March
6th 2013
Posted under Conservatism & Media
Alternative Right has undergone a significant format change. I wasn’t crazy about the whole Gothic aesthetic at AltRight, and I found the multiple blog/article categories confusing, but it was clearly a sophisticated web design. This new look is very minimalistic by comparison. Richard Spencer explains the rationale behind the change here. To me I think they went too far in the minimalist direction. The stark white with the darker background looks very blog like to me. Not that CHT is the height of sophisticated web design, but we really are just a blog, not a web magazine or whatever.
Thoughts?
Kirt Higdon on 06 Mar 2013 at 11:38 am #
The new format is less attractive but much more user friendly and I prefer the latter.
thaddeus on 06 Mar 2013 at 1:25 pm #
The new format is ugly and repellent. I actually loved the previous design, and found it noble, masculine, and inviting. It communicated the spirit of traditionalism that the site espoused.
The new design is pure Modernism, an aesthetic that is explicitly the creation of Leftists in the design arts. It’s like the Web site equivalent of an Internationalist bleak, black-box tower, while the old design had more of the spirit of a Gothic cathedral.
That pretty much took away my last desire to ever visit that site. Now it just looks like a pathetic WordPress blog, and even most WordPress templates are more inviting.
Ironically, it was the design of Alt Right that compelled many other traditionalist sites to improve their look (Occidental Observer, AmRen, even VDare). It used to be the best-looking site on the true right; now it’s by far the worst.
thaddeus on 06 Mar 2013 at 1:37 pm #
And by the way, what ever happened to Spencer himself? Alt Right began as a fantastic site, the best in the traditionalist world (until it was supplanted by Kevin Macdonald’s TOO). Then what? Did marriage neuter his energy? Did the transparently agenda-driven complaints from the philosemites take the wind out of his sails?
He turned to other projects (NPI, the online TV venture) that never amounted to anything, and stepped down as co-editor of Alt Right with Kurtagic.
I think he should have kept his focus on Alt Right, kept Kurtagic, kept Richard Hoste, and tried to develop it further as an online magazine, not let it devolve into just another blog. It started off so well.
If Spencer expected more donations, I don’t see how that was realistic. It’s not like any of us are well-off.
Matt Weber on 06 Mar 2013 at 4:07 pm #
Not sure they needed a total aesthetic overhaul, but there was definitely some cleanup to do. The old site was cluttered and difficult to figure out.
The problem with alt-right was always how to be a dissident rightist site, saying interesting and provocative things, without turning into a WN scream-fest. As Spencer found out at Takimag, once the WNs get a hold they never let go. In the end, there doesn’t appear to really be much independent thought on the right apart from WN screeds. It tends to be totally reactionary. It doesn’t help that there is no real rightist tradition in America. Even the mainstream right is just reactionary and has no ideas. While I sympathize (not sure more “ideas” is what America needs right now), it isn’t much to build any enthusiasm on.
thaddeus on 06 Mar 2013 at 4:46 pm #
The above post is typical of the problem the Right always has — infighting.
The Left is destroying Western civilization via a thousand different cultural-Marxist avenues, from feminism to postcolonialism to gay propaganda to race replacement, and what annoys a paleo? White nationalism, of all things, which is fundamentally traditional.
All the enemies are to the left, and the “conscientious” Rightist has problems with someone on the right!
The Left always champions and supports its so-called “extremists,” recognizing that its greatest energy comes from those circles, but the Right runs away from them.
The Leftist says, “Anyone to the left of me has noble intentions and I basically support them, just think they go a bit too far — for now.” The Rightist says, “Anyone to the Right of me is creating ‘scream fests’ and ‘screeds.’”
See the problem?
How about considering that WN and paleos are basically on the same side and fighting the same things, and worrying about the REAL enemies, on the Left?
Savrola on 06 Mar 2013 at 5:10 pm #
Spencer ran out of money.
Alt-Right has always had its problems: Spencer being lazy, inarticulate, and overly opportunistic.
Kurtageek being a fag.
Nowicki being an nerd
Colin Liddell, Hackard, Donovan and some others have done excellient work.
But Alt-Right is still a failed project going nowhere.
Filmer on 06 Mar 2013 at 6:51 pm #
Thaddeus, I am reluctant to criticize people to my right for being politically incorrect because I think it empowers the thought cops, although I will criticize them on specific issues and for being overly obsessive and reductionistic. But the problem has more often been the opposite. It has been more White Nationalists criticizing paleos (faleos as they call us) for not being racialist enough rather than “respectable” paleos griping about White Nationalists for being politically incorrect. For example, the problem we had at this website with “Captain Chaos.”
thaddeus on 06 Mar 2013 at 10:08 pm #
I agree with Savrola that Colin Liddell and Hackard have been excellent contributors to Alt Right. But I think Kurtagic’s essays identifying the psychological attractions of Leftism to those who espouse it, and the need for traditionalism to appeal to the public using similar mechanisms, have been spot on. Kurtagic has the right ideas.
