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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37943 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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Can Conservatism assimilate the Dissident Right?

Recently Matt Walsh, conservative commentator from the Daily Wire, had a monologue on white identity that was basically word-for-word pulled from DR standard fare.

Conservatives have long used the "Democrats are the Real Racists" retort, which is an easy target for the DR to mock and differentiate itself from conservatism with a more radical viewpoint that has a stronger force of truth. Only very recently has "anti-white" migrated from DR to Conservative lexicon in its denunciations of progressivism. But this clip goes much further than both and does seem to indicate a sliding window on acceptable thought around race within the Conservative movement. It starts with rhetoric that you've probably heard from conservatives before, but it moves into territory that you do not see from conservatives, and this is clearly a scripted monologue rather than off-the-cuff comment. The end of the clip explains:

Black and brown can and should have a sense of racial identity, white must not- I mean that's the rule. It's why segregation can be promoted and instated as policy but only to give non-whites their special spaces, never to do the same for whites. Because to do the same would be to acknowledge the existence of white people as a group and to give that group permission to care about its own wellbeing.

The "Democrats are the Real Racists" (DR3) rhetoric is essentially a complaint of progressive hypocrisy in an effort to discredit progressive concern over racial issues and progressivism's own crypto race-essentialism which Hlynka equates with the DR.

Conservatism has traditionally used progressive hypocrisy on race in order to denounce progressive racial advocacy. The DR uses progressive hypocrisy over race to advocate for white identity. But I think Walsh's monologue here indicates a potential conservative assimilation of the DR position. It could be said that Walsh does not directly endorse white identity, but he describes it in positive terms that are exactly what you would read within the DR. His monologue here is clearly more in the DR ethos of using progressive framing of racial conflict in order to provide rational justification for white identity: "... Because to do the same would be to acknowledge the existence of white people as a group and to give that group permission to care about its own wellbeing" is essentially an endorsement of white identity rather than a typical conservative denunciation of racial identity altogether.

Particularly in the past 15 years, if you were a young conservative or libertarian or something and basically came to the conclusions of Matt Walsh without hearing those words ever be said by anyone in the conservative establishment, where would you gravitate to? The circles where you'll be handed Culture of Critique, circles where Nietzsche is looked to rather than John Locke or Milton Friedman, circles where WW-II and Holocaust Revisionism that would make a conservative faint is conventional wisdom.

It's possible, and potentially a threat to the DR, if Conservative Inc were able to assimilate an overtly pro-white platform into its rhetoric and ideology. One thing that is inseparable from identity, and is the primary reason why white identity has been taboo since the end of the war, is the friend and enemy distinction. If the Daily Wire for example were able to be the outlet for pro-white inclinations in the conservative movement, then it would also have much greater power in framing the friend and the enemy with the traditional shibboleths rather than losing those people to radicalization. Think of Rush Limbaugh, who could constantly lambast the Drive By Media and Hollywood to build credibility in order to ultimately keep everyone on the reservation.

It's not sustainable for the Conservative movement to completely ignore and denounce white identity. They have to acknowledge it eventually if they want to avoid being eclipsed by a more radical movement that offers that bundled with a lot more radical thinking. They do need to figure out how to assimilate white identity and advocacy with conservatism, and if they do that effectively then the DR is going to lose an important monopoly which has driven many to that sphere. Walsh's monologue here is an indication that this is likely going to happen.

It's not sustainable for the Conservative movement to completely ignore and denounce white identity. They have to acknowledge it eventually if they want to avoid being eclipsed by a more radical movement that offers that bundled with a lot more radical thinking.

You're totally right when you say that it isn't sustainable for the Conservative moment to completely ignore and denounce white identity. Failure to integrate those perspectives and deal with the sources of pain and frustration that fuel them is going to be the end of the Conservative movement.

They do need to figure out how to assimilate white identity and advocacy with conservatism, and if they do that effectively then the DR is going to lose an important monopoly which has driven many to that sphere. Walsh's monologue here is an indication that this is likely going to happen.

But this is where your statement goes wrong - they are not going to effectively do that because their entire raison d'ĂȘtre is to make sure that the DR does not gain power and their ideas remain at the fringes of political discourse. The conservative moment will only change when the human infrastructure of the movement's nervous system is ripped out and replaced with people who are at the very least DR sympathetic.

