For all of human history, the people in charge of society have had to both publicly demonstrate their piety and enforce public morality. Maybe the ruler got the blessing of the religious leaders and ruled according to their doctrines. Maybe the ruler was the head of the religion or even considered a god. His decrees were in support of his rule, but also the faith over which he ruled. In all cases, public ritual has always been an integral part of how the ruler relates to the ruled and how the ruled understand their society.
The ritual aspects of public life often go unnoticed, because the rituals are a part of the shared reality of the people. The ceremonies and rituals of society objectify this shared reality in the form of roles, mores and values. These rituals bind the private life of the citizen to the public life of society, creating a shared reality we think of as culture. For the people in a society, this shared reality is just reality. The public projections of shared morality are simply part of the commonly accepted structure of life.
Just as important, the people participate in this reality by playing their roles as part of how they are incorporated into the public space. The rulers do the things rulers do, while the spiritual leaders perform the roles and ceremonies for their role. The people respond according their role and bear witness to these public displays. By performing these ceremonies, rituals and customs, the people in the various roles are reinforced as that element of the shared reality. The public performance provides cultural meaning.
Think of the rituals of primitive people. The songs, dances and costumes are not part of a causal relationship. They are not performing X ritual because it will lead to Y result. They perform their rituals, because to not do so would separate them from what defines them as a people. The ritual is a part of their core and it binds the members, even those on the fringe, to that core. It is upon that core that their other social structures are built. To those inside, it is deeply meaningful. To those outside it is entirely meaningless.
In modern America, the political ritual has replaced religion and even regional culture, with a narrative that plays out on television and the internet every day. This narrative is a repetition of an old rhythm that dates to the founding. There is the sense of communal responsibility. There is the threat to the community that is spiritually well understood, but otherwise ill-defined. Within this construct, there are the roles for the moral leaders, the purely secular and the internal threat that binds with the external threat.
The template for this is the old New England town, living in fear of Old Scratch, the eternal tempter, who exists on the fringe of society. His presence defines the righteous, but is ignored by those only concerned with daily life. Troubles in the village, a bad harvest or maybe some unusual behavior, set the righteous against the secular, allowing them to maintain the moral high ground in society. At some point, the one cavorting with Old Scratch is found and is ritualistically punished for putting the community at risk.
Today, the word “democracy” is used instead of community. It transcends the literal definition to include the shared spiritual, cultural and emotional habitat. A threat to democracy is not someone rigging an election or causing the tabulation equipment to malfunction. In this age, a threat to democracy is a threat to our existence, in the same way a threat to the mother of small children is a threat to her small children. These threats are best understood as a threat to the emotional logic that operates our society.
As a result, our political theater is an endless loop of the Left declaring some threat to democracy, while the Right is either skeptical or insufficiently enthusiastic for defending democracy against this new threat. The threat itself can be nothing particular, as it is just a stock character in the drama. The Left warns, the Right scoffs, the threat inside our democracy is found and the Left demands punishment in blood. This is a narrative that is replayed on all stages of public life, both small and large. It is our shared narrative.
As is any drama, the characters are all interdependent. Instead of these being written into our national morality tale by clever writers, they are created and perpetuated by the players themselves. The Left is conditioned to create some version of the secular, materialistic Right, as well as the spiritual threat to the community. For its part, the Right is conditioned to seek out and play their role as well. As soon as the Left conjures a new version of Old Scratch, the Right responds by dismissing it in some way.
The roles of tempter and collaborator are also performed voluntarily. Take, for example, the alt-right a few years ago. They immediately went for the taboo iconography in order to make themselves both the thing the Left fears and the collaborator with that threat. You had suburban white boys from good families, dressing up as Nazis, while holding torch light processions. It was entirely symbolic. It was a plea to have a larger part in the national morality play, like a child’s plea for attention from a parent.
It’s why this summer we will probably have a long running drama about reparations to the descendants of slaves. It has nothing to do with the blacks. It is simply a casting call for all of the best performers to show up and perform their role. There will be plenty of self-righteous Progressives. On the Right, the skeptical, but tormented right-winger and the selfish and obtuse right-winger will have roles. The crowd will divide among those who prize spiritual fulfillment and those obsessed with material happiness.
Of course, it does not have to be about reparations. There are many possible themes around which to build the narrative this year. Ilhan Omar has given the usual suspects a reason to fret over antisemitism. Elizabeth Warren wants it to be about the threat of big business to our democracy. Ocasio-Cortez would like a dramatic performance of democratic socialism. The subject is no important, as the Left and the Right know their roles so well, they can play off of one another without a script.
This national narrative is why outsider politics never gains traction. There is no role for a second moralistic character. There can only be one righteous main figure in this tale, as to have others would suggest alternative moralities. The whole point of the performance is reinforce the only allowable morality. That leaves the other roles, which is why anything that is an authentic alternative either drifts into the role of the materialist Right or the roles of Old Scratch and his subversive tools within the society of the righteous.
That is the great struggle for alternative politics. Those seeking to build an authentic alternative must accept that they can never be in that drama, as to do so strips them of their authenticity as outsiders. At the same time, they must guard against being cast as the threat, the tempter, as that is just as ruinous as being the foil of the Left. Instead, like an obscure playwright working on his craft, the authentic alternative must build an alternative narrative that exists outside the defining narrative of the age.
This is what happened in the Enlightenment. The new philosophies of social organization that sprouted in that age, were alternatives to the dominant narrative structure of the age. Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau started from a blank sheet, writing a new understanding of community and their narrative structure. They did not think of it that way, but that is in effect what they were doing when pondering a new origin of human society. A new origin means a new story and that requires a new narrative drama.
The new drama meant the kings and aristocrats had to be swept away in order to install the new narrative. Those roles and symbols were of the old narrative. To preserve the old roles and symbols would mean maintaining the old moral order, at least symbolically. To kill the king was to kill his role and kill the relationship between his character and the drama. The liberal democratic revolution replaced more than institutions. It erased the old narrative and created a new one, with new roles and new national characters.
