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A note to James and Graham I have been pondering for some time how to respond to James’s complaint about his contest with Graham Lister, and his subsequent withdrawal from the blog. I do not want to explore Graham’s stinging criticism of theories which he sees as irredeemably liberalistic, yet worse, religious in kind, and of terminologies incorrectly applied from the biological sciences. If he is right (and I think, broadly, he is) Graham is also caustically dismissive and that is unhelpful to his own argument and not in the peer spirit which intelligent researchers of the questions which preoccupy us owe one another. For his part, James is understandably protective of his own intellectual project, the component parts of which – the contractualism, the commentary on ecology and eusociality, the commentary on Jewish dominance and virulence, the reification of the duel, the search for foundation in mathematics, etc – look more sign than sein to me at this point. But these are early days and rather than fall to non-mortal combat over whether these constitute an incomplete collection of parts because they are the wrong parts, let us return to reflection on the problem we are all trying to solve. And I do mean all of us – all who come here, whether they are politically nationalist, conservative, traditionalist, or communitarian. I once read long ago in a memoir by some misguided Russian fatalist that none of us ever really rests from trying to solve the great, glowering problem of mortality. We may think we are pleasantly immersed in the flow of life’s petty concerns, but somewhere in our mental processes we keep returning to this problem. Even in our moments of greatest happiness and triumph, or on the rare occasions we are sucked into some big, adrenalin-charging, Sein-zum-Tode event – perhaps a pairwise duel - the diversion is fleeting and we quickly return to trying to decipher the silence and unknowableness of death’s void. We sense it all around us, in the great rush of our children to grow up, in our wry regret for our own advancing age, in our tenderness for the object of our love, in the way that the fairy-gold of sex slips through the fingers of memory, in memories themselves, in long friendships, in loss, in faith, in hope, in the very processes which stubbornly maintain our bodily existence. Life is this great, forced, inescapable surge to a precipice because, to put it crudely, Nature cheats her adversaries Time and Entropy by ceding phenotype to them but keeping genotype for herself. Children aside, the only consolation for us in this cruel bargain, the only suggestion of a final victory, is that Identity, even in the inauthentic form we ordinarily know it, seems in some mysterious sense imperishable and beyond the general declension. It is the one part of us to which we might look for the possibility that as individuals we, too, can cheat Time and Entropy, and find permanence. And there is something in this. There is permanence of a kind to be got from dipping our hands in the cool water, the endless baptismal moment, of presence to being. Of course, for the most part we don’t know how or, if we know, we forget for great stretches of time, since our ordinary, tragic condition is precisely one of self-forgetting. So powerful is the mechanism of the personality (the “I” of our ordinary life), so all-consuming is the life of the world, so undirected and dream-like is our consciousness, so given is it to immersion in the phenomena we perceive within and without us, our experience quite excludes the hard, bright authenticity of real Identity. But there are happy accidents: rare neurological events when personality’s fractured world falls away, the mists part and Identity, the whole self, the sovereign process, unconceals itself to be known unto itself. We must be clear that there is nothing essentialist or vitalist or pretentiously sacred in this moment, no res cogitans, nothing manufactured or imposed, nothing illusory in any way, nothing negative, nothing held back, nothing which can be added. What “is there” is not reducible or divisible. Because it has singularity it has unity, and because it has unity it has will. But it has it not as a subject but as a process of consciousness. Because it has consciousness it cannot blindly self-harm. It cannot be other than it is, and it is, and always was, the same - that which abides in light and nature. The terms of this most human settlement do not change very much at the level of population. They simply collect. We can speak in the same way of permanence and impermanence, self-forgetting, unconcealment, nature, authenticity, unity, will, consciousness, and the good. And this is not merely a framework derived intellectually for the purpose of constructing an identitarianism of the kind that we are seeing today from the European New Right. Nothing can be constructed, nothing prescribed here and still be true. No traditionalism however ancient, no cultural or historical focus however well-grounded, no Frankenstinian neo-paganism, no artful reproduction of the European character will lead to that truth. For however much these things endear themselves to the aesthetic sensibility and the eye, yet they are never more than beautiful objects. And beauty leads only to beauty, and does not escape the trap. Beauty is finite. But the human creativity which interests us, and which inhabits this process of unconcealment, is infinite. James mentioned mereology, and has in the past quoted one or two thinkers associated with that and with set theory. As I understand it, as a discipline mereology could provide us with insights and observations about the relation, and possibly the dynamic relation, of Identity to the rest of the Mind system. But I don’t think it would have much, if anything, to say about Identity itself (unless one believes, Marx-like, that a phenomenon is defined only by its relation to its environment). Identity’s irreduceability would see to that. Of course, the question of foundation - the rigorous demystification of Identity’s relation to Source - is seminal to James in a way that it is not to me. I have looked, but I have not seen, except that being presents just as well, and rather more productively, as an action of Identity as it does as the ground upon which Identity stands. Perhaps I am wrong. I would have appreciated reading James’s exploration of this question, with his idiosyncratic mix of intellectual unconventionality and creativity. It’s something I mentioned to him on an MR thread, and something I would have thought might have been worth him staying on for. Speaking for my own interests, this process of the unconcealing Identity does appear to fall neatly within the philosophy of emergentism, both in terms of the emergence of Identity as personality falls away, and of its - Identity’s - emergent nature as an irreducible property of Mind. I have gestured in this direction in several articles without actually exploring the literature. That will have to change. I know Graham is highly interested in this area, and his interest accords with all the above. I am sad that James’s thoughts on the subject will not be read here. I wish he would reconsider. I can’t promise that Scottish irascibility will magically dissolve. It should. However, this is, and has always been, a free blog, not the Lubyanka. I make my wishes known. I do not shoot people. We are all seeking to light the burning fire of the heart. Comments:2
