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The Red Riding Trilogy: the utility of redemption, Part 1 For several days now I’ve been pondering how to write about Channel 4’s Red Riding, the three full-length films adapted by Tony Grisoni from David Peace’s four-part cult trilogy of that name, of which the final part was aired on Thursday 19th March. The obvious difficulty is that few MR readers will have watched it, or will understand references to the plot or the characters. That isn’t entirely insurmountable. The Channel 4 Catch-up pages are still live here. But I can’t seriously expect readers to invest six hours of their life watching a British TV drama, even one of this quality. So … how to cover the essentials and get to the political point that I want to make about this ostensibly non-political drama? I don’t want to revisit the entire narrative, which would probably take you another six hours to negotiate! Well, let’s see. Red Riding has a complex plot intelligently constructed from fictional and non-fictional elements. The storyline follows the lives, the struggles, the deaths, often violent, of a cross-section of Yorkshire humanity as they are impacted by three interwoven criminal enterprises: the corrupt actions of a clique of senior police detectives, the disappearance of four young girls over a period of 14 years, and the real-life murders by Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. The usual suspects are there - the driven investigative reporter, the corrupt and murderous policemen, the amoral property developer, the rent boy, the trusted but paedophile priest. The period (1974 to 1983) is beautifully observed. The seventies feel of the first film, particularly, will be recognisable to anyone who, in adulthood and preferably young adulthood, experienced that PeeCee-free, incomparably tatty, oddly enervating decade. For presenting the entire ouevre without the mandatory black computer genius or inexplicably popular female Asian policewoman ... without, in fact, presenting any non-white as other than entirely peripheral, fleetingly visible extras … for allowing the characters, at least the coarser ones, to refer to non-whites as “wogs”, the writer and the directors of each film have my admiration and gratitude. That’s film verité. That’s the life we had in the seventies. With Red Riding, correctness has triumphed over political correctness. There is also a tremendous realism about the construction of each scene. Snatches of radio news locate the action in time. A gently disruptive susurus attends every public place ... the sounds of children at play, aircraft flying over, traffic, dog’s barking. The real world seems to press in on the action, giving it a cloying, claustrophobic quality that somehow holds the actors in their seventies aspic. But, then, this is film noir at its darkest. Red Riding offers an unrelenting vision of a fallen humanity. Everything is in entropy … the detritus-strewn estates where the working-class exist and the burnt-out, boarded-up estates where they don’t … the doomed efforts of the squeaky-clean Assistant Chief Constable Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine) to call his corrupt colleagues to account ... the big plans of the seven corrupt West Yorkshire policemen (in the words of Bill Molloy, the Warren Clarke character, “It’s coming together. Controlled vice. Out of the shop windows and into our pocket. The whole of the North of England. The girls, the shops, the mags. The whole bloody lot.”) …nothing seems to hold together in this world. Not even love triumphs. Men and women are encircled by darkness, seemingly living out lives sans future, sans hope, on council estates, in prison hospitals, in the belly of the Leeds Street station of the West Yorkshire Police. The real darkness, however, is within. The writing is very good and gives us rounded characters who carry their psychological pain, their corruption, their weaknesses in ways that are credible. Even the child abductor and murderer Martin Laws (Peter Mullen), a cleric of some kind who works, he says, “with the sick, the lonely, the dispossessed”, bears the impossible burden of progenerative evil credibly. He is no cartoon monster. But progenerative evil does not reside solely with him. The second episode, 1980, relies heavily on the real events of the West Yorkshire force’s long and flawed Ripper Investigation. The Ripper himself, played by a stunningly believable Joseph Mawle, makes a brief and engrossing appearance in the interview room of Leeds Street Police Station. It is also crucial to the plot development, since he denies the murder of a woman who connects directly to the coppers’ vice operations:-
That’s the point at which the efforts of the seven to keep their house of cards standing are fatally compromised. I will return to it in Part Two. Now, for all this darkness to be carried over six hours of viewing might seem too unremitting to be of interest. But there are also four lead characters in the story who strive towards the light. Their struggles are at the moral centre of all that takes place. They lift the piece, and without them its redemptive meaning would be lost in the surrounding darkness. Two of these characters fail. One is Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield), the young crime reporter at the Yorkshire Post in the 1974 episode, with whom the whole tale begins. I was 23 years old in 1974. This character is of my generation and his preoccupations with doing something with his life that, finally, is good is very typical of us. In particular, Eddie has never been tested in war like his father, his uncles, his grandfathers were. A lot of us will tell you that that sense of untried manhood all too easily sours into uncertainty. This is Eddie’s mainspring, and it results in him being set-up to shoot the man he mistakenly takes to be the heart of darkness. The second failure is Peter Hunter - “married, no childen, good man, a steady man, squeaky clean” - who is brought in by the Home Office to conduct a covert review of the Ripper Investigation. He soon suspects that one of the murders, that of Clare Strachan, can’t be attributed to the Ripper, and then witnesses the Ripper’s own confirmation in the interview room. But the true identity and motive of Clare Strachan’s killers - a knowledge that will prove deadly for him - follows on within hours. In the words of BJ (Robert Sheehan) to Hunter, close to the end of the episode (he almost always refers to himself by his initials, by the way):-
The real power of the entire drama, however, lies with the other two striving for redemption. One is Detective Superintendent Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey), a member of the group of seven West Yorkshire officers. He is a quiet man who, having done nothing to end the catalogue of abuse, corruption and murder, is tortured by his “guilty bloody conscience.” The other is John Piggott (Mark Addy), a picture of splendid dessication. A failing solicitor, unmarried, living alone, consuming pornography and scotch and fast food, he is the most unlikely character to emerge as the film’s hero. But then, that’s redemption for you. Comments:2
Posted by weston on Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:15 | # Thanks for the post, GW. I always appreciate being informed of well-made, non-PC films. I’ll definitely be seeking these out when I get a free moment.
