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Hell is truth seen too late. –– Thomas Hobbes
I’ve made a new heathen survey, which you can fill out at your leisure.
Survey should be anonymous, although I made it through Google Docs. If you’re worried, log out of your google account, or use a different browser, just to be safe. (Personally I have no use for/interest in your identifying information, and I doubt I could see it anyway, but who knows what Google does with it…)
If you say I can repost your responses, I will post them, in full or in part, on eugenicist. Other people may reblog them or post them to their own websites, whether I grant permission or not (*cough*) so bear that in mind.
Anyhow, click on this link to take the survey. Answer as many questions as you want.
Never watching this movie again because it reminds me of the
good friendsfair-weather jerk-assespeople who threw me over for being a “nazi.”I have human feelings too sometimeslet them hate me so long as they fear me! *sob*
Wirklichkeit beißt
(Source: honkifyourelonley)
When I lived in Berkeley, I saw many pedestrians cross the street without checking for cars. Not usually at crosswalks. I have seen people lunge in front of cars going 35+ miles per hour, when the car is less than 10 feet away, without looking. Sometimes at night. I have never seen anyone hit by a car though. Why? Because most motorists are, if not good drivers, good enough not to hit someone. Too, they have a strong aversion to hitting other people with their vehicles, even Berkeleyans.
In California, pedestrians always have the right of way, no matter what. But if someone was hit by this vehicle when behaving this way, would they be somewhat responsible? As a pedestrian, you have to take reasonable steps to ensure your own safety. This is why we teach children to look both ways before crossing the street, and to wait for the crosswalk to give the “walk” signal before walking. As one reviewer on yelp said, “even though the law says you have the right of way, the laws of nature say that a large vehicle really has the right of way.”
Sometimes there are consequences to stupidity. The law is designed to protect you from the use of force and from danger, but it is not an insuperable barrier between danger and you. You can never eliminate risk from your life but you can take steps to reduce it––such as looking both ways before crossing the street, and crossing at the crosswalk.
Now for the uncontroversial and heartwarming part. Does this type of responsibility ever, in any circumstances, apply to victims of rape? I realize that rape is an especially awful crime, and I am not condoning it. Nor am I trying to get rapists off the hook, or say that anyone deserves to have it happen to them. But there are some circumstances where a person’s actions put her (or him) at greater risk for being raped or sexually assaulted, and I think that lying about that does more harm than good.
Here are some examples of especially risky behavior:
Again, I am not saying that anyone who commits rape under these circumstances should get a pass. Unlike hitting a pedestrian with a car, rape is not accidental or unavoidable. But I do not think that removes a person’s responsibility to take care of herself and look out for her own safety. Just because it’s wrong and evil doesn’t mean it won’t happen; just because it’s illegal doesn’t mean you are protected. All things considered, it would be better to take reasonable steps to ensure your own safety instead of expecting social convention and the government to do it for you.
I am not sure how saying this is “blaming the victim,” which someone will invariably accuse me of doing. It’s not about blame, it’s about safety. All life carries some risk, and it’s unreasonable to expect a woman to avoid every single situation where rape might possibly happen. It’s also unreasonable to expect danger to somehow not exist because one wants it to not exist.
(Source: eugenicist)
Robert Greenberg’s excellent essay, “When Whites Lie to Blacks,” got me thinking about free speech. I especially like this soundbite-friendly sentence:
The truth is supposed to set you free, but at least in this case, it sets you free from your job.
What do we mean when we extol “freedom of speech”? Technically, even in the Soviet Union, even in the DPRK, speech is “free”: no physical impediment prevents you from moving your lips and vocal chords to say forbidden things. However, the consequences are dire. Very few people, if any, are willing to be imprisoned indefinitely for criticizing the leader, so the leader goes uncriticized. Over time, this builds up an internal resistance from not only saying, but even thinking such forbidden thoughts.