Posted by DanielS on Fri, 01 Nov 2013 15:26 | # Leon, What GW is saying is important because he is pointing-out that if we know how to engage the light of our authentic ways as native Europeans, then we have the means to survive and prevail despite the myriad of changes in fortune. 3
Posted by James Bowery on Fri, 01 Nov 2013 18:27 | # I do continue to read MR. Let me clarify the reason for my absence: I am dead to MR in the sense that my commitment to the culture of individual integrity is simply not compatible with the present life of MR. The value I place on Euroman’s DNA is not my relatedness to that DNA but the character of that DNA arising from the artificial selective pressures—the ancient culture—of Euroman. If I were an enlightened pygmy or enlightened Chinaman, I would recognize the superior value Euroman’s DNA on that essential ground. Conversely, if some other people were to adopt the ancient culture of Euroman and Euroman were to continue his dysgenic slide due to being so parasitically castrated that he is locked into a betrayal of his ancestral culture, I’d have to place my hope for humanity in that other people. I am essentially incompatibility with MR and, indeed, with the vast majority of formally stated “white nationalist”, “racialist”, etc. beliefs. However those beliefs are confabulated rationalizations—semi-sleeping reactions to the torrent of hellish assaults—so I will not say that I am essentially incompatible with the “white nationalist” or “racialist” himself. Since MR’s ontology project is largely about formalizing beliefs Graham Lister’s contempt for my presence here at MR is, in this sense, not only fully understandable—it is quite justified and perceptive. My hope is that by pursuing their mutual respect regarding the ontology project, Graham Lister and Guessedworker will progress to the point that they may start to perceive the essence of Euroman—at which point my participation may once again be worthwhile. 4
Posted by Guessedworker on Fri, 01 Nov 2013 20:21 | # James, The notion of essence is also “confabulated rationalisation”. But anyway the proposal is that we understand finally and fully that “nothing can be constructed, nothing prescribed here and still be true”, and that what is true can only ever be what is freely emergent. The key to the European truth is there in the “the sovereign process” I have set forth many times; and which you have characterised as insignificant because of its non-reliance upon, and non-relation to, the grace of Fundierung. God, in other words. A few years ago my American friend Dasien (who, of course, has blogged here, and I hope will do so again) told me in London that he sees being as genetic. I think he was right, pretty well. We are all children of the Law of Hazard that brought genes into being. You want it the other way round, but what case can you make that is not, in the end, a statement of faith? 5
Posted by Leon Haller on Fri, 01 Nov 2013 22:49 | # Could someone PLEASE translate Bowery v. GW into plainer English for me? I’m starting to suspect I may support Bowery. My WP has always been based less on the moral right of whites to live amongst themselves alone (though that certainly is a right, and I do support it), but on what I perceive to be the civilizational superiority of Europe at its finest, and my concurrent beliefs that that superiority is finally genetic in origin, and thus will neither be put back on a path to higher development, nor survive for much longer at all - and even in its currently debased form - if whites continue to become further geographically, let alone genetically, mixed with nonwhites. I want to return white civilization to its essential superiority, which I believe cannot be accomplished under conditions of ‘diversity’. I do not think this view is at all incompatible with traditional Christianity. Still more prosaically, having ‘rubbed shoulders’ with most races and socioeconomic types of nonwhites throughout my life, I have found that I consistently dislike nonwhites as races (though occasionally I have liked this or that particular nonwhite, usually service providers: eg, my barber, my gardener, my dentist, etc; my half-white gf is the great exception, I have no true nonwhite friends, though a number of friendly acquaintances). I would prefer to live exclusively among whites, even at the cost of disassociating from those nonwhites I don’t dislike. 6
Posted by James Bowery on Fri, 01 Nov 2013 22:57 | # GW, I hope that Graham Lister is correct in his accusation that my presence drove away high quality contributors such as Dasien—and that therefore my absence will bring them back to pursue the ontology project with you and Graham Lister. The more high quality contributors to your line of thought, the more likely there will be progress of the kind we all hope to see. 7
Posted by Graham_Lister on Sat, 02 Nov 2013 00:15 | # I don’t really want to get into this issue yet again – it’s very boring – but I think GW has put his finger on the key issue. I (and I suspect GW) are philosophically committed to naturalism and thus a naturalistic ontology. God is not part of our conceptual framework – nor is the ‘Holy Spirit’ etc., part of our explanandum and explanans. Mr. Bowery is however a religious ‘thinker’. The idioms, concepts, major and minor tropes of American religiosity saturate his contributions (whether he acknowledges this is another matter but it is obvious for those with the ability to see the phenomenon at work). I am well-versed in recognising all the banalities of American religiosity; I find them loathsome, grotesquely offensive (to both reason and good taste), tiresomely dull and they represent a child-like world-view. Yes the Nobodaddy really cares what happens in the NFL this weekend, of course he wants to ‘bless’ America every 5 pico-seconds, and yes he really, really does care what happens to some sad-sack in rural Iowa and has a ‘special’ plan for everyone. Anyone (i.e. Mr. Bowery) that can write a sentence about “authentic phenotypes” that allow for the “expression of