From Lee John Barnes:
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Posted by Guessedworker on Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:51 | # Well, first, apologies for posting the wrong version. I finished writing Part One this afternoon but somehow posted the version I had saved last night, having got waylaid by an edit for a David Hamilton piece, which isn’t finished yet. Who’d be a confused web-master! Part Two is back to the ideological grinder - much more familiar territory. Probably on the blog tomorrow morning. 4
Posted by Captainchaos on Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:06 | # Film noir depicts a world in which flawed individuals strive for personal redemption as they confront local instances of evil that are representative of the larger trends of societal decay. The protagonist may or may not win out against his particular opponents, but the cost to himself is a Pyrrhic Victory, for what he was really fighting, evil as such, societal decay writ large, do not budge. It is ultimately a portrait that merits pessimism, and justifies resignation to final defeat. Palingeneticism on the other hand makes the promise to its heroes that their sacrifices will not have been in vain. It promises Final Victory. To my mind the latter is infinitely more compelling. 5
Posted by Guessedworker on Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:31 | # CC! Do you want to write Part Two? Yes, palingenisis promises. I am not interested in promises. 6
Posted by John on Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:22 | # You are talking of the middle-upper level elites. The people whose bidding such gofers do are not like this at all. Their sensibilities and morals are more like Mafia bosses. Ask Paul Wellstone, Jurgen Möllemann, JFK, Anna Lindh, Hale Boggs, Folke Bernadotte, Jörg Haider, George Patton, Olaf Palme, Larry MacDonald, Charles Lindbergh, James Traficant, et. al. ad nauseum if you don’t believe me.
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Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:05 | # PF, What I see in redemption, when one gets beyond the religious contexts - which don’t interest me - is a love of a truer self that has no place in the fallen world. It can only find itself, can only walk in the world through a certain nobility of the soul, if you will pardon the expression. In other words, I am trying to detach the heroic from the egoistic self-assertion of common or garden, fly-high palingenesis, and attach it instead to the knowledge of being. This, of course, is an attempt to fill the empirical gap ... to go beyond the dissection of love to why we love. Now I’m giving away the function of Part 2 - which I deleted with marvellous ease this afternoon, and have to re-write from scratch. So I’ll say no more. 8
Posted by Gudmund on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:11 | #
What, then, do you propose, fearless Anglish warrior? Whites as a people seem to respond well to “heroic inspiration.” What makes said inspiration so poisonous to your tastes, GW? 9
Posted by danielj on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:27 | # It can only find itself, can only walk in the world through a certain nobility of the soul, if you will pardon the expression. Honestly, I’m not sure I can GW. Perhaps you shouldn’t use such language. 10
Posted by Captainchaos on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:30 | # “What I see in redemption, when one gets beyond the religious contexts - which don’t interest me…” Perhaps the solution you seek is not to be had in the way you seek it. I cannot conceive of the Noble life, self-sacrificial altruism, sans the religious impulse. The impulse to at least believe that one’s sacrifices have some meaning grounded in what is necessarily good, transcendent, beyond the capricious world of ‘what is Noble could have been otherwise, but for another roll of the evolutionary dice’. Perhaps it is only my lack of imagination, but if not, the price we pay for scorning the sacrifices of the simple minded happily born because they believe it is what God would have them do may be steep. If what it takes to save our people is to let those who need to believe that the tender love they have for their fellows will not end with this flesh - even if it cramps our style - is the price we must pay, it is small indeed. Why not make VMAT2 work for us for a change? It is a part of who we are. 11
Posted by Jewish Hollywood Race Mixing Propaganda on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 09:27 | # Jews promoting miscegenation more actively since Obama was elected I see: I went to a movie tonight, and there were 4 movie previews (or “trailers”) before the actual film started - 2 of them (out of 4, remember) were previews about films where White women fell for Black men; the first preview was a satiric comedy about a young White dancer who fell for a Black dancer, and even the preview has the Black guy smacking her around and references to Black genitalia; the other was about a ‘thriller’ about an “Obsessed” blonde who falls for some Black guy in an office and goes all violent and crazy on him. 12
Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 09:27 | # CC, The religious motivation, drawn from the urge to go to one’s god justified, to be absolved, comes some time later than the act of being true to oneself. Redemption is truth before it is justice. If you like, it is a separation of what is real from what is acquired (the importance of which, in the context of our cultural degradation, should be obvious to all readers). Click on the third link above to Red Riding 1983 and then on various boxes. Watch the section from 01.02.00 to 01.20.00 which contains the the redemptive passage of the piece, the closing imagery of which could not be clearer. 13
Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 09:34 | # Don’t even need Jewish tastes in what we should view to get a good dose of lies. Here’s the Obama-isation of the tale of Robin Hood, lovingly prepared for our children’s eyes by the liberals of the BBC:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/robinhood/ Don’t eat anything that might conceivably not agree with you before you watch this trailer. 14
Posted by the Narrator... on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:20 | #
That’s an excellent analysis that accounts for a considerable amount of the elites (as well as many of the common man’s) current dispositions. .
There’s another side to that coin though, Captainchaos. If there is a life beyond this world in which all wrongs will be made right and all injustices reversed, then why fight on in the here and now? If existence continues beyond death, then there is truely no such thing as death and therefore no such thing as an Ultimate Sacrifice. Think of it as army gathered to go to war. To succeed, each man must be willing to be the first one to go down in battle…..must be willing to immediately sacrifice the glory of victory when the battle is done…..must be willing to give up the triumph and peace that will come to those that will live on after the war is ended. Do men fight and die for the promises of personal reward in a next world, or do they fight and die for their family and friends to survive and thrive in this one? That first man to go down in battle will, at the end of the day, be redeemed when his people are victorious in the battle that he gave his one and only life for. That is heroic! If death is not final, then all of the sacrifices that we make in this life are not only capricious, but absurd. ... 15
Posted by the Narrator... on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:46 | #
The Kevin Costner Robin Hood had Robin teamed up with a black Moor. So it started then, back in about 1992.
More openly, there was I Love Lucy which was the first major tv show to promote miscegenation. Just wait till you eventually see Denzel Washington cast to play King Arthur. There was another BBC mini series a while back that had a black woman in what was, I believe, suppose to be a Charles Dickens story set in the 1800’s. I always wonder if people like that would be fine with Brad Pitt playing an escaped African slave in The South, as long as he did a good job acting…. 16
Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:43 | # Regarding the comment above signed by “Jewish Hollywood Race-Mixing Propaganda,” what needs to happen is the Jews who make these movies should be required to clearly identify the white females in them as Jewish. This could be done by putting a highly visible Star of David around the actress’s neck, visible in every scene and most glaringly in the sexually-suggestive ones where she’s kissing and slobbering all over the Negro (notice by the way how, in these Jewish pro-miscegenation movies, it’s always the shiksa who chases the Negro man, never the Negro who chases the shiksa), or by means of dialogue that refers explicitly to her being Jewish, or in other ways. Let one single movie be made in which the white female slobbering all over the Negro is identified as Jewish — just one move, that’s all it’ll take — and you’ll see the howls go up from the Jews, including of course from the “liberal” Jews like Abe Foxman, the like of which you’ve never seen before in your life. You’d think Hitler had just been elected president. 17
Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:54 | # Whites should of course 1) refuse under any circumstances to watch such movies, 2) should refuse to let their teenage children watch them and tell them why, 3) should complain to cable companies and local movie theaters when they’re shown, and 4) should lose all inhibitions about speaking frankly among themselves, whites speaking to other whites, in regard to what’s taking place here — namely, the filthiest conceivable sort of racial attack on Euro peoples — and who exactly, which tribe, is mounting that filthy attack. 18
Posted by the Narrator... on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 16:09 | #
I agree with the gist of what you are saying. Unfortunately it’s a damned if we do and damned if we don’t situation, as having gentile women portraying jews would only further confuse people who already think jews are White. I suppose we could further stipulate that producers would be required to use actual jewish women to portray jews in films. . 19
Posted by Captainchaos on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:32 | # GW: “Redemption is truth before it is justice.” Yes, one must know the truth about justice as such - if there be such a thing - and the truth about a particular injustice, before one can be redeemed by acting justly, to correct as far as can be had an injustice. But the implication that the truth alone, regarding justice or what have you, can be synonymous with redemption, or redemption through truth and justice, falls flat. “The religious motivation, drawn from the urge to go to one’s god justified, to be absolved, comes some time later than the act of being true to oneself.” For some at least, in fact for many among our people, following the religious impulse IS to their own self being true, or doing what comes most naturally to them. It is a question of self-discovery leading to action - which resonates with what is most natural to them - which progresses through time. “If you like, it is a