Counter-Currents
You can pre-order the Centennial Edition of Francis Parker Yockey’s Imperium here.
3,022 words
One of the fundamental divisions in the White Nationalist movement is between ethnonationalists and imperialists. Ethnonationalists want a world in which every distinct people has the right to a sovereign homeland. Imperialists want a single white racial state. Wilmot Robertson makes the case for ethnonationalism in his book The Ethnostate, whereas Francis Parker Yockey presents the case for imperialism in Imperium. Other advocates of imperialism include Sir Oswald Mosley, Jean Thiriart, and Guillaume Faye.
The division between imperialists and ethnonationalists is often overlooked. Both ethnonationalists and imperialists largely agree on what we dislike, and every day our enemies deliver fresh outrages to occupy our attention. By contrast, creating white ethnostates, or a unified white imperium, will only happen in the future. Why quarrel about long-term differences when we can focus on shared concerns in the present?
There’s also a muddle-headedness about the imperialist position that makes it easy to ignore. I have lost count of the times I have heard the imperialist argument put forward and then taken back at the last moment by saying we need “an imperium . . . or maybe a federation . . . or maybe an alliance” as if there is no essential difference between a single white state and a group of white states in a federation or an alliance.
There are plenty of differences between white advocates that are best set aside for the common good of the race, such as Christians versus pagans, pro-abortion versus anti-abortion, or capitalists versus socialists. There have been healthy white societies on both sides of such questions, so White Nationalists are not forced to choose between them. Different white homelands could take different positions on these issues.
But we have to deal with the question of imperialism versus ethnonationalism. The two options are mutually exclusive. If there is only one white state, there can’t be many. So we have to choose.
Why can’t we be simply “pro-white”? Because if we are serious about pro-white politics, we have to give that a concrete meaning, and that means answering the question of one state or many.
Moreover, since this is a question about our ultimate goals, it is about the essence of our movement. What makes us a movement rather than a gaggle of fellow travelers is having a common political goal. Fellow travelers have different ultimate goals but find themselves temporarily on the same path. They might share common complaints and enemies. They may be allies and companions for the time being. But because they have different destinations, they will eventually arrive at a fork in the road, where they will have to shake hands and part ways.
The freshest statement of the imperialist position is Gregory Hood’s recent American Renaissance speech “The Challenge Ahead”: “What I want is a united Western Civilization-State that will ensure the physical survival of our race.”
A “civilization-state” is a new geopolitical term for an empire that defines itself in opposition to Western liberal democracy. Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China are the preeminent examples. Both are empires encompassing many nations under the cultural and political hegemony of a founding people: the Russians and Han Chinese. A white civilization state would presumably follow the same pattern: an empire embracing many peoples under the political and cultural domination of a founding people.
You can buy Greg Hood’s Waking Up From the American Dream here.
I usually agree with Greg Hood, but not in this case. I don’t want a single white state for the reasons Wilmot Robertson sets forth in The Ethnostate: ethnonationalism promotes peace and diversity (political, cultural, and genetic), whereas imperialism imperils peace and diversity. A single white state will not emerge without conflict. Such a struggle is the last thing that a race demographically collapsing toward extinction needs.
This prospect is especially horrifying given the prime candidates for Herrenvolk: Germans, Russians, and Americans. These nations might have the power to establish and dominate a white imperium, but culturally and spiritually, they are among the most degenerate. Increasing their power would make almost every European nation worse off rather than better.
Hood claims that the imperium he envisions would respect “local cultures,” but this is hardly reassuring, given the record of empires past and present. Nor is it reassuring when Hood remarks that, “We have been one people before the relatively new phenomena of national identity and Christian denominational differences divided us.”
When imperialists say national identities are “relatively new,” it is like Leftists saying they are “social constructs”: it means they are slated for destruction. Moreover, the lost unity that Hood mourns didn’t always exist. Yes, much of Europe was basically one people — after Rome homogenized it. Yes, much of Europe was also Roman Catholic — after the Church destroyed all of its rivals. So much for “respecting local cultures.”
There are four principal arguments for imperialism. First, only a unified white state can secure a future for the white race. Second, nation-states and national identities are obsolete in an increasingly globalized world. Third, we are attacked as whites, so we must defend ourselves as whites; more specific ethnic and national identities don’t matter. Fourth, empires are glorious! Just think of Rome, Napoleon, Warhammer 40K.
Let’s look at how Hood reprises the classic imperialist tropes. He touches on the first three arguments in a single paragraph:
National identities themselves are relatively recent creations. They are fading with travel, technology, and geopolitical arrangements that are breaking down the nation-state. The multipolar world that is emerging is a battle between civilizations. What unites a white person in America, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia, and every other place is stronger than what unites him to those of different races who carry the same passport. As the world becomes more connected technologically, race isn’t fading. It’s becoming more important, and it’s our opponents who insist it is central to every social interaction. We didn’t ask for this. We’re only playing the cards we were dealt.
The first argument for imperialism is that small states are weaker than large states. Therefore, to protect themselves from large non-white powers like China, small white states must amalgamate into a single white empire. As Hood puts it, “This is not a dream. It’s a necessity. Whites are a hated, shrinking, global minority. We need a geopolitical lifeboat capable of ensuring our physical existence.” Our choice is literally “join or die.”