the Holy Spirit” and expects the sentiment to be taken seriously is delusional. They are even more delusional if they think such statements do not critically undermine any possible claim to intellectual seriousness on behalf of the person that made such a statement. Really in what remotely serious intellectual arena or milieu would talk of phenotypes for the expression of the Holy Spirit be regarded as anything other than contemptible buffoonery? Needless to say similar thoughts apply to the fixation upon pair-wise lethal conflict, ‘eusociality’ and the ‘looming’ threat of asexuality etc. However, it is as a political thinker that I find Mr. Bowery sadly lacking. Really no-one needs yet another rehash of John Locke – let alone presenting such as some new and terribly ‘important’ meta-political insight. Try to have a seminar on almost any of Mr. Bowery’s preoccupations (at even the worst university you can think of – even Mr. Haller’s theology department) and imagine the derision – and rightful derision – the suggested topic(s) for discussion would receive. MR would be far better if the American ideology – in all its forms – was not the ‘go to’ or default position of seemingly nearly everyone here. There is a rich European tradition of non-liberal thought (no that’s not a code for fascism) to be explored and discussed. More Carl Schmitt – less, very much less, of the Founding Fathers please. And no more 10th rate cod-theology please. No-one here cares what anyone believes about the Nobodaddy or other forms of Voodoo. I see little evidence that anyone that wants to positively bring such matters into the discussion(s) can do so at a high philosophical level so can we leave the “God-talk” to one side perhaps? It’s tedious – especially when done so ineptly. Sub C.S. Lewis talking points (no God ipso facto no morality etc,. as if that’s a ‘knock-down’ argument) are of no philosophical interest nor any political relevancy. 8
Posted by Graham_Lister on Sat, 02 Nov 2013 00:29 | # GW said “What “is there” is not reducible or divisible”. GW I don’t know if you know Wallace Stevens poetry but that sentence reminded of the title of Simon Critchley’s rather wonderful philosophical essay on Stevens work - namely “Things Merely Are”. Well worth a read. Quite a bit of Heidegger is also brought into the discussion of Stevens by Critchley. Anyway let’s not get too off-topic. 9
Posted by Weaver on Sat, 02 Nov 2013 00:55 | # What is wrong with CS Lewis? Europeans are presently atheist because they’re hit by the hammer of Islam. It’s not a proaction; it’s mere reaction, and temporary. Obviously genetics are our being. What else could a nation be but genetic? 10
Posted by Leon Haller on Sat, 02 Nov 2013 01:22 | # Lister@7 heehee - my degrees are from places that are very from the worst universities imaginable ... But no matter. I agree that more Schmitt and other European rightist antiliberals would be wonderful. Of course, it would be nice if “more Schmitt” actually meant more discussions of political theology, the challenge of the “exception”, etc, and not merely incantations of “Schmitt” ... “Schmitt” .. followed by anti-American diatribes and grievance spouting. Anyway, speaking not for Bowery but only myself, I have challenged the relevance and usefulness of the philosophical (ontological) tack MR wants to take on political grounds. I have never tried to convert anyone here to Christianity, though I have asserted that atheism leads to nihilism, not more active political engagement, and that Europe’s racial decline is a symptom of a cultural and ultimately spiritual malaise that an ideologically reconstituted Christianity (that is, one properly shorn of its heretical, contemporary liberal infection), and perhaps only such, can overcome. My position is actually far subtler than Lister’s, and more likely to achieve WP goals - and this even if Lister’s naturalism is ontologically correct (which I dispute, though that dispute is likely incapable of final resolution). Lister’s position is that God does not exist; therefore all theology is worthless, but we can still have a moral system based on ... what? I don’t know. There are no ethics in nature. There is only predator and prey. It might be argued that WPs should try to change things so that the interests of current human predators align with WP (as they once did), but, like George Clooney’s astronaut in Gravity, “that ship has sailed”. The brute fact is that today there is no reward in racial patriotism, except psychic benefits for hardcore racists. And events have proven that the genes for hardcore racism are only to be found in a small minority of whites, widely dispersed in sovereign nations across the Earth, nowhere close to a political majority. If whites are to survive, they must be convinced of the rightness of adopting those policies which will conduce to survival. This is not an ontological issue, but an ethical one. But my argument here is strictly political. 11
Posted by Weaver on Sat, 02 Nov 2013 01:31 | # Regarding fear of death: I’m terrified of dishonour and dying before I’ve lived a life I can be proud of. Perhaps I’m just not old enough, or perhaps I’m too much of a fool, to be obsessed by death. We’re given but a short window to perform our duties in life, prove ourselves worthy. Religion gives a man purpose, gives value where otherwise all ultimately falls to relativity, gives a definition to progress where otherwise it’s defined as mere change that relieves the monotony. I don’t see Christianity nor some paganism as demanding we genocide ourselves. That seems to be another driving force for Europe to becoming atheist: Our religious institutions have been bought, so we turn against religion in toto. If readers are to react against “becoming American”, as if Europe isn’t moving rapidly to become as American as it can be (much to my chagrin), they should consider that Ayn Rand valued Nietzsche and condemned CS Lewis. Ayn Rand is of course *shock* Jewish! So, Europeans are left to react against two groups they detest: Jews and Americans. The point to consider though is that Rand perceived Lewis as a real threat. Lewis was a Hammer. Recently someone posted at another blog a link to: http://civilizingthebeast.blogspot.com/ The guy reveres evolution “into gods”, very similar to the evolution-worshipers who’ve posted here. If evolving into gods is somehow more material and real than preserving Creation, I must have missed something. With Creation you at least have some foundation to determine how to act. With creative destructive “evolution” one can move in any direction to pursue “progress”. If we’re doing away with morality, we’re left with raw rule by force and emotion, because there is no logic without some values which are inevitably religious. The US federal government btw was not Christian, and most of the Founders were not Christian. I don’t say that as if it’s positive but rather to highlight that they held more abstract concepts. To anyone of British descent, the British Isles are somewhat sacred, which isn’t to say they’re to be worshipped. That’s where we’re from, where our Being originated. Similarly Europe is valued: values like this are religious and yet not Christian. They’re simply not anti-Christian either though. It’s natural to value where one originates. That’s blood and soil nationalism, and it’s not “rational”. Ultimately nothing is rational though. The Darwinists end up developing their own religious values, given time. 12
