Building Our Movement: Theory
By • 2/9/09 |
What is the way forward for the pro-white movement? |
In the comments section of The Beginning of White America, one commenter asked how I planned on building the pro-white movement through this site. This is, of course, the crucial question. All our philosophizing and commenting will never amount to much unless it is guided by a strategy to increase our readership and the influence of our ideas. It is in the struggle to spread its message as far and wide as possible that the vitality of a movement lies.
The scope of the question is vast, however, since it encompasses many different types of problem. On the one hand, there are the problems of theory: we must size up our target audience, white Americans, and figure out how to sell our ideas to them. On the other, there are the problems of practice: we must evaluate the tactics of activism and the techniques of publicity. Each of these sides of the problem is itself multifaceted, and all of the facets are murky. What follows is my best guess at a solution to the first half of the problem. A follow-up article will deal with practice. Because the way forward is dark and mysterious, it would be foolish to insist dogmatically on any set of principles, and I will do my best to remain open-minded to other suggestions.
In my view, the way forward is one of realism, reason, and reconciliation. The pro-white movement must be based on a realistic theory of human nature, which means that we should appeal to the self-interest of white Americans. Moreover, we should set reasonable goals for activism and reconcile our philosophy to the liberal ideals that are engrained in American culture.
The Problem With White Nationalism
The commenter referred to above asked whether I would try to attract “white nationalists” to the site. White nationalists are certainly welcome to come, but I will not be catering to them because the philosophy of white nationalism is, in my view, a poor foundation for white racial advocacy—this is why I have used the admittedly awkward term “pro-white,” never “white nationalist,” to describe my own beliefs.
My disagreement with white nationalism goes far beyond rejection of the anti-Semitism that is characteristic of this philosophy. Rather, the fundamental flaw is that white nationalism is, at bottom, only an empty tribalism that is more likely to repel than attract white Americans. While some white nationalists have done interesting and productive work and have succeeded in attracting a sizable number of followers, the weaknesses of this philosophy, in my view, are likely to prevent it from developing into a significant political movement.
The core claim of white nationalism, as it has been expounded by writers like Jared Taylor and Kevin MacDonald and by scores of bloggers and commenters at websites like Majority Rights, is that humans possess an innate instinct to be loyal to their ethnic group that evolved through the pressure of what Frank Salter has called “ethnic genetic interests.” Whites have turned their back on their instinctive ethnic tribalism, the story goes, and must be persuaded to embrace it again.
For reasons I sketched out here, I have never been convinced by this line of thinking; indeed, I am very much in doubt that any instinct for racial loyalty exists at all. To sum up my case, if people were loyal to their race by instinct, the friendliness to diversity that characterizes contemporary Western societies would be impossible, and whites would not tolerate the pervasive denigration of their culture and history that I have labeled leukophobia. Besides, the nature of instincts is such that it would be impossible for a whole racial population to simply lose one.
People are motivated by self-interest, not by any instinctive attachment to their race. Consequently, they will be attracted to the pro-white movement only if they perceive it to be in their interests to join. Herein, of course, lies the reason why our ranks are so sparse: our culture demonizes white racial solidarity so thoroughly that, generally speaking, white people correctly perceive it to be in their interest to stay as far away from us as possible.
If our movement is to be successful, we must convince white Americans that it is with us that their true interests lie. Whites will join the pro-white movement because they fear minority crime, or because they sense that minority cultures threaten their own, or because they are angry at anti-white discrimination, or because they believe that non-whites are responsible for poor economic conditions. We will succeed by focusing on these very concrete and selfish concerns, rather than trying to persuade people that they possess an instinct for racial loyalty.
Taking Liberal Values Seriously
Another problem applies not only to white nationalists, but to the whole of the pro-white movement: we have never made any effort to reconcile our project with fundamental American values. Pro-whites have fostered the myth that our movement fails only because it is demonized and censored by hostile elites. If only we could speak directly to white Americans, we think, they would be persuaded by us and come over to our side by the millions.
The problem is, unfortunately, much deeper than that. Not just elites, but white Americans as a whole believe deeply, even religiously, in liberal values like tolerance, egalitarianism, and individualism. Our philosophy clashes with these values; after all, pro-whites believe that some peoples and practices should not be tolerated in our country, that racial hierarchies are inevitable and right, and that collectivist racial solidarity is desirable. Pro-whites thus try to force an entirely new set of values on white Americans while making no place for the existing ones.
The way forward for the pro-white movement lies in finding common ground between our own values and those of our public. Consequently, we must make the case that, while values like tolerance and egalitarianism have many merits, they become harmful when they are taken to extremes and are not counterbalanced by opposing goods. Tolerance of a thoroughly intolerant religion like Islam will lead to the end of the tolerant state. Egalitarians do harm when they demand equal outcomes for groups of differing ability. This sort of argument has worked for the European immigration restrictionist movement and for conservative critics of affirmative action. The pro-white movement should imitate their success even as we also insist on our distinctive principles.
Setting Reasonable Goals
A final problem with the pro-white movement is that our political goals are wildly radical and unrealistic. When I talk with pro-whites, they commonly tell me that the aim of the movement should be the racial partition of the United States, the mass deportation of non-whites, or some form of revolution.
Listening to such grandiose ambitions always leaves me depressed. The world in which any of these events would be possible is so distant from the one that we live in that these goals lead to no concrete activist practice. Indeed, unrealistic ideals tend to lead to inertia in the present because we can find no pathway to them from the world as it really exists. Moreover, people outside the movement rightly regard people who rave about racial partition as buffoons, and possibly dangerous ones.