My comment concerns “reparations” only. I understand that particular trend isn’t going anywhere, but the ” we need more help” will remain. Demographics will solve the problem, but it will take time. In round numbers, Whites are about 61% of the population, Hispanics are about 18%, Blacks about 13%, and East Asians about 7%. IMO, the Asian population will rise, the Black population will remain static. PP, murder among young black males etc. etc. The Black population percentage will fall to fourth. The continuing message of “we can’t make it without handouts” by a fourth place group will fall on deaf ears, like the large brick and mortar chains that are inflexible, but are also failing.Even Black race hustlers will have to find new gigs. I follow Yogis’ admonition about trying to predict the future, but the population trend seems to be solid. At the moment. Best regards everyone.
I like the term “national narrative.” The reason Trump was able to eke out a win was that he was able to create an “independent narrative.” One sustained, in large, by the “new media,” i.e., social media and the virtual underpress, of which this site is a prime example. See, I can coin terms, ha!
But the real take-away-and-run-with is the trump-slide toward convergence with the national narrative. That’s part of the reason Nancy called off the witch hunt. Arguably, it’s also because she realizes it would fail, but I think the bigger part of it is the trump-slide. Too bad, so sad, tinvowoot.
In the non-Christian world, there are only two options. Either you cooperate as the victim or you cooperate as the accuser. There is no third option. It’s why apologies never work for designated victims.
It’s also why Conservative, Inc.’s endless stream of articles about the double standard never worked, either. It’s not a double standard at all: you’re the victim & victims are guilty. The thing that makes you guilty is that we’ve chosen you as the victim.
So how do you break out of it? I see two options. First, you can do like Tucker Carlson has done: neither admit guilt nor accuse another. Invite people to see things differently by refusing to play either role.
The second option is to provide the crowd with an alternative victim and hope they choose him, instead.
Zman is right, we will never, ever, ever, return to the America we once knew. The sooner we accept that, the better we will be.
The only question is, will we submit to living under something that looks like the Soviet Union/Oceania, or will we fight to live in a land of free men based on new principles that reject the current madness and reflect biological reality?
The leftists have shown that they will not hesitate to shed our blood to bring forth this communist utopia, if given the chance. It is time for all free men to convey to our enemies that we resolve to live, and if necessary kill or die, for the cause of liberty. SJW tyranny may become our casus belli.
1. The United States of America has been successfully invaded and occupied by a foreign people. It is conquered territory, and Americans are a conquered, defeated, and occupied people. The Jewish-led invasion began roughly a century ago using stealth techniques, massive cultural psy-ops, checkpoint and bottleneck controls, and the use of foreign peoples as biological weapons. There has been a race war going on for decades, of which Whites were only rhetorically aware, thinking such a thing might happen in the future. But the undeclared race war has in fact already happened, and Whites have decisively lost.
2. Nothing serious of progress for Whites can happen until (1) has been frankly acknowledged.
3. There is a stalemate of sorts at present, because the new people, the foreign invaders who call themselves “People of Color” but who intend to in fact be the New, Real Americans, are stil only at population parity with their detested enemy, the Old Irrelevant Racist Whites. They are busily erasing White history and culture, but this will take some time, because there is a lot of it. Also, their victory was based on deception and stealth; Whites have already lost a war which they never even knew was declared or in progress. It is to the benefit of People of Color to keep the existence of this war as quiet as possible, until the mop-up operations are complete and resistance is impossible.
4. Whites however still have certain advantages: a) there are still a lot of them, b) they are more competent and knowledgeable about everything in North Amrrica than are newcomer POCs, and c) they are heavily armed. They have been easy to trounce so long as they were unaware of the war being waged, but if they become aware of it, they can launch a counter-attack.
5. Whites will never again regain control of all of CONUS. That is a done deal. The best Whites can do is to carve out a large sustainable territory in North America which they must pledge in deadly earnest to keep diversity-free for basically all eternity.
6. To do this, Whites must forge alliances both public and hidden with red-pulled Canadians, Eastern Europe, and Russia, which must be persuaded to serve as a nuclear guarantor of the new White American ethnostate.
About 2 million Jews between 1880-1920.
a) there are still a lot of them
Most of them fell into Escapism or believe in Voting as Jesus
b) they are more competent and knowledgeable about everything in North Amrrica than are newcomer POCs
I doubt even British or French know who they are
I believe Anglo-American type of Ethnic identity completely eradicate due to race integration
c) they are heavily armed.
Seen the Waco siege documentary, Other side are heavily armed too
6. To do this, Whites must forge alliances both public and hidden with red-pulled Canadians, Eastern Europe, and Russia,
Poor Eastern European and Russian are far far away and NATO-EU-America siege attack at every front
Canada gone 96.8% White to 53% white within 55 years
Reminder that Canadian have more advantage than America
But, they lost same battle
What you can do is actually wait because those non-European can’t produce wealth and that’s what threatening “Die-versity”
Dear Z. I’ve followed the blog since a link from the Vox Day website in 2016. Sincerly thanks a million for all the great posts, podcasts and insight over the last few years. What is our narrative however? I guess it’s fundamentally a return to the common knowledge our ancestors took for granted for generations but as you said in your post about selling soap reality is a difficult sell. Depressingly it seems our’s is the message one imbibes post collapse. The scary thing for me is the idea of us being proven overwhelmingly correct as the people who were the Civilization fade away voluntarily as the successor populations consume and twerk themselves gratefully, stupidly into oblivion
I just wanted to say that you, ZMan are an excellent story teller. The flow of this was well thought out and moved from intro to conclusion. You are definitely previewing the future and it is starting right now. Keep up the fight.
Top form, Zman. Top. Form.
I note that Ilhan played her role perfectly. Her benefactors gained victim points and the spotlight, while heritage whites got a resolution against themselves as old Scratch.
Listening to Rush today, I realized what happened to Trump. Isolated by his own staff, he turned to the best professionals. Professional campaign managers are feeding him the usual rumpswabbery, as they are the priestly advisors in this ritual.
Al, your Rush mention is interesting following Z’s posting. Rush simply has his part in the passion play. It is basically that of Trump apologist and narrative promoter. The narrative obviously coming from the Trump team.
In a way, that makes Rush somewhat more interesting to listen to. One hears about the latest Trump setback or gaff, then awaits Rush’s “expanation” of it—all the time thinking, “How’s he going to spin this?”
But as far as promoting a true solution to the current situation—or even demonstrating insight—Rush is clueless, or worse, cowardly. One needs to go elsewhere for an adequate education. It’s a shame Rush’s show sucks up so much of the time folks should be spending educating themselves.