Whites should definitely be concerned with geopolitical competition from other races and civilizations. But at best this is an argument for shifting military alliances or a more permanent treaty organization like NATO. It falls far short of an argument for a single white state. There is simply no power on Earth that requires the political unification of all white nations to resist it.
Beyond that, wars and other geopolitical crises are by their very nature interruptions in the normal order of things. They are temporary and fluid. It is foolish to institute permanent and fixed solutions to preempt temporary and fluid problems. Why would any nation permanently surrender its sovereignty to a superstate because of the possibility that it might lose its sovereignty in a war with China?
After all, surrendering sovereignty entails dangers, too. If a nation-state surrenders its sovereignty to a superstate, that virtually guarantees that alien peoples will have far more power to determine its destiny — again, to avoid the mere possibility of domination by still more alien peoples. This increases the chance that one’s culture will be homogenized and one’s population and resources will be stripped by the imperial capital. One will also risk being dragged into unnecessary wars.
Another problem with a superstate is that it puts all our eggs in one basket. If the future of the white race depends on the decisions of a single government, what happens if that government goes catastrophically wrong? Obviously, that would imperil the whole race. In such a situation, Hood’s “geopolitical lifeboat” would be more like a geopolitical Titanic, right down to the hubris, and individual nation-states would be the true lifeboats.
Imperialists, however, argue that nation-states are fading away due to globalization. They will certainly disappear if nothing is done to stop globalization. But this is an argument for resisting globalization, not going along with it.
Francis Parker Yockey poured scorn on tiny “comic opera” states. He equated national sovereignty simply with power, which means only very large states have sovereignty. Of course, since even the largest state can be destroyed if the rest of the world allies against it, that means that no nations have sovereignty, which is a reductio ad absurdum of equating sovereignty and power. Yockey simply can’t explain why some of the statelets he mocks, like Lichtenstein and Monaco, are among the oldest and most prosperous sovereign entities on the planet, even though they are also among the weakest. But life isn’t constant war.
Sovereignty is not power. It is a moral norm. In international law, a sovereign state is the equivalent of a moral person, namely someone who bears rights. Sovereign states are masters of their own internal affairs. No matter their size, they are considered to be equal under international law.
To say that small nations have no sovereignty is as incoherent as saying that weak people have no rights. Rights don’t make you bulletproof, but they do provide guidelines of proper behavior. Strong nations might invade weak nations, but the idea of sovereignty means they are wrong to do so and other nations are right to join together to resist them. Sovereign nations are not in a state of perpetual war, because moral norms matter, even to politicians.
The idea of sovereignty is as old as political thought, but the modern concept of sovereignty was created in the seventeenth century to bring an end to the religious wars by, in effect, disempowering the Pope to meddle in the internal religious affairs of nations. Its purpose was to promote peace by guaranteeing the right to differ.
Despite globalist clichés about the inevitable decline of the nation-state, it is still the foundation of global political order. Nation-states make war and peace. They educate their citizens. They regulate the media. They open and close borders. They regulate economic activity. They can bring oligarchs to heel. They control virtually all the institutions and incentives necessary to preserve or destroy their populations.
The various “globalist” treaty organizations, customs unions, and alliances like NATO, the European Union, and the United Nations, are based upon agreements among sovereign nation-states. They would evaporate overnight if enough nation-states walked away from them.
If white advocates are serious about saving our race, we need to challenge the current establishment at all levels, the higher the better, with the holy grail being control of sovereign states, which can say “no” to subsidiary powers, fellow sovereign states, and globalist entities. With enough sovereign states on our side, we can turn the world around.
Imperialists also argue that nation-states are increasingly irrelevant because national identities are fading away. But this is simply another argument for resisting globalization rather than giving in to it. Beyond that, cultural homogenization is largely superficial. Yes, Europeans increasingly consume the same goods, but there will always be different European peoples, because national identity is passed along with one’s mother tongue. English may be today’s lingua franca, but that’s nothing new. In the past it was French or Latin. But English will not be adopted by everyone, and it will remain a second or third language to most of those who learn it.
Hood argues that racial identity will eclipse national identity simply because whites are being attacked as a race and replaced as a race. “Our fate will be decided as whites. Thus, we must act as whites. It will not be as members of different nations.” But this does not follow.
Yes, we are being attacked as a race. Therefore, we need to fight back on the racial front. When you are attacked, your enemy gets to choose where and how he attacks you, and you have to respond in kind.
But just because our enemies see us as nothing but whites, that doesn’t mean they are right. There’s more to our identity than just race. Language, culture, and ethnicity also matter.
Hood, however, seems to allow our enemies to define us: “Being white is the most meaningful identity we have. Our rulers gave us a negative one. We need a positive one.” Because of this, Hood argues that “we are a people, not simply a group of peoples,” and one people needs one state.
But whites are a race, not a people, because peoplehood presupposes a common language and culture, whereas whites have many different languages and cultures, alongside a common genetic and cultural heritage. White Nationalism, therefore, cannot mean one white state for one white people. Instead, it can only mean national self-determination for all white peoples.
Hood likens his dream to the Roman Empire, which he thinks was glorious. I confess it leaves me cold. The Roman Empire left magnificent ruins, but it was a catastrophe to the peoples it conquered. Julius Caesar alone killed more than a million Gauls — at a time when one had to look one’s victims in the eye — to add France to the Roman Empire. No white empire has even been created without spilling oceans of white blood, on all sides. For a dying race, this is sheer madness. Thus, it is a fair question: How many millions of Europeans are today’s imperialists willing to kill to create their dream?
