Uncritical nationalism versus critical Nationalism
One thing that separates me from most Nationalists is that I do not believe in leaders. That is not to say I reject the concept of leadership, which is necessary (or at least, useful) for any political movement (and any other practical human endeavour for that matter); but leadership is not contingent on the existence of leaders per se, and I firmly reject the notion that an effective political movement must always have a leader. In that sense – and other senses – I am a democrat as much as a fascist. Can two opposites exist in harmony? I believe so. My views are an idiosyncratic blend of the democratic and fascist, and the Nationalist and socialist. I will explain more during the course of this blog’s existence, and as time goes on, you will – I hope – come to recognise a structural and ideological consistency: a system of belief that I will provisionally call Autonomous National Socialism. But more on that some other time.
Today, I would like to talk about a distinction I make between what I call ‘critical Nationalism’ and ‘uncritical nationalism’. The terminology is borrowed from Karl Popper, who distinguished ‘critical rationalism’ from ‘uncritical rationalism’. I believe that Popper’s critique of justificatory methods in human knowledge can be extended into political theory and ideas, and is of particular relevance to ‘the leader syndrome’ (see my previous post: Escaping the Lotus: democracy and the ‘leader syndrome’).
A factor that distinguishes scientific knowledge from political knowledge is the reliance in science on knowledge (and the underpinning methodological doctrines of empiricism and falsificationism), while in political endeavour there is a reliance on truth (and its underpinning doctrine of authority). It is important for us to understand how the democratic concept cuts across this distinction. Science is fascist in nature, rather than democratic. (See my earlier discussion of Giddens’ double hermeneutic in Nationalism and the Hermeneutical Dilemma: some brief thoughts). To a scientist, what matters is not certainty or absolute truth, but the search for truth, and with that, the provision of evidence in the form of experiments and observations, that might provide an explanation or account of the truth. This involves building, validating and destroying tentative conclusions – theses – with the aim that, at any one time, the body of scientific knowledge is closer to the truth. Scientific knowledge is always provisional, and any sense of authority is in its methodology: science is derived from the testability and falsifiability of any one of its tentative conclusions, which always stand ready to be undermined, minimised or destroyed as empirical findings dictate.
Political knowledge is, by contrast, democratic in nature and focused on the presentation of the truth with an attribute of certainty, regardless of whether what is presented is in fact true in the observational sense or valid in the rational or scientific sense. Regardless of the truth of a theory, statement or position, what matters is its social acceptability within the receiving group, or the likeability of the messenger, or some combination of the two.
I might observe that racial inequality is natural and inevitable and the very existence of races is a demonstration of this res ipsa loquitur. In fact, that’s the scientific position. I am not certain it is true, but I know that current scientific evidence supports it. It’s a provisional truth, that is open to challenge and falsification. It also happens to be a common sense observation, but that is not what matters. Its authority is drawn from its [provisional] ‘truthfulness’, as it should be. Numerous studies show average differences between races in different areas of human endeavour, as does basic day-to-day observation. It may be an impolitic statement and deeply unpopular. It may be seen as vile and disgraceful, etc., by ‘respectable people’. It may also be vigorously, perhaps violently, denied by some (if not most) scientists who, for varying motives, wish to interpret their science through politics – nonetheless, it is the truth to the limited extent that current science can provide valid conclusions. In that sense, science is ‘fascist’ by method, not due to its content (the racial example given here is incidental – we could be discussing any subject that science touches on), but because all scientific work must subsume to the overriding demands of its rigorous method. In a casual sense, we can say that findings that comply with its method and are repeated consistently are the ‘truth’, and for reasons of expediency, this practical short-cut is largely accepted. For example, things such as evolutionary theory and Big Bang theory are presented largely as fact in schools and in the media. Nothing can change the truth, except a modification or alteration of the theses that interpret it.
The converse of the scientific method is found in political knowledge, which deals with the reality of racial inequality quite differently. Political knowledge is ‘democratic’ in two senses. First, provisional knowledge, validated by scientific method and everyday observation, is denied in favour of ‘the Truth’, which is a fiction that is more socially acceptable and likeable. The ‘fiction’ might contain a strong element of actual truth-telling – and rarely, may simply be the truth. Indeed, as any professional politician will confirm, a really effective lie needs to contain a strong element of truth in order to convince people. Nonetheless, some lies can work because they are ‘Big Lies’. Putting aside philosophical niceties, we ‘know’ that 2 + 2 equals 4, but if it were more socially acceptable that 2 and 2 should make 5 – especially if this deduction worked in the interests of a powerful group in society – then it is not inconceivable that this conclusion would be promoted by serious people and anyone who denied it would be ridiculed and verbally savaged, if not imprisoned. If you think this far-fetched, then consider how ‘equality’ is conceptualised in society. Equality among humans is empirical nonsense, just as ‘equality’ among wolves or sheep is nonsense. But the aim is not to make sense. The aim is acceptance and likeability.