What not he, nor anyone else knows, is how to put those ideas into practice. Why? Because none of us have any money.
It really is that simple. As the Hollywoodism documentary showed, the Jews who created Hollywood first made their fortunes in other fields, THEN they created the film/media industry as we know it today – the greatest and most successful brainwashing venture ever known to man. But the money came first.
Filmer, I agree that WNs tend to be critical of paleos, perhaps unhelpfully so, though perhaps it’s because WNs feel slighted by paleos.
However, in my experience, almost everyone on the right, wherever they are on the right, runs away from everyone further to the right than they are. There’s always an implication that, “I’m the sane one, but that guy to my right, he’s the lunatic whose racist extremism is undermining our cause.”
Thus, for example, the mainstream media condemns National Review for being to right-extreme. But then National Review condemns Derbyshire for being too right-extreme. But then Derbyshire condemns Kevin MacDonald for being too right-extreme! “How dare they call me a racist? And what if I am? At least I’m not an anti-Semite!” The hypocrisy is rich.
See what I mean? Everyone on the right thinks, “Anything to the right of me is going too far.” This just gives the moral high ground to the left.
Kudzu Bob on 06 Mar 2013 at 10:18 pm #
“Kurtageek being a fag.”
The whiners, carpers, troublemakers, and borderline personalities that infest the Right used to call Richard Spencer the same thing, until he married a gorgeous Russian-American woman.
Now I see that one of their number is employing the same lazy smear against Alex Kurtagic (who is also married). This demonstrates either their ignorance of the Movement activists about whom they falsely claim to be fit to pronounce judgment, or else their utter contempt for truth.
“Worse than useless” is about the kindest thing I can say with regard to these hurlers of their own steaming excrement.
Sempronius on 06 Mar 2013 at 11:34 pm #
“It doesn’t help that there is no real rightist tradition in America.”
This is the key problem. Up until now they have been able to get by on Jeffersonianism and some form of oligarchy mixed with religious and ethnic exclusivism.
But alot has changed in the past couple of centuries and their old errors are slowly but surely catching up with them.
Alpibus Italiae ruptis, penetrabis ad urbem.
It’s only amatter of time now.
Sempronius on 06 Mar 2013 at 11:40 pm #
Thad,
You are essentially correct. Although I am not a WN (I’m a White internationalst) un-White conservatism is a pathetic failure.
JDP on 07 Mar 2013 at 6:52 am #
“But then National Review condemns Derbyshire for being too right-extreme. But then Derbyshire condemns Kevin MacDonald for being too right-extreme!”
the only thing about this is that MacDonald really is “right-extreme” if the term has any meaning
thaddeus on 07 Mar 2013 at 12:59 pm #
JDP, I don’t really know whether your comment is meant as observation or criticism, but all I can say is this: so far, of all the writers whom I’ve encountered on the traditional right, Dr. MacDonald has presented the most cogent and accurate diagnosis of precisely why European-Americans lost power over their own nation, and why today’s hostile elite does what it does and has the power it has. I seldom see an article by Kevin MacDonald that isn’t fundamentally correct. I’ve never seen any extremism in his work, but rather, sober and dispassionate, accurate analysis.
The only area in which I think he’s wrong (“extreme”?) is his belief that a white homeland is possible — if that is his belief. The U.S. will never permit any secession. The Civil War proved that.
But on all other topics, Dr. MacDonald is correct — and believe me, I say this as someone who is inclined to disagree with everyone, and I don’t consider myself a “follower” of any school or thinker.
Matt Weber on 07 Mar 2013 at 3:08 pm #
I’ve tried three times to comment but seem unable to, but I’d like a definition of our terms here. In what sense are WNs automatically to anyone’s “right”? The position/philosophy/sentiment seems rather content-free beyond “I don’t want to see brown people ever”, so you often hear WNs supporting outright socialism, as long as it is only white people who benefit. But in fairness, National Socialism was a thing, and pretty clearly a thing of the “right”.
Kevin MacDonald is another good example…I honestly don’t know Kevin MacDonald’s positions on much of anything, but because he dislikes Jews more than I do he’s automatically on my right? How is this not conceding the lefty slur that right-wing politics is basically just about hating people? More abstractly, what use is the term “right-wing” if it doesn’t actually specify any content beyond “dislikes such-and-such minority”?
Savrola on 07 Mar 2013 at 5:19 pm #
KudzuTard,
I’m sorry your father never taught you the difference between a homo and a fag. Now most homos are fags, but not all fags are homos.
