These are not happy days for Americans, particularly if raised on traditional American values of Northern European provenance. Conscientious work as redemptive virtue, thrift, self-reliance, self-restraint, Biblical ethical principles, modesty, high-minded civic culture, love of liberty, distrust of centralized power, America’s ruling elite — once the embodiment of such values and now a putrid trench running from Wall Street to Madison Avenue to Washington DC to Hollywood — has debauched and upended them as thoroughly as though it has been teleported directly from 3rd century Rome. It has deployed the full arsenal of Roman degeneration: unsustainable spending, shaving the coins of the realm, excessive taxation, disincentives to work and saving, wanton waste, corruption on an enormous scale, opulent narcissism at the top, lax borders, importing foreign populations, degrading the value of citizenship, promotion of sexual deviations and excesses, undermining the family unit, trampling on traditions, inuring the populace to “free” handouts and soul-corroding entertainment.- - - - - - - - -
The headlines, 20 years after they were already visible on the screen of common sense and history, invoke daily the “US debt explosion” and successive 13-digit “stimuli.” The clique at the top is fighting a debt recession by adding a lot more debt to the recession. It’s trying desperately to hide its criminal negligence and complicity in the largest swindle in the history of the world. It’s sweeping trillions of unsweepable bad debts under a rug and sowing future financial and social destruction while babbling of the “green shoots” of recovery.
I need to get out of this calamitous idiocy. And so, I take a vacation to view the farce not as framed by the spinmeisters’ proscenium but as it appears from downstage, behind the main actors.
I fly to Warsaw, and from there to the patch of land now divided between Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia but for a thousand years floating on the currents of history between Poland, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Saxony and Prussia, and showing all that. Altogether a fitting place from which to look on west. Particularly as it’s from here, behind the Iron Curtain then, that I viewed the West, with longing, for the first ten years of my life.
All (Western) things interconnect
Often, they connect in a church. On a stroll through Warsaw I seek shelter from the city’s bustle in a pretty and modest, for this land of magnificent churches, baroque church. It’s called Kosciól Przemienienia Panskiego, which translates as Church of the Lord’s Transfiguration (1).
At the apex of the facade, the coat of arms of the Sobieski family. Inside, a sarcophagus with the heart of Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland, scourge of Islamic aggression and liberator of Vienna. Sobieski funded the construction of this church in 1683 to thank God for his victories over the Turks.
I go in for Sobieski and come out with Europe. For Sobieski’s roommates in this church are his successor on the Polish throne, August II the Strong, in the other sarcophagus, and Count Jan Maurice von Hauke, resting among Polish aristocrats in the catacombs.
August, renowned for his physical strength and bravery, straddles the history of Europe, if in a more ambiguous way than Sobieski. Born in 1670 in Dresden into the ruling Wettin dynasty, he died in Warsaw in 1733. As Friedrich August I he was Elector of Saxony in 1694 -1733, and as August II he was King of the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania in 1697-1704 and again in 1709-1733.
Like Sobieski, August fought the Turks, but with less success…
Read the rest at the Brussels Journal.
23 comments:
Thanks for this linked article. I found it informative and educational. Sad to say, it seems that most of those anti-Semitics, seem ignorant, and lack the desire to seek the truth so that this type of negativity can be cleansed. It seems to be propagated by those who feel threatened, that either their "religion" or "culture" as they see it, will be eradicated unless they can "root out" Jews and their influcne to regain the "purity" they envision it once had before the Jews tainted everything. No wonder Hitlers can arise and manipulate so many by demagogically playing upon the fears of those who are so easily led to believe the root of all evil is Jews. So many still have so far to go, it seems in freeing themselves from the seeds of hate.
"What’s wrong with these people? What kind of Catholicism is this? And whence the Freemasonry hatred that I see in the Catholic media here, and their linking of Freemasonry with Jews? I come from a country, after all, that would not exist except for its Freemason founders, particularly Washington and Franklin.
At least one fourth of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence and half of Washington’s generals, including the Polish ones, were Freemasons. The money in my wallet is full of Masonic symbols. I love a Masonic opera by a Masonic (and Catholic) genius. Haydn, Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller and many other European giants were Masons too. Why this hatred?"
Other Freemasons include Benedict Arnold and Charles Ponzi. But these counter-examples are as irrelevant as Mr. Seiyo's examples of 'good' Masons. It's not like anyone opposes Freemasonry because they dislike Haydn and Beethoven's music or they're against the American founding.
Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on Freemasonry. Scroll down to the section titled 'Action of state and Church authorities' for a list of papal pronouncements against Masonry.
@Sean O’Brian
You answer the question as though it was asked in a superficial sense. Of course there have been papal pronouncement against Masonry. There were many papal pronouncements against the Jews too, even papal bulls. But this was then, and this is now. To seek an explanation to a 2009 A.D. pathological hatred of Masons because of what the pope wrote 200 years ago, or of Jews because of what he wrote 500 years ago, is unsatisfactory. It merely paints Catholics as hidebound troglodytes. Reactionary Conservatism, on the other hand, implies a judicious (underline judicious) conservation of what was good in the past.
The Catholic Church in the West now is an agent of liberal dystopia and demographic decomposition precisely because of remorse over those and other excesses in the past. I would like to see it find a way of truthful reconciliation with the past that does not involve hara-kiri. I think that I found a Polish priest on this visit who points to such a way. I ended Part 1 with him, and he will open Part 2.
T.S.,
I think you have to separate out anti-semitism from fear/opposition to/hatred of Masons. The reason is because, unlike Judaism, Masonry is an unknown quantity. There will always be fantastical conspriacy theories revolving around secret societies. This is as much a pursuit of atheists as it is of Catholics. No one has any way of knowing what the Masons are really about unless they cease being a secret society. Anyway I look forward to reading Part 2.
From the article: This type of “conservatism” is fascinating like a four-legged spider with two heads would be, in a formaldehyde jar. The motto of Polonica.net, for instance, is “Poland without Jews and Jew-doings” (3) , even as it “outs” some of Poland’s greatest – among them Frederic Chopin, Adam Mickiewicz, kings and princes – as demi-Jews. All this in the spirit of allegiance to “Catholic Tradition” and enmity to “Heresies, modernization, Novus ordo, Jewmason infiltration, and Judaizing of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.”.
What is it with these self-destructive types? Towards a "more pure" Poland they seek to strip away historical contributions by some of the most towering Polish figures.
This sort of Pyrrhic victory seems to be all too common among the typically intolerent loons that dot our modern landscape.
Muslims demolish and trash all evidence of Jāhiliyyah and any trace of competing cultures. The waqf of Jerusalem are so hell bent upon removing any speck of prior Jewish occupation that they are physically undermining the very foundations of al Aqsa mosque itself. Should that edifice come tumbling down, exactly whom do you think will be blamed?
This last example is perhaps the best comparison to make with respect to these Polish racial purifiers. Exactly how much of Polish heritage do they want to strip away in the name of "cultural purity"?
Poland remains a battleground between the forces of pre-Enlightenment Catholic obscurantism and nationalist chauvinism, and the ecumenical, cosmopolitan and still mostly Catholic intelligentsia. Unfortunately, the former also carry many good conservative precepts and traditions, while the latter bob on the currents of Western multiculti dogma and EU propaganda.
This is really heartbreaking. All through Europe, Polish guest workers have been gaining a reputation for hard work and speedy assimilation.
While I was in Germany last year, I made a point of driving out to the well-preserved Gothic burg of Görlitz. Across the Lusatian Neisse River lies Zgorzelec, the Polish sister city of Görlitz and, in the past, they used to be joined as a single town.
Eager to expand my roster of visited nations I walked across the border one evening and then drove over on my second visit for an even better look. The Polish people I met were courteous and enterprising. I expressed to them my personal hope that Poland would regain her previous glory.
Back in America, at my favorite Polish delicatessen, a lady from Poland scoffed at my impressions and expressed a rather dim view of her nation's chances of climbing out of its pit of post-Soviet backbiting and internecine squabbling.
Takuan Seiyo's article now makes clear why the Polish lady was so grim in her assessment.
@Zenster
One has to wake early to stay ahead of you. You both drove in Poland and went to Zgorzelec. I did neither, even though I was close to that town. My local friends begged me not to rent a car and drive in Poland; it’s very dangerous due to bad roads, aggressive or drunk drivers etc. So I went everywhere by train.
There are various bad things going on there, but I won’t deal with them because it’s impossible to do fairly in anything less than a book. To grasp why a book is required for the attenuating circumstances, although you undoubtedly know this, there is a reminder posted today at Breibart.com entitled "Poland marks 1944 revolt against Nazis".Worth reading, including the comments.
All this notwithstanding, I am very positive on the future of that entire region (and Slovakia has bigger problems than Poland). I wrote in Part 1 that they have old values preserved as though in amber, for bad and for good. Part 1dealt mosty with the bad. Part 2 will deal mostly with the good.
