The other night, I made the mistake, while cycling through the stations on my car’s radio, of listening to a few moments of an interview on the local public radio station. I don’t even remember the name of the interviewee, and really only remember about him that he was your typical left-wing whiner, in this case complaining that he had not been given a chance to write an op-ed for the New York Times. What really had his knickers in a knot was that Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front party, had been given op-ed space by the Times in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris.
According to our misremembered would-be author, this was simply a horrible, horrible thing for the Times to have done. The interviewer, admitting that he did not know who Marine Le Pen was, asked why. It was because, as we were told by Nameless Whiner, Marine Le Pen is a “fascist.” He then proceeded to expound upon this point, demonstrating in the process that he had no idea what “fascism” really is; explaining that, among other things, Marine Le Pen is against multiculturalism and open immigration into France from the Muslim world.
In other words, Marine Le Pen is a “fascist” because she believes that France should be for French people.
What a radical concept.
Yet, this sort of sentiment is common among those on the Left. According to the tenets of political correctness, a nation can only be happy and prosperous when it contains the largest possible number of culturally, linguistically, and socially disparate elements. The fact that history shows the exact opposite every single time is irrelevant. Yet, this is why the American Left continues to purvey the falsehood that open borders are good for us, that we need millions of unassimilated foreigners “doing jobs that Americans won’t do” (for $2.50 an hour with no benefits, that is), that it’s a wonderful thing for us to have neighborhoods and entire cities that are basically portions of Mexico scooped up and dropped onto American soil. It’s why the European Left, even in the face of deadly attacks from Islamic extremists in the heart of Europe, can’t find it within themselves to do more than wring their hands about the possibility that such attacks might generate evil, mean, racist hatred against those poor little lambs, the Muslims.
Multiculturalism is idiocy. Plain and simple. It is the province of shallow minds that have no understanding of human nature or how the world really works. Its enforcement upon populations will do nothing more than agitate the saner elements of those populations and eventually bring about societal breakdown that will most likely be accompanied by bloodshed to a greater or lesser degree. Multiculturalism is the creed of those who want to tear down, rather than build up, the good and right and admirable works of a civilization.
What this world needs is more genuine nationalism. What is nationalism? In a nutshell, it is the belief that nations (more on what this word means below) should be separate from each other. Nations should have their own borders, should be able to pursue their own policies, free from the interference of others. In other words, France should be for the French, Germany for the Germans, Romania for the Romanians, and the United States of America for Americans.
Obviously, like pretty much anything else out there, nationalism can be abused, can be used as an excuse for excesses. Yes, nationalism can become a justification for chauvinism. It can be used to pursue revanchist policies. It can even become a rationalization for expansionary warfare.
But it’s not like other, more “good and pure” concepts have never been abused, right? Surely nobody has ever thought to use “democracy” to justify making war on other nations. How about “social justice” or “worker’s rights” or “economic interest”? Yet, nobody on the politically correct Left seems to be in a rush to condemn democracy or labor unions or economic growth as engines of warfare. No, the opposition to nationalism on the grounds of its excesses is simply an artifice of the Left that is designed to advance their globalist agenda, an agenda which nationalism would destroy were it to regain a footing in the hearts and minds of people all over the world.
So, what is a “nation”? I believe that the best and most rational definition of what a nation is happens to be the one provided by Holy Scripture. In the New Testament, the term that is most often translated as both “Gentiles” and “nation” is the Greek term ethnos. This word derives from a root verb etho, which has the sense of “acting by customary usage, to do that which one is wont to do by habit.” Ethnos, then, describes a group of people who are bound together by “customary usage,” what we would call “culture” in its sociological sense. A “nation” is made up of people who share a common culture, which necessarily implies that they share a common language, a common history, a common set of values, similar social and spiritual ideas, and so forth. The Old Testament Hebrew term goyiim also has this same general meaning.