All we can do right now is try to persuade people of the core tenets of our movement, and we will only be able to transform the American consciousness by focusing on projects that are feasible today. A historical precedent will illustrate this point. When the black civil rights movement was starting out in the early 20th century, it did not demand affirmative action and busing, because such goals would have been unrealistic in the context of the times. Rather, civil rights advocates demanded feasible reforms, such as equal funding for black and white schools and an end to lynching. Through their advocacy of minor changes in social policy, the civil rights movement effected the major changes in social attitudes that laid the groundwork of their future success. Above all, by successfully manipulating the issue of lynching, the civil rights movement linked all forms of white ethnocentrism with hatred and bigotry, thus forging the concept of “racism” that has been so effective in demonizing the pro-white movement.
In the same manner, pro-whites should work towards goals that are feasible today. That means we should be talking about the stimulus bill and the school board rather than wasting our time on remote fantasies. As we agitate on these issues, we should seek ways to present the basic principles of our movement in a sympathetic light, so that we lay the ground for further advances in the future.
The path of realism, reason, and reconciliation should not be viewed as a cowardly compromise. By no means am I suggesting that we pull our punches: we must go on hitting people with the hard facts about innate racial differences and minority dysfunction. Rather, reconciliation means that we must respect values that conflict with our own and listen to our public as well as preach to them. Such a course is a natural outgrowth of the aims of the pro-white movement. After all, why would be so eager to save white America if we did not find some value in its culture already? It would be odd if we wished to save white America by destroying it.
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How feasible is it to start a political party similar to the BNP? That would give ordinary people something to identify with, without their having to become activists. Let’s say there were something called the American National Party. It could have modest goals like immigration restriction and an end to affirmative action. Anyone could join, even non-whites. Even though I myself am comfortable with the possibility of registering with an all white party, I don’t see the majority of disaffected Republicans joining such a party, so it might as well be open to blacks, in order to attract the whites who wouldn’t join a whites only party.
Such a party would also attract people in areas like California, that are more or less lost to activism, except for people who enjoy abuse and wasting their time. Lots and lots of people would register with the ANP, even if going to demonstrations with three other people isn’t their thing.
Then, we’d identify a few areas in the USA that might support ANP candidates, and put all our resources in those areas. We’d be able to get a few people into Congress right away.
Latte Island, I think your idea is excellent, and the two modest goals you mention, immigration restriction and an end to affirmative action, could easily serve as the linchpins of a new party. By focusing on the inherent unfairness of affirmative action and illegal alien amnesty, we don’t rule out the possibility of fair minded Blacks and others joining the party (Ward Connerley comes to mind immediately) and thus it would not be repulsive to a large number of Whites, as an explicitly pro White party would be.
There seems to be a groundswell of enthusiasm for a party. See also Old Atlantic’s comments here. I’ll post a blog entry about your idea today or tomorrow.
But humans do possess an innate instinct that makes them more loyal and affectionate towards their own ethnic group. Indeed, this instinct is the reason that even the most Marxist individuals among us overwhelmingly surround themselves with people who are ethnically the same as them. If there is no instinct for ethnic tribalism, then why do so many white Americans seek out neighborhoods that are white, schools that are white, friends that are white, and spouses that are white?
Also, if there is no natural instinct for tribalism, then why were all the white nations of the world so ethnocentric in past generations? If you study history you will see that white people of all nations basically always maintained fairly high levels of ethnic and racial solidarity. Indeed, it seems that this white ethnic and racial solidarity has only been diluted in recent decades.
Further, John Philippe Rushton has a theory called “Genetic Similarity Theory,” which states that individuals tend to be more altruistic and affectionate towards individuals who are genetically similar to themselves, and less altruistic, and sometimes outwardly hostile to individuals who are less genetically similar.
http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/N&N 2005-1.pdf
Moreover, Kevin MacDonald has a theory about “implicit/explicit whiteness.” In this theory MacDonald states that we all have an inherent ethnocentric instinct that has been submerged by the indoctrination we receive in American society. MacDonald acknowledges that some people possess stronger levels of ethnocentrism than others, but insists that everyone has at least some inherent tribalism.
Even though Kevin MacDonald may be an anti-Semite, I find his argument very convincing.
http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/WhiteEthnocentrism.pdf
http://www.vdare.com/macdonald/081125_ethnocentrism.htm
Bottom line: White racial consciousness and ethnic loyalty inherently exists, though it can be diminished because it is not strong enough to resist indoctrination.
Also, judging from your ideas, Mr. Jobling, I would call you a white nationalist. Indeed, in my opinion you seem to have relatively minor disagreements with the movement’s core principals. Besides, not all white nationalists are in lockstep agreement with each other on every single issue.
I agree with the earlier statements about establishing some sort of lowest common denominator party opposed to immigration and affirmative action. I do have a problem with what HalfJew said about not wanting it to be “explicitly” pro-white, though. I think there has to be a realization that immigration, in particular, is anti-white because it is causing the displacement and genetic replacement of white people around the world. If wanting the hypothetical party to not be “explicitly” pro-white means discouraging whites in the party from expressing racial solidarity then count me out. It is this sort of political correctness that is killing us, to be blunt.
In other words, I am not opposed to having a party that accepts nonwhites, but bending over backwards to make them feel welcome (by discouraging pro-white expression of opinion) would lobotomize and cripple the party.
I appreciate what Ian wrote about the views of whites on tolerance, egalitarianism, and individualism being religious in nature. It would be a mistake to attribute the cause of white racial suicide to mere status competition. It is the underlying belief system that provides the context for status competition, which in turn is a secondary effect.
I think that there is more to this mindset than just tolerance, etc., since these are racially neutral concepts. What is really at the root of the problem is belief in white guilt. This is metaphorically like a constant tax (mentally, emotionally, politically, etc.) on whiteness for the benefit on nonwhites. It is supported by both whites and nonwhites in a mutually reinforcing system of guilt and resentment. Some people claim the right to both guilt and resentment (i.e. members of certain white ethnic groups), but the guilt and resentment are always going in opposite directions.