For one, it’s the only region in the West (Ukraine being already the East) where no demographic treason has been carried out by the ruling elites. There is nothing – not bad roads, not alcoholism, not xenophobia, not deficincy in civic virtues – that is half as bad as making of the U.S.a proposition nation and of Europe, Eurabia. If Central Europe manages to resist the EU with respect to demographic self-sabotage, one day our grandchildren will be looking at them with envy.
Part 1 dealt mosty with the bad. Part 2 will deal mostly with the good.
I look forward to your next installment, Tak. Great writing, as always.
As far as anti-semitism goes (and I realize I'm stepping into potentially hot water here), in the USA today I think it is largely based not on history or trying to write historical figures out of the white race, but on the actual noticeable current actions of large numbers of jewish individuals.
It is self-evident that jews completely dominate Hollywood - there was an article in the LA Times not that long ago where the author (who made a point of noting he was jewish) was making a point of trying to find non-jews and couldn't. People ask why Hollywood insists on making entertainment - propaganda, really - that denigrates and devalues the historical majority culture and the founding population of this country, telling us that all of that stuff is evil (when in a sane society it would be viewed as at least mostly good), and refuse to consider whether the ethnicity of the people producing the material might at all affect what they make and what message they might try to convey.
It's self-evident that jewish groups have always been big supporters of freer immigration into the USA, from the 1965 immigration bill - which demolished the ethnic quotas that had maintained a white/Anglo majority population, even while dishonestly claiming it would do no such thing - up through and including modern support for letting in as many Mexicans or Somali tribesmen as "need" to come. It's easy to explain this in terms of jews being afraid of seeing a recurrence of the 1930s and not wanting to put themselves in the situation of being vulnerable to any single group again, but people who reach for that explanation then never follow it through to its logical conclusion, that what this actually means is that jews are practicing divide and conquer against the majority population and by so doing are destroying a country that is not theirs to destroy.
It's self-evident that jews do try to suppress speech that they don't like or that is critical of them. The Southern Poverty Law Center is particularly well known for this. When Will Smith made his offhand comment about how even Hitler thought he was doing the right thing, nothing would serve but for him to beg forgiveness in public and completely recant; the media was whipped up into a frenzy over it within hours and only the fact that Smith is a smart guy and issued an immediate and complete surrender prevented it from becoming a more serious attack on his career. It is simply not allowable to be a public figure and openly criticize behaviors or actions that might be considered typical of jewish people, or to support anything that might be hostile to jews. (Allow me to note here that I have no problem with Israel or its right to exist. That's foreign policy, not domestic. Jews living in America though do not seem to make this distinction.) Jewish support and advocacy in favor of interracial marriage is long-standing, and this attitude has become so entrenched in the public sphere that a white person stating that it is better for whites to only marry other whites is automatically branded a horrible racist. Meanwhile jews are permitted to insist on only marrying other jews and this considered simply a jewish thing to do. Racial and cultural preservation is acceptable for jews but not for anybody else. That's hypocritical and it needs to stop.
[Hm, seems this is too long. Splitting into two ...]
It's self-evident that all sorts of key figures in the financial government are jewish. Greenspan, Bernanke, Summers, Emmanuel, quite a few people elsewhere in the current and previous administrations, and of in Goldman Sachs (which has effectively captured the US FedGov). The whole bubble of bad loans was encouraged by diversity/multiculti nonsense like the CRA, based on the idea that all human beings are interchangeably the same - an idea which, if you oppose it, you're a racist Nazi hater so shut up. Jews in general are overrepresented in politics compared to their actual proportion of the population. This can be explained by talking about how jews average higher IQs and tend to gravitate towards the more difficult jobs and so there's a selection effect. Which all makes sense. But that doesn't mitigate the fact that the leadership class that contains this overrepresentation of jews has been driving the country steadily into abysmal disaster, and is openly robbing the US taxpayer to pay off bankers.
And then there's things like the recent wave of arrests in New Jersey. Something that has shown up quite a bit in commentary on this - in jewish discussions of the matter, no less - is that it is considered more acceptable in traditional jewish society to break laws and game the system to advance clannish interests, rather than to place the law above everybody else - which is the traditional Occidental view. "White collar crime" is just something they let themselves do without too much stigma.