If you consider liberal democracy to involve rain dances, we’ve sure hit a set of drought years. I doubt we’ll have lush green meadows a few years from now. The people will say, okay, the dancing didn’t work, perhaps the earth is yearning for the blood of the dancers.
We’re dancing for everything, and as fast as we can. Now it’s “Medicare for all,” “free child care,” and yes “reparations,” among other things. It reminds me of this old woman twirling around and round in front of City Hall in San Francisco. She’s been there for years, just twirling away. Crazy as a loon. Just a fried brain that can no longer reason. So many of them.
For all of the “sturm und drang” of the Left, they are actually going to run an old, stroke addled, lecherous, dick flashing white guy with teeth whitener and a $300 haircut. And everyone on the Left will vote for him. The Left is owned by Biden, Obama, the Clintons, Pelosi, and Schumer. The rest of it is just a minstrel show for the soy people.
Yep, Plugz may end up being the big event:
https://youtu.be/PtIi8QR5Mzs
TRANSCRIPT:
“…and the wave still continues. It’s not going to stop. Nor should we want it to stop. As a matter of fact, one of the things I think we can be most proud of. An unrelenting stream of immigration. Nonstop, nonstop. Folks like me who are Caucasian, of European descent, for the first time in 2017 we’ll be an absolute minority in the United States of America. Absolute minority. Fewer than 50% of the people in America from then and on will be white European stock. That’s not a bad thing. That’s a source of our strength.”
But Hobbes, Locke, et al lost big. “All men are created equal” (the starting point of even Hobbes’s reasoning, you’ll recall) became, within 100 years, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Call it the General Will or the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, it’s just gussied-up Divine Right Monarchy. Even the Founders assumed that virtue would triumph (even as they were putting in safeguards against the mob), because… well, because it’s virtue, and they themselves were virtuous men.
As much as I hate to say it, the HBD thing seems like the best bet for a line of attack. It’s just Divine Right Monarchy, too (“divinity” = IQ, “right” = “>120”), but that’s because we’re just monkeys; brutal hierarchy is our default state, to which we shall always return. Since the Left have spent the past 150 years convincing us that fealty to today’s Social Justice catechism just IS intelligence, HBD illegitimates them at a stroke — they’re actually dumber than boxes of rocks, despite their fancy degrees, as any quick IQ test will easily confirm. You’d have to deal with the fact that most of the really obnoxious ultra high IQ types tend to be Leftists, but they’ll very quickly fall in line when the Official alt-political narrative is “…and that’s why they’re divinely ordained to rule.”
While it seems incredible now, the Alt Right of yore feared going the way of the Tea Party, i.e. falling to entryism and corruption/co-option by Conservative Inc.
As these fears grew, the taboo aesthetic and rhetoric shifted from symbolic playacting with the left and began to act as a prophylactic against people like Milo.
This shift was wildly successful, and nowhere amongst the shouldering ruins of the Alt Right is there any sign of Milo or Conservative Inc.
The central defect of the alt-right was that it was never really an alternative to anything. Spencer in particular, but many others simply recycled old ideas that had been used up by the Left in morality plays of previous generations. Their belief that we are reliving the interwar years in Germany was driven in large part by the aesthetic. They liked being taboo. It was also due to a gross misunderstanding of history, particularly the history of fascism.
Or we could just win.
Everybody knows the quote “history is written by the victor.” But the corollary of that is, the winner becomes the good guy of the story.
The Chinese have a great phrase for this, “The winner is king, the loser an outlaw.” Wiktionary: “The phrase describes the Chinese concept of the ruler’s self-evident legitimacy: whoever succeeds in taking or keeping power is ipso facto deemed the legitimate ruler.” (For our Sinologues, 成者為王，敗者為寇.)
But I agree to some extent in the need for a new Drama: the well-armed, pale-skinned segment of western society needs to feel itself the star of a sweeping revolutionary drama.
But one suspects that things will have to get worse before people stand up. Contemporary material life is like the Land of the Lotus Eaters. People don’t feel the pinch. (Read Eileen Power’s Medieval People for an astounding account of how better-fed Romans in safer areas barely even noticed that their civilization was collapsing. Full of disturbing parallels.)
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13144
That video really IS disturbing.
What video?
But I agree to some extent in the need for a new Drama: the well-armed, pale-skinned segment of western society needs to feel itself the star of a sweeping revolutionary drama.
Yes.
Kai Murros made this evocative case for an aggressive, Eurocentric global revolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHFakGIHxis
A note: Murros didn’t make the score or visual stuff; it’s really well done, but there’s a lot of Hebrew imagery that makes it NSFW. Too bad, because otherwise, it’s one of the best propaganda videos I’ve ever seen, and Murros himself adroitly keeps it kosher.
Also, the video is 15:30. The entire video deserves a viewing, but the first few minutes is pretty standard blackpill fare, so if you want to skip to the glorious pill, it’s 4:23.
Read Eileen Power’s Medieval People for an astounding account of how better-fed Romans in safer areas barely even noticed that their civilization was collapsing. Full of disturbing parallels.
James Delingpole wrote a tl;dr in his book Watermelons.
It is the 4th Century AD and the Barbarians are at the Gates of Rome. Around the Imperial capitol, the citizens of the greatest civilization the world has ever known are tearing at their togas, quite unable to agree as to what—if anything—should be done.
Some, peering over the ramparts towards the hairy hordes encamped across the Tiber decide they rather like what they see. There’s something wonderfully echt and earthy about these splendidly unkempt men with their rich, musky smell and their delightfully untutored table manners. Also, having dwelt so long away from the corrupting influence of the City and having imbibed the purifying spirit of the deep forests, these so-called Barbarians are very likely nice, caring, nurturing types. Probably all they want to do is say “Hello” and share some of their woodcraft skills.
Other Romans, more fatalistic, take the view that the reason the hordes are carrying spears and swords and are now busy spit-roasting a captured legionary is that they are here with hostile intent. But perhaps this is no more than Rome deserves. Yes, it may well be that the Barbarians have come to impose on the Romans one or two significant lifestyle changes, possibly including violent death. But the truth is that Rome has had it far too good for too long. It has expanded its empire way farther than is natural for any reasonable society. It has developed far too many wholly unnecessary technologies, such as underfloor heating, straight roads, aqueducts and municipal bathing facilities, which will almost certainly deplete the world of the scarce resources that future citizens of the planet will need to survive. Sure, the coming Dark Ages may result in the odd century or so of extreme misery and hardship, but a planned recession like this may regrettably be necessary to secure the long-term future of the planet.
