Review of Critical Daze: The No College Club – Book 2

3,144 words

You can preorder Spencer J. Quinn’s Critical Daze here.

Spencer J. Quinn
Critical Daze: The No College Club – Book 2
San Francisco: Counter-Currents 2024

Critical Daze follows on Spencer J. Quinn’s No College Club, reviewed at TOO by F. Roger Devlin. As Devlin notes, there is probably no area in greater need of pro-White messaging than fiction aimed at young adults (aged 12–18). And, although it is aimed at this age group, I found it to be a riveting page-turner in which I became immersed in the characters both good and bad. Throughout I was curious how it would all play out, and was quite satisfied by the ending.

There are three main characters—pictured above on the cover, two of whom are transformed in the story. At the outset, the protagonist Will is a tall, decidedly overweight 18-year-old high school student with the nickname Willrus (Will + walrus). He is something of a social reject, into comic books and video games, and he is an unmotivated, undistinguished student.

Will’s best friend is JD, described as unusually short in stature and with the ambition of becoming a videographer. Like Will, JD is a social reject but he is more aware of the changes wrought in recent decades as a result of reading Will’s father’s collection of comic books of the 1980s, peopled with square-jawed White males and pretty White women—quite a descent from contemporary examples promoting racial diversity, homosexuality, and leftist political messaging.

Will joins the Critical Theory Club because, as happens so often to teenagers, he has a romantic interest in one of its members, his “tall, smart, and pretty” classmate Connie who presents herself as half-Indian (feather variety). The Critical Theory Club naturally focuses on the leftist anti-White mantras that Will had long been inundated with from television, movies, comic books, and the internet—to the point that he was rather bored with hearing them again. But Will had no reason to question them. After all, these mantras have become part of the furniture of American life. Revealingly, Connie becomes an enthusiastically applauded star at the meeting simply because of her claim that she is a person of color.

The speaker for the meeting is one Nadine Alterman, a self-described
“white person” studying for a Ph.D. in Critical Studies at the nearby state university. She tells the assembled (mostly female, virtually all White) students that White supremacy and racism are everywhere and that the “colorblindness” so loved by conservatives is nothing more than a “subterfuge” and a subtle form of racism.

Later at a meeting in her office with Will, she rejects the objectivity of academic tests because she claims that such tests “dehumanize people of color” by not taking into account the racist environment Blacks must live in—a ridiculous (but depressingly common) argument to say the least. And when Will innocently asks why Asians do so well, Alterman rejects his “Enlightenment rationalism,” apparently because it makes people prone to making what she regards as evil inferences. Enlightenment rationalism, after all, “is steeped in a European tradition that historically has been violent to people of color and produces a race-based hierarchy of knowledge.”

As Will continues to ask difficult questions, the meeting ends with a thinly veiled threat: stop asking such questions or your life will be ruined, just like the No College Club that is being “sued out of existence”—the first mention of the club that will figure prominently in the second half of the book. It’s no surprise that she is horrified that some very bad people have the temerity to believe that it’s possible to be racist against Whites! Will leaves the meeting quite confused and wondering how she could talk to him like that since she was “white—like him.”

Alterman is of course a common Jewish name, although the J-word never appears in the book and Alterman claims to be “white”. But in any case, it’s not surprising that an important element of the plot is that much later, in a conversation with Connie, she lets out that she hates Christians and White people, and in the conference with Will she refers to the Tulsa race riot as a “pogrom,” a common term for the anti-Jewish riots in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe.

Another hint that Jewishness is a major—if submerged—theme is that of the eight judges for the critical theory scholarship essay competition (which Connie enters), two are Black, one is named Johnston and presumably White, and, besides Alterman, the other four are named Cohen, Silver, Rothstein, and Cantor respectively. (All of the judges except one of the two Black judges are female). Much later in the book, having been enlightened about the fraud of critical theory and its basis in promoting power over Whites, Will asks himself how so many “white” people can subject themselves to what amounts to hatred against Whites. He never figures this little puzzle out.

I suspect that Quinn is raising the Jewish issue subtly in case some readers already have their J-dar activated but without needlessly putting off those (perhaps readers with a strong Christian background) who would be repelled by the very thought that Jews, the eternal victims, could possibly have such hateful thoughts.

Chapter 3 introduces Andrew, Will’s father who is hyper-politically correct and has an “awkward” relationship with his son. He gushes about a Chinese student of his wife and he worries that Will is racist because he had overheard JD commenting that, unlike the 1980s, in today’s comics “every other hero is black. And if he’s an old hero, they replace him with a black.” And he remains aggressively anti-White even after he is fired from his librarian job because an “overweight,” “dreadlocked,” “heavily perfumed” Black woman complained that he didn’t promote her, even though she was clearly unqualified.

So JD seems a bit skeptical of the political correctness around him, and he is quite perceptive about people’s character. He sees Connie as a “faker,” a manipulator and a leech—with an alcohol problem to boot. JD sees Connie as trying to get Will to do most of the work for their joint critical theory scholarship essay project.

