Dr. William Pierce liked to say that a man’s immortality is dependent upon the fame of his deeds. Accordingly, that became the title of the biography of DrP by Dr. Robert Griffin in 2001. This is certainly true in his case as the memory of his many accomplishments will surely far outlive him.
My first awareness of Dr. William Pierce was his dramatic break from the National Socialist White Peoples Party in 1970. He had joined it under its precursor name, the American Nazi Party, then under the leadership of Lincoln Rockwell. While there, he had edited the six issues of the excellent and influential National Socialist World. I had recently become a member of the NSWPP’s youth wing, the NSYM — National Socialist Youth Movement, and I received his 8-page “Prospectus For a National Front” accompanied by his 12-page explanation as to the whys and wherefores of leaving the NSWPP. I was all of 16, and it was something wholly new to me — a dramatic party split. Pierce was showing his personal integrity and independence of spirit in forming a new organization with a different strategy. He meant no harm to the NSWPP but felt there might be a better way to do things.
A year or two later I was on the NSWPP’s staff in Arlington, Virginia. I learned that even to mention Pierce’s name could create problems, as he was regarded as a “traitor,” and anyone who associated with him could also fall under suspicion. But there was no escaping the very positive work he did with National Socialist World, and it was still being distributed. I see this as his first major “deed.” And then of course there was his Ph.D. in physics — at that time few Ph.D.s of any kind went anywhere near organizations like this, and losing one was a serious loss of prestige.
I left the NSWPP myself a few years later and went to visit Dr. Pierce in his nearby offices in Alexandria, Virginia. They were in a working-class neighborhood, up a flight of stairs in a nondescript office building. We talked for a while and he asked me to work for him by putting out his tabloid newspaper Attack! at newsstands in the Washington D.C. area. At the time, Attack! was publishing his serialized and illustrated first version of The Turner Diaries, under his nom-de-guerre Andrew Macdonald, which later became an underground bestseller and a sort of must read for “movement” people everywhere. This was one of the first times that racial and political ideas were being dispensed through the medium of fiction.
I worked for DrP for maybe six months or so, but I learned to respect the man and what he was doing. For one thing, he wasn’t arrogant and was not interested in profits or power, nor did he have a noticeable ego. He was serious about racial and political issues, he was honest, he kept his commitments, and he had a sense of humor. A level personality, hard-working and dedicated to doing what he saw as the right thing. Most importantly, he was open to new ideas and listened to others. I didn’t know him well on a personal level — I don’t think anyone ever did, as he was retiring, modest, and kept his personal life rigorously apart from his work.
Aside from publishing Attack! — which was the newsprint precursor to the later magazine National Vanguard, Dr. Pierce ran a small bookselling business in which he did most of the nuts and bolts work himself. The selection was mostly that of European historical classics, the sagas, and books related to Hitler and National Socialism. The books I read avidly, and his selections of them influenced my own reading habits and still do to this day. A fine eclectic mix of racial history, white culture, and political ideas pulling it all together. This is another “deed” to remember about him, i.e., the educational direction that he provided to so many others.
While there, I observed that Dr. Pierce had his priorities right as he seemed to live quite modestly, didn’t dine out much, and was able to get by on the very small salary he allowed himself, as most of the income went into the organization and its growth. He drove a little white Volkswagen. He was anti-materialistic and lived that way. Or put another way, he was setting an example to others in these respects.
After my months working with him, I went overseas but returned stateside in the late 1980s. I got involved with revisionism and became aware that Dr. Pierce’s National Youth Alliance had become the National Alliance, had moved from Alexandria to a rural property near Hillsboro, West Virginia, and that Attack! had greatly improved into the quality magazine National Vanguard. I learned about The Order and the allegation that some of the funds it generated went towards DrP acquiring the property and developing it into a national headquarters for his organization. That never bothered me — if true, it went to the best possible cause.