Nationalism is the natural order of things. The Apostle Paul preached to the Athenians,
“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.” (Acts 17:26-27)
What this means is that, contrary to what many partisans of Churchianity in the Western world believe, God does not want all the peoples of the world to be united into a one-world government and all having the same culture. Instead, God separated the various nations of men so that they would overspread the face of the whole earth, fulfilling His command to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 9:1). Indeed, the point to the division of languages in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 was to enforce this command; the rebels against God feared lest they should be “scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4), and desired to instead build a polity bound together by one language and speech, an early effort at what we would now term “one-world government.” God divided them by languages (a process which still continues to this day as languages continue to evolve and divide).
In Paul’s exposition in Acts, we see that God acts in history to appoint to the various nations at various times to dwell within the bounds of their habitation. God defines where and when a nation will live as a distinct cultural and social entity. He did this so that man would not trust in his own ability to unite and “solve his own problems,” but would instead seek after God. Both one-worldism and multiculturalism are defiance of God’s establishment of these boundaries, as is offensive war-making designed to take away another nation’s land.
Now, nations do change throughout history. It is simply impossible to maintain that one nation will always and at all times throughout history maintain a pure genetic lineage. Indeed, genetics are largely unnecessary to the scriptural and natural concept of a “nation.” Don’t believe me? Then show me where the English nation was 2000 years ago. You can’t. The English are an amalgam of Briton, Angle, Saxon, and Jute, with a little Dane thrown in for cultural measure, and then some Norman overlaid on top. Same with the French, who are the joining of Frank and Gaul. Or what of the Italians, who are Lombards and Ostrogoths mixed with the old Italic stock? Yet, each of these is now a distinct nation with a distinct language, culture, and traditions. They exist because God worked in history to make them what they are, for His inestimable purposes. Nations make change, but nations as the concept of distinct cultural entities that have a right to their own lands haven’t gone away.
A “nation,” as history abundantly testifies, does not always coincide with political boundaries. Nations may find themselves sharing a political entity with other nations, sometimes peacefully and profitably, but more often parasitically–a nation may be the parasite, or it may be the host, the oppressor or the oppressed. The nationalism of the 19th century strove to set about a natural order for nations, bring together people of the same nation into union with each other, while freeing those of one nation held in political bondage to another. Nationalism was essentially the assertion of the principle that nations should define borders, rather than borders defining nations.
Despite the widespread erroneous perception that “nationalism causes war,” it’s actually the opposite. Genuine nationalism in which nations of people don’t impose themselves on others and essentially “mind their own business,” actually works to create more peace and amity between them. Indeed, the cause of much strife in our world has been through forces that work AGAINST real nationalism – when one nation seeks to impose its values or political control over another, when nations are forced against their will to coexist within the same political unit, in which case they will nearly always seek to gain the advantage over each other.
Multinationalism almost always eventually fails every time it is tried. The Austrian Empire was already falling apart along ethnic lines even before World War I sealed its fate. Once the dictators of Yugoslavia went away, Serbs and Croats and Bosnians fell apart into squabbling ethnic conflict, seeking to gather the largest pieces for themselves. Tutsis and Hutus killed each other in the artificially defined state of Rwanda. Much of the warfare and strife in the post-Cold War world has been at the instigation of the United Nations and other internationalist, globalist elements seeking to advance that agenda. The list goes on.
Genuine nationalism does not have to be the enemy of international cooperation. Peace and amity can and will exist when nations are free to interact without coercion. Nations can trade with each other, enter into alliances and pacts, and all the rest freely and peaceably. The failure of the recent Scottish vote for disunion from the United Kingdom suggests that the majority of the Scottish nation is not altogether unhappy in their political union with the English nation. That’s fine, that’s their choice.
Nor does it have to be the enemy of rational emigration and immigration. A nation should be free to set the limits and conditions under which foreigners can live within the borders occupied by their own people. If the foreigners are willing to abide by those stipulations and are willing to assimilate themselves to the nation among whom they are living, then all is well and good.