If and when this sort of thing stops - if American jews saw themselves, and acted like, Americans first and jews second - if they supported policies and societal behaviors that would strengthen this society and this nation, rather than weaken it; if they trusted in the majority population that had been kind and trusting enough to welcome them and make them at home and provide the safest place for the largest single population of jews in the world; if, in a word, they were mostly conservative in word and deed rather than conservative among themselves while preaching liberalism to everybody else - then this persistent undercurrent of hatred would evaporate. How many jews on the side of the good guys can you think of? I can think of Pam at Atlas Shrugs, Larry Auster (although he's wishywashy because he keeps insisting on retaining liberal principles and exceptions for jews, and is incapable of understanding how to agree to disagree), and Joe Lieberman. Lieberman is the only major public figure I can think of. All other prominent jews are people who really need to get moved out of positions of power, one way or another, because they're making everything worse. So instead of visible patriotism and loyalty, instead there are these recurring incidents that look like the work of a fifth column, whether they are consciously intended as such or not. Treating antisemitism - a reaction to jewish behavior - as though all fault originates with the antisemites is equivalent to asking why islamic terrorists hate us and what can we do to make them love us instead. It's the wrong approach, and as long as there is no honesty and self-examination on these subjects from the jewish population, as long as they continue to pursue the behaviors that are aggravating resentment, things will get worse, and the fear of a repeat of the 1930s may become a self-fulfilling prophecy - yes, even in America.
Rollory --
I agree that it would be better for all of us if American Jews concentrated less on being offended when people point out the traitorous behavior of Jews in high places, and more on a rigorous program of self-examination to figure out why this is happening, and to correct it.
There is no shortage of traitorous opportunists among Gentiles as well. It seems that very intelligent, ruthless, cynical, and unethical people are drawn into positions of high power.
What has not been established is whether there are more Jews behaving this way than their proportion in the general population, once you have factored intelligence and level of education into the mix.
Marxism and other trans-national multicultural ideologies are diseases of the intellectuals, and Jews are way over-represented amongst intellectuals and people with advanced degrees.
You are not the first to make these points here, and I'll ask you to do the same that I have asked all the rest: can you demonstrate statistically that what you say is true?
Take the relative incidence of high IQ (say, over 125) in the Jewish population, coupled with a college education, and the same for the non-Jewish population. Does this proportion represent more or less the same breakdown in the traitorous leftist elite that are selling our country down the river?
If it doesn't, then something like what you describe must be at work within the American Jewish population.
If it does, then what we have is further evidence that treasonous behavior is a tendency of intellectuals in general, not just the Jews. Intelligence plus higher education in fact tends to be dangerous for the welfare of our country, at least with the current educational regime in place.
I have read these assertions repeatedly, but have yet to see them backed up with statistical facts -- the relative incidence of high IQ and education among the Jews vs. non-Jews, compared with the number of destructive America-hating Jews in positions of power.
I can generate an extremely long list of non-Jews in high places who are just as destructive as Emmanuel or Soros -- longer than the list of Jews. So the only question is whether the relative proportions are an accurate mirror of intelligence and education in the populations involved.
@ Rollory @ Baron
Re: Antisemitism
Rollory, forget hot water. You raise an important issue and an issue that ought to be discussed far more – and more truthfully – than it has. And I agree with the general direction of your comment, though you err in some of its particulars. I don’t know about Jewish support for interracial marriage, except as practiced by the Jews themselves. Something like half of American Jews marry outside their faith and their race. As to, “it is considered more acceptable in traditional Jewish society to break laws and game the system” – false. If you want to redefine it truthfully, those Jews who are part of the current metastized form of American corporate capitalism, particularly in finance and entertainment, undermine society. And if Jews are over-represented in this segment, it’s not because Jews find it acceptable to game and subvert the system but because their intelligence, culture of education, and ambition take them to the highest levels of the most rewarding careers, from Wall Street to Hollywood [which is the Baron’s point too]. As to the New Jersey arrests etc., that’s white collar/ political crime and you cannot assert that this is a Jewish phenomenon more than it’s Black or Irish or Blago-ish. It’s the Democratic Machine, spinning.
But there is something different here, and that’s Jewish liberalism. I hate it myself and find it destructive. At the same time you may have observed that I take potshots at antisemites. It’s not because they are antisemites but because they lie. Truth matters. For the stem of Jewish liberalism rises from precisely the same root as Catholic or Protestant liberalism, and not from some cockamamie evolutionary group survival theorizing.