Studying its publications and literature, I saw that DrP told the truth on all issues and didn’t fall into the common fallacy of a “clever strategy” of adopting single issues only or using dishonesty as a tactic to gain influence. He held to the ancient Aryan principle of doing the right thing and leaving the consequences to God. He spoke and published the truth about racial differentiation, Jewish activity, and all the evils besetting our culture. He was one of the few white leaders willing to openly critique the racially corrosive effects of feminism and homosexuality — two issues most other racialist leaders tactically avoid. He had made The Turner Diaries into a bestselling book, and his second book, Hunter, although less well known, was even better. His educational arm was much widened in all fields. More importantly, he saw the Internet as a major racialist outreach tool before most others and had set up his polished website. More deeds to be remembered.
Impressed, I renewed our acquaintanceship and rejoined his National Alliance and helped where I could. We talked on the phone a few times, and we agreed that I would help organize recruitment on the Net. I worked with other NA members in Net activism, and we did in fact bring in many new members; DrP told me that the majority of new interest queries, membership applications, and sales derived directly from our activism. I also started buying and distributing his books The Turner Diaries and Hunter and he sent me an inscribed first edition copy of the former, which I still have.
DrP was proud of what he’d built up in Hillsboro and said I would be impressed. He invited me to visit and wanted me to attend a couple of the NA’s leadership conferences, but for one reason or another I never did get down there, which I still regret today. In view of our many shared interests, I would have dearly loved to tour his personal library. I viewed him giving Mike Wallace the tour on a typical mainstream media documentary that came out about that time; I can only admire DrP’s personal discipline in keeping his own feelings in check and being a gentleman throughout.
However, as time went on, I came to see or sense changes in the organization and in its direction and goals which I disagreed with. I personally was concerned that it was admitting a large number of skinheads as members, and it switched from its priority in promoting educational materials to selling skinhead music CDs. I know there are many exceptions in that subculture, but in general I viewed skinheads as a negative force in the sense that they were so often drunk, violent, and ignorantly hateful. I had met a number of them, and I saw them as a potential for undoing all the good that DrP had accomplished.
I talked to DrP about this, but he was committed to entering the skinhead music business. He pointed out that there was money to be made here and that this income could go towards worthy projects. Of course that was true, but with too many dysfunctionals . . . ? He conceded that the “movement” was top-heavy with freaks and nuts but we had to work with whatever was available. If these people could be made functional and the skinheads could become a vanguard of action, things would look up. I remained skeptical. I was also concerned with my perception that the NA was moving towards quasi-“satanic” black metal and a wholly different — although still profitable — atmosphere and sub-subculture. This for me was sufficient reason to separate from the organization, as I didn’t want to be a part of where it seemed to be going.
I left the organization in consequence of these changes. A short while later Dr. Pierce passed away. Those who succeeded him have followed the business model, and as far as I can ascertain, the many defections or expulsions from the organization in their hands has resulted in an implosion into a purely profit-oriented venture. Maybe they are right. I don’t know. But I have to follow my own sense of what is right.
One thing that continues to intrigue me is the fate of Dr Pierce’s third book Who We Are. He had announced that he was completing it and that publication was imminent. Those who succeeded him have confirmed that it was done and that they would publish it. But to date, nothing. Being a bit cynical, I fear that he was frank and honest about many issues in his book that they perhaps would like to avoid, hence it remains buried. I am guessing here, and I still hope that it does in fact appear at some point.
In spite of our disagreements on some matters of direction and focus, I still have a tremendous respect for Dr. Pierce and his life accomplishments. He kept at it consistently for some forty years or so, doing his best to promote racial awareness and a turning away from the dark forces destroying us. He authored two great political novels which have had a huge impact on thinking and activism everywhere. He built up an organization out of nothing into one in which thousands of racial idealists came together to do good work. He fundamentally influenced countless lives — including my own — in positive, race-affirming ways. He wasn’t perfect. No man is. But he must surely be regarded as one of the great and most productive personalities on our side, one who made a real and important difference. His deeds will always preserve his memory.
