http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3050
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2176
by Matthew http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3204
The unchecked advancement of social and cultural auto-demolition in western societies has been stated, analyzed and dissected so many times before. This author has consistently made the claim that there is an immediate and direct correlation between the existence of free trade, or more accurately, the globalization of economics, on the one hand, and the existence of multiculturalism and “political correctness,” on the other. The drive for a single global market and a worldwide pool of undifferentiated labor has led to all of these symptoms of cultural violence, which have proven quite profitable for many sectors of the informational and high-technology consumer economy. The anti-cultural nature of consumer-based capitalism, particularly of its virtual, plastic and technological elements is necessary to recreate and revolutionize western society so as to facilitate its insertion inside the new global economic, and therefore political, order. The reality of cultural solidarity, in other words, cannot function at the same time as human impulses are encouraged for the financial benefit of the “infotainment” industries.This connection between free trade and globalization on the one hand, and multiculturalism in America on the other is important as a theoretical starting point, for it answers questions other theories do not. For example, many theories concerning our cultural decline and the rise of this present American revolutionary regime do not address precisely why it has been led and financed by the wealthiest elite in American society. Other theories do not address the timing of the revolution. There is, for example, an obvious connection between the globalization of economics beginning (in earnest) after World War II and the existence of global economic institutions and mentalities that the specific conditions the end of that war generated. Furthermore, it might well be more than a coincidence that American culture went into steep decline beginning after World War II and its globalist legacy. One also needs a theory that explains why it happened so quickly, and with so little resistance from the affected parties. Further, one needs to ask how it occurred in a radically concerted fashion, taking in media, entertainment, major corporations, the judicial system and the state itself basically around the same time and with amazingly efficient and total effect. It seems to this author that only this theory — that of the domestic cultural demands of global capital — makes sense out of all of these. The negative side of this theory, that is, the diagnostics, is important.
Only rarely in the “patriotic” literature on this topic do serious theories (rather than idiosyncratic conspiracies) receive a fair hearing. Normally, American nationalist literature, unlike the Russian, takes a non-theoretical, issue-by-issue approach to the topic which generally gives rise to far more questions than it answers, and the questions it does answer it treats rather poorly, with little appreciation for the serious methodological issues this sort of thing necessarily involves. Modern nationalism’s lack of professionalism is one of the reasons it remains marginalized.
On the other hand, there is the positive side of ethno-nationalist theory, the view that explains the world the counterrevolution seeks to reclaim. The reclamation cannot, however, simply take the world of the middle ages, or of the American founding, or of the 1950s, or the Kozak host, or of nineteenth century Russia, or whichever era one romanticizes and transplant it upon the ruins of global radicalism and revolutionary ideology. History may repeat itself, but the repetition is never identical in every respect to what is being repeated. History has provided western man — and western nationalists in particular — with a new and unprecedented set of problems that will lead the nationalist rebellion to adopt proportionally new solutions. This is far from claiming that nationalism requires some static ideology, some shortcut to understanding complex problems, but what is presently necessary is a framework that nationalists can come to share, to provide this set of social understandings, however inarticulate, with a much needed theoretical foundation. Without such a foundation, nationalism and patriotism will remain unable to articulate themselves to the broader American and European public. To an extent, this book seeks to outline a manner of thinking about the counterrevolution.
The notion of counterrevolutionary nationalism, in brief, moves from the well known Hegelian logical scheme of a) abstract unity, to b) its specific content, to c) the full unity, that is, content and unity together in one fully explicated whole, or the final synthesis. Any object can be considered as, first, a unity. A man can be considered a singular object in space that encases many functions, such as reasoning, breathing, creating, working, reproducing, etc. One thinks of any object as singular, a unity of various different things. Though this does not exhaust the idea of unity. A human can, secondly, be considered as identical to those functions and reducible to them. That is, the content of the above mentioned unity, that which the “unity” is a unity of. Once these are considered, they lead to the mind almost necessarily to the synthetic unity, the final idea of a person (or any object). A human can be considered as a full unity (a synthetic unity), both as a singular entity that is vivified by many internal functions, as a full interrelation of both form and function. In other words, there is unity, that which is unified (the content), and the fully explicated object as an synthesis of these two.
1) Counterrevolutionary nationalism begins with its abstract unity, natural law theory, or the very grounding of collective life. Without it, collective life becomes merely arbitrary, a unity of force and habit, rather than of identity and morality. This, to a great extent, represents the static element in mankind, man’s “nature,” something not subject to development or relatedness as such. Again, this does not exhaust man as a social creature, nor does it exhaust the notion of natural law. Man as rational and man as communal are irreducible conceptions in coming to define a human being. This is so because, to deny these ingredients to being human, one must utilize them. Thus, for one to deny that mankind is communal, one must use language, logic and a common frame of reference that all derive from a specific community, or the reality of communal living. On the other hand, to deny that man is rational, one must use rational arguments to make the point. Either way, a contradiction is reached, and thus, one might conclude with certainty that man is essentially communal and rational, and that these ideas are eternal and natural, not subject to modification at their root. The notion of man as rational and man as communal — no doubt highly related notions — contain substantive ethical precepts that must be followed if humanity is to be human; if humanity is to, therefore, be moral. Natural law theory shows that mankind is possessed, of his own nature, of objective ethical truths that cannot be violated without logical contradiction and, necessarily, social destruction.
