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In this episode, we talk about white nationalism.
Participants: Yassine, Walt Bismarck, TracingWoodgrains.
Links:
Why I'm no longer a White Nationalist (The Walt Right)
The Virulently Unapologetic Racism of "Anti-Racism" (Yassine Meskhout)
Hajnal Line (Wikipedia)
Fall In Line Parody Song (Walt Bismarck)
Richard Spencer's post-Charlottesville tirade (Twitter)
The Metapolitics of Black-White Conflict (The Walt Right)
America Has Black Nationalism, Not Balkanization (Richard Hanania)
Recorded 2024-04-13 | Uploaded 2024-04-14
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Notes -
I used to argue with white nationalists a lot many years ago on /r/anarcho_capitalism and what I found very frustrating is they refused to properly defend their point of view, particularly on the point of who counted as white. The rare time they would say, it was usually strictly people born on the European continent, so Turks in East Thrace were white but not Turks on the other side of the Bosporus strait were not, I guess. Attempts to pin them down on definitions like this were taken as bad faith tricks to undermine their cause and there was not a lot of interest in having real intellectual discussion about the merits of white nationalism. I found I could get them to explain why they thought whites were superior to non-whites, but I could not get anywhere discussing the practicalities of how a white ethno-state would work.
I completely agree that it makes more sense to select immigrants by the traits that whites are claimed to possess. Selecting them based on race is extremely crude.
Walt seemed like he was participating in good faith, but I found he rambled on a lot and would have preferred to have him pinned down more on some of these issues. I think he reinforced my impression of the alt-right, which is not that they were a bunch of super intellectual misfits but that they actually had terrible epistemic habits and were white nationalists more for the vibes as the kids say rather than its intellectual merits. I've read some of Richard Spencer's stuff and seen interviews with him. He's not that smart. I haven't been impressed by anything from the alt-right as far as intellectual arguments go.
I think that's separate from believing in human biodiversity. It's the leap from human biodiversity to white nationalism that I have never found convincing. I think there is a parallel here with communists, who are extremely difficult to convince to enter into a serious debate. Attempts to debate communists are shot down as risking undermining class solidarity. Similarly, attempts to debate white nationalists are shot down (though not nearly as quickly and definitively) as risking undermining white racial solidarity.
Another parallel is how communists put a huge amount of effort into debating theory (though not at addressing the best counter-arguments to that theory as they mostly only debate other communists) and almost none in how a communist society would actually work.
This quote came to mind when you asked what is white Nationalism.
A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy – A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”
White People - are those who can keep it. Propagate self-governance. Live as free people in a functional complex society
Non-white - are the people who can not self-govern or contribute to its existence.
In the American context which uses an expanding term of whiteness it’s basically anyone who can replicate and reproduce the ideals expressed in the founding of the nation.
That is still really vague. I am talking about people who want to restrict immigration based on race. What would that actually mean? Once they can answer that, we can talk about whether that actually makes sense, whether it could work, how it would be done, and whether there are better ways of achieving those goals. White nationalists don't seem to want to do any of those things. But they are decisions they would eventually have to make.
Counterpoint: I'm acquainted with some far-right folks (though I'm sure Hlynka would have disagreed with that classification) who have been consistently Trump-skeptical-to-Trump-hostile since 2016, though not in the "never-Trumper Republican" way. Some even argue that his victory in 2016 was a product of foreign election-tampering and he was a puppet taking orders from overseas; the whole "Russian collusion" narrative… except for the difference of it not being Moscow pulling his strings, but Jerusalem. That the election this November is "just a show," and there's no meaningful difference between Trump and Biden because they're both "ZOG puppets." (And that elections will remain meaningless until we have a party and a candidate who understands that the only question that matters is "the JQ" and says so.)
Then there was also one guy who argues that all secular governments are servants of Satan (citing Matthew 4:8-9), and that we need a totalizing Christian theocracy; which, in the "correct" understanding of Matthew 22:21 — that only he holds, and everyone else gets wrong — is what Jesus actually called for.
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Yes, I understand that they have reasons for not wanting to give a definition, but that still makes it very frustrating for an open-minded person who wants to hear their ideas explained and defended.
It's also quite annoying when a group keeps saying "we're being mistreated so it's only natural we organize and defend white rights and by the way we want a white ethnostate and no we won't say what that means". I have no interest in supporting a movement that refuses to say what they're actually going to do once they have more influence. If you want more influence from me, you need to explain what it is you are trying to accomplish.
And it's not that I have high expectations for being convinced, but I will certainly be open-minded and give it a fair hearing.
I totally disagree with that because the merits of your movement entirely depend on how you define it. If your argument is that whites have certain inherent traits upon which society depends, you do actually need to say who those white people are. I don't see how people can be expected to agree on those traits if you can't agree on who you're talking about.
That position makes sense if you're already convinced that having a white ethno-state is the right thing to do and that you will personally benefit from it regardless of precisely how the white race is defined, but for most people that isn't the case. They're either belong to one of these groups (e.g. Jews) whose place is insecure or they're white people who don't know exactly what you're proposing and therefore cannot assess whether it makes any sense.
For example, I personally think Jews are a clear net positive contribution to society, while many white nationalists are virulent anti-semites. Whether you include Jews is not an "edge case". It's a pretty important detail that determines how much the sense the movement actually makes. Or what about Iranians? The ones I've met have all been great. It matters to me whether they're included.
Now, to be fair, I don't see myself as likely to be convinced in any case, but I still think it matters whether a white ethno-state means including some of the ethnicities that seem like clear net contributors and more questionable ones that maybe have certain social problems like high crime rates or substance abuse issues. At the minimum, we should be able to agree that that is a very different argument. And you should recognize that the vast majority of the white people are in the same boat. If you want to have any hope of advancing your argument, you do need to work out some of these details. Some other extremists, like anarcho-capitalists for example, I find to be actually quite good at working out these details.
EDIT: Why is this getting downvoted so much?
Here's the situation. You're making demands without being in a position to demand anything. They don't care about your influence, and you aren't really offering it.
You're just standing there and screaming that you will define the null hypothesis and they are obligated to debate you according to your rules.
Have a look at this article, and notice the bit on "floating signifiers" https://status451.com/2017/07/11/radical-book-club-the-decentralized-left/
AnCaps aren't anyone's example of a successful movement.
I'm not saying they're obligated to do anything. I am saying that in conversations with white nationalists where they're trying to convince me of white nationalism, they have rarely made any effort to define white people and I find that frustrating.
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