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16 comments
When HardRights take the country back from the Jews and their group-entitlement henchmen, that made-in-China statue of Martin Lucifer King is coming down….and one of William Pierce is going up. Nothing as Evil as contemporary America can long endure; Armageddon will be shortly upon us.
One significant thing Pierce did near the end was develop a theory of the sheeple. He wrote that he had always puzzled at how nature could allow a belief to take hold among a people that was so clearly self-destructive on a gene pool level. He said as I recall that believing in social biology he couldn’t understand why such traits should not have been weeded out by natural selection.
His final conclusion was that a tendency to follow what ever the ruling orthodoxy proclaims is necessary in general for the long-term survival of a people. The trait insures unity.
In my own words I’d say that you couldn’t have a united strong society unless most people subconsciously tried to determine what general opinion was on an idea and adopt it.
Unfortunately aliens took advantage, bought up the media and took all the educational positions and turned the herd instinct against us. This is not unlike a Shepard turning the border collies stalking instinct to the Shepard’s advantage.
The inverse of the sheeple trait is the philosophical renegade, the pro-white dissident. Given time we will take control of the sheeples minds and save them. But initially pro-white dissidents can’t unite because we have very little herd instinct. The initial fractioning of the pro-white movement was an inevitable early result.
Kevin Alfred Strom illustrated this idea with examples from the insect world taken from E.O Wilson. Some would be ant queens are able to change their scent to match that of the colony and then just march right up the reigning queen and dispatch her while the workers do nothing. They have no defence since she smells right. Even stranger and perhaps even closer to our situtation, some of these usurpers are somehow able to induce the workers to kill their own queen.
Glad to know Kevin is better versed in social biology than I.
I also hear he beat the fed pedaphile rap easily.
All of these homages to William Pierce make me wonder: What is the current state of the National Alliance? I know Erich Gliebe keeps recording ADV shows but what else are they doing to keep the organization going? Their website seems outdated and even the few visible money-making ventures such as their book business seems dead. They haven’t updated their catalog in years, let alone publish anything. Who lives in the West Virginia HQ these days? Does anyone know an active NA member?
Some of them used to show up at Council of Conservative Citizen national meetings.
A dozen or so asked me to join in their break out session once but I declined. The reason being they had split into two or three camps after Pierce died. That time they were going to try to hash out their differences in the break out session. I didn’t want to get involved or become a partisan outsider in their internal dissension.
You might go to a national meeting like the American Renaissance, some would likely turn up there. Good luck.
For what it’s worth, here is the SPLC’s report on the National Alliance today:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/shipwreck-ten-years-after-the-death-of-its-founder-the-once-dominant-national-alli
If the NA is now down to 75 members, the very least we can infer from this report is that at least a couple of them are SPLC informants. Either that, or the story is ENTIRELY made up. It would be interesting if some independent corroboration is available. On the other hand, I have learned that malicious lies are pro forma with these sorts of bitter movement splits, and I don’t want to give a forum for that. So perhaps there is nothing to be learned. The last thing I want to do is release the matmos into our fair city. So let’s just leave it.
It is unfortunate that the SPLC does in fact present a great deal of fact in its ‘reports’ – mixed, however, with rumor, innuendo, and disinformation indirectly drawn from its sources. Reading the report you cited, overall I would guess that it is mostly accurate.
Bear in mind that the SPLC has a vested interest in making white racialist groups appear very dangerous and threatening, as that keeps the donations flowing in – sometimes staggering sums – from elderly rich Jews fearful of some NS resurgence. So, if the report states that the National Alliance is in disorder, a ‘joke’, massively shrunk, etc. etc., then there is the possibility of understatement. Which is a great pity, as what DrP built up has now largely fallen away.
It is sadly common that organizations implode once their leader/founder disappears. It has happened on our side many times.
Joseph Bishop in blockquote:
White Republican has noted this, and, in a recent post, expressed concern as to how this is so prevalent, and what might be DONE about this.