Natural law, as important as it is, is merely the abstract condition for speaking intelligibly about social ethics; it is an abstract unity, the frame of social life in general. Mankind is a communal animal, which by that idea’s very nature, means that all mankind enjoys from society is also natural to him, to paraphrase Burke, that is: education, work, family life, government (the state), moral restraint, aesthetic and intellectual activity, personal leisure, enjoyment and friendship, (among many others) are all things inconceivable outside of human community. None of these things are possible without a common language, frame of reference or a common basic morality and implicit norms of behavior that make up a massive complex of cultural community, or the ethnos. None of these are possible without a force that protects the achievements of one’s life from theft or destruction. Without community, mankind cannot exist.
2) From this understanding, one immediately is led, by the nature of the concept itself, to think about its content. Natural law is the abstract ethical unity of our human life. In other words, once one is led to begin considering the nature of our association found in the natural law, that which is mandated by the very concept of “humanity,” one immediately passes over into the content of our natural unity, which is — broadly speaking — the nation, or alternatively, the cultural community. Specifically, it is the set of specific ethical norms of community life. Natural law is vague and functions as a foundation for moral judgment. National and communal life are not, but contain specific precepts that are, in order to be just and ethical, reducible to natural law. One begins to ask, by the very recitation of natural law ethics, of the specific precepts any community might mandate to fulfill our natural human constitution to be rational and communal. What is the nature, in other words, of our association that is so mandated by nature through the idea of a human being? This is to say that a human being, considered per se, has ethical requirements.
Natural law is merely the external unity of human association. The internal unity, that is, the content of the unity (any unity has to be a unity of something), is the cultural unity of the community. What the natural law mandates, the specific needs of human beings as human beings that are met by the formation of societies, are things that develop over time. The specific areas of social life — government, economics, family life, etc. — develop their own internal functioning in reference to the people and forces that created it, or, more accurately, that manifested it. In other words, though these institutions are natural to mankind (and thus refer to man’s static essence), their specific form and function is a product of social development (and thus refer to man as a dynamic creature that is also definable in relation as well as in himself). This is the central notion of tradition. The means of evaluation — whether something is done well or poorly within a society — can only be discerned from the internal functioning of the various practices, occupations and customs that have come to develop in any specific society.
Thus, the notion of the unity of the society is broken down into its most general components. However, both are abstract. This is to say that both, in themselves, are incomplete and provide only a one-sided view of society. Natural law, on the one hand, is too general to develop any notion of determinate moral rules, though it forms the basis for evaluating rules that have developed over time. It is simply an analysis of the concept of human nature so that its objective needs are drawn out; it is strictly a foundation. On the other hand, the rule of custom and social practice, as has been demonstrated by history, without the control of objective moral criteria, can well lead to a static and habitual despotism, and human custom itself can be perverted and used for cynical ends. Custom, community and nationality become arbitrary when removed from objective moral criteria (which, of course, has a Creator outside of itself). Thus, alone, neither natural law nor communal custom are competent to fully explicate our social life, though they are both necessary to it.
3) Thus, the above two moments, natural law and the development of communal consciousness, pass over into their synthesis: internal distributive justice, or the continued interplay between natural law ethics and the development of communal organization, specifically as it affects the lives of individuals and families. Nationalists are rightly criticized by the left for ignoring the internal distribution of rewards within a national organization. Does the notion of communal solidarity suggest a more equalitarian distribution of political power and income? Is nationalism necessarily egalitarian (of sorts), given the central nationalist idea of social cohesion and solidarity? If the answer is no, then the criticism of the left has some validity, viz., that nationalism is a veil the ruling classes throw over their power; it calls itself “revolutionary,” but changes nothing concerning the important issues of income and wealth distribution. It is, in short, a method for justifying, through a papering over, of arbitrary power.
It does seem a contradiction to claim the centrality and vital importance of national solidarity on the one hand while accepting radical differentiations in power and prestige, based on wealth (among other things), on the other. In other words, national (and natural) solidarity would seem to necessarily engender self-sacrifice, shared work, communal economic organization and a rejection of the capitalist ethos that rejects any notion of nationality or solidarity whatsoever. Nationalism, as a coherent and interesting theory of social organization, cannot any longer ignore the idea of internal distribution of wealth. It cannot fall into the trap of speaking of external realities, e.g. sovereignty or cultural communitarianism, while ignoring internal realities such as the distribution of income, wealth, prestige and social standing.
