Counter-Currents
1,198 words 
Whenever I hear of a blatantly irresponsible and destructive policy—like “Defund the police”—I always ask myself, “What are they counting on?” By this I mean: “What are they counting on to avoid disaster/produce good results?” Since people respond to opportunities, and defunding the police will create more opportunities for crime, the predictable result is more crime. And more crime makes society worse not better. So how, exactly, did people think such a foolish policy is a good idea? What were they counting on?
I have no doubt that the people behind defunding the police knew it would make society worse, although of course they would never admit that openly. But the vast majority of people who frantically parrot idiotic slogans like “Defund the police” actually mean well. Still, there’s no plausible argument that defunding the police will make things better—in fact, just the opposite. So what are they counting on? What do they think will square their foolish acts with their good intentions? What will bridge the gap between their retarded policies and the better world they desire?
Ultimately, they are falling back on faith in a higher power: in this case, progress. They believe there is an “arc of the moral universe” that “bends towards justice,” meaning a world in which everyone is equal. And even when the arc doesn’t seem to be bending toward justice at all, that’s just because the arc is “long,” i.e., the curve is too gentle for your limited vision to perceive. In such a world, the liberal on the street feels he need only signal his good intentions, throw about some alms, and put more power in the hands of progressive governments. Beyond that, he doesn’t need to be too fastidious about how his gestures—taking a knee, dressing like a vagina, etc.—actually contribute to utopia. Just signal hard and let “progress” sort out the rest.
Classical liberals have their own form of progress: the “invisible hand.” Classical political philosophy is based on the idea of the common good of society. No policy is good if it does not promote the common good. The essence of injustice is pursuing individual or group interests at the expense of society as a whole.
Classical liberalism does away with the common good as the criterion of justice. It also does away with the idea that statesmen can pursue the common good as opposed to their private interests. Classical liberals deny that the common good exists. Or, if it exists, they deny that it can be known. Or, if it can be known, they deny that a statesman can pursue it. This means that when a private citizen hires a politician to make laws to benefit him, it isn’t really corruption because politicians can’t do any better. For the classical liberal, all people can do is pursue their private interests and hope that, somehow—through the guidance of a benevolent “invisible hand”—things will work out for the best.
Obviously, this is an essentially religious outlook. Progress and the invisible hand are just secular versions of divine providence, the idea that a benevolent God is pursuing a plan for the world. God wants the best for all of us, he’s working to bring that about, and no power on earth can stand in his way. Yes, terrible things happen all the time, which make us doubt the existence of a benevolent God. But that’s an illusion of our inadequate perspective. In the big picture, when all is said and done, everything will work out for the best.
Since human beings are too ignorant to see how God’s grand designs all hang together, we don’t need to worry about it. All we need do is to show our good faith by following God’s commandments. If following God’s commandments doesn’t make sense to us, or makes matters worse, we should not be deterred. We just need to signal harder—and let God sort out the rest.
Aside from progress, the Left counts on the Right to come behind them, clean up their messes, and consolidate their gains on more realistic political and economic foundations. In Freudian terms, if the Left is the Id, the Right is the Ego which is tasked with reconciling the Id’s demands with objective reality.
But political folly is not confined to the Left. The Right has its sacred cows as well. Basically, in America, Leftists are given to fits of social self-immolation over brown people and sexual oddities, whereas the Right will destroy society by pandering to Jews.
When the Gaza genocide began in October of 2023, Republicans fell all over themselves to signal fealty to Israel and Jews around the world, underwrite more genocide, and attack the freedom of speech and assembly of genocide opponents. Concerns about the Constitution, moral principles, and national—much less global—interests were swept away. As with liberal follies, there was no adult in the room who could step back, look at the big picture, and say “no.”
But the common good means nothing to Republicans, who believe, in effect, that there’s no such thing as corruption, thus they sold their votes to the Jewish lobby long ago. Beyond that, a significant percentage of Republicans believe that all one need do is “bless” Israel with more money, bombs, and toadying, and God will sort out the rest.