My comments concerning Dr. Pierce and his “National” Alliance are a matter of record. My critiques stand unchallenged, and the sad state of the “National” Alliance is obviously a matter of record.
Recently, a poster discussed the Front Nationale in some detail, and it might be useful to consider adopting and adapting from their organizational framework.
The key to success is linking to the fulfillment of a metapolitical objective, with a temporal bridge – a tangible means to the fulfillment of intangible ends – such as the Northwest Republic, as defined by Harold Covington.
Dealing with this complex of issues might call for an Open Thread, which will be (fortunately) moderated.
Incidentally, my concern with the recent pieces concerning William Luther Pierce is that they describe White Nationalism at its high and palmy peak, more than a decade after the man’s passing. This is pathetic. That was then, and this is now. What have you done lately? Hell, what have you done in the last ten years?
A new month offers us the opportunity to build something BETTER, and that is done by sending money to counter-currents, each and every month. I was moved when someone recently contributed two dollars, which were all but his last two dollars. THAT is the type of faith and commitment we should all have.
THAT is the type of faith and commitment that is necessary to succeed where all of those who went before us failed.
With the Northwest Republic as OUR temporal bridge – the White Homeland – OUR Polaris, OUR Pole Star, we can work steadily until the day our Posterity walks Among The Stars. (HT: Kevin Alfred Strom)
More to follow.
A few miscellaneous comments:
1. A minor correction: I didn’t quite say that organizations frequently implode when their founder disappears. I said that we fail to make the best use of our thinkers during and after their lifetimes, and that their influence often effectively evaporates when they disappear. The former observation is a commonplace one. William Pierce made it himself. In The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds (Bloomington, IN: 1stBooks Library, 2001), Robert S. Griffin writes of Pierce’s address to a National Alliance leadership conference (pp. 392-393):
“The major theme of his talk was the need to get more people involved in leadership positions. He said that the National Alliance has a well-defined philosophy, and there are people committed to the Alliance and its beliefs, but it has no real organizational structure. From what I can tell, that is true. The Alliance’s local units operate under general guidelines set out in the one hundred forty-three-page National Alliance membership handbook, but they function for all practical purposes autonomously and are left to their own devices as to the activities and projects they undertake. There simply isn’t anyone to oversee what they do or give them direction. Pierce and those who assist him in West Virginia are working day and night to keep their heads above water and don’t have the time to provide it.
“In his talk to the conference, Pierce reflected his advancing age and sense of mortality as he expressed concern about what will happen to the National Alliance after his retirement or death. He said that the pattern of one-man organizations — and the Alliance is that, really — is for them to fade away when their leader passes. As an example, Pierce cited George Lincoln Rockwell’s organization where Pierce himself got his start, and how it didn’t survive after Rockwell’s assassination. Pierce also pointed out that the Christian Nationalist Crusade dropped from the scene when its leader, Gerald L. K. Smith died. . . .
“Pierce said that the National Alliance needs to create a clearly defined organizational structure. He said this would help ensure the vitality and continuity of the organization. With such an arrangement in place, it would be easier to bring new people in at the bottom and mold and assess them each step of the way to top leadership positions.”
2. As I indicated in my comments to Andrew Hamilton’s article, “The Turner Diaries and Hunter,” I think that part of the solution lies in developing cadres, and that this will require structures like those of the Front National’s Délégation Générale, which has sections responsible for (a) producing propaganda, (b) organizing events, (c) educating and training members, (d) producing media for educating members, (e) public relations, and (f) developing and promoting ideology at a high intellectual level.
Without such people and structures, organizations are weak and vulnerable to collapse, corruption, or both. This has been the case with the National Alliance and the British National Party. It appears that only a handful of people in these organizations truly understood and were able to carry on the work of Pierce and Tyndall, and that they were either marginalized or driven out.
