The article below is based on the speech given at the “London Forum,” London UK, May 16, 2015).

The nouns ‘hero’ and ‘heretic’ are used as frequent figures of speech in daily communication. Every day, almost every minute of our time, either consciously or subconsciously, we refer to the notion of hero and heretic, albeit by using often different words and expressions. The highly generic nouns ‘hero’ and ‘heretic’ lack a precise common denominator. What may be considered a heretical behavior today may be viewed as heroic behavior tomorrow. The meaning of the noun ‘hero’ is further complicated by its semantic shifts and its awkward equivalents in other languages and cultures. Thus the German word for hero is ‘Held’, although this word conveys a wider meaning in Germanic languages than the English word ‘hero’ or the French ‘héros’, deriving from the ancient Greek, and largely associated with political and military prowess only.

One must also refer to some well-known authors who dealt with the study of heros, such as Joseph Campbell and his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a book still serving as a primer in religious science courses at universities in the USA, but also a book which influenced many Hollywood moguls.  Although Campbell never addressed the notion of the hero from a racial perspective, the fact that he sat on the editorial board of the Mankind Quarterly  and that he had once upon a distant time allegedly cracked a small joke in front of his colleagues about the Jews earned him the title of “anti-Semite,” , a label not usually associated with heroism. Read more

I am not going to try to figure out why academic left superstar Slavoj Žižek would want to review The Culture of Critique but he did (Steve Sailer: “Slavoj Žižek on Kevin MacDonald’s Culture of Critique“). Perhaps it’s part of his persona where he writes things that are jarring and paradoxical — which is what I get from this review of one of his books. Anyway, as everyone knows, he plagiarized his review from Stanley Hornbeck’s review in American Renaissance. (He now says that a friend sent him the review and said he could use it under his name.)

The horrors! The giveaway, as Sailer notes, was that his review was far more lucid than his usual writing, prompting an alert blogger to actually make a side-by-side comparison, on the basis of which it is only reasonable to say that he stands convicted.

All that is amusing but of no real consequence, although one could hope for a bump in book sales. But Sailer’s blog has attracted ~250 comments at this writing, mainly expressing opinions on my work in general. After reading quite a few, it seemed to me that there were quite a few very articulate defenders of the basic ideas expressed in Culture of Critique, etc.

This is a link to all the reviews of Culture of Critique I am aware of (excluding Žižek , but who needs Žižek  when you have the original?). This includes John Derbyshire’s review in The American Conservative as well as my reply. The only review to appear in an academic publication is Frank Salter’s which is excellent; Paul Gottfried also reviewed it in Chronicles.  Read more