In the New York Times Sunday, Ross Douthat says Neo-Reaction aka the Alt Right has good points to make.
Twitter: “Shorter @DouthatNYT: I’m not a racist. Racism is bad. Don’t be a racist or anti-Jewish. Nobody likes a racist. Neoreaction has good ideas.”
Here is one of the NYT comments:
* If I’m reading him right, Ross suggests that we make room for reactionary thought as an aesthetic curiosity, without sincerely entertaining any of its propositions.
A couple of years ago, I felt the same way. I began cruising neoreactionary (a.k.a. “alt-right”) blogs mostly out of boredom. I’m fascinated by novel, counterintuitive arguments — the more bizarre and offensive, the better — and enjoy analyzing them as texts. A lifelong-liberal Manhattanite, I never thought I’d become hooked.
But I did. Today, I post alt-right material under a widely recognized pseudonym and even maintain a trollish pro-Trump twitter account. The “strange crew of online autodidacts” who compose the alt-right include some genuinely sharp, persuasive thinkers; anyone who rejects epistemic closure ought to give them a read. Try Mencius Moldbug, Gregory Hood at Radix, Cochran and Harpending at WestHunt, and “Pleasureman” at the irreverent, intelligent trollforum My Posting Career.
I agree with Ross that “ideas can’t be permanently repressed when something in them still seems true”…but nor can they be engaged merely as motley novelties (as he proposes). Curious minds should explore the alt-right, but beware: ideas that seem true sometimes are, and apprehending those truths changes you.
COMMENTS TO STEVE SAILER:
* The left makes everything about race while the right pretends that the left isn’t making everything about race.
* The reactionary is doomed because he recognizes threats to his society so much earlier than anyone else that he can’t motivate others to help stop them.
[Lawrence] Auster’s Formulation:
A traditionalist (or a reactionary) recognizes a threat to his society the moment it appears.
A conservative recognizes the threat when it has half-destroyed the society.
A liberal only recognizes the threat after it has completely destroyed the society, or, alternatively, he never recognizes it at all.
* In order to have a non-suicidal democracy we need basic voter competency tests, limits on contributions, including to to “PAC’s,” and women must not be allowed to vote. Women’s nurturing instinct propels them to vote to let the hungry masses in. When invading armies conquered foreign peoples, it wasn’t the women who were killed, it was the men (women were taken and raped). Is there any wonder why men are naturally more opposed to immigration?
* It is excessively odd that people are focusing so much on Moldbug. I can understand the technocrats at Vox latching onto that sort of thing, but Douthat should know better.
I’d say our very own Steve Sailer is a much better candidate for the centre of a truly alternative right than Moldbug. People rally around things like ancestry and religion, not technical critiques of democracy.
* Reaction is like setting up a chair on the footpath outside one’s house to drink beer in the afternoon sun.
You’ll get abuse from hooligans in their V8s, stares from liberals in their Golf diesels, toots from like minded. Some passers by say hello and want a chat, others remark on what a disgrace one is making of the street. People will ask the mrs is her old man ok, mentally? Others think him eccentric, yet others think him feigning eccentricity in order to garner attention.
The fact is: it’s a sunny day, public holiday for some bizarre antiquated ceremony that no one understands but everyone argues over ownership of the true meaning (ANZAC), it’s Autumnal cold on the deck and one really couldn’t give a rat’s arse what anyone thinks; reality says sit in the sun, which, due to the season change, is now only on the footpath and enjoy yourself as we all go to hell together.
* It would be an enormous help if the Right drop the anger, stop the jeering, realize that we’re all in this together, start stressing what it is for, rather than against, and push for those Surveys Of Western Civ. undergrad requirements to come back into higher ed.
The Western Heritage is both rich and enriching but the memory will die with the older generations if not transmitted- don’t blame the Millennials if they sound like illiterate barbarians; God knows I was clueless concerning my cultural inheritance until I “had” to undergo instruction in it.
If a Black slave lady will now grace our $20 bill, surely a Republican Congress can force a Western Civ. survey requirement on institutions participating in the Student Loan Program.
And if the Republican Congress can’t do that, what are they good for?
* I get the sense that Douthat and Michael B Dougherty came dangerously close to being accused of Trumpsplaining so they had to make a hasty anti Trump turn so as to avoid being thrown out of polite society. The joke about killing Trump probably bought Douthat enough street cred to get away with writing this column.
It’s nice that he wrote about it but I found the timid and roundabout style kind of annoying.
* In other words, how can we appease those with right-wing instincts while ensuring that white dispossession continues uninterrupted.
* Peter Brimelow has said that Auster’s [1989] “The Path to National Suicide” influenced his own thinking greatly.
* “Is there a way to make room for the reactionary mind in our intellectual life, though, without making room for racialist obsessions and fantasies of enlightened despotism?”