Societies in which classical liberalism, progressivism, and Biblical religion hold sway are extremely vulnerable to political follies. If a terrible idea like “Defund the police” or “Trans your kids” becomes the latest token of liberal virtue, nothing can stop it. It doesn’t matter if these causes lead to predictably bad results. Besides, the people predicting bad consequences are obviously just evil, and one does not entertain the arguments of evil people. One simply silences them, or worse
The rapid spread of destructive political follies is bad enough. Even worse is runaway competitive virtue signaling, in which people compete to make bad ideas even worse, and everyone else goes along with it, lest the rest of the mob think they lack virtue. Taking a knee wasn’t enough. So let’s defund the police. But defunding the police wasn’t enough either. So let’s pour billions into BLM. But that’s not enough either. So let’s stop hiring competent white men altogether, until airplanes start raining from the skies.
This is no way to run a society. If your country has no ability to resist escalating competitive frenzies of self-destruction, that’s a serious design flaw.
What is the solution? We need statesmen who evaluate policies based on their long -term consequences for society as a whole. These statesmen must be empowered to say “no” to the short-sighted, selfish, and insane. In short, we need a return to classical political philosophy. Nine out of ten bad political ideas could be eliminated simply by demanding rational proof that they promote the common good without magical appeals to “progress” and the “invisible hand.” And as for divine providence, whether it is real or not, we still have the responsibility to use reason to pursue all attainable goods and avoid all avoidable evils. We’d have a much better world if that’s all we were counting on.
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27 comments
I have followed Counter-Currents since New Year and I’m bewildered at the level of similarities and overlapping features between the views here and that of Islamists. After all, both are “far-right” in their ideological setting.
In order to be able to see what I see, set aside an hour to watch this interview with Lebanese-American academic, Gerges. He indulges meticulously inside Muslim militancy.
Then spare another hour to watch this lecture on modernity with Persian professor, Milani.
After that you should be able to see some of the overlapping characteristics.
To a certain extent, that’s simply because both reject Classical Liberalism and its ideological descendants. There’s a “default” based on common sense and respect for the natural order of things which the family of Mr and Ms Liberalism has been rebelling against since the 18th century.
“My principles are those that before the French Revolution every well-born person considered sane and normal.” [Julius Evola, https://archive.ph/oqaFR#selection-859.342-859.450]
The ‘far right’ similarity is a rejection of equalitarianism and an admiration for the steadfast militant. No one here torments dogs or saws off heads for cartoons like they do. islamic rats demand a universal caliphate and sees Europe as dar-al-harb to be put to the sword. CCommentators believe in ethnonationalism and Auslander Raus of alien bloodlines from White lands. Nor do we condone the preying on kids, machete attacks, or destruction of native monuments and heritage sites. ProWhites are decent and reasonable. muslims are anything but.
Societies in which classical liberalism, progressivism, and Biblical religion hold sway are extremely vulnerable to political follies.
America did pretty well for around 200 years when Biblical religion held sway, even longer if you start from the arrival of the Mayflower. In fact conditions have only gotten worse there since religion has been gradually eroded.
Yes, the Evangelical Zionists are a problem but a recent one which only came about after the influx of Jews at the turn of the 20th century. Discarding all religion because of that is foolish.
You forgot the Civil War.
If you actually look at US history with a critical eye, you’ll see that it was founded in liberalism and, with a brief interruption from the end of Reconstruction through the Great Depression, has continuously moved further to the left throughout its existence. For much of that history, this leftism was explicitly couched in Christian terms, as in the abolitionist movement or the George Floyd movement.
Anyway, the United States is still highly Christian today – almost 70%. Only about 15% of Americans are atheists. Meanwhile, nations like Estonia, 60% atheist, or Czechia, 76% atheist, have much better immigration policies and far less leftist cultures in general. This argument that the decline of religion has caused the decline of the United States really doesn’t hold up to even the briefest scrutiny.
In the Middle Ages, through the Bible, did Jewish interests drive policy internally or internationally in some parts of Europe, to the exclusive benefit of Jews and at the expense of the European locals?
cause it’s possible to make an argument that the Bible was a important text during that time.
great article. I’ve always said individual rights is a society wrecker
Classical racialists like me believe in the “Hidden Hand” and that it has been working behind the scenes for hundreds, maybe thousands of years to produce this dystopia we are experiencing.
