Posted by Scimitar on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 02:01 | #

Bravo, GW

Posted by James Bowery on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:27 | #

Imagine, if you will, a world of ethnostates with no standing armies anywhere but border guards always on the look out for territorial violations and where territory is guaranteed to be at least carrying capacity given reasonable agricultural practices.  If a standing army forms in any ethnostate, it is the right of all to destroy it by any means necessary.  The value of such a world is that it simulates the paleolithic gene structure and flow rates to which we are ecologically adapted. 

Now, change only, from the world of ethnostates, to a world of propositional states.  Each such state is an experimental test of a proposition in state craft mutually agreed to by the individual experimental subjects—with the implication that an experimental subject can leave at any time and taking along a minimum amount of “inalienable” carrying capacity.  Still, no standing armies and still border guards to protect the separation of groups, but with the added condition that if any propositional state keeps adults from leaving, it can be destroyed just as though it were forming a standing army.

The reason I think this is consistent with Euronationalism is that it is in the character of Europeans to seek Nature as arbitrar.  This is a character that others can exploit to their advantage primarily by using words to prevent Europeans from escaping their parasitism.  Under this system, the moment the would be exploiters attempt that, they will be eradicated.

Group evolution in support of the individualistic European.

Posted by Desmond Jones on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:12 | #

The notion of security in a Salterian world is interesting and probably untouched by Salter in his treatise.

If a standing army forms in any ethnostate, it is the right of all to destroy it by any means necessary.

As de Gaulle often said, nuclear weapons make alli­ances obsolete.

Posted by Scimitar on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 08:08 | #

Note: This response exceeded the character limit. It can be viewed in full here.

Guessedworker has responded to my post about expressive individualism over at Majority Rights. Let’s expand somewhat on our understanding of individualism (which was touched upon briefly in the previous discussion). There are different forms of individualism which entail different consequences for European EGI. Some of these forms have prevailed (or were largely absent) in different historical time periods. While individualism is the defining characteristic of liberalism (primordial freedoms are “exchanged” for social rights), it is also present in other traditions like Christianity or Epicureanism. A useful breakdown from Bellah (1996):

Individualism. A word used in numerous, sometimes contradictory, senses. We use it mainly in two: (1) a belief in the inherent dignity and, indeed, sacredness of the human person. In this sense, individualism is part of all four of the American traditions we have described in this book - biblical, republican, utilitarian individualist, and expressive individualist; (2) a belief that the individual has a primary reality whereas society is a second-order, derived or artificial construct, a view we call ontological individualism. This view is shared by utilitarian and expressive individualists. It is opposed to the view that society is as real as individuals, a view we call social realism, which is common to the biblical and republican traditions.

Utilitarian individualism. A form of individualism that takes as given certain basic human appetites and fears - for Hobbes, the desire for power over others and the fear of sudden violent death at the hands of another - and sees human life as an effort by individuals to maximize their self-interest relative to these given ends. Utilitarian individualism views society as arising from a contract that individuals enter into only in order to advance their self-interest. According to Locke, society is necessary because of the prior existence of property, the protection of which is the reason individuals contractually enter society. Utilitarian individualism has an affinity to a basically economic understanding of human existence.

Expressive individualism. A form of individualism that arose in opposition to utilitarian individualism. Expressive individualism holds that each person has a unique core of feeling and intuition that should unfold or be expressed if individuality is to be realized. This core, though unique, is not necessarily alien to other persons or to nature. Under certain conditions, the expressive individualist may find it possible through intuitive feeling to “merge” with other persons, with nature, or with the cosmos as a whole. Expressive individualism is related to the phenomenon of romanticism in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European and American culture. In the twentieth century, it shows affinities with the culture of psychotherapy.

Robert Bellah, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, 2nd ed. (London: University of California Press, 1996), 333-336

From the 1930s to 1970s, American individualism experienced a qualitative shift that played a major role the decline of white racial consciousness. The old utilitarian values of nineteenth century America, or the “pioneer spirit” which stressed middle class thrift, sobriety, and hard work, were successfully challenged and supplanted by the expressivist ethos of the counterculture. The precursors of this sea change in American culture were already fermenting during the 1920s: Mencken’s acerbic attacks on the repressive Puritanism behind Prohibition and the Second Klan, Sinclair Lewis’ satire of the American bourgeoisie in Babbitt, Randolph Bourne and Horace Kallen’s theoretical multiculturalism, the localized vice that went on in the urban speakeasies, the degenerate bohemian Jews of NYC’s Greenwich Village, etc.