Try to imagine that a person who identifies as a person of color is not a perfect person in a novel directed toward young people. Impossible! But I guess it requires suspension of disbelief.

Nevertheless, Will remains attracted to Connie and willing to cooperate on the project despite the fact that Connie already has a boyfriend and shows little sign of reciprocating in the romance department—apart from some flirting when she wants to get Will to do what she wants. Will is a super nice guy and therefore a bit gullible and open to being exploited. One can easily imagine that a low-status person like Will would be easily manipulated by an attractive high-status girl who gives off even a hint of sexual interest.

Will’s mother, Melissa, seems less naturally inclined to be politically correct but goes along with it, even displaying platitudes like “Hate has no home here” in her living room. Her main motive seems to be fear of the consequences if one gets out of line on race. She is quite aware that truth is irrelevant when it comes to accusations of political incorrectness, telling Will to watch what he says “because it doesn’t matter if you are innocent”—while looking to make sure no neighbors are watching. For Melissa, the informal mechanisms of thought control are quite enough to keep her in line.

You can buy Spencer J. Quinn’s young adult novel The No College Club here.

It’s the same with JD’s mom. It’s all about fear. JD: “My mom is a public school teacher, Will. She’d lose her career and her pension if she were caught being racist. She is terrified of black people.”

The turning point of the story is when JD and Will visit JD’s uncle Gus, a 90-year-old retired college professor who is quite versed in the origins of critical theory in the 1950s. On their journey it’s apparent that Will is having doubts about critical theory from his own reading as well as JD’s cogent criticisms. For example, he notes that critical theory is massively funded while pro-White organizations like the No College Club are getting sued out of existence and prevented from getting donations via credit cards. Not exactly “white privilege.”

So they were not blank slates when they encountered Uncle Gus, but the visit turns out to be a crossing of the Rubicon for their racial thinking. Gus’s analysis is spot on—not surprising since he has publications like Wilmot Robertson’s The Dispossessed Majority and Instauration in his collection. (Perhaps Will eventually will come to understand the significance of the Jewish names among the critical theory judges when he absorbs Robertson’s work.)

Uncle Gus states baldly that critical theory is a “cult” that actually comes down to “tribalism,” and he notes that they are “clannish”—another not-so-subtle hint that we are dealing fundamentally with a Jewish movement. It’s a tribalism dedicated to destroying whatever is blocking their total power, whether it’s over kings, tsars, or nations—a tribalism that abandoned the Marxist vision of a proletarian revolution because the working class was not acting according to theory because it didn’t rise up against the capitalist class (and many of them even voted for Hitler). This tribal cult, sounding very much like the Frankfurt School, therefore switched strategies and began blaming everything on White people. They attempted to control how people think by “pathologizing everything that was natural and healthy”—”everything that made Western culture great”). The White working class was now part of the problem because they were far too dedicated to religion, patriotism, and healthy family life.

This tribe is impervious to criticism. It “forgets when they do evil things that kill millions.” But if there’s a backlash, “ya never hear the end of it.” Critical theory was never an attempt to find the truth. It’s all about the tribe’s self-interest, controlling how people think, and obtaining total power. And now that they have power—now that they have become a hugely influential component of Western elites because of their position in the media, academic, and political arenas—they silence all criticism. In fact, they ruined Uncle Gus who lost his professorship because he opposed the “anti-white-ism” of this very powerful group. So believable.

But back to Will. As has happened to so many of us, after being aware of the history and the lies behind his oppressive, politically correct environment, Will starts losing friends and becomes even more of a social outcast. It starts with trusting, gullible Will naively telling Connie that critical theory is really all about power, resulting in an argument overheard by many of his schoolmates, including Connie’s screams that Will is a “racist” and a “Nazi.”

After this outburst, his only friend—the only fellow student who would talk to him or return his texts—was JD, and they continued to discuss Uncle Gus’s treasure trove, including JD informing a skeptical Will about the biological reality of IQ and how biological differences between the races result in the obvious racial differences in academic performance on display in their high school. Here Quinn does a masterful job of providing a research-based introduction to the IQ issue comprehensible to young readers unfamiliar with the issue.

Then come the presentations for the critical theory contest. Quite surprisingly, Connie begs Will to give the presentation despite their previous argument about critical theory—a development that only makes sense because Connie got embarrassingly drunk at a party with heavily tattooed, nose-ringed college students. Because she would be in no shape to give the presentation, the ever-manipulative Connie gets Will to give the presentation by flirting with him. So, despite JD’s warnings, Will, the ever-gullible nice guy, agrees to read Connie’s contest entry to the assembled leftists, including the “diverse” group of judges who decided that Connie is a winner of the contest even before the presentations.

But then, perhaps because she is still a bit drunk, Connie claims that she hates critical theory and that her mainly plagiarized, cliché-ridden essay only won because “they just want some pretty Indian girl to be the face of the future.”