I despair reading this. But the antidote to White identity - and woke identity - is likely Christian universalism. Hell (so to speak), even Muslims are not hung up on race, save for the Black Muslim heretics, an American phenomenon. They too are a colorblind universalist doctrine.

even Muslims are not hung up on race,

I've heard different claims - that e.g. Arabs look down on Turks, Malay and Indonesian Muslims and non-Arabic speakers in general, despite objectively speaking those latter groups are seen as more sympathetic and seem to be doing better on most metrics.

Universalism, Christian or otherwise, fails against racial identity. As long as blacks hold to their racial identity, whites will be at a disadvantage holding to universalism. That's what the rise of "woke" (which was, after all, a term from the African American grievance community) demonstrates.

But not adhering to racial identity allows you to partner with others. Racial particularists wall themselves off from that possibility.

The non-white coalition sticks together just fine. Usually, anyway.

I think the more pertinent question is should we want to?

What do the woke-contrarians/dissident-right bring have to offer that's worth the risk of lowering our memetic defenses to bring them in?

What do the woke-contrarians/dissident-right bring have to offer that's worth the risk of lowering our memetic defenses to bring them in?

It's like you're saying "The gates will hold!" when the enemy is already breaching the keep. What memetic defenses do you speak of? It's clear that white people have no memetic defenses against the organized group behavior of others. That's the entire point.

The DR provides an evolutionarily-proven strategy for establishing memetic defenses.

evolutionarily-proven

White Identitarianism seems to have failed in all prior cases.

An answer to the woke that's not "Let's keep retreating and maybe eventually they'll be satisfied".

There are other answers that do the same though.

I haven't seen one. Actual equality under the law doesn't work; the woke side will always win by demonstrating blacks are worse off and playing on sense of justice and sympathy to demand preferential treatment.

There's a great deal more that conservatives could try doing before they resort to "actually, we need to think about ourselves as White people". They seem reluctant to stoop to the tactics of their enemies, but if they did, I don't think it's obvious they would still lose.

"Actually, we need to think about ourselves as White people" IS stooping to the tactics of their enemies.

Right, I should clarify. When I say tactics, I mean that which is roughly agnostic of ideology. Conservatives could, for example, ban that which they dislike without changing what they believe. For example, the New College thing in Florida where they put aligned people on the board of a progressive college. There has been long discussion about the "Long March on the Institutions", this is just a more blatant version of that.

Building race-aligned coalitions is also tactics. The New College thing is going nowhere anyway; the left knows all about the long march and they're not going to let it happen to them.

More comments

Reading this instantly made me think of Clausewitz: either you believe your position to be an advancing one or you're banking on future provenance alone. The presumption is that the faltering side seeks to bring in new allies.

Who's faltering though? From the perspective of the mainstream right its the left that's on the backfoot. For the last 8 - 10 years we have been winning on gun control, winning on abortion, winning on school choice/religious freedom. Our claims about the covid lockdowns and the perfidity of the technocratic class are in the process of being vidicated. And while the battles over immigration and the trans issue continue they but remain undecided.

When rationalists complain about the "crisis in sense making" what they're really noticing is that the ability of progressive gate keepers in academia and the media to project power has been crushed, thier credibility eliminated. They dont know what to make of a world where claims of superior intelligence and education are met with a disdain rather than deference

Contrary to users like @SecureSignals and @The_Nybbler I do not see the progressive movement's rising aggression and shrillness as evidence of strength, just the opposite infact, i see it as a product of evaporative cooling. They were supposed to have already won, and the fact that not only have they not won but that they are slowly getting pushed back on several fronts is making the "true believers" among them desperate.

Who's faltering though? From the perspective of the mainstream right its the left that's on the backfoot.

I want you to be right. I can even see a few fronts where the tide seems to be turning, but I think you're going a bit far with your triumphalism. They only seem on the backfoot relative to the speed at which they've been making gains.

For the last 8 - 10 years we have been winning on gun control

I'll defer to your expertise, but is it actually easier to get a gun than it was 8-10 years ago?

winning on abortion

Granted.

winning on school choice/religious freedom.

Teachers/students at religious schools are being fired/suspended for not following tenets of progressive ideology that directly contradict their religion. If you suggested that 10 years ago people would call that slippery slope, or an uncharitable strawman.

Our claims about the damage of covid lockdows and the perfidity of the technocrats class have been vidicated.

Yes, but no one but you/us cares.

Meanwhile the battles over immigration and the trans issue are continue but remain from decided.

Funny, the trans issue is where I see the tide turning.