The hero of the counterculture was a version of Nietzsche’s Übermensch: the rebellious, rootless, self-defining aesthete who overcomes his nihilism through recourse to artistic self expression. In other words, Zarathustra the “rock star”, or Elvis as a cultural role model. Strong evidence of this can be seen in the shift during the mid-1940s (the tipping point) from national heroes to entertainers as children’s exemplars (Kaufmann, 2004: 173). A parallel shift can be seen in the rise of avant-garde modernism at the expense of traditional Anglo-American art. The new values were disseminated to the larger public through 1.) an increasingly Jewish intellectual elite (Hollinger, 1985: 58) recently established in the universities (more influential than ever thanks to the GI Bill), 2.) the rise of the advertising industry which used highly aesthetic propaganda (i.e., look at how beautiful this product can make you) to sell products and erode the old utilitarian values, 3.) the national mass media which had ceased presenting blacks in a negative light around 1937 (Norrell, 2006: 134-135), and 4.) the spread of counterculture rock concerts and art festivals from the mid-1950s to the late-1960s. In the following excerpt, Eric Kaufmann explains how left modernism triumphed and became institutionalized in American culture through its aesthetic appeal to “hip” baby boomers:

<full excerpt>

It is important for us not to take the individualism of our peers too seriously. More to GW’s point, a distinction should be made here between abstract and behavioral individualism. Few Americans possess anything resembling a theoretical understanding of their own individualism, although theory and practice are intimately connected. Instead, Americans are socialized into these attitudes and beliefs secondhand through peer pressure, public education, and consumption of mass media entertainment; through which individualism becomes subconsciously embedded in their behavior. Insofar as contemporary American individualism has a genetic component, it probably relates to how the human brain processes status related information. The majority of whites who cling to expressivist values and anti-racism do so for no other reason than their instinctive need to conform to their surroundings and respond to cues from the social elite; an inborn tendency radically exacerbated in late democractic conditions. Alexis de Tocqueville was the first to diagnosis this paradox of conformist individualism in American culture and speculate about the novel forms of tyranny it could lead to. Alain de Benoist famously described it as an “air-conditioned hell.” Tocqueville’s words have proven chilling prescient:

<full excerpt>

For over a hundred years, Tocqueville’s “soft despotism” was held in check by utilitarian values (which at least provided some rational basis for an individualistic conception of the good life). Americans banded together to form ethnic, racial, religious, and civic organizations capable of resisting the socially corrosive effects of their own individualism. This began to change following the rise of expressivist values during the 1960s. Much has been written in recent years about the decline of social capital in the United States. See here, here, and here. Expressivism privileges sentiment and intuition above self-interest and calculation. It irrationally militates against authority structures and collectives of every sort as regressive, stifling, confining, obstructive to the freedom of the individual to actualize his inner calling. The decline of ethnic and racial indentification amongst white Americans, dominant or otherwise, is merely one aspect of a broader social trend towards a more atomized, meaningless, contract-based form of existence. It has social analogues in declining rates of church attendance and affiliation with major political parties, higher rates of divorce, suicide, drug abuse, and sexual promiscuity, as well as consumption of pornography, rising support for gay marriage, and other deviant lifestyles.

Posted by Scimitar on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 08:26 | #

The Tocqueville excerpt:

Thus I think that the type of repression which threatens democracies is different from anything there has ever been in the world before. Our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. I have myself vainly searched for a word which will exactly express the whole of the conception I have formed. Such old words as “despotism” and “tyranny” do not fit. The thing is new, and as I cannot find a word for it, I must try to define it.

I am trying to imagine under what novel features despotism may appear in the world. In the first place, I seen an innumerable multitude of men, alike and equal, constantly circling around in pursuit of the petty and banal pleasures with which they glut their souls. Each one of them, withdrawn into himself, is almost unaware of the fate of the rest. Mankind, for him, consists in his children and his personal friends. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, they are near enough, but he does not notice them. He touches them but feels nothing. He exists in and for himself, and though he still may have a family, one can at least say that he has not got a fatherland.

Over this kind of men stands an immense, protective power which is alone responsible for securing their enjoyment and watching over their fate. That power is absolute, thoughtful of detail, orderly, provident, and gentle. It would resemble parental authority if, fatherlike, it tried to prepare its charges for a man’s life, but on the contrary, it only tries to keep them in perpetual childhood. It likes to see the citizens enjoy themselves, provided that they think of nothing but enjoyment. It gladly works for their happiness but wants to be the sole agent and judge of it. It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, makes rules for their testaments, and provides their inheritances. Why should it not entirely relieve them from the trouble of thinking and all the cares of living?