Others, more rapacious and cynical, watch with a barely concealed delight. That fake beard and those Barbarian-style furs and trews they bought from the costume shop the other week are increasingly looking like a canny investment. Sure it will be a nuisance when the Pax Romana is finally over, the economy’s in chaos and it’s every man for himself. But think of all the business opportunities that are bound to arise as Western Civilization crumbles: private security contracts for all those newly unsafe roads, monopolies to be bought and exploited, alliances to be forged with the new regime, etc. As a wise man from Judaea once said: “With crisis comes opportunity.”
Still others—and perhaps these represent the majority—glance towards the gathering hordes with a brief tremor of concern before turning to look away to look what’s showing this afternoon at the Coliseum. “Nah,” they’ve decided about the alleged Barbarian threat. “Never going to happen. After all, we’re not inhabiting some poxy little provincial capital in the arse end of beyond. This is Rome, mightiest and most enduring civilization the world has known. It has lasted over a thousand years and is destined to last just another thousand, wait and see.”
Finally, there are the Realists– and unfortunately they’re very much the minority—who can see what’s coming. They don’t like it one bit and believe something should be done before it’s too late. Of course, they are not at all popular with most of their fellow Romans, who variously consider them to be hysterical, naïve, or tiresome reactionaries unhealthily wedded to the old ways and too selfish to make the radical lifestyle changes that will be necessary if Rome is to progress with the times.
“But what was so wrong with the old Rome?” plead the Realists. “Didn’t we have a good thing going, what with all the trade and abundance and order and peace and prosperity and comfort and sanitation and cleanliness and under-floor heating and learning and technology?”
No one else, though, is much interested in what the Realists have to say. In the unlikely event the Barbarians do prevail, well, all good things must come to an end and there are bound to be at least as many benefits as there are downsides. Why, already, there are rumors in the agora that the new Barbarian economy will result in a whole slew of new Barbarian jobs. Once the pampered Romans get used to the more austere Barbarian lifestyle, fuel costs and living expenses will fall dramatically. Their diet will be a lot healthier because now food will be grown locally rather than transported laboriously and decadently from the far reaches of the Empire.
And if Western Civilization does come to an end, well, what the hell. Western Civilization was always so terribly overrated, anyway.
There’s an old English rhyme that sums it up
“Treason never prospers, what’s the reason?
If it prospers none dare call it treason.”
Yes, cultural is the sum of commonly practiced social behaviors, and what persists is what works (usually that which builds trust and allows people to focus on productive pursuits rather than perpetual defense). Ritual is integral to the formation of lasting habits, and it is optimized via repetition and stimulation of multiple brain centers, e.g. simultaneous visual/auditory/tactile inputs.
Leftists have hijacked this mechanism in order to promote hive conformism and acquire absolute power over the herd. They do this because they know that the host will eventually reject the parasites when the bloodsucking gets overwhelming.
Just thinking out loud here but, I dont suppose reversing the script would work. America had a few foundings, but the most important were Jamestown and the Mayflower. Could our side benefit from turning Plymouth Rock into a calamity and remaking American history from Jamestown on up. The melting pot, the city on a hill, and the progressive character of America all come from the Northwest. The history of America, as it is taught, begins with the Mayflower and Thanksgiving then skips to the Revolution.
But this idea just returns us to the role of Old Stratch. Creating a truly alternative vision of the world of difficult to even conceptualize.
This is a good podcast:
http://fashthenation.com/2018/07/ftn-focus-we-the-people-an-american-coup-detat/
It argues that the constitutional convention was essentially a coup d’etat: that what the states wanted was a loose confederation, with the states being more or less independent, and that the convention members cheated them out of it with by making a centralizing document behind the states’ backs.
FTN’s argument is implicitly a separatist one: that because the creation of a strong, centralized country was illegitimate, we’d be justified in breaking it apart again.
The Civil War sort of answered that question, didn’t it? States thought they’d leave, others said no. War. One side won. Morality/justification had really nothing to do with the issue. Might made right in this case. And if it happens again, the precedent is set. Interpretation of a two hundred year old document means nothing. Arms, population, resources, and resolution—everything.
As an aside, the argument that the Constitution was the product of a runaway convention is also bogus as the individual States had plenty of time after the ratification to renege and disavow their representatives decision. The new Federal Government was very weak and could do little if a State withdrew. The States decided to do nothing and that, if nothing else, implies consent.
The problem is the decentralization group never had a lot of pull with the power elite. The southern power elite went to war with the Northern power elite because they thought slavery was threatened. Not because of some theoretical love for “States Rights”. If they’d thought slavery and cotton prices would be OK, with a completely centralized Government, Jeff Davis would’ve been the first on-board.
You[ll notice that the Southern Senators after 1865 only cared about “states rights” when it came to blacks. The rich and powerful don’t care about principles.
You should insist that the history of America properly begins in Athens. That way, you put America squarely in the European cultural sphere, add 2,500 years to American history, reframe the race question to one of cultural heritage and reinforce your bonds to your brothers across the pond.
You could start by insisting that people call you “European-American” rather than “white”. If a POC calls you white, respond by calling them brown, black or yellow.
Narrative is the facade of power. The Enlightenment saw power grasped by capitalists from aristocrats. The new morality/narrative was invented to justify this new paradigm.
You’re mistaking “narrative” for “morality”. The two aren’t synonymous.
The narrative delivers morality to the masses.
Power is just one element that defines a society. Those people in power can only be in power if they have a role to play in society. Their role, with its rituals and ceremonies, is a manifestation of the morals, values and beliefs of society. The king was always as much a symbol of his people’s culture as a man with great power over his people. It’s why conquerors would often adopt some of the customs of the conquered. It was easier than creating a new narrative for the conquered people.
“The power of the mighty hath no foundation, but in the belief and opinion of the people.” — Hobbes, Behemoth.