An excellent illustration of this comes, not just from 1984, but from Andrey Platonov’s excellent story, “Among Animals and Plants.” Platonov was barely 18 when the October Revolution happened; by the time he died, he had seen his own son die, also at 18, from pneumonia contracted at a forced labor camp. All of his later stories bear the tension between his youthful idealism and the reality of life in the Soviet Union.
On the surface, “Among Animals and Plants” is about a heroic Soviet worker, whose wife has larger ambitions for their family. Just under the surface, it is about something much darker. His story was of course condemned for “frivolity,” but no one mentioned the real reason it was objectionable.
(Source: eugenicist)
In A Life in the Political Wilderness, Welf Herfurth discusses three pillars of any movement: the streets, the intellectuals, and politics. I don’t think he actually uses the words “Three Pillars,” but Troy Southgate does in the introduction.
“The Streets” means doing and organizing things for other people. This can include, though it isn’t limited, to:
-folk dances
-soup kitchens, food drives, meals on wheels
-neighborhood clean-ups
-care for the elderly - making sure they get medicine, food, help getting to and from appointments, companionship, protection against elder abuse, etc.
-movie screenings
-lectures
-gun shows, craft fairs, farmer’s markets, conventions
-hiking groups, running clubs, hunting clubs
-life skills classes: cooking, shopping on a budget, speed reading, googling effectively, parenting
-childcare (many churches, for example, have childcare during services)
-new mothers’ groups
-adopting a stretch of highway
-benefit concerts, free events at a public park
-fundraisers
-art galleries
-cow plops (what? too alienating?)
-sports - either playing them for leisure or in an amateur league
-building/repairing houses
-social halls, coffee houses, music venues
-book clubs
-community gardens
-co-ops
-parades, rallies, demonstrations––”political street theater.”
-neighborhood watches (too soon?)
The reasoning behind “street” action is threefold. Street action gains publicity and social proof, it defangs one’s critics, and, most importantly, it fosters social cohesion and camaraderie.
Coordinated activity, to the accompaniment of music (or at least some rhythm), builds bonds between people like nothing else. Even telling people to walk at the same pace will build a stronger bond between them. Folk dancing, marching, singing, sea shanties (or chain gang songs!) are all examples of this.
The power of music is demonstrated in this video clip, where white anti-apartheid activists can be seen dancing along to songs which denigrate them. (To be fair to the activists, something similar happens in many “dance clubs” in North America and Europe.)
Herfurth also writes about the “parallel worlds” created by both Communists and Fascists in the lead-up to the second world war. These groups had their own schools, meeting halls, bookstores, summer camps, rallies, parades, dances, social clubs and more.
I have seen similar parallel worlds in my life. I once knew several Unitarians and went to a few of their services and parties (more on this later). There are Unitarian youth groups, conventions, summer camps, knitting classes, retreats and other events every day of the week. Young people can be part of a social circle where everyone is a UU. At that point the omnipresent leftism becomes like water to a fish.
I should emphasize that members of a “parallel world” are not in a walled-off compound somewhere. They go to work, to church, to parties, they have acquaintances and even friends who are not part of that world. It is also “common knowledge” that they are part of this parallel world––not some secret shame.
In fact, some people may envy them for their presence in it. In Dedication and Leadership, Douglas Hyde, ex-communist turned Catholic, mentions how many left-wing people would confess to him that they knew they should join the party and admired his selflessness. A parallel world is generally more effective if people aspire to be in it, instead of looking down on it.
Herfurth also suggests that nationalists (his target audience) should go, not only to conservative meetings, but to meetings for liberals, environmentalists, and groups all across the sociopolitical spectrum. I personally recommend going in a group––even a group of two. Going to these meetings will get you out of the house, talking to people, and may give you ideas for new approaches to your own struggle. Best of all, it will make your beliefs more visible to other people––it’s much harder to hate “Nazis” if some show up to various meetings, are polite and well-dressed, and ask insightful questions.