I recommend the articles by Eric Gans on white guilt at his <a > Chronicles of Love and Resentment</a> page. Much of the terminology is over my head, but I find his approach of interpreting white guilt in religious terms compelling. In my view Christianity and white guilt are closely linked, and Christianity has set the stage for our current predicament.
What’s more, I don’t agree that the assertion of ethnic genetic interests can be dismissed as “empty tribalism.” Claims of objectivity notwithstanding, explicitly pro-white views will always be seen by most people as being essentially motivated by tribalism. Also, we have to acknowledge that we are fighting for our own people, because it is white guilt that is the ultimate source of our problem.
I’m going to have to write one or two articles expanding on my criticisms of the notion of instinctive racial loyalty. For now, Mike G., I’ll just point out that you clutch at straws and ignore the massive evidence against your position. Why would white Americans allow affirmative action and mass non-white immigration if they had any instinctive loyalty to their own kind? Why would they praise diversity as a strength? Why would they approve of miscegenation?
White nationalists try to persuade whites to obey their instinct to racial loyalty. But when did people ever have to be persuaded to obey an instinct? Don’t they usually have to be persuaded rather to restrain their instincts—don’t eat too much, don’t cheat on your wife, don’t murder your rival, etc.?
There is something wrong with the link in my previous comment. It is possible I formatted it incorrectly. Here is the URL:
http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/views/home.html
This is already a productive site, Ian. With these comments I believe we are getting somewhere.
You are right, in my view, that “white nationalism,” creating an alternative white state, etc. are quixotic — and probably counterproductive. It might be emotionally thrilling for some people to imagine a white nation, but that will be a bone in the throat for most whites, including many latently sympathetic to White America’s goals.
Your analogy between a pro-white movement and the early civil rights movement is good. We have to build a foundation of small (but important) victories that large numbers of people, including some non-whites, can accept as reasonable.
Still, Latte Island has a valid point too. We need an institutional magnet as well as local or limited causes. I’m all for lobbying school boards and that sort of thing, but realistically these micro-campaigns are not exactly the stuff that inspires. Whites are scared, almost paranoid, about acting for their interests. They need the comfort and sense of solidarity that a highly visible political party can offer.
It’s ironic that Britain, which is farther along toward the marginalization and dhimmification of whites, has the BNP while we have nothing equivalent. The BNP is much vilified, of course, but it’s still (as of now) legal, out in the open, and has elected candidates to local councils (and possibly a few members of parliament, I’m not sure). If such an organization can make headway in the repressive British Isles, why shouldn’t its analogue thrive in the United States?
Hal K., I’d discourage neither pro White nor pro Black solidarity, from participants in a political party. What I’d emphasize is more like what Steve Sailer calls “citizenism”, meaning that America is for Americans who are here now, fairness, and principles of free association.
By fairness, I mean that the government is not responsible
for enforcing equal outcomes, only ensuring that in cases where the government must apply discernment that objective criteria are used. That’s why I oppose affirmative action.
Free association will allow people in the private sphere
to associate with those people they wish to associate with. If you’d like to cut yourself off from Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Whites, Chinese, whatever, it should be your right. Of course, if you’re a police chief or Army officer, you don’t have that right anymore, but as a private businessman, if you wish to have a “White Christians only” restaurant, or a Han Chinese only one, that’s your right.
I realize that probably makes me a radical race mixer on
a White American site, but so be it. I don’t see any possibility whatsoever of an explicitly White racist party (I’m a racist, so I don’t use the word in a pejorative sense) getting any kind of traction in the USA today. If we can turn back the tide of illegals from Mexico and undo anti White discrimination then there will at least be a future White America.
For the record, I don’t have a strong antipathy towards
non Whites, and I even like some aspects of their cultures. Its just that I like most aspects of White American (WASP) created culture best of all and think it is worth preserving. WASP culture can tolerate some amount of minority influx, but it is already well past the point of diminishing returns now, mostly because the minorities we have are not the best ones, and because White American culture has stopped applying pressure to assimilate.
Mr. Jobling wrote:
“… if people were loyal to their race by instinct, the friendliness to diversity that characterizes contemporary Western societies would be impossible, and whites would not tolerate the pervasive denigration of their culture and history that I have labeled leukophobia. Besides, the nature of instincts is such that it would be impossible for a whole racial population to simply lose one.”
The term ‘race’ has long had a double meaning: it may be used either to designate a people differentiated in a physical sense (Negrids, Europids, etc), or to designate a group sharing a common ancestry. Any group or tribe whose progeny shares a common ancestry is a ‘race’ in the second sense of the term, even if it has not yet become physically distinct from neighbouring groups. Of course, the two meanings are not entirely distinct, for a group sharing a common ancestry is also involved in the process of physical differentiation and may eventually become a ‘race’ in the physical sense.
Now, when people say that man is loyal to his race by instinct, it will often be found that they are using the term ‘race’ in the second sense above, whereas you tend to use it in the physical sense.
If you contend that man is not loyal to his race in either sense, then I believe you are mistaken. The lack of patriotism displayed by whites does not prove that racial loyalty is an acquired passion any more than the suppression of the sex instinct proves that sex is not an inborn disposition. Instincts may be suppressed by discipline; they may also remain latent in the absence of a triggering stimulus. In the primal conditions under which mankind evolved, with race contending with race, the circumstances were present to stimulate the racial spirit. Our conduct was regulated by the ‘code of enmity’ with respect to competing races, whilst internal affairs were regulated by the ‘code of amity’, or altruism. In times of peace and prosperity, the conditions are not present to trigger the self-preservation instinct into activity, and so we see a decline of racial loyalty.
