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PaperclipPerfector  14d ago (text post)   25371 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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I've noticed the alt-right (specifically the Richard Spencer wing) is blaming Christianity for cucking Whites and making them accept non-whites in their country. To me this isn't even close to being true and can be dismissed outright as nonsense.

We know from genetics that modern Europeans separated from sub saharan African 30 to 40 thousand years ago. We also know that Western Europeans didn't have any meaningful contact with Blacks until the 15th century when Portugal "discovered" West Africa during the Age of Exploration. By accepting this, we can see that Western Europe has had over 500 years of contact with Blacks.

I've specifically been looking into England, but the same is true for other nations. The highest count of non-whites I can find on Google Scholar recently is 2.6% in 1951. Interestingly, 2.2% of those 2.6% were first generation immigrants. This is by far the highest I've seen with other estimates putting it close to 99%.

So at this point, we have pretty clear data that when Europe was Christian (and America), there was almost 0 non-white immigration to Europe. We also know places like France put in racist laws like Code Noir that explicitly put Whites at the top of the social hierarchy.

When we look at when this changed, it was really the 1960's. But at this point, Christianity was starting to decline due to science and especially Darwin (and in my opinion became obviously not true). The increased immigration and anti-racist views correlates with Christianity's decline, so the idea that Christianity having everyone's soul being equal can be equally dismissed. In fact, I would argue the pro non-white immigration came from the secular left or if you want to argue it's the right neoliberalism. I see zero evidence of this that Richard Spencer and his allies argue to be true. In fact, the evidence shows the complete opposite.

They're saying that ideas latent in Christianity, deeper currents that Christianity just represents an early emanation of - caring more for the downtrodden, poor, and weak than the strong, caring more about peace and salvation than greatness and power - are to blame for 'cucking Whites'. And that returning to Christianity won't solve that core problem. So this doesn't rebut their argument at all.

No they are saying Christianity leads to being a cuck. There is a direct line from Christianity to what we have today. A clear cause and effect. But of course we know that's not true given things like the savagery of the Christianity of the Franks or the Spanish Inquisitions. And despite the fact that they could have mass imported nonwhites, they clearly didn't or see it as desirable. They were much more racially conscious than we are now. Many also claim that Christianity was created by Jews to control Whites. They consider it a cucked foreign religion imposed on them by Jews to supplant the true Pagan religions of Europeans.

Many also claim that Christianity was created by Jews to control Whites.

How would that even work? The Jews (who back then would not have been under any genetic pressure to be cleverer than similar societies) develop Psychohistory a la Asimov around 100-30 BCE, see that they will eventually annoy their eventual Roman occupiers enough that they will destroy the Second Temple, and while they can not prevent that (e.g. by trying to rebel less against Roman rule) because reasons (???), they can at least sow the seeds of their revenge. They create Christianity as a memetic superweapon and task their Agent Jesus with spreading it. For three centuries Christianity survives in the underground before finally Constantine converts (exactly as planned!), leading (as per a straw-Gibbon) to the inevitable decline and fall. (Ok, East Rome managed to hang on a bit longer despite being 'handicapped' by Christianity. And the slave mindset of Christianity did not prevent Europe to colonize most of the world. Details, details.)

Of course, in this silly fantasy history the target of the memetic weapon would still be the Roman Empire, not the descendants of various Mediterranean and barbarian states who would eventually self-identify as Whites. To get to that point one would have to go totally batshit crazy with the plot. Like "Evil reptiloid aliens give the Jews time travel technology" or something.

I can see it as a vibe.

Jesus was Jewish, or of Jewish heritage. His goal was to spread a better cultural way to the gentiles, and also his own people.

This is 'control' in the sense that culture is the opposite of maximal chaos. Normally we make a distinction between benevolent consensual forms of control and malicious manipulative forms of control. But if you squint- there are similarities. Both are ways in which social reality is forged. Both are methods of implanting your 'way' into other people.