Have you read Nesta Webster’s “Secret Societies and Subversive Movements” (1924)? The author was one of the few meticulous conspiracy researchers out there (though, admittedly, no interesting literature on such topics can be recommended without caveats).
Yes, I have read it, very illuminating. I recommend her one work of fiction “The Secret of The Zodiac” under the pseudonym Julian Sterne.
Thanks; that title is quite evocative and feels pretty ahead of the curve for a 1933 book.
Greg Johnson is asking for the return of adult leaders. This is a good idea.
What is an adult? An adult is more than someone who has reached a certain age, or else Hunter Biden would count as an adult, and a leadership class of Hunter Bidens is not what we want.
An adult takes care of children. Day-in, day-out, that is the biological function of the adult. This is the test that counts.
Which children? One’s own children, or children one is highly related to, for example the children of a brother.
An adult leader then is one who takes care of his children and also of those he is related to.
To take care of one’s own biological children is not enough to qualify as a truly adult leader. There may be no children. (We have many childless women with political power.) The biological children may not be highly related to the parent (in the cases of mixed-race offspring). And a leader may affect the long term interests of millions or many millions of people, of whom his own children will be only a tiny fraction.
To be effective in performing the function of an adult, a leader must take account of the long term and not only of the time when he will be around to enjoy his own children’s smiles, and an adult leader must take account of racial interests and clashes of interests, acting steadily to secure the vital interests of populations to whom he or she is more highly related.
I believe this definition of adult leadership will hold up well both from a nationalist perspective and from an internationalist, racialist perspective. An adult leader acts steadily to secure the vital interests of children to whom he has a degree of genetic relation. An adult leader sees this as his job; he does not leave it to the long curve of history or to an invisible hand.
This is such a good comment. I am the youngest of six children. Two of my brothers never had children, of my siblings who did, none of theirs will have children now, either. Only my kids want children of their own. The rest of the family spends their time traveling and one brother even moved to another country to get away from this one. Yes, I am jealous of the luxury and fun. No, I would not trade what I have for it. But I am reminded daily that none of them have any long term stake in the future of our people or this country. It makes their actions feel frivolous to me.
Weave, your attitude expressed here is perfect. This is how an adult thinks.
Classical political philosophy didn’t think “society”–that is, the bulk of men or nonphilosophers–could dispense with the gods or, rather, with belief in the gods. They thought that what we call morality or justice was inextricably linked to hopes for divine support for morality or justice, again, at least for the overwhelming majority of men. If societies governed in some way or another by biblical religion are silly or dangerous in the ways you describe–if, in other words, you agree with Machiavelli and his heirs’ critique of biblical religion but disagree with them about the woeful monstrosity they replace biblical religion with (liberalism)–and yet the gods or religion are indispensable for society, then you’re suggesting a return to pre-biblical religion. How will that happen? How does one do (I’m paraphrasing) “in the element of consciousness what was previously done unconsciously”?
It is popular these days to deride the U.S. Constitution, which has been done academically since the Leftist Columbia Professor of History Charles A. Beard wrote An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913) , which sought to apply a Marxist lens to the document instead of the usual one of deifying the Founding Fathers.
“It interpreted the early history of the United States from the lens of class conflict, arguing that the Constitution of the United States was structured to financially benefit the Founding Fathers.”
Libertarians have also been very fond of citing Prof. Beard as an authority here and forgetting the Marxist aspects of Socialism Lite. This is why actually studying History in a University setting remains useful, but I digress. (I am not an expert on Philosophy or Literature and I rarely read Fiction.)
I am certainly not one who would “deify” the U.S. Constitution in any way, nor the Founding Fathers themselves.
However, the Founding Fathers did NOT want a Republic that was based on superstition-as-morality. They were highly aware of the inherent excesses of Puritanism.
Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, for example, were barely Christians and would be best described as Deists, who believe in a creator-God but not an angry-God or a Redeemer who performed miracles, as Jesus in the Gospels.
Jefferson went so far as to publish the Jefferson Bible, which kept the “teachings of Jesus” but excised the “miracles.”
Also, many of the Founding Fathers like General Washington were Freemasons who thereby could network as Protestants politically ─ like Papists and Jews do ─ yet were highly suspicious of Roman Rite Popery.