This point is quite salient when we question the presence of large numbers of Muslim immigrants in Europe, and increasingly in the USA as well. The fact is that the Muslims, by and large, do not do this. Even though they may (sometimes) learn the languages of their host nations so that they can interact with the welfare offices and other edifices of government, one cannot say that Muslim populations from the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and North Africa make any significant effort to assimilate themselves to the cultures, mores, values, and societies of their host nations. Instead, they actively segregate themselves into banlieus and ghettos of their own design. After the Charlie Hebdo attacks, I saw many stories (designed to create sympathy, but which only generated nausea) about young Muslims living in France who complained about not being accepted by French society. But they have no one to blame but themselves. They (or their parents, many of these were second, or even third-generation residents) came to France but never made any effort to conform to French culture. They came, got on public assistance, and then lived their entire lives in self-segregated communities in which they purposefully protected themselves from anything that was not North African in culture and Islamic in religion.
When you come to Europe and then march against democracy while proclaiming that you want to assassinate anyone who “insults Islam,” you are by no means assimilated. You are, instead, an indigestible lump creating an ulcer in the bowels of your host society. France, Germany, Italy, and the rest should have the right to send you home. It’s a positive sign that more and more people in these nations are beginning to wake up to this fact.
Genuine nationalism says this: if Muslims want to do their thing, if they want to live in barbaric, 7th century degradation, then let them. Let them do so in their own countries across the Muslim world. But don’t do it in our countries. The only thing difficult to understand is why that is such a hard concept for many to accept.
As Traditionalists, we must continue to assert the benefits of genuine nationalism as a force for good in this world. As the saying goes, good fences make for good neighbors, and we would see a lot more peace and quiet in the world if people would take that principle to heart. The strife and problems arise when we defy the natural order of nationalism–when nations covet the lands of other nations, when nations seek to enter en masse into another nation’s society and refuse to assimilate, when wrongheaded internationalists seek to impose one society’s values onto other nations against their will. It’s perfectly fine to think your ways are better than someone else’s. Perhaps you’re even right in that belief. But peace only comes when you mind your own business and leave other nations to their own ways. 
Perhaps the USA and Canada ought to be returned to the Lakota, Crow, Sioux, Apache, etc. and we should go home to our ancestral lands? Just sayin’.
Peace also comes when you’ve soundly defeated the opposition.
There are two problems with defining “American”. First is that it is an amalgam of many ethnic groups. But the second is that few today want “States Rights” where NY and WY can be very different. Or MN and LA.
Not necessarily. In hindsight, we can also make the case that God was “moving them out of the way” to make room for the American nation. Now, *how* that process took place is fraught with its own questions of right and wrong.
I see no problem with defining an American nation. Again, the issue of an amalgam of ethnic groups is not a factor – genetics is a red herring when it comes to defining “nations.” Further, the case for cultural unity among (white) Americans is stronger now than it ever was. Let’s not confuse politics or boutique historical notions with “culture.” Lousiana and Massachusetts are more cultural similar now than they ever were before, thanks to the centralising effects of television and other forms of mass culture.
Perhaps God is moving us out of the way – and ISIS is his instrument and some WMD will be the equivalent of the smallpox blankets. Yes, fraught with questions, but using the US Military to round them up and put them in concentration camps was an act of Man (we have a nicer word for the camps, as we did for the Japanese Internment).
MN = Minnesota. Nordics. LA = French – Cajun (Acadain, like Quebec). Lutefisk v.s. Crawfish.
The unity being created by the media is of cultural Marxism. The unity is stronger because it is accepts everyone as long as they agree to a few bits. Two teams, but both playing the same game.
And it seems “white” is the “ethnos” when the argument needs it to be that, but switches to “culture” when it needs to be that. The US Constitution was created by whites, but it was the same whites who destroyed it with a thousand small “interpretations”.
The Constitution is to Caesar what the Gospel is to the Church. In both cases for things to work you must assent to the creed and be baptized into the organization.
