Posted under Conservatism & Political Philosophy & Survival of the West & Western Civilization
Here is a second Alternative Right article on the BNP issue. It is by Alex Kurtagic and argues that Griffin isn’t the BNP’s only problem. I found this part particularly interesting:
The problem with the party’s message is that it is almost entirely negative. It is based purely on a negative proposition (Britain is going to the dogs, the establishment is corrupt); it is concretely and emphatically anti-everything (anti-immigration, anti-establishment, anti-globalisation, anti-multiculturalism, anti-Islam, anti-feminism); and it is pessimistic (everything will get worse, the economy will collapse, Britain will be Islamised). As a result, it seems acutely paranoid rather than simply realistic.
Where an effort has been made to make the party’s message positive (and the recent logo re-design seems part of this) the message remains for the most part reactionary and conservative, expressing a yearning for a return or restoration to a pre-liberal past, rather than a will to rebirth or regeneration in a post-liberal future…
… Most want to feel happy and optimistic. They want to look forward to, rather than dread, the future. And most importantly they do not want to be like ‘those awful BNP supporters’—at least how they imagine them to be.
In other words, the negative message implies a negative identity—an identity defined against an establishment that enjoys the benefit of possessing and regulating access to status, power, and money.
The reason this struck me is that it also describes American paleo-conservatives precisely. Everywhere he says BNP you could replace with paleo-conservatives without missing a beat. While Kurtagic might be right rhetorically, the problem for me is that the negativism and pessimism is entirely warranted. America (and Britain) really are going to Hell and the answer, to the degree there is one, really does involve re-embracing the past. I just can’t get emotionally invested in fake optimism that I think is entirely unwarranted and fundamentally dishonest. The people who want their ears tickled need to grow up and quite living in a fantasy world. The country is going to Hell in a hand-basket and if we don’t do something to reverse course there will be nothing left to save.
Aaron on 24 Jun 2011 at 3:35 am #
Whatever happened to “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”?
I haven’t read Kurtagic’s article, but you’re right that this passage applies to paleocons. And Kurtagic is right.
Kurtagic would surely agree with you that America is going to hell. It’s been going to hell since before any of us were born (and yes, I know that the average age of paleocons is 80). Some sentimentalists like Pat Buchanan may locate the Golden Age in the 1950s, but the rest of us should know better. While America was better, overall, in olden days, this reactionary talk about “re-embracing the past” – which past is that? – isn’t going to appeal to the majority of people who are concerned about the present and the near future. (And what’s with “re-embracing”? When did we ever embrace it in the first place?)
From the paleoconservative ideological point of view, there’s lots of opportunity for significant improvement today, even in the current political and cultural environment. Much of the work towards paleocon goals is currently being done by neocons and other mainstream conservatives. I know that statement makes people angry, but even some paleos like Scott McConnell (oops – now you’re even angrier!) have acknowledged it. Many paleos are so emotionally committed to their status as outsiders and losers that they just refuse to acknowledge even the slightest possibility of success.
Sean Scallon on 24 Jun 2011 at 1:58 pm #
“pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”?
Exactly, otherwise what’s the point? We might as well close up shop right now head for the basement and await the end.
The question is not defining problems, it’s coming up with possible solutions. Optimism is the belief that there is a solution to a problem, a possible plan of action, a way out, if one takes it.
Matt Weber on 24 Jun 2011 at 2:44 pm #
The problem with America and paleoconservatism is that there are no political solutions to America’s problems. It isn’t as though all we need to do is vote for the right party or pass the right law to make everything ok again. Americans are corrupt to the point that they can’t even fathom the right way. For example, the problem with abortion is not that abortion is legal, but rather that there are millions of people wanting to have abortions.
RedPhillips on 24 Jun 2011 at 4:54 pm #
Matt, paleoconservatism, to the degree that that is identified as the axis around Chronicles magazine, as opposed to Buchananism for example, actually despaired of politics a long time ago. We have nothing against the Chronicles crowd, but one of the reasons we started this website is to have a paleo wedsite that is more politically oriented.
I do not think we should despair, and I agree with pressing for some political solutions no matter how unlikely to succeed. My point is that pessimism is warranted and to deny that and replace it with some phony optimism is to blow smoke up people’s a**es. We are broke and headed for financial collapse. We are headed toward becoming a post-Christian Gomorrha. How do you put a happy face on that? The message needs to be to halt and then reverse the slide.
We need a Jeremiah to tell us the truth, not a pitchman to tickle our ears.
Matt Weber on 24 Jun 2011 at 10:42 pm #
I wouldn’t say despair of politics, but one must be realistic. Of course when some nutter is proposing comprehensive immigration reform, the battle must be waged, but these are superficial struggles. In reality, America is bad because Americans are bad, and there’s no law that is going to fix it.
