QOTD: Julius Evola

I would like to start making "Quote of the Day" a regular feature.  Probably not every day, but as close to it as I can manage.  For today, here's Julius Evola again on democracy and aristocracy.  From Men Among the Ruins:

"We may add that the system that was established in Europe through the advent of democracies (i.e., the majority system based on universal suffrage) is characterized from the start by the degradation of the ruling class.  In fact, the majority, being free from every restriction and qualitative clause, is necessarily on the side of the lower social strata; in order to win the favors of these strata and be elected to office by their votes, it will always be necessary to speak the only language they understand and to give priority to their predominant interests (which are naturally the most coarse, material, and illusory), always promising but never demanding.  Thus, every democracy is also a school of immorality, an offence to the dignity and inner code of conduct that ought to be the trademark of a true political class."

 

This is a much more eloquent and accurate statement of the problem expressed in the variously-attributed quote, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury."  An egalitarian democracy with universal suffrage is 99% of the way to socialism, and especially when combined with "diversity" will inevitably descend into Gibsmedat.

Battle Light--A Beacon of European Culture

I very rarely find myself moved by a piece of art as much as I am by this beautiful sword crafted by swordsmith Petr Florianek.  This piece was made for an exhibition of swords by contemporary smiths at the Deutsches Klingenmuseum.  The theme of the exhibition is "sword of piercing light."  Florianek's piece is called Beadoleoma, "Battle Light."  Every feature of the sword is symbolic of Northern European culture and civilization, which I will let the maker explain himself in this video.  I recommend watching it in full screen.

More pictures can be seen here, and his website is here.  This is the kind of thing that I wish more people appreciated.  This sword offers a brief glimpse into a history and culture that spans millennia, a heritage that has been mostly forgotten.  It is a reminder that we come from somewhere, from something. 

Few people, if any, appreciate the history and culture of ancient Europe as much as the students and makers of historical European  blades.  Pursuing this interest definitely spurred my research into European history.  I don't know whether racialist views are more common among bladesmiths of the European tradition; if so, they keep it to themselves, which is to be expected in today's world where a "racist" post on the internet can cost one his job.  Controversial subjects are discouraged on bladesmithing forums.  I in no way wish to imply that Petr Florianek or any other smiths have any racial opinions one way or the other, but I appreciate what their craft does to help preserve our history.

This sword has inspired me to write about the topic of White identity and the disappearance of it, but I will save that  for a future post.

EPA Dumps Millions of Gallons of Chemicals into River

This is why we need a government agency to...uh...Shit.

This kind of thing is what made me an anti-statist.  Now it just makes me want to sterilize everyone below a certain IQ level.

The Efficacy of Working Within the System

Regarding working within the system to pursue political solutions to our problems, there are three main views on the Right.

1.  Vote for Republicans, because they are not Democrats.  Back Republican nominees that are the most likely to win, because "winning" is the most important thing.  Supporting some extremist like Trump is a vote for Hillary.

This is the most common view among the mainstream Right.  Variations on it are occasionally heard in some areas of the Alt Right as well.  This is essentially the Right taking orders from the Left; avoiding topics that the Left declares taboo, affirming a belief in basic Leftist ideals (democracy, equality, social welfare programs, anti-racism), and supporting candidates that the Left finds less objectionable.  How's that working for you so far?

2.  Worse is better.  If you are going to vote, vote for the most deranged Leftists on the ballot.  Leftist policies will eventually collapse their own system, as increasing levels of degeneracy wake people up and cause conservatives to revolt.

This is believed by a lot of people, but, I suspect, practiced by very few.  This approach has slightly more merit than the first, but I still find it lacking.  Leftist nutbags are in some ways the best recruiters for the Right, but I don't believe that enabling the Left will in any way hasten some kind of conservative revolution.  Conservatives could have revolted against Leftist policies in almost any decade of the twentieth century, but they didn't, and I doubt that they ever will.  Advancing the anti-White agenda seems likely to result in Whites becoming a minority in the US with no hope of recovery, and unlikely to result in an increase of White racial consciousness.  If the Federal government started confiscating guns, and began herding Whites into ghettos after seizing their assets for redistribution, there might--might--be a revolution; but it would be a half-assed affair put on by disorganized NASCAR-Americans who can't agree on anything, and would probably fail.  Helping the enemy does not help us.