Thus, it daily makes the exercise of free choice less useful and rarer, restricts the activity of free will within a narrower compass, and little by little robs each citizen of the proper use of his own faculties. Equality has prepared men for all this, predisposing them to endure it and often even regard it as beneficial.

Having thus taken each citizen in turn in its powerful grasp and shaped him to its will, government then extends its embrace to include the whole of society. It covers the whole of social life with a network of petty, complicated rules that are both minute and uniform, through which even men of the greatest originality and the most vigorous temperament cannot force their heads above the crowd. It does not break men’s will, but softens, bends, and guides it; it seldom enjoins, but often inhibits, action; it does not destroy anything, but prevents much being born; it is not at all tyrannical, but it hinders, restrains, enervates, stifles, and stultifies so much that in the end each nation is no more than a flock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as its shepherd.

I have always thought that this brand of orderly, gentle, peaceful slavery which I have just described could be combined, more easily than is generally supposed, with some of the external forms of freedom, and that there is a possibility of its getting itself established even under the shadow of the sovereignty of the people.

Posted by Jean Depression on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 16:04 | #

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=71bc2adcbec4984b5a9132cf988692f8

Selected quotes:

“A crowd of approximately 75 young professionals turned out for the event, contributing over $1,200 to Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.”

“Most of Obama’s fundraising has been done through small, $20 donations from young people,” SAFO-SF steering committee chair Anhoni Patel told India-West. “It has really infused the campaign with a younger energy.”

“In the South Asian community, the response has been very strong. We’ve seen lots of excitement from a variety of people in their 20s and 30s, and many green card-holders.”

“What’s piquing their interest, Patel said, is Obama’s multiculturalism. “He wants to change what American looks like and he wants to bring respect to what it means to be American,” she told India-West. “As a multinational, he knows about diversity and encompasses it. He grew up in Indonesia and has an African father. We are literally Indian American, and he’s literally African American. Whether it’s unconsciously or consciously, it speaks to people, and that’s a beautiful thing.”

“The South Asian community is still feeling its way about, trying to get to know the candidates,” Babbar said. “The majority do support Democrats, and many will be drawn to Obama’s campaign.”

“SAFO was founded in Washington, D.C. with the goal of mobilizing the South Asian American community to help elect Senator Obama to the presidency.”

More attacks by desi “cognitive elitists” against white racial interests.  Note that the desis are eager to “change what America looks like” and note that “young professionals” and “many green card holders” are enthusiastic to support the “African American” Obama, who, as you know, as a long-standing connection to a Black nationalist “church.”

But, of course, the desis at “Gene Expression”, as well as their white extended phenotypes, wish us all to be “individualists” and eschew “race-based” politics.  Collective ethnocentric activism for me but not for thee, thus cries the desi hypocrites.

NECs – destroying your country, destroying your race, destroying your world.

And maybe, just maybe, inducing autism in your children.

Posted by Anon on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:39 | #

The “South Asian American community” must be stupid to support this guy.  Have they never seen or heard how blacks feel about subcontinental indians?  Like they are loved in Uganda or SA by the blacks there (or in NYC, Detroit or urban areas in the US).  I can also see the tensions at work. 

FYI: Barack Obama also threatened a riot if blacks don’t get more money.  Those rioters will go after the asians and subcons first, you can count on it, just like in LA.

Posted by James Bowery on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:13 | #

The H-1b at Hewlett Packard that told me he came to the US “to fuck white women” was riding his bike on the street past me as I was on the sidewalk.  Just at that moment a car passed him with two young men, a white guy and a black guy.  The black guy leaned out at the H-1b and let out a “WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!” war cry.

Who knows what it all means…

Posted by Jean Depression on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:50 | #

Anon, apparently, the desis are focused on the white man as their major enemy, and are willing to support blacks - even though blacks are anti-Asian - if this diminishes white racial interests.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend”, and all that.

All this goes to show how “well” the desi high-IQ professionals are assimilating into white middle class culture.

By the way, lest anyone accuse me of hypocrisy in that I condemn desi non-assimilation while at the same time opposing that same assimilation - no, I do not want them assimilated.  My only purpose in pointing out that they are in fact not assimilating is as an answer to gnxp-Sailer who believe that such assimilation is a good thing and can easily occur.