The second feature of political knowledge is a deliberate politicisation of language, in that the subject term develops a double meaning. Much as we discussed the double meaning of ‘democracy’ in a previous post (democracy versus Democracy: or why the patient can’t be restored), a canonical understanding of ‘equality’ is promoted that bears no relationship to material reality or lived experience, but reflects perceptions that society wishes to encourage – a kind of wish-thinking – and which also reflects certain perceptions the elite wish to encourage among society. We all wish for equality, democracy and other nice things because that’s what we have been encouraged to wish for and it also seems civilised. The consequences of such views are not widely discussed.
All of us are susceptible to the fallacies of justificatory (political) knowledge – Popper’s uncritical rationalism – which prioritises ‘truth and ‘certainty’ over actual knowledge and observation. Often the fallacy can work in service of good (or at least, good intentions). An example is found in the global warming debate, and in particular the debate over whether, and to what extent, global trends in warming, if they exist, are caused by human activity. I must confess that I am not sufficiently informed about the science to offer a meaningful view on whether global warming is happening or what contributes to it, but based on what knowledge I have, I would tend to favour the anthropogenic thesis (‘AGW’). This is for entirely precautionary reasons. The late Christopher Hitchens put it best: we can’t run the experiment twice. We have only one chance to change our behaviour so as to mitigate our impact on the planet. As I see it, this is the best justification for the precautionary principle, and even if it turns out that the AGW thesis has been exaggerated or is wholly mistaken, it is best to exercise caution and reduce any damaging impact on the environment generally. This is one reason the so-called ‘climate sceptics’ annoy me a little in that, irrespective of the truthfulness of their position (something yet to be determined decisively, one way or the other), their scepticism does not take account of the need for us to end our supremacy over the Earth. We have no right to use the Earth like a dustbin. My position is what you might call ‘cautious scepticism’ or ‘weak scepticism’, but in adopting this view, it must be admitted that I am incorporating a disregard for the truth (in the sense of objective knowledge about the world) and prioritising my political view (a more subjective and unrealistic attitude to knowledge and truth). A belief that we should be more in touch with, and respectful of, our surrounding environment may represent ‘good’, but when this view takes on the uncritical pretensions of ‘truth’ as an unassailable reality and disregards actual knowledge and the inherent unattainability of absolute truth, then my position becomes dishonest (albeit, in my case, well-meaning).
I have encountered this same well-meaning disregard for truth among mixed-racialists, who think they are promoting good – the unity of the human race – which, in turn, explains their violent and aggressive reaction to those who are either sceptical and would prefer that different human sub-races retain their distinctive identities, or who point out that current science does not accord with the politics of the mixed-racialists. Some of these mixed-racialists have perhaps not considered fully the consequences of their views, which are now being played out in our society. We might call these well-meaning mixed racialists the ‘idealists’. Others promote mixed-racialism for ideological reasons, believing that the deconstruction of the West, or the White Race, is necessary to achieve some political objective: a version of socialism, Islamic rule, or whatever. Both groups pursue the authoritarian approach that typifies political knowledge – i.e. lots of ‘democracy’ in which truth is overridden in favour of people’s feelings. The White Nationalist slogan in response could almost be: “There are races. Just deal with it.” The liberals/mixed-racialists/false flag conservatives would reply: “Yes we know that, but we’d rather pretend there isn’t and call you Nazis.” If there are races, then there is inequality. If there are sexes, then there is inequality. Difference means inequality, because that is Nature. Science has yet to present knowledge that might contradict this, but we live in hope that the mixed-racialists might be vindicated by some actual knowledge or verifiable observation.