In other words, she is gaming the system even at the tender age of a high school student. This is a girl that could definitely go places! And the Nadine Altermans of the world are more than willing to make that happen. After all, Alterman later proclaims that critical race theory is the only thing standing between America and Nazism: “We can’t let our youth be radicalized into fascism. This what happened in Nazi Germany and we can’t let it happen here. Critical race theory is the key pedagogical bulwark against the repeat of history. We must never forget that.”

Will, perhaps thinking that it would be okay with Connie to say what he really thinks given that her expressed attitudes are in sync with his, discards her vapid essay and lets it rip, stating, among other truths, that “what they really want it to destroy the identity and culture of the white majority.” Exactly.

Needless to say, the result of his temerity is a complete blow up at the competition and, soon thereafter, banishment from his home and disavowals from Connie. And of course there was a media firestorm, including another hint of Jewish angst on TV: “‘This young man is no better than Hitler youth!’ warned an incensed woman with a thick New York accent. … ‘He violates all the tenets of the Civil Rights Movement and what it means to be an American.’”

This claim about what it means to be an American is another favorite move by Jewish activists, framing what they don’t like in terms of violating deeply held ideals that appeal to wide swaths of the population. As holocaust activist Deborah Lipstadt said recently in “explaining” anti-Semitism: “Jews become stand-ins for “anti-democracy, anti-capitalism, [and] anti-Western values,” values the great majority of Westerners endorse. To criticize Jewish power is to put oneself outside the moral universe accepted — whether because of fear, ambition, or lack of information — by the great majority of Westerners.

I see it a bit differently. As always, conflicts of interest are at the root of serious outbreaks of anti-Semitism, but Jewish activists frame their interests as a moral crusade in an effort to persuade the gullible and uninformed — and to provide talking points for the ambitious and a sense of moral superiority to be fearful. Here the conflict is between the legitimate interests of the White majority as exemplified by the No College Club and perceived Jewish interests in lessening the power of the White majority—indeed, as Will phrased it, “to destroy the identity and culture of the white majority.”.

At this point we are about halfway through the book. Since the No College Club figures prominently in the title, it’s not surprising that it is a central theme in the second half of the book. I will say only that the ending is quite is satisfying.

Finally, one more theme should be explored. Throughout the book, women are portrayed as generally more accepting of critical theory. Women are the great majority of the Critical Theory Club and of those in the media going off on Will after he got real about race in a very public forum. The portrayal of Will’s mother Melissa gets at the greater fear that women in general have over being ostracized and subjected to social opprobrium. Not all women in the book are like this—there are several heroic women in the No College Club.

But the general portrayal of women is quite accurate. Women in general are higher on the personality system underlying fear and they tend to be more conformist partly as a result. Being high on fear leads to conformity because in the contemporary West there is much to fear if one fails to conform to the attitudes of the mainstream moral community—loss of job, loss of friends and family, and general ostracism. It’s much safer to remain within the confines of the moral community.

As emphasized throughout my Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition, moral communities are the social glue of Western societies whereas kinship relationships are the social glue of the other culture areas of the world. Moral communities based on a reputation as capable, honest, trustworthy, and fair are a fundamental aspect of Western individualism and have been a big reason for the historical trajectory that led to Western dominance of the planet—a dominant position that may well end as the European peoples who created it are energetically replaced by people who hate them as the result of the activism of the clannish, tribal people referred to here. In the environments that Western peoples evolved in, major departures from the moral strictures of the community would result in ostracism. Whereas in the contemporary West, people like Will can survive such ostracism by finding a new niche of like-minded friends, in prehistoric Europe ostracism would have certainly resulted in death.

So in conclusion, a major plus is that the reader instinctively feels sorry for the White people victimized by the current regime or cowering in fear of what will happen to them if they get out of line. Empathy for the pantheon of the supposed victims of White racism is constantly preached from all the moral high ground in the West—the media, academia, K-12 educators, politicians, and religious authorities. Indeed, it is virtually mandated, as for example, in requirements that prospective faculty at many universities must write statements not only on their support for diversity, equity and inclusion, but also on what they have personally done to advance these goals. Only activists need apply.

But presenting sympathetic characters who suffer greatly from the regime of political correctness and anti-White hate is nonexistent in the mainstream culture of the West. I even felt sorry for Will’s father because his life is being destroyed because he did the right thing in not promoting an incompetent Black woman while still saluting the flag of political correctness and coming down hard on Will for crimethink.

This is a book that should have wide appeal well beyond its target audience of young adults. Even at well over 200 pages, it’s a quick, entertaining read because you want to find out what happens to the characters, so even people who are entirely on board with the ideas of the dissident right will enjoy it. And it’s a book that could quite possibly red pill many White people, especially if they haven’t thought deeply about the issues raised or if they have not personally been subjected to an environment of fear for expressing forbidden thoughts. People who are aware of the reality of the very sad state of affairs depicted in the book should think of people who would benefit from getting it as a Christmas present.