Thus, distributive justice is the synthesis of natural law and communal organization, and nowhere is this more relevant in a Russia where the overwhelming majority of wealth in concentrated in oligarchic hands or has fled the country altogether. On the one hand, natural law theory claims that all that individuals enjoy as part of the community — by definition — become natural to him. They become, in an eccentric manner of speaking, “rights.” On the other hand, the communal ethos is never to merely benefit a certain class at the expense of all others. This contradicts the very notion of “communal solidarity.” Therefore, the notion of distributive justice must be taken more seriously by nationalist theory, such as it is. The distinction between “leftist” ideas of income distribution and the “rightist” notion of national communal solidarity is the function of culture in the understanding of distribution. Leftists usually maintain the final decision making power of distribution of goods and services in the hand of the state (controlled by the “right” people, of course). It is a formal arrangement of abstract economics, political theory and social policy. On the other hand, nationalist theory seeks distribution of rewards that is based on the very tradition of the society in question. This is done by basing rewards on the notion of socially identifiable and useful practices, occupations, trades and professions.
Each society naturally develops a division of labor. Everyone cannot be a specialist in everything. Therefore, societies develop means whereby problems are solved by those who are, ideally, best qualified to solve them. Over time, specialists develop, and the concept of a “trade,” “profession,” “occupation,” or “practice” is born. A social division of labor is formalized, and one generation teaches its specific function to the younger. Each practice, whether it be politics, philosophy, religion, plumbing, police work or government service, develops its own internal standards of right and wrong, good or bad, in reference to its own internal functioning and its role in relation to the broader society. One can only judge the merits of a football coach by the standards of the game of football, specifically the role of a coach as it has developed within the context of the game. Once can only judge the merits of a justice of the Supreme Court by the standard of the constitution, case law and the nation’s political tradition. It is not possible to judge the merits of a logical argument without reference to logic. In other words, there is no such thing as an abstract judgment. All judgment takes place within a context, and that context is always within the development of the practice in question. Therefore, for any judgment of right or wrong concerning any socially meaningful action, the judgment must be made according to the relevant tradition within the limits already described.
Therefore, it would seem that a rational means of distributing rewards is internally. Simply put, this begins with the uncontroversial notion that those who succeed in teaching should be rewarded far more than an incompetent teacher. Of course, only by reference to the discipline of teaching, i.e. its developing tradition and its relationship to society at large, can a judgment be made as to whether or not a teacher is doing well. Therefore, only a teachers union, or guild, is competent to make such a decision. In this case, rewards are never distributed equally. However, inequality is justified given the objective and well known standards each specific socially relevant function sets for itself, a standard that develops as the field or occupation develops. Michael Walzer calls this “complex equality.”
What is important about this notion of distributive justice is that in no way is the distribution of rewards ever separate from the developing tradition of the society. “Marketing” and “efficiency” are eliminated from the economic vocabulary as goods in themselves, as the traditional practices and guilds within a society control economic life, which, by definition, includes all people involved insofar as they are contributing to the common good. The guild system, or the rule of tradition manifest and materialized in the functioning of various practices within a society, makes the economic a matter of public concern (rather than the private property of the stockholders, advertisers, and venture capitalists) in that it functions for the common good. However, it still remains a private concern at another level, as the guilds are not a part of the state. Tradition is often found in the development of the various trades and social practices developing in the society, though no doubt there are broader national traditions as well into which the various practices in a society must conform themselves. There is no abstract notion of “justice” here, but distribution is to be dictated by the development of the practice in question and judged by the practice in question. The division of labor into craft guilds seems a necessary institutional manifestation to this arrangement. Such an idea takes the judgment about socially-useful skill away from the uninformed (the uninformed express this through the quantitative measure of “demand”) and places it within the guild itself, which is insulated from the popular will (i.e. demand) in respect to its particular standards. In other words, demand (a purely quantitative and abstract measure) is replaced by excellence, by quality.
Distributive justice according to the nationalist and ethno-communitarian idea becomes the synthesis of natural law theory and communal consciousness. For the former, humanity naturally comes together to solve problems that otherwise one individual could never do alone. Therefore, the existence of socially useful crafts and trades come into existence precisely to supply what the meager resources of the individual lacks. This undeniable fact of social life explicitly challenges the myth of the Lockian “state of nature,” which inexplicably provides individuals, outside of civilization, the skills to function economically (and in every other way) that derive, in reality, solely from communal cooperation. The state of nature, which is meant to antedate civilization, is impossible without it.
On the other hand, the crafts, their relations to one another, the methods of their work, their common frames of reference, and their relation to the broader society do not speak of an abstract, leftist/socialist notion of labor, but embeds labor into the stream of culture and tradition that created it, as well as being created by it. Labor is not merely a quantitative measure of efficiency, profit, distribution, productivity or some other such lifeless category (categories that both capitalism and communism — the sister ideologies of modernity — share), but is necessarily bound up with the functioning of the entire cultural community and are largely constituted by them. In other words, labor is made ethical, made socially real and concrete, rather than conforming to the abstract models of economists of whatever persuasion. Practices are equal insomuch as they meet the natural needs of the society, though inequality is certainly rational in light of the standards of the specific socially useful craft in question in relation to individual members.
http://www.rusjournal.com/nationalism2.html