Posted by EC on Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:08 | #

“government then extends its embrace to include the whole of society.” The Tocqueville excerpt posted by Scimitar

Shudder.  Like the gentle embrace of a tapeworm, which prefers it’s victims alive while blissfully unaware of its existence.  The most successful and clever worms taking care to observe the host in order to maximize its yield without actually killing it, ensuring its own cozy, parasitic lifestyle.  Chilling.

This brings Matra’s article “Those nice compliant Asian immigrants” to mind, wherein he states (in regard to the Canadian’s non-reaction to having their rights usurped by increments:

““We had to use the Tim Horton’s nearby to wash up… The KOREANS who owned the place got angry when we washed up one morning BEFORE buying coffee, and they kicked us out - without our Tim’s.  How UNCANADIAN IS THAT?!”

Canadians won’t defend their heritage or country but they might get agitated over Tim Horton’s. (A donut chain where virtually every Canadian seems to buy their coffee). And that’s how the capitalists Fred speaks of like it: loyalty to a brand - good; loyalty to a nation - bad.”

Posted by Matra on Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Is this not the kind of brainwashing that goes on in public schools:  the ultimate aim being to squelch the individualist?  The push to fund “Early start programs” being nothing more than a clever scheme get their hands on our children while they are still at their most formative stage.  A hidden agenda to create future useful zombies who will fall in line and feed the ever growing government machine, which in turn will make our most crucial decisions for us in exchange for our “comfort and safety”, which of course is the big lie.

Case in point:  Hurricane Katrina.  Need I say more?

By the way, I’d love to see one of you talented writers put something together regarding the differing reactions and survival instincts between the races in the aftermath of that storm. 

The news images still fresh in my mind of oversized, unhealthy looking blacks laying sprawled on roof-tops with hand-scrawled signs declaring, “HELP - WE ARE STARVING!” (many of whom did indeed succumb) or worse, hordes of blacks looting stores, not for food or water, but for big-screen TV’s and the like.

Compare that with the small groups of whites who banded together and foraged for building material, food, water and using ingenious survival tactics: who either stayed put and did fine until help arrived, or at the first chance successfully got themselves out of that situation altogether. 

Whereas the blacks who did start their migration all seemed to get waylaid and ended up huddling in a giant stadium, en masse, that after 3 or more days had toilets overflowing all the way from the top on down to the actual playing field.  Ugh! 

The big question posed by those of us watching this debacle, was why they chose to stay there while loudly decrying their unhappy state?!  And who did they blame?  Not their inept and irresponsible black mayor—No.  They blamed the federal government which in fact had already given him the necessary funds to fix their levy problem, but which he opted to spend on the tourism industry instead!

The black community angrily demanded that the news media stop showing the blacks as moronic plunderers who eventually dropped like flies by the thousands, while highlighting the resourcefulness of the whites who immediately engaged themselves in useful and humanitarian labor in order to improve their own lot!

Naturally, the reason given for the differing choices was ultimately grounded in racism.  No surprises there.

It’s a good lesson, and one I’m sure you’ll agree is worthy of review.

Posted by PF on Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:17 | #

“And despite them, let it be said, SSAs are not noticeably lacking in racial or tribal identification even in Western societies today.  The collectivist does not necessarily retire before the inately individualistic.  Quite the reverse with SSAs.”

I think blacks encounter alot of barriers towards group-formation, even though they claim to be generally tribalist, often impressively so. I think they embrace tribalism as a kind of default state, being immune to liberalist/individualist indoctrination through stupidity, they revert to tribalism as a default state. Our supposed refutation of tribalism is based on some rather complex conceptual ladder-jumping which blacks are too stupid to follow, so they fall off into tribalism.

They are bad at group formation, there is endless infighting, distrust, envy, braggodocio, niggaz killin’ otha niggaz, even during Hurricane Katrina there was rape, murder. Many African countries are in a state of total meltdown as we speak… So I think the collectivist does retire before the innately individualistic- we just need to refine the distinction between high testosterone levels (innate individualism- a genetic condition) and abstract individualism (a memetic state).

