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If the Alt Right is dead, why is the Main Stream Media still pumping out propaganda pieces on it?
On April 6, the New York Times published Ryan Cooper’s review of the book ALT-RIGHT: From 4chan to the White House by BBC journalist Mike Wendling. (The black, white, and red color pattern on the cover of Wendling’s book is an especially subtle touch). It read like a form of primitive “scream therapy.” But, hey if it helps Cooper stave off an Eichenwald-type implosion…
Two sentences grabbed my attention:
Wendling shrewdly notes that despite its edgy, countercultural pretensions, the alt-right is almost entirely “culturally sterile.” Endless piles of ephemeral internet memes aside, it has produced little or no music, literature, film or poetry.[A Political Movement, Defining Itself by What It Hates, April 6, 2018]
Quite the characterization. It’s not like Hollywood and the Manhattan-centric publishing industry are dominated by a very narrow slice of society whose values are notably divergent from those of the Alt Right.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn should be getting a call-back about getting his book Two Hundred Years Together published in English any day now!
And it’s not like social media deplatforming, corporate deplatforming, university deplatforming, web hosting deplatforming, doxing, Antifa violence, etc. etc. have had any role here.
But there’s a higher-level objection to Wendling’s passage claim: Art isn’t supposed to be overtly political. In fact, whether it’s in music, film, literature, or poetry, good art—the best art—doesn’t clobber you over the head with the artist’s political agenda. Rather, it maintains a sufficient generality and level of abstraction with regards to its intentionality, such as to make the aesthetic experience more universal, while still rewarding the intrepid and determined Easter Egg hunter who indefatigably engages in exegesis.
Given that understanding, I’d argue that the Alt Right (using the term in the widest sense—to mean what John Derbyshire calls the Dissident Right and other possible, more nebulous categorizations) is far from “culturally sterile”—and that memes are art. has some quick touchpoints.
MUSIC: Of Wendling’s 4 categories (music, literature, film or poetry), I found it most odd for him to cite the scarcity of (presumably explicit) Alt Right music. While it true that Wagner passed long ago, on the margins there is a strong undercurrent of white identitarianism in the Oi! movement of the 1980s and the black metal scene today.
But for most of our musical history, pop and rock bands have simply eschewed politics. For example, The Who’s iconic “Won’t Get Fooled Again” likely has the potential to pump up an 18-year-old campus Marxist as much as an 18-year-old (closeted) campus conservative.
Similarly, the fact that Johnny Ramone was a Republican doesn’t stop Leftie college kids from enjoying The Ramones.
LITERATURE: As noted, people on the Dissident Right are simply not welcome in the halls of New York’s elite publishing houses. Figuratively speaking, we have a collective restraining order against us. So these solitary voices self-publish, or go through alternative publishing presses.
But Wendling [Email him] would also do well to note the long and venerable tradition of conservative and counter-enlightenment figures, much of whose work still resonates today: Rudyard Kipling, Wyndham Lewis, H.P. Lovecraft, and (today) writers like Michel Houellebecq and Cormac McCarthy.
FILM: The same exclusionary dynamics are going on here too, but are even more acute given budget thresholds for film production. Nonetheless, Dissident Right messages still manage to seep out (probably subconsciously) in the plethora of white-male-anti-hero shows and films (The Sopranos; Dexter; The Shield; Breaking Bad); through the endless parade of Invading Zombie Hordes that came and went, or through implicitly-white films such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy or Christopher Nolan’ s films. When suppressed, the Jungian Shadow always manages to find a means of expression.
POETRY: There’s a similar dynamic to Literature here, except that poetry (by its very nature) is even more abstract and removed from the purely descriptive, language-as-denotation writing often found in literature. But the world of poetry has many hidden recesses of contrarian political unorthodoxy. For examples, see T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Philip Larkin, and Robinson Jeffers.
Lastly, I would argue that certain well-crafted Alt Right memes, tweets, or “shitposts” (usually created anonymously, underground, and with not insignificant personal risk for the content creator) might themselves be construed as works of art, depending on how we define ‘art’.
Now, trying to define art is quite difficult, as it is the most inscrutable of concepts, but begging this question for a moment, might meme-makers be acting like Little Ezra Pounds writing mini Cantos in the digital age? Whoever it was that created the hugely successful (i.e., effective) “It’s Okay To Be White“ meme is, in my humble opinion, a sort of Michelangelo of Memes—or at a minimum ought to have won Meme of the Year at the Alt Right Emmy Awards.
