Alain de Benoist on the West

Alain de  Benoist’s current TOO article (“The ‘West’ Should Be Forgotten“) contains this remarkable paragraph:

Between the destitution of its past and the fear of its future, it believes in nothing else other than abstract moralism and disembodied principles that would save her from thriving in its being — even if the price is its metamorphosis. Forgetting that history is tragic, assuming that its can reject any consideration of power, searching for consensus at any cost, floating weightless, as if in a form of  lethargy, not only does it consent to its own disappearance, but it interprets its disappearance as a proof of its moral superiority. One can obviously think of the “last man” that Nietzsche talked about.

Yes, the West has become the proposition culture, identified solely by its moral abstractions–abstractions that seen by the natives as more important than life itself (see, e.g., here). Abstractions that may be used to justify pretty much any war our elites decide to promote, but which leave the natives defenseless against invasions by the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the price for holding onto these abstractions is far more than metamorphosis but, as he says, disappearance–death by any other name.

The only solution is to redefine the West not in terms of abstractions but in terms of its traditional people–people with interests in maintaining control of specific lands. It is this step that seems impossible for the vast majority of contemporary Western intellectuals, even those associated with the right.

The ultimate irony is that without altruistic Whites seduced by moral abstractions to see their own suicide as a moral imperative, the glorious multicultural utopia that is scheduled to succeed the West is likely to revert to a Darwinian struggle for survival among the remnants, with principled morality in short supply. But, unless things change dramatically and soon, the descendants of these high-minded White folks won’t be around to witness that denouement.

Ritual Slaughter: Holland worse than Russia… or Switzerland?

Jews are growing bolder in their attack on the proposed ban on ritual slaughter in Holland. Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld wrote an op-ed in Volkskrant (April 19, 2011) under the title “Animals on the rise, Jews in retreat” He states that never before have so many Jewish organizations from abroad been campaigning against Holland. In February, the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles began a campaign to influence major political parties in the Dutch Parliament.  Gerstenfeld notes that the chief rabbi of Moscow and acting chairman of the Conference of European Rabbis, Pinchas Goldschmidt, wrote a personal letter to the Dutch Parliament stating that during the Soviet period Jews in Russia looked up to Holland as a beacon of religious tolerance. However, if ritual slaughter is banned, Holland would be in the same category as the Soviet Union.

Despite this attempt to link banning ritual slaughter with Soviet oppression, there were (and are) several countries with a fairly pacifist and democratic track record that have banned ritual slaughter and other aspects of Jewish culture. In Switzerland, one of the oldest states based on popular consent and grassroots democracy, ritual slaughter was banned as early as 1897, followed by Norway in 1930 and Sweden in 1937. Read more

The “West” should be forgotten

Zeus and Europa

(Translated from the French by Tom Sunic)

The “West”? Raymond Abellio observed that “Europe is fixed in space, that is to say, in geography, as opposed to the West which is “portable.” In fact, the “West” has continued travelling and changing directions. In the beginning that term meant the land where the sun sets (Abendland), as opposed to the land of the rising sun (Morgenland). Starting with the reign of Diocletian in the late third century AD, the opposition between East and West came down to the distinction between the Western Roman Empire (whose capital was Milan and then Ravenna) and the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople. The first one disappeared in 476 AD, with the abdication of Romulus Augustulus. After that the West and Europe merged for good. However, starting with the eighteenth century the adjective “Western” came to light on nautical charts referring to the New World, also called the “American system,” as opposed to the “European system,” or the “Eastern Hemisphere” (which then included Europe, Africa and Asia). Read more

Encouraging Developments in Hungary

Recently the right-wing Hungarian government has drafted a new constitution (English translation) which is christened “a constitution for the 21st century”. This constitution is so revolutionary that the European Commission is going to review it because of ‘worrying clauses’ such as the ban on abortion and same sex marriage. “Family friendly, hostile to gays,” as the liberal Euractiv-website dubbed it. Let’s have a closer look of this new constitution and judge it on its merits.

Christianity embedded

“O Lord, blessed be the Hungarian nation” is the subtitle of the preamble called the “The Fundamental Law of Hungary,” a reference to the first line of the Hungarian national anthem. In other words, there can be no mistake which religion is the bedrock of Hungarian society: Christianity.

