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PaperclipPerfector  13d ago (text post)   25314 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.

The culture that these people all seem to want to “R E T V R N” to is pretty explicitly not just Christian, but Catholic, isn’t it?

The idea they are supposedly criticizing, that human beings have dignity, is not a “slave mentality”, it is the foundational idea behind ending the standard where the vast majority of humans were subjects of their King. Christianity is a liberating ideology at its very core.

Of all the dumb, grifting things that people like Richard Spencer have said, this is perhaps one of the dumbest. This puts him into the same category as people like Andrew Tate; just absolute luke warm IQ people who would be working some low intelligence job if it were not for social media.

The main problem is that these guys think that under the perfect 'no Christian egalitarian shit' system, they would be LORDS AND MASTERS.

They wouldn't. Best they could get, they'd be some kind of household staff dealing with running the kitchens and stores for the real LORDS AND MASTERS. Worst case? They'd be ground down into the dirt. "But I am so smart and big-brain!" "Yes, and I have big sword. Which of us wins this contest?"

The main problem is that these guys think that under the perfect 'no Christian egalitarian shit' system, they would be LORDS AND MASTERS.

This is a criticism that frequently gets levied against rightists. And there's some truth to it. Some people really are just greedy sociopaths without any principles.

In an authentic anti-egalitarian politics, it ultimately doesn't matter much who the master is. We might have our own preferences of course, very strong preferences, but the final bedrock commitment is: if not me, then someone. Please let someone be beautiful and happy and triumphant, even if I am not. This is a moral impulse, the fulcrum on which everything turns. It's what separates a rightist from a grifter.

I mean, I yield to no-one in my admiration for the 13th century, but these guys don't want the hierarchical orderly beauty of the Great Chain of Being, they want some imagined ideal Roman Empire where they're lolling around in togas being Great Thinkers and Masters of the Universe, while getting to order around their inferiors without all of that pesky nonsense about women and foreigners are also children of God. Where the strong do what they wish and the weak suffer what they must, and they imagine they would be the strong, of course. They're wrong, and what's even more is that they have no idea how much of what they want has been shaped by the influences of Christianised Western society for centuries, because it's the water these fish are swimming in.

Chesterton wrote about the dream of the ideal beauty and order of hierarchy, the temptation of it, and the way it can be subtly twisted to the wrong, in The Ball and the Cross, and it's a dream that tempts me because it appeals to my own instincts and what I find beautiful, but these types who sneer about 'slave morality' are not even strong enough to lose or humble enough to be proud; they seem to admire the same kind of show of strength that some gang boss in a grubby slum exhibits in a drive-by spray and pray:

As the flying ship swept round the dome he observed other alterations. The dome had been redecorated so as to give it a more solemn and somewhat more ecclesiastical note; the ball was draped or destroyed, and round the gallery, under the cross, ran what looked like a ring of silver statues, like the little leaden images that stood round the hat of Louis XI. Round the second gallery, at the base of the dome, ran a second rank of such images, and Evan thought there was another round the steps below. When they came closer he saw that they were figures in complete armour of steel or silver, each with a naked sword, point upward; and then he saw one of the swords move. These were not statues but an armed order of chivalry thrown in three circles round the cross. MacIan drew in his breath, as children do at anything they think utterly beautiful. For he could imagine nothing that so echoed his own visions of pontifical or chivalric art as this white dome sitting like a vast silver tiara over London, ringed with a triple crown of swords.

As they went sailing down Ludgate Hill, Evan saw that the state of the streets fully answered his companion's claim about the reintroduction of order. All the old blackcoated bustle with its cockney vivacity and vulgarity had disappeared. Groups of labourers, quietly but picturesquely clad, were passing up and down in sufficiently large numbers; but it required but a few mounted men to keep the streets in order. The mounted men were not common policemen, but knights with spurs and plume whose smooth and splendid armour glittered like diamond rather than steel. Only in one place—at the corner of Bouverie Street—did there appear to be a moment's confusion, and that was due to hurry rather than resistance. But one old grumbling man did not get out of the way quick enough, and the man on horseback struck him, not severely, across the shoulders with the flat of his sword.