Posted by DanielS on Sat, 02 Nov 2013 02:46 | # Haller 10 and Weaver 11: human ecologies, especially European ones, as we are concerned, provide a difference from Darwinism (in the sheer predator and prey sense that Leon uses) and a fair moral/ethical basis. Weaver seems to be new to the site. I don’t know what Leon’s excuse is. 13
Posted by Desmond Jones on Sat, 02 Nov 2013 06:35 | #
Of course, that’s not what JB wrote. http://majorityrights.com/weblog/comments/much_further_advanced_than_anything_weve_seen#c141241
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Posted by Vail on Sat, 02 Nov 2013 16:35 | #
Yes, I don’t understand the charge that he was or is overly “religious”, since he rarely wrote about religion and had more of a sociobiological bent to his writing than a religious one. If anything, you’d think he’d be accused of scientism. 15
Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 03 Nov 2013 01:37 | # Vail: I don’t understand the charge that he was or is overly “religious” It’s not a charge and he isn’t overly religious. The fundamental point is that there are two very general, opposing models of Man predominant in nationalist thinking. One of those talks about myth, spirit of race, heroic rebirth; or traditionalism and Christianity; or being as ground, essential qualities, etc. The other is existentialist or Darwinian. 16
Posted by Vail on Sun, 03 Nov 2013 02:20 | #
That was Lister’s charge, no? I don’t see how Bowery fits into the former of the opposing sides you describe. Sociobiology and Darwinism seemed to infuse much of his writing. Also I don’t see see why existentialism and Darwinism are grouped together. They’re distinct. 17
Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 03 Nov 2013 06:22 | # Vail, It’s about the kind of thinking. One kind always rests somewhere on a presumption for deity or its proxy. The other does not make that presumption. There can be overlap of the actual models - both kinds of thinking can seem to be talking about the same thing. But eventually the difference will manifest itself. 18
Posted by Silver on Sun, 03 Nov 2013 20:06 | #
I doubt there is even that. From what I can discern, awareness means pain at least as much as - and likely much more than - it means pleasure. The pain of awareness may vary from day to day or week to week but it never ceases nagging, and I wonder if it’s not what keeps you coming back despite your many loud announcements of departure.
We’ve covered this ground before, and while I’m sure you’re right that this is true of a certain group of whites - conservative Christians, mostly - there are other groups for whom ethics is merely a sideshow. This group merely fails to see any practical advantage for themselves in pro-white politics; were they to see such advantages the ‘ethics’ of it, for this group, could be conceived in a heartbeat. This is why I’ve said the issue is more ‘psychological’ - removing mental blocks that prevent clear perception, providing alternative social paradigms that aid racial self-regard - than it is ‘ethical.’ (Of course, many times such people will claim their opposition is rooted in ethical concerns, but, dammit man, don’t be fooled!) 19
Posted by Silver on Sun, 03 Nov 2013 20:48 | # Weaver,
It’s more true to say that religious dispositions help or ‘teach’ a man to believe in purpose. That is, when a man believes in the existence of a God-being (or Higher Power, or ‘spiritual force’ or what have you) he is more likely to believe that his own existence has some inherent meaning and purpose behind it. That purpose or meaning is seldom clear, thus it becomes incumbent on a man to discover it. The process can take a lifetime, and whether he succeeds or not is something only he himself will know; and in retrospect, the journey can always be seen to matter as much the destination in any case. Atheists are right to point out the obvious dangers of morons becoming convinced they are on a ‘mission from God.’ (As I’ve heard it said, “You talk to God, that’s fine. God talks to you, there’s a problem.”) But I think they are ignoring the larger picture in which morons are going to act like morons whether they have religious beliefs or not. Extreme but rare acts of religiously inspired idiocy must also be balanced against the far more common acts of mundane decency that religion encourages. For instance, if you ever chance to look at some depressing photos of British youths (white ones!) urinating in public with abandon (something seldom seen only a few short years ago) ask yourself how likely it is that any of them would describe themselves as Christians. That’s clearly a point in religion’s favor, but for people like our caustic critic from Bumfuck, Scotia (come on, everyone knows the only good thing to ever come out of Scotland is the road to England), who seemingly can’t get over his haunting vision of eager beaver Christians avidly mining their bibles for geological insights, the very fact that negatives (or potential negatives) can be cited is more than enough reason to junk the entire enterprise. That’s a shortsighted and devastatingly stupid perspective. (Just kidding about Scotland of course. I have a hugely favorable opinion of Americans so that’s my vicarious payback for his"Fuckwit, Iowa” swipe.) 20
Posted by Leon Haller on Sun, 03 Nov 2013 21:06 | #
Elaborate, please. PS- I return again and again because I like discussing race, and, more prosaically but truthfully, I like MR’s comment format and onscreen graphics. This site is simple, but effective. On most other sites, with their “reply to"s and limitations on full comment showing, it’s hard to follow discussions. I hate the new AR site for this reason. I’m not saying MR’s graphical format is the best I’ve ever seen, but it works for discussion purposes better than most (of course, the editing could be better .... though without JRichards and that Christian conspiracist “Joe”, things have markedly impoved). So until I get up my own site ... 21
Posted by Silver on Sun, 03 Nov 2013 21:54 | #