separation of what is real from what is acquired…” But what is real? Is what is acquired not real? Is not the truth about oneself acquired, after reflection, during the passage of time? If the truth must be acquired, is it then not real? I know what you are driving at, the truth is awareness of the real, of what is. But what is, is transient; being and becoming. And if that which is is in a constant state of becoming what normative force does the truth about that have for what we should will to be? It could just as easily be inferred that what is ‘natural’ and ‘good’, after becoming aware of the transient nature of what is, would be to just go with the flow; in the absence of any imperative to do otherwise which has necessary, permanent, transcendent authority. An acquired, appropriate, adaptive noble lie rigidly adhered to as a result of the faith gene can provide the illusion of said authority, granted that no such authority exists. If it can be done, why should it not be done, if it proves effective? Just what forfeiture of dignity, or sullying of the truth, is involved in this? Because if truly, the truth offers not redemption, is not a noble lie preferable? 20
Posted by Captainchaos on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:05 | # The Narrator: “If there is a life beyond this world in which all wrongs will be made right and all injustices reversed, then why fight on in the here and now?” The obvious answer is that if one does not fight to do justice in this life then one will be punished for it in the next life; assuming there is a next life and that is the quality of it. “If existence continues beyond death, then there is truely no such thing as death and therefore no such thing as an Ultimate Sacrifice.” If some of what we are does not continue on beyond our death, at least in the form of our genetic progeny, then what is the point of sacrificing for it? If one maintains that some of what we are persists after our own demise, in the form of our genetic progeny, given that we sacrifice our lives to protect the lives of our genetic progeny, that is then no “Ultimate Sacrifice.” “Do men fight and die for the promises of personal reward in a next world, or do they fight and die for their family and friends to survive and thrive in this one?” Depends on the person. But let’s say a soldier’s motivation jibes with what your own would be, he is fighting for the “personal reward” he will enjoy of his genetic progeny surviving as a result of his sacrifice that he will be temporarily, that is not eternally, conscious of. “That is heroic!” No arguments here. I’m a fan of the heroic, and to a degree the palingenetic, as I suspect you are. “If death is not final, then all of the sacrifices that we make in this life are not only capricious, but absurd.” If our people will ultimately have an end, if not now or even soon, but eventually, why not just resign ourselves to the inevitable? Yes, I know, because to do so would not be heroic, but if heroism has no ultimate value then why be heroic? Do not tell me you have faith in the value of heroism. 21
Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:50 | # Those who seek absolution are not being true to themselves, CC, whatever they believe. Truth to self is an attentiveness to or experience of being, from which thought ineluctably distances the thinker and carries him into absence. That is its action. Thought is the thief of attentiveness, which it lavishes on its own constructions (one of which is absolution). As to the real and the acquired, from birth onward all that is absorbed from without into the personality is false. What is cultured is false. In the life of one man we are talking about all the externally-acquired impressions that have rained on him from his first breath, and accreted into personality and knowledge. In the life of a people we are talking about the characteristics of society which are purely time-dependent. That which is timeless about the people is also that which is real. When one sets out to strip everything back to the basics like this, of course, one does so as a thinker, not as one experiencing being or reality. That is the difference between Western philosophy and Eastern spirituality. The Western philosopher contemplates presence and absence, reality and falsehood in the abstract, and arrives at whatever judgements of life he will, be they broadly ontological or teleological in character, practical or idealistic, and so on. Along with Dasein, I tend to the ontological but recognise that “the dissection of love” cannot move men to act as “why we love” can. Hence the need to “fill the gap”, and the search for something with utility to that end. I will post more clearly on this, if I can, when I get Part 2 of the Red Riding thing written. Meanwhile, my apologies for the lack of perfect clarity in my words now. 22
Posted by exPF on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:20 | # Can someone please explain to me the meaning behind the word “Palingenetic”/“palingenesis” as it is used on this blog? I apparently wasn’t here when this meme popped up and got integrated. 23
Posted by Big Sinkair on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:45 | #
Every bit of that could be mercilessly picked apart and debated until the cows come home. Not something you really want to hang your hat on, I wouldn’t think, and certainly not because you hope they’ll flock to it because of its supposed racial implications. The most you can say for it is that it’s plausible and racially sound. Cap,