3. In L’autorité (Paris: PUF, 1994), Chantal Delsol observes (pp. 4-5):
“It is very certain that everyone among us uses and develops a derisory percentage of the ensemble of physical, psychological, and moral forces that he can exercise. And this enables us to perceive that an authority can cause those whom it commands to grow, can successfullly exhort them to deploy their own forces beyond what had been imagined or hoped. If they fervently obey their leader it is because the common project, which would appear crazy without him, appears possible with him. . . .”
“Thus, the almost superhuman effort of which these men find themselves capable is rendered possible by the existence of a strong authority at their head. They know that there is less risk if an intelligent, courageous, and bold personality responds to situations in everyone’s name.”
I think there is much truth in these observations. Collectively, we have more resources and opportunities than we recognize, but these resources and opportunities are mostly latent and are usually squandered. This is why I believe that we need the fascist ethic that Maurice Bardèche described in Qu’est-ce que le fascisme? (Paris: Les Sept Couleurs, 1961), p. 190:
“The will and the energy of which the nation disposes appears to them as its most precious capital, they place it at the premier rank, and they cultivate the collective qualities that forge the national energy and protect it. They therefore seek to develop as national qualities discipline, the taste for order, the love of work, and the sentiment of duty and honor. In the performance of everyday tasks, these principles of national morality are expressed by the sense of responsibility, the sense of solidarity, the consciousness of the duties of command, and the sentiment of being in one’s place in an accepted order and in an important task.”
The “national energy” is indeed our “most precious capital.” We must act accordingly to cultivate and protect it.
A few further comments:
4. I’ve recently been reading Pierre Chateau-Jobert’s Doctrine d’action contrerévolutionnaire (Chiré en Montreuil: Éditions de Chiré, 1986). It shares a lot of ground with Jean Ousset’s L’action, which has been translated into English as Action (Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2002). Both are works written from a Catholic counter-revolutionary perspective and strongly emphasize the importance of forming cadres, of generating a high level of activity at the level of individuals and organisational units, and of putting work within the view and the reach of people.
It might be worthwhile to adapt the ideas of these works to White nationalism. Why not develop these and related ideas on an open source basis, making them freely available to all who are interested, and applying, testing, and refining them over time? Perhaps I should create a blog for this purpose.
Among White nationalists, too much theory and discourse is aimless, undisciplined, and useless. Although there are many intelligent White nationalists, they often don’t use their intelligence wisely and constructively, and they are often blinded by theories and the lack of theories. They lack the measures, the heuristics, and the paradigms of practicality.
As White nationalists, we need to realize that our knowledge imposes great responsibilities upon us, and that we need to be far more serious. We should not see this as a burden, but rather as a liberation. Instead of conforming to this sick, stupid, ugly, Judaized world, we can rise and fight it, and by so doing become what we were meant to be. We can overcome the nihilism that poisons our lives and drains it of all meaning, all grandeur, all beauty, the nihilism of which William Ophuls writes:
“Not surprisingly, a ruling philosophy that makes beauty superfluous tends to turn the world into a wasteland: our environment is increasingly uniform, shoddy, nasty, brutish, and surreal, an aesthetic state of nature that faithfully mirrors back to us the ugly and deadly premises of our ruling philosophy. And it is yet another vicious circle: a dead and ugly external world further numbs the individual’s psyche and pushes it toward nihilism — the state of not having, of not being able to have, any values or meaning whatsoever.” (Requiem for Modern Politics [Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997], pp. 197-198.)
5. I have yet to obtain and read Chateau-Jobert’s La confrontation révolution-contrerévolution (Chiré en Montreuil: Éditions de Chiré, 1975). This book appears to take a “worst case scenario” in which clandestine organization and armed activism would be imperative. (Chateau-Jobert was a French senior officer and an OAS leader who was sentenced to death in absentia, so he was not an ignoramus or a fantasist in such matters.)
6. I intend to look at what it would take to create something like the Front National’s Délégation Générale, the functions of which are detailed above.
I’m particularly interested in looking at what it would take to set up some kind of group responsible for producing a range of media for propaganda and education. Such a group would not require as many people or as much money as some people think, and it could raise the quality of such media significantly. We must make better use of people, of our ability to network via the internet, of modern publishing software (including software for print, web, and audiovisual media), and of the educational resources (such as books and courses of study) available to us. We have no excuse for incompetence and ignorance in these matters.