Another question worth exploring is the extent to which modern civilisation has denatured and modified the instinctive behaviour of man. Animals that display a strong aversion to other races in the wild have been known to copulate with the same breeds when they are in captivity.
“Why would white Americans allow affirmative action and mass non-white immigration if they had any instinctive loyalty to their own kind?”
In two words: white guilt. This is what I was trying to get across in an earlier comment. If you are skeptical about the existence of white guilt, then just try watching a few episodes of “Law and Order.” One of the main points of white guilt is that white racial loyalty is to be suppressed.
HalfJew:
I think you have clarified what you meant about the hypothetical party not being “explicitly” pro-white and that we are not very much in disagreement on this issue. Some thought would have to be given to how it could be assured that expressions of white racial solidarity would not be discouraged. The mainstream anti-immigration organizations certainly suppress such expressions on their websites.
Hal K,
It’s an odd sort of an instinct that can be lost through indoctrination. Usually instincts remain in spite of all efforts to extirpate them.
Well, to be honest with you, Mr. Jobling, I wasn’t even aware that there was a debate about the existence of inherent ethnocentrism among racialists. Instead, I thought the only uncertainty we had was in regards to the strength of this innate tribalism. Indeed, I had no idea that you basically believed that natural ethnocentrism was about as real as Santa Claus. In short, you caught me completely by surprise!
“For now, Mike G., I’ll just point out that you clutch at straws and ignore the massive evidence against your position.”
Forgive me, but given the overwhelming evidence in favor of inherent ethnocentrism that I cite, I don’t know how you can say that I clutch at straws with a straight face. Did you even read my comment? Did you read the theories of John Philippe Rushton and Kevin MacDonald? If so, then you would have seen that it is impossible for innate tribalism to not exist on at least some scale.
“Why would white Americans allow affirmative action and mass non-white immigration if they had any instinctive loyalty to their own kind? Why would they praise diversity as a strength? Why would they approve of miscegenation?”
The main reason that white Americans allow all of these things to happen is because, as you say in your article, “our culture demonizes white racial solidarity.” White Americans allow affirmative action, non-white immigration, and miscegenation because they have been told constantly for over a half-century by their schools, media, and politicians that they are the scum of the Earth if they don’t. Psychologically, it is very difficult for Americans to justify opposition to something when basically every single authority figure in their lives has told them that they are evil if they do.
Besides, in the recent past white Americans had absolutely no tolerance for any of the things that you mention. After all, it wasn’t even until the 1960s that affirmative action, mass non-white immigration, and miscegenation became legal — albeit to much public resistance. Indeed, even after these abominations were legalized, it took many years for them to become viewed as acceptable to all Americans. In fact, staunch resistance to these things still exists among many today (most prominently among white nationalists).
In other words, affirmative action, mass non-white immigration, and miscegenation only became legal and acceptable to white Americans because these things were shoved down their throats by an elite immersed in far-left theories.
“White nationalists try to persuade whites to obey their instinct to racial loyalty. But when did people ever have to be persuaded to obey an instinct? Don’t they usually have to be persuaded rather to restrain their instincts—don’t eat too much, don’t cheat on your wife, don’t murder your rival, etc.?”
But white Americans do have to be constantly persuaded to restrain their innate ethnocentric instinct. Why do you think that we are taught by our schools and media outlets, for our entire lives, that we should embrace diversity and multiculturalism with open arms? Indeed, the answer to this question should be obvious — we are taught to suppress the natural revulsion we have to American multiculturalism because it is common knowledge that tribalism is natural and inherent.
Besides, your analogies about our sex drive and our impulse to eat are faulty because our innate ethnocentrism is not as strong as those instincts. Indeed, eating and reproduction are much more survival-based instincts than ethnocentrism.
Also, to my knowledge not many Americans actually murder their rivals.
There are many examples of suppressed instincts. This gets back to the subject of explicit vs. implicit whiteness that Mike G mentioned.
As I say, I’m going to write further about what I consider to be the myth of instinctual racial loyalties soon. So perhaps we had better defer that question until then. For now, I’ll just say that I don’t any sign that white Americans have a suppressed instinct for racial loyalty. If we ever had one, it’s been totally lost, not suppressed. Besides, why would we suppress it if we felt it? Or who would have the power to force us to suppress it? I’ll remind both Hal K and Mike G. that current liberal policies on race and immigration emerged through a democratic process and thus were the choice of the people. No one can force government policies on Americans without their consent.
Yes, I have read Rushton and MacDonald on instinctual racial loyalties and genetic similarity theory. I won’t get into it here, but there are many different explanations for the phenomena they document, and I reject theirs.
Mr. Jobling:
Besides, why would we suppress it if we felt it? Or who would have the power to force us to suppress it?
Because human nature is dual. That inborn biasing of the mind which impels us to favour what is our own - including our race - can be counterbalanced by a vague longing for a spirit of fellowship that extends beyond the narrow limits of tribe and nation.
Also, like many instincts, racialism may remain latent in the absence of a triggering stimulus. In times of peace and prosperity, the conditions are lacking to trigger the self-preservation instinct into activity.
“Besides, why would we suppress it if we felt it?”
Mr. Jobling, I have already answered this question. We restrain our natural ethnocentrism because we have been told, for all of our lives, that this instinct is pure evil.
“Or who would have the power to force us to suppress it?”
I have also already answered this question. Repeated indoctrination from our media, schools, and elite can force us to restrain our innate tribalism. However, as we see by the very existence of white nationalism, it is impossible to completely restrain a natural impulse.