Hood makes it very clear that we can’t just defer debating imperialism versus ethnonationalism forever. One’s answer will define the essence of our movement and determine the meaning of everything we do today:
There are more white advocates than ever, all looking for something to do, all pushing in a million different directions. We must have a final goal that gives us a common direction, even if we disagree on tactics, ideology, or organizational missions. The Western Imperium, the sacral empire that would unite and protect the white race, is that final goal.
Of course, one danger of insisting that all white advocates pursue the same goal is that fewer people will get involved. But this is a debate that we cannot avoid. Moreover, if one chooses imperialism, we will not be able to defer all the other divisive questions, either. For if there is only one white state, there can be only one answer to such questions as capitalism versus socialism.
Another reason we can’t defer the imperialism versus ethnonationalism question is that one’s attitudes on this matter influence one’s present-day political stances. Although imperialists often present themselves as utopian dreamers, they are often apologists for quite grubby contemporary power agglomerations, as long as they are opposed to ethnonationalism.
You can buy The Alternative Right, ed. Greg Johnson, here
For instance, before abandoning the Right altogether, Richard Spencer was a well-known standard-bearer for imperialism. From 2013 on, Spencer favored Russian imperialism over Ukrainian nationalism, the United Kingdom over an independent Scotland, the European Union over an independent United Kingdom, and Spain over an independent Catalonia. It was certainly consistent, but what did it have to do with white advocacy?
Currently the white race is facing extinction though low fertility, miscegenation, and replacement migration imposed by the existing political establishment, which exercises power through both national and transnational institutions. To save ourselves, we need to replace the establishment before it replaces us. That means that we need power — which means we need to contest power at all levels.
But Spencer’s imperialism led him to denigrate even explicitly pro-white ethnonationalist movements as “petty” while defending anti-white imperial agglomerations simply because they are larger and more powerful. This makes no sense if one’s primary concern is white survival. Indeed, it only makes sense if one is primarily a power-worshipper, which is what Spencer turned out to be. This is why he left the Dissident Right altogether. He followed the power.
Hood’s imperialism also leads to incoherence in the face of present-day politics:
What is to be done? We will build tribes, churches, networks. We will turn our backs on their world and build our own. . . . We will build political power locally and wield it where we can. And we will build towards the dream of a Western Imperium that is our destiny, that will bind our people together in unity, honor, and strength.
Hood counsels us here to think both very big and very small. “Building strength locally is a first step, and it allows for political action.” This is true. But if one can organize locally, why not regionally and nationally as well? How can one get from the local to the universal without passing through the nation-state?
Hood clearly thinks that demographic change is too advanced in the United States for a pro-white force to gain national power. (The proper lesson for Americans is to give up on democracy, not America.)
But in most white countries, it is still possible for pro-white forces to vie for national power. Why pass up the chance? Why seek power only on the local level, which can be annulled on the national level, but not seek national power within existing sovereign states?
Because this is the logic of the imperialist dream: “Our fate will be decided as whites. Thus, we must act as whites. It will not be as members of different nations.” To believe in the imperium commits one to the idea that there’s no point in contesting power in nation-states, even though that is where actual sovereignty resides. This is simply self-defeating.
In sum, I advocate ethnonationalism because I believe that it promotes peace and diversity by giving distinct peoples their own sovereign homelands. I oppose imperialism because it increases conflict and decreases diversity. Moreover, I have explained why I don’t find the arguments for preferring imperialism to ethnonationalism convincing. Finally, ethnonationalism is politically realistic because it can build upon existing political movements and existing sovereign states, whereas imperialism offers high-minded rhetoric but no concrete path to white survival.
The debate between imperialists and ethnonationalists cannot be avoided, because it concerns the very essence of our movement. Indeed, are we one movement or two? Nor can the debate be postponed, because one’s answer has concrete implications for the movement today. I look forward to continuing the conversation.
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45 comments
Start promoting Red State secession! If we can get Red State America, Germany and France to walk off the globalist plantation we’ve won the battle. Game over.
I think blue state secession is more likely to happen and would have better consequences. See my article “In Praise of Calexit”: https://counter-currents.com/2016/11/in-praise-of-calexit/
Granting “blue state independance” would be better framing if it could be done, especially since they’re so few. Blue city voters in red states could just move back to independant blue states.
A hypothetical example could be a referendum on Hawaiian Independance, to be granted on three conditions:
* Forfeit any American nuclear capable weaponry and vehicles
* UN Headquarters relocated there
* Agree to Pacific Ocean Neutrality Treaty
Also, as an act of good faith:
* For the interests of Hawaii, only non-white residents may vote
Relocation of the UN HQ there with no nuclear weapons possessed could entice legal recognition of neutrality from all regional Pacific interests.
In general, our contemporary white imperialists tend to forget that “white” is still a secondary form decended from the “human” form, which would be to fight for a kind of plastic abstraction. Despite this, I had also leaned towards Imperialism, since White Unity makes sense.
However, I had recently recalled two ancient Greek historical milestones: the Battle of Thermopylae, and the Peloponnesian War. Sparta fought against imperialists in both conflicts and were the indisputed protagonists, win or lose; without their former victory, there would not have been gloating Athenians to culturally impress the Romans later on.