I agree, false optimism is pointless. False anything is pointless. In my opinion we ought to just stand for the truth and be done with it. In terms of rhetoric, rightists have two problems. One is that their predictions are always too dire and apocalyptic. Take some bad event, like the US becoming majority nonwhite, and rightists will talk as though it were literally the end of the world. It is a bad thing, but life will go on. The second is that the average American has an attention span of about 2 minutes. If the catastrophe doesn’t strike today or tomorrow, you’re just a crank.
Yes, we need a Jeremiah, but if I recall my biblical history correctly no one listened to Jeremiah and Israel fell.
Aaron on 25 Jun 2011 at 5:19 am #
“No political solutions” is true if you’re talking about the really big problems, in which case there are no solutions at all. My problem with that slogan is that some people (Chronicles) draw the incorrect conclusion that politics can’t successfully address cultural problems.
One of the basic principles of neoconservatism is that good laws can make people more virtuous. I think Daniel Patrick Moynihan even said that in almost those words. To take the example given here, abortion, what if it were effectively banned in some states? That would cause a huge change in abortion’s place in American culture. Of course such a change would be possible only as a result of Supreme Court appointments by presidents who were elected without paleo support or despite paleo opposition (not that paleo opinion matters one way or the other). The paleocon view seems to be that bad laws can make people more vicious, but good laws cannot make people more virtuous. I don’t understand that.
To take the other example, if immigration were restricted even for the “wrong” reasons (e.g., economic), it would make it a lot easier for people to believe in the right reasons. This is for the same reason that someone who becomes a vegetarian for health reasons will become more amenable to animal rights arguments as a result.
I do agree completely with Matt Weber’s diagnosis of the right’s two problems. The apocalyptic sensibility is part of what Hofstadter called the paranoid style in American politics, which is still endemic to the right. Besides predictions of catastrophe, an important characteristic of apocalyptic literature is the labeling of different parties as good and evil, as the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness (terms used in the Dead Sea scrolls).
On “stand for the truth and be done with it,” that’s largely what got paleoconservatives to where they are today. Didn’t Sam Francis call them a “Victorian debating society”? Considering that Mr. Weber is right that Americans don’t care about problems decades down the line, there’s an obvious conclusion to be drawn about how not to be a crank. That is, try to talk about problems that are present today or in the near future. Talk about what’s important to the listener. This just goes back to another principle that the right can learn from the neocons: talk to people, not at them.
Kirt Higdon on 25 Jun 2011 at 12:47 pm #
Matt and Aaron both have some good points about the uses and limitations of politics. Some good can be accomplished by supporting and campaigning for long shot candidates either of third parties or the duopoly. The point of the campaign is to educate those who can be educated on various issues. But once it comes down to “You gotta vote for so-and-so because he’s the lesser evil”, it’s time to be steadfastly purist and either vote for someone good who “can’t win” or not vote at all. Vote for the lesser evil and you’ll spend the next 4 or 8 years apologizing for him or yourself as he invariably does far more evil than you anticipated. You’ll be reduced to arguing the counter-factual that his opponent would have been worse and you’ll be discredited as far as making arguments for sound positions is concerned.
RedPhillips on 25 Jun 2011 at 3:50 pm #
Aaron, I tend to agree. Laws can not make people virtuous because virtue has to do with people’s heart and their actions, but laws can cut down on vice. If, for example, pornography was illegal, there would be less people looking at porn.
C Bowen on 25 Jun 2011 at 10:34 pm #
I’ll probably fail here, but looking at things as they are, the boomers down to the present, have refused signing on to the apocalyptic wars that previous generations went along with, if the actual soldiers did not enjoy being pawns.
Hence, I refuse the “Americans are bad” argument that exists only in so far as there was no mythical good time.
And Mr. Weber, it is not people that have abortions, but women. If there is a problem with the other gender, lets be more precise.
Red;
The speech codes from the ’60s were targeted towards Black Nationalist/revolutionaries (likely on the government dime) and were supported by the conservatives. That is how the Devil operates in his comfortable home of democracy.
It’s worth putting in perspective that pre-Internet, the porn magazine industry was the avenue for serious alt journalism (Fletcher Prouty, Sally Denton & Roger Morris, Waco) and thus, attempts at that time to shut down that industry takes on different meaning. It’s more tolerated now, dare I suggest, because it feeds big business, rather than alt journalism. I’ll leave the Internets comparison unstated.
My point here is that each time relates differently to the technology or media, at hand, and there are no hard and fast rules of law to deal with it save a ‘above it all’ stance that ignores the people as they are.
At the same time, it’s clear to argue against an abortion clinic or strip club in one’s town…via any means necessary.
Laws do not cut down on vice, they just send it someplace else, so the rest of us can carry on.
matthew on 28 Feb 2012 at 9:23 pm #
Alex Kurtargic is a Nazi. Period. Heroic rebirth? Regeneration? These are straight out of the Sorelian, Fascist playbook. If your hope for right wing politics is a cult of violence and a national myth, then fine, but don’t pretend its conservative. Just be a good Christian and stop worrying about brown people. Cowards.