Of all the weapons wielded by our liberal opponents, the use of emotional blackmail remains, far and away, the most effective. It is an obvious truth that liberal ideology survives primarily based on retaining a full stable of victims. The grammar of victimology is the linguistic ocean in which the sharp-toothed minnows of social justice swim. It is the strategy contained in the Maoist proverb: “The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.“
The typical reactionary response to this pernicious method has usually been ham-fisted and cavalier. Instead of fishing out the offenders, the reactionary attempts to drain the ocean. The results are almost always a special kind of graceless barbarity. Such was the case of Valeriano Weyler’s policy of “Reconcentrado” during the years leading up to the Spanish American War. Weyler, a militant Spanish Nationalist, was sent to Cuba to succeed where his predecessors had failed in crushing the rebellion.
After experiencing the frustrations and travails common to a traditional army’s engagement with guerrilla fighters, Weyler embarked upon an enterprising but ultimately disastrous course of action. In order to separate the Guerrillas from their base of support, he ordered the mass relocation of the peasant population from the countryside to special camps, where they would be guarded and monitored by Spanish troops. The logic was to separate the Guerrillas from the populace in order to begin the now much simpler process of eliminating them.
The idea seemed sound, and it proved to be effective on a tactical level; however, after some ostensible success, the camps began to produce consequences unforeseen by Weyler. The camps, which had originally been designed as islands of stability, were not prepared to properly supply the needs of such a large amount of people. Thus, the camps quickly devolved into dens of famine, squalor, and disease, which resulted in the death of over 200,000 civilians.
News of the camp’s conditions quickly spread throughout the world and howls of moral outrage emerged from horrified Spanish liberals. The news about the camps also managed to capture the attention of a rising regional power that eagerly perceived a noble pretext for territorial expansion. Consequently, Weyler’s plan, while theoretically and tactically sound, ultimately resulted in the failure of his campaign and the utter destruction and dismemberment of the Spanish Empire.
The desire for quick decisive victory, however admirable, often morphs into a proverbial hacking apart of the Gordian Knot. Such is the situation in which the outer right finds itself. The liberal establishment is controlled by a small elite comprised of ideologues and their financiers who command the allegiance of an impressive coalition of victimized groups: Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, women, as well as the varied and aggrieved sects of sexual deviants. It is from these groups of victims that they derive eager foot soldiers and, more importantly, their moral legitimacy.
All of the aforementioned victim groups are merely pawns that dissemble the pitiless class war waged against the white working class.
With respect to real world examples, we need to look no further than our own age of partisan politics. Evangelicals have for the last 30 years acted as the useful idiots and earnest footsoldiers of the GOP establishment. While clinging to empty promises of ending abortion and vows to halt the moral decay of the public square, Evangelicals willingly sat by as the very material conditions that permitted the flourishing of their cherished Middlebrow Christianity were destroyed by free trade and the obscenity of a hyper-capitalist popular culture.
Likewise, for the Democrats, the black underclass has filled the same niche of the useful idiot. In exchange for continuous handouts (in the form of lifetime social service benefits) and a series of never-ending affirmative action initiatives, blacks have become the most consistently loyal members of a party’s base in the history of American politics. This is, of course, in spite of the fact that it is the ideologies of their benevolent overlords, i.e., the perverse stupidities of free love and atomized individualism, which have so thoroughly devastated their communities. Walk through any black ghetto in the United States, and immediately you will be immersed in conditions so degenerate that the social mores of feral dogs seem genuinely aristocratic in comparison.
In a way that is analogous to the hostage taker, the liberal forces his opponents to either shoot through his human shield or do nothing. Either way, the liberal wins. Taking the first option, though emotionally gratifying and tactically successful, is almost always a strategic error. If you take the route of the ‘noble white knight’ and surrender to preserve your honor (let’s call this the conservative option) you also fail, just more quickly.
When confronted with such a novel and vexing problem, traditional societies frequently find themselves at a loss. The Japanese Samurai were caught completely flat footed against the arrival of modern firearms to their island. Even after the dissolution of the Samurai, the ghost of their obstinate refusal to change continued to haunt Japan. Many scholars have sought to identify the root causes of the Japanese Empire’s defeat in World War II. It has been typically suggested that the lack of natural resources or, perhaps, a foolhardy attack on Pearl Harbor is to blame. In contradistinction to these suggestions, a simpler and more elegant explanation is that the Japanese Soul, as channeled thru the Samurai code of Bushido, was always too fanatical and rigid to abide the adaptations required for victory.