This presupposes the ability of said people to communicate and make some use of their potential lack of belief or opinions on the powerful. Usually this is not the case. Indeed, to hop on an older hobby-horse of mine, no revolution has been a success without support from a power elite cohort.
The danger to the powerful is part of their power structure becoming self-aware and interested in seeking new arrangements. One of the least concerns of the powerful over the centuries has been the general opinion of the mass. So long as they are just a mass and not an army, they are free to fret their days away.
Society distilled is simply a network of power relationships. I wouldn’t dispute that feedback exists, but narrative eruption at a paradigm shift, re: monarchs to liberalism or liberalism to post-apocalyptic-wasteland, allows the newly powerful much license with the new narrative.
I disagree. Those power relationships exist within the cultural/moral framework. Even the king is constrained by that framework. The rituals and ceremonies that follow the well-defined narrative force even the most powerful into the defined roles. There’s certainly a hierarchy, but that is defined by the moral framework.
One of the best examples of that were the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt.
“The authentic alternative must build an alternative narrative that exists outside the defining narrative of the age.”
Well said. I’m no fan of Ayn Rand’s ultimate vision, but the first element of her prescription for renewal is correct: we who seek an authentic alternative must first drop out of the existing drama and stop feeding it our energy and treasure. That means making tough decisions, like pulling our children out of public education, ending our involvement in “electing” corporate plutocrats, and divorcing ourselves from vocations that feed the parasites. Hard stuff, even for self-avowed dissidents, because this is a path of hardship and cultural irrelevance.
Further, our alternative narrative must be constructed from truth and reality, not the arbitrary notions of “blank sheet” intellectualism. Guys like Marx, Freud & Sartre were the blank-sheets; result – massive bloodshed (with more to come.) Contrast the blank-sheets with Hobbes, Locke & Rousseau, who stood on the shoulders of the ancients. And let’s not forget the God-fearing philosopher, Solomon. (His “Ecclesiastes” is far more relevant to 21st century culture than all other philosophies combined.)
My sense is that our “alternative narrative” shouldn’t at all be new … we should be retracing the old paths, taking encouragement from courageous dissidents like Bonhoeffer & Solzhenitsyn, and purposefully (i.e. drastically) changing our lifestyles so as not to feed the parasites of the existing drama.
The challenge in building an alternative is convincing people to stop attending the show. All those people attacking AOC for her socialism or silliness are just performing a role that is designed to compliment the Left. AOC may be a vapid moron, but she is clever enough to perform the role created for her. She cares. Her critics care only for their money.
There’s a reason the best actors are often quite dumb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h5iv6sECGU
This video makes the case that AOC is indeed merely an actress, playing a role. He delves into who are really the powers behind her.
This is worth watching.
Good video. AOC’s job is to make Joe Biden look normal.
So the grey eminence behind this obnoxious millennial is… other obnoxious millennials. Well it makes her performance sound a bit more natural, although as we saw with the Green New Deal, sometimes she doesn’t know her lines until the script has already been leaked.
When AOC mentioned “socialism,” that was manna from heaven for boomercons. It gave them a desperately desired excuse to escape the real current issue–demographics–in order to re-fight an old war. Socialism! How comfortable and relieving to fight the familiar foe! Like putting on old shoes! We’re getting the 1985 speaking points out of the closet! The band is getting back together!
Likewise with Omar and anti-Semitism. Conservatives are so busy chanting “anti-Semitism” they can’t think straight.
But to convince people to stop attending the show, you need to offer them an alternative.
The Dissident Right is mostly wasting its time attacking the Left (and the Official Right) if it doesn’t offer an alternative. We need to build an alternative. That’s the far, far more difficult task because TPTB will do everything to stop it, but this is what needs to be done.
Funny, I was at a gym the other night and there was a Muslim basketball league playing. I just stared at them in envy. This simple league was part of their alternative. Muslim guys didn’t have to deal with blacks or whites in basketball. They had their own league, a place only for them.
Muslims create their own world, which is why they don’t have to listen to liberals, except when it suits them. It’s also one of the reasons why liberals leave them alone. Liberal guilt doesn’t work on these guys because they have their own morality. Liberal threats of getting you fired doesn’t work because other Muslims will look out for them and hire them. Liberal threats of violence don’t work because Muslims will punch back, even if it means going to jail.
We could learn from the Muslims.
The alternatives abound, and we don’t need a philosopher with an idea or a politician with a program. Alternatives: pull children from public schools and home-educate … this removes about $10K/child from socialist educrats; pursue an entrepreneurial vocation that doesn’t rely on gov’t handouts or subsidies; find or start a church that doesn’t buy in to the 501.c.3 paradigm; replace social media with genuine relationships; pursue farm-to-table options and get to know who’s growing your food; invest time in local government vice federal. This is a book-length topic but the alternatives for freedom are out there, but they’re eminently challenging and impossible for those stuck in the “crazy-busy” rut of life.
It’s what the Zman has been trying to do,
I’ve been using the bronze age cult thing for a few years and have found that whenever a hebe jokes about drinking christian babies blood, a question as to whether they do that before or after they suck the blood off the penis of their newly mutilated male infant gets the subject changed PDQ,
The principle is fairly simple. Always and everywhere attack and ridicule.
You make it sound like you encounter “hebe[s] jok[ing] about drinking christian babies blood” on a regular basis. Where?
AOC’s role is to push the overton window. Now its possible to talk about American Socialism. All the constant conservative “push-back” and “satire” just reinforces that. The Left pushes the envelope and the Right “Normalizes it” – because stupid. No doubt in 2021 Jonah Goldberg and David Brooks will talking about how an American NHS, reparations, and a 70% tax bracket are “conservative”
It’s a tall ask, sadly for most people.
No one needs to watch sportsball. But with full knowledge about the Black Hate on the field, millions of conservatives still watch.
And in other news, the Captain Marvel box office has humiliated us, again 🙁
A pretty girl, a simple plot and lots of laser blasts and explosions will lead to pretty decent box office.
That said every Conservative could boycott Hollywood for good and it wouldn’t make a dent. There are another 7 billion or so consumers out there hungry for entertainment
You avoid Hollywood so they don’t get your money and don’t contaminate your family with memes not because it helps anything
They can always grab another few hundred million viewers in India, China or Africa and make up the difference
Remember you are the plucky rebels and don’t have numbers and don’t sweat it.