Also, I can’t really deride a unified white “petty” state for securing the future for its constituent white children, and Hungary demonstrates the nation-state to be a valuable Futurism in the face of Globalism quite handily. I reckon that the Irish would likely dispute their culture being deemed superfluous by the English, if pressed again; and the same then applies for Quebecers, Yankees, Dixians, Texans, Catalonians, et al, within their contexts.
Finally, I doubt that Hood intends to kneel to the British Crown if it meant that the American Constitution lost that fight, which vindicates the Western Normie-Boomers’ stubborn opinions resting on their “Not Speaking German.”
Given all of this, I must begrudgingly admit my shock at the implications of the total erasure of local identities to serve imperial ambitions. So then, if our real NATO’s are more useful than our dreamy Ultra-EU’s, the imperialists’ persuasion seems to involve being really impressed with how much booty that the GAE can twerk with against Russia’s pole, the Ukrainians be damned to grab a side-chair and watch. Of course, Xerxes once thought he had it all, and even more…
Whites have different languages, different religions, and different histories. Only serious violence could force these different groups into a single state.
Exactly, and it is madness throw such an apple of discord to a dying race.
Isn’t this exactly what judaeo-christianity is, that apple of discord?
“There is simply no power on Earth that requires the political unification of all white nations to resist it.”
On the contrary, this power does exist: it is the American Empire, which is bent on the genocide of the white race.
“If the future of the white race depends on the decisions of a single government, what happens if that government goes catastrophically wrong?”
There is this government now: the American Empire.
If there is to be any chance for the white race, the American Empire must be destroyed.
And the American empire is only an approximation of what a single, centralized white state would be.
I tend to agree with you. The American empire – and the capitalist ethos and culture it embodies – is cancer for white nations. I also agree with Greg; having a single white state makes it more likely that one (or a small handful) of white cultures will dominate. Think of how Russian culture dominated the USSR until the 1980’s. It also means that if the dominant state goes bad, all our eggs are in that one bad basket.
The task for genuine ethno-nationalist states of the future is to secure the physical, cultural and economic integrity of our homelands. This will include removing American imperial cultural and economic institutions.
It is more accurate and helpful to say the Judeo-American Empire. It is the hijacking of American institutions by a hostile, highly ethnocentric Jewish nation which has led to the current plight for the United States domestically, and for the recipients of the barbaric wars serving Jewish interests in the Middle East and now between the Eastern Slavs. The problems associated with “American” Imperialism should be placed at the feet of the Jewish Neo-Conservatives.
It is similarly the hostile hijacking of other White countries’ governments by Judeo-Imperialism in the form of multicultural policies, including mass multiracial immigration, that is collapsing the West generally.
If the Antiwhite Jewish influence were identified and through education peacefully neutralized by ProWhite sentiments in the American population, the problem in the US would largely be solved, and have a domino effect in the rest of the White world. The White world all consumes the Antiwhite narrative of Jewish Hollywood, and other hijacked institutions.
Excellent essay. Many points well made.
Thanks so much. Let’s talk about having you on CC Radio in the New Year.
I will never understand the Roman Empire worship so many engage in. It was the original globohomo.
However I disagree that the pagan vs christian debate can be sidelined. It is just as much, if not more so, to do with the essence of our movement as the ethnonationalist vs imperialist debate.
However I disagree that the pagan vs christian debate can be sidelined. It is just as much, if not more so, to do with the essence of our movement as the ethnonationalist vs imperialist debate.
How so? I don’t think “pagans” are very important, either to our movement, or to the world at large. But you are correct that white nationalism had better come up with a way to accommodate Christian sensitivities, or at least neutralize Christian opposition, or we’re (I mean the white race, not WNs) are done for.
The theologies are at the core of our battle, because a concept of the sacred underlies all ideology. Native aka pagan theology asserts the sanctity of the tribe, whereas christian theology promotes universalism and says nothing of this world is sacred. Alain de Benoist’s On Being A Pagan describes this battle in a lot more detail.
Christianity promotes moral and spiritual universalism, not economic globalism or political universalism – a crucial distinction. Christianity is not Buddhism; it in no way advocates abjuration of this world, or abdication from moral duties therein. It can be argued that protecting, especially preventing the genocide of, one’s tribe/nation/race is a sacred task; certainly it is a morally allowable one provided such prevention doesn’t violate core moral obligations (and I don’t think banning CRT or building a security wall on the Mexican border in any way do).
Anyway, the debate wrt WN and Christianity always comes down to 1) is Christianity true, and 2) if not true, is it nevertheless useful? If Christianity is true, then the prowhite must seek to show the moral compatibility between the Faith and the prevention of white genocide. I don’t think that’s so very hard to do, though it may involve a considerable amount of grunt work deconstructing silly but widespread leftist propaganda. If the Faith is believed to be false, then the WN must still make a cold-eyed assessment as to whether he should seek a) to discredit the Faith altogether, either to replace it with nothing {atheism} or Euro-paganism, or b) to coopt Christians by showing the ethical compatibility between the Faith and halting white genocide (which is in their rightly understood self-interest).
As I have now argued here many times, given that a) paganism is false, and the modal white mind rebels against known falsehoods; b) there are many more white Christians (esp in America) than white nationalists, or white pagans, or white atheists; c) most white atheists seem to be low-fertility leftists; and d) modal white Christians tend to be more fecund than modal whites, as well as more racially conservative than white non-Christians (eg, compare relative opposition to immigration between Democrats and Republicans, and then compare their respective levels of Christian religiosity), it seems more intelligent for white nationalists to adopt a respectful than antagonist attitude and approach to dealing with white Christian concerns.