“I’ll remind both Hal K and Mike G. that current liberal policies on race and immigration emerged through a democratic process and thus were the choice of the people. No one can force government policies on Americans without their consent.”
But we all know that our democratic process doesn’t always result in the fulfillment of the will of the people. Indeed, there are many ways for our government to circumvent the will of the majority. For example, school segregation and anti-miscegenation laws were struck down by the Supreme Court — not by the will of the people. Do you really think that a majority of the people from the states where miscegenation was illegal would have supported the dismantling of anti-miscegenation laws? The answer to this question is a resounding NO!
Also, our government can only represent the will of the people if the people remain engaged and knowledgeable to what our government is doing. Indeed, it is unfortunate to say, but Americans have really always been quite apathetic and ignorant to politics.
Besides, indoctrination can significantly influence people to act against their own internal desires.
Mike G.,
Surely you must acknowledge that whites are not merely the victims of anti-ethnocentric indoctrination, but the perpetrators of it. Many whites have themselves preached that diversity is a strength and so forth. So you face a chicken/egg problem. If racial loyalty is natural and has been overcome through indoctrination, how do you explain the disloyalty of the whites who were responsible for the original indoctrination?
Most judges are not, it is true, directly elected. But they are appointed by elected officials. If white Americans had wished, they could have elected politicians who were determined to maintain anti-miscegenation and segregation laws through appropriate judicial appointments. But white Americans did not elect such politicians. Why didn’t they if they were instinctually loyal to their race? The only reasonable conclusion is that racial liberalism was the free choice of the American people. One can make similar arguments about the officials who control schools and other opinion-forming bodies.
As far as the mass media go, success in this field is dependent on catering to the inclinations of the public. Any TV show that tried to indoctrinate Americans with ideas that were alien to their nature would get low ratings and be taken off the air. Thus it is implausible to argue that the multicultural message of today’s mass media is being imposed on people involuntarily or is contradictory to their instincts. Americans must either enjoy this message or at least be indifferent to it, or else we would have different programming.
Even if you don’t agree with me, do you understand why I see the doctrine of instinctive racial loyalty as problematic? Also, did you read the article on the subject that I linked to from this article? Here’s another link.
“If racial loyalty is natural and has been overcome through indoctrination, how do you explain the disloyalty of the whites who were responsible for the original indoctrination?”
That’s the argument that I expected you to make.
I think the best answer to your question is that the ideology of liberalism itself can influence people to act against their innate tribalism. After all, at its core liberalism is an ideology that instructs us to suppress our ethnocentric instincts in favor of a more egalitarian outlook. With this knowledge, it should come as no surprise that once our elites became saturated in this philosophy, they would lose their regard for the interests of their own ethnic group.
Also, the fact that our innate ethnocentric tendencies tend to naturally vary in strength from person to person is another factor. In other words, some people just don’t feel as strong of an attachment to their ethnic group as other people do. With this in mind, it is easy to fathom how some people could guiltlessly work against the interests of their own people — even during a time when there was no egalitarian propaganda.
“If white Americans had wished, they could have elected politicians who were determined to maintain anti-miscegenation and segregation laws through appropriate judicial appointments. But white Americans did not elect such politicians. Why didn’t they if they were instinctually loyal to their race? The only reasonable conclusion is that racial liberalism was the free choice of the American people.”
Surely you see the holes in the logic of this statement? If you don’t, then you definitely have a lot more faith than I do in our democratic system. As I mentioned in my previous comment, government policies can only represent the will of the people if the people remain engaged and knowledgeable to what our government is doing. Do you really think that many Americans think too deeply about what kind of judicial appointments their elected politicians are going to make once they get into office? Once again, the answer to this question should be a resounding no.
Besides, the courts aren’t the only way for politicians to circumvent the will of the people. For example, a lot of the time politicians just simply ignore the desires of the majority of Americans. They do this because they know that most people vote for the lesser of the two evils, and thus have to vote for them anyway.
“Any TV show that tried to indoctrinate Americans with ideas that were alien to their nature would get low ratings and be taken off the air. Thus it is implausible to argue that the multicultural message of today’s mass media is being imposed on people involuntarily or is contradictory to their instincts.”
This statement is also untrue. And to demonstrate its falsehood, I will point out that most of the media maintains a liberal slant. Indeed, most of the media has really always been a great deal farther to the left than the general American population. Does this fact not demonstrate that it is possible to indoctrinate Americans with ideas that are against their inclinations? If what you say is true, then shouldn’t the media be a lot more moderate?
But on a different note, I want to personalize this discussion on innate ethnic loyalties. If what you say is true and “people are motivated by self-interest, not by any instinctive attachment to their race,” then how do explain people like me? I can tell you right now that I don’t consider myself a white nationalist because I see some kind of personal gain for me in it. Instead, I just don’t want to see white Americans and their culture destroyed or denigrated. And I think that most white nationalists are like me in this regard.
What about you, Mr. Jobling? Are you truly a “pro-white” because you want to advance the interests of whites, or are you a pro-white because you want to advance your own interests? Don’t you, Mr. Jobling, feel any instinctive attachment to your own race?
Besides, you portray a very dark and mechanical world. If you think that the only way you can convince whites to save their race is to describe to them the negative effects that diversity has on their own individual lives, then why bother at all? I wouldn’t.
There are lots of good thoughts here. First and foremost, I want to say up front I am not anti-minority. Growing up in NYC, I came across good and decent and wonderful folks of all stripes and hues. I grew up with a predominant black crowd of boys, later I played baseball on Puerto Rican teams, and I dated Chinese girls. My first baseball coach was black, my first football coach was Puerto Rican, and my first boss was black. All good men who were dedicated to helping all boys - even white ones. Most of these folks don’t wish whites any harm. Our real enemy is the white liberal establishment. They are the ones who have imposed the welfare state, the Immigrant Act of 1965 and this double-standard PC multicultural sham upon us. And they are the ones whom we must vanquish if we are to maintain a viable, healthy and vibrant white community in America.
