Are Leftists More Intelligent?

First published in The Occidental Observer: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Kurtagic-Leftists.html

One common tactic used by Leftists is the characterizing of their opponents on the Right — particularly those who self-consciously identify themselves as White and who maintain that Whites have unique ethnic interests of their own — as, among other things, intellectually inferior. We are all familiar with the stereotype, perpetuated with impunity in the mass media of news and entertainment, of traditionalist, racially-conscious Whites as either tattooed neo-Nazi knuckleheads and Hitler fetishists or inbred, defective, periodontitic, Bible-thumping, Klan-supporting hillbillies from the American South. Those who are interested in White-specific political issues will be familiar also with the common Leftist attitude towards debating said issues: the White advocates’ positions are regarded as being beneath contempt — not only morally repugnant, but also so idiotic, so preposterous, so based on fear and prejudice, as to not be worth the dignity of a discussion (unless it is, of course, for the purposes of condemnation).

There is no denying that the Right — as supporters of this website would likely understand it — attracts, besides normal people, a variety of marginal types, particularly via the more peripheral currents and subcultures. There is also no denying that most contemporary academics are Leftists, that most contemporary intellectuals are Leftists, that most contemporary journalists and commentators of note are Leftists, that most contemporary holders of postgraduate humanities degrees from elite universities are Leftists, or identify with Leftist ideas. But does this mean that Leftism represents the intellectually superior position? Are Leftists Leftists because they are cleverer? Or did they become Leftists because of some other reason?



Social Identity Theory (SIT) maintains that there are behaviors among humans that occur only in group situations. In such situations, humans will tend to identify themselves and others as either part of a given group (in which case they are said to have an ingroup identification) or as not part of that group (in which case they are said to have an outgroup identification). Ingroup members, according to the theory, will tend to favor evaluative dimensions that are flattering to themselves and unflattering to members of an outgroup. This is because the innate human need for belonging and self-esteem define group dynamics. Thus, a self-identified White Supremacist will tend to regard White skin as positive and Black skin as negative; while a self-identified Black Supremacist will tend to hold the opposite view. Stereotypes, an offspring of group dynamics, follow an analogous pattern: ingroup members will tend to stereotype themselves positively and outgroup members negatively (e.g., “Whites are clever / law-abiding / temperate / beautiful; Blacks are dumb / criminal / impulsive / ugly”). Both attitudes and stereotypes are intensified in ingroup / outgroup conflict situations.

The evolutionist reading of SIT sees human groups as engaging in resource competition in order to maximize life chances and reproductive success. (Here I use these latter terms in the broadest possible sense, which encompasses not only organisms but also ideas.) The same way that individuals attempt to increase their social status in an effort to gain access to more and better resources, groups often do the same. Similarly, individuals seeking to increase their social status may do so via membership of a group, which, in turn, may also seek to increase its own status by attracting high-status and/or high-quality individuals. Ideally, this is a situation where the individual and the group both gain, as their mutually reinforcing status relationship would tend to increase access to resources for both: the group gains the resources brought in by the new high status/high quality member, and the aforementioned member gains the resources offered by the group.

I must make clear at this point that resources do not always and necessary take the form of material wealth: prestige, expertise, contacts, knowledge, access to desirable mates, prestigious jobs, or positions of power are all also sought-after resources, which can — although not exclusively — both derive and confer social status.

Seen from this perspective, it makes sense that a high-IQ individual who seeks to increase his status will tend to be drawn to group identifications and group memberships popularly associated with intelligence. In the contemporary West, where the Left presently enjoys cultural hegemony (dominating politics, education, media, and publishing), and where, therefore, the Left shapes the discourse, the Left’s ideas enjoy high status while the Right’s ideas enjoy low status. (I define the Right broadly as traditionalist and inegalitarian.) Since European culture and civilization are predicated on high IQ, general intelligence is accorded importance as an evaluative dimension. The political consequence of this in our present epoch is that the Left’s ideas are associated with intelligence, while the Right’s ideas are associated with idiocy. This is further reinforced by the addition of moral and psychological dimensions: the Left’s ideas are associated with normalcy and enlightenment, and the Right’s ideas are associated with abnormalcy and moral turpitude. High-IQ individuals seeking to increase their status will, therefore, tend to be drawn to the high-status ideas of the Left rather than the low-status ideas of the Right. If this is true, then superior social status, rather than superior intellectual merit, is the reason why the Left has been able to recruit so effectively from the top IQ percentiles, and why we find so many high-IQ individuals espousing Leftist ideas. It is also the reason why the Right, despite having the empirical data on their side, and therefore more logical arguments, has been fighting a losing battle: ultimately, as I have said before, it is not about the arguments.

Put more simply: Because the Left is in control, they are able to represent their ideas as clever and those of their opponents as stupid, among other things; and clever people, wanting to be seen as clever, go where they think the clever people are and make sure to avoid embarrassing dummies. Thus, the Leftist claim to (among other things) intellectual superiority becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We can also see it as a form of peer pressure.

This is not to say that this is the only factor influencing people’s choice of political ideological affiliation. I believe temperament, personal history, and marginality status are powerful factors too (some people are attracted to marginal ideas; others identify with them because they themselves are marginal). However, even where these factors cause individuals to be drawn to Right wing ideas, status remains operative as a motivator: said individuals may find their social status lowered within contemporary mainstream society because of their ideological affiliation, but they compensate for this by tapping into alternative or analogous, ingroup-managed sources of status.

This is not to say also that Leftism does not attract its fair share of idiots. We only need to look at the membership lists of “anti-racist” organizations like the ARA in the United States and the UAF in the United Kingdom to find a profusion of examples.

Leftism, on its own, appears to say very little about its supporters’ general intelligence: When considered relative to its status, however, it does seem to tell us something about many of its supporters’ capacity for thinking independently and for courageously resisting pressure to conform or to at least keep quiet. This is true, in fact, for any political or ideological affiliation. Yet, for the reasons mentioned above, in the culture war between Right and Left in the West, each side will claim and seek to demonstrate intellectual superiority as they compete for status. And, unsurprisingly, even where one side finds the other side has arrived at useful insights, the one side will prefer to find autochthonous sources for those insights rather than credit the political enemy.

What about Satoshi Kanazawa’s findings, regarding the apparent tendency of intelligent individuals to adopt liberal views? His basic argument is that intelligence correlates with openness to experience (or openness to novelty), and that, since liberalism is evolutionarily novel, intelligent individuals are more likely to be drawn to it than less intelligent individuals — or, at least, they are less ‘likely . . . to conform to others in the society’.

Kanazawa’s Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis might appear partly to refute the arguments I have made here. But note that the hypothesis’ explanation for more intelligent individuals’ tendency to be drawn to liberalism is not that it takes intelligence to see liberalism’s “superior” intellectual merit, but that liberalism is evolutionarily novel. In other words: Leftism is attractive because it is new, not because it is cleverer.

There is also another angle to consider. Kanazawa proposes that a possible explanation for less intelligent individuals’ preferring conservative ideas is that it might be adaptive for them to mimic those around them, as the majority is mathematically more likely to be correct than the average individual. If this is so, then, in a context where the surrounding culture is politically liberal and intolerant of dissidence, it might be evolutionarily novel not to go with the flow, so to speak, and maintain, as a matter of principle, political positions that risk ostracism and economic sanctions. If this is the case, then Kanazawa’s hypothesis can be used to predict both liberal and anti-liberal attitudes among highly intelligent individuals.