The survival of white America runs through conservative white Christianity. There simply is no other large group of ‘poachable’ whites.
Judaeo-christianity has at it’s core imperialism in that it wants a global “messianic” Jewish monarchy, totalitarian at that!! As the judaeo- christian papacy of Francis claimed, they are all “Jews” now!
To wit it is communistic and slaving to the core:
the theocratic “messianic” “lord” (ie. “anointed” (aka “christos”) god-man monarch of the world) of Judeao-Christianity:
https://biblehub.com/greek/2962.htm 2962 kýrios – properly, a person exercising absolute ownership rights; lord (Lord).
[In the papyri, 2962 (kýrios) likewise denotes an owner (master) exercising full rights.]
and the theocratic lord’s “servants” https://biblehub.com/greek/1401.htm :: 1401 doúlos (a masculine noun of uncertain derivation) – properly, someone who belongs to another; a bond-slave, without any ownership rights of their own. Ironically, 1401 /doúlos (“bond-slave”) is used with the highest dignity in the NT – namely, of believers who willingly live under Christ’s authority as His devoted followers.
Not my god, nor lord nor monarch!!!
Further more as matter of law here in America:
any form of warfare on behalf of any global monarchists or even a “White” European theocratic Imperium trying to usurp the sovereignty of the several Republic’s of America and Dixie is treason, (I’m am sure the Canadien’s and Canadian’s would agree as would the Aussie’s) and those who give aid, support and comfort for it and toward its goals are committing treason (see Jefferson on monarchy here: https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/poison-under-the-wings/ with regard to the enclave on the Potomac) even if they have accepted the inception into believing said “messiah” is god almighty on earth and are assimilated into the oligarchy’s hive mind …
See Article III sec 3 of both the constitution for the U.S. and for the Confederacy on what constitutes treason:
https://usconstitution.net/xconst_A3Sec3.html
https://usconstitution.net/csa.html#A3Sec3
It is politically universalist also!!
Judaeo-christianity has at it’s core imperialism in that it wants a global “messianic” Jewish monarchy, totalitarian at that!! As the judaeo- christian papacy of Francis claimed, they are all “Jews” now!
To wit it is communistic and slaving to the core:
the theocratic “messianic” “lord” (ie. “anointed” (aka “christos”) god-man monarch of the world) of Judeao-Christianity:
https://biblehub.com/greek/2962.htm 2962 kýrios – properly, a person exercising absolute ownership rights; lord (Lord).
and the theocratic lord’s “servants” https://biblehub.com/greek/1401.htm :: 1401 doúlos (a masculine noun of uncertain derivation) – properly, someone who belongs to another; a bond-slave, without any ownership rights of their own. Ironically, 1401 /doúlos (“bond-slave”) is used with the highest dignity in the NT – namely, of believers who willingly live under the “Christ” monarchist authority as His devoted followers.
Not my god, nor lord nor monarch!!!
The ‘Is Christianity true?’ is a rhetorical ploy I’ve seen used before. It forces your interlocutor into accepting your terms of the debate and you win by virtue of having the struggle on your preferred grounds. So, let’s start by saying ‘is true’ is a compliment you pay to a comment you find satisfying. It had no bearing on reality whatsoever. ‘True’ is always calibrated to some system of adjudication, but there is no universal system of adjudication except the use of force. All arguments are just trial-by-combat-by-proxy and yet, somehow, without the use of actual force such arguments about abstract and invisible things are never settled. Sometimes not even then.
As for the idea that you can contain ‘spiritual and moral universalism’ without it bleeding out into political and economic universalism. Christians have not yet shown an ability to sustain this separation despite thousands of years of having the chance to do so.
The real issue here is whether White Christians care more about ‘White’ than ‘Christian’. What I see is a flippant dismissal of all other religions (a reflection of the intra-faith sectarian squabbles that have dominated Christianity since before Constantine).
White Nationalism doesn’t need Christianity. WN does need White Christians to embrace White Nationalism but not at the cost of prioritizing universalist Christian needs ahead of the needs of White people. And I think that’s what every ‘WN needs to pander to Christians’ ultimately comes down to: White Nationalism playing second-fiddle to Christian chauvinism.
The Basic Offer is the same to every White faction: Help us build a White future and you can work to build your communities within that White future.
As a White Identity Nationalist, I don’t need to solve the ‘Is Christianity true?’ question. That’s a question White Christians can debate among themselves indefinitely in their own enclaves in our White homelands.
From the White Nationalist perspective, what binds Whites together is their race, not their religion. In order to accommodate the various ways of being White, an ‘ethnonationalist’ approach allows these different ways to find their own spaces in which to express themselves.
I have absolutely no doubt that White Christians can have fine, safe, secure and – above all White – Christian communities in the future White homelands.
I absolutely doubt they can have those safe Christian communities in the Empire of Race-Mixing that our collective racial enemies intend to impose upon us.