There is no ultimate truth. Philosophically, nihilism reigns supreme. But humans want and need more than that. However, no matter what premises he sets out with, no one ever gets anything completely correct so it’s a matter of pragmatism: better to be less “right” and racially sound than more “right” and racially unsound. Race as a man’s “one truth” isn’t without its problems, hence my exhortations to think a little beyond it, but…When in the Course of Human Events one finds oneself neck deep in Complete Bullshit it becomes necessary to just say Fuck It, Race it is. As for faith, the claims of organized religion are fantastic hogwash, but a deep appreciation of and “faith” in some kind of “Life Force” or “Creation” is plausible and comforting. That’s something even an atheist in a foxhole coming under fire can draw on, so it’s worthwhile practising for when the moment arrives. A man can die a good death like that. 24
Posted by Guessedworker on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:06 | # Big Sinkair: Every bit of that could be mercilessly picked apart and debated until the cows come home. Be my guest. I assure you what I wrote is sound. Like all fundamental truths, it is also quite simple really. It says that being precedes becoming, and thought - like thinking how to obtain absolution - transfers attention from being-as-object to the object of thought. Presence turns to absence. Bear in mind that human intellectual development is a very recent phenomenon in evolutionary time, and has come at the cost of a detachment from reality. Animals, with their extremely rudimentary capacity for reason, surely live closer to the real than do we thinking apes. Thought and reality can never be syncronised because thought functions by associatively-formed representation. You are correct that this issue applies at the level of the group as well as the personal, and has profound implications for racial politics. That’s why I am interested in it. PF, Heroic rebirth, the idea of a spiritually purified nation rising out of the degradation and debilitation of modernity, is to my preference for a racial rediscovery/refounding as the efforts of Traditionalists such as Guenon and Evola to create a caste of elite spiritual fascists are to your preference for a return to serious Western intellectualism. That is, the ideas of palingenesis and Traditionalism alike are cultish and non-real, and we don’t need them. We do, however, need to lend the prosaic alternative of an emphasis on being a pair of boots, if not actually Griffin wings. (Roger S Griffin famously defined fascism as palingenetic ultranationalist populism.) I hope that makes sense! 25
Posted by the Narrator... on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:54 | #
But doesn’t that sort of deplete the nobleness of the act? Imagine someone valiantly saving your life and when you go to thank them they reply, “yeah, well, if I hadn’t tried to save you that fellow over there was going to beat me to death with a sack of oranges.” What then is the effect on the psyche of an entire civilization that harbors such a ‘carrot and stick’ approach to honorable sacrifice?
But you have to be willing to separate the individual from the collective in this frame of reference. I will pass on my genes. But I, the individual, will cease to be at death.
Could you re-phrase that one?
In answer to that, I’ll reference the comedy/horror movie ‘Tremors’. In the film giant underground creatures attack a very small town in Nevada. The survivors escape the town and attempt to reach the mountains, as the underground creatures cannot bore through rock. A few miles into their journey the creatures lay a trap for the escaping townspeople and force them to take refuge on several boulders where they are marooned. They then engage in the following conversation.
... 26
Posted by Captainchaos on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:36 | # The Narrator: “Imagine someone valiantly saving your life and when you go to thank them they reply, “yeah, well, if I hadn’t tried to save you that fellow over there was going to beat me to death with a sack of oranges.”” A sack of oranges? Why not a bag of hammers? If the former is an obscure literary reference I’ll understand. “But doesn’t that sort of deplete the nobleness of the act?” If a man is mastered by his conscience, if his conscience as one part of his psyche gains dominance over another part of his psyche, his instinct for self-preservation (that would have him let a man in danger die so as not to risk his own ass), he is still saving the man in danger to avoid the painful pangs of conscience he will suffer by letting the man in danger die. Why is that any more noble than doing it out of fear of godly punishment? Punishment is punishment, and punishment deters by threatening and dealing out pain, whether by your own conscience or a god. Besides, does a coward really have a choice in not acting nobly and saving that man in danger? Does a hero really have a choice in acting nobly and saving that man in danger? Or is it just so much mechanicity? What’s noble about mechanicity? It just is, isn’t it? “But you have to be willing to separate the individual from the collective in this frame of reference.” If a man is inseparable from the collective, how can his actions of abandoning a fellow in need be described as ignoble? Is my stomach ignoble if it keeps giving me damned heart burn? “Could you re-phrase that one?” A religious man might be willing to die in battle to please a god, or to avoid a god’s punishment. You would be willing to die in battle to save your people from destruction, but really you would be responding to pleasing your own conscience, or avoiding being punished by your own conscience. I submit that the latter is no less mechanistic and tinged with mythic value than the former.