As some of you know, I am working on a community project to rid our public schools of Howard Zinn. I am starting off at the county level and I have already generated a grass roots team (10 to 20 hard core activists) which will show up at school board meetings to air our grievances. Once we have achieved success at the county level, we will take our fight to the VA Department of Education, and then ultimately to the National AP Board. Our goal is to stop subjecting our white children to anti-white, and anti-capitalist propaganda. Will we defeat the Liberal Establishment overnight? Not a chance. But remember, the Left achieved their success through incrementalism over a period of 60 years.
Think of ourselves as US Army soldiers landing at Normandy Beach. The enemy is dug in with the advantage of terrain and interlocking fields of fire. To diminish his firepower, we are going to have to take out one pillbox at a time. Just like Tom Hanks did in Saving Private Ryan, we will form adhoc teams and concentrate our fire and efforts on the most vulnerable pillboxes. Howard Zinn is one such target. If enough of us can email, phone, and, if necessary, harass officials, then we can prevail - and more importantly, we can gain confidence in ourselves, our movement, and our pro-white community. The time of just exchanging emails and bitching among ourselves must stop.
In case you all didn’t realize, Mark got a letter about his campaign published on VDARE today.
Hal K, It’s an odd sort of an instinct that can be lost through indoctrination. Usually instincts remain in spite of all efforts to extirpate them.
I have to disagree with this statement. I believe (from observation) that human beings have many instincts that we suppress because of indoctrination. Murder, rape, theft, lying, physical violence, ludeness, ‘rude’ behaviours, etc. all are examples of highly instinctual behaviour. I suspect that the higher the individual’s intelligence, the better their ability to suppress instinct is. This corresponds with crime statistics vs. intelligence as well as the so-called ‘time-preference’ psychology measurement.
Exegesis,
Crime and rudeness have clearly not been extirpated by indoctination, as they are still common, so your argument here is not a strong one. Indeed, your point adds strength to my argument that real instincts resist even the most strenuous efforts to eradicate them. Moreover, even those who successfully suppress violent instincts nevertheless fantasize about acting on them, as violent video games and other entertainments attest. However, I see few people fantasizing about joining the pro-white movement. There are no video games about joining the Klan! Besides, if what you said were true, you would expect participation on pro-white websites to be much higher.
As a belated response to Mike G., I think that one of our deepest interests is to maintain the type of culture in which we prosper. One of the deep reasons for outrage over mass immigration into America is that many white people rightly think that immigrants have different values from ours and will create a culture in which we will not prosper. Most whites require a society under the rule of law to prosper, and most groups of non-whites create lawless, chaotic societies. I consider the defense of Western values, which means the defense of the people that created them, a cause worthy of my total devotion.
You say my theory is dark, but isn’t the world dark as well? Doesn’t a dark world require a dark theory? Aren’t more optimistic theories disproven by the sad state of the world?
I know I promised you an article about this, but I’ve decided, after great thought, that I have greater priorities right now and cannot spare the effort that would be required to make my point about the origins of racial loyalties effectively. It would be a very substantial research project, and there are matters that are much more pressing to me. After all, I’ve been talking a lot about building the movement lately, and that means writing about matters that are of interest to a broad public. However, I think the debate we’re having is merely of concern to people already in the pro-white movement. I hope to get to this subject some time, and I apologize for disappointing you, if you are disappointed. In the mean time, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
On the subject of whether ethnic groups have an inbuilt loyalty to their race, I’m going to say 75% no, and 25% yes.
Here is what I mean as an HBDer…
My educated guess is that “racial loyalty” - from a purely materialist, neurological/psychological perspective - exists but it exists in conjunction with other sociological factors such as language, nuclear family, sex relations, culture, art, religion, economics, and on and on and on.
Racial loyalty is probably not very strong by itself but becomes stronger when other social factors such as culture and religion are in a healthy state.
I don’t believe racial loyalty can exist in a pronounced way without those other cultural factors because if it could exist in the absence of culture, Europe and East Asia would not have been and still be fragmented into different nations and have been at war with members of their own overall racial group for so many thousands of years.
If racial loyalty were as strong absent culture and religion as WNs think, then the nations of Europe would have existed in one big European empire.
Of course, Europe has always been fragmented into blocks of the various European subgroups. Ditto East Asia.
Even the Roman empire was basically a conglomeration of the Western Celtic Europeans in Italy, France and Spain. The Germanic tribes could never be conquered and assimilated by Rome which was in one sense a great Celtic Empire.
Likewise, Renaissance Italy should not have existed in small Italian city states but instead have been one large Northern Italian ethnostate if WNs were mostly correct about the great strength of racial loyalty.
The fragmentation of Europe into small sub ethnic statelets for so long argues against an inbuilt instinct for racial loyalty in the absence of extremely complex cultural factors.
Given this, I would argue against appealing to white Americans racial loyalty because such loyalty will manifest itself only when other complex cultural factors move in WNs favor. Factors such as religion are not within a prowhite’s ability to influence.
I would suggest instead making a Sociobiological, self interest, scientific argument for white Americans acting in their own socio-political self interests.
And yet, Mr. Jobling, here we are talking about white unity and racial conciousness despite heavy indoctrination. Do you think you are above instinct? You must, because otherwise you’ve proven my point - it is instinct which is why so very many people are resisting the brainwashing.
And if I’m right, it will be from the bottom half of the IQ curve we get the most support - because it will be an instinctive support. I personnally have met dozens of otherwise normal, blue-collar individuals, who think the same things we do here (just with less intellectual venere). These are the folks who were motivated to look up the KKK website after Obama was elected - the site crashed from traffic btw.