The frequent banzai charges of Japanese troops throughout the Pacific theatre are frequently romanticized as heroic (if fanatical and futile) last stand actions; however, the actual record depicts Japanese commanders as using these charges as a primary strategic maneuver and not as a last ditch measure. This was done in spite of their possession of both modern military tactics and weaponry. At the battle of Tenaru (on Guadalcanal), a Japanese commander ordered 800 of his men to commit a banzai charge against a dug-in force of American Marines armed with rifles and machine guns. The ensuing slaughter resulted not only in a tactical disaster for the Japanese, but a strategic one, as well.
This fixation with preserving their traditional notions of Bushido cost the Japanese the war and their empire. The same thing will happen to any movement, unless it can diversify its lanes of attack and begin to think asymmetrically. Peruse any site on the outer right, and you’re almost certain to find articles extolling the lost virtues of the Roman Republic, the shrewd decision making of its political class, the discipline and iron willed resolve of its legionnaires, etc. Although it is not of itself a bad thing, this fixation upon Roman martial culture tends to obscure more than enlighten.
The Romans favored direct, attrition-inducing battles. They generally sought the complete annihilation or subjugation of their opponents in a head-on fight. This is, all too frequently, the way outer right propaganda can manifest itself. Yet, reducing NRx to just this element is a recipe for disaster and defeat.
The strategies most needed at present by NRx are not Roman, but rather Byzantine in character. Byzantine strategy favored intelligence and subterfuge over brute force, as is documented with precision in Edward Luttwak’s magisterial “The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire,” a book deserving attention from any student of strategy. Always outnumbered and with enemies on every side, the Byzantines were frequently forced to rely on alternatives to the ancient Big Stick approach of their forefathers. As Luttwak notes:
The strategic success of the Byzantine empire was of a different order than any number of tactical victories or defeats: it was a sustained ability, century after century, to generate disproportionate power from whatever military strength could be mustered, by combining it with all the arts of persuasion, guided by superior information. The current terms would be diplomacy and intelligence… To persuade foreign rulers and nations to fight against the enemies of empire–most difficult precisely in times of weakness when such persuasion was most needed–was only the most elementary application of Byzantine diplomacy, though easily the most important.1
The ability to set their enemies against one another was the key to Byzantine success and will be key to any success NRx may experience in the coming years. The leftist coalition, though ostensibly quite daunting, is actually a very fragile organism, which, with properly applied pressure, can be easily torn apart. One example of how this can work in action is the work of the political philosopher Alexander Dugin.
Dugin, author of “The Fourth Political Theory,” and one of the most influential philosophers of Putin’s Russia, is a master of co-opting leftist grievances. He has actively allied himself with various traditionally leftist causes, such as Anti-Zionist and Anti-Salafist Muslims (including groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian regime itself) as well as Greece’s Syriza. As Dugin says:
So we are not on the Right or on the Left. We are against liberal postmodernity. Our idea is to join all the fronts and not let them divide us. When we stay divided, they can rule us safely. If we are united, their rule will immediately end. That is our global strategy. And when we try to join the spiritual tradition with social justice, there is an immediate panic among liberals. They fear this very much.2
Few experiences are as gratifying as watching a liberal meltdown as they struggle to respond to a ‘for effect’ accusation of Racism. Whether the accusation is related to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank or a U.S. gay rights initiative in Uganda (in which a rich global hegemon is attempting to force white western values upon a nation of poor blacks), the results are always impressive. The reason why a somewhat tongue-in-cheek attack of this kind is so incredibly effective when employed against liberals is that it undermines the very narrative through which they understand their political actions. The whole conceit of the liberal is that he fights to remove the oppressive restraints that enslave the victim classes. When this narrative is reversed, and the liberal finds himself cast as the oppressor himself, a state of paralysis and confusion quickly emerges.
