By Ian Jobling • 3/12/08
Last weekend I got into a debate with the people at ARlist, a Yahoo discussion group sponsored by American Renaissance magazine. I had posted an announcement of my plans for activism there, and some of the list participants looked favorably on my project. However, most of them—or, at least, the ones who comment the most—reacted to my post with outright hostility. The reason? My stance on David Duke. A link to my article The Insanity of $David Duke$ is displayed conspicuously and proudly on the Inverted World homepage. The article examines Duke’s claim that the Israelis were complicit in the 9/11 attacks and finds that there is no real evidence for it; in fact, Duke gets the facts wrong in at least one important instance. I also point out that, if there were anything to Duke’s theory, the mainstream press, which is quite willing to criticize Israel, would certainly have reported it. In short, Duke’s promotion of this theory suggests that he is motivated by a hatred of Jews so powerful that it overwhelms his sanity.
None of the Duke fans on ARlist who responded indignantly to my post attempted to contradict the facts as I had laid them out in the article. Rather, one accused me of being an “enemy infiltrator,” possibly in the employ of the Mossad. Another believed that my article must be bogus simply because I quoted one pro-Israeli advocacy group, as though everything Israel’s supporters write must be lies. Another expressed amazement that I would care about the vilification of Jews when I am not myself Jewish.
The most common criticism, however, and the one that I think best expressed the true reason for the anger of my detractors, was that pro-white writers and activists had no business criticizing each other. As one RA Fonda wrote:
WHY do you go to the trouble to criticize a fellow white loyalist? If you do the zog’s work, why are you not a ‘tool’ of the zog?
In other words, the ARlist posters’ message to me was: “We don’t care about the truth. David Duke is on our side and should thus be exempt from criticism. Anyone who does criticize him is our enemy.”
This incident is interesting because it reveals the tone of the American racial right and is further evidence of Jared Taylor’s willingness to tolerate and enable anti-Semitism. However, the discussion also clarified my perception that there are two camps in the white preservationist movement with radically different perspectives: one camp is motivated by tribalism, whereas the other is motivated by the love of Western values—I will call this camp “values preservationists.” The distinction is outlined in Arguments for White Preservation.
Tribalists believe we should be loyal to the white race for the simple reason that racial solidarity is natural. The tribalist says, “Since I am white, I naturally ally myself with white causes and, where possible, take the white side in any argument, because white society and culture are mine.” My adversaries’ position seems to be rooted in this perspective. For them, it did not matter whether Duke was telling the truth or not. Rather, they supported him simply because he was fighting on the right side. The tribalists found it absurd and suspicious that I would stick up for a tribe that I do not belong to.
Values preservationists, on the other hand, are motivated by love not of the white race in itself, but of the unique attributes of Western culture, such as individualism, pluralism, and the orientation towards truth. Since I am a values preservationist, it is quite natural for me to object to Duke’s slanders against Israel. After all, the reason that I favor white preservation in the first place is that I value the West’s tradition of orientation towards truth and objectivity. Since those values plainly do not guide Duke’s work, I not only dislike it but regard it as a betrayal of the ideals of our movement.
I continue to think that only values preservationism will be effective in bringing converts to our cause. Tribalists wish to appeal to whites’ natural instinct for racial loyalty. However, I have argued that this instinct is probably non-existent; at best, it is weak. On the other hand, whites are strongly motivated to defend the Western tradition of liberal values, as the success of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders testifies.
Finally, I find the reaction of the Duke fans to my call to activism tragic. They are trapped in a radicalism so paranoid and hermetic that they cannot participate in a shared reality with the rest of Americans, let alone express their anger through political action. The result is that they take their anger out not on the political establishment, but on people like me.