GoV has had some good discussions about the role that Christianity has in the White Civilization’s decay. I have some issues with what has been stated, but it’s true that the morphing of the Hebrews’ religion into liberalism, and of Christianity into Christianity Soft are bad for our civilization. Singling out the Jews as the group responsible for it is intellectually honest if you view Christianity as a Jewish creation, which it is, if later modified and ornamented by others. But if you take Christianity out of the equation, blaming the Jews makes no sense unless you also blame women, as a group, and the German-Nordics, as a group, for all three are the predominant carriers of liberalism.
What matters here is not that we stop criticizing Jews, but that we start from a truthful position. Without knowing where the true North lies we will never find the right direction.
Well written, Takuan!
I would take it even further. If you have read what I have written recently it is clear that I single out Germanic people as the single responsible group for the liberalism of the West.
Surely Jews have put themselves in a prominent role in the thrust for liberalism in the West. They might even be representing the most annoying examples and push for the most absurd expressions of liberalism. They have been riding on the tide, as it were, and as I had said before their inclination to adhere to any form of internationalism (everywhere from Communism to Capitalism) is higher than for other people (for cultural and historical reasons).
But nevertheless, take away the Jews from the equation, and the whole thing would have gone the same way. This since the motor behind the whole thing are the Germanic people. So in this sense, the Jews are irrelevant for the liberalism of the West, and the blame for it, in the bigger picture. Except of course for how they invented inverted morality during their Babylonian exile, something that eventually struck the Germanics, which gave birth to the Western Christian civilization, which by its inner logic evolved into modern liberalism, multiculturalism, etc., under which we are suffering today.
I agree with your take here on the Jews and the Germans. People forget that if the spiritual roots of leftism are Judeo-Christian, the political roots are in 18th century France and 19th century Germany.
I am not sure if I agree though to your recommended solution, i.e. replacement of Christianity with neo-paganism. Blót, after all, stands for Blood, for human sacrifice. “White man’s values” start where Abraham’s hand wielding the sacrificial knife over the bound Isaac stops [I am quoting myself here from the in–process Part2]. The Nordics had their own, indigenous values, i.e. courage, hospitality, a system of justice etc. but these were not unique to them alone, except in the mode of implementation. But the prohibition of human sacrifice came via Christianity alone. I believe – but have not done the research – that the anathemas of sodomy and orgiastic religious practices came also exclusively via Christianity, and it reflected the ancient rejection by the Jews of Greek practices, and before them the Philistine ones.
Which is not to say that I consider the restoration of some pre-Christian parts of European culture a bad idea. I have recommended it myself to the extent that I see how much Japanese Shinto strengthens Japan by linking the people to its landscape, its trees and rivers, founding stock and founding legends [See Astarte –Amaterasu in BJ].
For the same reason I object to Aryanizing Jesus Christ. Jesus was a Jew, he arose in a particular place and a particular time, and he addressed himself to that place, that time, and those people. His message was very Yin because the times and the people were very Yang.
Everyone knows about the Pharisees, but the Jews at that time had their (equivalent of) fanatical Islamists, the Sadducees, and their (equivalent of) wild Islamic terrorists too, the Sikkarim. It’s in that context that some of what Jesus preached must be interpreted, rather than yanking it out of its historical context and nailing it to the door of a sheeple’s church in Sweden or Seattle 2000 years later.
Takuan,
I agree with your take here on the Jews and the Germans. People forget that if the spiritual roots of leftism are Judeo-Christian, the political roots are in 18th century France and 19th century Germany.
And of course America! A very Germanic country.
I am not sure if I agree though to your recommended solution, i.e. replacement of Christianity with neo-paganism.
Well, you don't really have to, since my solution isn't that specific. I'm just applying logic here.
1. Given that Christianity, or more specifically Christian ethics, needs to be removed (I have confined this suggestion for Germanic people).
2. Given that when God, Christ, church-going -- i.e. what's known as practicing Christianity -- is removed, then Christian ethics is heightened, yes even unfettered! I.e. the result is worse.
3. The only conclusion is that the only way to unpeg Christianity is with another peg. So far nothing specific has been said about the characteristics of the peg. E.g. Islam is a peg that would do the job, of course, in terms of replacement. But my intention is of course to speak of a peg that would improve the situation.
4. The next step in my reasoning is to appreciate how deeply we are controlled by our myths. My most important concept is the "great mythological narrative", that is the story about us. In Christianity this story is about the Jews, so then we have a story where we are not important, as a people. My conclusion is that today this has dire consequences. So the first specification of this new peg, must be that it should hold a "great mythological narrative" about our people, i.e. Germanic people. This was also the traditional situation all across the world, before the days of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. There's really nothing extreme or strange with it, which so many people seem to believe.