I finally got my wife to quit Facebook. Several billion users to go.
don’t forget twitter and Instagram too.
Our side’s shortcoming is that we’re still Reactionaries..
We are always reacting to the latest outrage of the left, or responding to their policy proposals.
We need to ignore their rantings.. or at least let everyone know how bemused we are at their lunacy.
We need to publicize our views and analysis of the current social climate, and our proposed remedies; we need to proclaim our vision of what a limited government would be (and how it would benefit people, especially in non-financial, i.e non-redistributionist ways); we need to declare what we would do to reign in the overarching power of large companies, especially in regard to their violations of privacy.
We need to stop reacting to the Left, and make our visions widely known.
When the Left is busy pushing their drama, their stage production, we need to get up and walk out of the theater.
“We need to publicize our views”. Of course, we do. And we do. Endlessly. On obscure websites and blogs that have at most a few thousand readers. We continually preach to choir because the choir are the only people in the church. Our enemies control the microphone. How do we publicize our views in a way thst people other than ourselves can hear them?
One thing is to constantly ridicule each thing they do; I saw us doing that with the Jussie Smollett thing.
Ridiculing anything gets more press coverage than outrage or somber reportage.
Nunnya:
I think we’re dealing with human nature, here.
That is: things have got to get so so so very bad, that the YT normies are really, really affected: either via jobs (lack thereof), money (lackthereof), or getting caught in an An t i f a riot and catching a fatal bottle to the cranium.
Or even worse than what I’ve just described. It has to get much, much worse, for people to want to listen, and therefore for a more … cogent? serious? “with teeth” movement of “positive re bell ion” to begin taking hold.
They can hear them and us fine. What exactly are we proposing though?
Our movement offers the promise of a better life in theory but if I were a normie I wouldn’t see it. We are a dialectic movement for one and normies need rhetoric more than anything hence MAGA and second, we are a bunch of scruffy misfits
We are not however scruffy lovable misfits and lack charisma, That’s a key component of mass movements
Its not just a fear of subversion but a lack of people who inspire. The closest public figure we get is say Vox Day and I say with utmost respect, he’s a high IQ asshole few people wouldn’t follow to the 7-11 much less off to war
We need well Hitler or Pinochet only nastier and tougher and we haven’t got him.
Beyond that, we are quite individualistic and many of us dislike other people on general grounds. This is understandable, we tend to be smart , introverts and tuned in but doesn’t play with normies
Regular people live in a social world, healthy ones face to face, moderns in social media space. Friends, inspiration matter and we haven’t got it.
We can’t inspire anyone to sacrifice for us as we don’t offer enough.
Modernity isn’t terrible just rife with mediocrity and the nagging sense of trouble on the horizon. People aren’t going to war over that nor are they going to war for harder divorce or “more traditional sex roles” or anything else we have on offer yet.
We simply lack a better offer than Globohomo
That said we are making progress. We aren’t making it in Internet time but in Real Space Time , slowly but surely its getting out there
The stupidity of the establishment its arrogance and its often revolting behavior is making a dent .
Agree with DB. I really don’t want pure dumbocracy, but representative gummint is a step in the right direction away from autocracy. “Did you graduate medical school?” “No, but my maternal grandad was a doctor.” Oh, yeah, that’ll work…
There’s one pesky narrative, that won’t go away, despite the establishment’s efforts to stamp it out, and that’s immigration.
Though the funny thing is, iclamping down on immigration was an establishment Big Labor/lefty issue for years and years. You can find quotes from all the (D)s in the Clinton/Bush II era going on about how need to curtail illegal immigration, close the border, build a wall, etc. It’s not actually a dissident-originated idea, just an establishment issue that has been coopted for an unintended purpose.
Back in the nineties, Barbara Jordan, TX (D), had a proposal to lower legal immigration, because–get this–of the detrimental effect on jobs and wages for US workers. Shortly after, she passed away, and nobody in the Dem party picked up where she left off. It seems like a long time ago when the Dems looked out for the interests of ordinary Americans.
Da Booby’s not buying this one, sorry.
Are there ritualistic elements in the modern political scene? Sure. Is it like a New England witch trial? Sort of, perhaps.
The modern political scene is not one of citizens looking for sacrificial victims. Rather, the modern left is trying to wage a war of ideological extermination, a reign of terror.
This is what happens after all revolutions: the new priests take over and have to exterminate the old order and the old religion, lest the revolution fail to take hold permanently. In France the reign of terror eventually failed; Napoleon took over. In Russia the reign of terror succeeded; the Bolsheviks held power for over 70 years.
In the 1960s the New Left began its takeover of university campuses: the revolution. They failed to win over the larger public, but that didn’t matter. The universities gave them access to all the organs of government: bureaucracies, the courts, the media, the schools.
By the 1980s the revolution had succeeded. The left now, for all points and purposes, controls the universities, and by extension, now the government, too. Sure, the right gets elected now and then, but it’s powerless to change anything, and apparently unwilling to try.
Instead of a ritual sacrifice, what we are seeing now is the post-revolutionary reign of terror to make sure every last semblance of the old order has been ideologically exterminated…. and have no illusions, if given the opportunity they would do more than just “ideologically” exterminate.
Since the GOP is obviously incompetent and ineffective in opposing the Left, I see no impediment to the worst of all possible outcomes. And now leftists have in their possession the kind of advanced surveillance technology that would make Stalin envious. If you think the FBI and CIA are creepy now, just given them another 20 years. Lefty could be in total control for even longer than the Bolsheviks were.
Why wait another twenty years? Just read some memoirs of former agents and operatives from the previous 50 years. Philip Agee wrote a pretty disparaging narrative of the CIA in the 1970s. Tim Weiner wrote “Enemies”, a history of the FBI. Wrote a tome about the CIA in the same vein, too.
@Epaminondas
Agreed. The left will be in control indefinitely. The only thing that could bring them down now would be a military defeat of epic scale by some foreign power or powers.
Even if the GOP weren’t “incompetent”, as you say, at opposing the left what can they realistically do?
The kids are indoctrinated from grade school on up; the courts can strike down any law an elected body passes (guess who owns the courts); and the media, entertainment, and the intelligentsia (as we’ve been seeing for over 30 years now) repeat the dogma of the campuses.
