Identity Politics is a False Idol

In a previous post I identified four principles which are crucial for members of the Dissident Right to embrace; not quite strategy or tactics, something closer to virtues.  The reason the Dissident Right exists is because our neighbours have embraced the solipsism which suffuses our culture.  Affect over effect, ideology over facts, appearance over essence – Western Civilization worships as the altar of ‘Nice,’ where everybody’s special, and everything is fine.  This has created a systemic denial of unpleasant truths, leading to a plurality within our society who live ‘in the Matrix’ and a minority who have ‘taken the red pill’ and woken up to the harsh reality which surrounds us.  It is utterly crucial that we don’t crawl back into the Matrix, by replacing one blind ideology with another.

This is why I critiqued Identity Politics, which has resulted in some understandable consternation.  It is worth revisiting this topic, to explore what Identity Politics is, and why it will lead us down a false path.

Uncontrolled Memetic Infections

In the Michael Crichton novel The Andromeda Strain he posits a fictional wonder-drug known as “Kalocin” which has a 100% success rate at destroying viruses and bacteria within the human body, without causing immediate injury.  However, once the drug use is discontinued superinfection becomes inevitable: without their native flora and fauna protecting them, the subjects acquire previously unknown and bizarre infections which are inevitably fatal.  Infections that are weak and ineffective in a host with a normal bacteria load become devastating in a body that’s been cleansed by Kalocin.

While Kalocin remains science fiction, the dangers of a bacterial cleanse can already be seen in the world of memetics.  The cleansing red pill is distrust of authority, in light of the gross body of lies which have been promoted by mainstream authority.  This has led inquiring minds to question assumed truths such as global warming, vaccine safety, equality between the races and sexes, et cetera – a great suspicion has developed whenever there’s a clear financial and ideological motive to push a particular belief.  In other cases the… less inquiring minds have rejected the expert consensus on scientific issues that were put to bed thousands a years ago.  Tila Tequila and her promotion of Flat Earth Theory, for instance.  Remove the normal bacterial load, and anything can come in to replace it.

A Eliezer Yudkowsky likes to say, Reversed Stupidity is Not Intelligence.  Even if the Al Gores of the world are obvious hypocrites and mid-wits, that doesn’t mean the Earth is cooling; and just because Anti-White Ideology is pushed by the mid-wits of Academia, it doesn’t then follow that Pro-White Ideology is the solution.

Organic vs Synthetic Identity

It would behoove me to clarify what I’m talking about when I say Identity Politics.  I am not describing something concrete, organic, and established – Polish Nationalism, for instance.  Something like Polish Nationalism is a web of interconnected relationships and long-standing institutions, it encapsulates their cuisine, the role of the Catholic Church, the legacy of Communism, historical monuments and buildings, networks of family and extended-family, even the weather and winter fashion.  It is abundantly clear that a Nigerian can’t move to Poland and become Polish – perhaps in three or four generations of interbreeding, assuming a genetic load with a Polish-compatible personality in the first place, but certainly not overnight.  There is no Magic Dirt.  But for that matter, a Pole removed from this context – raised in foster care in America – might share some of the genetic phenotypes of his ancestors (behavioural as well physical) but he could hardly be held up as an example of what Polishness means.

Calling something as complex as Polish Nationalism ‘Identity Politics’ is to miss the forest for the trees.  Yes, it’s about Identity – but it’s about far more than that as well.  Planting a bunch of firs in ordered lines does not an old growth forest make.

To examine distilled Identity Politics, there’s no better example than American Blacks and the various Black Power movements.  For fifty years, aggressive socialism has utterly destroyed the Black community.  Single motherhood has replaced the family, welfare has replaced business, and propaganda has replaced organic history.  Your average ghetto dweller has no idea where he came from, all he knows is the bowdlerized ‘history’ of Slaves and Kangz.  He has no knowledge of his people’s music, only of egoistic rap battles.  He has no self respect developed through hard work, only achievements in Basketball, a game invented by a White Canadian.

In summation, there is nothing less Black than your typical ghetto dweller; he’s nothing but a run of the mill, deracinated Westerner, with no historical ground to stand on.

This lack of Identity makes him a prime candidate for Identity Politics™, made out of 100% post-consumer product, and developed in network of hermetically sealed labs found throughout the Sociology departments of America’s Ivy Leagues.  It provides him with a Matrix to orient himself around: those are the villains over there, this is how I behave, these are my brothers in arms.  It supplants his ambitions, it drives his behaviour, and it implants a heuristic that applies a universal solution to all problems: “Black Lives Matter!”  It turns him into a centrally-controlled automaton, serving a master he does not know, for ends he never questions.  He becomes nothing more than a zombie carrier.

And your average White is just as susceptible.

Generation Hot Topic

The corrosiveness of modern culture can’t be overstated.  Since at least the 1960s we have seen a variety of fads which seek to undermine organic, reciprocal relationships.  Even movements which start with a lofty goal – take the justifiable self-interest of the Labour Movement, for example – have been co-opted into creating social atomization, and fungible human resources.  Whether this is due to some evil cabal which harbours a deep-seated hatred of Western culture, or if it’s simply the result which is most convenient for marketers of consumerist products and political parties, is – for present purposes irrelevant.  The result is deracinated, decultured, human resource automatons, who’ve never met their neighbours, and purchase their identity at the shopping mall.

Identity Politics isn’t something unique to BLM and the Alt Right – Identity Politics is the new normal!