Modern Christianity is this way. I think there are assumptions made in the early church that are not necessarily essential to Christianity. For example here is a hint that theology should be different for different ethnicities:
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. (Matt 19:7-8)
Even in modern Christianity in the US, there are beliefs held by the vast majority of Christians that are contrary to the Bible:
Slavery is wrong
Polygamy is wrong
Civil disobedience can be a good thing
Marriage is a good thing and not just for those who lack self control
Compare with these verses:
Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ. (Eph 6:5)
Polygamy happens throughout the Old Testament without condemnation
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. (Rom 13:1)
37 But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin—this man also does the right thing. 38 So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does better.[c] (1 Cor 7:37-38)
These beliefs are contrary to the Bible so that is not where they come from. I believe they come from our ancient blood pacts. There is room for a new denomination to rise that is more pagan than Christian yet still worships the same God, it just teaches that many of the specific teachings in the Bible are where jews expressed jewish values, and we are on our own in determining what are the values of our blood pact.
It was full of urbanite multiculturalist pederasts, it needed to be destroyed.
The destruction of Rome became inevitable after they imported hundreds of thousands of off-whites and semites from the east as they advanced into the crumbling Seleucid Empire.
You’re not going to defeat slave morality with another slave morality.
On imperialism: it could be argued that – despite the brutality, but in the long run – Britain benefited from Roman occupation (cue Monty Python‘s “What have the Romans ever done for us?”). Similarly, the Norman Conquest made England a force to be reckoned with on the continent. And without Elizabethan England’s imperial adventures there wouldn’t even be a United States of America.
However, as the days of empire-building are safely behind us, we can assume that Gregory Hood is thinking more of a federal structure; like that envisaged by the Founding Fathers for their new republic, which lasted until the Civil War. Could a federal system not be a happy compromise between your two options of ethnonationalism and imperialism?
Is a governmental structure that lasted only 80 years to be aspired to?
American federalism was a typically American attempt to avoid confronting a mutually exclusive option: one sovereign state or many. They kicked the can down the road for future generations to settle at the cost of America’s bloodiest and most destructive war.
(1) I think this debate represents a bit of a false dichotomy. While glorifying the Roman Empire without qualification is problematic given its racial decadence, I think Hood would argue that our ideal should be a civilization-state of comparable breadth and organization minus such decadence.
(2) I think we need to differentiate between the end goal and the path to it. It seems we’ll likely need to re-establish traditional nation-states around ethnic cores by necessity, but that our goal should then be to fuse such newly-revived ethnostates together into an ethnoracial imperium by mutual consent based on a community of interests rather than through bloody internecine conquest.
My objection to Rome is less what it did in its dotage than what it did in its prime: it destroyed everything it touched. Lydia, Phrygia, Dacia, Egypt, the Gauls? All erased from history by Rome.
I’m a firm believer in the ethnostate. I propose divvying up the USA proportionally by race. Provide all foreigners an opportunity to return to their homelands and divide the rest of the land among whites and blacks and mexicans and chinese etc… Even allow one area for those that choose to mix. I would expect that the white state would have a diverse group of citizens and hopefully adopt a limited central government style. The middle third of the country seems like a good slice from say Texas to Louisiana and Idaho to Minnesota. Leave the rats on their coasts. Blacks living alone with themselves will implode because all successful blacks will choose the mixed state. All other minorities can choose to either repatriate to their countries or have a sliver of a homeland here. I truly think this could work as long as we maintain strict border controls and military backing. Trade could be established but I would predict little of value to be found in the other states. This is one of my favorite topics here on the site and the article was a gem.
Thanks so much
The area that chooses to mix would have much larger population than the other areas. It would have higher per capita GDP due to trading more with the outside world. White ethnostate would be pariah nation like Rhodesia, unable to trade with most or all of outside world. It’s establishment would be accompanied or preceded by the civil war or large scale conflict needed to expropriate property and wealth from unwilling and hostile Jews and other minorities. Political system of ethnostate would have to be authoritarian to keep those wanting to loosen restrictions on non-white residency or opposing the entire ethnostate project from gaining power. The only point I’m trying to make is that a pure ethnostate would have to be very small and would contain only a small number of overall world white population. As such, it’s not much of a solution. A white-dominated country, with stable white majority is a much more achievable reach.
It would be interesting to poll who advocates for imperium versus ethnonationalism. The pro-empire crowd seems to skew disproportionately American (and young). Maybe I’m too insulated in my North American bubble, but I don’t hear many Europeans making this argument.
If this is indeed the case, I think it speaks to one’s world experience. Europeans rub shoulders with different nationalities on a daily basis. In my conversations with various Euros this proximity to foreigners has made them much more aware of ethnic differences; these experiences act to amplify the importance of nationality (and sovereignty), not diminish it. Ironically, I’ve been told by a number of people that the Erasmus student exchange program, which I suspect was designed to reduce mistrust and xenophobia between nations, accomplishes just the opposite by the end of the semester abroad.
Meanwhile, most Americans haven’t ventured into Canada, much less Europe. American nationalists see whites as one amorphous, bland entity because that’s all they know: “generic” whites. And, thus, imposing an empire on what seems to be a rather homogeneous group comes much easier to them. If they experienced the stunning diversity of Europe, they might feel differently. At very least they might appreciate what a great loss it would be to the world if imperium were to extinguish a great deal of that unique variety.
Moreover, Americans see their vast country and its power and tend to view everything through that American filter. They look at a tiny nation like Belgium and wonder how it could ever survive without surrendering itself to a greater empire. After all, our 13 colonies and now 50 states united to defeat the British Empire and become a global superpower, respectively.
However, if there’s a sizeable European contingent in favor of empire, I will stand corrected.
This is well-said and essentially correct.