When rationalists complain about the "crisis in sense making" what they're really noticing is that the ability of progressive gate keepers in academia and the media to project power has been crushed

We just got out of a worldwide lockdown they decided to impose. It's possible they won't be able to do something like that again soon, but a reprieve from the greatest show of force that I can remember is not what I'd call getting crushed.

thier credibility eliminated.

"Eliminated" might be too strong a word, but mostly granted. Even the Klaus Schwab Gang is whinging about it.

They were supposed to have already won, and the fact that not only have they not won but that they are slowly getting pushed back on several fronts is making them desperate.

There's truth to that. In fact, people like SecureSignals, The_Nybbler, and me might have our characters tested soon. I have a feeling that, if you're right, the powers that be might put away Wokeness and start pandering to people like us again, and we'll have to show if we learned anything from all this.

For the last 8 - 10 years we have been winning on gun control

LOL. In red states, you've got constitutional carry; that at least is real. In blue states there used to be "no carry" or "may issue".... and now there's carry permits that have so many carveouts that you can't actually carry, and anyway there's a super-long backlog to apply. Not to mention in blue states there are still permits to purchase which are hard to get. Some "right to keep and bear arms"! On the Federal level there are still import bans, machine guns remain banned, suppressors remain difficult to obtain legally, there's the new bump stock ban, the new pistol brace ban, there remains the ban on interstate transfer of firearms. There's red flag laws passed at state levels (and including red states) and encouraged by the Biden administration. There's bans which can be triggered by an ex parte restraining order, bans which apply to "domestic violence misdemeanors" (ex post facto of course), etc.

That's not winning. That's a mixed result. It only looks like winning because of the rout in so many other areas.

When rationalists complain about the "crisis in sense making" what they're really noticing is that the ability of progressive gate keepers in academia and the media to project power has been crushed, thier credibility eliminated.

Not so. COVID proved otherwise. People may say they don't trust the media or whoever, but they'll fall right in line with whatever the gatekeepers say anyway.

What do you actually hope to get from a right that embraces white identity? I understand that DR often think mainstream conservatives just dont take anti-white progressives seriously enough, but if e.g. Rufo just maximally succeded, what do you think would be missing?

What do you actually hope to get from a right that embraces white identity?

It's simple- look at the political and cultural power other ethnic groups enjoy by organizing along ethnic lines and fiercely advocating for their group. That's what I want. Why? Because it's necessary, and without it you just lose. You only really need to open your eyes to see all that power that comes with organizing around ethnic and racial identity, it shouldn't be a mystery so to why I would want white people to embrace that. It's very powerful, I don't want a state of affairs where this behavior is taboo for white people but encouraged for people who are hostile to white people.

It's simple- look at the political and cultural power other ethnic groups enjoy by organizing along ethnic lines and fiercely advocating for their group.

I think in the modern context this success is almost entirely down to the authorities humoring them. US blacks are not such a threat that the government has to make all these concessions to them, they could absolutely turn it off if they wanted to. China does that sort of thing all the time. The "concessions" are things the elites already wanted to do. I mean, a lot of those organisations doing the "fierce advocacy" arent even run by black people. Their ethnic power is a kayfabe for progressives.

You have it backwards- progressivism is a kayfabe for ethnic power, and always has been, from the moment it emerged from Universities. That's what the DR is conscious of. You are describing a sort of bio-leninism that is also consistent with that conclusion where, sure, blacks could be disenfranchised at the drop of a hat if that were desired. But it isn't. What is desired is their allegiance with a façade of "inclusion and equity" that masks what is in actuality ethnic hostility.

When the ADL puts enormous pressure at the highest levels of power to "Stop Hate", is that progressivism masquerading as ethnic power, or is it ethnic power masquerading as progressive morality?

When the ADL puts enormous pressure at the highest levels of power to "Stop Hate", is that progressivism masquerading as ethnic power, or is it ethnic power masquerading as progressive morality?

But I think you will agree that the ADL didnt get its power from "fierce advocacy". The advocacy and the being-persuaded-by-it are fake. My point is that "doing identity politics" suggests a pretty specific plan of action: You want to be very loud about how your group is treated badly, maybe have an organisation dedicated to that, make an ethnic voting block, etc. But those parts are kayfabe, they dont actually make you win. Now, maybe you mean something else by it, but if so its pretty prone to misunderstandings, because I still cant tell what it would be after rereading your comments with the assumption that its there.

It may be powerful, but is it a power which results in a stronger, healthier, and better nation?

I personally much prefer a nation which organizes along a shared ethic, not ethnic line.