The term ‘equality’ was used originally by the Enlightenment thinkers (for example, in the American Declaration of Independence) in a wholly different social and historical context to contemporary society. Theirs were white (or white-led) societies in which governments played only a minimal and distant part in people’s lives, and in which women had dominion over the private and family sphere of life, which was much more important than it is today. Inequality was accepted as a fact of life, because that is what it was and still is. It didn’t follow, and it still doesn’t follow, that men are ‘better’ than women or vice versa, or that whites are ‘better’ than blacks or vice versa, etc. Rather, it meant there was a recognition of difference and society built itself around those differences, sometimes in frustrating and unjust ways, but mostly for the good of everyone. That does not mean that I think society should remain static. I am a socialist, not a conservative, but I believe that change should be progressive: i.e. it should be built on what is good about society, and so far as possible, facts about human beings should prevail. The denial of inequality and difference has led to a regression and devolution of the West: escalating violent crime, growing economic inequality (which, in my view, is the unjust type of inequality), and a loss of morals. These problems are the result of a bankrupt social system, capitalism, but they are also a demonstration of how the canonical equality that capitalism relies on does not work in practice – at least, not without considerable propaganda and governmental oppression.
The only way out of this problem for the equality activists is to reject science (which is where all the unwelcome ‘truths’ emanate from) and return to political knowledge, where ‘equality’ can be refashioned into an abstraction. Thus, although science (and everyday common sense) says there is inequality, no-one sees this because everything – including science itself – is interpreted through political knowledge. Ignorance Is Strength; Inequality Is Equality; and Authoritarianism Is Democracy. Of course, people do see inequality still – they must. The problem is in how they interpret the reality they see. They are persuaded either to ignore what they see and continue living in their own contented bubble as if it is not happening (and in the hope that some of the consequences won’t affect them), or to treat it as either a failure of a particular government or political party, or the work of evil racists, or perhaps, the deliberate work of psychopathic rich men (normally Jews and their scapegoated surrogates, rich whites, are identified as the culprits). This is far preferable than the harsh alternative: which is confront reality and see society’s breakdown for what it is: the failure of a failed and broken social system and paradigm of thought: i.e. Jewish (mixed racialist) capitalism – or capitalism for short, for that is what capitalism is.
It’s in this context that I have long-believed that radical liberalism and mixed-racialism (and their attendant movements, such as militant feminism) are generally not revolutionary movements at all, but in fact are counter-revolutionary movements, for they belong to an uncritical tradition in which democracy becomes something that is vaguely nice – and thus an uncritical concept that, of course, ‘everybody’ believes in. Meanwhile, fascism (and any other revolutionary idea, including classical Marxism) becomes something that is vile and nasty and that, of course, ‘everybody’ disapproves of. Incidentally, this is why I am amused when I see Nationalists and right-wing types get into a frenzy about Cultural Marxism and ‘liberals’, terms that most of them only half-understand. What such people are doing is betraying a profound ignorance about the history of working class struggle and the place of Nationalism in it, and they are also revealing that Nationalism as they conceive it is not a revolutionary idea, but just a propaganda front for shills and lackies of whoever happens to be in power, including Jews. So Nationalism has regretfully fallen into the uncritical tradition. Exhibit ‘A’ is the continuing success of the UK’s very own Moonie cult: UKIP, a media party who seem to represent a mixture of golf club bores, right-wingers with clichéd views, and random disaffected people. Other exhibits in support for the uncritical tradition include: the Powellisation of the BNP (and to an extent, the National Front as well); the emerging popularity of ‘thoughtful’ social conservatives who are vaguely associated with civic nationalism, such as Peter Hitchens and Melanie Phillips, who are fact radical liberals of the uncritical tradition, though they like to pretend otherwise.
The truly revolutionary position is the Racial Nationalist one, for it asserts that a Nation cannot exist without racial homogeneity. A vague sense of ethnicity and patriotism – flag-waving, sports allegiance, culture and ritual and so on – which the civic nationalists focus on, is not enough. Without a racial under-girding, Nation means nothing. Singapore is a nation-state, but it can never be a Nation, and if the British Nation is ‘singaporeanised’ – i.e. turned into a mixed-racial population – then the artificial structure of the nation-state becomes irrelevant to Nationalists, as it no longer serves any racial purpose and is in fact traitorous. We have now arrived at that point: truly now, the Race is the Nation and the Nation is the Race. This signals a new opportunity, for a new White Nationalist/Sovereigntist Movement, but it also signals the sad end for British Nationalism as anything viable. In order to save the Race, we will have to ditch the nation-state. So it is a defeat, and it is as well to confront that fact.