Crown of St. Stephen

The document states “We are proud that one thousand years ago our king, Saint Stephen, based the Hungarian State on solid foundations, and made our country a part of Christian Europe.” Christendom is called the “foundation of the nation” while the other religious traditions of Hungary are simply “respected.” The new constitution “honours” the Crown of Saint Stephen, which was sent to King Stephen by the Pope in 1000 AD and is regarded as the symbol of national unity. Read more

Selfish Bastards: A Review of “Atlas Shrugged, Part I”

I saw Atlas Shrugged on Saturday, April 16th. It was a sold-out showing to an all-White audience in a predominantly White area. The audience contained a large contingent of Tea Party people, mostly Christian, as well as libertarians and Objectivists. There was geeky anti-government banter as we waited for the movie to begin. There was applause after the movie ended, but I did not join in. In fact, I found this to be a deeply disappointing adaptation of the first third of Ayn Rand’s epic novel about the role of reason in human existence and what would happen if the rational and productive people—the Atlases that carry the world on their shoulders—were to shrug off their burden and go on strike.

Atlas Shrugged could be a spectacular movie. It is certainly a spectacular novel, although not a perfect one, primarily because it is deformed by the grotesque excess of Galt’s Speech, 60 odd pages in which the novel’s hero John Galt explains Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. But I have to hand it to Rand, because at least for me, she managed to make even Galt’s Speech a page-turner. In truth, although I reject Rand’s individualism and capitalism and would not have lasted five minutes in her presence, Atlas Shrugged is one of the most audacious and enthralling novels I have ever read—and I have read most of the classics—and even it does not equal Rand’s earlier novel The Fountainhead. Atlas Shrugged is the greatest mystery novel of all, for it is about what makes civilizations rise and fall. It is the greatest adventure of all, for it tells the story of a man who stopped the world. Read more

Tea is for Tribe: It’s About Race, Stupid!

The Long Racial History of the Tea Party’s Deficit Trojan Horse

It's About Race, Stupid!

Back when only the founding population had suffrage, the opposing political factions were often organized around alternative philosophies of government. Even then, ideologies were often stalking horses for individual, regional, occupational, or denominational agendas. Within the past century, both these sincere ideological differences and parochial interests have been overshadowed by a new force in American politics: tribalism. The concomitant empowerment and demographic explosion of identity groups competing and conflicting with White American interests created a series of tectonic shifts in the fault lines beneath the surface of the American political landscape.

White Americans have a taboo against pursuing their group interests and an affinity for ideals and abstractions. They also retain the fiction that their representatives are beholden to them, despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary. In light of these factors, the ambitious politician seeking White votes is beset with the task of parroting a rhetoric that is rooted in abstract ideology, yet aligned with White American group interests. Once elected, it’s then in his interest to renege on both his implicit and explicit promises, as the lobbyists swarming around him pay more and pay more attention. Read more

Ritual Slaughter and Minority Politics in Amsterdam

As mentioned previously, Wilders’ pro-Zionist Freedom Party in Holland is supporting a ban on ritual slaughter thatopposes both Muslim and Jewish customs. Now that the ban is closer than ever, Jews are franticly trying to prevent it, but by their efforts they are showing their true colours: They pursue their self-interest under the flag of tolerance and are playing a dangerous game by making alliances with other non-Dutch minorities against the native Dutch.

Firstly, Jews have tried to appeal to the perceived ‘Dutch tolerance’, an image of Dutch history which is heavily promoted by the book The Dutch Republic by the Jewish historian Jonathan I. Israel. In fact the Protestant Dutch Republic stripped all Roman-Catholics (30%-40% of the native population) of their civil rights and heavily persecuted other sects of Protestants, but allowed the Jews to settle in Holland and enjoy special privileges. Shmuel Katzman, the chief rabbi of The Hague, defines Dutch tolerance in an op-ed in the Volkskrant of 11-04-2011 in terms of what is good for the Jews: “At school we learned how Holland was the beacon of freedom and democracy in Europe — before this idea was implemented in the rest of the world. We felt admiration of the opportunities offered to the first Jewish residents of the Low Countries, in a time when they were driven from other lands.” Read more