It's very powerful, I don't want a state of affairs where this behavior is taboo for the labor class but encouraged for people who are hostile to the labor class.

Yes, I absolutely think this power ends up ruining any nation over time. The selfishness of the Labor class might be bad news, but at least that selfishness is productive; the selfishness of the Capital class is zero-sum and is only ever destructive.

Traditionally, it's only kept in check by sufficiently powerful cultural competitors (who need the average man to defend them lest they be led away in chains), but those competitors no longer exist. And there's scarce few ways to break out of it compared to 100 years ago given significant economic opportunities have allowed to be enclosed by capital.

Racial animus in the US is downstream of class animus (capital vs. labor). This is why the capital class needs racial animus running interference.

I personally much prefer a nation which organizes along a shared ethic, not ethnic line.

The two may not be separable, at least not sustainably so. Large multiethnic states in history were run autocratically and left cultural enclaves alone within reason. Enforcing and maintaining an ethical union over diverse peoples, as the late Roman or Russians discovered, is a divisive and purge-filled affair that possibly leads to your state shattering into a million little pieces. Some believed liberalism was the master-ethic to would coordinate a state with multiple ethnicities. And yet it's only really worked in quite homogenous countries, with the possible, interesting exception of India. You introduce liberalism to country with tribes, and democracy become a mechanism for tribal looting.

Visible ethnic diversity in the USA has been increasing. What do we see? Reparations and DEI (looting) and an increasing number of people fracturing ideologically. How's our ethical union going?

Either (a) Hispanics and Asians dissolve with the American "whites" like Italians and Germans did with the WASPs, forming a spliced ethnicity where no one really knows what tribe they belong to — "I'm 50% English, 30% French, 15% Irish, 5% German" — or (b) the whole thing is going to segfault.

I think the response from people who agree with SecureSignals would be that you have to work with the situation you have. Using the same tactics as your opponent is defect-defect, but better than defect-cooperate where you cooperate.

It's not just up to Conservatives, or even the "dissident right".

If the country supports legal discrimination against a group, it has no choice but to organize politically along that group line.

The politics don't matter, the issues don't matter, all that matters is who gets to denigrate who, and the who getting denigrated has to band together and become single-issue voters to be able to survive. So long as the left is the anti-white party, the right will have to be by default the "white party". Surely those who talk so much about "structures" should be able to see the obvious conflict.

The main difference between the MR and the DR is the racial narrative, so they can probably be expected to merge if DR race narrative goes mainstream.

DR, in general, is also not very hot on things like democracy and female franchise, meanwhile, the MR seemingly worships it and idolises women.

This makes them less tactful but not very different from hardliner social conservatives, who have a definite place in the mainstream right.

If the racial narrative really were to go mainstream it seems to me that the far more likely outcome is that the "Dissident-Right" ends getting reabsorbed into the mainstream democratic party as the two parties return to their historical roles with the Democrats being the party of "racial discrimination is good and constitutional" vs the Republicans as the party of "we hold these truths to be self-evident."

the two parties return to their historical roles with the Democrats being the party of "racial discrimination is good and constitutional" vs the Republicans as the party of "we hold these truths to be self-evident."

Oh absolutely, only this time the Dems will be supporting discrimination against whites.

They don't need to "reconcile" just recognize eachother as allies of convenience like baptists and bootleggers. If Group A wants discrimination based on race to be legal, Group B wants discrimination based on race to be legal, and Group C wants it to be illegal, there will be pressure for groups A and B to vote together.

Huh?

The whole reason for the existence of the MR is to marginalize and suppress the DR. If the MR is incapable of being a decisive political force and assuming power, as in the Weimar Republic for example, there's always the spectre of a DR takeover. The farthest the MR is willing to go is expropriating and repackaging some DR ideas like stricter border control etc. to the extent it's absolutely necessary to keep the DR politically marginalized. (Or so I've heard from some liberal normies, as an accusation.)

I don’t see DR and MR (Mainstream Right, I like the theme here btw) as oppositional. As someone who has been reading DR’s notes for a decade now, DRs have always loved when MRs started listening to their prognoses and advice. When Trump entered the scene, DRs rejoiced that he called attention to problems at the border and made implied comments on white identity. It’s often forgotten that the DR meme machine is what pushed Trump into the MR, implicitly coordinated around /pol/, Reddit, and Twitter. The “Real Enemy” (RNs) knew this, which is why they botswarmed /pol/ and deleted any plausible DR Reddit community while catastrophizing DRs and dis-uniting the Right, to prevent a repeat of the hype train. Whenever a MR comes closer to DR, DRs love it. Whenever MRS (mainstream right spaces) allow for more DR talk, DRs love it.