I’ll try. There are two basic, but not necessarily opposing, views here. The first, yours, is the ethical view, and is more straightforward. Here the interested party is cognizant of the benefits of taking racial action but is hamstrung by moral concerns. Similarly, I may be cognizant of the benefits of making off with the diamond necklace the heiress absentmindedly leaves on the park bench but am prevented from doing so by my beliefs about the moral rectitude of the action. The second view, mine, is the ‘psychological’ view. (I’m leery of the term ‘psychological’ because I think it’s prone to misinterpretation, but in my use I’m referring more to the cognitive mental processes that take place in our minds rather than some mumbo jumbo about ‘the unconscious.’) Here the interested party fails to grasp the alleged benefits of the course of action you’re urging him to undertake; though he may cite ethical concerns as a means of encouraging you to desist, the minute he comes to appreciate the benefits that would accrue from following your prescriptions the ethical concerns fade away, or new ones that fit the bill are instantly concocted. By way of somewhat convoluted analogy, you may have an eccentric uncle who for years has been pestering you to settle a land dispute with your rural neighbor who, some time ago, inadvertently erected a shed on land properly belonging to you. You’re confident the courts would find for your side, but you value your relations with your neighbor, and as the particular bit of land is of little use to you you don’t begrudge your neighbor his shed. Your uncle refuses to let up. Little by little you begin to suspect that is he is harboring ulterior motives, and eventually you wring an admission from him: there’s gold buried in the land underneath the shed. Ah, well now, that changes everything, you tell yourself: good-bye shed, screw you neighborly relations. 22
Posted by DanielS on Mon, 04 Nov 2013 03:39 | # /.................... “Therefore and yet again, the ethics of our survival (ie, of taking the extreme measures that must be taken to ensure our perpetuity) must be formulated, and widely disseminated (and thus the asininity of Lister or DanielS attacking instead of coopting Christianity is almost too much to bear).” We understand that you have been assigned to try to divert as many people into Christianity as possible because it is one way of preventing Whites from fighting back against the Jew. Haller goes onto spew: “I’m talking about the race war within the West. It will be all nonwhites (except Jews, who will find themselves caught in a very vicious crossfire) against whites, albeit for different reasons and objectives. Nonwhites tend to hate each other, but they easily unite around hating whitey.” “I’m not saying MR’s graphical format is the best I’ve ever seen, but it works for discussion purposes better than most (of course, the editing could be better .... though without JRichards and that Christian conspiracist “Joe”, things have markedly impoved). So until I get up my own site ...” ..you can blather on and bury otherwise productive discussion with yours and Silver’s diversionary disinformation. For the thousandth time and as many times necessary to come, moral orders are necessary but Christianity is not the only moral order and not the best one for Europeans. Lets all hope the day comes soon that you start your own site. You and Silver are invited to go there with your diversionary Judeo Christian bullshit. ............. 23
Posted by Graham_Lister on Mon, 04 Nov 2013 08:54 | # I have not had the time to read all the comments in this thread but I see Haller is doing his sub C. S. Lewis impression yet again. (1) God is dead - all of modernity is fundamentally framed by aethetistic skepticism. No act of will can make this otherwise. (2) The majority of Europeans (in Europe) are post-Christians or, at best, vestigial believers. (3) The demographic - thus cultural and political heart - of Christianity is rapidly moving towards the global south (a polite terms for what used to be called the third world). I doubt Nigerians will be sympathetic to Mr. Haller’s theological musings. (4) The old canard of no Nobodaddy = no morality is simply falsified by looking around. The anthropological record defeats this sophomoric nonsense at every turn. Is there any population devoid of any type of moral framework of some sort/description? No. Evolutionary biology, cognitive science, psychology etc., are telling use more about why human beings have innate moral capabilities. It’s rather obvious that in such a profoundly social species they would be adaptive and functional (thus the product of natural selection) in maintaining group coherence and preventing/punishing ‘free-riders’. (5) Yes it’s also a pattern that human beings have externalised moral authority outwards to some form of supreme being/entity. Why this is so is an interesting question but men have seemingly always invented God(s) not the other way about. Why is Nobodaddy a different case? What because Nobodaddy believers merely assert it is? (6) High-level philosophical accounts of non-theistic moral realism (or quasi-realism) have been developed - some in the Aristotelian tradition, others from different perspectives. If Mr. Haller is ignorant of these accounts (and the arguments employed in them) that’s hardly my fault. Nor is it my responsibility to teach him about them other than to point out they exist should anyone care to actually read around the subject. (7) The quip about God and rural sad-sacks in Iowa was to point out the massive banality and enormous narcissism at the heart of American Voodoo. So we have God - something which is all-powerful, timeless, unchanging etc. And we have Jim McFuckwit - radically less powerful as a creature - going about his banal business in Iowa - feeding his chickens or whatever. And Jim McFuckwit has the sheer ego to think that what he gets up to is of overwhelming fascination and ultimate concern to this thing he’s called God. It’s risible in its (not so implicit) massive individual self-aggrandisement masked as a humble humility. An infantile psychology in the same way a small child finds it impossible to imagine that his or her parents are anything but all-consumed with literally everything they do. I mean God/Nobodaddy could never be bored by Jim McFuckwit (or indeed utterly indifferent to him) could he? Why that’s an ontological impossibility! Jim McFuckwit’s ego will not compute such notions - return to default settings: “God bless America” repeated on a loop ad nauseam. 24
Posted by DanielS on Mon, 04 Nov 2013 16:53 | # “Kill the faggots, kill the lesbians, kill the women, kill the babies”....kill the Americans..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biadSUyWr0A It’s satire please (though not in Khalid Abdul Muhammad’s case).
