Tag: Richard Wagner

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“Have you accepted Jesus, Agent Starling? Do you have faith?”
“I was raised Lutheran.”
“That’s not what I asked.” — Thomas Harris, Hannibal

I am a sick man. I am an angry man. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

“I am one thing,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche, “my writings another.” Although a few decades after his death this aphorism would chime with the Derridean, post-structuralist dictum that there is “nothing outside the text,” a hermeneutic approach to philosophy excludes the philosopher’s life to its detriment. (more…)

You can buy Christopher Pankhurst’s Numinous Machines here.

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Christopher Pankhurst
Numinous Machines
San Francisco, Calif.: Counter-Currents Publishing, 2017

Whenever I read a book with the intention of writing a review, I like to underline certain passages as well as jot notes in the margins. This quickly became an untenable approach for Christopher Pankhurst’s Numinous Machines, as there was simply too much to pull from the text. The book is a collection of essays that seeks out the numinous spirit in arts and culture in an era that is devoid of almost anything vital whatsoever. (more…)

You can buy Collin Cleary’s Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition here.

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Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813 in Leipzig in the Kingdom of Saxony. He died on February 13, 1883 in Venice. As an artist, intellectual, author, and cultural force, Wagner has left an immense metapolitical legacy, which is being evaluated and appropriated in the North American New Right. I wish to draw your attention to the following writings which have been published at Counter-Currents. (more…)

Salvador Dalí, Perpignan Train Station

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Part 3 of 3 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here)

With Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by Her Own Chastity, Dalí returned to his paranoiac-critical concerns (i.e., autoeroticism), but now transformed. The paranoiac origin is Dalí’s obsession with Vermeer’s The Lacemaker, which in turn he believed to “consist” in rhinoceroses’ horns. (more…)

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Howard Hawks’ Red River (1948) is one of the greatest Westerns. Red River has it all: charismatic performances by John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, a solid ensemble cast to back them up, a beautifully economical script, dramatic black-and- white cinematography, and a surprisingly good score from Dimitri Tiomkin, who had always struck me as a hack. All of these elements are masterfully drawn together by Hawks. His sense of pacing and visual drama never fails. He grabs your attention with stark contrasts between dark and light, vast landscapes and closeups. He’ll sweep you up in action, then stop you dead in wonder. (more…)

Leopold Ziegler

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Leopold Ziegler (1881-1958) was a German philosopher who was steeped in the philosophy of the Will of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and in the philosophy of the Unconscious of the Schopenhauerian philosopher, Eduard von Hartmann (1842-1906). Already as a secondary school student at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe, Ziegler was introduced to the doctrines of Hartmann by the philosopher Arthur Drews (1865-1935), and in 1910 he wrote a work on his philosophy entitled Das Weltbild Hartmanns: Eine Beurteilung. He obtained his doctorate in 1905 from the University of Jena, but was unable to take up an academic career on account of his poor health. (more…)

Nietzsche at age 18.

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In the Alps I am unconquerable, that is, when I am alone and have no enemy other than myself. — Nietzsche, letter to Malwida von Meysenburg

Friedrich Nietzsche remains the most enigmatic of philosophers. Claimed by both the political Left and Right over the 121 years since his death (by which time he had been incurably insane for 11 years), the Lutheran pastor’s son left a philosophical legacy which remains mysterious, and yet to the “philosophers of the future” for whom Nietzsche wrote, ultimately uplifting even in its ominous predictions for the Western culture to which he felt he was a physician. (more…)

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Alexander Jacob
Richard Wagner on Tragedy, Christianity, and the State: Three Essays, Second Edition
Melbourne: Manticore, 2020

“I am the most German being. I am the German spirit.” — Richard Wagner[1]

Counter-Currents readers will welcome another contribution from Alexander Jacob.[2] These essays make a useful companion, or counterpoint (sit venia verbo!), to Collin Cleary’s Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition. (more…)

You can buy Collin Cleary’s Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition here.

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Collin Cleary
Wagner’s Ring and the Germanic Tradition
Wagnerphile Books, 2021

Richard Wagner is a cornerstone of Western culture. He is one of the few composers that still receive mainstream attention in the 21st century, but usually for negative reasons. Hacks can’t resist the temptation to bash him for his alleged proto-Nazism and anti-Semitism. Even if critics see him as a predecessor to Hitler, many of them still enjoy his music. Few doubt he was a great musician. (more…)

You can buy Kerry Bolton’s More Artists of the Right here.

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Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813 in Leipzig in the Kingdom of Saxony. He died on February 13, 1883 in Venice. As an artist, intellectual, author, and cultural force, Wagner has left an immense metapolitical legacy, which is being evaluated and appropriated in the North American New Right. I wish to draw your attention to the following writings which have been published at Counter-Currents. (more…)

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All installments of this series available here

It has been some time since I have published an installment in this series (the last, in fact, was in November 2019). After more than a year of research and reflection, I am ready to return to the story of Sigurd, Fafnir’s Bane. (more…)

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As you can see. . . girls, music, disease, heartbreak. . . they all go together. . .

About three months ago, I was asked to give one of those “four recommendations” type interviews for an eminent publication (an old buddy’s blog) in the old country. (more…)