Those familiar with the work of serious modern heretics, we can find among them highly intelligent, independently-minded individuals: Frank Salter, Kevin MacDonald, Tomislav Sunic, Richard Lynn, J. Philippe Rushton, Virginia Abernethy, F. Roger Devlin, Michael O’Meara, Greg Johnson, Kerry Bolton, Edmund Connelly — all of whom hold Ph.D.s — plus many accomplished, successful lawyers, authors, artists, historians, entrepreneurs, and financial analysts. The Left obviously hates this, as the presence of intellect among their ideological opponents confers credibility and prestige to, elevates the status, and increases the appeal of ideas that refute theirs that they would like to see consigned to the dustbin of history. (Hence, the Left’s attempts to neutralize this appeal by ascribing sinister motives, psychopathology, or moral deficiency to its designated intellectual heretics.)

Evidently, because publicly maintaining a “heretical” position requires unusual courage and strength of personality (the penalties of being a heretic are great), White advocates are outnumbered by their opponents on the Left. The Left routinely cites its numerical advantage — or, perhaps rather, its apparent numerical advantage — as proof of their intellectual superiority and normality, and the (apparent) numerical disadvantage of its opponents as proof of their intellectual inferiority and abnormality. Peter Victor, a Black man writing for the Independent and providing an account there of his meeting with Nick Griffin did so in June last year:

I point out that the vast majority of people in this country are either highly antipathetic towards him [Nick Griffin] or just apathetic. A minority may support him, but they are out of touch with reality. Most sensible people ignore the BNP or think they're a bunch of crazy folk.

The oligophrenic baboons from the UAF deployed a similar argument a month later:

Unite Against Fascism is calling on anti-fascists across the country to converge on Codnor, Derbyshire, at 9am on Saturday 15 August to protest against the British National Party rally taking place in the village that weekend. UAF supporters intend to "kettle" the rally by surrounding it with protesters. This action will demonstrate that the vast majority of people in this country reject the Nazi politics of the BNP.

And another anti-racist activist, writing in 2007, shows this is a stock phrase:

There should be a two-pronged attack on the fascists: dealing with their lies on the ground, and dealing with the social problems that lead to resentment and move people to vote for the BNP in a protest vote. We know the vast majority of people in this country abhor the racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic ideas of the party.

This is of course, a fallacious argument, known as argumentum ad populum. The fact that a view is in the majority does not prove that it is correct anymore than the fact that the opposing view is in the minority proves that it is wrong.

We must remember also that the Left did not always enjoy ascendancy. There was a time when theirs constituted a fringe minority view, which “the vast majority of people” dismissed as foolish, evil, and crazy. I believe that as the Left becomes discredited through their ever-growing record of failure, so will their ideas, and so will their appeal among the less independently-minded and courageous men and women of intelligence, who may then become gradually more receptive to non-Leftist alternatives. Obviously, this process needs to be assisted and facilitated while the culture war between Left and Right — between egalitarians and inegalitarians — rages on. The Leftist claim to intellectual superiority must be attacked relentlessly and without mercy, always bearing in mind that this is really an attack on the Left’s status, or their ability to attract high- quality, status-conscious individuals and supporters. Perhaps even more importantly, attack tactics must include the use of humor, for, once people start laughing at the establishment, once the establishment be

Miguel Serrano’s The Golden Thread

Miguel Serrano
El Cordón Dorado: Hitlerismo Esotérico
Bogota, Colombia: Editorial Solar, 2001

Review published in The Occidental Quarterly Online: http://www.toqonline.com/2010/03/the-golden-thread/

As far as I am aware, this is the first published review in English of The Golden Thread: Esoteric Hitlerism, the first volume in Miguel Serrano’s Esoteric Hitlerist trilogy. Having woven a shadowy conspiracy of Esoteric Hitlerists into my dystopian novel Mister, and having recently reviewed Savitri Devi’s Defiance, [Gold in the Furnace is also reviewed here] it seems pertinent to examine the work of the other main proponent of Esoteric Hitlerism.

The esoteric syntheses of Serrano and Savitri Devi were developed independently of one another. Any parallels we encounter in our exoteric plane of existence are due to common sources of inspiration. The two writers corresponded briefly when they encountered each other’s work in the late 1970s; by then, however, their respective worldviews were already well-formed.

Miguel Joaquín Diego del Carmen Serrano Fernández was a Chilean diplomat, explorer, and poet, and, in Spanish letters, a celebrated author of the Generation of 1938. Born in Santiago, Chile, he was first attracted to Marxism, but quickly grew disillusioned with Communism and became associated with the Movimiento Nacional Socialista de Chile (later known as Vanguardia Popular Socialista), headed by Jorge González von Mareés.

In 1941 – the year he discovered the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – he was introduced to an occult order by ‘F. K.’ a German immigrant to Chile; the order, to which he was initiated in 1942, claimed allegiance of a Brahmin elite based on the Himalayas, and blended kundalini and tantric yoga with the Nietzschean will to power, emphasizing the subtle or astral body and regarding Adolf Hitler as an initiate and the saviour of the Aryan race, who had incarnated in the Kali Yuga.

The order’s master, who claimed to maintain astral contact with Hitler during and after the war, claimed that the Führer was alive and had survived the Berlin bunker. In the midst of popular speculation about Hitler’s survival in secret Nazi bases in Antarctica (see below), in 1947 Serrano traveled to the continent as journalist; the experience left a lasting impression.

Serrano subsequently traveled to Europe, where he made friends with Hermann Hesse and Carl Gustav Jung, about whom he eventually wrote El círculo hermético, de Hesse a Jung (in English, C. G. Jung and Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships (1965)). Jung’s pre-war characterization of Hitler as a semi-divine embodiment of the collective consciousness of the race also made a lasting impression.

From 1953 to 1970 Serrano held a series of ambassadorial posts, heading the Chilean diplomatic mission in India, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Austria. Dismissed from his post in 1970 by the Allende government, Serrano established himself in Switzerland, where he cultivated friendships with National Socialists, such as Léon Degrelle, Otto Skorzeny, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Marc Augier (Saint-Loup), and Hanna Reitsch, as well as writers such as Julius Evola, Hermann Wirth, Wilhelm Landig, and Ezra Pound.

He subsequently returned to Chile, and from 1978 onwards wrote a series of books with occult and National Socialist themes, including El Cordón Dorado: Hitlerismo Esotérico (1978), NOS: El Libro de la Resurrección (1980), Adolf Hitler, el Último Avatãra (1984), Nacionalsocialismo, Unica Solución para los Países de América del Sur (1986), La Resurrección del Héroe: Año 97 de la era Hitleriana (1986), Manú: Por el hombre que vendrá, No Celebraremos la Muerte de los Dioses Blancos (1991), (1992), and Nuestro Honor se Llama Lealtad (1994), plus a book on cyberpolitics, a four-volume autobiography (1996-1999), and his final monograph, Se Acabó Chile (2001).

El Cordón Dorado is a singularly dense and arcane work that will challenge all but the most erudite of scholars. To appreciate it fully requires several careful readings, as well as being steeped in Ancient and Mediaeval history, Western and Eastern mythologies, Ariosophy, Jewish conspiratology, Jungian archetypes, Nietzschean philosophy, and National Socialism, including its existence after the war.

