What Liberals Mean When They Say “Hate”

[1]

Burning of the Templars, from the Grandes Chroniques de France (1314)

1,938 words

One of the harshest judgements we get as White Nationalists and identitarians is that of being hateful, and that we are motivated purely by hate for non-whites. This charge informs a great deal of the mainstream discourse about us and a good deal of our mainstream-facing discourse (meaning our addresses to the normies). White Nationalists and identitarians will often frantically defend themselves against this charge, about as frantically as conservatives rush to prove they are not racist. Indeed, a significant part of what is considered “good optics” is eschewing outright hatred of non-white groups or anything that might even look like it. We are committed to portraying ourselves as solely motivated by care for our own group and portraying our mistrust of outsiders as purely rational and reactive. While this is a good thing and undoubtedly part of good optics, I find that there are various reasons we are called “hateful.”

For starters, let’s think about the nature of the mainstream and its core presuppositions. It has two wings, a progressive Left and a libertarian Right one, but both rest on the same assumption, namely that All Men Are Created Equal. From this assumption flow all the ideas about universal values, meaning they apply to every person in the whole world, at any time, in any place, and in every culture. If they did not apply to all men in all places, then these values would not be universal — but that is not possible, because All Men Are Created Equal, and if values do not apply to some men, then it implies that all men aren’t created equal. This very notion is blasphemous and evil, or in modern parlance, racist and hateful.

Contrast that with the White Nationalist or identitarian view. We recognize that both the progressive (social democratic) and libertarian visions for society and their attendant values are not universal and not common to all men, but they’re rather very specific to the times and places in which they arose. Social democracy is a form of communal social organization very typical of Nordic (and Nordic-admixed) whites. Libertarianism is a very specific outgrowth of a very specific subset of English liberalism often called Manchester liberalism, which earned a good deal of purchase in the mercantile British Empire of the nineteenth century. Both systems were described by Oswald Spengler as singular expressions not merely of white, but specifically of Germanic and even more particularly of the Saxon mentality.

It has indeed been observed with some amusement by the broader Dissident Right that the demographics of libertarianism wouldn’t be out of place in a particularly white corner of the white ethnostate (complete with a sign saying “no gurlz allowd” in great big bold letters outside the treehouse). Progressivism, being the more accepted, more popular, and more powerful of the two wings of the universalist worldview, has broader demographics, but unlike practitioners of other races, it is only white progressives who practice it without applying double standards to get away with in-group preference, which is to say that only white people practice it properly.

One of the first thing a newly-minted White Nationalist does, hoping to win people over to his side, is point out these very things: Both social democratic and libertarian societies are only functional if they have the demographics of a white ethnostate. He will rightly point out that if libertarians truly wanted libertarianism and if progressives truly wanted progressivism, they’d instantly become White Nationalists, because these ideologies are specific to white people (and even more narrowly, Nordic and Germanic white people). The White Nationalist is then promptly chased out of polite society and charged with being “hateful.” He tries to defend himself, claiming that at no point did he say anything hateful and that he doesn’t hate anyone (which in all probability he honestly doesn’t), and that he merely pointed out that black people are a square peg in the round hole of liberalism. At that point, his liberal interlocutors begin wailing, gnashing their teeth, rending their garments, and asking security to remove the foul hater from their presence. Without knowing, our completely hate-free identitarian newbie has violated the most sacred taboo of liberalism: All Men Are Created Equal.

To the liberal, whether progressive or libertarian, the idea of a black, Asian, Subcontinental, Jew, or other form of non-white being a square peg which will never fit into the round hole of white liberal social systems is offensive because it is a falsification of the universalist thesis. Indeed, liberalism’s claim to legitimacy is that its values are universal because All Men Are Created Equal, and therefore these values are universal to all men. To show the liberal an unequal man, struggling to fit into the purportedly universal system, is to provide prima facie evidence that all men are not created equal. This is blasphemy, or in modern parlance, racism. Even something as obviously non-racial as pointing out that Southern and Eastern Europeans aren’t exactly cut out for Northwestern European systems (we aren’t) can be easily dismissed as hateful. Liberals of all stripes have no idea how Italy works. All their models indicate it will fall apart in the next five years — and have been saying the same thing since the Risorgimento. Italy, for its part, functions and will go on functioning for the foreseeable future.

But returning to our apprentice identitarian, what is the actual hatred in his heart? Let’s draw a parallel to a faith we all more or less understand.

[2]

You Can buy F. Roger Devlin’s Sexual Utopia in Power here. [3]

Christianity is full of rhetoric about the brotherhood of man and about how God’s love touches all, as well as other universalist proclamations. Yet, the history of Christianity is in many ways the history of war against the infidel — those who have refused the Word of God. The fedora-wearing atheist thinks this is a gotcha, but it’s self-evident to the right-thinking man, even one of a different faith, that within that particular belief system, those who spurn God’s love (the infidels) are as deserving of crusades, inquisitions, and being shot dirty looks in the street as they are of eternal damnation and hellfire. Likewise, when I see liberals bellyaching about fascists and those who adhere to other illiberal ideologies, I understand the urge to destroy the infidel.