The notion of reforming and overhauling academia is simply impossible as it stands. Game, set, match.
I’ve concluded that the only thing that will save us from a leftist dystopia is if some Pinochet type steps in and takes over. There isn’t any voting our way out. (Lord knows, we’ve certainly tried that often enough!) Revolution is a nonstarter. Either the government gets relieved of its duties by someone with the muscle to back it up or we’re going to be stuck with it for a long, long time.
I’ve made the same point many times in the past decade. There simply is no way of voting our way out of this. And for you Fundamentalists out there: Jesus is not coming to save us, either. (Maybe in the next world, but not this one.)
Epaminondas, they hope the cavalry is coming to the rescue; they don’t realize that we, the whites, ARE the cavalry.
The People of Light have arrived to the battlefield in this demon-haunted world, it is win now, or die.
Not only us, but near all the world, reduced again to slaves of animal pain for an 1,000, or 10,000, years, perhaps for all time.
Epa, I so much enjoy your commentary, but Christians do not believe in comic book heroes coming to save us, as you’ve said. Neither do Christians believe in Christ or God as Santa Claus or other pathetic offerings. The wispy fantasy ideas you refer to are for coarse pagans and seculars. Those who follow the comic book culture or materialism.
Ursula, Just today I heard the very thing you said explained for the first time in a way that made sense to me. I don’t know the exact quote, but something like “No one gets to the Father but by me.” The speaker was referring to picking up the cross, bearing the burden, shouldering the heaviest responsibility one can bear. Too much to include here, and I doubt I understand it well enough anyway. It was on Jordan Peterson’s podcast #62. Z man’s post today is buzzing around the same topic, and his posts about morality starting a few months ago (for me) popped the subject into my world.
QFT
QFT?
Quoted for truth.
Da Booby, good insight. However, not sure if even a military defeat of great proportion would change things. Yes, it would serve to toss the Leftist bastards out…temporarily…but who would replace them, a feckless GOP? The events of the last few decades show that when the Left looses power, it is the GOP that steps in, stabilizes the situation (to a point) so that the Left can once step in and screw things up even worse. The patient survives, but the cancer remains.
I think Bruno has it right, a Pinochet/Cincinnatus must arise after such an event. Is there a Cincinnatus among us? We’ll see I suppose.
As others have noted one is coming to rescue you. This is simply because it is your job to be the rescuer.
May I suggest though that if you want to take power which roots and bones is what you want, it pays to know what the hell you want it for.
The Left wants it utopia or for the saner ones, what they consider a better society
The GOP just wants to loot the place, mostly with the saner ones knowing that if the US falls to pieces, that there won’t be any more loot.
The Militia Right wants to be left alone in a limited state which is about as useful as wanting a unicorn, No one gets left alone.
The Dissident Right , that’s us wants exactly what?
Until that can be answered, it can’t be acted upon
Now as for a 1000 year reign, don’t fear . Leftism and urbanism sterilizes people exposed to it , nearly everyone of every race. Hispanics and this includes first gen ones have a TFR of 1.8 which is well below replacement ! This is a dink above Whites
Society will collapse sooner than later anyway and there is no efforts that the Left can make that can make people have kids
Mass importing of foreigners is the last resort since it degrades the complex social order requires and they end up wrecking the place , More stupid means Leftism fails and technological Hail Moloch plays aren’t going to happen
Oh and a last thing. If the gloom and doom gets to you, go listen to Dr. Steve Turley for a nice White Pill prescription
He’s low B.S. and thinks we are winning
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCsiAKRKcgzA_372WbXNBaw
He might even be right.
Have some faith, decide what you want and move to get it
The Dissident Right , that’s us wants exactly what?
Easy-peasy! An ethno-state.
The rest is details. I’d vote for Joe Stalin if he delivered on the ethno-state. Communism can be rolled back, demography, not so easily.
That’s a very good start. The trick is communicating it without ending up like White Nationalists
Not easy but entirely plausible and a goal many people would die for.
If we can get the Dissident Right behind along with allies maybe
A coalition made up of Dissident Right, Militia Right (these guys are coming along to our views bit by bit) actual WN, Neo Nazis (Yuck) White Supremacists (unfortunately) and pissed off Normie Conservatives and Paleocons won’t be very stable but it might work for a single goal
For the time being I’d settle for a massive immigration reduction and deportation of illegals since despite Leftist efforts its still a popular mainstream view than move for more as the winds change
we might not end up with with a pure ethnostate but am 80/20 one will suffice we get the whole enchilada
Normally one wouldn’t say strategic stuff in a public forum of course but its common knowledge all American politics is incremental and as such its what everyone would be expecting
Well, you didn’t ask how to get there, only what we wanted. It seems to me that the ethnostate, whether obtainable or not, is probably the only common denominator on the dissident right.
And the Commies have been fighting for a utopia for a hundred years. Just because something is unobtainable, doesn’t mean it makes a poor cause to rally around.
If I were to be cynical, I’d even say an unobtainable goal is better than an obtainable one, because then, the struggle never ends. Witness how feminism gets stronger the more vagina privilege is implemented.
Yes to the publilc arena comment; amen to coalition; and agree with the need for commonly agreed upon goal. Why is our side not meeting “off-site” for exactly this? The LEFT does it continuously (see Democracy Alliance). We will fail to preserve anything if we don’t. I don’t see the current slate of conventions etc as meeting the need for getting on the ground a good enough construct and operational plans.
Joe Stalin was a Jew who wiped out millions of Slavs. In your analogy we’re the Slavs.
Stalin was not Jewish. You are a moron if you think otherwise.
Multi-racial Consumer society will dominate at least this century until all humanity degrade to mumbler who can’t produce wealth
Sulla tactic is only Available option for white men now
The latest trend of white men was chosen slow death rather than quick death
Sorry if am I sound like anti-white, but there’s no Liberal problem after all, it was white problem all along
White men don’t want to fight or risk their comfortable status and Enemy know well
They have nothing to fight for that seems worth the trouble
For the most part there is plenty of food , plenty of sex, plenty of comfort , some freedom and not that much responsibility.
Things are getting tighter but they aren’t that tight yet.
Most of us aren’t deeply religious so what precisely are you expecting Joe Sixpack to fight for ?