Is not the avoidance even of any consideration that race may have some tangible consequences in human affairs a kind of obsession? And it seems that the Republican Party endorsed neo-conservative policy of military intervention around the world could be characterized – at best – as “enlightened despotism.”
* Douthat must have missed the Liberal revival of Carl Schmitt. I can’t tell you how many hardcore radical Leftist academics these days are making their way through his corpus….
* Before the scales fell from my eyes and I came here (thanks CNN–was it?–for those bleached photos of Trayvon’s face) I commented extensively in the leftist blogosphere. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that conservatives in general, and e.g. Sailer, Derbyshire here in particular, have a much better sense of humor than leftoids.
Leftists don’t laugh much. They’re too busy tsk tsking and shaking their heads. Conservatives write with (at the very least) a sense of amused, grim irony–though that may come from their being embattled underdogs.
Douthat’s so-called “Reactionaries” are just better all-round intellectuals. They know and can do Math, plus, they speak the unspeakable and that’s always fun.
I just can’t shake the feeling that Liberalism is a Religion and in so far as it functions through a political party it actually violates the constitutional ban on a State imposed religion but cleverly avoids censure because it subscribes to no particular set of accepted, orthodox dogma. Yet it does practice excommunication, worships certain alleged truths which it holds sacrosanct and beyond challenge, prohibits certain thoughts and speech as anathema and so forth. The crowning irony is that most Liberals, who either ignore or mock organized churches, are fundamentalist in outlook and behavior–intolerant of intolerance I believe they call it.
* John Cleese on London:
The comic was asked what he thought about British culture and the recent London riots during an interview on 7.30, a television show in Australia, where he is currently on a stand-up tour.
He replied: ‘I’m not sure what’s going on in Britain. Or, let me say this – I don’t know what’s going on in London, because London is no longer an English city.
‘That’s how we got the Olympics.
‘They said we were the most cosmopolitan city on Earth. But it doesn’t feel English.
‘I had a Californian friend come over two months ago, walk down the King’s Road and say, “Where are all the English people?”
‘I mean, I love having different cultures around. But when the parent culture kind of dissipates, you’re left thinking, “Well, what’s going on?
* There’s stuff from France, like Les Filles Au Moyen Age but in the English-speaking world the reactionaries have to settle for reading hidden meanings into Batman movies and Japanese cartoons.
* He’s hamstrung because if he gave a more honest assessment of the “Neo-Reaction” or “Alt-Right”, he would be quickly out of a job.
The reader commentators think Douthat is talking about Ted Cruz and National Review.
* I wonder if he would characterize NYT as offering pretentious justification for Jewish chauvinism and Zionist imperialism. Or for black thuggery and criminality. Didn’t NYT fan anti-white flames in Ferguson and Baltimore?
Oh no, cucky Douthat only reserves harsh dismissive words for white interests. So, if white males are pissed at how PC dumps on them, they are wallowing in ‘white male chauvinism’. And Trump supporters are into ‘Trump worship’.
In fact, support for Trump among Alt Right types is actually far more cynical than the kind of mindless worship you see among Sanders and Hillary supporters. Alt Right doesn’t trust Trump. They figure he’s just another shark. But they like what he’s doing as wrecker of the phony GOP.
“Our intelligentsia obviously does have a conservative wing, mostly clustered in think tanks rather than on campuses.”
No, they are cuckservative puppets of Neocon donors. They might as well be called Shrink Tanks. We remember what happened to Jason Richwine at the behest of Jennifer Rubin. In fact, lots of Neocons voted for Obama, but they still get to call the shots in the GOP. Anne Appelbaum has been a war-monger, and McCain was the ultimate neocon warmonger. But she went with Obama but still has the gall of posing as a ‘conservative’.
“Such deep critiques of our society abound in academia; they’re just almost all on the left.”
‘Deep’ critiques of society on the ‘left’? So, yapping endlessly about ‘racism’, ‘sexism’, ‘white male privilege’, ‘homophobia’, and ‘evil Russia’ constitutes ‘deep critique’? Really?
Deep leftist critique once did exist, but name one ‘deep’ thinker on the ‘left’ today?
Even the New York Review of Books that once had some interesting think pieces mostly dishes out Soros-ian crap nowadays.
Film criticism about THE SEARCHERS ends with ‘Wayne was racist’.
What is this Douther clown talking about?
Now, there are first-rate historians still working in the media. A lot of Liberal historians know their material and write interesting books. But as theorists and intellectuals, what original insight have they offered about humanity in the past 30 yrs? Give me one deep ‘leftist’ insight?
And what of social scientists who just dish out the same old same old?
Chetty and Assmugly don’t cut it.