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Posted by Dylan on Mon, 04 Nov 2013 17:23 | #
Are you referring to Bowery here? 26
Posted by Silver on Tue, 05 Nov 2013 00:56 | # Lister, again, you’re ignoring the argument about the essential value—essential, ie stripped of the dogmatic theological codswallop—of having a religious “sense of life,” but you did make some good points and made them entertainingly so I’ll look past that. Even if I’m a proponent of Christian cultural identity, there can’t be any doubt that having to suffer through Christian religious exhortations ranks among life’s ultimate downers. I’m genuinely appreciative of the efforts atheists have made throughout the years to defang Christianity. You’re just going a bit too far, that’s all. 27
Posted by DanielS on Tue, 05 Nov 2013 07:34 | # Graham is not going too far to denounce Christianity. And harsh as his attacks on Bowery are (yes, Dylan, he was talking about Jim), he probably sees it as a necessary astringent to allow for a control variable (talk about our collective, social interests without vigilant concern for individualism) to settle into our discourse here: so that we may talk about our necessary connectedness as European peoples, the importance of recognizing that, understanding it, servicing it better, using it more effectively to our defense and advance as European peoples. Jim tends to be concerned predominantly about certain individual characteristics above all other considerations. That project is an impediment to discussing cooperation, joint action, co-construction, co-evolution. How the epiphenomenon of individuality may function symbiotically as a mereological consideration is not the most important issue for the survival and health of the English, Scots, or any Europeans for that matter, at this point. The pressing concern is our collective defense. Graham and others here are conscientious enough (and western enough) to not lose sight of individual and other smaller scale qualities, or to let them go without sufficient consideration and calculation. We should not allow too much focus on that now for some paranoia that our wish and goal is to subsume individuals into a collective being, as that is obviously false enough to not merit the tedium of ongoing debate. Nor is there even a likelihood of individualism being lost in collectivism as a result of our not factoring it into our mereological prescriptions. Because Jim does have these concerns which are both close to his heart and at odds, or obstructively tangential to our collective defenses, and because he renders his arguments with a sublime consideration that can leave the average Joe silent in submission, i.e. because Jim is very smart, I kind of understand Graham’s application of this astringent in order to maintain the control variable of our necessary project at this point. However, I do wish there was another way. In Jim’s ultimately futile, Cartesian, quest to detach the individual from the social, he comes up with many useful and very good ideas.
28
Posted by Desmond Jones on Tue, 05 Nov 2013 08:21 | #
B.S.
Lynn was right. All the high IQ Scots have emigrated. 29
Posted by DanielS on Tue, 05 Nov 2013 09:19 | # Desmond, I did not say that all of Jim’s ideas are in conflict with the defense of European peoples, on the contrary, many of them are excellent - that’s why I have found Graham’s position in being so entirely anti-Jim regrettable. However, I believe that I am merely paraphrasing Jim when it comes to his priorities. That he is walking away for a time means he is willing, by his own principles, to allow us to experiment with a way of thinking that may enable us to heal from whatever pejorative aspects that prescriptions of liberal individualism may have had. That experiment may go on without alarms sounding that we are collectivists or paving the way for eusociality, Jews and non-Aryans, or even for one kind of European to take over another kind. That is, I am trying to make the best of this sort - it is provisional as Jim has said that he might come back to contribute later on. With Graham’s strict prohibition on Jim’s unharrassed viewpoint, for a time, it will allow let the experiment go on for those who are more concerned for healing our social side than our individual side. 30
Posted by DanielS on Tue, 05 Nov 2013 15:13 | # I guess “coordinated defense” is a better way to put it than “collective defense.” But I did not want to shy away from the word collective, at this point. 31
Posted by Graham_Lister on Tue, 05 Nov 2013 20:16 | # Just to make the point I have not ‘banned’ or forbidden anyone from posting. I have no such powers. I cannot amend nor delete comments etc. No Mr. Bowery has thrown his toys of the pram because not all of us blow smoke up his arse when his massive intellect (cough, cough) comes up with his brilliant ideas* about “authentic phenotypes and the Holy Spirit” etc.
32
Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 05 Nov 2013 20:36 | # And now we all await, with bated breath, Graham Lister’s exposition and further development of his own line of thought unsullied by association with my risible presence. 33
Posted by Thorn on Tue, 05 Nov 2013 23:59 | # LOL! This “duel” between James and Graham is just too funny. It can be ACCURATLY reduced down to the classic struggle between Yosemite Sam and Bugs Bunny. Seriously! Moreover, I think it’s unquestionably noticeable which character befits whom.
