The problem is not really created by the occasional mixed race marriage but by a political system that aims at the elimination of the dominant historical identity, in this case Anglo-American and European American. That is what we are up against, and it seems to me that two solutions have been proposed–setting aside acquiescence–and the first is racial nationalism, which requires the nationalists to seize power and impose their will; the second, is Christianity, which requires every believer to do his best to lead a Christian life even in the degrading circumstances of postmodern America. Quite apart from any moral problem with the racial nationalist position, it is both impractical and nostalgic: impractical in the sense that-setting aside our basic differences–people like us have no power and are unlikely ever to improve our position. Here, my good friend Sam Francis and his inspiration Don Warren were absolutely wrong. There will be no Middle American Revolution. It did not work in the late 60’s and that generation seems positively heroic compared with people today. We have become slaves of our appetites. It is nostalgic, because it longs for the good old days of segregation, which are not coming back without a bloodbath that no one has the taste for. Believe me, things are going to get much much worse, and all we can do is to do what the early Christians did: lead the best lives we can, form little communities of faith and civility, and spread the word.

I know that you do not have a clue as to mine.

haha, well I thought I finally had the mystery solved.

This is not, it seems to me, a good way of ending racial and ethnic conflict.

very glad to hear it, though it seems you don’t wish for to prevent their mixing as I do, and over time two populations living together will mix especially with so much propaganda being produced by the media and schools…

some day I am happy to take up Plato’s views on these matters, but I fear they are quite wacky.

The quotes were perhaps taken out of context somewhat, they were meant as an idea of, not a belief of, Plato’s, but racial identity is most important for identity and loyalty to ancestral traditions, which can go back many years, and one’s people. When talking of Pygmies and Celts, then I think physical differences will be important as well, but there’s not usually going to be much physical difference between two neighboring city-states.

Otherwise, we end up living for what we hate.

Though I could be lying, I don’t actually hate people. Race is merely another tradition – a genetic heritage. It’s perplexing that you continue to identify racial identity with hate.

In the past I think tribes would occasionally come to believe in their divine origin, or in the divine origin of the ruling class of some society. This served a purpose for them which can be emulated via a distinct racial heritage – there’s no need of a lie now.

The proper procedure is to find out what it was they took for granted and begin from there.

My goal was simply to demonstrate that ideological nationalism did exist in ancient times at a particular time within a specific mind. It probably existed as a belief in a divine or otherwise unique origin, but today we have genetics and we now know the true religion.

The ultimate goal, for me, is to bring about a nation-state that preserves what may be preserved of a Southern people or perhaps of old stock America that’s at least respectful of the South. And I’m also interested in such coming about to preserve Western European peoples. The more such extreme traditionalist states the better – for I doubt most human groups would be capable of such, I do buy into some of the racial theories, and it would seem extremely difficult for such to be brought about, req. unique circumstances and virtuous leaders. The ultimate goal of such: their preservation and ability to resist corruption. There’s of course the need to resist foreign attack, but I think such states would be so productive and relatively dedicated that they’d be strong enough to resist, at least for some time.

Anyway, I appreciate your taking the time to respond to me, though I do continue to think I disagree significantly with you. And popular opinion here may well decide I’m the nuttier between the two of us, just from what I’ve said here though such doesn’t matter – I think any sort of radical ideals are going to sound nutty. Staying the course though seems destined for great suffering and the loss of everyone, thing, and idea I hold dear – if such is all but a certain fate, then it seems great efforts should be taken to resisting it.

Anyway, I need to read more certainly, though I’ll continue to seek out the best and most useful, not just the most common. I’ve far less reading time now than I did a few years ago in college.

There are two sorts of paths that a nonleftist “who loves his people could pursue: the path of unquestioning loyalty to nation and/or ideology, which causes us to suspend our rational faculties, or a rational and scholarly pursuit of truths to serve the people. If one chooses the former, it is better not to engage in principled historical discussions. What about the latter case? Although I do not believe that an entirely objective pursuit of truth is possible, we can, if we are interested in truth, always, to distinguish between statements that arise from irrational loyalties and statements that are an attempt at stating something factual. My pedestrian remarks on cross-cutting allegiances, derived from anthropologists, historians, and political theorists, were intended only as a description of how human societies have functioned successfully. In pursuing an Aristotelian/Althusian approach, I now realize, I neglected this important aspect. This is not the place to discuss it, but conflicts between families, tribes, and nation-states are frequently ended or at least suspended by intermarriage. This is not, it seems to me, a good way of ending racial and ethnic conflict.