Although the book is not very long (227 pages), although it is divided into five themed parts, and although these are broken into short chapters (totaling 143), each chapter contains a relatively desultory discussion weaving many disparate strands, comprised of numerous obscure facts, incidents, anecdotes, speculations, myths, and occult insights, and taking the narrative through tortuous, labyrinthine paths that seldom end at the destinations suggested by the chapter headings.

Serrano, moreover, only very loosely stays within the ostensible themes governing each of the four parts: he discusses the Cathars, the Druids, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians, but infuses into each part a dizzying constellation of historical and metaphysical references, legends, imaginations, and recollections.

Among these we find his discussion of Hitler’s mythical survival. Obviously, Serrano interpreted this in mystical, metaphysical terms: Hitler, having lost the exoteric war, was supposed to continue the war esoterically from Antarctica, in whose polar regions lay hidden the entrance to the Earth’s interior, which Serrano believed to be inhabited by a highly advanced civilization of extraterrestrial origin.
Serrano also subscribed to the Nazi UFO conspiracy theory: towards the end of the war, the Nazis were said to have been working on highly advanced aircraft, including the famous flying discs (Haunebu I, II, and III); according to the theory, the Nazis continued their development from their underground base (Point 211) in New Berlin, New Swabia, the German Antarctic claim that lies in Queen Maud Land. Some ufologists claim this is what people saw during the UFO sightings of the 1950s. Serrano shared the ufologists’ belief that U.S. Navy’s Operation Highjump (1946-47) was not launched for the purposes of mapping and training, as was officially claimed, but to destroy the Nazi base. (I allude to some of this in my novel.)
The various themes, however, are held together by a common thread – the golden thread – which is a worldview that is hierarchical, elitist, neo-pagan, Gnostic, ariosophical, neo-Romantic, Nietzschean, and, of course, National Socialist.

Serrano’s narrative is like a firmament of stars: slowly, as our knowledge accretes, we begin to glimpse galaxies, galactic clusters, and, finally, the cosmos. His method of argumentation does not follow the Anglo-Saxon linear model, where one thing leads to the next; nor the German model, which goes from general to specific; nor the East Asian, which goes from peripheral to central; but, rather, anti-entropic, whereby through his agency chaos resolves into organization. From this perspective, we can see that in the downward rush of history, in Kali-Yuga, in a cyclical universe governed by the laws of progressive degeneration, Serrano was perhaps also a man against time.

What do we learn in El Cordón Dorado?

It would be wrong to think of Serrano as a political ideologue: he had a well-defined Weltanschauung, and, yes, he had clearly-defined and radically anti-establishment political views; but he was not a writer of political tracts. Rather, his prose inhabits an indefinable literary space, somewhere between poetry, metahistory, metapolitics, religion, and philosophy; it is neither entirely factual nor entirely fictional: Serrano mediates between the outer world of matter and the inner world of spirituality, questioning rather than answering, searching rather than finding, and suggesting rather than asserting, but always affirming a core set of anti-materialistic, inegalitarian, traditionalist doctrines.

A materialist would read this as an extended prose poem, as an elaborate work of fiction that draws from many antiquarian, pagan, and occult traditions to create a sense of the mystic and the fantastic; a non-materialist would read this as a profound work of revelation and a life-affirming profession of faith. I can well imagine this, under the right circumstances, becoming a religious text in a distant, post-apocalyptic future; read, interpreted, and re-interpreted by mystics and monastic scholars.

Of what there can be no doubt, is that Serrano is a highly accomplished literary artist and a man of vast erudition, able to produce sublime prose, rich with lyrical beauty and spiritual and cultural profundity.

Pop Culture is Important

First published in Alternative Right: http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/trash/pop-culture-is-important/

In a satirical blog about pop culture, I recently presented two sets of photographs: one of ageing mainstream musicians, whom I described as the past, and another of young underground musicians, whom I described as the future. Using a standard tabloid technique, I mischievously chose unflattering images for the first set of musicians, and proceeded to dismiss the latter as a freak show as well as a negative cultural influence. Unfortunately, some interpreted this (rather superficially) as simply a derogation of Elton John, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bono, and Bob Geldof's looks and musical talent, ignoring the fact that the title of the blog referred explicitly to culture, and the blog itself made no mention of music.

My original aim had been to do a series, where I juxtaposed representatives of the egalitarian against representatives of the inegalitarian camp, taken from the fields of philosophy, politics, journalism, art, literature, psychology, anthropology, and more, always accompanied by a few satirical comments at the enemy's expense. There is no doubt that there was an element of playground malice in this exercise. Yet, the latter had a serious purpose: the enemy routinely engages in self-serving, derogatory, and cartoonish misrepresentations of the intellectuals, artists, and scientists whom they do not like, whom they would like to keep beyond the pale, and whom they would like the apolitical and the miseducated to avoid and dismiss in advance. The message I wanted to convey was that we know how to do it too, and are quite prepared to give them a taste of their own medicine (in fact, in December last year I wrote an article for The Occidental Observer where I did some post-imperial deconstructing, in response to the White-bashing discourse that permeates the field of postcolonial studies). I think this is important because one of the reasons European descended peoples have come to find themselves in retreat, on the losing side of every significant battle in the cultural war for the better part of a century now, is that the Left has not been met with an effective response - in fact, even so-called "conservatives", who were supposed to have been on the side of European man, have proven - at best - craven, weak, flaccid, myopic, selfishly motivated, and far too willing to compromise, pull back, surrender, and apologise in order to avoid trouble.

By an effective response I do not mean necessarily always serious, logical, or intellectually profound: the enemy has long understood that people are less persuaded by reason than by irrational, or pre-rational factors like status, fear, and romance, or pragmatic ones like money and individual self-preservation. We only need to look at the Frankfurt School's work during the 1930s to 1960s, particularly on the subject of mass culture, to realize that the Left has been preoccupied with the pre-rational mechanisms of persuasion, belief, and perception for a long time. If the liberal media has been singularly effective in the perpetuation of Leftist ideologies, it is not because they have presented the liberal case more seriously, more logically, or in a more intellectually profound manner, but, rather, because they have done so through humor, emotion, and stereotypes. Most ordinary people are too preoccupied with their own lives, their hobbies, and their immediate interests, too busy trying to survive, and too uneducated, to have the time or the ability to analyze all the arguments, check all the data, and critically interpret both before making a decision on an important issue. Many people do not have an opinion one way or the other, and simply mimic the opinions of those around them with whom they wish to identify. Most people simply look to be confirmed in their own prejudices. It is far easier and always reassuring.

The Left has attacked the interests of European descended peoples on practically every front - legal, social, cultural, political, historical, economic, demographic, scientific, academic -; but an important battleground in this ideological war has been popular culture. Some would argue that this has been their key battleground, along with education. One area of popular culture I know something about, but which is seldom examined from this side of the political equation, is music. Popular music has played an important role in popularizing liberal ideas among the young since the 1960s. Accordingly, the industry is peculiarly liberal, and music channels like MTV have been for quite some time the tip of the spear in the liberal charge against traditional Western culture and values. And did not Bob Geldof's Live8 concerts of 2005 - that guilt-mongering parade of guilt-ridden self-indulgent celebrities and fabulously rich Rock and Pop stars - constitute the largest media event in history? Hence, why I have highlighted on various occasions the existence of discursively non-conforming genres within contemporary popular music. Said genres may or may not be everyone's cup of tea, but that is a separate issue and not relevant here. My highlighting them is not an effort to express feelings of superiority on the basis of musical tastes: it is an effort to advertise the existence of growing spaces within popular culture where discursively non-conforming artistic production and consumption is taking place in the contemporary West among the younger demographic. That they exist is, to my mind, a positive sign, and one that may augur well for the future.



