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In the last Culture War Thread, in a very interesting exchange about why white people in America (and the so-called West more broadly) tolerate being constantly denigrated from every corner of the intellectual elite, the always-insightful @FiveHourMarathon had an interesting comment that resonated with me. He finds the grievance-oriented, victim-mindset side of the white identitarian sphere viscerally off-putting and pathetic. Why, he asks, should I be proud to be white, if in fact being white means being weak and crying out for forbearance and mercy from the ascendant coalition of white-hating POCs whose power and vengeful intent increases daily? Why would one choose to identify as a powerless victim, and what appeal would that self-identification have for those well-adjusted, successful, thriving individuals whose allegiance the white race ought to covet most assiduously, especially if it is indeed true that whites’ prospects are at a historic low point? While the downvote totals indicate that his perspective was poorly-received by many of our pro-white posters (for understandable reasons upon which I will touch shortly), I found his comments extremely instructive and worth reflecting on - a splash of bracingly cold water which ought to invigorate those on my side who wake up every day and wonder how white people let ourselves get to this point.
The conversation dovetailed wonderfully with Jared Taylor’s excellent essay, adapted from a speech he gave at a recent American Renaissance conference, in which he delves deep into the historical antecedents of white people’s current malaise. In this essay, Taylor points out that the ethno-masochism which pervades Western elite consciousness is consistent with a more general philosophical framework that has characterized the European psyche for centuries. He illustrates that the individuals who drove many of the most influential social/political reform movements of the last 300 years - from the Jacobins and the abolitionists to the temperance movement - have all demonstrated a fairly consistent psychological phenotype: a sort of Protagonist Syndrome, obsessed with virtue (and particularly with displaying that virtue to other white people) and with uplifting the underdog, and driven by an atavistic hatred of fellow white people who don’t share that same temperament.
In a sense, the leftist psyche - and, as a former committed leftie, I think I understand this temperament pretty well, and am still an example of it in many ways - is an extension of the “Faustian spirit” that many right-wingers love to attribute to European Man. In this telling of history, the most important defining characteristic of the European soul is its driving need to conquer, to transform, to bend nature to one’s own ends. This boundless desire for conquest drove the great achievements of Western man - from conquering the globe, to unlocking the secrets of wielding nature’s forces to our own benefit, to curing disease, to landing on the moon - but I think it also drives the leftist desire to transform humanity itself. To improve humanity from its basic, crude, unworked Hobbesian “state of nature” and to unlock its true potential. Hermetic alchemy applied to the human spirit - never accepting limits, never taking “that’s just the way things are” as an answer, always believing that we can keep pushing the limits of what is possible. Combine this with an almost pathological altruism, the anguish one feels when contemplating the plight of the downtrodden, and it’s very easy to see why Faustian man is so driven to “correct” the obviously-unjust vicissitudes of random chance that have produced the current distribution of human fortunes.
I know that I personally still feel deeply this instinctive sympathy for the underdog. It’s so ingrained in our national psyche that it’s incredibly difficult to overcome it. It has characterized my experience as a sports fan, and it was a major formative element of my self-conception as a college progressive. Wresting myself out of that mental framework as I’ve drifted rightward has been, and in some ways still continues to be, a psychologically disorienting experience. On the one hand, the recognition that unequal distribution of talent and fortune is an unalterable fact of reality, baked into the human spirit, is a bedrock element of the right-wing worldview. Hierarchy is right and proper, and the strong and capable shall always prosper while the weak and mediocre will always vainly envy them. On the other hand, this offends Faustian man’s innate sense of limitless ability to transform the world. Much as Europeans looked at grim realities such as the ubiquity of deadly disease, or man’s inability to traverse the skies, and said, “I have the power to change that,” we have the unshakeable sense that the injustice of fate which has rendered some less fortunate than others is yet another so-called reality just waiting for us to apply our ingenuity and boundless power to correct. A mere engineering problem which our best minds are rapidly working to solve. And hey, if I’m the process of fixing this problem we also gain the opportunity to ostentatiously display our own virtue and gain relative status accordingly, all the better!