There are many causes for an intelligent person to take up in this world, and few of them are so materially and socially deleterious to the individual.
here we are talking about white unity and racial conciousness despite heavy indoctrination.
White racial loyalty exists but I think you are overestimating how strong it is by itself.
White racial consiousness can be easily overridden by a wide variety of social factors such as economic self interest, linguistic, religous and cultural differences, etc.
If white racial consciousness were as strong as you indicate, why have whites waged war against eachother for so many thousands of years? Why did whites fight eachother during the Napoleonic wars, the Peloponnesian War, the US Civil War, and so forth? If whites are strongly loyal to their race, why would Europeans have fought so many wars against themselves?
To the extent there is a white racial loyalty it probably only exists when interacting with many other socialogical factors such as religion, and even then the loyalty centers around one’s immediate white subethnic group or those that one feels are culturally intune with one’s subethnic group.
Exegesis,
I’m not impressed that the Klan website crashed on election night. It’s a relatively small website and consequently probably is hosted on a single server, or possibly even on a shared account. The amount of traffic that it would take to crash a website like that is fairly minimal. 100,000 people logging on simultaneously would probably do it. That isn’t a lot. And who knows why people were going there? Was it because they sympathized with the Klan or were just curious to see how they were reacting? Scarcely proof of a suppressed instinct for racial loyalty.
I would contest your interpretation of my motives. I don’t run this site out of some instinct for racial loyalty, but because I’ve been persuaded that whites create the type of society that I want to live in, and non-whites don’t.
By the way, just to be clear about this for newcomers, I want to make sure that people know that I in no way support the Klan or am allied with them.
I wrote above that I wouldn’t be further developing my criticism of the theory that there is an instinctive basis for racial loyalty. Well, after having given the matter even more thought, I’ve decided that I really am going to have to write more about this subject, and probably a lot more. First of all, many, probably the majority, of my readers are convinced that such an instinct exists, and thus the kind of argument we’ve been having on this thread periodically resurfaces. I need to try and resolve this conflict by clearly explaining what I think. Besides, a website that is trying to build white racial solidarity needs to put forth a theory of the causes of racial solidarity. So I’ve now accepted that this issue is important enough to devote a substantial amount of time to, and I’m going to make a long-term project of developing my ideas on this subject.
“I don’t run this site out of some instinct for racial loyalty, but because I’ve been persuaded that whites create the type of society that I want to live in, and non-whites don’t.”
“As a belated response to Mike G., I think that one of our deepest interests is to maintain the type of culture in which we prosper. One of the deep reasons for outrage over mass immigration into America is that many white people rightly think that immigrants have different values from ours and will create a culture in which we will not prosper.”
Mr. Jobling, judging from your comments it seems like you would be fine with importing millions of non-whites as long as they didn’t bring with them a culture that threatened our ability to prosper. So I guess that means that the answer to my question is that you don’t have any attachment to your race. Instead, you just have an attachment to the kind of culture and value system that is characteristic of the white race. Indeed, going by what you say it seems that you would be fine with living in a society that was 100% black, as long as it was orderly and prosperous.
I agree that one of the biggest reasons for the outrage over mass non-white immigration is that white Americans rightly think that these immigrants will denigrate their culture and values. However, I believe that the biggest reason of all for this outrage is demographics. In other words, I strongly believe that the most powerful motivation for the opposition to non-white immigration is that white Americans see that this immigration is racially transforming their country. In my opinion, a lot (not all) of the complaints you hear from whites about the economic or social costs of immigration is an attempt by them to justify their opposition to this invasion. After all, white Americans have been told for all of their lives that any opposition to immigration on racial grounds is inherently evil.
“You say my theory is dark, but isn’t the world dark as well? Doesn’t a dark world require a dark theory? Aren’t more optimistic theories disproven by the sad state of the world?”
I also have a pessimistic view of the world. However, I think that your theory goes way too far. In short, I just don’t believe that people are quite as self-centered as you do.
By the way, Mr. Jobling, I’m glad to hear that are again planning on writing about ethnic loyalties. After all, I think that ethnic loyalties may be one of the most important issues to the pro-white movement. Indeed, it is of my belief that we haven’t got a chance at ever succeeding unless white people do possess at least some instinctive attachment to their own race. In my opinion, the strategy of educating people on racial differences will not cut it by itself.
I look forward to reading your best attempt to demoralize and cripple the entire pro-white movement.
In building a theory of racial loyalty we need a set of data and characterizations of the data. One datum is the reaction to the OJ verdict.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/oj/view/5_hi.html
Listen to the black lawyers and intellectuals saying the black reaction you see before you is not hatred of whites or celebrating the killing of whites. Its almost as if Frontline created a training tape that either side could use. Liberals can see how to lie about what people see. The right, or whatever we call ourselves, can say see how the talking heads lie about what you see in front of you with your own eyes.
There are several levels of race loyalty on display. The black jury voted for OJ. The blacks react with joy. The black lawyers and intellectuals then say its not black racism, or hate of whites in general or celebrating the killing of two whites. So all levels of the black race express their race loyalty in their own way and in the way that is most useful to their race.
In response to your earlier response, Mr. Jobling:
In 2005, there were about 5400 white murderers. I believe the instinct for murder is real, but suppressed in society. What does that volume of interest in the Klan website tell you? Mind you, I’m talking about people primarily from the left-half of the IQ bell curve. 100,000 people interested in preserving our racial interest is a huge number for something that is a social taboo. By the way, the people in question were motivated by feelings that the country had been ‘taken over’ by blacks - in short, they felt threatened, like America was being invaded or conquered by another race.