Part of this is that DRs have next to no real organizational capacity. They are more of an idea generator than a startup hub. (Side note: the fact that this isn’t a fair fight is lost on many DRs, who surprisingly cling to a lost moral code of actually trying to tell the truth. The mainstream does not think “how can I tell the truth about the DR”, neither do they think “what is the worst thing DR has said.” They think from consequent to antecedent, which is what we saw during the Jewish “day of hate hoax”, only utilizing truth when it enhances the potency of the propaganda. 99% of their focus is “what story or spectacle will persuade someone given what I know about the frailty of human psychology”, with the remaining 1% ensuring that they are not lying so obviously that their house of cards crumbles. DR’s are sitting there trying to tell people about the statistically correct FBI stats, correcting people who exaggerated them, and so forth, always being meticulous in data because they are mostly autistic and neurotic and analytical men. They have no skill in propaganda generation, by and large, and don’t even realize that they are supposed to do it.)

Side note: the fact that this isn’t a fair fight is lost on many DRs, who surprisingly cling to a lost moral code of actually trying to tell the truth.

I don't think this is a good characterisation of the DR position here. They aren't clinging to a moral code of trying to tell the truth - they perceive telling the truth as one of the weapons that are actually available to them. They can't rely on speaking power to truth as the MR/ML can, and their ideas actually have to stand on their own without the backing of the mainstream. "That person is lying to you for their own personal gain - here's the actual truth they don't want you to know" is a powerful opener for propaganda, especially when the person saying it is actually correct.

DRs have next to no real organizational capacity. They are more of an idea generator than a startup hub.

Technically true but I want to provide a bit more context. The reason that the DR has next to no real organizational capacity is that any DR organization which forms is immediately infiltrated, crushed and prosecuted by existing power structures. In many countries, forming a DR group is explicitly illegal, and in the vast majority of others it will get you immediately added to governmental watchlists.

DR’s are sitting there trying to tell people about the statistically correct FBI stats, correcting people who exaggerated them, and so forth, always being meticulous in data because they are mostly autistic and neurotic and analytical men. They have no skill in propaganda generation, by and large, and don’t even realize that they are supposed to do it.

This is the exact opposite of reality. The DR is the most effective propaganda outlet in the modern world - their memes and culture have completely colonised the gaming spaces occupied by the youth, their ideas shape popular conversations and their memes are so ubiquitous that they have in many cases become indistinguishable from regular internet culture. They can create ideas like the OK hand signal and milk being white supremacist dogwhistles and have the legacy media take them entirely seriously and broadcast their claims. They created "It's ok to be white", a scheme which caused a lot of nastier people on the left to drop the mask in a way that got a lot of normal people noticing. They don't just know that they're supposed to do it - they obsess over creating memes, "meming" things and repeatedly testing their ideas and messaging amongst themselves for maximum virality, creating entire internet subcultures devoted to spreading their ideas. They played such a large role in the election of Trump that a lot of forces on the left and MR immediately started attacking the major tech companies in order to do everything they could to make that collaboration less successful and less powerful - to say nothing of instances like the prosecution of Douglas Mackey.

They don't just know that they're supposed to do it

Or in other words, they're counting coup- Kiwifarms vs. Keffals and co. is how I'd expect that to look.

creating entire internet subcultures devoted to spreading their ideas

If it looks like a liberal and quacks like a liberal it's... probably a liberal. They're disproportionately dissident anyway when in a political situation that doesn't favor them- it's probably an evolutionary strategy to be sufficiently indispensable that the progressive-traditionalists can't fire them. These people just tend to create things because it's, for lack of a better word, in them to create; hacker culture used to be like this and, when you look at what the forefront is (used to be tech in general, but it's more limited to ML now), still very much is.

Once you figure out that traditionalists and progressives are just fighting over the temporary allegiances of these people- remember that, while the left can't meme, neither can the right (without the liberals)- political dynamics make more sense. It's just a pendulum; when dominated by traditionalists, play progressive, when dominated by progressives, play traditionalist.

The DR isn’t really a thing though outside of the ideas it sneaks into the mainstream. Unless Moldbug has a special forces dimes square project that I’m unaware of, there’s not much else it can/is willing to do to have any real influence.

This isn’t exactly what winning looks like. But it’s at least not loosing.

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