The beauty of co-opting the culture of victimhood is that, if effectively carried out, it not only provides an effective rhetorical tool but also a host of new allies with which to torment our foes. Imagine being able to watch a group of Black Nationalists deface a progressive Brooklyn neighborhood full of effete white hipsters as a protest against the racist policies of gentrification. Or perhaps a group of veiled Muslim women confronting a group of white, upper middle class feminists over the white privilege that is implicit in their calls for female equality. The possibilities are endless.
This, then, should become our aim: (1) establish productive dialogues with vulnerable and underserved members of the liberal coalition; (2) adopt their grievances and slowly peel them away from the herd.
It’s time to stop worrying and fight like a Byzantine. It’s time to learn to love the culture of victimhood.
References:
- Luttwak, Edward. The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009. Page 6
- “Interview With Alexander Dugin | Counter-Currents Publishing.” CounterCurrents Publishing Interview with Alexander Dugin Comments. http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/07/interview-with-alexander-dugin/.
Sounds like what far-right trolls do already, play the victim and with ever increasing radical notions give the impressions the left are a bunch loonies (which they are anyway).
>were destroyed by free trade and the obscenity of a hyper-capitalist popular culture
Free trade? Hyper-capitalist? With trade-deals, welfare-state, fiat-money, countless alphabet-soup agencies and literally millions of regulations? What are you, a Trotskyist?
The author may have preferred to use the adjective “hyper-materialist,” which our culture certainly is.
“Yes” and “thanks” to Mark’s statement above.
The reply “no” below is in reference to Ahote’s question “What are you, a Trotskyist?”
Short answer: No
Well, obviously (it was a rhetorical question). NRx was originally a bunch of libertarians going pragmatic, and beyond… all this recent anti-capitalism (and esotericism) is tiring. Fascism is already a thing, there’s no need to turn NRx into it.
Great article. I like this idea, but as I am a little slow to understand, I want more examples of “what to do to whom”. In that way, I can extrapolate for the given situation.
Although you believe that we should be more like Byzantines than Republican Romans, I agree and disagree. Yes, we should practice subterfuge and subversion, but the Romans provide great examples of attitude: the iron will to act (Marcus Furius Camillus) even if it should be shrewdly.
This seems to be a polemic in favour of influence instead of authority. I don’t see how it fits with anything else published on this site.
Not sure what to think about this. Is it a strategic point? On an argumentative or tactical level, this is certainly a solid strategy, and is in fact often used and commonly referred to as “trolling,” as others have noted.
I had an inkling that this piece might stir the pot up a bit here, so I anticipated a bit of push back. For the record I appreciate the criticism. Several points here. My advice is strategic in nature as well as tactical, I regret that this apparently wasn’t very clear. Co-opting the victimhood culture can’t just be limited to propaganda, it has to be a genuine sentiment not just a convenient rhetorical device for trolling. I’m advocating the poaching some of these victim groups(at least in part) from the Left, in order to do that one will have to address their grievances. Now how a Reactionary/Outer Right movement does that will be very different than how the Left does it, but some aspects will remain similar.
An example here, let’s take Blacks in the United States. I mean is there any better example of a victim class that is so utterly owned by the left? The Liberal message to blacks is: all of your troubles (literally all of them) are more or less the fault of the legacy of White Supremacy, there’s no need to change your barbaric and degenerate culture (you’re an Uncle Tom if you think so). Join us and we’ll make sure those bad rednecks pay for what they did to you. There’s an undeniable appeal to this message isn’t there? Appealing to the idea of Justice for the wronged is a powerful weapon, it evokes incredibly powerful emotions from people. We need to harness this energy, this basic indignation at cruelty and unfairness, to our advantage. This is the essence of what i’m trying to say. If you read Dugin, this is precisely what he does.