Wise words on an excellent choice of topics. I appreciate prowhite metapolitics (consideration of all aspects of contemporary political, cultural, and intellectual life through a prowhite analytical and critical lens), but it’s good to jump start the new year by getting prowhites back to thinking about plain white politics. I sometimes feel the need to remind people that we aren’t – or should not aspire to be – simply a “dissident club”, a “safe space” for those who dislike the current racial and political direction of white nations to be able to talk freely and vent their outrages (not that this isn’t a worthy ancillary attribute of a site like CC).
White nationalism is, after all and above all, a political movement working, in the near term, to protect whites (and their legitimate collective cultural and economic interests) within formerly white-controlled nations which are becoming increasingly antagonistic to them due to a hostile de facto alliance between white-guilt-saturated wokester traitors and POC racists; and, in the long term, to halt passive (for now) white genocide and thereby prevent eventual white extinction (which, for the Occidentalists among us – I include myself here, will also lead to the inevitable disappearance of Western civilization, which, of course, “could not have been created apart from the genetic endowments of the European peoples”, as Sam Francis expressed it three decades ago).
The debate as framed is good for compelling a person to define his beliefs and boundaries. Relative to the article’s point I am also an ethno-statist. Mr. Johnson however states (in the opening of the eighteenth paragraph) that “wars and geopolitical crises are by their very nature interruptions in the normal order of things”. The briefest glimpse at known history presents a picture that is exactly the opposite. From the British Empire to the the most squalid savages in Africa, human organization equals conflict with other humans, in accordance with the means and motivations of the time. The normal order of things is conflict, often escalating to war.
There are always wars somewhere on the planet. But we’d have to break it down polity by polity to see if war is the normal or the exception.
If all of the 44+ countries of Europe as we know it today, large and small, and the ultra-large nations of North America, Australia et al., and other scattered White enclaves, don’t snap out of their “equality trance”, the entire White race is in deep trouble and will remain incapable of seeing white replacement as a problem, or as well, seeing White Nationalism as a pathway to salvation and coherence.
We are so vastly divided ourselves at present in the White West by the “Diversity Cult” that half our young ‘breeding stock’ is joining up with worldwide leftist charities to ‘save the children’ in the homelands of our enemies — i.e. Africa, the Middle East, India, SE Asia, South America, and all other Third World overpopulated backwaters. I personally know of several more elderly white types who are knitting blankets to send to the Congo to keep children warm there. I was speechless hearing this and couldn’t even begin to tell them that the daily temperature is routinely 90F with daily humidity at 90% in that woe begone jungle ‘nation’. THIS is what we are up against. This is a moral dilemma that I have no answer for. Save the children or save ourselves? How can we bring cohesion to the White race when we have to deal with Whites’ misguided philanthropy and their pathological altruism?
But as white people ourselves with intelligence and a moral bas, we must find a way to speak with our Leftists. And, the worst problem currently that we face is that we cannot even speak of this dilemma in any public exchange of ideas because we’re routinely thrown off every platform for even mentioning “Nationalism”.
Well, maybe tomorrow is another day.
But, we have to keep our national identities together as written in the post above — including our various European heritages, for those of us losing our coh3esion here in North America due to Third World immigration. I am Celtic and Anglo-Saxon before I am ‘American’. However, I am sending some aid to a couple of women in Ukraine, one pregnant and the other with an ill child, who I see as being Northern European just like me. These White Europeans are in a war zone, and sending help is White cohesion, as I see it.
But yes, let’s continue the conversation about this essay by a political philosopher — Dr. Johnson — which has been greatly helpful to me.
As much as I enjoyed Gregory Hood’s recent AmRen speech, this is a fantastic rebuttal. And I found the comments above very insightful and promising as well. Perhaps a meeting of the minds could be arranged for a rigorous debate?
Thanks. I sent this to Hood in advance, he liked it, and he has promised a reply.
I really appreciate your sense of decorum, Greg. It’s one of the myriad things that sets Counter Currents apart. Thanks for all you do, and how you do it.
Wow! That was an impressive move to send this piece before posting it! How very civilized!
While I very, very much enjoyed reading Mr. Hood’s speech, I think this is an excellent and compelling rebuttal. I commented over at AmRen that I think globalism is the problem because, after all, even if the WEF was constructed by Jews, plenty of white people around the world are perfectly comfortable supporting its goals–and its route to achieving them. A GREAT WHITE STATE is not the answer. Small and local–and differentiated–is.
I mostly fall in the ethno-nationalist camp, but I think it’s a bit of a false dichotomy because I now believe this topic to be so much broader than previously imagined. So I don’t think there is a need for yet another artificial division within our people, especially because the two theories don’t even diverge until much later down the line, which we are nowhere near at present.
There is no electoral solution to this. We tried everything and the NWO simply won’t allow white populism to ever manifest itself fair and square (Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, Serbia, Scotland etc). So our people need to focus on cultural hegemony (implicit whiteness), which is a metaphysical and realistic victory that no election can ever marshal anyway.
Before we get to any ethno-state or Aryan Empire, we have to stanch our diversity entry-wound. This requires unanimity through every white state. Belarus dropping off colored migrants at the Polish border, England deporting colored migrants to France or Germany shielding Islamists from extradition to Spain is a form of chauvinistic ethno-nationalism that is unhelpful right now. The only acceptable European city nonwhites should be sent to is Constantinople where they are bottled like an Indian Reservation or a Bantustan. With time, their population momentum will crumble like a mouse utopia.