This instinctive desire to uplift the underdog is, ironically, only rational if one believes that one’s own interests are not threatened by that underdog’s success. If I can help the underdog get his piece of the pie while my piece stays the same size, that means that in reality I must have been stronger than both the underdog and the supposed overdog against whom he was striving - I was so far above the conflict that I could observe it as a spectator. The underdog becomes, then, a sort of prop or vessel through which I can achieve emotional satiation of my altruistic instinct, at little to no cost to myself.
Where, then, does this leave racially-conscious whites, who assess the state of the world around us and see genuinely foreboding trends which appear to pose a serious threat to our people? Who observe the rising chorus of hatred and envy echoing from the halls of power, who dismay at the ever-worsening fertility differentials, and who see our own elected representatives seem to revel in our decline? What is the optimal rhetorical strategy to appeal to successful white individuals in order to get them to see the disturbing portents and to realize that things are not looking good for us? That this isn’t, in fact, an idle game, but in fact deadly serious? Well, one very appealing strategy is to appeal to that characteristically-European sympathy for the underdog. It’s to say, “Look, guys, we are the weak and vulnerable party in need of special concern and uplift! I know that you’ve been trained by the media to view white people as the permanent bully in need of humbling and people of color as the noble and scrappy up-and-comer just looking for a fair shot - and yeah, at certain points in history that was even true! - but at this point in time the tables truly have turned. We lay ourselves at the mercy of the victors, and ask only for their mercy and indulgence. Quit picking on us!”
This is also, I think, the motivation behind much of the “JQ” discourse on the right; Jews can be portrayed as an all-powerful enemy, against which we defenseless whites are fighting an impossible uphill battle which we can only win through a herculean effort. “Feel bad for us! We, too, know what it is like to suffer systemic discrimination against our rapacious racial overlords! It’s not faaiiiiir!” However, for a lot of white people, feeling like a victim just doesn’t come naturally to them at all. They look at the history of European man and think, “You know, seems like we’re pretty fucking awesome. Whatever minor setbacks we’re suffering right now, it seems like we’ll get through it just fine. I like our chances.” And, historically speaking, that is a pretty damn astute assessment! The all-time scoreboard sure seems to back that up. There haven’t been a whole lot of limits or setbacks that we’ve faced in the past that we haven’t been able to overcome with some ingenuity and some elbow grease; why should something like collapsing fertility rates be any different? The only way we lose is if we beat ourselves, and we can choose to start winning again at any time once we put our mind to it.
This is, I think, a far healthier mindset than the doom-and-gloom, woe-is-me, why-won’t-the-Jews-stop-picking-on-me mindset that so alienates @FiveHourMarathon. Our problems are real, but they’re ones that we ourselves created, and they’re ones that we ourselves -and only ourselves - can fix. We haven’t even begun to conquer the stars yet - how are we going to let ourselves get bogged down by such comparatively quotidian setbacks? We only lose if we keep tying both hands behind our backs - all we have to do is untie them!
I don’t know, I’ve been sick with the flu all week and I might just be deliriously rambling. I’ve been ingesting a lot of blackpills as of late, so this line of thinking is a useful whitepill to counteract their toxic effects.
...There's a lot here, but I'm kinda done with the alt-right/WN arguments after the last couple threads, so I'll leave it at noting that this entire thread is the rhetorical equivalent of a giant, killer-asteroid-sized billboard painted with the words " @HlynkaCG 's thesis about the alt-right is indisputably correct."
I mean, I’m not really interested in picking a fight with Hlynka or with taking unprovoked potshots at his worldview, but it can simultaneously be true that 1. he has accurately identified that both the far-right and far-left have converged on a recognition that identity politics are valuable and that classical liberalism is a failed project, and 2. his proposed solution - “and that’s why everybody should be a Reaganite conservative who Doesn’t See Color™️ and worships at the altar of Martin Luther King, ‘content of their character’ yada yada yada” - is a total non sequitur and doesn’t even begin to address the actual reality we’re facing.