34
Posted by JustWondering on Wed, 06 Nov 2013 01:31 | # Lister - please link to the post that best demonstrates your concern for the survival of our race. 35
Posted by Desmond Jones on Wed, 06 Nov 2013 06:32 | #
LOL. F. Scott Fitzgerald… “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” 36
Posted by Desmond Jones on Wed, 06 Nov 2013 06:34 | #
He who perpetrates the lie will always repeat it. 37
Posted by Hurley on Wed, 06 Nov 2013 18:54 | # What exactly are Graham Lister’s views? He hasn’t been very clear and explicit about his views. He seems uncomfortable with and embarrassed by white nationalism and racialism in general. 38
Posted by Hurley on Wed, 06 Nov 2013 19:02 | # What exactly are Graham Lister’s views? He hasn’t been very clear and explicit about his views. He seems to be uncomfortable with and embarrassed by white nationalism and racialism in general. 39
Posted by Leon Haller on Thu, 07 Nov 2013 10:47 | # I’ve described Dr. Lister as an “ethnocommunitarian social democrat”, and he did not outright reject that label (of course, even if he did, that wouldn’t per se make the description invalid). He’s basically a man of the traditional European Left, who recognizes from his immersion in biology and evolutionary theory that humans did not evolve under conditions of multiracial integration, and that the contemporary multiculti project that Euro elites have foisted on old, authentic communities is profoundly psychologically alienating to the plain people of those ethnies (not to mention all the other problems that come in tow when superior whites are mixed with mostly inferior nonwhites). Of course, Lister is rather cagey about spelling out his precise ideological views (calling oneself an “Aristotelian” is hardly indicative of how one votes), so who really knows? 40
Posted by Graham_Lister on Thu, 07 Nov 2013 15:30 | # As a first approximation ethno-communitarian is pretty good. What I’m not is a foundational (or ontological) liberal/individualist (left, right, classical, neo etc.) in any sense of those terms. Confused by the term ethno-communitarian? Well you might want to start here: The European far right: actually right? Or left? Or something altogether different? Some of what I am NOT INTERESTED IN AT ALL is the following: Conspiracy theories Monocausalism and simple-minded reductionism (society and history are complex heterogeneous phenomena) without a ‘single cause’ behind literally EVERYTHING. Methodological individualism Vulgar racism Religiously derived anti-Semitism (boring as fuck as well as being a form of idiocy - Satan’s spawn etc., who actually thinks in such bizarre terms?) Shit for brains conservatism Pleas – generally from plutocrats and would be plutocrats to “let me keep all my money” dressed up as “timeless wisdom” - see shit for brains conservatism. Dressing up in funny costumes and thinking it’s “doing politics” Shouting racial epithets in the street Nazi’s or neo-Nazi’s Fascism (because it’s ill-conceived and doesn’t work - even in its own terms) Militarism Free-market ideology TINA (there is NO alternative) American Republican ideology (in either its broader historic form or it modern version) John Locke (or latter day idiots ‘inspired’ by him like Robert Nozick) The misuse of biological concepts/arguments (i.e. relatedness is the only important factor in social evolution – no it’s fucking well not – other ecological parameters/factors can be even more important). Human beings are “eusocial”. Really? Well I don’t fucking observe sterile castes anywhere, etc. 10th rate ‘theology’/arguments from contemporary popular American Christianity dressed up as ‘essential’ wisdom/philosophy (or as politically or sociologically of cardinal importance). The intellectual and cultural world-view in which non-belief in the old woo-woo Voodoo was “unimaginable” and “impossible” is NEVER going to return. Give up suggesting some sort of total Christian ‘revival’ is what “needs” to happen. If you have fucked someone you can’t ever really be a virgin again. If you are or have been a parent you can never fully go back to your prior ‘non-parental’ status etc. A 70 year-old man can never really be his 17 year-old self ever again. Non-belief is, in this context, never going to “go away” intellectually or culturally. A Christian theocracy isn’t on the historical cards so why argue that it should be? God is effectively dead – in political, cultural and sociological terms. “White nationalism” - a code for thicko American racists normally. Antinomian personality types and other psychological ‘oddalls’ and the classic fringe ‘sub-cultures’ they produce. Echo-chambers – virtual or otherwise. Non-fallibilism and anything/anyone that starts from the premise it is (or they are) “axiomatically” correct. Ideas of infallibility (Papal or otherwise) are utter bullshit. Anything that mentions “natural duels” as being fundamental to European history/culture/society etc. Sloppy thinking and willful stupidity (see all of the above). So I guess you might understand why much of MR “gets on my tits” as we say in Britain. 41
Posted by DanielS on Thu, 07 Nov 2013 17:02 | # I don’t have a problem with most things on your list except (as you might guess): Willful mis-definitions (as far as I am concerned) which are important mis-definitions of 1. White Nationalism - White, being a word for persons of European extraction; nationalism being the ecological and accountable bounds of their patterns. I would be satisfied to, in fact would rather, exchange the word White for European provided it is understood that I am speaking of persons of native European extraction. At any rate, that is what I always mean by the term. As far as nationalism goes, we’re talking in terms of the etymological definition, natality, the patterned delimitation of related people. Nor does it conflict, therefore, with smaller units, such as the communities of your concern. On the contrary. I understand that closer related people can actually be more disposed to fighting, but that does not mean that they should; it is rather an interesting problem than cause to dismiss the whole project of accountability to closer related people. You have had some of the most interesting and important things to say on that issue that I have seen. Nevertheless, I believe denouncing this neutral term of White Nationalism is to do a disservice by disallowing a criteria for serious discussion, dismissing it merely with a setereotypically pejorative mis-definition. It could, should rather, be important to the mereology project to discuss how we enable the smaller and larger units to function symbiotically. 2. (White) Leftism, for reasons that I’ve said - White leftism organizes delimitations on group accountability, recognition of out-groups as opposed to in-group accountability but also accountability from above, so that those doing better do not screw the group pattern. (there are reasons why Jews have usurped, misused and abused the concept of leftism). 3. I also believe that vulgar racism has its time and place. Though granted, “vulgar” may be more the operative term than I am seeing here - some vulgarity is not so relative - if you consider something in bad taste it may well just be in bad taste. Period. But I am not so sure that what you might mean by vulgar in an instance is not like trying to prohibit a color on the pallet, a from of art or rhetoric, a skill, a tool, a necessary weapon…by saying that certain expressions should never exist. That is, I probably disagree. But I’d need particular examples, a speech act and the context that you mean by vulgar racism. Now, there are better, worse, more effective ways to use these terms, sure. But an absolute prohibition deprives us of expressions of our vitality and of weapons that our enemies will be quite willing to use where we are prohibited. Our hands are tied behind our back; and again, it could have an emasculating aspect; more, there is the old, “language affords what we are able to see”, at times and ways. You’d likely be preventing us from seeing important pejorative aspects of racial patterns.