Then how do you know definitively that philosophically, nihilism is the end all? “When in the Course of Human Events one finds oneself neck deep in Complete Bullshit it becomes necessary to just say Fuck It, Race it is.” And this is what people let get under their skin? LOL! Yup, if the philosophy tack won’t cut it we’ve just got to assert it. Are you sure you’re not Nordic? 27
Posted by the Narrator... on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:38 | #
No particular reason. Just imagined it would hurt a lot.
That’s an outstandingly good response. Yet you leave reason out of the equation. Reason and forethought must master conscience. After all panic is one of the buttons that are often pushed when the instinct for survival is alarmed to danger. And panic (though it may be triggered by the survival instinct) can cause a person to rush foolishly towards death.
I’m in a hurry so I don’t meant this to sound flippant, but, (in that circumstance) as I head off to battle I might be planning on surviving to see the fruits of my endeavor. I could still be willing to give my life because I’d know that to not fight anyway would mean a lose of the only life worth living to begin with. Again it goes back to reason. To the ability and willingness to weigh the possible outcomes of action or inaction… . 28
Posted by John on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:24 | #
That sounds like an ultimate truth to me. 29
Posted by Captainchaos on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:56 | # The Narrator: “As a fast and rough example, would a White hero be justified in placing himself in danger to rescue a non-White?” Let’s see, if you saw an old Black man being kicked while prone by a thug you’d be duty bound to do nothing? I suppose you could “reason” out a rationale for not intervening, but that just doesn’t seem like the White thing to do. “Yet you leave reason out of the equation.” Reasoning it out leads to absence from one’s true self, at least that’s what GW contends. And what the ‘heroic’ and the ‘honorable’ would do given that, is what they’d do just because they’re ‘that kind of guy’. I take it you beg to differ? “Through reason, heroic action can be measured out differently in different circumstances.” Not under GW’s system. Unless, the intelligent, having developed and mastered his developing philosophy, teach the lemmings how to stop thinking so damn much, and be their true White selves. Yet the lemmings would have to be taught how to pay attention, so they could stop paying attention. And the intelligent would have to think about all this, which would lead to absence from their true selves, which I take it is not good, so they would be casualties of the process. Huh? “Reason and forethought must master conscience.” For the few. The lemmings must be taught, er, I mean told, what to think. Unless GW’s way pans out. “...I might be planning on surviving to see the fruits of my endeavor.” If you plan on surviving, which I imagine would reasonably be thought to be linked with positive emotions regarding, then your sacrifice would not be as heroic, by your lights, as if you did not expect to survive. A “Christer” also expects to survive, in the afterlife. “I could still be willing to give my life because I’d know that to not fight anyway would mean a lose of the only life worth living to begin with.” A “Christer” could be willing to give his life for his principles, his faith, and defending his people, his extended family, because to him that is the only life worth living. In other words, for love of God and the good, not for fear of Him and offending against it. Doesn’t the Bible say that it is better to love God than to fear Him, but if you can’t love Him you had better fear him? For instance, GW is trying to develop a philosophy that will be the magic bullet to igniting racial consciousness, but if it doesn’t quite work out like that, he’ll through some pragmatism in, and rig the deck by breeding out the faith gene. Magic bullet, really? IMPORTANT NOTE FOR CHRISTERS: This is how it’s done. The other guy wants to deconstruct your shit, you deconstruct his. IMPORTANT NOTE FOR NIETZSCHEANS: Tension of the spirit is how you get people motivated to get shit done. Psst, Bowden, Lowell, how come you didn’t think of it? String that bow, yee-haw! 30
Posted by Desmond Jones on Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:57 | #
The coward and the hero, may be the same man. Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War:
Ferguson concludes that men fight because they liked it, or more exactly they craved the analgesic effort, the high that battle brought.
The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling Oh! Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling 31
Posted by Captainchaos on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:48 | # “The coward and the hero, may be the same man.” Indeed. Mechanicity, internal and external, will decide what the man does, it is only a matter of which proves decisive. The balls-to-the-wall type will fight without prompting, but would need to be restrained from going overboard. The cowards would need to be motivated to fight by threat of punishment. Desmond, in the past you have suggested conversion to Islam, or strengthening Christianity, presumably retooled to once again enhance our reproductive fitness. Proposals, proposals, which of these do you propose? It seems more reasonable to me to go with Christianity, to have it carry our palingenetic water for us, with the excess palingenetic steam given vent by Christianity’s partial otherworldly concern - the steam blown off into the next life, so to speak. Palingeneticism with restraint enforced by fear of otherworldly punishment, Christianity put to good use when realistically we cannot get rid of it, the faith gene likewise. Because, White people with the faith gene will guard it as jealously as they guard their own balls, if they fear losing it will cut them off from their god, which it would. And, if GW’s philosophy will not work sans faith gene, which we would not be able to get rid of before achieving power - the cart put before the horse - it is a failure, before ever getting off the tarmac. So I propose the above in its stead, given my assessment of its viability is correct. Thoughts? 32
Posted by Captainchaos on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:01 | # That should have read: “...will only work sans faith gene,” 33
Posted by the Narrator... on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:50 | #
Yes! Further, the White “hero” who would run into save the old negro would most likely be attacked/stabbed/shot for their trouble. And any reasonable person would have little pity on them for it. It’s like Christian missionaries who go to Africa and end up raped or tortured or killed or all three.