7. A key function of a group like the Front National’s Délégation Générale serving a White nationalist organization should be creating a culture of revolutionary activism. This is a matter of creating an aggressive, dynamic, and effective movement rather than one of maintaining a subculture. We need to avoid sectarianism on one hand and mainstreaming on the other hand; we need to maintain our independence and initially while effectively engaging White communities; we need to create organizational forms and a body of culture and media that supports this work.
(1) Juxtaposing Greg Johnson’s comments, with the responses of White Republican, I believe the best interim solution to White Republican having his own blog is to have an Open Thread at counter-currents, where the hardworking moderators can be dragooned into insuring that better remains better.
(2) There is a quiet sense of irony in that the true vanguard for The Cause, the living foundation of what could become a Movement, begins in the Spirit, at counter-currents.
Sending money to counter-currents keeps hope alive!
It would be some time before I’d want to set up a blog dealing with ideas such as those I’ve expressed above. First, there’s a translation of a small book that I need to complete. Second, I’d want to carefully work out plans and guidelines for a blog (writing, editing, design, moderation, promotion), and build up a reserve of articles (I’m not used to writing articles). One needs to take such work extremely seriously if one is to do it responsibly and effectively. It shouldn’t be a matter of vanity publishing.
A specialized independent blog might be the best forum for expounding such ideas because it could be more focused and tightly organized, and its subjects are best addressed in depth and without distractions.
There are quite a number of projects that could be pursued relating to activist-relevant theory. At present, relatively little serious and sustained attention is given to such things, even among the better thinkers and writers on our side. When reading books, I sometimes marvel at the impressive intelligence and learning that goes into them, and I wish that such intelligence and learning could be devoted to the manifold practical tasks and challenges before us. And when I visit White nationalist forums, I sometimes think that some people choose to ride a hobby horse when they could ride a war horse instead.
Frank Martell’s ideas on the vanguard system should be developed in more detail in relation to the formation and organization of cadres. Charles Edward White’s The Enlightened Soldier: Scharnhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1988) might be useful in this regard, for it appears to be an outstanding work on the origins of the Prussian General Staff system, but it’s extremely expensive. Nevertheless, this is a matter in which one should think in terms of the value of ideas, and of adding value to ideas, rather than the cost of books. Learning can be expensive, but it is not as expensive as ignorance.
As Frank Martell discussed both the General Staff and the armies of Genghis Khan in his two-part article on the vanguard system, I presume he was influenced by the work of Trevor N. Dupuy, whose works include A Genius for War: The German Army and General Staff, 1807-1945, and The Military Life of Genghis: Khan of Khans.
White Republican in blockquote:
All the more reason to use a dedicated thread at counter-currents as the training wheels.
In time, certainly. Taking full advantage of counter-currents’ capabilities seems eminently effective, at relatively little direct cost to you.
They have their talents and abilities quite challenged by hobby horses; they fear (save for Covington) war horses. The reason is what Dr. Johnson noted previously: they are essentially, all too often, all too nihilistic, and trapped in some means of avoiding the responsibility they share for being where they are. The time, talent and energy that goes into being able to handle war horses in combat – see the Lippizaners in action – is beyond their comprehension, much less their abilities, as they have seen fit to define them to their satisfaction.
Make no mistake. As Covington has noted, he is getting “t-shirt people” contacting him to help them Take The Gap. This is where our best hopes are, for the moment, as they have nothing, and nothing to lose. they also have little to offer, but by helping them to develop their Talents, we further develop the organic foundation of the new nation, the the temporal manifestation of which is the Northwest Republic.
Martell’s two part section on the Vanguard System, ideas which seem to have lay fallow since 1998 – I repeat, 1998 – should be reviewed, merged into one post, and juxtaposed with Pierce’s Prospectus for a National Front, which was also on counter-currents. Rather than wonder why Pierce failed, a topic already addressed elsewhere as well as on counter-currents (hint: Louis T. Byers), let’s try to pull the mule out of the ditch.