I am not oblivious to the fact that genres like Black Metal may be problematic for a subset of the demographic that falls under the umbrella of "alternative Right". However, I am aware that, outside this subset, there are many who do sympathize with the values and sensibilities - spiritual and aesthetic - that define and permeate associated, derived, contiguous, or compatible musical forms, like Viking Metal, Folk Metal, Neo-Folk, Folk Noir, and Martial Industrial. Implicitly or explicitly, these forms tend fundamentally to reject the tenets of liberalism, embracing, instead the elitist, traditionalist, neo-pagan tendency in European culture and thought - the tendency that prefers Evola, Nietzsche, Schmitt, Spengler, and Jünger to the egalitarian and materialist Freudo-Marxist scholastics. (This is not to say that some musicians within these genres may not hold liberal attitudes or be entirely apolitical.) Granted, some artists can be silly and shocking at times, but this can be found in abundance elsewhere in popular culture: their primary purpose is entertainment and escape through a Romantic heightening of emotion, not dry intellectual analysis. All the same - or, rather, because of this - their power must not be underestimated, as a political tract might be read once, if at all, but a good album will be heard a thousand times.



Perhaps more importantly, music tends not to operate in isolation: often it involves an entire worldview and lifestyle, associated with a subculture that fits into a wider constellation of broadly compatible subcultures, united by a golden thread of common underlying assumptions and sensibilities. Thus, for example, many fans of the abovementioned genres are also interested in European paganism, battle re-enactment, and Right wing politics, even while not all pagans, battle re-enactors, and Right wing activists are interested in the abovementioned genres. This offers, in a way that panders to the innate human need for belonging and self-esteem, fertile ground for the growth of dissident subcultures, both in size and number, as well as a grassroots basis for the gradual displacement of our present mainstream cultural establishment. Absent military means, this displacement is a pre-requisite for the eventual achievement of political change.

It must be remembered that the Left did not achieve its political supremacy in the West through violent revolution, like the Bolsheviks in Russia, but, rather, through incremental cultural and institutional change over a period decades. They subjected Western culture to radical critiques, which were often neither benign nor fair, and campaigned for change along liberal lines, one issue at a time. Because many of them were involved in the media, they also mastered popular culture, and offered, promoted, and cultivated "progressive" options to a rebellious, miseducated, and politically-agitated youth, the most talented among whom contributed to the creation of new waves of popular art. Many of our establishment politicians were influenced, if not part of, the liberal subculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. At least two notable cases were/are also musicians. How many otherwise ordinary folk have had their general outlook, their attitudes, and their opinions molded through the subtle process of repeated, long-term exposure to liberal ideas encoded in music and other forms of popular culture, where there is often pressure to conform to subcultural norms?




Algerian-born French economist Jacques Attali, once advisor to the former socialist French president François Mitterrand, argued in Noise: The Political Economy of Music that music has the capacity (as expressed by Fredric Jameson) "to anticipate historical developments, to foreshadow new social formations in a prophetic and annunciatory way" and that "the music of today stands both as a promise of a new, liberating mode of production, and as the menace of a dystopian possibility which is that mode of production's baleful mirror image." If this is so, then, whatever might be thought - from an aesthetic point of view - of the types of music I have previously discussed, there is good reason to note that they give expression to a sensibility, a worldview, a spirituality that is well in tune with the views expressed in this and similar websites and forums. It is in this sense, and in the context of an increasingly discredited liberal establishment, that I speak of certain artists representing the past, and others (maybe) representing the future.

Savitri Devi’s Defiance

Savitri Devi
Defiance: The Prison Memoirs of Savitri Devi
Ed. R. G. Fowler
The Savitri Devi Archive, 2007

Review published in Counter-Currents: http://www.counter-currents.com/2010/06/savitri-devis-defiance/ and The Occidental Quarterly Online: http://toqonline.com/2010/03/defiance/

One feature of my recent novel, Mister (Iron Sky Publishing, 2009), that has stirred up a ferment of discussion and questions is the shadowy conspiracy of “Esoteric Hitlerists” that runs like a golden thread through the labyrinth of the plot.

As much as I would like to take credit here for a brilliant stroke of imagination, this is a case of truth being stranger than fiction, for there really is something called “Esoteric Hitlerism,” and I am fairly sure that it already exists as a world-wide conspiracy – although, of course, nobody has let me in on the secret.

The two founders of Esoteric Hitlerism are the French-born Savitri Devi (1905–1982) and the Chilean Miguel Serrano (1917–2009).

A hundred and five years after Savitri Devi’s birth, we are gradually seeing her entire literary corpus brought back into print. This 2007 Centennial Edition of Defiance: The Prison Memoirs of Savitri Devi, published by the Savitri Devi Archive is the most recent contribution to this effort.

Defiance is Savitri Devi’s memoir of her arrest, trial, and imprisonment for distributing Nazi propaganda in occupied Germany during the early months of 1949. She was sentenced to three years and served six months before being deported to India. The story is told in a gripping first-person narrative, and it constitutes not only a fascinating historical document of Allied justice and prison life for Nazi women during the immediate post-war years but also provides a hugely engaging insight into Savitri Devi’s incandescent personality.

Born Maximine Portaz in Lyons, France in 1905 of an English mother and a father of mixed Greek and Italian ancestry, Savitri Devi was repelled by egalitarian, democratic, Christian, and humanistic doctrines from an early age, and enjoyed overtly mocking them in school, much to the shock of her tutors. She nevertheless impressed them with her penetrating mind and performed well academically, earning two masters degrees and a doctorate in philosophy, as well as learning eight languages. The realization that she was a National Socialist took place in 1929, while on a pilgrimage to Palestine during Lent.

From 1935 to 1945 Savitri Devi lived in India, where she went in search of the pagan Aryan culture, and where her formal adherence to Hinduism led to the acquisition of her adopted name. Despite her ardent – and religious – belief in National Socialism, Savitri Devi never experienced Germany during the National Socialist era; her first opportunity to visit the country would not be until 1948, three years after Hitler’s empire had perished in the inferno of the Allied bombing. The lost opportunity proved a tremendous source of regret and disappointment, and resulted in a burning desire for expiation, for making up lost time. It is this that compelled Savitri Devi to make a passionate – and indeed “quixotic and futile” – profession of support for National Socialism, even though by then all had been long lost.

Savitri Devi made three visits to Germany between 1948 and 1949, funding the journeys and the printing of thousands of propaganda leaflets and posters with the sale her gold jewelry. We learn in Defiance that she began writing Gold in the Furnace: Experiences in Post-War Germany and her magnum opus, The Lightning and the Sun, during this period, mostly in cafés.

We also learn to what intense, fanatical, even foolhardy degree Savitri Devi identified with National Socialism: once arrested, and once convinced that a conviction was inevitable, she became inflamed with the truculent euphoria of a righteous martyr, from then on almost sadistically relishing every opportunity afforded by the legal process to make a dramatic show of her scorn for the values of the victors as well as of her uncrushable defiance in the face of their power.