Culture or ethnos often becomes an excuse for violating the law of either Caesar or God or allowing such a violation because the lawbreaker is a member of the same group. But “the group” as an end in itself is what Political Correctness is about.
The Know Nothings and the Catholics agreed on more and were more defacto unified culturally, though they were mortal enemies. It is strange that when people are following the Natural Law, they find some marginal issues to create great conflict about, but when they are unified in lawlessness they call it “peace”.
Well said.
“Perhaps the USA and Canada ought to be returned to the Lakota, Crow, Sioux, Apache, etc. and we should go home to our ancestral lands? ”
No – and if the population of Europe is 95% replaced by Muslim colonisers I would not try telling the Muslims to leave, either.
“Perhaps God is moving us out of the way – and ISIS is his instrument”
No. Americans are being moved out of much America by Latino immigration, but the Latinos tend to resemble the Visigoths and other Germanic conquerors of Rome – they seek to possess Rome and even to some degree be Roman, but inevitably destroy Rome by their possession of it.
Many of the Muslim colonisers of Europe are more like the Anglo-Saxon colonisers of north America, they don’t interbreed much with the natives, and don’t take much of their culture, instead replacing them entirely.
Good comment.
I would. I’m European and want what is best for my people. Period.
I feel that way, but I can’t imagine any ‘Ghost Dance of the West’ situation where it would work out better for us than it did for the Red Indians. Let’s not get into that situation.
“Genuine nationalism in which nations of people don’t impose themselves on others and essentially “mind their own business,” actually works to create more peace and amity between them”.
I concur and as soon as the early migrated Europeans start to LET others (immigrants) assimilate, America will be a nation. It may not be an extension of Europe in the sense that it won’t be exclusively white and it may be an amalgam of many ethnic groups but it will be a nation with genuine nationalism.
America’s founding immigration policy: “White persons of good character.”
That might be true, but the founding stock has bent over backwards to give minorities advantages and a leg up. When can we expect them to assimilate? How can we better let them assimilate?
You just described the problem, why bend over backwards? If they choose to come here they need to figure out how to survive. It is because this country has bend over backwards that they are not assimilating. And also because of few that can’t see past skin colors. They could be identical to the founding stocks views but won’t see past how different they look.
“Marine Le Pen is a “fascist” because she believes that France should be for French
people.”
What makes Marine Le Penn a fascist is the fact that she is a statist who is willing to trample on peoples individual rights for the sake of some supposed French cultural identity. Apparently, French ideas and values(whatever those are) can’t make it in the free market place of ideas, so you need the power of the state to crush anybody that expresses an idea that “threatens” French culture.
“Ethnos, then,describes a group of people who are bound together by “customary usage,” what we would call “culture” in its sociological sense. A “nation” is made up of people who share a common culture, which necessarily implies that they share a common language, a common history, a common set of values, similar social and spiritual ideas, and so forth.”
I think Ayn Rand put it perfectly in her article “Global Balkanization, in the ”The Voice of Reason, when she said,
“Ethnicity” is an anti-concept, used as a disguise for the word “racism”—and it has no clearly definable meaning. . . . The term “ethnicity” stresses
the traditional, rather than the physiological characteristics of a group, such as language—but physiology, i.e., race, is involved . . . . So the advocacy of “ethnicity,” means racism plus tradition—i.e., racism plus conformity—i.e., racism plus staleness.”
What you advocate is an old, dead, tired, and STAGNANT culture, which is not
consistent with a free society, i.e. a Capitalist society. Because in a free society, culture is
constantly changing and advancing and developing, it is not stuck in tradition, it is always progressing.
Anyways, what the author of this article is attempting to do is to create a false alternative, which is what the Left also
tries to do. Either, you can be a multiculturalist that thinks that all cultures are equal, and encourage pressure group warfare of all against all; each group trying to gain political power over all other groups (black vs. whites, gays vs. straights, etc) . Or you can be a racist
who is afraid of anything that’s different, and wants conformity for the sake of some nebulous notion of the “Nation”, and is willing to use force in order
to protect this notion. The radical idea of the government not being there to benefit or hinder any group, but only there to protect individual rights does not occur to him.