It also stands to reason that the notion of memes-as-art involves a significant reorientation of art away from how it currently exists (and is conceptualized) in our increasingly repressive, corporate, SJW age. At a minimum, it involves co-opting the very agitprop methods of the current artworld, which is dominated by the Left.
The Cathedral’s idea of art has, for some time now, gone full retard: modernist and postmodernist monstrosities; crass, urine-thrown-on-a-canvas schools of thought; the tossing about of trite, high-school levels of political posturing. Beyond the co-opting approach, a Dissident Right reorientation of art would ally itself, organically, with the realities and tenets of human biodiversity and the historical achievements of European culture. From this reorientation, the aesthetic dimensions of a conservative nationalist politics can emerge, as can an immersive means of expressing white identity.
Whether it is in the form of trolling and memes (funny or offensive, or both) or in the form of a re-embrace of Antiquity’s artistic achievements, the reorientation of art will no doubt entail a long and hard slog through the muck that currently weighs us down.
That being said, it is also the case that the new counter-culture of the Alt Right is on firm footing.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the Alt Right’s death are greatly exaggerated. It may be true that the Alt Right is currently being pushed further underground. But premature proclamations will likely only serve to make the next seismic cultural event (or election) all the more alarming for The Cathedral. In this new era of de facto soft censorship, the Overton Window—the “range of ideas tolerated in public discourse” “–may itself shift back towards the Left, but should this happen (and I don’t think it will), the Alt Right is already at work creating a second Overton Window vis-à-vis Alt-Tech.
For many years now, it’s been the case that, for very little money, you can create a world class musical recording on your home PC. The same will soon hold true for video. Entirely digital “actors”, as convincing as the real thing, are on the horizon. Soon, an Alt-Cinema will be available, and the Hollywood system, already under threat, will be entirely bypassed.
Today, we have millennials like Lauren Southern (who is only 22 years old) giving us better reportage on important global developments—such as the rising anti-white violence in South Africa—than well-funded MSM enterprises like the New York Times, CNN or even FNC. These young Alt Right (and Alt Lite) individuals are beginning to deliver their reporting in well-paced, professionally-produced formats. Soon, the Alt Right will be producing their own news “channels’, broadcast over the internet.
In terms of mass communications, this is clearly the way of the future. (Sooner rather than later, however, Congress and the courts will be forced to weigh in on the various First Amendment and ‘X is a public utility’ arguments for and against regulatory oversight of, say, Twitter, or web hosting companies who deplatform customers based on their political opinions.)
While the Alt Right is being forced further underground in the short term, I believe there if very good reason to be optimistic for the long term.
As we know, the Left can’t meme. The Alt Right, on the other hand, have an army of meme-artists and communications-innovators who can connect with people. This is because we are the new counter-culture, but a counter-culture with history, tradition, and evolutionary science – in short, Truth — on its side.
Historically, some of the most influential artists of the world were what we might call rebels. Their work was itself rebellious. Today, it is really no exaggeration to say that the Alt Right are the rebels and the punks of our Age.
Finally, at moments of setback we’ve got to remember: It’s from the darkness of the lower depths that the best and most original art can arise and inspire.
Let a thousand Cantos bloom!
The author writes at Logical Meme.
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C’mon.
Memes are nothing new. It’s been used by radicals and satirists forever.
Also, many guys who do memes are not really Alt Right. They just like being subversive.
The greatest source of memes is /pol/. And many /pol/ members are not white.
So…
Heh.
What about the the Sad Puppies? Castalia House? Alt-Hero?
Morissey’s become alt-right, and even Roger Waters is bashing the MSM.
Wendling proves yet again that SJW’s Always Lie.
Great article! Absolutely agree! Thank you!
I Spend 24 Hours With A KEKISTANI Refugee
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In memory of Meme War I #MAGA
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– https://www.unz.com/forum/meet-silicon-valleys-secretive-alt-right-followers/#comment-1798766
Xurious – Rise Of The Alt Right
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Xurious – The Trump Betrayal
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Vanguard & Xurious – Survival
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Surprising your selection of Won’t Get Fooled Again, made more prominent by the link to the YouTube video. Anybody who actually listens to these lyrics comes away with a sense that the overarching theme is disenchantment and purposelessness. An overwhelming sense of irony, pessimism and helplessness pervades the whole. It really doesn’t help make your case, even though you are sort of obliquely trying to claim it for the Alt Right halfway, on behalf of closeted 18 year old conservatives.
Recall the lyrics.
Slogans come, slogans go. Yawn. Like the French say, la plus ça change, la plus ça reste la même chose. As depicted on the album cover, The Who are pissing on the paeans you wrote in praise of Alt Right memes (alliteration intended). Furthermore, a close reading and attention to the themes in the lyrics reveal if the Alt Right isn’t actually dead, it’s in hospice.