“The intellectuals” refers to intellectual arguments, inspiring myths, and appeals to smart people (elite or otherwise). Again, this is not just a matter of laying out the facts plain as day and waiting for people to “wake up.” Appealing to intellectuals can involve, among other things:
-artistic movements. Fascist art and architecture was avant-garde by 1930s standards––one of the reasons it was so popular with intellectuals. Even today people will admit to finding “cultural fascism” appealing.
-a parallel status system. Every culture and subculture has one. In punk subcultures, for example, you gain status by getting arrested at a protest, hanging out with Henry Rollins, etc. Hipsters have a complicated and never-quite-explained status system, where you can gain status by owning obscure records, working at a nonprofit, etc. Kurtagic discusses this at length here.
-better web design. VDare and AmRen took this to heart, and both are much more aesthetically pleasing and easier to navigate in consequence.
-storytelling. People tell themselves stories to help simplify the world. Many of these stories are pieced together from disparate or misleading information, but they make the world simpler. Create a narrative which makes sense, that can compete with egalitarianism.
-fashion. Herfurth recommends adopting something of the aesthetic of the left. Being visually indistinguishable from leftists fosters confusion, and, as the creator of the Brady Bunch explained, “The confused do not laugh.”
It would also be good, although he doesn’t say this in so many words in the book, to be always better-dressed than the opposition. Most people don’t pay conscious attention to dress, and as Beau Brummel pointed out, “If people turn to look at you in the street, you are not well-dressed.” Still, dress makes a subconscious impression.
Photo, apparently, by Matt Writtle. From this page, which you read at your own peril.
-education. Think of TEDTalks, Peer2Peer University, cooperative/collaborative homeschooling, etc.
-record labels, publishers, clothing stores (e.g. Urban Outfitters, Goodwill, Threadless).
-propaganda analysis - I took a course on this in high school, and it was one of the few courses from that time that stuck with me. At the time I was into “punk rock” and the course helped me see how, say, punk magazines would literally sell me anti-authority.
-philosophy, and studying philosophical movements
-symbols. Herfurth recommends adopting and adapting some of the successful symbols and memes of the left. Why should leftists “own” environmentalism for example?
-mythology and narrative. The leftist mythos in America states that white people are born with the original sins of privilege, colonialism, racism etc. which they must purify through endless abnegation to their moral superiors. This isn’t some consciously believed and articulated ideology, and one can’t defang it just by pointing out logical holes or historical errors, or venting spleen about minorities. There has to be some greater and more inspiring mythos to put in its place.
“Mythos,” by the way, doesn’t necessarily refer to centaurs and fairies––or bankers and lizards, for that matter. Think of the stories about William Wallace and other folk heroes, who may not have really been heroes (e.g. Abraham Lincoln).
“Politics” means getting and keeping political power. It also means convincing people to join a movement (not just this or that party) and to assent to certain forms of political power. This includes (within the US political system):
-winning national elections
-winning state-level elections
-winning local elections (schoolboard, mayor, city council, etc.)
-passing laws
-telling your representative you want a certain law passed
-voting in propositions
-joining a political party
-starting a political association (e.g. a student group)
-hosting meetings, lectures, speeches
-parades
-passing out flyers
-lobbying the gov’t
-political cartoons
-propaganda posters and literature
-political symbols
-boycotting advertisers, writing them letters telling them why. These have been effective for some conservatives, for example the boycott of Lowe’s due to their advertising on “All-American Muslim.” (This led to a reverse boycott a few weeks later.)
-turning the leftist coalition against each other. This has not been spectacularly effective––Occam’s Butterknife and all that. My favorite method is to describe dysgenics as “unsustainable” and watch the epicycles grind against each other.
-sloganeering - “Stop Worker Exploitation,” “Child Abuse Stops Here,” “Community First,” “100 Million - Never Forget,” “Freedom from Filth,” “Thugs get slugs,” “No Sympathy for the Devil” - very stupid and almost meaningless but have powerful emotional resonance.
-Turning leftist slogans on their heads: “Diversity is just a social construct,” “Social welfare is anti-environment,” “The democrat’s war on mother earth,” etc.