I know what I’d like, I’ve posted in before but I’m far from certain a massive civil war would net me what I want. Marriage reform and trade reform and even repatriation is not worth a hundred million people killed. Yet.
As for the bigger picture, if you want to end the reign of the Left and expel 50 million or so foreigners which is a sound goal, that’s a big steak. You eat that one bite, one person at a time which is what we are doing.
Till than since we are in a mouse utopia, expect self destructive behavior
Stopping it is an individual effort, find your own purpose and fight for that . While along the way, speak to those what would hear. Convert one person and let him convert another and you’ll have enough
Here’s the face of Big Brother:
https://goo.gl/images/mFxWDH
And when he or Sandberg start speaking, they use this odd, doublespeak vocabulary that is frankly creepy. They create these mental constructs about FB that are elaborate and wordy, using invented words and terms, and the whole thing is as flaky as all hell, but they deliver it like they mean it. They stick their fingers in their ears and shout “lalalalala” when any hard questions sneak in from their thoroughly vetted questioners, and carry on like they own the world. But you can see the fear in their eyes. They know that we have their number.
BTW, Zuckerberg has multiple big bodyguards in his office suite, posing as coders. To protect him from his own employees…
Most Jews are paranoid. I doubt Zuckerberg is any different. Once they get enough money, they buy elaborate security.
I’m sure Zuckerberg is paranoid, but he probably really does need the guards. He’s hated and with good justification.
Yes, of course. Think about people like Barry Diller, Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, and George Soros. They are hated. And they know it.
Anyone with money needs security. The rest of us need hostile and crazy relatives , shovel buddies and guns.
Anyway that lack of trust is something we Whites must regretfully learn . It won’t be nice to revert to a pre Christian ethos but it may be the only way to survive the upcoming fall.
I know plenty of multimillionaires. I can drive up to their front doors and ask for them. They’re accessible and obviously not afraid because they treat people fairly. The people who need security are the kinds of people who have made enemies or are perceived as political players. There was a reason why John Hay Whitney was not afraid to rub shoulders with the common man.
More like Little Brother but I take your point.
I’d agree if lefty were simply the bolsheviks. Fortunately for us our
enemies are, thanks to diversity and regressing to their mean, morons. Their revolution will not be televised because the electricity won’t work, and if it does the television won’t work, and if that does the broadcast station won’t work, and on and on…
Eps is correct that there’s no political way out of this. This has been the view of everyone in this movement long before The Donald came down that escalator. We’ve deluded ourselves for a bit with the promise of his election, but that’s pretty much over. He can still redeem himself with a wall, a birthright/daisy chain bill and a freedom of speech bill. He won’t.
Collapse is our ticket, our only ticket. What institution isn’t completely pozzed and worth saving? Better to rebuild. Were good at that.
Acceleration is better than one step backwards at a time. The Zman is right about the narrative, we already have one. What we lack is a platform. The more quickly clown world collapses the easier it will be to send Conservative, Inc packing. If we can take over the RNC or replace it with HuWhyte interests and advocacy we’ll win. Gaining this platform will be harder than actual victory once we have it, even though we’ll be or already are a minority.
Collapse, fight and rebuild…or a slow numbing decay into oblivion.
Don’t worry, the White Hats are working behind the scenes. Sessions has been activated.
Good point. The Empire can’t even educate the diversity to allow destroyers to avoid huge container ships from ramming them . The Empire will not be able to maintain it’s infrastructure.
Booby. Strange how some commenters aren’t content with just giving their opinion, but need to distinguish themselves from the OP with opening lines like, “The point you’re missing.” ‘Not buying it.” “You forget that…” “It’s not about…” Then proceed to not actually disagree, or even grasp the overarching theme. If you disagree enough to make a display of it, then hone in on the precise point of contention, and start contrasting clearly. It’s not a frat house, “Nah man lemme tell’ya how it is.” Then start rambling barely on topic.
What is that other than an internal morality play, DB? To me it looks like the same one that Z just spelled out with only the characters and audience…
@John Smith
Ritual sacrifice tends to occur in established regimes, and requires only a limited number of sacrificial victims to play out the theatrical morality play.
A reign of terror is literally a war of extermination by a new regime that is till new and un-established, fighting to retain control, and needs to cement its hold on power by eliminating all religious or ideological challengers.
The Aztecs, for example, didn’t need to do sacrifices because they were desperately trying to prevent a rival internal force from seizing power. It was just good entertainment for the masses.
The Bolsheviks, by contrast, had to exterminate any and all challengers to retain their often dubious grip on power, especially the aristocracy.
That said, both phenomena can have theatrical components, like a lot “good vs evil” talk, etc.
Whether you’ve got a ritual sacrifice or reign of terror, or some ambiguous middleground, can probably only be judged after the fact, based on body count.
Really looking forward to that.
What are you not buying, Da Booby?
A degenerate aristocracy peddles a new feel good religion, they manipulate power to sell it and the masses bend the knee – with a spectrum of belief and disbelief. All of it gets ritualized through schools, pop culture, corporate conformity, etc. Looks very Girardian to me (what you’re actually criticizing).
“Mimeses doesn’t cause anything, they’re simply the way people express carnal group instincts”…
“Simply”? Is that a mechanism?
The manifestation of group behavior can arise rapidly, especially in chaotic environments. Mimesis, something related to our genetics and thus innately behavioral, seems like a pretty good explanation. It can also explain fashion trends and many other forms of group behavior.
Girard is wrong about the Dionysus vs Christ moral battle. Both are unjust. But that’s another subject.
BTW, I liked your last book review.
Glad you liked the book review, Yves. much appreciated.
We (including Z) are only different in our interpretation of the political class. For example, you said a “degenerate aristocracy peddles a feelgood religion”.
Da Booby sees not an “aristocracy” but a band of pampered revolutionaries who have taken over academia, and by extension the gov’t.
Nor does the Booby think they’re selling anything to the public, aside from their own partisan supporters. They took over the government without the public’s acquiescence, not by getting elected but by taking over the universities. It matters not which party wins any given election. You can’t fire academia, the school teachers, the lawyers, the judges, the bureaucrats, the media, etc. etc. etc.
So far the reign of terror as only extended to words, speech, and ideas. If the political class wants to ramp up the violence they will have to convince the military and law enforcement to go along with it. Not likely, thank goodness.