Nazism & the Alt Right:
At Peace With Ourselves

[1]1,558 words

Time and time again the Alt Right gets dragged into disputes over the legacy of German National Socialism. They revolve around whether it should be denounced or embraced and whether it is expedient to display Nazi symbolism in public given the mainstream media’s incessant attempts to demonize any kind of white racial consciousness by inextricably linking it to the real or alleged brutalities of German National Socialism.

What is often being ignored however is the existence of a deeper historical reason on the part of the Establishment for attacking white racial consciousness. Liberals attack and demonize the Alt Right, and any implicit manifestation of racial consciousness on the part of whites, not because they fear the emergence of violence. In fact, their obsession with Nazism is also not primarily rooted in its brutalities. There is a far deeper concern that animates the guardians of the established order and their lackeys. It is the fear of the ascendance of a radically different worldview, a paradigm that views race and heredity as core aspects determining the trajectory of society and historical processes. Even in the absence of the prospect of violence such a worldview is simply unacceptable to them.

Seen in this light, liberals should in fact be credited with good discernment and lucidity about what the Alt Right represents. They understand it even better than many race realists who frantically try to condemn “Nazism” and reject that label.

This confusion and dissonance arise indeed due to different meanings attached to the word “Nazism” by different parties. Those in the Alt Right who condemn “Nazism” comprehend the term in a narrow sense, as referring to a particular political movement that emerged at a particular time in Germany. The Left however imbues the term with a more general meaning — i.e. the racial/hereditarian view of society and its organization along these lines.

In the Alt Right, therefore, everyone is Nazi, and no one is Nazi at the same time, depending on which meaning is attached to the term. In the narrow sense, none of us are Nazis since we function in a different historical period under different historical circumstances. In a wider sense however, all of us are Nazis since we essentially subscribe to the same worldview espoused by that movement. The incessant branding of any racially conscious white as “Nazi” by liberals should therefore be seen as something more than sleazy attempts at defamation, but rather surprisingly as demonstration of better judgement than on our part about who we are. The Left gets it right for a change, surpassing many in our movement in its lucidity.

Therefore, I would like to argue that the way forward for the Alt Right should be unifying its worldview into an historically coherent whole, which obviously includes the National Socialist period in Germany. This can best be achieved by viewing that phenomenon in a macro-historical context, in other words through its historicization rather than politicization. Seen from this perspective, the crimes and mistakes of German National Socialism (real or alleged) simply become beside the point.

Every worldview has its own life history and manifests itself differently at different stages of its evolution. The form these outer manifestations take depends both on the immutable internal logic of its development and contingencies which accompany it at different stages, both of which are at least partly independent of its core message. A worldview should therefore primarily be judged not by its outer manifestations, but by its core philosophy.

Every newly emergent worldview is bound to appear on the political stage through violence, since it has to break through the gridlock of the old established order. And the liberal worldview was no exception. Liberalism first appeared on the political stage through the French Revolution and the ensuing Napoleonic wars, both of which wrought immense devastation throughout Europe, being responsible for the deaths of many people by the standards of the time. Liberals however do not denounce the French Revolution, not to mention the very Enlightenment ideals that brought it about, for the violence. They see it as a necessary and perhaps inevitable step in the ascendance of liberal, egalitarian worldview in the West.

Likewise, National Socialism in Germany was the first political manifestation of racial/hereditarian worldview, which had already had a rich history and strong intellectual support from many different angles. In the scientific/analytical realm this involved Arthur de Gobineau, Francis Galton, Cesare Lombroso, Paul Broca, and Charles Spearman, as well as such popularizers as Lothrop Stoddard and Madison Grant, and in philosophy the German Conservative Revolutionaries (although their views on race were more ambiguous).

Although eventually German National Socialism was brutally destroyed, and the racial/hereditarian worldview has been fanatically suppressed by the guardians of the old order, it continues to be corroborated by novel findings from the fields of psychometry, evolutionary biology, and population genetics.

In the same way that the roots of French Revolution and liberalism are traced back to Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century, the National Socialist period in Germany will be regarded as the German Revolution by future historians, and its roots will be traced back to racial thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Alt Right in turn represents the continuation and modern day manifestation of this same school of thought, drawing upon both pre- and post-WWII racial and traditionalist thinkers for inspiration.

One other reservation about Nazism that is often brought about, in fact by those racially conscious whites who view it positively in general, is the mistreatment by Nazis of some of the white nations. It all inevitably devolves into quibbling over details about whether this mistreatment invalidates or compromises the value of Nazism for White Nationalism. However, leaving aside the debate about to what extent these mistreatments are real or fabricated and whether they can be justified or not, a historicized approach to Nazism renders also such considerations moot.

Every grand historical development that is necessary and/or beneficial for a civilization on a macro scale will inevitably involve some aggrieved subgroups. Moreover, historical personalities that stand behind those grand events are more often than not guided by narrower interests and are not consciously aware of the larger significance of the events they herald. It may very well be that Hitler was guided first and foremost by narrow German interests in his undertakings, although plentiful evidence suggests that he had far broader historical vision with regards to the fate of Europe and the white race in general than his contemporaries, and that he had mistreated some European nations in the process. Likewise Bismarck, for example, was primarily guided by narrow Prussian interests in the process of unifying Germany, which inevitably involved mistreatment of many Germans who opposed Prussia (e.g. Austrians and Bavarians). This, however, in no way precluded the veneration of Bismarck by Austrian and Bavarian Germans imbued with a broad German identity. In the same way, the mistreatment of their ancestors at the hands of National Socialist Germany should not preclude present-day racially conscious Poles or Czechs from taking inspiration from it by viewing it with historical detachment rather than personal attachment.

The legacy of German National Socialism inspires, and its symbolism rouses many racially conscious whites today regardless of their nationality. Whatever one thinks of National Socialism and whether or not one believes the official narrative about it, it is part of the common history of the movement to which the modern day Alt Right belongs, and it represented the same aspirations and longings that animate all racially conscious whites today. It was the first, and until now the only, time in modern western history when racial/hereditarian worldview reached the levers of power and was implemented politically, thereby providing inspiration for the future generations of all racially conscious whites. It is also the only time when whites confronted their present day deadly enemies in a large-scale effort.

Trying to avoid any association with Nazism on the part of the Alt Right is therefore a highly demanding task and is bound to consume a huge amount of energy, which could be spent for other more beneficial purposes. The real issue is not whether it is expedient or not to avoid any such association in the public eyes, but whether or not this is an efficient use of our creative energies. The more the Left insists on its hateful and genocidal agenda, the more whites will be radicalized, and it will become more and more difficult for White Nationalists to abstain from invoking Nazi symbolism in public, given its rousing potential.

The moral burden therefore rests on the shoulders of liberals. The ascendance of the racial/hereditarian worldview in Western Civilization is an organic historical necessity. The more they try to thwart it with their bigotry and narrow-mindedness, the more likely a violent confrontation becomes. They should be well aware that the excesses of Nazism were a direct result of the punitive Versailles Treaty forced upon the German nation and the emergence of Bolshevism in Europe.

The Alt Right in turn should come to peace with its roots and its history. Obviously, no one should be obliged to revere Nazism, but those among us who find inspiration in it should not be scorned or disowned. We will sound more convincing and more inspiring if we are coherent in our worldview and at peace with our past and with ourselves.