Some race-obsessed people (and often antisemitic) think that we should adapt a narrative about the Arabs instead of the Jews, i.e. Islam. In their view this would boost the white race, with breeding and fighting spirit. However, what would be the point of the survival of the white race if it has lost its soul? Race isolated is completely uninteresting in my view. To me it's all about ethnicity (of which race is integral, of course). Islam is a peg that would effectively erase our ethnicity, and make us into pseudo-Arabs. Compare with Christianity, which indeed makes our ethnicity unimportant, but does not erase it for us.
OK, back on track: Each people need a great mythological narrative where their own people holds the central role.
Furthermore, we should remember Baron Bodissey's very wise words about how we carry millions of years of evolution, thousands of years of culture, and hundreds of years of tradition with us. As always, this sentence alone gives us several hints and conclusions.
So taking both above paragraphs in account, were could we reasonably find the inspiration for our new peg? From an old peg, of the thousand years of culture we carry with us.
So yes, any attempt to reconstruct an ethically based religion for Germanic people, would reasonably find its inspiration from the old ethically based religion for Germanic people. Not because of any specifics about it, but because it follows from the logical reasoning I have accounted for here.
to be continued...
continued...
So have I not come back to neo-paganism now, after all? Well, if we use the term in its most general sense, yes. "Neo" follows logically simply since its new. "Paganism" follows since it will be inspired from our old Paganism. Polytheism follows logically, since the monotheistic religions have been excluded in previous steps, and atheistic religions too.
Of course, new monotheistic or atheistic religions are theoretically thinkable. Let's say some Ron Hubbard type appears and invents a new religion...? I think most people will agree that this is much less likely than reconnecting to our old cultural traditions.
The problem is that as soon "neo-paganism" is said, people associate to all sort of specific things. E.g. New Age people. It should be clear that what I talk about would have little to do with that. In fact what I talk about cannot be specific at all at this point. It's just a logical reasoning about what sort of peg that could possibly replace Christianity.
Regarding the Blots. I would say that the "neo" prefix already answers the question. If the whole package of old Paganism was bought hook, line and sinker, the neo-prefix would not be needed. I guess then we cannot have trains any longer either, since they didn't have trains back then, etc.
No, when people look back in their history for a great mythological narrative that suits them, this will be the main focus, and as for the rest they will pick and choose. A thousand years of history cannot be thrown away. Christianity gave us many things that we do not want to throw away; hospitals for example. Traditions from a thousand years ago that look too repulsive today or simply do not fit in a much more advanced society will not be adapted.
I think a typical mistake when looking at other religions, is to assume that they are like our own, i.e. Christianity. We know of course the fatal consequences of mistaking Islamic morality for being something similar to Christian morality.
Christianity is defined by a set of doctrines. But traditional polytheistic religions aren't. There is no Asatru doctrine which says you have to do bloting. Hinduism is a good example in this category. Hinduism is by no means based on any set of doctrines. Hinduism is best defined as the collection of thousands of years of Indian spiritual history. From this one can pick and choose. In fact within Hinduism one can be atheist, monotheist or polytheist. That's how broad it is.
And if Germanic traditional religion would come back in business, there would be no mandatory part of it. Characteristic of polytheism is for example that no single god is indispensable. Gods come and go, and not all gods are acknowledged in all places at the same time. Nevertheless, such traditional religions are organically held together, without having a single doctrine that runs the whole way.
Think of Wittgenstein's rope, his allegory for his concept family resemblance. Which holds together all the way even though there's no thread running all the way through the rope. This concept is also needed to explain what I mean by ethnicity, but that's for another time.
@Conservative Swede
I can’t really comment on what’s good for the Germanic peoples, since I am not of that stock, except as a neighboring foe, subject or victim. But for other European peoples, e.g. the Slavs, Christianity defines their very soul, and it’s Christianity that has been inexorably linked to their spirit, their ethnic identity, their fighting, even under the commies. And it in way cancels out their founding myths and many pre-Christian customs.
My mother, for instance, came from a Polish class that called itself “Sarmatian.” Their myth was –and is to this day – that they came from the Sarmatians of antiquity, and that included customs, costume, spirit etc maintained well into late 19th century. Fighting spirit too, even the choice of weapons, for they eschewed the straight-edge European rapier for a curved, Turkish-like “karabela.” And yet, these people couldn’t live a day without the most punctilious Catholic observance. Irish and Scottish Catholics I know are exactly the same way, with serious Christianity laid over a strong and virile Celtic spirit and love for the auld ways.