And if you feel that Christianity has harmed you- You might recast Christianity's origins in that light. ... And I can see how post hoc ahistorical arguments might be born from that vibe too. Does anyone know of an argument of this sort that seems well historically reasoned going back as far as Jesus? I will be pleasantly surprised.

I haven't looked too much into it because it's clearly not true and can be dismissed, but one of the guys Richard Spencer has been promoting is Adam Green who in my opinion is insane. I've also seen him promote this book: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Hoax-Pauls-Fooled-Thousand/dp/B0CHX1XV68

Honestly... If Jesus only existed in the hearts and minds of the apostles, unkillable in the way that an Idea is.
I'm sure a lot of people would be very upset.
But personally I would not find that to be any less divine.

You can’t silence the truth, you can’t kill us in a way that matters.

Many also claim that Christianity was created by Jews to control Whites. They consider it a cucked foreign religion imposed on them by Jews to supplant the true Pagan religions of Europeans.

I invite these people to study the history of Jewish-Christian relations.

I got banned from one of their substacks for pointing this out. There is a guy who Richard Spencer and other DR people have endorsed name Adam Green who pushes this line of thinking and is pretty popular.

You are not "steelmanning" the anti-Christian reactionary argument, which would be something like, "Christianity's inherently egalitarian and destructive elements were held in check by the natural ethnocentrism and aristocratic spirit of Europeans, but eventually the poisonous seed flowered, and resulted in democracy, socialism, egalitarianism, etc." The question to ask would not be "were Christian Europeans Based™?" but "Were Christian Europeans more or less Based™" than they would have been in a counterfactual where Europe was never Christianized.

Their argument makes no sense though. We have 1,700 years of Christianity in Europe where they were "based" and about 60 years of being "cucked". Clearly something else happened. The sexual revolution, racism being unacceptable, mass immigration all happened at the same time. Are we to believe that Christianity caused this and it was all leading up to this? Or did other things change? This is a time of secularization (especially in the youth) and also coincides with the rise of new age religions. So as Christianity falls, what they would call degeneracy rises? It's simply a just so story. It's unfalsifiable. But you can come up with just as compelling of theories (and I would argue more) that say the opposite.

How can you be pro-White if you are anti-Christian not only in the present but in the past? That is part of the history of almost all white people. Almost all of the great European men they admire were Christian or influenced by it greatly. But that's the thing. They actually don't like white people. If you listen to their podcasts or read their writing, they actually have nothing for disdain from them. To them white people aren't really people but an idea. If they actually had to spend some time around actual normal whites, they would and do hate it. That one guy that used to be a mod is right about the fact that they are much more similar to white progressives than they are to Red Tribe whites in America or working class whites in Europe. The whites they imagine only exist in their head.

That one guy that used to be a mod is right about the fact that they are much more similar to white progressives than they are to Red Tribe whites in America or working class whites in Europe. The whites they imagine only exist in their head.

Wasn't that the original idea behind Scott's tribal classification? All of these DR people are Blue Tribe, of course they don't like or get along with actual Red Tribers.

There was a good thread around here about this a few weeks ago. A white nationalist moves to the Midwest and lives among only all-American whites. He despises them of course.

You'd think Midwesern whites were cattle in the form of men the way he describes it.

In 2018 I moved from a racially diverse swing state in the Sun Belt to a homogenous red state up in corn country. This decision was largely motivated by politics—I was looking to retreat to an imagined Hyperborea free of crime and degeneracy where my volk had political autonomy.

The next two years were the most miserable of my life. But they were also among the most instructive, and ultimately were what made me leave WN on an emotional level.

To put it bluntly, most of my white neighbors and coworkers basically resembled hobbits. They had no ambition to them, nor any aspirations of greatness. Nor did they think about the world in a dynamic way—the more educated among them certainly stayed informed about the wider world, but they largely took it for granted that their immediate universe was a static place where nothing would ever happen.