Nope. Within an entirely White circumstance, their actions would be of the ‘that kind of guy’ mode. But the world is not entirely White, is it. Rushing in to save those who are not of your kind is anti-heroic.
If you want to engage in a conversation with me, fine. But if you really want to argue with GW, just say so.
That’s not even close to the same as what Christianity presumes. The sacrifice I’d be willing to chance is permanent. An absolute end.
Again, a Christian is incapable of “giving his life” since he believes he’ll live forever.
Oh yes, defend his people, his extended family and even old negroes, right?. This goes back to using reason to judge when heroics are actually worthy of being called heroic.
Not that I’ve ever hear of. ... 34
Posted by Desmond Jones on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:28 | #
Not sure exactly what you mean by that, CC. Junger was a “balls-to-the-wall” kind of guy, but he cracked. Cowards, according to Ferguson, were relatively few. He was addressing the issue of why men, in such hellish situations, fight on. How men are compelled to join the war effort initially is a different matter. His observations follow Darwin’s, a large part of the motivation is organised social pressure. Government bureaucracy, trade unions and other social forces brought extreme pressure to force men to fight, at least according to Ferguson. It’s the same with religion. It’s not just the fear of God that motivates people. It’s also the fear of your fellow religious traveler. IMO, Christianity no longer wields that power. It is the religion of the individual. Islam, however, like the Leviathan, is willing to force it’s view upon the community with extreme prejudice. The power of Leviathan appears thoroughly Judaic and triumphant over the Christian churches post WWII. It appears left to Islam to face it. Why might Islam triumph over Leviathan? As Darwin suggested, higher levels of altruism/sacrifice will provide an advantage for one tribe over the other. However, it might rest with the advantage Islam provides to capital. The high tech, high level intervention that is current day London, for example, may be more cost effectively achieved by a low tech Islam. In addition Christians and Jews may exist in dhimmitude. The intent being to end egalitarianism and re-establish a patriarchal society, an Islamic pater familias based on kinship. 35
Posted by 999 on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:33 | #
Almost… Just wait till you eventually see Denzel Washington cast to play King Arthur. 36
Posted by John on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:41 | # Guessedworker:
We’re stuck with words to think to think with and a large part of the problem you cite (imo) is a general semantics one: nominalization and unclear levels of abstraction, artificially absolutely distinguishing subjects and objects (that one could be an artifact of universal grammar—i. e. inborn), deletions, using static verbs to refer to dynamic and/or ever-changing processes (English is replete with grammar and idioms that do that). Using Korzybskian E-Prime can help with that one but often at the expense of increasing nominalization. And English is a cobbled-together (and now thoroughly PCified) language, anyway. I sometimes wish we could construct our own and all of us learn it fluently. 37
Posted by John on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:55 | # General semantics (for those who aren’t familiar): Essentially the map/territory problem of language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics 38
Posted by Captainchaos on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:29 | # The Narrator: “You would be duty bound not to interfere in the tribal conflicts of other tribes.” For the most part I concur. I have no desire to become entangled in the tribal disputes of the third-world. As for the prospect that non-Whites are so far removed from what Whites are as to be considered just another part of nature, as a weed and an antelope are, and ought to be treated as such, I cannot agree. For it is not so, they are human beings. “Further, the White “hero” who would run into save the old negro would most likely be attacked/stabbed/shot for their trouble.” My scenario did not include Whites patrolling Black enclaves itching to right wrongs. It was a ‘what if you were walking down the street and…’ kind of thing, an exigency that honor would mandate, at least as I would have it. “Within an entirely White circumstance, their actions would be of the ‘that kind of guy’ mode. But the world is not entirely White, is it.” I am, as an experiment, preceding under what I presume to be GW’s philosophy, actualized in individual Whites, and hence what I believe would be their natural reaction. I think it comes quite natural of Whites to want to put a stop to an act of brutality they stumble upon in their bailiwick. To train Whites not to so act, based upon the fiction, or noble lie if you will, that non-Whites subhuman, would be the affectation. “If you want to engage in a conversation with me, fine. But if you really want to argue with GW, just say so.” I hope to separate the wheat from the chaff through dialectic. And perhaps achieve a synthesis. “That’s not even close to the same as what Christianity presumes.” A Christian doesn’t expect that he will survive in the afterlife and have positive feelings regarding this? That’s new to me. You said: “...I might be planning on surviving to see the fruits of my endeavor.” If that is the case your anticipated reward would only differ by degrees from that of the Christer, you would still be anticipating a reward, thus diminishing the heroism of your act from what it would be given you thought death was certain, at