“Which is, in a sense, entirely understandable: Those politics were frequently racist and anti-Semitic, the reactionary style gave aid and comfort not only to fascism but to Hitler, and in the American context the closest thing to a reactionary order was the slave-owning aristocracy of the South.”
Oh, what ‘deep’ thinking!!
An idea is wrong cuz it’s ‘racist’. But what does that mean today? And ‘anti-semitic’? So what if some people see Jews as a negative influence? It’s perfectly okay for Jews to declare entire peoples — Russians, Wasps, Germans, French, Hungarians, Poles, Iranians, Chinese, etc — as their enemy. So, by what crazy law must we all love Jews?
If Jews love us, we should love them. If they hate us, we should hate them back.
And oh, some gave comfort to Hitler. Well, many more on the left gave comfort to Stalin and Mao. But that never stopped the leftist takeover of the academia(that eventually turned into a silly joke once communism fell and the new ‘leftism’ turned into silly inane stuff like freaking out over Halloween costumes and banning even Vagina Monologue as a women’s college… cuz it might offend trannies. That is ‘leftism’? I have too much respect for real leftism to deign such as leftism.)
Oh, the ‘slave-owning aristocracy of the South’. Never mind that Southern slavery was facilitated by the capitalist enterprise of the North. Never mind the Eastern Brahmins were, in their own, way conservative and reactionary as well as reformist. Eastern Brahmins had very austere cultural standards at odds with rapid changes in NY and LA.
And if ‘reaction’ must be associated with southern slavery, shouldn’t northern ‘progressivism’ be tied to ‘genocide’ of Indians, expansion of American imperialism to Cuba and Philippines?
And what about Nakba facilitated by Democrat Truman and pushed by ‘liberal’ Zionists and even by communist Jews who obviously didn’t care about the fate of Palestinians who got it as bad or worse than Indians under Andrew Jackson?
And when Stalin turned all those Ukrainians into slaves, who were cheering in America? the Left or the right? But cucky boy Douther better not mention such stuff cuz he’ll be booted by both Neocons and NYT. What courage!
“But while reactionary thought is prone to real wickedness, it also contains real insights.”
Yabba dabba. We don’t need to no stinking reaction. Reaction is for crusty old folks.
It’s about people with no vision, no will to act. They just watch others do stuff and then sigh and complain. Or, it is for people who prefer style over substance. I don’t need no stinking style.
There is only the Truth. Truth is neither left nor right, progressive or reactionary. It just is. For example, an anus is NOT a sex organ. That is the truth. A man who puts on a dress is NOT a woman. Black Lives Matter is based on lies. Jewish cult of ‘white privilege’ is to mask and hide Jewish privilege. US has been the aggressor in Ukraine because Jews control US foreign policy. All these truths are buried by NYT, but cuck boy Douther would rather bitch about Hitler!!!
What Douther fails to understand is that the biggest closet-rightists are actually Jews. Jews use Liberalism as a tool to serve Jewish identity, power, history, and territory.
For Jews, Liberalism is a tool, a weapon, not a principle. It’s like the Jewish Jonathan Haidt pretending that it’s more taboo to badmouth Muslims than Jews. Is he kidding? Sure, there are some segments of the academia where it’s fair game to attack Israel, but it’s never ever okay to criticize Jews as Jews. One must make sure that one loves Jews and is only critical of Israel’s West Bank policy. But it’s fair game in much of America to bash Muslims as a group. Besides, how many so-called ‘leftists’ vocally objected to Hillary and Obama’s policies that brought so much death and destruction to the Middle East? Can anyone imagine US foreign policy doing to Israel what it has done to Iran(economic ruin), Libya(hellh0le), and Syria(a total mess).
Notice that everything that Jews push on EU and white America are never stuff they would push on Israel. Notice that Jews yammer endlessly about ‘white privilege’ but throw fits if someone mentions Jewish privilege.
Idea such as reaction and neoreaction are all bogus.
There is only the Core Formula. And Jews mastered this formula better than others.
Consider the Moses story in TEN COMMANDMENTS. Moses is a Jew kid born to a Jewish mother but he’s raised by an Egyptian ‘mother’. He thinks he’s an Egyptian kid. He can have all the privilege in the world. He can have good times as an Egyptian. But upon discovering that his mother is really Jewish, he has a change of heart. He can choose Egyptianness and privilege or Jewishness and slavery. He opts for the latter because he realizes his real mother is Jewish and her blood runs in his veins.
So, he chooses identity over materiality. For him, it’s better to be Jewish slave than a rich Egyptian cuz blood and identity come first. To reject his Jewishness for Egyptian privilege would be a betrayal of his mother and ancestors.
Jews have had such mindset for 1000s of yrs, even in exile. So, they survived as a race and culture. Jews are Jews not only by faith but by blood. It is about blood identity.