Another possible outcome of "worse is better" is what I like to call the Condor Option; the Leftist government goes full retard, and is then overthrown by a right-wing military coup.  Probably the best outcome that could be realistically hoped for, but I wouldn't bet on it happening.  I think that the Left is well aware of this possibility, and has been aggressively purging the military of  any potential Pinochets.  Earlier this year, Army recruits were made to march in red high-heels so that they can better understand the plight of women.  Do not count on the military saving us.

3.  Working within the system accomplishes nothing.  Voting doesn't work.  No political candidates represent our views, and no one that does could ever be elected.  Working within the system just makes you become the system.

A common view among the edgier segments of the Right, particularly Libertarian/AnCaps, and White Nationalists.  This is the worst of these three choices, although I believed it myself for a long time.  The appeal of this view is a childish belief that, if there is no silver bullet political solution to our problems, then we might as well not use the system at all.  Those who believe this might point out that we should be working outside of the system, to spread information and seek converts.  I agree, and I would say that doing what we do on the internet, commenting on articles, engaging in discussion, and producing youtube videos or blog posts and supporting others who do so, accomplishes more than many realize.  This is evidenced by leftists whining about how the internet has become a "sewer hole" of right-wing trolls.  Intelligent "trolling" and meme warfare is making a difference.  The "cuckservative" meme going viral is an example.  But refusing to operate within the political system is just ceding ground to the Left for no good reason.  The Alt Right will continue to be perceived as maladroit losers until we gain legitimacy through political action.  As to the claim that working within the system makes you become the system, that's pretty much the goal, isn't it?  Leftist revolutionaries worked within the system, now they are the system.

While the various Edgelords of the Far Right sit around and say that working within the system is useless, Leftists enjoy the full control of all mainstream institutions, from which they dictate public opinion and decide what is allowed to be discussed.  The Left achieved this level of control by working within the system.  They took control because they are organized, they fight amongst themselves much less than we do, and they play the long game.  It took them 100 years to achieve cultural hegemony by the long march through the institutions of power, but they have done it.  No, you will never elect an ideal Libertarian, Paleoconservative, or White Nationalist president, or other right-wing flavor of your choosing.  Even if you did, it wouldn't fix much; he would still have the rest of the bureaucracy and institutions to contend with.  But we must learn to take what small gains we can, and build on them for the long haul.

Some equate working within the system as playing by the enemy's rules.  I think that the opposite is more true.  The idea that we should refrain from any kind of political action could not be more harmful to the Right if it had been deliberately planted by the Left, which I am not sure that it wasn't.  Donald Trump is a good example, sadly perhaps the only example, of someone on the Right who is working within the system without playing by the Left's rules.  I won't waste time here going through all of the many legitimate criticisms of Trump; he is certainly not some crusading savior of the Right, nor is he anything remotely resembling a Randian hero of business and commerce.  Donald Trump is popular because he said that he would build a wall on the border, and make the Mexicans pay for it, because a lot of Americans on some level want mass immigration to stop.  When he is predictably accused of "racism" or attacked in other ways by the Left, Trump does not play by the rules.  According to the rules of the Left, when a White cis-het male is accused of crimethink, he is to prostrate himself in shame before the moral authority of the Left, apologize profusely, and beg forgiveness.  Trump does not do this.  When attacked, he attacks back, and makes his attackers look ridiculous.

Maybe his talk about building a wall is only an empty campaign promise, and maybe his edgy statements about immigration are only a calculated attempt to capitalize on the segment of the population that agrees with them, but in either case it doesn't matter.  Trump has already single-handedly moved the Overton Window perceptibly to the right.  Intentional or not, genuine or not, Trump is sowing seeds of a rebirth of race realism, White identity and American nationalism.  For now, public opposition to mass immigration must be couched in terms of illegal immigration, of drug dealers and rapists coming over the border, but if we can keep the Overton Window moving, eventually the real issue of demographic replacement will come out.  This is the kind of goal that we should advance by working within, and without, the system.  Even if he isn't elected, Trump is useful to our cause.

