The Southern Point: Bardic Dynamic
After many and long attempts to analyze complex problems by the aid of the method of analogies, you feel the uselessness of all your efforts; you feel that you are walking alongside a wall. And then you begin to experience simply a hatred and aversion for analogies, and you find it necessary to search in the direct way which leads you where you need to go.
–P.D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, pp.68
White Americans generally do not utilize the innate legendary potential of their historical experience to its fullest. They should. The epic material is available in spades. We love heroes and have many great examples of our own which might inspire us to dare the extraordinary, despite any odds. In fact, all that is left for this generation and the next is the conscious assumption of the mantle and the active realization of the native mythos…or not. Failure to do so is optional and will eventually result in our racial dissolution and displacement. No more bad men behind blue eyes. But why go there when we don’t have to? The Irresistible Forces cannot continue their onslaught if they encounter an Immoveable Body. The buck stops here.
Before we can amplify, however, there must be some cleavage. There are two essential versions of the American story which, while on the surface may seem similar, in fact do not quite line up with the vanilla platforms of the primary political parties and the color-coded delineation of Red State/Blue State America, though these divisions are useful for general purposes and at a certain distance. Of course, these are broad strokes which are underscored by perennial injections of a youthful revolutionary zeal that tends to defy all attempts at categorization as well as a recognized trait in the White American character towards radical maverick individualism which challenges any comfortable establishment or bullying mentality and always loves an underdog.
This version has deftly grafted itself onto some of the Enlightenment rhetoric of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and to the Northern victory in the Civil War and the subsequent de jure transformation of the Constitution, paving the way for the Civil Rights Movement, immigration reform, and centralization of power that we saw in the 20th century. Its vision of the American hero is summed up in the figure of Martin Luther King, Jr. Barack Obama represents latter day incarnation of this heroic mold and fully symbolizes the manifestation of the “bottom rung on top” subversive mentality of the Modern world triumphant.
This is Neo-Marxist America which has as its zenith (despite what any “liberal” theorists including Mr. Obama might argue) the elevation of the state of Israel and the concomitant fusion of Communism and Capitalism, active in a network of cosmopolitan satellites. This side currently rules in Washington D.C. Its cultural capital is New York City. The symbol of its financial strength is the Federal Reserve and Wall Street. It has an unmistakably Jewish spirit. Commonly referred to through the years as the “Eastern Establishment,” it is operative and predominant to a large degree in both political parties as well as in the hearts and minds of many who consider themselves conservative.
A fairly large sized portion of the congregation on this side honestly believes that it has endorsed a badly needed revolution against an age-old “racist” White supremacy whose remaining vestige can be perceived in the fear-mongering of the Republican Party and its successful “Southern strategy,” flanked by the fundamentalism of the Christian Right and the “ignorance” of the White working classes. This portion of the Left is deceived. The edifice of the Eastern Establishment is based upon many lies. But it has Power, for now.
Now, I could leave it there and just say that it is this Eastern Establishment versus the Rest of the West and I wouldn’t be too far off the mark. And it might be wise to be somewhat vague because, within the Rest of the West, there are many elements which, on the surface, apparently contradict one another. If we look too deeply into the crystal ball we might come up with some discrepancies that may cause further division. However, the discussion might also bring about a basis for a higher synthesis.
On the other side is the more common sense-driven conservative—traditional—decentralized—multifaceted-populist—rough-around-the-edges—regional—patriarchal—agrarian—religious—tribal—organically land-attached genuinely patriotic folk intelligence which traces the westward settlement of the American frontier as the identifying locus of its expansion and model for its characteristic ingredients and which can be summed up in the rugged individualism and independence of the White pioneer.
This side more or less recognizes the de facto reality of racial differences based on their own experience and observation (rather than preconceived ideological assumption). This was originally symbolized by the “gentleman’s agreement of 1876” between Northern and Southern Whites, marking the real conclusion of the Civil War. Its vision of the American hero is George Washington. While it has powerful European antecedents, it represents something distinctive and new on the world stage: a hitherto unparalleled fusion of all of the principal European nationalities.