-publishing movement newspapers and magazines.
-adopting “side” issues. If you start addressing and making headway on important issues that no other politicians will touch, like student loansharks, you can get more public support.
-reframing the debate. Just saying “I’m not a Nazi” isn’t enough, you have to show what you are. Again, this is related to creating a new mythos.
I remember seeing a poster from Spain during the Civil War. It showed a fresh-faced young man, in some kind of Communist uniform with a red neckerchief, grasping the hand of a rotting skeleton in a tattered green dress. Both had expressions of wild glee on their faces. Underneath it said (in Spanish) “Communism and Death Go Hand-in-Hand!”
No rational argument, no bullet-points or sarcasm, just an idea, presented as simply as possible.
The main problem is that reality is very hard to “spin” the alt-right viewpoint into an uplifting, inspiring narrative. It’s inherently elitist and egalitarian. Leftism tells people that they’re special, they have a place in the world, they’re one with everybody. It absolves them of fake historical “sins,” so they can commit real here-and-now sins as long as they don’t upset their allies in any way. It gives them a feeling of belonging. Generally speaking, I don’t think the “incorrectosphere” (as a friend of mine put it) gives people anything like this. Mostly it just gives you indigestion and loneliness.
As you can see, these three categories (streets, intellectuals, politics) are not hermetically sealed from one another. However, they are sufficiently different to merit distinction.
They are somewhat analogous to the battles for cultural legitimacy, scholastic legitimacy and political power––though not quite the same. Most “intellectuals” don’t know anything about kinship and sex selection, for example, and “cultural legitimacy” is very vague when you’re trying to think of something to do in your day-to-day life.
If you are a fan of The Brothers Karamazov you can think of it as trying to convert Alyosha, Ivan and Dmitri––you have to use different methods for each.
Vertical vs. Horizontal Transmisson
Reluctant Apostate makes a useful distinction between vertical and horizontal transmission of memes, ideas, ideologies, etc. If I understand correctly:
-Vertical transmission means an ideology transmitted from one generation to the next, usually from parent to child.
-Horizontal transmission means an ideology transmitted from peer to peer, or through media.
This distinction doesn’t exist in, say, an Amazonian tribe, and these aren’t hermetically sealed categories either. Horizontally-transmitted ideas can be vertically-transmitted and vice versa. However, this is still a useful distinction to keep in mind.
With vertical transmission, the path is (somewhat) clear––teach your child to be a morally upright person, remove as many negative influences as you can, homeschool if at all possible––in essence, control horizontal transmission and lead by example. But with a friend or relative you can’t do that.
I think the answer is to use peer pressure to your advantage. People are social creatures and tend to imitate each other. That’s why divorce and obesity can spread like wildfire through a social circle. It starts with one couple doing a “trial separation,” or one woman gaining 20 pounds, and ends with many ruined lives (or waistlines).
(This is also why I can’t take “anti-slut-shaming” seriously. Shame is a very powerful social control. You only have to get shamed once, or see someone else get shamed once, to develop a crimestop reflex to avoid it in future.)
Every social group has one or two members who are very influential and who the other members follow. If you can be one of them, you can have a great deal of influence over their opinions without doing anything overt.
On Getting Discouraged
The reality is that too many people (and I include myself among those people) have been focusing, not on community building, not on intellectual matters, not on political theatre, but on venting pent-up frustrations over the web. They (okay fine, we) express their (our!) anger in the worst possible way––alone, sitting in front of a glowing box, not doing anything active or physically demanding.
This is part of the reason change seems totally impossible. Alone, slumped over a screen, you really can’t do anything except vituperate. You might remember a sentence from a comment here and there, but what mostly stays with you is the delivery––which is often pessimistic and brutal. If you’re not careful, this aura of negativity can ruin your day, and make “red pill” reality feel like Gloomy Sunday via the Plague Dogs. Keyboard war is a pro-depressant.