As other writers have discovered, modern Western dedication to abstract individualism in the face of obvious and increasing disadvantage has in practice something of Chinese conformity-ism about it, at this point in time. Our adherence to abstract individualism is driven by group compulsion upon fear of expulsion/ostracism/lowered status- at least insofar as racial and social questions are concerned. Those of us who are more innately individualist may now have rediscovered tribalism, precisely because we seek what is to our own advantage regardless of what other’s think, thus we are innately individualistic while refuting abstract individualism as a mindset or as a meme-complex. It only appears to be a paradox but actually is not.

Posted by PF on Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:41 | #

P.S.

“They are bad at group formation, there is endless infighting, distrust, envy, braggodocio, niggaz killin’ otha niggaz, even during Hurricane Katrina there was rape, murder.”

IQ theoretically would influence risk and advantage calculation, leading to delayed gratification and so on, but aggression and propensity for conflict (i.e. testosterone level) must have some relative, I imagine significant, independence from IQ. If not, underclass whites whose IQs overlap with those of blacks would be perpetually engaged in shoot outs, drug use (impulsivity), and the resultant prison terms. IQ and Aggression must be separate variables because one sees no obscene spike in risk-taking behaviors amongst lower-class whites, nothing that can be compared to blacks. Of course, observation rather than statistics makes the content of this post, but I write this lest anyone say the symptoms of black innate individualism which I listed above are purely the result of low IQ. If all whites with a 75-90 IQ were sent to Africa they could never recreate the chaos and horror of “General Mickey-Mouse” and his AK-toting 12-year-olds. The extra chemical thrown into the mix there is testosterone and resultant innate individualism - whether the correlation as I have baldly described it is an oversimplification or not.

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:48 | #

PF,

Black inability to cooperate is selected.  I think one has to accept that the Sub-Saharan African EEA produced a functioning product within its own terms.  There is no cooperation in European or, indeed, any other terms among Africans because none contributed to fitness.

However, the tribal group still served as a better guarantor of genetic continuity for individual members than outright individualism.  So within the primitive trammels of tribal genetic interest collectivism could hold sway.

Your observation about the conformism of abstract or behavioural individualism is well taken.  The vector for conformism is memetic play upon human suggestibility.  Thus I remember when the Thatcher era was at its close in England, and the decade of the “selfish” eighties was almost over, there suddenly appeared from many sides the refrain that everything was changed and we were entering “the caring nineties”.

I thought this was too clumsy and obviously manufactured to catch on.  But it did - not among the ordinaries but among precisely the middle-classes who should have had the intelligence to know someone was succouring them, and who duly voted Blair into Downing Street seven years later.

First suggestibility to incorporate the party line, then conformism to reinforce it.  That’s the way it seems to work.

Posted by PF on Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:38 | #

GW,

“However, the tribal group still served as a better guarantor of genetic continuity for individual members than outright individualism.”

The first half of the sentence is evolutionary theory, the second half includes a concept which is still essentially idealistic/philosophical. Was ‘outright individualism’ ever an option, for any human being living, ever? Living and reproducing without other humans, impossible. Since its not an option, it can’t be considered an possible alternative strategy. So the tension you mentioned between two opposed evolutionary strategies doesnt exist as stated. Dawkins is good for clearing this up- basically a refinement of the parameters involved.

If we could simplify all the traits(genes), either altogether or taken individually, as consisting either of alleles A[1-N] for cooperation or alleles B[1-N] for the corresponding individualistic alleles (N number of genes, each gene has a A and a B allele which lead to statistically higher outcomes for cooperative and non-cooperative/individualistic behavior respectively). Then we could say there would exist an evolutionary stable proportion of A and B alleles for each gene, given a certain stable environment. Basically because everybody doing A’s action for a given gene leaves all of the benefits of B’s action open to the few who practice it (i.e. possess that allele). Dawkins The Selfish Gene is good for understanding this.

On another note, GW, I have to call into question the cleanliness and validity of ‘individualism’ as a concept per ce. This concept would not make it into a thought-process of mine, except by way of shorthand, since I cant seem to find any justification for it’s being other than the fact that it has been bandied about alot over the last 100 years. 

You probably received something nearer to a pure distillation of western culture growing up than I did- which may explain why this concept never took hold with me. Anyone who ever talked to me about individualism was obviously a conformist, and it was flatly obvious that what is understood to be the dictates of ‘individualism’s’ conclusions were enforced with draconian Chinese unity of will upon the transgressor: “You’re an individualist, aren’t you?” “Yes.” “Well, good. Because otherwise, we would have to break your wrists.” That’s about what it looked like.