How do you suppose an instinctual racial (really based on a familial) loyalty would get expressed in this modern environment? We know how it was expressed in the past: calls for deportation of blacks, a halt to foreign immigration, desires for trade barriers, demands for English to be declared the primary language, forced segragation, etc. The only two other reasons for all those types of past activities, viewed today as racism, is if they are a) motivated by fact - that people actually knew for certain that blacks were undesirable in society; or b) that they were the classic ‘evil racist.’
Finally, what chance do you suppose there is that evolution would not instill such a valuable trait in us? Imagine two races in a primitive society; race A has no racial loyalty, whereas race B does.
Both races live together. Race A views everybody as being more or less interchangable, and so does not with-hold resources specifically for members or its own race but shares them freely. Similarly, it has no prohibitions about reproduction, employment, etc. towards the other race. Race B, however, does have racial loyalty - they view race A as at best a competitor and at worst an enemy worthy of destruction or enslavement. Race B directs its charity solely towards members of its own race. It also does not employ race A in anything beyond menial labor - reserving higher positions for members of their own racial family. Gradually, this means organizations, such as priesthoods, warrior castes, etc. will come to be dominated by race B. In addition, race B rejects the offspring of a union by race A & B. If you are familiar with the concepts of hybridization and pure-breeds, you’ll be aware that this means race A will gradually acquire a combination or traits from both races, losing many of the positive recessive traits of both races, but gaining a double-dose of adverse, disgenic recessives.
In the end, of course, you’ll have a society where race B migrates to the top positions, and race A migrates to the bottom. In a primitive society with scarce resources, race A will gradually be crowded out of existence, leaving only race B. This is because A will continue to share resources that are scarce while race B will continue to reserve all the resources it can for itself.
What I’m trying to say, is I think it’s pretty unlikely that there would be a people on the earth today that isn’t instinctually loyal to their own people.
Sorry for the long post. One last thing; to me, it isn’t necessary that we have the best culture, or are the most inventive, or any of that, for we descendents of Europe to want to control our own destiny and build our own society. It is perfectly right and good that we should value our own people, families, and selves, above all others in the world. We could be the stupidest, most violent, most slothful people in existence and it would not change my opinion. We have a right to exist, on our own, seperately from all others, and to hold ourselves as a distinct and precious people.
Exegesis,
I can’t answer all your questions now. You’ll have to wait for future articles of mine on this subject. As far as your questions about Race A and Race B go, the answer is that neither race that you describe is likely to evolve through natural selection. Natural selection leads organisms to be concerned primarily with their own good and that of their immediate family. The indiscriminate altruism of Race A and the group altruism of Race B are equally unlikely. It is exactly this sort of question that Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene and the science of evolutionary psychology addresses, so I advise you to look there for answers to your questions. Some of these topics are dealt with in my article The Truth About Human Nature.
Exegesis,
Also, how do you know what the people who crashed the Klan website were thinking? Maybe they just went there to see how the Klan would react to crushing defeat and laugh at them.
Ian,
I was referring to the two coworkers who had gone to the website. I know why they went to the website because I asked them, and that is what they told me.
As far as the rest go, we certainly can’t give more than a guess as to how many visited the site from curiosity, how many do to KKK sympathy (not that the KKK was under attack any more than usual though), and how many visited out of racial solidarity. Still, we do have other more concrete numbers, such as the total number of registrants at Stormfront, which I understand is somewhere over 100,000 as well.
So much of human behaviour is influenced by genes, by instinct, it seems impossible to me that there wouldn’t be a mechanism for racial preference built into us. I believe, but don’t know for certain, that group altruism would be most prevalent in times where is was best for the individual organisms - in other words, times of conflict when cooperation would increase survival rates. Why do I think altruism has racial overtones? It’s simple. If your evovled goal is to pass on your genes, you get no return - or even a negative return - from helping people unrelated to you, since every other race is at best a competitor.
There is a book I’ve been meaning to look up on this subject, On Genetic Interests I believe it’s called. I believe it will make my argument for me in a better way than I can.
Since people have continued to object to my ideas on ethnic group loyalties, I have elaborated my views further in this thread in the forum.
Old Atlantic,
In belated reply to your comment, I was never arguing that racial loyalty doesn’t exist—obviously, it does—, just that it probably was not an instinct.
To follow up on my argument against the “hybrid vigor/genetic diveristy” of interracial marriage, we should point out to whites specific psycho-neurological and other physical differences between whites and half white offspring.
We would argue scientifically against Asian-white pairings because half Asian male children have lower testosterone on average than the white parent, against black-white pairings because mulatto children have lower average IQs than blacks, and so on.
Saying “you have a responsibility to preserve the white race” isn’t enough because people would say what is so important about white genetics.
We have to appeal to their self interests and explain especially psycho-neurological differences between races.
Excellent article, Mr. Ian Jobling! Pragmatism and not appearing extreme are important for our movement.
I forgot to mention, protecting the environment is a key for a pro-White platform.
We should start opposing Affirmative Action/Racial Quotas, illegal immigration & universal citizenship (known as “Amnesty”), and massive legal immigration. Opposing these and the most fringe of anti-White school curriculum will provide a great platform for a “ANP-type” party. It would also promote the environment, labor unions, and the Middle Class, for a strong coalition against massive (non-White) immigration!
I agree with your theory, Ian, and to demonstrate that this white nationalist can also be a practical fellow, I will submit my letter tomorrow to Stafford County school officials suggesting Howard Zinn be removed from the schools. I have managed to get 50 of my friends and neighbors to co-sign the email. If the county refuses to bulge, I will urge my fellow citizens to attend school board meetings and to speak out against the anti-white venom dripping all over Zinn’s book.
MJ