An outer right version of this message to Blacks would be something like this: the real source of your misery is not some elusive conspiracy of White Supremacists (who like the illuminati, are everywhere plotting your demise) but rather the cultural poison (of promiscuity, feminism, cultural decay etc) ingested by Black society. Which was given to you by a cabal of Liberals/Globalists etc who benefit from your society’s decay. In this narrative the Blacks remain a victim class, but now their our victim class. Thus, we are now fighting on their behalf. Fighting with them, not against them. This is more than just “Black Republican” boilerplate, it’s accepting their status as victims but giving them a different scapegoat. Will this work on American blacks? I have no idea, but even if it was only partially successful it would still be a victory. Notice this is very different than the rhetoric of the “Alt-Right” (you know who i’m talking about), for whom blacks are a group of sub-human proto-apes who are genetically predisposed to Savagery. This is the very essence of “ham fisted” rhetoric in my view.
There’s obviously a lot more to discuss about this and I realize this may be unacceptable for some. I am not suggesting the outer right take up the cause of every shitty leftist victim group (there will never be a Reactionary campaign for LGBT rights etc), some of these groups just need to be destroyed. My bottom line is that if you want to succeed in the long run you’re going to have to expand your message to appeal to groups outside the white working class. This will mean actually working with some of these groups directly, You’re going to need to poach victim classes from the Leftist coalition and add them to your own, I quite a Duginite here you know. A myopic focus on the interests of those of European descent (although this is actually very important) won’t be sufficient.
My edits were designed to have the piece focus more on the rhetorical side than the strategic side, mostly because NRx is not really focused on broad-ranging outreach to non-elite groups.
“My bottom line is that if you want to succeed in the long run you’re going to have to expand your message to appeal to groups outside the white working class.”
In fact, probably less than 10% of our readership would count as white working class. It’s likely around 5%. Most of our readership is comprised of upper-tier Vaisyas and Brahmins, as that is the comparative advantage of NRx. The rest of the alt-right is responsible for these wider recruitment efforts, not so much us.
The piece can be read on both levels, rhetorical or strategic. As a rhetorical tactic I still believe it is underutilized and can amount to much more than “mere trolling”
And you are correct, I suppose I was making a strategic point more relevant to the “Alt-Right” at large than NRx specifically. In the future I will make sure to to keep any pieces more tightly focused with the SM audience in mind.
‘Notice this is very different than the rhetoric of the “Alt-Right” (you know who i’m talking about), for whom blacks are a group of sub-human proto-apes who are genetically predisposed to Savagery. This is the very essence of “ham fisted” rhetoric in my view.’
Blacks are human, I agree. But are you arguing that none of their problems are hereditary? That most of them don’t have an inborn predisposition to what some call savagery?
Absolutely. Yet it is I think inarguable that blacks made steady civilizational progress in North America from 1660 to 1960, which then promptly stopped. Which suggests that African dysfunction is a completely solved problem, the solution which those in charge simply decided to forget. For reasons.
I admired this article up until it advocated the Byzantine strategy as an NRx strategy. Luttwak’s book is a great read and the concluding section on the Byzantine operational code is compelling, but as Luttwak states, the Byzantine grand strategy was to maintain power while undermining that of neighbors. Their operational code was for maintaining an empire rather than building one, and NRx is a germ right now. It needs to grow before either Roman strategy would become feasible.
So why even worry about subverting anyone at this point? Isn’t there enough subversion going around? I don’t personally find liberal meltdowns gratifying, so that’s no motivation for me.
USG seems plenty Byzantine; let’s study Luttwak’s work to understand how to counter this aging empire rather than to understand how to run one we don’t have. His notes in this direction on the early Bulgarians, Rus, Muslims, Turks, and Carolingians are fascinating. There are many more European inspirations than the West Romans and East Romans.
The follow-up comment just above is heartening, and I agree that we must gather allies, but why phrase it as subversion and undermining?
So I have my reservations, but, nonetheless, thanks to the author for a thought-provoking piece.
This is a great point Tom, NRx really is a germ. It’s completely fair to accuse some of my thoughts of jumping the gun a little bit in this regard. I still think Byzantine strategy can be mined for ideas that even a germ such as NRx could benefit from. As usual your criticism is concise and invaluable, thank you.
Okay, sure… up to a point. For example, nice Dugin quote. But the only reason Dugin isn’t cooling his heels in a gulag – which he would have been 30 years ago for saying the exact same things – is that his country is run by an KGB-trained nationalist autocrat whose political enemies have a tendency to meet with unfortunate fatal accidents, but who digs what Dugin has to say. Dugin’s words are made possible by Putin’s fist. We should not be so naive as to lose sight of that fact.