Again, remembering the dearth of comments to Martel’s pieces on the Vanguard System, let’s juxtapose it with the idea of Scharnhorst, and the general staff. Certain similarities to certain religious orders present themselves, and, isn’t part of the political success of Judaism in practice – “Marxism,” by many names – the fact that they consciously develop their leaders, and consciously test them along the way? As well, note that they do not throw them over the side at the first sign of their weakness. If the Candidate is suitable skilled and predisposed, they work with them to make them more valuable, in whatever place they can best serve The Cause.
Even if they arrive wearing all they have in the world, the t-shirts on their back.
Reading “The Nazi Seizure of Power” reveals a careful strategy of development from the grass roots up, with a consistent theme and consistent messaging, so the moment where the young Chancellor took office was like the phase shift moment where water finally hits 32 degrees Farenheit, and implicate properties manifest as a new ordering of relationships.
Indeed, Frank Martell’s ideas on the vanguard system seem to have lain fallow. There was no response or sequel to Martell’s articles on the vanguard system in the pages of Spearhead. The British National Party seems to have done nothing constructive with them. (Nick Griffin seems not to have entirely forgotten about them, for I recall that he once remarked in a blog that he was reading a book on Genghis Khan, and specifically remarked that this book was not informative concerning the organization of Genghis Khan’s armies. But little good can be expected of Griffin.) I prepared the articles for republication at Counter-Currents, but they seem to have attracted little interest, judging by the lack of comments and links.
Antoine de Rivarol said: “Ideas are a capital that bear interest only in the hands of talent.” We need men of talent to assimilate, develop, combine, and act upon certain ideas. Some ideas could bear compound interest in the right hands.
The pages from Charles Edward White’s The Enlightened Soldier that can be viewed at Amazon indicate that it devotes great attention to Bildung (i.e. culture and cultivation). One might say that a major weakness of organizations such as the National Alliance and the British National Party is that while they observed the Führerprinzip, they neglected Bildung, and therefore lacked solid cultural and social foundations. Despite the relative size of these organizations, despite their relative means, and despite their age, they were not truly solid. This is not to say that these organizations were devoid of dedicated, capable, and hard-working people, but in one sense these people were not really representative of the mass, and their influence tended to be limited and ephemeral.
The concept of Bildung might fit in neatly with Maurice Bardèche’s concept of the “national energy” as well as the ancient Greek concept of “metis.”
Friedrich Nietzsche said that a society should rest upon “a sturdy and soundly consolidated mediocrity” (in this context, I interpret mediocrity to simply mean “average” rather than “substandard”). I think this is also true of organizations. Effective organizations need a healthy average. Perhaps one might say that an organization should be based on the highest rather than the lowest common denominator, and that the common denominator should be raised through Bildung. This conception of organizational culture is both aristocratic and populist, and is anagogic rather than demagogic. (Oddly enough, I’ve never encounted the term “highest common denominator,” although it is the logical antonym of “lowest common denominator.” The common denominator is relative to the group involved, relates to a range rather than to a point, and is not permanently fixed.)
We need organizations that are communities of culture and work. To use the words of Wendell Berry, “We want a movement that is a movement because it is advanced by all its members in their daily lives.” Putting work within the view and the reach of people so that they can make it their own is an essential part of this. Perhaps one reason why so many White nationalists on forums are so quarrelsome is that they are unemployed and underemployed as White nationalists, are frustrated by a lack of leadership in practical matters, and are frustrated by their individual and collective weakness. They are on their own, they are doing nothing constructive, and they have no direction and no discipline (such as that of an particular organization, function, or project). Living like this is demoralizing and eventually makes one nihilistic and unemployable.
There is no shortage of work to do, but most people lack the qualities to be productively self-employed, and they cannot see entry level positions being advertised.
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