Does he mean us?

Posted by Guessedworker on Wednesday, 16 February 2005 18:06.

One unforeseen and rather special consequence of starting this blog has been my re-acquaintance with the kindness of strangers. Of course, one knows perfectly well that goodwill and understanding are key to all in-group thinking. The least visible in-groups can be among the most imbued with such qualities and, God knows, a blog-based in-group, being by definition atomised, is pretty damned invisible.

Still, I have one of our thoroughly atomised MR bloggers to thank for the kind and thoughtful gift of a subscription to Chronicles Magazine, the first copy of which – dated February 2005 – landed on the doormat this morning.

It took me a good two minutes to sniff my way to page 34 and a piece under the Principalities & Powers header by Sam Francis, “Towards the Hard Right”.

It had never occurred to me before that “hard” was an adjective applicable to political beliefs and principles of the kind I hold. Yes, those Guevara-worshipping hotheads outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square in 1968 were hard left. Yes, the 1980’s miners’ leaders, megaphone in hand, standing apart from a riot of flying punches and police counter-charges were extremely hard left. Proud of it, too.

But have we come to such a pass that simply knowing where one has come from and who one is … where the desire to particularise upon that knowledge … to conserve it and re-employ it as a foundation for a free and functioning society, where such natural and beautiful thoughts earn us an association with rioters? I don’t accept it. It’s one thing to seem extreme to one’s enemies, who are prisoners of the liberal ideology and who, in any case, will never be able to see straight. People whose thought-free reflex is to shout “racist” or “Nazi” or “fascist” only render themselves irrelevant.

But other Conservatives? We would all be lost if our political kin have to “harden” to hold to our view. Rather, they might profitably broaden out of their commitment to economism, pragmatism or whatever sliver of the Conservative philosophy they still espouse. That way, they might yet rediscover that “serve” is the better part of “conserve”, and to serve what you naturally love is the better part of politics.

So what are we, then, if not the Hard Right? Nationalists? No, nationalism is a child of liberalism, one more variation on the triumph of the untermensch. Radicals? Nope. We are altogether too politically conventional, at least in historical terms if not by the cultural marxist norms of today - and we should never allow ourselves to be defined by such terms.

Francis defines this rising Hard Right Conservatism by three main issues:-

… immigration control, the war in Iraq (and, a bit more broadly, U.S. foreign policy), and what we shall call (perhaps a bit demurely) the Cultural Issue—namely, what kind of country is this going to be, and who’s going to be in charge of it?

But nothing here could not equally be said to be paleoconservative. Where is the distinctive flavour of something new, something with a dangerous, harder edge? Iraq, for example, is not an issue around which a new Conservatism can coalesce. If the troops were brought home by the end of the year then next year that’s it, folks. Nobody is going to get a movement off the ground based on the neocon’s past excesses. A week, as that old rogue and former Labour PM Harold Wilson once said, is a long time in politics. In a wider context, simply being against something - anything, even liberal anomie or white flight – is not sufficient foundation for an enduring political movement. That is the land of the single issue and, electorally, it will not fly.

I get the feeling that Francis the nostalgic paleo can sense a shifting of the Conservative geological plate deep beneath his feet. But Francis the professional journalist has sat down at his keyboard to write about it without sufficient geological data. Result: no useful result.

So, we should help him. For example, is immigration control really the core issue? Or is it genotype/phenotype (a “hard” reading of human nature if ever there was one)? And is the Cultural Issue driven by the question, “What kind of country is this going to be, and who’s going to be in charge of it?” Or should that be, “What kind of country was this before and how, if we like the answer, do we recreate or re-engage with that?”

Tags: Conservatism

Comments:

Posted by Svigor on Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:23 | #

I can’t help you there - I don’t worry over conserving, I’ve gone past and decided to create something that will allow a subsequent recreation of what we’ve lost; racial awareness and nationalism. That’s why we’ve come this far down this road, because we took race for granted or ignored it altogether.

Posted by Geoff Beck on Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:25 | #

GW:

You seem to be at odds with Francis’ assertion:

What the election of 2004 seems to tell us more than anything else is that most Americans who now see themselves on the political (and cultural) right are perfectly happy with President Bush and what he is doing. They like his cheery grin and friendly arm-waving; they like his cute wife and daughters and their toasty religious and family-values rhetoric. They like his “Standin’ up for America” bluster. The Bushes tell them everything’s OK, and that’s what conservatives always want to hear. Let them stay where they are. They are not what the Hard Right needs,and their involvement in it would only retard its emergence as a new cultural and political force.

Is that right? Inotherwords, a schism in conservatism is undesirable? A schism which Francis apparently wishes to promote?