Also, “co-opting the culture of victimhood” sounds to me as if it’s awfully close to saying that we should resort to shouts of: “The Democrats are the *real* racists!” Republicans have been saying shit like that for decades now, and it’s gotten them bupkis. What makes you think it’ll work any better for us than it has for them?
Neoreaction bears no actual malice to historically underperforming groups. (And no particular love for them either.)
Neoreaction notices that inculcation of victimhood, and development of “programs” putatively intended to help said victims, actually harms underperforming groups over time. (Tho’ it greatly fattens the wallets of their spokesmulattoes, spokeslesbians, spokesbrahamins, etc.)
Neoreaction prescribes a formalist realignment of the words we use to talk about power with the reality of power. We think everyone, besides criminals (and rent seekers, but I repeat myself), wins by that prescription.
So on the one hand, yes, everyone wins, especially “victim groups”, with a formalist restoration. On the other hand, what benefit to the restoration is poaching from victim groups? Understanding why the restoration works for everyone is hard work, even for the elites. The default path, zero-sum demagoguery, is already locked down by the left. Victimhood is easy, as manifested by historically underperforming groups flocking to it.
If the restoration could “outbid” the left for historically underperforming groups, then why wouldn’t the restoration use that same capital more efficiently to outbid for elites?
In short, we would. The benefits of the restoration to historically underperforming groups are of a nature that they can only be imposed without their consent.
Moldbug 2008:
>If black Americans ever wake up and realize that the red-state Americans they are supposed to hate are actually their best practical allies, and their present masters are their real enemies, the demise of the regime which at present oppresses them will be swift indeed.
“If black Americans ever wake up and realize that the red-state Americans they are supposed to hate are actually their best practical allies, and their present masters are their real enemies, the demise of the regime which at present oppresses them will be swift indeed.”
It’s been a pipe dream of mine for a long time. Unhappily, two things conspire to make its realization about as likely as my being invited to high tea with the Queen:
a) The Dems, through affirmative action and other trickle-down, run a rather tight political machine in most Black communities- one that can and will deploy violence against Blacks who refuse to get with the programme.
b) This silly, arch-spergy “HBD” stuff that fascinates so many on the ultra-Right to the point where they seemingly just can’t resist blathering about it endlessly and indiscriminately. The panoply of social pathology that has been deliberately induced in Black communities by the Left, and the attending, infamous disorders- all of which are clearly and incontrovertibly real- ought to be of much more pressing concern to Reactionaries than intrinsically unfalsifiable, armchair evo-psych/neuro-whatsit speculation. But it isn’t.
Et alors…
Yes, good God yes. B) especially is an issue right now, and will continue to be in the future. Yes, to all of this:
“The panoply of social pathology that has been deliberately induced in Black communities by the Left, and the attending, infamous disorders- all of which are clearly and incontrovertibly real- ought to be of much more pressing concern to Reactionaries than intrinsically unfalsifiable, armchair evo-psych/neuro-whatsit speculation. But it isn’t. ”
I’ve been fascinated by the whole phenomenon of the HBD thing, it really has a lot of traction with Alt-Right types. There obviously is a certain element of truth in it, but not nearly as much as people like to think. Watching them try to read neat distinctions into the data is a lot like watching a shaman try to interpret the messages in ox entrails. Genetics is much more complex and dynamic than people think.
I’m way closer to Splengar and Dugin on Race than any of the HBD/Sailerites. Unfortunately their kind of thinking so far doesn’t seem to get a fair hearing from Alt-Righters. I have my own pet theories about why this is the case. My hunch is that it has something to do with the fact that Identity in the U.S. is so incredibly weak culturally. So that the only thing left to rebuild one around is a general concept of “Whiteness”. This isn’t always a bad thing, since at root it’s really just a desire to return to the Cultural roots of European civilization. However it can also easily degenerate into an obsession with Racial purity etc. I’d wager this would be less of a problem if Healthy, Traditional forms of Christianity where more prevalent in the U.S. but they’re not, all we have left is a shallow and quickly evaporating Protestantish Deism. Thus “Whiteness” is all that’s left to try and reconstruct an identity with.