As by this time Savitri was a British subject (having previously held Greek and French nationalities), she was the responsibility of the British authorities, and they treated her rather kindly, given the nature of her offense. Indeed, they show a great deal of baffled patience in the face of Savitri’s strident support for every National Socialist policy, even the most cruel.

Savitri is unimpressed and unmoved, however, and on the day of her trial, which she sees as the paroxysmal moment where she is to show the world what she is and what she thinks of the democratic powers, she even makes it a point to wear her gold swastika ear-rings. (And rather appropriately, on the front cover of this volume we find a photograph of Savitri Devi at the height of her powers, aged 46, looking into the distance with the aforementioned ear-rings and the expression of a wrathful demi-goddess.)

Savitri Devi is so over the top, her prose so high-flung with joyous visions of Nazi palingenesis, poetic revanchism, and cruentous glory, that one cannot help but smile when Mrs. Taylor, the British policewoman escorting her to and from the court house in Düsseldorf, finally says “What a baby you are for a woman of forty-three.” The pragmatic Mrs. Taylor, however, did not understand Savitri Devi’s need for redemption.

Savitri’s “glorious day” ends in disappointment. When sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, she is outraged: Is that all? She had been hoping for the death penalty, or at least life imprisonment. The phlogiston of the immediate aftermath of the war, however, had abated somewhat, and by 1949 Nazi propaganda no longer entailed capital punishment.

This only exacerbated Savitri’s contempt for democracy: she tells us that she would not have been so lenient herself, had she been on the other side; she thinks the democracies are soft, craven, ideologically vacuous, and interested only in material comfort and money. She promises that one day – never mind when – they will pay a millionfold for their foolishness and their weakness. She only hoped that she would be there personally to mete out justice, or at least gloat.

Despite Savitri’s electrifying intensity, velocious extremism, and brutal misanthropy, the “democrats,” as she calls them, often could not help but take a liking for her, and even respect her for her ideological integrity, consistency, courage, and strength of character. This sentiment also affects the reader: Savitri Devi is a very likable monster.

Once transferred to the Werl prison, Savitri wasted no time to seek out “her comrades and superiors,” namely the Nazi war criminals. She soon developed an intense friendship with Hertha Ehlert, a former deputy wardress at the Bergen-Belsen prison camp, then serving a 15-year term. Colonel Vickers, the British Governor, tried to keep Savitri segregated from the political prisoners, which provoked a good deal of tedious self-pity and complaining. Fortunately, the German wardresses – some of whom were crypto-Nazis – took a liking to Savitri and allowed her regular visits from Ehlert and other “war criminals.” Moreover, equipped with copybooks, she was assigned light tasks so that she may have time to write.

Propelled by a fulgor of inspiration, Savitri poured all her love and energy into her writing, completing large sections of Gold in the Furnace and The Lightning in the Sun within the first few months. One day, however, her cell was searched and her manuscripts confiscated, dealing Savitri a devastating blow. The manuscripts seemed doomed to destruction.

For two weeks, she agonized over her manuscripts, alternating between stratospheric defiance and blackest depression. And it is here, in her darkest hour, that Savitri Devi finally had her most profound insight, which leads to Defiance’s core philosophical meditation on the Nazi ethics of detached and selfless duty. She consoles herself in the face of the imminent destruction of her manuscripts—the favorite children of her brain—by reminding herself that a true Aryan does what is right, regardless of personal consequences, leaving those to the gods to sort out.

For Savitri, the right thing to do is nothing less than the perfection of the cosmos by contributing to the emergence of the Superman, which she takes to be the ultimate aim of National Socialism. She cannot control what is done with her manuscripts, but she can take solace in the fact that she has acted in the cosmic interest, an aim which justifies any expediency—even humiliations, lies (which she detested), and tactical alliances with the hated enemy—and renders her personal suffering of no consequence.

Eventually, for unexplained reasons, Savitri’s manuscripts were returned to her. Far from being grateful to her captors, however, she regarded them with incredulous contempt. All thanks were reserved to “the invisible powers” that she felt were watching out for her.

Savitri then resolved to complete her manuscripts right under Colonel Vickers’ nose, only this time she took additional precautions to ensure their survival. We see that while never compromising or attenuating her extremism, Savitri Devi has learnt the value of employing more careful methods in the interest of long-term results.

Defiance is an enormously entertaining book, told in a rousing and poetic style, blending philosophical meditation with personal revelation in a hypnotic, novel-like narrative.

Unavailable for over half a century, the new Centennial Edition of Defiance is elegantly designed, lavishly illustrated with archival photographs, and carefully edited to the highest scholarly standards. It was initially offered as a limited edition of 200 hand-numbered clothbound copies, which proved highly collectible. If you covet one, you may be in for a wait, as I imagine only death will separate current owners from their copies. Fortunately, however, the new edition of Defiance has now been released in a high-quality, smyth-sewn paperback edition.

I highly recommend it to those who enjoyed Mister and want additional reading in the same vein to tide them over until my next novel.

Roald Amundsen's The South Pole

The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the Fram, 1910-1912
Roald Amundsen
London: Hurst & Company, 2001
(First Published in 1912 by John Murray)

Review first published in TOQ Online: http://www.toqonline.com/2010/03/the-south-pole/

Having reviewed Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s account of Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition, and having over the Yuletide read Scott’s diaries from the latter, I deemed it opportune to read Roald Amundsen’s account of his pioneering journey to the South Pole. After all, Scott and Amundsen reached the Pole within a month of each other, and this is, so to speak, the other side of the story.

If you are not familiar with the history of Antarctic exploration, for this review to make sense you will need to know that in the year 1910 two teams of explorers, one British, lead by Scott, and the other Norwegian, led by Amundsen, set sail to Antarctica, with the aim of being the first to reach the South Pole. Both men were successful, but Amundsen arrived first and he and his team returned to their base, and then home, without incident; while Scott and his men perished on the Ross Ice Shelf during their return journey. Scott’s tent was found eight months later by a rescue party, who discovered Scott’s frozen body and those of two of his party of five, along with their diaries. Scott’s fate turned him into a tragic national hero, and, being a skilled wordsmith, it was his story that was told across the English-speaking world: his diaries underwent numerous editions and re-prints, from popular to lavishly-illustrated, and became mandatory reading for schoolchildren, until eventually his tale was made into a film in 1948, starring John Mills. Amundsen’s story, on the other hand, had a much more limited readership and is, therefore, less well known.

Scott’s and Amundsen’s accounts, however, are equally interesting, albeit for entirely different reasons. While Scott’s possesses romance and pathos, Amundsen’s is engaging on a technical level: here is where you learn how to mount a successful expedition, and get a sense of the Norwegian temperament as well.

The South Pole is a considerable work, spanning 800 pages in the modern reprint edition (the original edition came in two volumes). It begins with Amundsen’s preparations in Norway in 1909 and concludes with Amundsen’s disembarkation at Hobart, Tasmania, in 1912; what lies in between is more or less as detailed a relation of events as Cherry’s own, written ten years later. Amundsen’s tone and style is very different from that of the Englishmen: the 43-year-old Scott was anxious and prone to depression; the 36-year-old Cherry (writing nearly a decade after the events) was more philosophical and psychological; the 39-year-old Amundsen, by contrast, is colder, calmer, relatively detached, and prone to ironic understatement. In some ways, his tone is very similar to mine in Mister, except my diction and syntax are somewhat more baroque.