If anything Nationalists are no better than multiculturalists, actually multiculturalism and nationalism are fundamentally the same because they are
both forms of collectivism, they just take different sides of the same coin. One is egalitarian, and the other is a chauvinist.
Moreover, I do not think that Nationalism can be “abused”, Nationalism can just be taken to its logical conclusion which means war and totalitarianism. What is implicit in all the nonsense spewed out in this article and justified with biblical nonsense, is the belief that man is fundamentally an irrational animal that cannot deal with other men through reason, so he must be have to be kept separate from other so he will not wind up killing his fellow man. This is no different than when Nazis justified all their atrocities with polylogism, “who cares what arguments the French , Poles and the Jews give you against you attacking them, that’s jewish logic, that’s Polish Logic, it’s not Aryan Logic. You feel it in your blood and bones, do it.”
The individual is nothing without the tribe.
There is no group of any kind without an individual. But you prove my point that conservatives are just as much collectivists as the left. You are both willing to sacrifice the individual() millions of them) for the sake of the group.
He did not say so, did he? Perhaps the individual and the group need each other. Actually, in an interconnected world like ours, many things depend on others, which encourages people to create systems based on preserving one essential or another, often at the expense of something else.
There’s a reason “collectivist” never caught on as a slur: because humans are tribal. Also, almost no one here claims to be a conservative.
“Perhaps the individual and the group need each other”
The term “need each other” does not apply here because a group is not an entity, it is a collection of individual entities. Certain individuals might determine that working together benefits them. Also, what group are you talking about? Are you talking about a group of cannibals? I’m sure they could use you too. You put the cart before the horse, individuals, properly speaking, join a group because it benefits them in some way, no the other way around unless you are a masochist who lives to be a slave.
It caught on with me, and I’m using it against you. That is what you are, you are a collectivist. Humans are not tribal, they are conceptual beings, only the lowest mentalities group themselves based on the lowest common denominator like skin color, particular language that they speak or clothes they wear based on pure chance.
In a sense, the individual is a social construct. Tradition, subsidiarity and good will are preferable to the sterile freedoms of libertarianism/anarchy.
:DDDDD
I’m looking at it from the perspective of, you might say, ecology, rather than government. I think the best approximation of what I’m suggesting is a comment by Stilgar, a character in Frank Herbert’s Dune books, who observes that a wise ruler maintains the level of individuals in the group, lest it become an unthinking mob.
I don’t know what you mean by “maintains the level of individuals in the group,” and “ruler”. How about no rulers? How about each individual rules himself? It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, you don’t want an unthinking mob but at the exact same time traditionalists expouse all the ideas that lead to unthinking mobs. An individualists does not join a mob.
More nonsense. If the individual is a social construct then who is doing the constructing? Only individuals can think, there is no such thing as a social consciousness or a social mind. When you say sterile you actually mean rational, what you want is a world where you’re not burdened with the burden of actually thinking and everything is already made for you, and all you have to do is FOLLOW tradition. No hard work of actually trying to figure out what is the right thing to do.
Is there something specific you disagree with? Because I see no reason why we can’t be both individuals and part of a tribe or something greater than ourselves. Tradition is an understanding of the constants in human nature and the achievements of our ancestors that make our existence possible. We would be living in mud huts if we did all the thinking for ourselves.
Radical individualism, where everybody is their own sovereign unit is an entirely modernist concept, brought on by boredom and unprecedented material wealth. It is unsustainable and completely ahistorical.
By all means, revolt against those “boring” traditions, but you’re just doing exactly what everyone else is doing these days.
I’d also like to point out the stupidity of accusing trads of being unthinking followers while proposing an infantile philosophy of self-interest.