There is one group of people, who deserve the blame and approbation for this: US – that is to say, you and me. The way to victory, I believes, starts with radical self-criticism. Blaming others, worshipping leaders, joining parties, putting an illiterate ‘X’ in a ballot every four years….all these non-activities are the hallmarks of the uncritical nationalists, and they are all proxies, projections even, in lieu of doing something useful. They are ways of deflecting the blame from where it really should be: ME AND YOU.
None of that is to say that I oppose voting or joining political parties. I am not advocating an ‘all or nothing’ approach. I realise that pluralism, even compromise, can be essential in politics if anything is to be achieved, but what I do oppose is people who do this uncritically (even non-strategically in some cases), out of a kind of Leninist loyalty or worship of a Great Leader or a made-up organisation such as a political party, or out of an understandable but misplaced loyalty to a nation-state (in this case the UK) that is in fact traitorous to whites. Admittedly, such people do have qualities: they show considerable gumption, and are in many ways a cut-above the ‘dumb’ whites who stay silent and stunned on their way to the abattoir. Nevertheless their pseudo-positivist mindsets (i.e. practising politics at face value) and their misplaced belief in the amulets of the uncritical tradition – ‘democracy’, voting, flag-waving, ‘fair play’ and so on – are just part of a circular and futile process that gives the existing fraudulent system an undeserved legitimacy, when in fact it should have been swept away long-ago.
Of course, I am not an innocent in this. In the ‘YOU AND ME’, I include myself. I was a ‘dumb’ white too. I was stupefied. In fact, my case was one of the worst. I joined the Labour Party as a young teenager and had ambitions to become a politician. I grew out of it quite early on, partly because my early active involvement in the mainstream, social democratic variety of left-wing politics immunised me against it. What you might see as a ‘mistake’ and something I should be ashamed of, was in fact a crucial part of my political development and maturity. Without that ‘left-wing’ phase, I would still be a plastic leader-worshipper, a Moonie cultist like some of you. So I’m glad I made that mistake. At some point I began to realise that it’s all a con, and more importantly, I worked out my own explanation of why.
Along the way, I went down some interesting avenues. During my time in University as a law student, I joined a nearby coffee shop-style philosophy discussion group, consisting mainly of academics and what right-wing people might dismiss as ‘liberal types’. Having been through a comprehensive school and survived the experience, albeit with considerable emotional and psychological damage, I had learned how to regurgitate the system’s junk knowledge faithfully as one of its straight A students – a kind of Western version of the Soviet Young Pioneer. I did not know much philosophy (albeit, I was highly auto-didactic and well-read), so most of the discussion was beyond me, and I listened more than I spoke. This was an important experience for me because I first became aware of how deeply the left-wing current of thought had permeated into academic institutions, and it also made me recognise some of the contradictions and limitations in the left/liberal position.
However, I now realise that the people I conversed with back then were not really ‘left-wing’ as such, and certainly not ‘socialist’. In fact they were ‘metropolitan’ and held a mindset that I would now call pseudo-positivist: they accepted the canonical understanding of politics and the conventional use of political language, and in that sense, today, those people would be closer politically to the average member of UKIP or the BNP than they are to me. The average UKIP and BNP member is liberal and part of the uncritical tradition, but doesn’t realise it.
In my 20s, I joined a small Marxist group in the north of England, which was mainly about theoretical discussion. I had first read Das Kapital in my teens. Now I re-read it more thoroughly, along with the other works of Marx and Engels, in an effort to understand it all properly. Like most sincere Marxists, these people were gentle and kind, if a little too earnest and intellectually intolerant. They understood socialism very well but because they were convinced of their own truths (and to be fair, most of what they said was, and remains the truth), they would not listen to alternative perspectives. It was that unattractive intellectual attribute – commonly found among people who are in fact right and know they are right – that put me off them and forced me to re-assess and re-evaluate my views in the light of my growing experience. They would be appalled by my views now, but I am grateful to them. They opened my eyes to the truth and wisdom of Marxism and socialism – and also its limitations – and thus prevented me from sliding into the reactionary dead-end that most people find themselves in as they get older and more cynical about society. That has not happened to me because, thanks to the Marxists – who are largely correct in their analysis of capitalism – I have retained my optimism and I remain a ‘young’ person politically. I refuse to give in and I refuse to stop learning. I am a Nationalist now, but I belong to the critical tradition.