And the horrifying thing is that’s how they liked it.

I quickly discovered that Midwesterners had no sense of imperial destiny and “right to rule” like you see in New Yorkers, Texans, or Californians. They had nothing like the feisty Faustian individualism of Floridians or “fuck you” pride of Appalachians. They didn’t even have the air of faded glory and gothic tragedy you see in the Deep South. It was nothing but aggressively bland conformity everywhere you looked.

At this point I hope he moved back to his sunbelt home and found a good Mexican woman to marry. He certainly doesn't like (non-hispanic) white women.

He was one of the people I was thinking of when I wrote that. I actually listened to a podcast with him and Richard Spencer and this is when I realized that to be true. The funniest part is they hate people like Jared Taylor who actually advocates for white interests on a practical level instead aspirational Nietzsche white super men stuff that will never happen.

Im going to have to quote this post for my review of The Turner Diaries. "American whites are just mindless cattle, barely more human than blacks, and only the best of them are fit for redemption through revolutionary purging" is a literal quote from the heroes.

They actually don't like white people. If you listen to their podcasts or read their writing, they actually have nothing for disdain from them.

So very much this. IMO, it's one of their worst traits.

Sure, I might complain from time to time about the views of older "normie conservatives" — like my parents — but only in much the same way that I complain about my dad's tendency to reckless driving, or my mom's need to call me at random times to double-check her (basic) math. They're still my people, flaws and all. And yes, I'll take a Clarence Thomas, a Larry Elder, or a Ben Carson over a Richard Spencer any day.

Obviously something else happened! Industry, newspaper, modernity, computer. And yet. Is it so implausible that the prophet that spoke to the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden with love has something to do with progressivism? And is a break with "savagery"?

Again, I don't think I or @To_Mandalay are defending this viewpoint, but I've seen this perspective argued many times online. The argument is that for most of European modernity ancient philosophy, Greek and Roman texts, language, culture, architecture, aesthetics, poetry, theater and so on were core parts of the way young men of wealth and power were educated.

These texts obviously largely predated early modern Christian Europe, although the way they were interpreted did not. Even in the 19th century British imperial administrators learnt Latin and Greek (Classics), studied Classical Civilization, went on Grand Tours to see the remnants of Roman civilization and so on. They could quote Virgil and recite Greek aphorisms, and saw themselves in the tradition of their civilizations.

Therefore, as Mandalay says, the argument goes that even though they were (mostly) Christians, they retained some aspect of the pre-Christian or extra-Christian European identity, which held Christianity's egalitarian / slave morality aspects in check. As this faded by the mid 20th century, Christianity and its implications paradoxically or unexpectedly became more central to the way that elite culture imagined itself even though religious observance itself began to fade from the early 1960s.

Elite Christian culture adopted the Classical heritage before the Roman Empire even fell in the West, so the thing where British imperial administrators learned Latin and Greek and the Classics is just the same Christian tradition that sent them to listen to the softly spoken magic spell every Sunday.

Exactly. See Nietzsche's concept of slave morality as the basis for Christianity. The weak and oppressed are defined as good, simply because they are weak and oppressed. This is expressed by the symbol of Christ dying a martyr because he was oppressed by the Roman overlords.

I personally believe we are living in times times that are still incredibly Christian. The modern left is all about acceptance of even the most (previously) repulsing ideas. Whatever was not allowed before, is allowed now, simply because it was not allowed - meaning it was being oppressed. Another important Christian mantra is benevolence. One is supposed to be tolerant against other people, a word that is incidentally used a lot by the left today. Compassion and goodwill can be observed in the stance that the left has about Palestine: they are good simply because they are the oppressed (which is then underlayed by more empirical arguments of course, but this belief is the root of the idea).

While I know that saying "the left" is very unspecific, and there definitely are many counter points, I believe these convictions unite the left in its core and it is not a coincidence they are also present in Christianity.

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