You cannot have both, this clearly shows that you don’t understand the meaning of individualism or tribalism. That’s like asking “why can’t we have both capitalism and communism?” If you accept one at the root, that cuts the other off completely, because they both have a fundamentally different base. One puts the group as the standard of value, the other the individual, and you cannot have a double standard. There is also nothing “greater than yourself”, properly speaking, if a group of individuals has any value it is because they benefit you as an individual.
And you have that exactly in reverse, we would be living in mud huts if we didn’t think and act for ourselves, but that does not negate building on the accomplishments of the past. What traditionalists want to do is enshrine the past for it’s own sake. And human nature is to be a reasoning animal that thinks and tries to figure out the world in order to improve it for himself continuously. He doesn’t just stop at some point and say, well that past was the golden age and we shouldn’t move past that, anybody that threatens it is now an enemy.
You’re completely misunderstanding Traditionalism. No one is talking about stagnation or living in the past.
The world is full of double standards; that’s life. I am both an individual and part of a tribe. I act for my own sake, but never at the expense of the group. Survival of my people, our genes, and our culture are of greater importance than my own personal whims.
Of course there are things greater than the self! I don’t think for an instant that I am the greatest good. Most of what I (as well as many other people) do is in service to something higher, like God, family, or folk. Other people are not means to my own personal satisfaction. They are an end in themselves.
Regarding mud huts, of course you are looking out for yourself by choosing not to live in one, but you are depending on the expertise of prior generations of craftsmen and engineers, as well as traditions of your ancestors who worked for something higher, to get you to the point where you have that choice.
Traditionalism is spiritual. It keeps the flame of the past alive, rather than freezing it in time. We learn from the past and honor our ancestors by always reaching for higher rungs of excellence.
The thing is, individuals and tribes are different classes of entities. Korzybskii described the difference this way: “extensional” definitions of a thing are definitions that are settled by pointing at something. “Intensional” definitions are conceptual distinctions that mean (to be uncharitable in the extreme) whatever you want by saying something is so.
MacGyver’s cute inversion of the standard libertarian/natural rights tarbrush against collectivism aside, individuals are actual living beings with all sorts of differences (as well as similarities and common needs), but they have physical limitations and separate existence. Groups of individuals, organized ad hoc by observers, can have all sorts of labels applied to them, but people can always disagree about the group membership qualifications.
Having said that, I would agree that we are living off the industry and self-denial of our grandfathers, mistakenly thinking that the perverse values of modern life are the authors of our wealth and ease. But is tyranny the remedy for that? If the choice is only tyranny or chaos, I’ll take the chaos, with an extra shot of espresso. But leave room for cream.
“You’re completely misunderstanding Traditionalism. No one is talking about stagnation or living in the past.”
You don’t have to talk about it, but that is what it leads to. The only proper culture is a culture that looks at what enhances human life and any idea or tradition that gets in the way of that should be discarded.
The world is not full of double standards, the only double standards are in your head. In reality there are no contradictions.
Aldo, who said anything about using people, I didn’t say that an egoistic/individualist perspective leads to people using others, what I am saying that any perspective and evaluation always starts from the perspective of the individual. Explain why god, family and the “folk” are higher than you?
Please concretize a practical implication of traditionalism.
“The only proper culture is a culture that looks at what enhances human life and any idea or tradition that gets in the way of that should be discarded.”
-What is “enhanced”? Again, Traditionalism only seeks to accord the human experience with nature and the divine.
“The world is not full of double standards,”
-Yes it is. There is no such thing as equality. Different things are and should be treated differently.
“Explain why god, family and the “folk” are higher than you?”
-Because I’m a well-adjusted adult.
“Please concretize a practical implication of traditionalism.”
-I have in these comments. If you need more, read this website 🙂
By enhance, I mean improves. For example, cooking your food,it is not just different, it is better than eating It raw. Which means the discovery of how to make fire was a huge achievement that made human life better.
“Traditionalism only seeks to accord the human experience with nature and the divine.”