The Rest of the West is comfortable in the company of the Founders: liberty understood within the confines of a generally accepted and binding social contract (the Constitution) facilitating a real meritocracy. It arguably encompasses the broadest cross-section of the heritage of the 223.6 million White Americans which, as of the 2010 census reports, make up 72% of the American population, although a considerable portion of this percentage gives its support to the ideological Left. Currently, this side is forced to do the bidding of the other due to its lack of control of the centers of power—the media, academia, finance and politics, though it persistently bucks at the direction in which the ruling regime is taking the country.
A significant part of this group believes that it is beleaguered domestically by multiculturalism on all sides and that its sole foreign ally in the world is Israel. It views Israel’s dispute with the Palestinians and the other large Muslim blocs in the Middle East, through the biased filter of the mainstream media, operated predominantly by Jewish apologists. This portion of the Right is deceived and would do well to distance itself from both the Jews and Muslims at the group level. This side is not in Power. But it has the Truth and the rebuke of History in its favor as well as a sheer mass which, if ever properly directed, could easily smash the usurpers.
For the most part, this “heartland” alliance can trace a certain biologic galvanization of its lineage on this continent back into at least the 19th century. Some allowance can be given to all of those latter day immigrants (individual Jews included) who assimilated and readily identified with the more native White group’s metaphysical dream of itself which can be summed up in the twin concepts of “self-reliance” and “the best shall rule.” For all purposes, this is the real America, whether it admits to it or not. And it had come into its own before certain immigration strategies were adopted for reasons other than enhancing the virility of the host body politic. Again, the real America is predominantly a White America (the group that conquered the continent) that has as yet still been unable to consciously recognize itself as such, at least on a viable political front outside of the Old South.
Consistently, certain other ethnicities enlisted by the ideological Left get involved in defining themselves in opposition to and agitating against Whites on the basis of real or imagined previous grievances. They are encouraged and financed from a variety of intelligence sectors to activate as beleaguered ethnicities with distinctive identities worth preserving at the cost of dethroning Whites from center stage. For this reason, there is little hope for their peaceful assimilation or co-habitation. They unconsciously promote a hostile zero-sum game because they are encouraged not to accept simultaneous reactive White efforts to defend White interests or celebrate distinctively White achievements, even in a peaceful manner. They perceive the entire attempt of self-identification on the part of Whites as illegitimate. There are a number of “watchdog” organizations like the ADL and the SPLC that go so far as to pathologize any expression of White identity as dangerous and extremist behavior.
The American type that these minorities represent is a self-acknowledged outsider, a hopelessly divided mulatto mess of contradictions when operating at a political level, speaking a language not its own and enjoying implements, tools, weapons and gadgets also largely invented by the White group that it resents so much. The presence on the Left of this degenerative element has destroyed its future legitimacy for genuine reform in any conceivably positive way in the United States.
The healthy continuation of a viable legacy on the continent, therefore, depends upon a pronounced identification with a genetically clear vision of the type emerging from a more or less ideologically Right and White side, and then on whether or not this type will decide to fight the conglomerated Frankenstein in its path, taking the country back ‘by hook or crook,’ or concede more ground as it has been doing for the past half-century, consigning itself to certain oblivion.
I should say that this may be a temporary “corrective” focus because there is a place for a forward looking progressivism within the White community, especially as we consider the example of Southern populism. However, as our lexicon is currently constituted, we associate the Left side of things with measures aimed at diluting or destroying the White race. The thrust is always towards amalgamation with absolutely no principled eugenic angle. It is based on the lie that the races are completely interchangeable. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Thus, Conservatism becomes directly related to realistic biological considerations of self-preservation and, therefore, trumps all other considerations. But it will be a Conservatism that actively overturns the status quo. This is what was meant by M.E. Bradford’s formula, the Reactionary Imperative.
The task ahead, as I see it, ultimately lies in reconnecting an authentic White American intelligentsia to its folk. This is a big project and has many different angles. Science has already verified the hunch of common sense regarding the reality of racial differences, but its ability to persuade at emotive levels has always been decidedly poor. The key for our leaders is to find the currently dry ancestral channels stretching into the deepest recesses of the collective imagination and to “release the flow.” There must be a reaching back into the record of our traditions to a point where we can speak with more clarity and authority and then a reflecting forward of inspirational imagery facilitating action without coercion. But how is this to be done?