I do not entirely know what your views on race are, and I know that you do not have a clue as to mine. I have no objection to discussing the phenomenon of racial differences and their social and political implications, but I do object to the introduction of a priori racialist assumptions into a rational debate, just as I object to communist or premillenialist assumptions being put on the table as truths.

Finally, some day I am happy to take up Plato’s views on these matters, but I fear they are quite wacky. In the first place, genos only means “race”in some very restricted senses, as we used to speak of the English race. It means those who share a common inheritance of blood, thus it can correspond to a word like “clan” or even extended family. It carries no baggage of racialist theory. That is the problem with translations. Learning requires great patience. If we know the answer before the question is asked–for racialists it is race, for libertarians it is “freedom of choice” or the “free market”–then we can never learn anything. Loyalty to kith and kin is natural and laudable–so long as it does not inspire hatred toward nonkith and nonkin–and loyalty to one’s people, to speak quite broadly, although weaker is nonetheless a wholesome necessity in all but saints. There are, however, other principles and other loyalties that have to be taken into account. The racialism of intelligent young Americans today is partly the result of malignant and disgusting policies and theories that have taught European American males to despise themselves and their ancestors. Sanity, not “white racial consciousness” is the way out. Otherwise, we end up living for what we hate.

In the realm of such ideas, I doubt there’s anything new under the Sun. To say a concept is “modern” seems to be a modern tendency.

We’re but children as Plato said in one of the Atlantis myths. (actually the Egyptian told Solon…)

—

Race seems especially important if attempting to preserve a nation and an order. If such leads to war, that’s the problem of others, though ideally Christians would behave as Christians and nations would behave as nation-states not empires.

If nations are so fragile, it seems we should do everything possible to protect and preserve ours for as long as is possible, through as many corrupt periods as is possible. Many don’t believe man will endure 100 years.

But there are also cross-cutting identities, as anthropologists call them, such as religious affiliation, craft or profession, and membership in secret societies. A man might think of himself as a Smith from Smithfield, NC, a Southerner, but as, say, a Catholic convert he feels a loyalty even to the Mexican chicken-pluckers he sees at Mass, while as a stamp-collector he finds kinship and friendship with other philatelists around the world. These cross-cutting relationships, which in primitive societies can include marriage, have the important effect of uniting and pacifying tribal and ethnic divisions that might otherwise cause perpetual strife and violence.

While it’s absolute true what you say, that man identifies with cross-cutting identities that may cross race/tribe, how this is interpretted is where ideology comes in I think.

When you say:

have the important effect of uniting and pacifying tribal and ethnic divisions that might otherwise cause perpetual strife and violence

This rings of a modern reaction to WWII – it sounds similar to what Greens wish for, albeit you’re a Christian and they’re usually not. I would humbly suggest the alternative to WWII is a decentralised, distributist Christian nation-state that wouldn’t fall into dual morality because it’s Christian.

I’d need to look back at the works you reference. I’m only vaguely familiar with them atm.

—

I’ll probably not bring up race again here now that I realise your view on it.

To take a simple example, you can read many translations that use words like “family,” “race,” and “the state,” which are at best loose interpretations of the original.

This might well be the case, but yea I do doubt that ancients didn’t have a concept or racial separateness, I mean aside from tiny clans and aristocracies. It seems to me more human weakness as the cause of amalgamation.

I might disagree with you, more than I had previously thought, but I do benefit from your teachings and do appreciate your efforts, as do I’m sure many others especially as ideas and arguments move through the internet. And even after you’re gone, I’m sure your main two books at least will be read.

Quotes:

For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them, they are lost and friendship with them. By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, the qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things.

Plato. Critias.

And when they were quite finished the earth as being their mother delivered them, and now as if their land were their mother and their nurse they ought to take thought for her and defend her against any attack and regard the other citizens as their brothers and children of the self-same earth.

Plato. Republic.

you are ignorant of the fact that the noblest and most perfect race amongst men were born in the land where you now dwell, and from them both you yourself are sprung and the whole [23c] of your existing city, out of some little seed that chanced to be left over; but this has escaped your notice because for many generations the survivors died with no power to express themselves in writing.