Again, concretize that for me, that is just vague nonsense. The only divine thing on this earth is man because that is all there is .
“There is no such thing as equality. Different things are and should be treated differently.”
Your answer made no sense. Yes, there is no such thing as equality between individuals because we are all different(except equality under the law and a metaphysical equality because we are all human and have the same fundamental nature, meaning we are rational animals), but that does not mean accepting double standards.
“Because I’m a well-adjusted adult.”
That is not an answer.
“I have in these comments. If you need more, read this website :)”
No you haven’t, everything you have said as a practical application of your ideas has been vague and unclear. And I do read this website and others like it before. Anti-technology, anti-progress, anti-conceptual and regressive attitudes are all over this website, just one example. Any William Lind article where he talks about his own personal relationship with technology and what he thinks other peoples relationship with technology should be, do you want me to give you examples with quotes?
“Russell Kirk, who may have been the only conservative in the post-war American conservative movement, forbad the importation of television sets into his ancestral manse, Piety Hill. One day, in his absence, his wife and daughters smuggled one in. Dr. Kirk discovered it, and they in turn soon discovered him, high in the tower with television in hand, pitching it off the roof.”
“Earlier generations of conservatives knew instinctively that machines could be Hellish, and they regarded innovative technologies with distrust.”
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/rage-against-the-machine/
“Wiser than we, the medievals were interested not in felicitas but in beautitudine – not in being happy but in being saved. Had they been given a television or a video game, they would have smelled brimstone. ”
http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,Lind_012704,00.html
This is just the stuff I can remember that he has said against technology, but I can go on the countless things he has said against relying on abstractions as such, or as he calls it ideology.
“The only divine thing on this earth is man because that is all there is .”
I think that’s all we needed to see. Just another atheistic, self-important libertarian. I hope you grow out it like all of us did.
After the California Libertarian Party was up and running, or perhaps fighting amongst itself, I quickly decided that the character of the people involved was going to get in the way of what I was looking for. I blamed all my problems on government, and the LP served to burst that bubble. I saw that the Standard Oil lawyers and other suits were infesting the positions of authority, and I wanted no part of them. I was an atheist at the time, but after half a dozen concerted probes from God, through the same number of religions, I found a home, finally, with the Sufis.
After the LP I started telling people that the problem with capitalism was that man is exploited by man, but under socialism it’s the other way around.
For me, it can be distilled to a simple principle: how can we restore the idea of self-control? If we cannot manage ourselves, we are doomed, because authority cannot supervise millions of people without descending to lowest-common-denominator results. Perhaps the Northern European Commies have figured it out, but we have not.
The Founders said over and over that the Republic they created could not function with an ignorant, idiologically fixed electorate full of grievances to lay at authority’s doorstep. Jefferson believed that the yeoman farmers, with their fingers in the soil, were the reality check that would keep the Mace of the State from our heads. But they are gone too.
Again, you really don’t have any arguments. It all winds up to is “oh, just grow up.” Which is weird because I’ve had arguments with people on the left that when all is said and done their view of the world is no different than yours, just with a more communitarian bent of “I leaned right from wrong and how to share in the sandbox in the first grade”.
I’m not arguing for Libertarianism, I’m arguing for Objectivism. I don’t support Libertarians.
Being a yeomen farmer and staying a yeomen farmer is not consistent with the dynamic nature of capitalism and freedom. Soil, has no magical power that somehow keeps you free, just ask a Russian serf.
On the first point, I’d like to hear how the two are differentiated. Rand for all intents and purposes was a libertarian.
On the second, I agree, the two are not compatible. I also don’t think capitalism and freedom are synonymous. And I also don’t think capitalism and freedom are inherently good.
I suppose I could have worded it better. Libertarianism is something most of us had to think through and eventually get over, and as we did, we “grew up”. I’ve put forth arguments, but they do no good for someone who doesn’t want to understand them. If you want me to boil down Traditionalism down to a soundbite, it’s about understanding human nature, metaphysical philosophy, and the limits of physical nature; and pursuing excellence within that context. Nationalism recognizes that groups of people are different, and to avoid a great deal of conflict and to reach our full potentials, we need our own countries.