Witness Greg Johnson who is ghey but runs a far better website than Alt-Right.
James O’Meara and Jack Donovan are ghey, but not fags.
Kurtagaic, is a childless, 40-something ex-black metal fanboy and Bowden acolyte and execreble and original writer of both articles and fiction.
As for Spencer, he gets no credit for marrying a 29 year old used woman who was hitting the wall, rather hard, as Russian woman tend to do at that age.
Worse than useless adequately describes Alt-Right and it’s audience, four years down the road and not a damned thing to show for it.
Kudzu Bob on 07 Mar 2013 at 5:45 pm #
Zoos commonly erect Plexiglass barriers around chimpanzee cages. Invented in 1928 by chemist Otto Roehm, this transparent thermoplastic is not only shatter-resistant but easy to clean. Smart people, those Germans.
thaddeus on 07 Mar 2013 at 9:43 pm #
Matt Weber, if you want to look at the traditional right, in all of its variety, as a panoply rather than a sliding scale, I’m fine with that.
But the bottom line is this: the Left is united in identifying its enemies. We should unite the same way.
Who is doing the most damage to our world?
Broadly, cultural Marxists. Specifically, feminists, post-colonialists, pushers of the gay agenda, etc.
Anyone who opposes those forces should unite together to stop them and put particulars aside.
E.g., I’m not as much of an anti-Statist as are some on the traditional Right. I think a strong state is fine, as long as it’s a traditionalist State — not that any still exist in the world. But I take the argument that the Neo-Confederates make, which is that all big Statism is bad, and I’ll concede it to them. It’s not worth a political rupture over something that is a smaller point, compared to the greater damage that our enemies are doing.
If your fear of the transparently opportunistic Leftist slur “hate” prevents you from objectively analyzing whether or not some group might actually be directly responsible for much of the damage that has been wrought to Western Culture, then you’re simply conceding way, WAY too much to Leftist propaganda.
Or to put it another way, just because the Left labels a certain point of view “hate” doesn’t make that point of view inaccurate or untrue. (Witness Sailer’s great phrase, “hate facts.”)
In fact, the more a point of view that antagonizes the Left is factually accurate, the more motivated they are to attempt to undercut it with an ad-hominem slur like “hate,” aren’t they?
Sempronius on 07 Mar 2013 at 11:13 pm #
MW,
WN is a phenomenon of the Right largely because it militates for inequality of the races; equality being the sine qua non of Leftism.
MacDonald dislike of Jews is based upon the fact that Jews play a vital role in every type of Leftist subversion (including racial subversion) of which Whites are the primary, and often, the sole victims.
P.S. On the question of socialism kindly note that Libertarianism, which is usually the shibboleth in one form or other with which various forms of wicked “pagan” corporatism are attacked, is not in any way Rightist.
Crucial differences are (purposely?) overlooked by freedom loving fanatics/hypocrites; especially of the Christian anarchist variety.
Consult, for example; Jefferson and/or Mussolini (Pound) and Prussianism and Socialsm (Spengler). For a more rudimentary understanding go back and reread Plutarch’s Lives of Agis and Cleomenes.
Sempronius on 07 Mar 2013 at 11:13 pm #
Testing
Sempronius on 07 Mar 2013 at 11:15 pm #
Red, would you mind checking if my previous comment was misdirected when you get a chance?
Savrola on 07 Mar 2013 at 11:50 pm #
Kudza-tard, getting whipped on Alt-right by me, for four years running.
Kudzu Bob on 08 Mar 2013 at 12:23 am #
Four years running, eh? Setting aside the little matter of your never having posted on the Alternative Right website, at least not under the name you use here, that internet publication has only been in existence since March 1, 2010, which just goes to show that while some of the smarter chimpanzees can amass a sign-language vocabulary of several hundred words, even the most basic sorts of arithmetic will forever elude them.
Savrola on 08 Mar 2013 at 1:42 am #
I vaguely remember a character of your limited intellectual capacity who went by the name kudzubob on assaultweb and sundry other sites.
By the way, you lost the debate on this thread, sometime ago, when I eviscerated your original objections to my salient analysis of Alt-right and it’s founders.
Sempronius on 08 Mar 2013 at 1:26 pm #
Thanks Red.
Matt Weber on 08 Mar 2013 at 5:01 pm #
Sempronius, I don’t dispute that WNs are on the right, what I disputed was that they were necessarily further right than I am, and that my problems with WNs stem from trying to curry favor with respectable society by denouncing anyone “further right” than myself.
The term “right” still seems content-free to me. Why are two people who don’t necessarily agree on anything considered to be part of some ideological group? Maybe “right” and “left” really are just tribal markers, and signify solely who likes and doesn’t like whom. If so, I suggest we need more markers.