Like Scimitar documented, a Bohemian clique of New York Jews, grandsons of the Shtetl communities, themselves tightly knit, invent a critique of Protestant Anglo culture, are able to foist it onto a generation of kids through a concentration of media power in the hands of a few, generally related people, and these Anglo baby-boomer dupes enforcing their own conditioning through blacklisting, name-calling, ostracization and defamatory newspaper articles- this is the horse which individualism rode in on? So much is contradictory there that I think the concept as such has to be rejected.

Or look at those supposed progenitors of nonconformity and individualism, the hard-headed and sometimes eccentric Anglo forebears. In contrast with all the wildlife that crowds around us now, dont they all look mighty similar to each other, despite their freedom and individualism, now wielded as a weapon against their progeny? I distrust the concept, basically, because I dont see how it lays in the power of any belief system, or political system, or set of customs, to effect long-term change on something as fundamental as a man’s relationship to himself and his fellows. Or rather, that the effects of the aforesaid things can be so all-embracing as to fit cleanly into the huge circle that this concept would represent on a Venn-diagram. Basically its too nebulous to bear being imported and superimposed as an analytical category across societies and periods of history.

Posted by PF on Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:54 | #

“Basically its too nebulous to bear being imported and superimposed as an analytical category across societies and periods of history.”

The alternative to using the term individualism as a category of memetic analysis (i.e. of culture over time), is to use it as a rough yardstick in genetic analysis (i.e. of a population of genes!). Thus I think Rushton’s Black-White-East Asian gradient is a more fruitful use of this concept than going back through the history books with a conceptual net designed somehow to catch Individualism.

Posted by ben tillman on Thu, 07 Jun 2007 04:22 | #

Is this not the kind of brainwashing that goes on in public schools:  the ultimate aim being to squelch the individualist?

Not the “individualist” but the “non-conformist”.  Individualism is what the brainwashing seeks to inculcate.

Posted by ben tillman on Thu, 07 Jun 2007 04:32 | #

[blacks] are not noticeably lacking in racial or tribal identification even in Western societies today.

Sorry about that.

Posted by Scimitar on Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:09 | #

Or look at those supposed progenitors of nonconformity and individualism, the hard-headed and sometimes eccentric Anglo forebears.

This is a critical point where Kaufmann complements and refines MacDonald’s thesis: the radical Jewish critique of Anglo-American culture could never have succeeded if the host culture had not already been so weakened by liberalism, or without the assistance of native Anglo sympathizers within the American elite. Kaufmann does a fabulous job in documenting how an indigenous strain of Anglo radicalism, which stretches back to Paine, Emerson, Thoreau, Garrison, and the utopian anarchist communes of the nineteenth century, came to merge with the anti-Anglo radicalism of immigrant Jews during the early twentieth century. Both groups were alienated from their roots and eventually combined into a cosmopolitan elite which finally established its dominance during the 1930s and 1940s.

Posted by Scimitar on Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:21 | #

The alternative to using the term individualism as a category of memetic analysis (i.e. of culture over time), is to use it as a rough yardstick in genetic analysis (i.e. of a population of genes!).

The term is useful is describing a constellation of attitudes held by most Americans. It shouldn’t be taken too seriously, though. As I pointed out above, while Americans give lip service to individualism, they are in fact hopeless conformists who are merely parroting elite values and imitating their peers. True individualists are highly field independent. They rely much less on external social cues to process information and draw conclusions. I’m willing to wager most of the writers and commentators here share this minority learning style. I know I do.

Posted by 100% on Thu, 07 Jun 2007 22:18 | #

I’d like to see some evidence for this supposed link between black criminality, “individualism”, and high testosterone levels. Do you believe mestizos also have higher T levels than whites?

I seem to recall PF calling out Bowery for alleged lack of scientific rigor, but I’m not seeing PF citing any sources.

Posted by James Bowery on Fri, 08 Jun 2007 02:15 | #

This may rankle the feathers of people who believe in some theories of sexuality, but I think “individualism” may fruitfully be defined as “belief in the value of sexuality.”  What I mean by “sexuality” is, of course, division into two biological sexes—not merely two complementary “social identities” or “gender roles”.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:29 | #

Funny, I live forty minutes from where this guy is a tenured professor, yet I’ve never heard of him.  On reading this review of his stuff I have the feeling he’s appropriate to mention under this log entry.

Posted by Andy Wooster on Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:27 | #

As a former resident of Central VT, it is nice to see that there are at least two fellow travelers in that great state. 

  Long may she remain hideously white.