Amundsen arrived in Antarctica in January 1911, and established his base, Framheim, on the Ross Ice Shelf (then known as “the Barrier”), at the Bay of Whales, 803 miles away from the South Pole and 350 miles to the East of Scott’s base, in Cape Evans, Ross Island. This placed Amundsen’s base 60 miles nearer to the Pole than Scott’s – a considerable distance considering that it was to be covered without the aid of motorized transport.

The shore party consisted of 97 dogs and eight humans, all Norwegian: Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, Oscar Wisting, Jørgen Stubberud, Hjalmar Johansen, Kristian Prestrud, and Roald Amundsen. Like Scott, they built a hut, but, unlike Scott, when the snow and drift started to cover it, Amundsen’s party allowed it to be buried, and expanded their living quarters by excavating a network caverns in the ice, where they set up their kennel and their workshops. This not only afforded them more space, but also insulated them from the elements.

During the Winter months leading up to the polar journey, Amundsen and his team continuously optimized their equipment, testing it and refining it for the conditions on the ground. Scott’s team were doing exactly the same over at their base, of course, but it seems, from this account, that Amundsen went further, being extra meticulous and paying close attention to every detail. Boots and tents were redesigned; sledges and cases were shaved down to make them lighter; stacking, storage, and lashing techniques were perfected, and so on. In the end, Amundsen ended up with truly excellent equipment and highly efficient arrangements. For example: while Scott’s parties had to pack and unpack their sledges every time they set up camp, Amundsen’s sledges were packed in such a way that everything they needed could be retrieved without unlashing the cases or disassembling the cargo on their sledges. This was a significant advantage in an environment prone to blizzards and where temperatures are often so low that touching metal gives instant frostbite.

Amundsen had spent time observing and learning from the Inuit and possessed a thorough understanding of working with dogs. Scott, on the other hand, although the most experienced Antarctic explorer of the age and indeed a valuable source of information for Amundsen and his men, had become reluctant to use dogs due to their poor performance during the Discovery Expedition he had lead in 1901-1903, during which many of the animals visibly suffered. The problem, however, was not so much dogs in general but the choice of dogs, and Amundsen’s chosen breed of canine was better adapted for Antarctic conditions. So much so, in fact, that Amundsen eventually decided to travel by night, because his dogs preferred the colder temperatures.

The postmortem examination of Scott’s and Amundsen’s expeditions have led experts to conclude that Amundsen’s decision to base his transport on dogs was decisive in the outcome of their respective polar journeys. Scott’s transport configuration, relying on motorized sledges, ponies, dogs, and man-hauling has been described as ‘muddled’. This is certainly the conclusion one draws from reading the accounts of the two expeditions. Amundsen’s dogs afforded him with pulling power that was up to seven times greater than Scott’s. What is more, Amundsen’s men ate the dogs along the way, in the measure that they were no longer needed because of the staged depoting of supplies for the return journey; this provided them with an additional source of fresh meat (the other was seal meat, obtained at the edge of the barrier), which they needed to stave off scurvy. Scott’s party, on the other hand, was blighted by the early failure of the motorized sledges and the poor performance of the ponies. Although he and his men ate the ponies, they relied heavily – and once on the plateau exclusively – on man-hauling. Man-hauling is far more strenuous than skiing, like Amundsen’s men did, and this soon led to a deterioration in Scott’s party’s physical condition.

This takes us to the diet. Scott’s understanding of a polar explorer’s nutritional requirements was the best that could be expected from the Edwardian era, so he cannot be blamed for having had inadequate provisions. Indeed, having learned from his failed bid for the Pole in 1902 and from Shackleton’s own failure in 1909 (in both cases the men starved and developed scurvy), Scott paid close attention to nutrition and worked closely with manufacturers to obtain specially-formulated food supplies. Moreover, Scott also had the Winter party (Cherry, Edward Wilson, and Henry Bowers) experiment with proportions during their journey to Cape Crozier to secure Emperor penguin eggs. Yet, the fact remains that, in terms of its energy content, his diet of pemmican, biscuits, chocolate, butter, sugar, and tea fell well short of what was needed. Ranulph Fiennes and Mike Stroud, the first explorers ever to achieve the unsupported (you-carry-everything) crossing of the Antarctic, found their caloric consumption averaging 8,000 calories a day, and sometimes spiking at over 11,500 calories a day. The Scott team’s intake was around 4,000, and the result was, inevitably, starvation, cold, and frostbites. Worse still, lack of vitamin C, the primary cause of scurvy, caused wounds to heal very slowly, a situation that eventually led to the breakdown and death of 37-year-old Petty Officer Edgar Evans in Scott’s South Polar party. Amundsen’s men had an abundant supply of fresh meat, coming from dog and seals, as well as the typically Scandinavian wholegrain bread, whortleberries, and jam, so they were very well supplied of vitamin C. With a lower caloric consumption (typically at 5,000 calories a day), they were very well fed throughout their journey, and Amundsen was able to progressively increase rations well beyond requirements. As a result, Amundsen’s men remained strong, staved off scurvy, and suffered no frostbites.

Scott blamed the failure of his expedition on poor weather and bad luck. Amundsen, who greatly respected Scott, says in the present volume, written before he learnt of Scott’s fate:

I may say that this is the greatest factor — the way in which the expedition is equipped — the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it. Victory awaits him who has everything in order — luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck.

It would be too harsh to say this applied to Scott, because Amundsen did, after all, enjoy relatively good weather (he even eventually dispensed with the very warm fur outfits we see in the photographs), whereas unseasonably low temperatures and harsh conditions hit Scott’s party during the return journey across the Ross Ice Shelf. (Remember this is a huge geographical feature: a platform, hundreds of miles long, comprised entirely of iron-hard ice up to half a mile deep, flat (except near land) in every direction as far as the eye can see – it is so large that it has its own weather system.) Similarly, on their approach to the Pole, Scott’s team had found conditions on the plateau, particularly after 87°S, especially severe, with bitter head-on winds, rock-hard sastrugi, and snow frozen into hard, abrasive crystals – this made pulling sledges especially difficult. Imagine pulling 200 lb sledges on sandpaper, day after day, week after week, with 50-70 degrees of frost, eating less than half what you need. It must be remembered, at the same time, that the Antarctic was for most part terra incognita: Scott’s furthest South in the Discovery Expedition was 82°17′S, a latitude located on the Ross Ice Shelf; Shackleton’s 88°23′S, somewhere on the plateau; no one knew what the South Pole looked like or what they would find there, and Scott only had Shackleton’s verbal account of the conditions on the Beardmore Glacier and Antarctic plateau to go by. Today we know that the continent, approximately the size of Europe and once located on the Earth’s equator, is under a sheet of ice several kilometers deep; that the ice covers 98% of its surface; that the plateau, extending a thousand kilometers, is nearly 10,000 feet above sea level; that there are mountain ranges and nunataks in its more Northernly latitudes; and much more. Also today there is an enormous American-run research station on the South Pole, as well as dozens of stations spread across the continent; we have radio and satellite communications, high resolution imaging, mountains of very detailed data; we also have aeroplanes and motor vehicles able to operate in the Antarctic airspace and terrain. None of this existed in 1911. Much of the nutritional, meteorological, and glaciological knowledge we have today was discovered decades later. The early explorers were doing truly pioneering work on a landscape as mysterious and as alien as another planet.

It is interesting to note that both Amundsen and Scott were quite surprised to find themselves descending as they approached the South Pole. Indeed, once past the glaciers that give access to the Antarctic plateau from the Ross Ice Shelf, the Pole is hundreds of feet below the plateau summit on that side of the continent.