(No, I am not making an argument in favor of Freemasonry nor any other plutocratic secret societies like the Council on Foreign Relations, Bilderbergers, Trilaterals, World Economic Forum, etc., which have their own issues.)
James Madison, who basically wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, was a Democratic-Republican who did not believe in religious tests to hold citizenship or public office, and did not believe in having a State religion.
We sometimes forget that freedom-of-conscience is not just freedom to choose your Faith, but also to be free from that faith.
As a former LDS person who grew up that way, and whose almost entire extended family are Mormons, I understand this acutely. The LDS are overwhelmingly ethnically Anglo-Saxon-Celt (English), or at least NW European, in contrast to Jews who are ethnically either Ashkenazi (Russian origin) or Sephardic (Spanish origin).
James Madison and Federalists Alexander Hamilton and John Jay expound more on this in their famous Federalist Papers essays. At one time every Junior in American High School was asked to read that book.
I do not want to be anti-Christian in any sense. I believe in freedom of one’s Conscience, and I will always support the right of Christians to be Christian.
But I strongly disagree with the idea that a State, or a Republic if you will, has to have some sort of Superstition-based morality to be functional and ethical.
It may be that human beings need irrational beliefs and traditions in order to organize culturally, historically, and even politically, but the jury is still out on that.
During World War II, the LDS declared ideological neutrality and did not excommunicate Mormon Nazis who fought for their country. I knew quite a few of these folks in fact.
The bottom line is that the American Constitution was about as secular as you can get without actually putting what Nietzsche called the Afterworldsmen into the Gulag. We don’t need to go back to Salem in the 17th century. (Yes, I have ancestors that go back to New England that far.)
🙂
I recently had an endeavor fail with a partner who did nothing to hold up his end of the bargain. Through the nosedive and after the wreckage I kept trying to figure out what the reasons were. Was he greedy? Nefarious? Scared and lacking confidence? Too hung up on owning and controlling it all? In the end, the answer was IQ. IQ is real and it has some headroom, but each person and group has a ceiling. Character and motivations are also critical. When all three tango in insufficient amount, relative composition and coordination and the limited person is in a position of authority/control/ownership/power one must walk away or there must be a rebellion. In a society, walking away is rarely if ever an option.
This article seems to get at the whole point of Christ. He came to fix the relationship and the covenant betweeen God and his people. I will put away the thunderbolts and offer forgiveness, penance and redemption, but we need a new covenant. You will no longer be special and rule over all and everyone on Earth once you do the impossible and obey. Perhaps that motivation is the root of evil and a bad incentive. No. You will have to live under a universal law and give up this notion, perhaps a conceit, that you and only you have had me fully reveal myself to you and are thus deserving of this promise. In addition to pardon and forgiveness you also get an example of self-sacrifice, temperance, patience and forbearance for the sake of the good of all. In addition to that, underneath these gifts are the gift of the Logos – the ability to reason through passion and base desire. With these gifts you can make your way through the darkness and back to the light. If my temporal manifestation can do it, you can too. You can no longer put it on me. If I am willing to bear a cross then so must you.
I am not a Christian but I have been thinking a lot about Christ vs. Perseus. For my money, sometimes, you have to go cut off Medusa’s head then bring it back and judiciously and cautiously use its power to put down your enemies before they put you down for good.
We need philosophers; philosophers who are wise enough to exercise power judiciously; wise enough to know when a martyr and a cross are sufficient or when a hero and a sword are essential; philosophers bold enough to act themselves or to conjure the actors imbued with the capability and the wisdom of doing and of knowing what is best for the common good.
Greg, were you the one who wrote “Ayn Rand on Abortion: A Critique”? From what I’ve read it doesn’t sound like you.
Yes, I wrote that with a friend. Rand’s arguments for abortion are very bad and inconsistent with her general approach to ethics.
I thought the paper was excellent. It addressed the fundamental cause for Rand’s flawed ideas about abortion (Objectivism being rationalistic/reductionist) and even gave a convincing psycho-analysis of why Rand believed what she did. After reading that paper, I looked you up and consequently ended up here.
I was shocked. I didn’t believe it was possible that the intelligence of the people that wrote that paper could be compatible with the views ascribed to you. Normally, I wouldn’t give the benefit of the doubt to someone who ostensibly hates me (I am non-white US citizen) and wants to drive me out of the country from which I was born in and identify with. But because of the intelligence shown by that paper, I want to understand: Why is skin color so important?