least as you define heroism. “The Christian is absolutely incapable of such a sacrifice as they believe they’ll exist forever in paradise.” But he won’t live forever, he is deluded. So the price he pays for his sacrifice would be the same as yours, death, the obliteration of his consciousness. “Again, a Christian is incapable of “giving his life” since he believes he’ll live forever.” Why? Do you believe in Heaven? Do you have faith in it? I can tell you the thought of it pleases me, just like the thought of the mythic, good in itself, value of heroism, aside from its mere utility to protect the tribal gene pool. But you seem to measure things simultaneously by their utility and by their intrinsic value, which you seem to allege reason can tune us in to, I beg to differ. That is why I said earlier not to tell me you have faith in the value of heroism, as if an act rates higher on a mythic heroism scale if a man has the more heroic motivation, regardless of the consequences. Unless you want to deal in noble lies, but then you are no better than the Christer. “...and even old negroes, right?” Yes, even them, if they happen to be getting stomped in your neck of the woods. “This goes back to using reason to judge when heroics are actually worthy of being called heroic.” Why even go to the mat to save an old White person, if they’re past their breeding prime, and you are not, if it is just to be based in the utility of promoting your EGI? 39
Posted by Captainchaos on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:12 | # Desmond, Submitting to Islam for Whites realistically means submitting to the Brown Man. It realistically means sympathizing and communing with the Brown Man, because Mohammad and the Caliphs were Brown men, and because most Muslims are Brown. And sympathizing and communing with the Brown Man means ungrudgingly handing off your women to the Brown Man. It is a non-starter. Where does it say that in the Koran? Who care. The Koran does not trump sociobiology. 40
Posted by the Narrator... on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:58 | #
Well, you phrased it rather dramatically, but I personally hold the view that the differences between the races is enough to categorize them as different species.
Yeah I know exactly what scenario you were envisioning. Here is an example of your scenario and what happens in real life, .
You’re missing my point.
First off I wasn’t trying to define heroism, but rather assessing what can be called heroic after the fact. That part of the conversation sort of grew on its own. Secondly, no, you aren’t fighting for a reward, as such. You are fighting to prevent your world from being overrun and your people being exterminated. And in that, Christianity knows not sacrifice.
And I never did. In fact I believe I said we must use reason to guide us in how we measure out what we perceive to be “instinctive” heroics.
See the link to the article above….....
Is it not enough to say that they’re one of my people? Do we really need to always go into the mechanics of science or wax poetic over the basics? ... Post a comment:
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Posted by exPF on Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:42 | #
Wow, you make the films sound compelling.
I suppose the idea of inner moral qualms and the search for redemption is the flipside of high conscientiousness - and thus another aspect of white culture. The sense of duty which whites have to other whites (presuming this faculty isn’t abused by application to nonwhites). We really treat each other nicely and with respect, when you compare us in that respect to nonwhites and the ways they interact. Someone suggested this was due to the ice-age genetic bottleneck that makes whites more closely related than other groups, so we treat everyone with the respect that in foreign cultures is reserved only for family.
This presumes the ability to self-critique in the name of other peoples’ rights and interests.
Actually I think amongst British people the tendency towards conscientiousness and consideration (which turns into the search for redemption) is extremely far developed. Insufferable politeness, etc. etc.
I think one of the reasons for the moral rot of the english ruling classes is the long-term stability of the british state for so many hundreds of years. Beneath, within and around the old sabre-rattling battlefield elites/nobility (the Uradel so to speak) there grew up a class of people who got into high places by being smooth, self-effacing, politically smart, kind and making alliances with people: basically being “gentle” and considerate of everyone. Rather than fighting battles they were experts in ingratiating themselves with people.
These people reach the top and then breed with others of similar stamp, creating an elite that tends towards obsequiousness, kindness, and being genuinely likeable and “sweet-natured”. On the basis of having such a sweet nature you can have great political success by allaying personality conflicts and being a mediator. Essentially one is selected for a high “likeability quotient”.
This quality of being “gentle” and kind and considerate and polite - all of which comes to signify good breeding in the wider society as a result of its association with power - is difficult when one faces the problem of hostile immigration, for example. The problematic nature of ethnic conflict can’t be resolved with fawning, niceties and refined conversation. Yet this is the natural first reaction of this elite and perhaps the full extent of its spiritual armament. The realities of “the street” or “the front” or “the field” are not a part of the evolutionary environment of this elite, they were made to win battles in “the hall”.