Christianity is no longer about the Jews but about the Christians. It’s European architecture, music, literature, painting, 1700 years of history and evolution. I don’t think it requires a replacement narrative, and a Muslim narrative would be like a diabetic injecting himself with pure glucose. That is a negation of everything great that Europe has achieved. But I absolutely agree with you that for European peoples that neglected and buried their old traditions, this leaves a great void that needs to be refilled. Wagner tried to do this for the Germans, and Sibelius for the Finns. It’s a hole in my education that I don’t know any Nordic equivalents, except for the Icelandic sagas, but there must be some.
I am all for reviving many pre-Christian myths and customs. I believe that some remain in the Scandinavian culture, e.g. maypole dances, wreaths and ribbons on girl’s heads, flaming glogg etc. But I think there should be plenty more, and there is plenty where that came from.
Takuan,
But for other European peoples, e.g. the Slavs, Christianity defines their very soul, and it’s Christianity that has been inexorably linked to their spirit, their ethnic identity, their fighting, even under the commies.
But that works only when many sides of Christianity of kept in darkness. And you get the kind of Christianity as you described, from just Poland, with the Aryanization of Jesus, etc. The Russians do this even better.
The problem with the Christianity of the Germanic people is that it has been entirely washed through the Reformation, the Enlightenment and subsequent American distillation by the descendants of the Puritans and the Quakers, who removed the final Roman components making it purely Hebrew.
I always ask people, what was the Enlightenment? What was it that we were Enlightened about? It was the Christian ethics, and its implications, that became fully brought to the surface and illuminated. Something that we had carried with us, but much of it under the surface, kept in darkness. This is what lead the West into liberalism.
An enlightened Protestant would never claim that Jesus was not a Jew. His view of Christianity is far to illuminated for that. But that's also why it doesn't work any longer for gathering ethnic strength. That's a thing of the past, when we were still living happily under Medieval Catholicism.
Christianity is no longer about the Jews but about the Christians.
The Western Christian civilization is about the Christians. However, Christianity is still about the Jews. That's the whole point of the Bible: it cannot be changed. And the stories in it are all about the Jews, and therefore our Christian myths are.
Wagner tried to do this for the Germans, and Sibelius for the Finns. It’s a hole in my education that I don’t know any Nordic equivalents, except for the Icelandic sagas, but there must be some.
I would mention Grieg.
But I absolutely agree with you that for European peoples that neglected and buried their old traditions, this leaves a great void that needs to be refilled.
Yes indeed. However, were we differ is that I see the need for not just reviving ceremonies and lore, but replacing the mythological narrative. Ceremonies and lore will be a way of manifesting that.
@ Conservative Swede
Interesting points. I have more about this issue in Part 2. Though taken from a specific Polish reality, maybe some of what I saw there is applicable elsewhere.
Thanks for the exchange Takuan. Very much appreciated! Especially since I have criticized you recently, once in my blog and once in a GoV comment. But I can see now in a much better light where you are coming from. It's good to being able to reconcile.
The thing is that the issue about the Jews is a virtual mine field. And the concepts we use to discuss it are virtual explosives, such as the word anti-semitism and comparisons with Kevin MacDonald (and yes, I use these explosives myself). This becomes a problem for anyone who tries to discuss the issue openly and honestly, such as you. Anyone trying to take a moderate position on an issue where people are so divided into highly sensitive extremes, risks being (well is sure to be) attacked by both sides, or to step on a mine.
Looking forward to your Part 2.
Baron: I don't have the statisical evidence you're asking for. I cannot show that jews are _more_ likely than intellectuals in general to be traitorous. I'll stipulate that the trend is exactly the same and the overrepresentation is exactly in accord with their higher average IQ.
I do question though why it is intellectuals NOW that are traitorous, when through most of the history of Europe they were generally patriotic. It corresponds with the sudden advancement of jewish people in general into positions of power beyond just finance (which they were restricted to).
More importantly, though - assuming jewish people adopt certain self-destructive behaviors in exactly the same proportion as intellectuals in general still leaves us with a question: would it be immoral to target them as good examples of bad behavior? Ideally, one would want to push _all_ intellectuals towards behavior that is less harmful for their nations. Failing the ability to do that, though, is it worse to target just a portion of the intellectual population, a portion that is clearly distinguished and easily identifiable, as a sort of leverage point on an intellectual class that is otherwise hard to get a hold of? The obvious (to me) counterargument is "But that's discrimination!" Well, yes. Discrimination is a very useful ability. This does mean that jews would get criticized openly, more than a non-jewish intellectual of comparable mental attitudes. It is arguably unfair, but jews on average being smarter than other people is also unfair. Responsibility comes with leadership.