Suppose, however, we had someone who is a Christian and who noticed how curiously white the religion is, and furthermore, that the non-whites who convert to it usually retain their pre-Christian religious practices and behavior. He then proceeds to inform his fellow Christians of this and advance a cautious thesis: that their faith isn’t really universal but specific to their time and place, and indeed, God’s love would only touch them and not others, since others have no souls to save (an early belief of the Mormon Church [4] with regard to blacks, as I was surprised to learn).

If you want an idea of what the reaction would be, just mention that race is somewhat important in spiritual matters to your favorite online traditionalist Catholic. Indeed, these days, whenever I want to annoy tradcaths, all I do is mention that the Great Schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches was not only political, but also ethnic/racial in nature: Greeks, Balkanites and other peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean split away from the Romantic/Germanic West (which later saw another split, this time between Romans and Germans in the Reformation). I’ll then add that I don’t mind these political splits between the churches, as they allow each subracial group to worship God according to their biological needs — and then let the wailing and gnashing of teeth commence.

To say that either Christianity or liberalism are indeed what they truly are in essence — non-universal creeds particular to a specific people in a specific place at a specific time — we strike at its very heart of their source of legitimacy. Ironically, this is a very Western thing we’re striking at, as Faustian man’s drive to conquer infinite space recognizes no border, not even that of biology. His creed is universal, and it applies to all men at all times, and those who claim otherwise are worse than mere infidels because they deny that All Men Are Created Equal. They furthermore deny that this is a universal value; indeed, that there are such things as universal values. Thus, by denying these values which are universal to all men, they have proven that they are not men! They are enemies of humanity! Beasts! Monsters!

As usual, Carl Schmitt was there before us. From The Concept of the Political:

The concept of humanity is an especially useful ideological instrument of imperialist expansion, and in its ethical-humanitarian form it is a specific vehicle of economic imperialism. Here one is reminded of a somewhat modified expression of Proudhon’s: whoever invokes humanity wants to cheat. To confiscate the word humanity, to invoke and monopolize such a term probably has certain incalculable effects, such as denying the enemy the quality of being human and declaring him to be an outlaw of humanity; and a war can thereby be driven to the most extreme inhumanity.

That which stands opposed to universalism is particularism. I am not a dispassionate observer commenting on things. I am a specific man, from a specific time, from a specific country, of a specific culture, speaking in a specific language. My values aren’t universal to all men; they are particular to men like me. My habits and methods aren’t universal — indeed, the world would fall apart if all men tried to live like me — but they are specific to men like me. By saying these things and earnestly believing them, I am committing the cardinal sin against the universalist faiths by indicating a border, an insurmountable barrier.

Faustian man, in his decadent, liberal form, looks at me with nothing but contempt and disgust. He is tempted to resurrect his deep-held prejudices against Southeastern Europeans (most of which are true) when describing me. He considers me a demonic creature which brings nothing but evil barriers, barring the way into the garden that God or Nature (or Nature’s God) made for him. I wound the universalist’s ego by pointing out his finitude, which he interprets as smallness and parochialism. Innocently, because I value his ideas and because I value the finite and the local, I injure his idea. Faustian man in his decadent disposition is thus consumed by an inhuman hatred so severe that he denies me the quality of being human and declares me an outlaw of humanity. This inhuman hatred he then projects onto me. Hence, by pointing out that he also has a tradition, a place, and a limit, I am — in my giggling, sun-kissed naïveté — the hater, the monster, the inhuman beast calling for genocide and destruction.

I mentioned at the beginning that denying that one is a hater is an important part of good optics. However, I will also point out that it is as futile to deny it as is the conservative explaining that he’s not a racist in the face of non-whites claiming systemic racism [5]. When we say “hate” we mean hostility, intent to injure and kill, and disdain out of all proportion. When they say “hate,” they mean denial of the faith — which is true in our case.

So let me give this prescription: When we deny being haters, keep in mind what the enemy means by hate and elucidate this definition to onlookers, but always bear in mind that the enemy’s definition of hate is also the legal definition of hate. This will become even more apparent in the years to come, as the struggle between particularists and universalists intensifies.

*  *  *

Counter-Currents has extended special privileges to those who donate $120 or more per year.

To get full access to all content behind the paywall, sign up here:

Paywall Gift Subscriptions

[6]If you are already behind the paywall and want to share the benefits, Counter-Currents also offers paywall gift subscriptions. We need just five things from you:

To register, just fill out this form and we will walk you through the payment and registration process. There are a number of different payment options.