Amundsen’s original ambition had been to conquer the North Pole. For most of his life, he tells us, he had been fascinated by the far North. That he turned South owed to his being beaten to the North Pole by the American explorers Fredrick Cook (in 1908) and Robert Peary (in 1909), who made independent claims. Therefore, upon reaching the South Pole, Amundsen experienced mixed feelings: he says that it did not feel to him like the accomplishment of his life’s ambition. All the same, aware of the controversies surrounding Cook’s and Peary’s polar claims, he determined to make absolutely certain that he had indeed reached the geographical South Pole, and spent several days taking measurements with a variety of instruments within a chosen radius. He named his South Pole station Polheim. There he left a small tent with a letter for Scott to deliver to the King Haakon VII of Norway, as proof and testimony of his accomplishment in the event he failed to return to base safely.

As it happens, subsequent evaluations of the Polar party’s astronomical observations show that Amundsen never stood on the actual geographical Pole. Polheim’s position was determined to be somewhere between 89°57’S and 89°59’S, and probably 89°58’5’’ – no further than six miles and no nearer than one and a half miles from 90°S. However, Bjaaland and Hanssen, during the course of their measurements, walked between 400 and 600 meters away from the Pole, and possibly a few hundred meters or less. Scott, arriving a month later, did not manage to stand on the actual Pole either. This, however, was the best that could be done with the instruments available at the time.

Amundsen’s success resulted not only from his careful planning and good fortune, but also from his having set the single goal of reaching the South Pole. Comparatively little science was done on the field, as a result, although geological samples were brought back, both from Amundsen’s Polar party as well as Kristian Pestrud’s Kind Edward VII Land’s party, and meteorological and oceanographical studies were conducted. Scott’s expedition, by contrast, was primarily a scientific expedition, and was outfitted accordingly. It was certainly not designed for a race. Conquering the Pole was important in as much as the expedition’s success or failure was to be judged by the press and the numerous private sponsors on that basis: a hundred years ago, the whole enterprise of polar exploration was fiercely nationalistic in character, in marked contrast to the internationalist character of Antarctic research since the signing of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959.

Scott found out about Amundsen’s plans while on route to the Antarctic. Needless to say that this caused a great deal of anger, particularly as Amundsen had kept his plans secret until he was well on his way. Scott’s men obviously hoped that Amundsen would be having a rough time on his side of the barrier (indeed, he experienced lower temperatures, but, on the other hand, he enjoyed fewer blizzards). Yet, when the Englishmen aboard the Terra Nova paid a visit to the Norwegians at Framheim, they quite naturally had a number of questions but were otherwise cordial. They all took it like the soldiers a number of them were.

It is inspiring to read the accounts from the heroic era of Antarctic exploration. They highlight the most admirable qualities of European man, and serve as an example to modern generations in times when men of the caliber we encounter in these tales have (apparently) become rare. Enthusiasts have noted the marked difference in tone between the books written by explorers Fiennes and Stroud in the early 1990s, and the books and diaries written by Scott, Amundsen, and Douglas Mawson a hundred years ago: the latter, they say, come across as far more stoic, far harder, and able to write poetically about the hostile Antarctic environment even in the most adverse of situations. This perhaps not surprising when one considers that European civilization was at its zenith in terms of power and confidence in the years immediately preceding the Great War. I think truly hard men still exist, but sensibilities have obviously changed, perhaps because of the outcome of two great European civil wars, perhaps because the equality-obsessed modern culture encourages men to adopt feminine qualities in the same measure that it encourages women to adopt masculine ones. Whatever the reasons, this type of literature is most edifying and a healthy antidote to all the whining, fretting, and apologizing – not to mention in-your-face fruitiness from certain quarters – that has become so prevalent in recent decades.

The South Pole is not as intimidating as it might at first appear: there are numerous photographs and the print is quite large, so a fast reader can whiz through this tome at the speed of light, if he or she so wishes. In addition, it is not all Amundsen’s narrative: the last 300 pages consist of Kristian Pestrud’s account of his journey to King Edward VII’s land; first lieutenant Thorvald Nilsen’s account of the voyage of the Fram; and scientific summaries dealing with the geology, oceanography, meteorology, and the astronomical observations at the Pole. Pestrud’s and Nilsen’s contributions are also written in a tone of ironic detachment, blending formality with humor, which suggests to me, having met and dealt with Norwegians over the years, that this might be characteristic of the Norwegian temperament.

There is certainly more to Antarctic literature than conspiracy theories about Zeta Reticulans and Nazi UFOs.

Should We Have Our Own 'Kosher' Certification?

First published in The Occidental Observer: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Kurtagic-Kosher.html

In a recent blog entry I suggested — at the time rather ironically — that we would do well to take a leaf from the Torah and devise for ourselves something analogous to the Jewish kosher certification. For those unfamiliar with it, food that has been certified as kosher, or fit for consumption in accordance to Jewish dietary laws (kashrut, a subset of the Jewish law, or Halakha), is usually given a certification marking (hechsher) by local rabbinic authorities. Hechsherim are found on a wide range of food products, as well as on items not meant for consumption, but usually linked to food, such as food wrapping and cleaning products. The best known hechsher in the United States is that awarded by the Orthodox Union, and consists of a circled capital “U”; it is not, however, the only one. Anti-Semites tend to refer to the kosher certification as “the kosher tax”, alleging that manufacturers are blackmailed by Orthodox rabbis — the ‘Kosher Nostra’ — into certifying themselves for the benefit of the tiny percentage of Jews who follow the kashrut; and that, because the certification entails not only costly changes to the manufacturing process, but also undisclosed annual fees, this amounts to a scam whereby Jews manage to raise obscene amounts of money that are then channeled toward funding Zionist activities.



As always, it is impossible prove or disprove anti-Semitic conspiracy theories: for every argument, there is always a counter-argument, and, in the end, the presence or absence of a conspiracy does not matter, because the final result is the same, whatever that result may be. Irrespective of whether it is everything it claims to be or a sinister scam, however, I like the idea of a certification marking that indicates to the consumer that they are purchasing a product from a friendly — or at least non-hostile — company, as in a culture that has become inimical to White interests, in an environment where so many corporate businesses actively fund anti-White causes, the presence of a White-friendly marking would be immensely reassuring. I believe we could profit from developing some form of White-friendly certification, and that this could be modeled after its Jewish counterpart, even if our version ends up not necessarily relating to a set of dietary laws.

In this article I am not going to discuss the reasons for kashrut, which are varied complicated and which have been discussed by Kevin MacDonald in A People that Shall Dwell Alone. I am going to limit myself to examining the kosher certification: its origins, the certifying bodies, the marketing arguments, the requirements, and the process of certification. I am then going to explore the challenges involved in adapting this concept to our purposes, if this is deemed to be part of the way forward.

Kosher Certification

The practice of marketing food products as kosher originated in the United States. It is also a relatively recent phenomenon, dating back to 1911, when Proctor and Gamble began advertising Crisco as kosher. By the 1960s, the hotdog and sausage company Hebrew National was already running campaigns designed to appeal beyond a Jewish constituency. From this point forward, the kosher market expanded rapidly, and is now worth billions of dollars.