It is not a matter of faith that makes Moses change his mind. It is a matter of blood. His parents are Jewish. That’s what matters. (Those who honor and respect Jewish people cannot overlook this fact of Jewishness. It has been a blood identity.)
In contrast, look at all the lowlife white cuck traitors. They will give up whiteness, identity, heritage, tribe, lineage, and etc just to gain privilege as globalists. They choose materiality over identity. They will sell their mothers and fathers down the river just to have the good life as deracinated globalist cucks. Douther is of this ilk as he spits on white identitarians as ‘racists’ and ‘trump worshipers’. Edward Cullen ought to bite his ass, but why bother? Douther is a bloodless race traitor cuck who sold out to globalists. He is too ‘intellectual’, ‘sophisticated’, and ‘cosmopolitan’ to OBSESS about tangible stuff like race, blood, and territory. That is for mouth-breathing ‘racist’ white ‘male chauvinists’.
Never mind that the Liberal Jews who work at the NYT believe in the Jewish race, Jewish memory, and Jewish territory. They not only believe in the sanctity of Israel but do everything in their power to turn entire city blocks into Jewtopias of power and privilege. Jews survived with such mind-set for 1000s of yrs, and we are supposed to honor them for it. But it’s somehow wrong for non-Jews to have a similar mindset?
Jews didn’t only have the Power of Identity, as in the case of Moses who chose his true identity even in slavery than privilege in freedom and riches. (At least in the movie which is more fun.)
Jews also have the power of spirituality but in the form of Covenant. Christian spirituality is eventually deracinating and generic because Jesus was about all people worshiping in Him and going to Heaven. Jesus also divorced spirituality from the flesh. By sacrificing His flesh, He offered mankind a way to abandon the power of tribe and blood and reach Heaven by spiritual faith alone. So, it didn’t matter who your ancestors were. If you just believed in Jesus, you were cleansed and could be with God.
In contrast, Jews believed in a special Covenant between God and themselves. Jews needed such a Covenant to maintain their unique identity. If Jews believed in one and only true God whose plan was same for all peoples, there would be nothing spiritually special about being Jewish. But through the Covenant through Abraham, Jewish identity became special. Sure, there is only one God for all mankind, but God has a special Covenant with the Jews.
And the Jewish Covenant fused flesh and spirituality. God blessed the Jewish pud to produce Jewish kids whose puds would be sliced and blessed to produce more Jewish little ones. So the Jewish race survived. To be born Jewish was spiritual in and of itself through the Covenant. Being Jewish preceded believing Jewish.
So, if gentiles wanna learn something from Jews, they need to reject or revise Christianity and have their own Covenant with God. If it’s good enough for Jews, why not for other peoples? If Jews can have a special Covenant with God, other peoples can have it too. All they need is for someone to come forth as prophet and talk with God and return with the divine truth for their people. It’s like there’s only one Sun but each nation has its own relation with the Sun. So, each people need a special Covenant with God or some cosmic power.
Third, Jews developed an idea of a sacred homeland. Not just a piece of real estate, but the Holy Land given to them by God, the land where their ancient folks once lived and where their bones are buried. This is why even secular Jews demanded that the Jewish homeland be founded in the Holy Land and not in some nice quiet empty territory with far less political trouble. In order for a people to cling and fight and die for their land, they must believe that their land is holy to them. It’s like the Exodus song where Andy Williams says ‘God gave this land to me’. All peoples must formulate a Holy-Landism for their own nation. Otherwise, it will just become another piece of globalist real estate. So, if Jews say ‘your land should be open to all’, just sing the Exodus song and say ‘we have a special covenant with God and God gave this land to us like God gave you guys Israel’.
Fourth, Jewishness isn’t possible without history. Old Testament reads like a history book. And it offers a vision of the world through Judeo-centric eyes.
So, every people must have a history controlled by themselves. Imagine how Jews would think of themselves if they relied on ‘ant-semites’ to tell them about the meaning of their history. If Jews relied on people like Kevin MacDonald to explain the history of Jews, they would be filled with guilt, shame, and loss of confidence.
Sadly, white gentiles rely on Jewish Macdonadowiczs who’ve reduced white history into a narrative of ‘historical sins’ that can only be redeemed by whites cucking out to other races.
This is the source of Jewish power. It is the Core Formula. And it is something shared by both Neocons and Liberal Zionists.
So, all such labels as ‘liberalism’, ‘conservatism’, ‘progressivism’, ‘libertarianism’, and ‘reaction’ are for the suckers, the birds.
There is only the Truth and there is only the Formula. Jews came up with a powerful formula. All peoples who seek to survive must follow this formula.
Abraham: Covenant between God and our tribe. Unity of flesh and spirituality.
Moses: Identity over Materiality.
The Jewish Kings: defense of homeland.
The Rabbis: preservation of memory and history from Jewish perspective.
All else is gravy.