Much of what is wrong with the Right is due to the combination of the three attitudes listed at the beginning of this piece.  At the same time, I think that there is an element of truth in each of them.  From the first, we must learn to compromise enough to support political candidates who advance our interests even slightly, even if they do not wholly endorse our ideas, or even disagree with them; i.e. we should use people like Trump, though not be used by them. From the second, we should make the best of our political defeats.  As I've already mentioned, Leftists are sometimes the best recruiters of the right.  The presidency of Barrack Obama has led to an increased awareness of racial issues pertaining to the perpetual victim status of Blacks; who knows what kind of crimethink might spread should Bernie Sanders become president.  A Democrat winning because a slightly edgier candidate took votes away from a mainstream Republican is not as bad as ceding all political representation of the Right to Standard Republican Party cuckservatives.  We must occasionally take risks, and make the best of the results.  From the third, we should continue the fight outside of the system, which goes without saying.  We now live in the Internet Age.  Unlike Leftist-controlled television and newspapers, where approved discourse is tightly controlled and any dissent can misrepresented in order to slander the Right, the internet is a more level playing field.  The online battle of ideas is more significant than many realize.  We are gaining traction in that battle, but we must turn some of that momentum into political power if we are going to prevent the Left from shutting down internet discussion through "hate speech" legislation.

It's a big shit sandwich, and we all need to take a bite.

Evola on Being a Reactionary (and Cuckservatives)

I received a copy of Men Among the Ruins by Julius Evola in the mail today.  I read this in the first pages, and thought that it was worth sharing here, given the title and theme of my blog.

     Otherwise, another watchword is to be preferred, namely reaction.  To adopt it and call oneself  "reactionary" is a true test of courage.  For quite some time, Left-wing movements have made the term "reaction" synonymous with all kinds of iniquity and shame; they never miss an opportunity to thereby stigmatize all those who are not helpful to their cause and who do not go with the flow, or do not follow what, according to them, is the "course of History."  While it is very natural for the Left to employ this tactic, I find it unnatural the sense of anguish that the term often induces in people, due to their lack of political, intellectual, and even physical courage; this lack of courage plagues even the representatives of the so-called Right or "national conservatives," who, as soon as they are labeled "reactionaries," protest, exculpate themselves, and try to show that they do not deserve the label.  

     What is the Right expected to do?  While activists of the Left are "acting" and carrying forward the process of world subversion, is a conservative supposed to refrain from reacting and rather to look on, cheer them on, and even help them along the way?

This is as relevant today as it was when it was written, in 1972.  At the end, Evola aptly describes cuckservatives, who are today as liberal as the Liberals of Evola's day.  As flattering as the second sentence is, in my own case I don't think that calling myself a reactionary is particularly courageous.  I have nothing to lose, so I might as well speak up.

Men Among the Ruins looks like an interesting read.

The Allure of the Confederacy

This is a continuation of my previous post, which you might want to scroll down and take a peek at first if you have not already seen it.

The Civil War's place in modern American culture becomes more and more interesting the more one looks into it.  This is the only country in which citizens gather to re-live the nation's bloodiest civil conflict, complete with authentic uniforms and functional firearms and artillery.  If fights ever break out between Confederate and Union reenactors, I have never heard of it.  This says something about the character of Americans.

I find it interesting that the strongest opinions regarding the Civil War seem to be on the side of the Confederacy.  Not that most people are Confederate sympathizers, by any means.  Liberals think that the Civil War was fought to free the slaves, and that Southerners were all either vicious racists or were duped by rich plantation owners.  But excluding people who believe this middle-school social studies version of history, those who actually know something about the Civil War are likely to either think that the South's defeat was a tragedy, or else think "Well, it's good that the country stayed whole, I guess."  Nobody really gets fired up about the Union.