Posted by Geoff Beck on Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:43 | #

I think the particular part of that passage I have the most interest in is:

They are not what the Hard Right needs,and their involvement in it would only retard its emergence as a new cultural and political force.

Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:49 | #

Geoff,

I am sure the election of 2004 told many people many things. But the essential sucker-nature of the ordinary voter speaks its simple words in every election. The Friedmanite economic philosophy that informed early Thatcherism held that the sum total of individual decisions immeasurably exceeded the wisdom of “experts”. This is a satisfying idea if one is seeking to despatch the five-year planners of the Kremlin. In the sea of choices lies the will of the market.

But elections reduce the choice to just two - and less than that, to two identikit culturalist paternalists. They then lie about themselves and eachother, of course. So what political wisdom can emerge from an election, never mind that of 2004. Not much, I think, beyond the fact that the suckers were suckered again.

Elections do not express the will of people. How and where they live, what they believe, what their loyalties are ... these things are eloquent expressions of genuine will. But not elections.

It’s my guess that Francis’ Hard Right, if it exists, would lay claim to an intimate knowledge of the popular will of its own people. Thus schism does not arise.

Perhaps paleoconservatism was too distant from the popular will and that’s one of the reasons why the Republican electorate rejected it.

Posted by Geoff Beck on Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:08 | #

While I was not necessarily advocating Francis’ position, I was trying to discover your position. I read Francis’ position as roughly: avoid the Republican party, solidify ideas, and with luck take advantage of their demise

Personally, I admit, I’m finished with the Republicans. I want nothing more to do with them. I’m looking for a new movement or waiting for an implosion.

In the short term I see no future for conservative politics. From my distant position it looks like the Tories might finish third. Here, Bushism has destroyed traditional Republican principles of: fiscal restraint, foreign policy realism.

You seem to be suggesting a renaissance of some sort might happen, or a truly conservative position, means being loyal to the traditions and parties of the past?

I say this in some humility, I certainly could be wrong. I don’t knowwhat the future might bring! My guess is conservatism will likely resemble the conservatism of Latin America, not Anglo America.

Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:57 | #

Geoff,

My piece is agreeing with Francis that something may be beginning to happen tectonically. A new vision of right politics may be emerging on the gentile right.

Why should it not? White Americans who have no interest domestically in Mexicanisation, big government, welfarism, nor abroad in empire. Well, let the neocons have all that, let them have their crusade for Israel. Let the leftists have their tolerance and their guilt. None of these things reflect majority interest so of course the majority interest will find another form of expression. A minority-free space is opening up.

The Hard Right, though, as a descriptive label for it is unhelpful. It is the Majority Right, after all, and its interests only seem “hard” or extreme because we are labouring under the false diagnosis of a culturally marxist liberal zeitgeist. Why Francis can’t just say, “OK, it’s the authentic expression of the interests of my people” I don’t know. Maybe because he thought paleoconservatism was, and that’s dead.

Posted by Matra on Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:58 | #

RIP Samuel Francis

Sadly, it’s just been posted on the Chronicles Magazine website that Samuel Francis has died due to complications from surgery.

I’ve been reading his articles in Chronicles for about 12 years as well as the articles and pamphlets he put out for American For Immigration Control and his book Beautiful Losers. To me he was the most fearless and most interesting writer on political affairs of the last couple of decades. Every article he wrote gave the reader something to seriously think about.

Those unfamiliar with Francis could start by searching his archive at Vdare.com. His work on James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution is particularly interesting and helps explain what has happened to us in the West over the past half century.

Posted by Geoff Beck on Wed, 16 Feb 2005 21:07 | #

> Samuel Francis has died due to complications from surgery.

Oh, this is a great loss. Truly, I am heart-broken.

Posted by Geoff Beck on Wed, 16 Feb 2005 21:16 | #

Thomas Fleming has an obit: Requiescat In Pace Domini.

Posted by Matra on Wed, 16 Feb 2005 21:17 | #

Here’s a recent Francis article on immigration and the recent neocon remarks David Frum made on the issue:

“His [Frum’s] real problem is that he—like most of the rest of the neo-conservatives—will not affirm the reality and significance of the nation, the national identity. Security, economy and party interests are all well and good, but the fundamental issue in the immigration debate is who we are and what sort of nation we want to be.”

WEAK REASONS FOR IMMIGRATION CONTROL, by Samuel Francis

Beautiful Losers: Essays on the Failure of American Conservatism by Samuel Francis

Posted by Geoff Beck on Wed, 16 Feb 2005 22:45 | #

GW: I see where your going with this. Subtlety, is not one of my traits.

Currently Chronicles has gone black.

Some more information on Sam Francis.