There is no risk-free, inexpensive, quick fix that will just fall into your lap. Real change involves boring and sometimes draining work. You will not “win” every interaction. You must soldier on anyway.
As a final note, I’ll just remind you that you are capable of doing something on one of these lists. Most of you are capable of doing something within all three pillars. GTFOff the internet!
Note: I was originally going to publish this late in May, but with the craziness in the air in the US right now, I figured, why wait? Unfortunately that means this article isn’t as polished as it could be but I’m willing to sacrifice looking good if it leads to some positive action when the iron is hot.
I won’t be updating eugenicist for the next five or six months. A few changes in my day-to-day life will make updating this blog impossible.
I may periodically check the e-mail address associated with this account. I’m also an editor at Reluctant Apostate, so you can leave a comment there and I’ll get around to it eventually.
Before I leave, I want to thank you all for reading. It’s amazing to me that anyone cares to read this, and I do appreciate it. I truly do have a diverse group of followers. To my readers outside of tumblr, outside of the alt-right blogosphere, who I’ll never know about––thank you for reading as well. I hope all of you find this blog enlightening and interesting.
So, with that in mind, here are some interesting links, to articles on my site and other sites, to tide you over until April of next year.
Good luck and see you in 2012!
Here are some of my favorite cultural/not-so-political/etc. tumblelogs:
It’s a little late to request these books on your Christmas list, but here they are anyway––some of my favorite fiction books “with a message,” political or otherwise:
Finally, just a personal suggestion, try to leaven the negativity you feel in whatever ways work for you. Music Monday and Fertility Friday were my own efforts to that end. 2012 is going to be a hellish year, gloom porn won’t make it any easier.
Merry Christmas!
Added some Priviliged Pinko memes to my other tumblelog. You can make some of your own here.
(via privilegedpinko)
Don’t be so gloomy. After all it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
––The Third Man (Reed, 1949)
This quote is historically inaccurate––the cuckoo clock is a German invention, and Switzerland’s history is a far cry from 500 years of “brotherly love.” False or not, this is an expression of a genuine worldview. This quote’s underlying philosophy goes something like this:
Violence, horror and the struggle for life are not separate from mankind’s greatest achievements, they exist alongside them. It is these very struggles that propel humans forward. Remove all struggle, all threat, all risk, and you remove some essential element from life that makes greatness possible.
The pursuit of utopia produces mediocrity, not utopia; heaven is a place where nothing ever happens. I don’t want that, neither do you and neither does anybody.
Of course, Harry Lime is the kind of scoundrel who cripples little kids when it lines his pockets. Philosophy is just another tool to him. He tells Holly his real outlook on the ferris wheel:
Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t. Why should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the suckers and the mugs––it’s the same thing. They have their five-year plans, and so have I.
These views of life are exceedingly common, though few possess the self-awareness to put it so plainly. To Harry it matters little whether Vienna is under control of the Russians, the Americans or the Austrians themselves––probably it matters to him little whether he’s in Vienna or Cairo or New York. So long as there’s an angle he’ll work it, and enjoy himself too.
Compare him to Holly Martins, the movie’s protagonist. Martins is a broke writer of Westerns, with a naïve moral code and no practical sense. The corruption and cynicism of postwar Vienna are incomprehensible to him. Throughout the film, he tries to make right a very wrong situation, with predictable results. Early in the movie, Calloway describes him as being “born to be murdered.” He’s right.
Holly: I suppose it wouldn’t interest you to know that Harry Lime was murdered? You’re too busy. You haven’t even bothered to get the complete evidence…And there was a third man there. I suppose that doesn’t sound peculiar to you.
Calloway: I’m not interested in whether a racketeer like Lime was killed by his friends or by an accident. The only important thing is that he’s dead. Go home Martins, like a sensible chap. You don’t know what you’re mixing in, get the next plane.
Holly: As soon as I get to the bottom of this, I’ll get the next plane.
Calloway: Death’s at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals.