It can be seen at any Star Wars movie on opening weekend, swarms of fanboys waving around plastic lightsabers in hands that have never held a rifle.  It can be seen in the Alt Lite, who equate basic Constitutionalism and edgy Conservatism with American Identity.  It can be seen in the Baizuo, who think they’re saving the world while staying oblivious to real problems, and it can be seen in the swarms of angry young men (justifiably angry!) who swarm to Alt Right talking points…

…only to bring with them the same sort of Us vs Them, Black/White thinking, that pervades every other fandom and identity that’s out there.

Who’s Actually on my Side?

Imagine your country as a circle which delineates citizenship.  Outside of the circle are foreigners, inside of it are your countrymen.  Within your country are those who are working with you, and those who are working against you.  Now – slash a line down the middle, and label one side “White” and the other side “Every Other Race”.  How useful is this distinction?

Your bisected circle can provide a source of affect and identity for you but when it comes to matters of strategy, planning, and organizing, you’ll find that the “White” half of the circle is chock full of useless, antagonistic zombies.  Most obvious are the Whites who are committed to destroying everything your country ever stood for – okay, bisect the circle once more, to exclude “Democrats” from your identity group.  But what about those who proclaim themselves to be your allies (they’re even wearing the outfit!) and yet refuse to adhere to the regulated behaviour that your culture once stood for?  Half the time they’re playing into the hands of the enemy.  The other half of the time, their belligerence is driving them to attack you.  The quartile of “White + Conservative” is utterly incapable of pursuing it’s own self-interest.  Nobody knows what they are – merely what they aren’t!

By starting from the top, you’ve ignored the cultural roots which create identity in the first place.  You’ve looked to the external markers, rather than the internal compass.  People are not atomized units to be placed into folders; social movements require holistic thinking.

Cultural Width, or Cultural Depth

The Modern’s culture is a mile wide, and an inch deep.  Whether it’s the Indian immigrant wearing a Captain America shirt, “proving” the point of the Civic Nationalists – or the White son of a single mother, who only speaks English but is nevertheless “proud” of his European heritage.  Both have put on the outfit of Identity, but it’s too brittle to withstand the storm.  Both are desperately trying to be something without knowing what it is, and the avatar they’re pursuing is too simplistic to have any lasting value.

Think of the Star Wars fans, and all those people who list Jedi as their religion on the national census.  What is a Jedi?  What are their beliefs?  Where are their holy texts?  It’s a fine religion for sunny afternoons in the beer garden, while student loans are subsidizing your lifestyle, but when adversity strikes one page’s worth of Yoda quotes isn’t enough to sustain a man.  Absent a planned Hollywood event, the Jedis lack cohesion.

The same holds true for the recent attempts at White Nationalism we’ve seen.  Without an event – without a group of White Antifa to struggle against – there is no purpose to the group.  The men who adopt the outfits lack tradition, they lack knowledge of their ancestors, they lack a moral code to adhere to, and they lack a coherent worldview.  Without these things, they have no purpose and direction – nothing but futile, distracting action.

Before you can have effective Identity Politics, you need to have an identity.  You need to know your ancestry.  You need to know the moral philosophers of your civilization.  You need to read the great stories which define you.  You need an aspirational ideal.  But the cultural Kalocin has been incredibly effective.  Lord of the Rings has given way to equality-laden D&D, and narcissism-laden Harry Potter.  The modern products shy away from speaking a bold truth, for the sake of allowing a nice inclusivity.  The modern man thinks he has a right to put on an outfit, without doing the hard work to earn it because he’s never graduated beyond the childish urge to play dress up, whether it’s identifying as a Hufflepuff, or cosplaying as a German soldier.  He abandons the harsh and demanding morality of Catholicism, for the obsequious and inclusive pseudo-morality of neo Nordicism.  He watches endless anime, but has never read the Hagakure.  At his core, the modern man is stunted in his moral development, effeminate and addicted to pleasure, and terrified of sacrifice, suffering, and mortification.

Worst of all, he’s so full of arrogance that he refuses to follow those who could guide him to wisdom.  He chooses demagoguery over leadership, bolstering his ego while dooming him to failure.

In other places and in other times, Identity Politics was the natural outgrowth of a society that knew itself, and promoted the welfare of it’s members.  In today’s world it’s a cheap plastic knock-off, an outfit to distract from existential questions – it’s also a weapon to tear down the few institutions that remain.  O, what great irony, that those who claim to fight for their race, are the ones labouring the hardest to destroy their race’s moral foundations.

Identity is something that must be earned, not adopted, and the acolyte of the latter will show enmity to the former.  The man who adopts his identity is envious of the man who has earned his stripes, and will seek to undermine him rather than unite against their common foes.  You cannot make common cause with pretenders.

Seek, then, men of character to build relationships with.  Men who’ve shown constancy and commitment, who are dedicated to refining their moral nature, and who seek to exemplify the ideal of a Western man.  You’ll find very few of these in today’s era.

Political movements are the anathema of deep culture.  Like a consumer movement, it relies upon your vice, your thirst, your lust, your hunger for a purchased identity.  Virtuous men do not form mobs.  And without widespread pursuit of virtue, that’s all Identity Politics is: a mob with no explicit political aims, merely a desire for affect and narcissistic supply.  Identity Politics is a false idol which stymies your growth.

Reject the cheap knock-off.  Become a cultural force instead.  Democracy has degenerated, and movements aren’t the solution, they’re part of the problem.  If this civilization recovers, it’s going to be a minority of cultured and civilized men who take control of the reins, not an army of incontinent moderns.  Commit yourself to the higher path, and not the lowest common denominator.

That is how you become part of the solution.

ͼ-Ѻ-ͽ