“The soldier had no business to do that,” said MacIan, sharply. “The old man was moving as quickly as he could.”

“We attach great importance to discipline in the streets,” said the man in white, with a slight smile.

“Discipline is not so important as justice,” said MacIan.

The other did not answer.

Then after a swift silence that took them out across St. James's Park, he said: “The people must be taught to obey; they must learn their own ignorance. And I am not sure,” he continued, turning his back on Evan and looking out of the prow of the ship into the darkness, “I am not sure that I agree with your little maxim about justice. Discipline for the whole society is surely more important than justice to an individual.”

Evan, who was also leaning over the edge, swung round with startling suddenness and stared at the other's back.

“Discipline for society——” he repeated, very staccato, “more important—justice to individual?”

Then after a long silence he called out: “Who and what are you?”

“I am an angel,” said the white-robed figure, without turning round.

“You are not a Catholic,” said MacIan.

The other seemed to take no notice, but reverted to the main topic.

“In our armies up in heaven we learn to put a wholesome fear into subordinates.”

MacIan sat craning his neck forward with an extraordinary and unaccountable eagerness.

“Go on!” he cried, twisting and untwisting his long, bony fingers, “go on!”

“Besides,” continued he, in the prow, “you must allow for a certain high spirit and haughtiness in the superior type.”

“Go on!” said Evan, with burning eyes.

“Just as the sight of sin offends God,” said the unknown, “so does the sight of ugliness offend Apollo. The beautiful and princely must, of necessity, be impatient with the squalid and——”

“Why, you great fool!” cried MacIan, rising to the top of his tremendous stature, “did you think I would have doubted only for that rap with a sword? I know that noble orders have bad knights, that good knights have bad tempers, that the Church has rough priests and coarse cardinals; I have known it ever since I was born. You fool! you had only to say, 'Yes, it is rather a shame,' and I should have forgotten the affair. But I saw on your mouth the twitch of your infernal sophistry; I knew that something was wrong with you and your cathedrals. Something is wrong; everything is wrong. You are not an angel. That is not a church. It is not the rightful king who has come home.”

“That is unfortunate,” said the other, in a quiet but hard voice, “because you are going to see his Majesty.”

“No,” said MacIan, “I am going to jump over the side.”

“Do you desire death?”

“No,” said Evan, quite composedly, “I desire a miracle.”

“From whom do you ask it? To whom do you appeal?” said his companion, sternly. “You have betrayed the king, renounced his cross on the cathedral, and insulted an archangel.”

“I appeal to God,” said Evan, and sprang up and stood upon the edge of the swaying ship.

The being in the prow turned slowly round; he looked at Evan with eyes which were like two suns, and put his hand to his mouth just too late to hide an awful smile.

“And how do you know,” he said, “how do you know that I am not God?”

MacIan screamed. “Ah!” he cried. “Now I know who you really are. You are not God. You are not one of God's angels. But you were once.”

You and Lewis are basically arguing against the weakest possible version of the anti-egalitarian position. No one thinks we should beat old men because they can't cross the street fast enough. That's just silly.

Wouldn't it be a lot more interesting and enlightening to argue against the strongest version of the position you disagree with? If you're going to critique anarchism, wouldn't you rather go after Bakunin and Kropotkin, instead of teenagers who just like to light shit on fire?

No one thinks we should beat old men because they can't cross the street fast enough. That's just silly.

That's slave morality right there, friend. The old and weak should know when to yield to the young and strong; if they're social inferiors, they should always be aware that they must defer to the squire and get out of his way, or better yet not get in the way in the first place. If they're equals or superiors, they should graciously yield (or, depending how far back we want to get, be slain in combat by the new, virile, younger challenger who ascends to the top of the dungheap over the corpse of the previous alpha).

That's slave morality right there, friend.

See my post elsewhere in the thread on the nature of slave morality, and read essay I of Genealogy of Morality if you want a deeper elaboration. Or just read the whole book. It's unbelievably beautiful.

It's unbelievably beautiful.

I've never found that in previous attempts to read Nietzsche, just ever-more "I really would like to slap this guy hard" reactions.

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