This movie always reminds me of one of Kipling’s best poems, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings.” If eugenics was adopted worldwide tomorrow, suckers like Holly Martins and mugs like Harry Lime would continue to live their lives without change. The struggle for life, dignity, identity, etc. will never end, but it can exist alongside tremendous feats of human accomplishment. That’s about the best we can hope for.
1/2 Finnish, 1/2 English/Welsh/Ulster Scot.
(poster by TankTaur)
One self-improvement trick, adapted by Steve Pavlina from the software industry, is to try some new habit, diet, exercise regimen, etc. for 30 days. If, after the 30 days elapse, you decide it’s not worth keeping up, at least you can say you tried it and stuck with it. If you do want to make it a permanent habit, it’s much easier when you have 30 days of practice under your belt.
This strategy can be adapted to politics as well. Let’s say you want to support a certain candidate for office, but you don’t have the time to volunteer hours and hours for him. Instead, you can do a 30-day trial of advancing his campaign in some small way every day. For example, you could:
Similar strategies can also be used for any issue that you want to publicize. How did you first become enlightened to Issue X? Try to enlighten other people through similar channels.
Usually, 30 Day Trials are to help strengthen a weak area in your life. For example, if you are untidy, you might resolve to clean your house for 15 minutes every day for 30 days, by which point it should be second nature. So if you are very cerebral, but bad at talking to people about politics, you might try having a conversation with someone every day where you mention something political that you do or believe in.
Also important is that the activity should be manageable. “I’m going to write 5,000 words every day for 30 days” is a laudable goal, but if you have a full time job and several children, you’re not likely to make it the whole 30 days if you don’t already have a pretty solid habit in place, or an amphetamine addiction.
Yesterday I posted a quote from Steve Sailer about Christopher Hitchens. Later, I found out that he died, which got me thinking. Here are some thoughts on (the little I know about) his life:
I’m not religious, but certain strains of anti-theism remind me of The Editing Room’s parody of the movie Pleasantville:
TOBEY MAGUIRE
So we’ve taken this group of people that, for the most part, used to be very happy with their 50’s lives…and screwed them up, making them head toward lifestyles like [ours], which the beginning of the movie established as being difficult, hard, and painfully upsetting.
REESE WITHERSPOON
Yes, but we’ve also made them free.
TOBEY MAGUIRE
Free of something they otherwise didn’t know was not free. Haven’t we really just done more harm than good? Didn’t someone once say “Ignorance is bliss”? These people didn’t ASK for their lives to be altered, they were happy.
WRITER/DIRECTOR GARY ROSS
(interrupting)
Hold it! Those are interesting points, but they’re actual issues. I can’t deal with those, so cut it the hell out and go masturbate. Now, back to pointing out the wrongs of racism and other things that are obviously bad.
AUDIENCE
Hey! Racism and dictatorships and all that ARE bad! Thanks, Gary, you’ve sent me a very important message that I otherwise didn’t know!
Religious people are not necessarily happy. Many religions inculcate a morbid sense of guilt, victimhood, shame, superiority, unworthiness, etc. Some hold back human achievement in measurable ways. Still, if you’re going to take away some consolation, and then offer in its place “Well, here’s a picture of a nebula that you could understand if you were smart,” don’t be surprised when people fall right back into an “irrational” belief system, and probably a worse one, with all its concomitant wars, absurdities and abuses.
Alt-rightists should keep this in mind too. If you’re going to take away the ideal of Total Human Equality, and then offer in its place “Well, here’s a picture of a standard distribution,” don’t be surprised if some people fall into hate-based racial Marxism.
Someone (no idea who) suggested that Alt-rightists stop picking fights with liberals and instead seek out self-sufficient people outside of the elite, e.g. small business owners, software developers, small town doctors, prominent housewives, et cetera. They have less invested in THE and are not likely to fall into nihilistic rhapsodizing when they realize it’s untenable.
Focusing on leftists makes them seem like an overpowering, even God-like force. This is not the case, in America at least. The #1 pet peeve reported in my poll about this movement is “lack of social infrastructure.” Is that so impossible to change?