Plato. Timaeus.

—

It seems then the concept of “ideological nationalism” is ancient.

—

[Modern nations] seem ready for extinction by the first rude barbarian who says, “I will.” —Richard Weaver. “The South and the American Union.”

Like almost everyone else here, I of course share your views that the natural human attachment to family and to one’s place of birth is of course preferable to the messianic “nationalism” that now plagues us.

However, I have several questions.

You seem to be trying to find the “true” meanings of “patriotism” and “nationalism,” or at least meanings that can be accepted among conservatives as a basis of discussion. Isn’t that a hopeless task? The words have been used in so many ways that surely there will never be standardization upon one set of meanings.

That is not to deny the usefulness of enunciating and contrasting different possible meanings of the words, of course.

Second, I share your view that it would be nice for Westerners to actually learn about historic Western culture: my kids and I are studying classical Greek (we’re homeschooling), and it would surely be a good thing to be able to read Homer, Aristotle, Sophocles, etc. in the original.

If I understand you correctly, you wish to avoid the false internationalism and multiculturalism of the Left by returning to the historic high culture of the West and by preserving the authentic life of the West as it is actually lived in the “little platoons.”

However, isn’t the truly “authentic” Western culture of today, as actually lived in most “little platoons,” the culture of Oprah and of “Sex and the City”? Even those of us old enough to remember a slightly more benign popular culture grew up with our cultural exposure being “I Love Lucy,” “McHales’s Navy,” or “The Brady Bunch.”

Isn’t anyone, such as yourself, who is attempting to revive the historic culture of the West in much the same position as someone who is trying to get modern Westerners to absorb or understand the Bhagavad Gita or the Analects of Confucius?

No doubt any of these is preferable to Oprah and “Sex and the City”! But it seems to me that you are in the position, not of trying to prop up or preserve a still living culture, but rather of trying to create a new, more healthy culture based on a historic Western culture that died some time ago.

That may be a good thing (in most ways, I think it is), but it is good to be clear about what one is doing.

Finally, doesn’t the radical change in human culture brought about by the rise of natural science mean that any attempt to preserve or revive traditional cultures must be of very limited success?

I know that, unlike some conservatives, you are not an enemy of science but only of the (often bizarre) misuse of science. I myself am a physicist (Ph.D. from Stanford) turned engineer, and I lament as much as anyone the use of the prestige of science to justify such projects as “scientific” socialism, the destruction of the monogamous family, an insistence on a false equality between men and women, etc.

In fact, as you know, true science (e.g., evolution) discredits many such projects just as clearly as does common sense.

However, traditional Western culture (and the same is true of most other traditional cultures I know of) rests on certain factual assertions, on beliefs about the nature of reality, that fit very poorly with the discoveries of modern science.

Concretely, it is unusual for a bright, well-trained modern scientist to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was literally born of a Virgin, literally rose from the dead, etc.

That does not mean that such scientists (I include myself) cannot appreciate the beauty of Chartres Cathedral or of Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” But such appreciation is a distant aesthetic one, not motivated by the beliefs that historically were the basis of Western civilization.

Again, I certainly agree with you that it would be a very good thing if there were more knowledge and understanding of the great artistic and cultural achievements of the historic West. But that is not a distinctively Western view. I married into a family of Chinese immigrants, and many members of that family are far more interested in classical Western culture – from classical Greece to the classical music of the last few centuries – than most Americans now are.

The Chinese know good stuff when they see it, and there is a lot of good stuff indeed in historic Western culture.

But I don’t think that interesting my Chinese in-laws in the great artistic and cultural achievements of the West is your central goal. Perhaps I misunderstand your goal, but it does seem to me that truly restoring the culture of the West (whether in the sense of the “little platoons” or of “high culture”), as opposed to appreciating its past achievements, is now impossible.

All the best,

Dave Miller in Sacramento

What I have in mind about neopaganism would start in the early Christian era with Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus and the Emperor Julian, before proceeding to Proclus, then Psellus, then George Gemistus Plethon and Bessarion, who, I believe, helped to bring the tradition to Italy, though they were anticipated by Emperor Frederick II in Palermo. What I wish to do is have the excuse to continue working on a project that would produce a boook.

It seems to be a dire need which at present is not being met by anyone.