First, there is a difference between big “L” libertarianism and little ‘l’ libertarianism. If you want more details, read Peter Schwartz essay ‘Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty’. Libertarians do not believe in a fundamental philosophical base for their political beliefs, so they are willing to allow anyone into their group as long as they advocate for “liberty”. So you have Christian Libertarians, Marxists Libertarians, anarchist, socialists Libertarians, Kantian Libertarians, etc They do not care how you arrive to liberty as long as you get there. Objectivists reject all that, they believe that to properly defend any political position you need a clear philosophical base.
Why don’t you think capiatalism and freedom are the same and why don’t you think they are good?
If you want more info on Ayn Rand’s stance on Libertarians go here:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/ayn-rand-ideas/ari-q-and-a-on-libertarianism.html
And if you want a short history of all the different liberty groups on the right watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBCSi4ERVq0
“it’s about understanding human nature, metaphysical philosophy, and the limits of physical nature; and pursuing excellence within that context”
Your answers are is so broad and vague y to all of philosophy not just traditionalism. can apply to all philosophy
How do you know I do not want to understand, I keep asking for clear explanations.
Also, I do not recognize any fundamental difference between human beings that would result in them having to live separately, the only thing that results in humans having to be separate from each toher is the content of their minds and character. Ideas are the major force in the world, not race, or blood.
Ideas are a product of race and blood. Culture is an expression of biology.
I was once part of the liberty movement. I left because I came to see tribalism (having nothing to do with the state) and elitism as having higher importance than individualism. I also don’t believe in rights, so the whole liberty thing became very phony. I would direct you to Julius Evola or René Guénon to learn more about Traditionalism.
If one person thinks the mind is the seat of ideas and another thinks that race and blood are the determining factors, then there may be some excluded middle somewhere.
CS Lewis had a bit to say about this; for him, the evidence of the gut was compelling, and that of the mind illuminating, but he saw them as modulated in the heart to produce values. One might say, forged in the crucible of the heart. Perhaps the “modulator” in value-creation is “experience”. You could say that the mind does not automatically lead to correct thinking, or the gut to correct action, but the metabolism of experience is the process of acquiring mature, condign, judgement.
The trouble is that “values” is a code word to Objectivists, much as “rights” is to Os and others involved with political theory. And I might add, as a former Objectivist, an area where Rand’s thought is notoriously weak. As for the supremacy of reason, ask why a person prefers chocolate ice cream to vanilla.
If that were true then I would be a Catholic Mexican Nationalist, where is my race and my blood calling too? I don’t feel it. And where was your race and your blood when you were part of the liberty movement? You are not born with innate ideas, you are born tabula rasa, your thinking or your lack of thinking is what determines your ideas. And choosing to think is a choice. What you are expressing is pure unadulterated racism, which is one of the lowest forms of collectivism.
There is no such thing as the evidence of the gut, the gut does not provide you with evidence. It is just a feeling, and feelings are a product of prior thinking.
No one is forcing you to be a nationalist, it’s just the most natural form of human organization.
Racism is a term coined by a communist dictator specifically to degrade Western culture. I refuse to accept it as a moral evil.
Is that even a real response? No, nobody is forcing me to be a Nationalist but if Nationalism takes hold that will lead to statism which will mean that the state will be able to do whatever it wants for the sake of the nation.
Is the second part of your post a joke? The distinctive attribute of western civilization isn’t racism but individualism. And it is a moral evil because it involves judging people in the most crude way.
There is nothing wrong with defending and proving for your people.
There is also nothing wrong with acknowledging differences between different groups of people.
“Racism” is widely attributed to Trotsky.
The tribe is non-existent without individuals.
Individuals are not social constructs but social creatures who gather together in particular groups — often many different groups — to satisfy individual needs and preferences.