Morissey’s become alt-right, and even Roger Waters is bashing the MSM.
Nope. Roger Waters especially. From what I can see he’s mostly upset about Palestine and Western “imperialism”.
Morrissey recommended Douglas Murray’s book. Murray claims to be a neoconservative, though he’s certainly much better on immigration and multiculti than any neocon I’m familiar with.
Good piece from Richard Spencer:
Back To The Beginning
As an authentic anti-war movement, the Alt-Right is more relevant than ever.
– https://altright.com/2018/04/19/back-to-the-beginning/
Alt Right has youth and energy, and that’s plus.
But youth also means immaturity, childish egos, and playground behavior:
Here’s a good example with a guys calling each other ‘fat’.
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Ummmm the alt right has imploded
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Wathc all his videos
Antifa has owned you guys
TD,
who cares about Baked Alaska!? And what implosion are you talking about!?
The Alt Right have super-brainiac Sam Harris on their side now:
McInnes, Molyneux, and 4chan: Investigating pathways to the alt-right
The “skeptics” movement — whose adherents claim to challenge beliefs both scientific and spiritual by questioning the evidence and reasoning that underpin them — has also helped channel people into the alt-right by way of “human biodiversity.” Sam Harris has been one of the movement’s most public faces, and four posters on the TRS thread note his influence. – https://www.splcenter.org/20180419/mcinnes-molyneux-and-4chan-investigating-pathways-alt-right
Sam Harris
Verified account @SamHarrisOrg
9 hours ago
The @splcenter removes @MaajidNawaz from their Hate Watch page, but then adds me as a racist leader of the alt-Right. We may have discovered a new law of nature—the conservation of stupidity…
Actually the Martin Luther: the launch of IOTBW’s postering operation coincided with the 95 Theses quincentenary.
Major sh!tposting against a moribund cathedral (or synagogue) doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective.
Interesting, that you should bring up Martin Luther in this context. Just a few weeks ago I commented on the relevance of Martin Luther to the Alt Right movement. The election of the AfD party into the German Bundestag also coincided with The 95 Theses quincentenary:
This region was the heartland of the Reformation, the resistance against the Communist occupation of eastern Germany and now is the stronghold of the AfD party and home of the PEGIDA movement, which, in my opinion, paved the way for BREXIT, Trump’s election, the rise of many other populist and nationalist movements and the general awakening of native citizens throughout the West.
These reformist and revo-/evolutionary movements seem to be birthed in the Saxony region, move on to England and then jump the pond to the U.S., as the Reformation did.
[…]
Protestantism is [] rooted in the political essence of Germany, that till this day Luther is used for populist movements. For example, the rising Alternative for Germany party (AfD) presents posters with Luther’s portrait adjacent to his infamous words: Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise (Hier ste[h]e ich und kann nicht anders), alongside the slogan: “Courage to Truth” (Mut zur Wahrheit):
This is a translated page from an AfD website about a lecture given by Karlheinz Weißmann on Luther:
“Luther was and is more than just a reformer of the Church, but can be a role model today in his sharp analysis of the problems and his defiant resistance to the most powerful men of his time, in his political and religious incorrectness and search for truth. Courage to the truth, this motto of the Alternative for Germany is quite in Luther’s sense! Here we are, we can not help it!”
Source: https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/03/the-listing-vessel-of-the-right/#comment-1401927
More here: https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/03/the-listing-vessel-of-the-right/#comment-1402007
P.s.: This is a beautiful rendition of Luther’s hymn “Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort”
“Luther wrote the hymn probably in 1541 when a prayer service was held in Wittenberg against the perceived danger of the Turks[3] when Ferdinand of Austria lost most of Hungary to the Ottoman Empire at Siege of Buda.[4] The second line of the first verse reads “und steur’ des Papsts und Türken Mord” (And control the murder by the Pope and Turks).” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhalt_uns,_Herr,_bei_deinem_Wort
Erhalt uns, HERR, bei Deinem Wort
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Archived link, with comment section: http://archive.is/PSgSO
More here:
– https://www.counter-currents.com/2018/03/what-is-american-nationalism/#comment-1401461
Archived link, with comment section: http://archive.is/8lr0W
Thomas Nast’s cartoon shows a donkey in a lion’s skin scaring an elephant and other animals. (Library of Congress)
– https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/famous-cartoonist-made-donkey-and-elephant-the-symbols-of-political-parties/2012/01/20/gIQAm5aWVQ_story.html