Regarding your disdain for those who might think only terms of relatedness - that sounds reasonable and interesting. I’d like to hear you elaborate on that. 42
Posted by Hurley on Thu, 07 Nov 2013 22:32 | # Graham, Thanks for the response. You haven’t really told us much about your views though. You’ve mainly detailed what you’re against, but many of those things are things most are against already or at least pay lip service about being against. The only thing you’ve positively ascribed as comprising your views is ethno-communitarianism. You seem more of cosmopolitan sort and don’t seem particularly interested in parochial Scottish concerns or community, however. What is the nature of your ethno-communitarianism? 43
Posted by JustaWondrin on Fri, 08 Nov 2013 01:57 | # Would Lister please link to the post by him that best demonstrates his concern for the survival of our people? 44
Posted by Leon Haller on Fri, 08 Nov 2013 05:16 | #
hahahahahaha - very good. I was thinking the same thing. Lister’s ‘ideology’ seems to consist in antiliberalism (good), anti-Americanism (not good), atheism (bad), and anti-Christianity (very, very bad). One wonders how Dr. Lister would respond to an antiliberal but non-racialist politics (such as can be found on offer amongst his beloved Verso imprint - [confessional note: I actually own many Verso titles myself]). I once had a Jewish Marxist professor who was fiercely antiliberal, too. I’m not certain I trust Lister as a reliable racialist. The others here, from GW on down, yes, but Lister, not so sure ...
45
Posted by Leon Haller on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 01:24 | # Relevant blast from the past:
46
Posted by DanielS on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 03:30 | # Leon, while Graham’s expression of distaste for Craig Cobb was beside the intended point that Cobb’s example was meant to set for discussion of authenticating native European categorization, it is cheap, and buying into MSM tactics, to tap into this theme that Cobb is exemplary of White Nationalists (which we all are to the extent that we care about persons of indigenous European extraction and the necessary political maintenance of our biological systems). While Graham may prefer to weather the storm in Scottish communities, content to knock down any grand scheme that might bridge Hadrian’s wall, and that may be insufficient for those dealing with matters beyond Scotland, he is not wrong to recognize that Catholicism does not sufficiently distinguish Europeans in the long run from the brown mobs at the gate (let alone from Jewish or other elitist rat patterns). As Jimmy Marr notes, traditional Christianity simply had not completely destroyed its host at the time of Sobieski’s defense of Vienna, or Charles Martel’s defense at Tours. It takes a long time for this mind cancer to metastasize, but that it does - from the inter European destruction of Orthodox provincialism, to out-bred Catholic authoritarianism, it moves toward stages of biblical universalist literalism with Protestentism, then to more fundamentalist sects and finally reaches its terminal stage Christian Zionism. White/European Nationalism is finding its inspiration, but elsewhere. Post a comment:
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Posted by Leon Haller on Fri, 01 Nov 2013 14:50 | #
What is that problem, exactly? Or, put another way (as I have in the past), is it really necessary (or even helpful) to try to solve fundamental philosophical problems when the concern is a political agenda?
The fundaments of nationalism are not that difficult to grasp. We oppose ‘diversity’ - the coercive geographical and/or biological mixing of human races. Within ‘diversified’ countries, where racial conflict is well-nigh inevitable, we want our people to take their own bloody side, at least defensively in terms of preserving their own wealth and interests from out-group attack. Beyond this, we want our people to have the power to set the boundaries of global perception - because the world is really a vast series of struggles between differing mentalities. At the present time, those differences are most pronounced in the race struggle, though one could imagine a future with very different “struggles among the Psyches”: between global introverts and extroverts; or those who like sociality or solitude; atheists and theists; sexual traditionalists and perverts, etc.
That’s all this really is. We recognize that skin colors correlate with different outlooks and temperaments, and it is easier to coexist with those more like oneself. We also recognize the Earth’s finitude, and thus the continuous struggle for resources.
Preference for kind, along with resource competition, are the foundations of tribalism.