One answer lies in the postmodern process of cultural excavation, the reexamination of older texts, the creation of new aesthetic artifacts, and more generally, through accessing a different type of knowledge than that which the scientific method affords. Properly regarded, science delivers us from illusions. It gives us “facts” which are based on “truths,” which ultimately ought to deliver us from certain primitive superstitions, thereby enhancing our knowledge of the material world. The inner world, however, involves a different dynamic. Let’s call it the Bardic Dynamic.
In Understanding Poetry, which, from its initial publication date in 1938 through the end of the 60s was a standard text in English departments of liberal arts colleges and state universities across the country (Ivy Leagues included), eminent southern scholars Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks defended the art of poetry by asserting that it answered needs that science could not:
The advantages of a scientific statement are not to be had without the limitations of a scientific statement also. The primary advantage of the scientific statement is that of absolute precision. But we must remember that such precision is possible only in relation to certain materials and can be gained only by using terms in special and previously defined senses. The scientist carefully cuts away from his technical terms all associations, emotional colorings, and implications of attitude and judgment. Science tends, indeed, toward the condition of mathematics, and the really exact scientific statements can be expressed in mathematical formulae.
The language of science represents an extreme degree of specialization of language in the direction of a certain kind of precision [i.e. water = H2O]. It is unnecessary, of course, to point out that in this specialization tremendous advantages inhere, and that the man of the twentieth century is rightly proud of this achievement. But it is more often necessary to point out that scientific precision can be brought to bear only on certain kinds of materials. Literature in general — poetry in particular — also represents a specialization of language for the purpose of precision; but it aims at treating kinds of materials different from those of science…[i.e. water = the liquid from which the goddess Aphrodite rose].”
While science is interested in charting quantifiable phenomena, poetry (as well as a host of other related artistic disciplines) is concerned with qualitative human values, the creative faculty, the ingredients of character, dramatic motion, and with the scientist himself, as an existential creature striving through an ever-deepening contingent mystery that he is unable to fully fathom. It is concerned with the style of personality, and when regarded as such, can be seen as a rich reservoir containing superior reference points leading to the resuscitation of powerful older types.
Science ostensibly focuses on the rational function to investigate the world, determine causes and effects, and to the application of the human will to solve problems. Poetry seeks to understand the human condition in its totality and to effect the full integration and animation of the person. Both disciplines are aimed at arriving at certain irreducible statements but they involve different categories that must not be confused. Science convinces with logical demonstration, poetry with the presentation of an aesthetically magnetic cinematic moment. Warren and Brooks suggest that Science, as Bertrand Russell asserted, is “power knowledge.” The Bardic Dynamic, on the contrary, is perhaps best summed up by Donald Davidson’s statement that “All that is substance in us longs for the ancestral beauty.”
There is a realm in which certain fictional amplifications elevate human sentiments and capacities for achieving incredible feats and deepening consciousness. This is the sphere in which Romance and Tragedy in the highest sense, properly belong. This type of “positive illusion” knowledge concerns the soul and the personality at both the individual and group level and is embodied in the artistic imagination and religious impulse, both of which revolve around the memory function and in the manifestation of a “light body.” History and its mythic/literary recombination serve as powerful reinforcements of this body and as pointers to the mysterious and uncharted territory of the human psyche and to its unlimited potential.
Dreams are the commodities of the Information Age. The contemporary frontier is not physical. It is an interior space where the self is reflected in an invisible wilderness against a double generated by mass media projectors and an academic intelligentsia guarding the gate against the onslaught of younger generations who have not yet been programmed. War is no longer on an actual battlefield. Violent conflict is secondary. The real fight is in the mind. It is perceptual. But it is no less significant. And decentralizing phenomena like the internet, cable, and general access to plural unregulated information sources, are beginning to even up the score through a massive distribution of audiovisual artillery, facilitating the revelation of Truth against Power, which will continue to be the battle cry of the Rest of the West as it overcomes everything in its path. Hop on now, while you still can.
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