The thesis I was referencing is that WNs and alt-righters are, in fact, Blues applying a fundamentally Blue worldview. You are jointly your own closest brothers and worst enemies.
If I can say to you, "A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing", and mean it, live by it, raise my children and build my community by it, what does any of the above or below have to entice me? The standard response is that Christianity has failed... delivered, generally, by people who willingly chose to abandon the faith of their fathers to embrace an alien and alienating worldview, and refuse to let it go.
Your post honestly deserves a more detailed response than that, but this, to me, is the core of the issue: You're looking for a banner to rally behind, but you've rejected the most proven banner known to man because it's incompatible with fundamental elements of the Blue worldview, which you still hold. Meanwhile, the Reds that comprise most of the people you're trying to rally have no interest in the alternative banners you offer, because they recognize their fundamentally Blue nature.
Right, this is all well and fair, and I don’t disagree with much of it. Where I differ from you and Hlynka is that I don’t actually believe Red and Blue are true enemies. They’re two complementary halves of a syncretic whole - two equally-valuable parallel strains of the European psyche, which function best when they can strengthen each other by checking each other’s worst impulses. They’re the two components of a Babble & Prune machine, cyclically working in ostensible conflict in order to ensure long-term mutual success. The fact that Red and Blue are locked into what appears to be an existential conflict is due to a complicated mix of factors, which have been discussed to death here already, but in the long run both must succeed equally for European man to continue in the next step of his cosmic journey.
...and I reject this as just more "blue propaganda", specifically an unwillingness to accept the possibility that someone can be both "smart" and "wrong". One of the core tenents of the whole blue tribe memeplex is that behavior and morality exist completely independently of the other. It doesn't whether a man is a hard worker or a good father, what matters is what he thinks and what he feels. You see the alt-right and woke-left as having both recognized the value of identity politics. I see them as having been bitten by the same zombie.
Users like @Lepidus, and @SecureSignals like to talk about how the wokes' primary loyalty is to the black race and other such nonsense, but I find it difficult to see how any reasonable person someone could look at their rhetoric or behavior and come to that conclusion. It seems obvious to me that their primary loyalty (if one can call it that) is to politics. The reason guys like @the_nybbler and @kulakrevolt keep asking me questions like "what is the value you of your rule if it brings you to this?" is that they are so deeply embedded in their own blue tribe backgrounds that they don't know the answer to "what is the point of being a good man if it won't get you ahead in politics" and my reply is simply "to hell with politics". One of the most intelligent and true things EY ever said was that politics is the brain killer, and cynically that is why rationalists seem to be so obsessed with it.
The rest can be summarized as "what @FCfromSSC said" but only because they did a damn good job of summarizing things I've already said elsewhere.
er, clearly hoffmeister and some of the alt-right believe that e.g. the libs and (for the alt-right) jews are both very smart (given both technical achievements and cultural influence) and wrong.
... both the alt-right and probably hoffmeister value "hard work" and "being a good father". Did this idea come from the left accusing people of being racist, and racism is a "think and feel" instead of a "behavior"? But "blue tribe morality" prescribe plenty of behaviors such as giving to the poor (note all the blue-tribe charitable foundations).
The value of being a 'good man' is always something though! "Being a hard worker" is valuable in that that work produces something useful for people. "Being a good father" is valuable in that it helps raise children! If you're 'being a good father' in a way that isn't helping a child, or "working hard" as a MLM marketer, you're not actually "being good". (this suggests that "being good" isn't an informative statement itself, that one needs to point to the actual thing being done). Those people are saying that the thing you're doing isn't actually accomplishing the thing you're claiming it is.