Apparently, you don’t believe that white people are part of a master race that is utterly superior to all the others. It seems to me that is the only logically consistent view with the radicality of white nationalism. If white people are not especially genetically superior than other races, why does race matter? It’s a worn out phrase, but I’ve always believed one should judge others according the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
On an unrelated note, have you found a more holistic philosophy such as you described in “Liberty and Nature: The Missing Link”?
It’s a worn out phrase, but I’ve always believed one should judge others according the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
If you’re deciding on whether to hire someone into a position of trust, then sure, that logic has its uses, but for the White nationalist, the nation is not analogous to a business, but to a family. Whether the content of the character of the other households in the neighborhood are better, worse, or equal to my own family’s, it doesn’t change that my loyalties lie with my family. It’s not that I ‘hate’ the other families, not at all, but only my family gets to live in my house.
You use the word ‘family’ here to refer to an unchosen obligation. You are saying that white people belong to the white race regardless of what they choose, the same way one belongs to one’s own family regardless of what one chooses, and that entails an unchosen obligation to one’s family or race. But that logic falls apart because a family is not an unchosen obligation. There is only one obligation in a family, and it is chosen: the obligation of the parents to raise their children. Children may be grateful in return, but it is not a demand on them, as they did not choose to exist.
No, my argument for White nationalism is not that racial loyalty is an unchosen obligation that you should just grin-and-bear whether you like it or not. The analogy I make of the race to the family is that in both cases I see them as mine, and so I choose to identify with them.
Now, the fact that both race and family are unchosen ties are why I choose to identify with them, but it is still a choice on my part. I have decided that the ideal purpose of the state is that it should be the individual extended. To me, ties of blood make the most fundamental and objective group identity of the individual, and therefore the ideal state is an ethnostate.
Since there is no further reply button, it seems this site does not support deeply nested comments. I made a reddit post if you want to discuss further: https://www.reddit.com/user/Budget_Database_4323/comments/1ip18xi/discussion_on_white_nationalism/
Thanks for humoring the conversation.
My original question was: “… why does race matter?”. You responded with: “… a nation is analogous to a family. [regardless of the relative character of my family], my loyalties lie with my family.” I thought you were implying that you have an unchosen obligation to your family, because that conclusively answers my question “…why does race matter?”. But if it is not an unchosen obligation, but rather your choice to identify with your race, that begs the question: Why did you make that choice?
You provided the reason: “To me, ties of blood make the most fundamental and objective group identity of the individual…”. Again, this statement begs a question: Why is it fundamental to an individuals identity? Race doesn’t determine the content of your character. It doesn’t determine if I’ll get along with you or not. It doesn’t determine if I will be of lower or higher intelligence. It doesn’t determine what personality I’ll have. It doesn’t determine anything important to my life; it is more or less just a skin color. Why is race fundamental to your identity?
George Carlin said Smith’s invisible hand was extending the middle digit. The democrat enemy wants police defunded to enable blacks to further wreck society. The republican enemy wants cops groveled to arrest (or kill, if they could get away with it) critics of israel and jews. Was disbanding the extremely corrupt and speed-trapping Coffee City, Texas police a bad idea? If cops and feds will inevitably be flooded with dei colored morons and kash patels given carte blanche for anti-White repression to protect jewish dispossessors, isn’t mass defunding, radical overhaul, or outright abolition of these enemy institutions the only sane choice that remains? The White republican normie base always talks about ‘taking their country back,’ down with big bad gubment and being the adults in room. Could Whites in power handle paramilitary policing reponsibilites if the goal is the system weakening prone to chronic inefficiency and breakdown? ‘back the blue’ stickers are just White liberals’ blm lawn signs for republicans. The object of adoration despises its sycophant. Adult White leaders can storm thru media slander and pissants like ayanna pressley, not imprisonment or crippling lawfare.
Hey Greg, where is Goad? Is he still writing for CC?
He moved to Taos. He is making Hopi pottery and teaching yoga classes there.
Just kidding. He moved to the Southwest and is getting settled there. That’s what I was told. He just needs some time.
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