselves, or a loved one, or a close friend, works as a nurse/doctor/hospital administrator, the appropriate response is that of Zman:
“And I’m a virologist.”
Funny you mention that. I did go to CBRN school and learned quite a bit about disease transmission and PPE. None of these measures pass even the slightest bit of scrutiny. The masks are a complete waste of time, they’ll tell you just as much on the side of the box. I just tell the believers that “this disease is really good at lowering the carbon footprint of people that are already dying, don’t you want to save the planet, bigot?”
I agree with 3g4me: this is a brilliant and thoughtful essay. Two points stood out in my mind. One is: “An obese, aging, mentally- and chronically-ill populace is already well versed with an internalized fear of their own incapacitation and demise.” It has struck me lately how scared people are of dying. Sometimes, if somebody challenges me by asking me why I am not wearing a mask, I ask them in turn why are they so afraid of dying. Can you imagine if the Spartans had been so afraid of dying when they marched to battle against the army of Xerxes? We’d all be speaking Farsi by now.
Second your point that: “our only recourse is to begin to re-root ourselves in a Heideggerian authentic life, to seek out like-minded individuals, and to build robust and resilient communities that can thrive in this bleak existential landscape”. What follows is part of a comment I wrote for another site, but I would like to share it here with other White Nationalists and perhaps get feedback. I apologise in advance for its length.
I think that the globalists will flood the USA and Canada with cheap, mentally retarded, and sociopathic brown and black people –and the whole region will become a Third World continent: a gigantic Haiti, where Whites will be prosecuted and slaughtered.
Our only hope in this scenario would be to conglomerate into small White enclaves where we could survive: this is similar to what you are suggesting. We will not save all Whites, however: hopefully ten per cent. The rest are either too stupid and passive due to dysgenics (IQ decline, and declining testosterone levels) to see what’s coming and prepare for it, or too woke and brainwashed by Critical Theory to think of it as a bad thing: they will be killed as Whites in Haiti and South Africa were.
Now, our Ancestors warned us that this would happen and advised us on what to do. We can read it in the Eddas. BTW, I’m sure that Collin Cleary could do a much better job at narrating this than I, but here I go:
There are events taking place in the realm of the Gods –Asgard– and in the world of men –Midgard. In Asgard, the giants, the wolf, the serpent, and all those who died an ignoble death in Hel, cross the rainbow bridge. Heimdall (the sentinel) has no doubt that this is Ragnarök and sounds his trumpet to warn the other Gods. His rooster, Gullinkanbi, (not to be outdone) crows the warning too. Odin hears this and leaves Walhalla leading all the heroes who had died in previous battles to fight the last battle. He was foretold by Mimi that he would die. But as a hero that he is, he leads his warriors to the fight and to his death –and he is not wearing a mask. The wolf, Fenrir, kills him. One of his sons, in a fit of rage, kills the wolf and he survives. At the same time, Thor kills the serpent, but dies from her poisonous fumes. So: Odin and Thor kill Evil, but their sons survive. The Gods knew that this was going to be the end of this world, so in their supreme knowledge and love of humanity, they hid a man and a woman in a forest called ‘Hoddmímis holt’, so that they could repopulate the earth when it is all over.
In the meantime, here in Midgard, the wolf eats the sun (Bill Gates wants to darken the sun to prevent global warming), and we go into “The Long Winter”, which will last the length of three normal winters. So, the Eddas are forecasting global cooling, not global warming. As a result of this long winter, crops will fail, there will be hunger and plagues (COVID?), humans will fight and kill each other, there will be perversion and loss of morals (Epstein?). When all humans kill each other, the daughter of our present sun will rise, and the earth will become inhabitable again. The man and the woman will come out of hiding, and, through their love, they will repopulate the earth.
You may be wondering where I am going with all this, but as Herodotus said: ‘a good story never comes amiss to the judicious reader’. Therefore, the lesson from our Ancestors for us today is that conditions will deteriorate, and we must ‘hide in the forest’. We should leave the cities and congregate in small towns where there is still a White majority and try to influence politics at the municipal or county level. We should support the moves for secession. Hopefully in areas of North America (like Alberta or Texas) that may succeed in separating, we could push for White immigration policies once they become independent.
Let us put all this in perspective: at the end of the last Ice Age, the estimated population of Europe was around 120,000 to 400,000: not too many; yet look how far we Europeans have come. So, we can do it again.
Great read.
It’s sad but true that there is indeed nothing more out there. There once was but now there’s not. Just look at the emptied out husks of our cities and towns. God is dead and so will you be if you don’t conform to Kamala and her lying race hustlers. The fundamental transformation of the free world is underway and there are no safe spaces for Constitutionalists such as myself. America has fallen to unelected jackals. Our beloved President is in total submission. This communist takeover has spread everywhere and it’s all over Johnny.
They have invested so much knowledge/know hows, money and efforts in the creation of the coronavirus not to stop it working after only one or two years. This was planned for long, long time and will work long time too.
When Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus tried to ignore coronavirus restriction, the Globalists at once smeared him as “the last dictator in Europe” and are still trying to overthrow him with the help of artificially created “Belarussian opposition”, financed from the West. Do not mess with the coronavirus, with the WHO (and its chief, ex-terrorist), and with the Globalists.
Some observations based upon my reading of this article:
Embracing death as a concept via something like The Daily Stoic and actually being in a situation where death is imminent, are two very different things.
The capitulation to lockdowns and “science” when it comes to the well being of one’s elders involves a very un-Pascal wager. Am I willing to bet the lives of my parents that this is one big psy-op? Surely the Eddas would not instruct such a thing.
Could the hand-wringing over a future white genocide on the continental US akin to Haiti and South Africa be misplaced simply due to the size of the landmass, to say nothing of the size of the white population?
There seem to be a lot of doom-eager Young Werthers posting articles on this site now. Wouldn’t Goethe, or at least any Viking, say that Despair and Death must be earned?
Whole lotta LARPing going on.
Harold had a good death. Wish had been more cunning though. Norman’s were a disaster in terms of creating a ruling caste that hates its own lower orders. The model was exported.
Excellent essay, though with the caveat that it fits into the same box a lot of other thinking does on the DR, bemoaning the death of a spiritual framework without specifically outlining a replacement. Don’t take that criticism too hard though as I haven’t read your other work yet.
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