Unless I'm failing badly to understand you (which is possible), you seem to have completely failed to grasp the point @HlynkaCG is making here. No, things like working hard or being a good father aren't valuable because they produce good things. They are valuable in and of themselves. Even if you live on an island by yourself, working hard is good. Even if you knew for a fact that your children would die tomorrow, doing your best to raise them today is good.
You seem to be doing this thing I see a lot in this forum, where consequentialists advance a consequentialist argument for a virtue and think that they have understood their interlocutors' thinking. But every time I see that it's incorrect, because the consequentialists fail to grasp that their interlocutor simply does not care about the consequences as a reason for doing good things.
I don't agree with everything that @HlynkaCG said (for example, I do think that you can be a moral failure and still have true and valuable insights about other areas of life), but he's spot on about one thing. The reason to be a good man (or woman) isn't because it gets you anything. It just doesn't matter if you lose some culture war, or even a real war, because you stuck to your principles. What matters is that you stuck to your principles.
I'm directly arguing against that point. Also, I know I'm carelessly trampling all over hundreds of years of vigorously debated philosophy, and this is a massive tangent, but it seems to be a big part of hiynka's issue with blue-tribers.
What is working hard, and what is being a good father? These ideas are derived from attempts to benefit society or one's kin, or accomplish greatness, or something. If one looks at someone clicking away at league of legends, even if they're trying very hard to click, or someone who's working very hard at applying makeup properly to attract a mate - this isn't "hard work", because it's not benefitting society or yourself. Playing league or doing makeup well are somewhat mechanically challenging, take patience and knowledge, and aren't obviously less so than working as a janitor. The only thing that really distinguishes someone 'hard at work' on a tough, soft task like writing, from someone lazily arguing on the internet, are the usefulness, or interestingness, of the output! Same goes for 'being a good father' - what makes a "good father" still requires the """consequentialist""" judgement of what actually benefits the child! If a father, to benefit their child, feeds them bleach to "clean out parasites" ... are they being a good father? No. Replace bleach with ivermectin, assuming the right kind of parasite, and yes. Similarly if instead of bleach, it's 1700 and the child is fed some poisonous healing brew that isn't "obviously bad" in society's eyes. Saying these particular categories are "valuable in and of themselves" still makes most of the same consequentialist value judgements, with all the latent complexity, just hidden behind socially-claimed sanction.
The idea is - i think - if you care about consequences over 'process', then you become corrupted by power / unrestrained / an evil leftist, and therefore, the argument goes, forget about the actual good things - i.e. consequentialistly pursuing "lots of good people" turns you into the progressive EA who forgets about his children and community. And to avoid this, we'll say "there are Goods - real moral actions you need to follow, that you can't reason around"! The problem is this still posits various ... good things, that are, purely observationally, justified by their consequences (your children and family are unhappy, your society collapses from deracination and lack of purpose), which are the 'principles you need to stick to' - but the complexity of causation means you can lose those goods too! The person 'sticking to their principles' is doing so because they're arguing those principles do maintain the children and family and society in a way the consequentialist doesn't, and that the progressive consequentialist, by abandoning them, gets confused or corrupted by power and forgets what's good - the issue is that saying 'there is a Good' doesn't make the goals of said 'Goods' go away - the children and society still physically exist, it's still worth actually helping your child, and when that conflicts with your list-of-virtuous-actions and you follow the Virtuous Action and your child learns less or your society collapses, nothing was gained! And progressives aren't failing because they forgot to follow the restrained-list-of-goods and were too rational, it's because they genuinely believe different values are Good and follow those!
But those principles are clearly and obviously there to achieve certain ends! If you follow your principle of "working hard" but your hard work is as an accountant in the Progressive Eugenics Department - or what if you're a subcontractor, and you just work at Ernst & Ernst, you just happen to notice you're doing accounting for the PED - or you are a "good father" in that you indoctrinate your child into the Blue Tribe, like the rest of your community does ... and how can you even know this isn't "working hard" or "being a good father" without tracing out the physical consequences of those actions?
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