On that basis then I don't think valid objections can be raised to pointing out problems with how some jews behave.
Anyway, the original point of my post was to point out reasons for antisemitic thinking. The extent to which those reasons are justified in fact as opposed to appearance is something that should be examined, but appearance is generally what counts in the public sphere.
Rollory --
I’m in general agreement with you here. I don’t exempt Jews from criticism – they, like any other organized group, are a legitimate subject of debate in the normal give-and-take of an argument.
And if their participation in the destructive anti-Western enterprise is ever shown to be out of proportion to that of other intellectuals, and not just a figment of the imagination of anti-Semites – why, then we need to take a hard look at the reasons why. To avoid such an investigation out of misplaced fastidiousness would just be a failure of nerve.
However, I don’t find that concentrating on the Jews and their role in Marxist Multiculturalism is particularly fruitful. Leftist Jewish activists are, for the most part, dedicated intellectual atheists, and their ethnic and religious background is not relevant.
---
So why the recent treason of the intellectuals?
I think you’ll find it’s not as recent as you think. As Conservative Swede has often pointed out, it began with the French Revolution. Marx, Engels, Bakunin, etc. accelerated the trend throughout the 19th century.
By the time we get to the 20th century, a huge cadre of intellectuals stood ready to overthrow the existing system and institute some form of international socialism. I’ll name some of the British adherents, because those are the ones I know best: George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, the Webbs, Bertrand Russell, and many more. The Fabians, the Bloomsbury Group, the Frankfurt School, the poets of the 1920s – a huge pool of subversives.
They did their work well. Three generations later we are reaping what they sowed.
Rollory and Baron,
“Why it is intellectuals NOW that are traitorous” – because NOW is after WW1 and WW2. The first destroyed the ideal of the nation state, and the second destroyed the idea of white society as a depository of virtue.
“It corresponds with the sudden advancement of Jewish people” – no, it does not. The end of the 19th century corresponded with that advancement. And you find at that time Jews in high government and military positions throughout Europe, even among the aristocracy. A similar breakthrough was occurring in the US. Jewish officers faced each other on both sides of the trenches in WW1. It’s WW2, and the fascist axi’s branding such people as enemies of the state, that led to everything post-WW2.
“Would it be immoral to target them as good examples of bad behavior?” -- yes, because the assumption that Jews are an example of bad behavior is false. Blacks are a good example of bad behavior. But Jews are a good example of bad thinking, and on that account it’s not only fair but necessary to criticize them. It’s all summed up in the cliché: “Live like Episcopalians, vote like Puerto Ricans.” Jews who behave badly, e.g. white collar crime, demonstrate the problem of white collar culture, not the problem of Jews. But Jews who vote Obama, Jews currently serving in the US Congress and in the White House -- they demonstrate the problem of Jews.
@ The thing is that the issue about the Jews is a virtual mine field. And the concepts we use to discuss it are virtual explosives, such as the word anti-semitism and comparisons with Kevin MacDonald (and yes, I use these explosives myself). This becomes a problem for anyone who tries to discuss the issue openly and honestly, such as you. Anyone trying to take a moderate position on an issue where people are so divided into highly sensitive extremes, risks being (well is sure to be) attacked by both sides, or to step on a mine.
I won’t step on a mine here, but would like to say that I am reading Esau’s Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews, which other poster has already recommended as a must-read for GoV-ers. A Jewish professor who escaped Nazi Germany wrote to the author that that book: “is by far the best book I have read on the subject.”
@ I am not sure if I agree though to your recommended solution, i.e. replacement of Christianity with neo-paganism. Blót, after all, stands for Blood, for human sacrifice. “White man’s values” start where Abraham’s hand wielding the sacrificial knife over the bound Isaac stops. The Nordics had their own, indigenous values, i.e. courage, hospitality, a system of justice etc. but these were not unique to them alone, except in the mode of implementation. But the prohibition of human sacrifice came via Christianity alone.
Well: I have done my research, and my conclusion is that just as the Judeo-Christians, in a parallel way the Greco-Romans had reached that level too, by forbidding ritual child sacrifice.
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