About two years ago, I began to wonder why the Confederacy had so much appeal among libertarians and even anarchists, which is strange considering that the Confederacy was hardly a libertarian or anti-statist endeavor.  I realized that it was because the South lost.  Because of this, people are free to project their own ideals onto the Confederacy, and their most charitable imaginings of what might have been.  Heroes of the South like Robert E. Lee will forever remain cryogenically preserved in their finest hour, aristocratic gentlemen standing heroically against the aggression of crass power and financial interests.

Had the South won, it would have been a different story.  Lee, or Jackson had he lived, would have gone on to be the next president of the CSA.  He would have been criticized for his handling of slavery.  Criticized for his handling of Indians.  Of Mexico.  Of foreign relations with Europe.  Of economic policy and trade.  The North would have made every effort to sabotage and discredit every move the Confederacy made, and harp on every blunder.  Had the Southern cause been successful, it would not be so idealized today.

The Confederate flag is a powerful symbol to people across the right-wing spectrum, even in the North.  To Libertarians and proponents of small government, it represents resistance to encroaching government power.  To racially aware Whites, it represents White culture and identity and resistance to the anti-racist, anti-White narrative.  To others, it represents the rebellion of traditional values against the modern, the rural against the urban, agrarian against industrial, noble against the common, aristocratic against the egalitarian.  People on the losing sides of these conflicts often identify with the Confederacy, even if the meaning is only perceived subconsciously by those who chose to signal their dissatisfaction with the modern world by displaying the Confederate flag.


I think that identification with the Confederacy for many people serves as a surrogate for the cause that we do not have, and the identity that has been denied us.  Perhaps it is fitting that the Lost Cause should symbolize the ideals of the Right, which have been on the wrong side of history for so long.  White ethnic identity has been pathologized almost to the point of nonexistence.  Americans are divided between Left and Right, and the Right is itself fragmented and crippled by infighting, and without any meaningful representation in government.  The Republican Party seems determined to serve the interests of anyone but its own constituency, who are united by little except for blind loyalty to a government that could hardly do more to betray them.  When I listen to the song that I wrote about in my previous post, the line that moves me the most is "If I must die for my home and land, my spirit will not falter.  Here's my heart and here's my hand, upon my country's altar."  I believe that there is a longing among many on the Right for a cause that is worthy of that kind of commitment, for something to fight for. 

Will the South rise again?  I doubt it.  White identity and conservative American values might be stronger in the South, but the conflicts in American culture can no longer be neatly geographically divided.  However, the Confederate flag is likely to endure as a symbol of the values of the Right for a long time to come, especially now that Leftists are waging war on anything Confederate.  Hopefully this assault will anger some Americans into standing up for their own racial and cultural interests.

Sunday Earworm

I've had this song stuck in my head for about four days.

I've been a fan of old-time music for most of my life.  For the uninitiated, old-time is what American folk music used to be before the dirty Bolshevists ruined it.  Most people confuse it with bluegrass because of the fiddle and banjo, but bluegrass is a different kind of music, a modern fusion of old-time, blues, gospel, and jazz.  Old-time is a sound of what America used to be, an obscure relic known by few except for clawhammer banjo players.

One of my favorites is the Second South Carolina String Band, a band of Confederate Civil War reenactors, From Pennsylvania despite the name of the band.  They play Southern Civil War-era music as authentically as possible, even using period-correct instruments.  Their sound is unique.  What really does it for me is the drumming and flute along with the fiddle and banjo.  Particularly in the case of this song, which wouldn't be the same without the drum.

The humanity of this song kicks me right in the feels.  It tells the story of a man who says goodbye to his family and marches off to give his life for his country; a story that could be told of any war, but for many people the cause of the Confederacy continues to have an emotional pull despite having been defeated 150 years ago, even among those who are not Southerners, as evidenced by the Confederate flag bumper stickers, decals, teeshirts and actual flags that I frequently see here in Connecticut.

A great deal of romanticism surrounds the Confederacy.  I intend to explore the subject, but I will save that for another post.  Today, it's all about the music.