Below is the English translation of my speech given on June 14, 2014 at a historic manor house, in the village of Guthmannshausen, in the vicinity of Weimar, the state of Thuringia, Germany. The speech was delivered on the occasion of the 100thanniversary of the beginning of WWI, the 100^th anniversary issue of the magazine Deutsche  Militärzeitschrift (DMZ) and the monthly magazine of politics and culture ZuErst! whose host and editor in chief, Dietmar Munier, marked on that occasion his 60th birthday.  This was a private event attended by approximately 150 people, mostly journalists and contributors to these journals, accompanied by their families.

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Each anniversary year brings back memories of times past which one either wishes to revive for himself and his people, or administer to others as a political-pedagogical year of admonition. The German word “Gedenkjahr” cannot be easily translated into other languages, ​​and often this word causes serious misconceptions among different nations. The word “Gedenkjahr” is translated into English or French as “memorial year” and as “jubilee year” — two completely opposing political notions.  Depending on different nations, depending on their historical sentiments, an anniversary year can be memorized as hope, joy, and nostalgia. But it can also be used as an exhortation, a threat of punishment, or a fear-inducing tool. As far as our own anniversary year is concerned, we recall today our own life span and we enthuse about cheerful dates in our nation’s history.  When celebrating one’s happy birthday, and if one, as an old man, still retains good memory, such as Ernst Jünger and Johann Wolfgang Goethe did, then one can say that life has some meaning.

When one is past his 60th birthday one needs to raise a question: “Why any more anniversaries?” The Franco-Romanian philosopher Emile Cioran, an ultra-nihilist and cultural pessimist, wrote that one shouldn’t live past one’s 40th birthday. On the occasion of his 70th birthday Cioran said that any further well-wishing for further life sounds grotesque to him. In an interview, in 1987, several years before his death, he said:” Within fifty years, the Notre Dame will become a mosque.”

By contrast, when hostile nations or groups commemorate the anniversaries of their political disasters, they are often inclined to use the buzzphrase: “Never again!” Commemorative years convert then quickly into symbols of the year of the dead and the days of admonition, especially when hostile nations and groups start cobbling together their endless anniversaries and present them as victimhood teachings at the expense of other nations. Read more

Tom Wolfe

Perhaps it is a product of his Southern heritage — born in Richmond in 1931, B.A. Washington and Lee, 1951. Perhaps it is due to his academic training, Ph.D. in American studies from Yale, 1957, completed before the neo-Marxist hegemony over the humanities and social sciences. Perhaps it is a result of his years as a reporter developing the New Journalism that seeks to tell the larger story. But most likely it is a consequence of his dedication to social realism that has led Tom Wolfe to become the closest thing we have to a mainstream race-realist author.

What is race realism? Ideological labels are often difficult to delineate precisely, but generally a race realist is one who acknowledges the physical reality of race and the significance of human biodiversity in the development of past and present human societies.

This is in contrast to the establishment’s position that insists upon the primacy of the individual while minimizing the importance of race. Races are not naturally occurring phenomena, but merely social constructs grouped around, perhaps, a few superficial physical characteristics. Yet, the inclusion of and advocacy for multiple “social constructs” within White homelands has become a social/political obsession and the basis for the civic religion of the West.

Race realists can also be distinguished from their more radical cousins, racial nationalists, by their embrace of conservatism grounded in patriotism (e.g., American exceptionalism), Christianity, and/or libertarianism. The nationalists are less enamored of Christianity and capitalism, and paradoxically, tend toward internationalism (“our race is our nation”) while advocating for homogeneous ethno-states. Race realists are not separatists, believing instead that a vigorous pursuit of identity politics within a multiracial state is enough to safeguard their people’s interests.

At 82 Wolfe has been writing for over half a century so he has a very lengthy bibliography. By looking at some representative writings we can see if Wolfe fits the race realist mold. Here I will discuss six nonfictions books: Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970), The Painted Word (1975), The Right Stuff (1979), Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine (1976), From Bauhaus to Our House (1981), and Hooking Up (2000); plus three novels: Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), A Man in Full (1998), and Back to Blood (2012).[1] Because Wolfe spent the first 30 years of his career as a journalist and social commentator, we will first consider his nonfiction works in thematic rather than chronological order. Read more