Most importantly, we can’t have any ethno-state or any white empire without also having a strong nonwhite empire. It’s no different than the neoliberal duopoly we have in every white country having a forced consensus in each body politic. It’s why Biden oddly stressed after he ‘won’ the election that we ‘need a strong Republican Party.’ That balance is a necessity or else these animals will never stop invading our land. So cooperation is essential.
We need other vectors for migration opened up away from white states, which can occur in 3 ways:
-Demographic collapse in nonwhite countries.
-Economic collapse in white countries.
-Building a nonwhite empire.
Turkey plays an intrinsic role siphoning so many millions more nonwhite migrants in its nonwhite purgatory. Qaddafi and Morocco played key roles at the choke points of North Africa until the Arab Spring, which is when the floodgates opened earnestly, by requiring annual ransom payments. Rwandan success is even being considered as a real-life Wakanda for British migrant deportation. So we need economic prosperity in nonwhite regions like East Asia because it is cratering their populations to the point that they will be forced to invite immigrants. We need these Gulf Arab states to prosper so they divert more migrant workers away from our lands.
Most of us have our roots in Old Right/Ron Paul libertarianism, so obviously the ethno-state is theoretically isolationist, which cannot exist right now as we are being invaded. The only good news is the neoliberal takeover of the G.A.E has transformed ‘spreading democracy’ into ‘spreading LGBT, feminism, diversity’ within nonwhite countries. So things will start moving faster.
As Kerry Bolton said in Stalin: The Enduring Legacy, Russia has never fitted well into the plans of those seeking to impose a uniform system upon humanity. Russia has been the perennial disappointment to the globalists. Even under the bloody Stalin, Russian nationalism has been a force that held back one-world government, and it is still doing so. (Hence the “enduring legacy.”)
The uniform schemes of the antiwhite globalists are evil and genocidal. Greg Johnson’s scheme of universal ethnic nationalism is benevolent, and in many (but not all) contexts it is good for us Whites. These are very different universal visions. They are, however, both universal visions, and they both grate on Russia.
Because of its geography and history, Russia, the historic vehicle of the survival of our Russian brothers, has never been in a position to benefit from any sort of one-worldism (including Trotsky’s brand, or Washington’s, or the earlier dreams of the Mongols), and it has never been in a position to implement a formally neat scheme of universal nationalism. Russia has always faced the choices that the Huns imposed on the ancestors of those of us who come from further West: win or lose, rule potentially formidable non-White groups or be ruled by them, survive or go under.
Russians have done what they had to, and not what was theoretically neat; that is why there are still Russians.
I am just pro-White, and I advocate that others should be too. When our needs as a race can be met by ethnic nationalism (provided that nationalism is kept firmly in its box and not allowed to over-ride our greater good as a race), good. When that doesn’t work and imperialism seems to be the way for large groups of Whites to secure our interests, so be it. If some scheme that we have not applied yet shows promise as a way to secure the existence of our people and a future for White children, we should give it our best attempt.
This is not lack of seriousness. It is insisting that there is a greater good for us, that is our good as a race, and that various schemes that are sometimes but not always good for the Whites should not be allowed as substitutes for our common good, which is ultimately biological and not conceptual.
I do not agree with any philosophical scheme that weighs an ideal form of state against the practical needs of a branch of our race and finds the latter less important.
This was an excellent comment. It reveals an essentially conservative, prudential disposition applied to the white race as a whole. I believe universal ethnonationalism is the morally ideal (though not at all utopian) resolution to problems of race and ethnicity – (ie, of global political organization in light of sociobiological realities). But it is not an ideological absolute. I think Dr. Johnson makes a reasonable case above that the attempt to create a white imperium is an undesirable pursuit at this time. But times could change, and white preservationists might have to revise their strategies in light of such changes.
Certainly, I agree with Hood, however, to the extent that he is merely arguing that racial loyalty for whites should trump interethnic hostilities (more of a problem in Europe than for whites outside of it); that racial nationalism should supersede ethnonationalism. But for now, the two can be and likely mostly are mutually reinforcing (obvious exception: Ukraine/Russia).
Both imperialism and ethnonationalism as presented in this debate are synthetic and somewhat incoherent, and their problems stem from the same error: blankslatism.
The social organizing model, history and political system of a nation, or a group of nations is downstream from biology and geography, and the biology and geography of their surroundings.
For example, the Hungarian political nation is a product of genetics (Goth-Alan-Turkic steppe warrior ruling class), the Carpathian Mountains as constraints on our expansion, and the fact that we live on the tectonic lines that separate 3 large power blocks: Germania, the Eastern Slavs and the Eastern Mediterranean superpower (Byzantium/Istanbul).
AI could generate a fairly accurate Hungarian history book based only on this information.
And a nation or a group of nations can’t just totally reinvent itself. That’s a very American, progressivist idea. Change, if it ever happens, is glacial. Spectacular change on a short timescale, let’s say 100 years, only happens in nations that were highly intelligent to begin with (Finns, East Asian Tigers).
Yes, “we” can “give” a flag and an an anthem to anyone, even African tribes, and invite their leaders to Buckingham Palace for state dinners. Or we can try to squeeze Poland and Portugal into the same box, with a single currency, military and foreign policy. These states and state-like constructions will last only until the first serious stress test.
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