The kosher certification is usually awarded by Orthodox rabbis, both trained in food production technology and affiliated to organizations offering food preparation supervision services, such as the Orthodox Union (a.k.a., Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America) or the Badatz Igud Rabbonim (in the United Kingdom). These rabbis assume the role of mashgiach, meaning ‘supervisor’. Mashgiachim will supervise the products and processes involved in the manufacture of kosher food in order to ensure their compliance with the required standards. Manufacturers are allowed to apply a hechsher to the packaging of a product only if the latter is found to contain exclusively kosher ingredients and is prepared in accordance with Halakha. Additional words or letters may be added after the hechsher to indicate the presence of meat (M), dairy (D), neither meat nor dairy (pareve), whether the product is produced on dairy equipment (DE), whether it is suitable for Passover (P) because it contains no chametz, whether the product is pas yisroel (Y, bread baked at least in part by a Jew), cholov yisroel (C, any dairy product originating in Jewish-owned farms), or yoshon (‘old’: containing grain that took root before the previous Passover).



As can be sensed from these labels, the principles governing kashrut are far more complicated than simple avoidance of pork or keeping meat and dairy separate. For example, only meat from mammals that both ruminate and have cloven hooves can be kosher. Animals that eat other animals, and animals that have been at least partially eaten by other animals, cannot be kosher. Fish must have fins and scales to be kosher, while shellfish and other non-fish fauna cannot be kosher. A kosher-keeping Jew must wait between one and six hours after eating meat before consuming dairy. Mammals and fowl must be slaughtered in a specific fashion, by a trained individual, who must sever the animal’s jugular vein, carotid artery, oesophagus, and trachea with a single cutting movement, using an unserrated, sharp knife (failure to do so, or discovery of a defect or disease that might have caused the animal to die within a year, will make the meat unsuitable). Utensils used for non-kosher foods become non-kosher, and make even otherwise kosher food prepared with them non-kosher; depending on the materials of manufacture, some of these instruments can be made suitable for preparing kosher food again by means of immersion in boiling water or application of a blowtorch. The list goes on.

There is no question, therefore, that keeping kosher requires a great deal of effort and thought. Kosher certifying agencies, however, are remarkably effective at selling their services, as the proliferation of kosher products on supermarket shelves will testify. Said agencies claim that kosher certified status “plays a very important role in increasing the sales [and exports] of a food company.” They point out that shifts in consumer demand and food technology, changes in national policies, and globalization have introduced a great many new variables in food production, and that the relentless pursuit of profit and increased productivity has led to excesses in the food sector that have ended up eroding consumer confidence. Kosher certification, they argue, offers a solution to these challenges, providing “an economic advantage, a serious method of traceability, a response to problems of globalization, and, at the same time, a guarantee of food safety.”

It is asserted by these organizations that a company producing kosher products will appeal not only to Jews, who are, admittedly, only a small fraction of the food market, but also to Muslims, Buddhists, Seventh Day Adventists, vegetarians, vegans, ecologically-minded groups, allergy sufferers, and quality-conscious consumers. Food manufacturers are promised being able to take full advantage of the modern health and natural food craze by becoming kosher certified. Kosher certifying agencies point out that “there is greater concern for information on the origin and composition of food products” following a series of “food crises during the 1990s (dioxane, listeriosis, and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (‘mad cow’ disease or BSE) as well as the fear of an impending pandemic of Asian Bird Flu (H5NI)”; and argue that the kosher certification process is an asset because it makes food traceable. Finally, food manufacturers are reminded that globalization is not always compatible with health and food safety, due to varying standards across the world and the fact that “the system of controls privileges the fluidity of the logistics of exchange, to the detriment of food safety.”

In addition, kosher certifying agencies also use religious arguments, invoking the Torah and the Deuteronomy.

The certification process involves a number of steps. First, a company wishing to become kosher certified is asked to complete an online application form. This will trigger a telephone call during which the certifying organization will seek to gather information about ingredients and products; the company’s prospects for kosher certification will be discussed at this stage. Based on the information provided by the company, the certifying organization will then send a committee to the company’s production plant, to conduct a thorough inspection. A post-visit analysis and evaluation will highlight problem areas and propose possible solutions; these may involve the replacement of animal ingredients with vegetable-derived or synthetic-origin alternatives. Once the certifying organization is satisfied that the company complies with all the kosher requirements, the company is advised of their supervision and financial obligations. Certifying organizations do not disclose their annual fees, but it seems that these vary depending on the amount of work required by the certifying organization. The kosher certified company then signs an annual agreement, is issued with a Letter of Certification, and is allowed to apply a hechsher to its certified products.



Because of the complexity of food production, and the fact that any alteration in the production process, the ingredients, or the composition of the ingredients involved in the manufacture of a product could well render that product non-kosher, supervision must be continuous. Monitoring is part of the annual agreement with the certifying organization, and involves regular visits by a field representative — typically an expert in the company’s specific area of food production. The supervision process is further reinforced by grapevines maintained by Jews who monitor food companies, to ensure the accuracy of the labeling: This is because pre-printed packaging may be used on products that have ceased to be kosher, or a product that has become kosher is not yet being sold with the hechsher applied to the packaging.

I have seen evidence suggesting that keeping kosher must be a tricky affair. When I first came across anti-Semitic literature denouncing the “Kosher Tax.” I looked out the tiny kosher markings in my favourite food items while shopping at the supermarket, and these kept appearing and disappearing every few months, without apparent explanation.

There are a number of interesting aspects to kosher certification. Firstly, as far as I am aware, most Whites who are not members of a kosher-keeping sect (like Seventh Day Adventism), are unaware of the existence of such a certification, or what the kosher markings look like. Secondly, the kosher markings are not widely advertised, as far as I have seen: I only ever came across them while researching anti-Semitism. Thirdly, information concerning the cost of going kosher for food companies does not seem to be widely available; there may be a good explanation for this, given the fact that the production and logistical complexities of going kosher may vary widely from one company to another, depending on the type of food products they specialize on, the configuration of their production plant(s), their specific storage and preparation processes, the origin and nature of their ingredients, and so forth — there may be a good explanation, I say, but the fact is that it does not seem possible or easy for a consumer to find out exactly what effect kosher certification has on his or her grocery bill. Finally, although kosher certifiers present themselves as simply offering an advantageous solution to those who desire it, in the presence of a clear economic advantage it is evident that these organisations have a strong incentive to research and approach food companies manufacturing uncertified products; it would be interesting to know whether such companies are ever put under pressure — subjected to hard sale techniques — by ambitious, growth-orientated kosher certification agencies. At best, some of these aspects appear to defeat the argument for going kosher (if people are ignorant of the markings, let alone of the alleged advantages of kosher, why would they choose a kosher product over a non-kosher one?); at worst, they supply fuel for all manner of dark, conspiratological fantasy.



Interestingly, kosher certificates are said to be least reliable in Israel, where certification organizations, realizing that there is money to be made selling certificates claiming the highest standards of kashrut, pervert the certification process by conducting few or no checks.

Challenges

A certification indicating that a given company or product is White-friendly should be obvious to supporters of this website. As I said earlier, I would find it reassuring to know that my money is not going to a company that funds odious causes, such as Third World aid and development programmes, or engages in nefarious practices, such as employing Third World immigrant labour or having their products manufactured in squalid Third World sweatshops. Yet, because White people are diverse, not linked to a single or autochthonous religion, and do not follow a particular dietary law, for us it is not simply a question of copying the kosher concept. At most, we can copy the methods, procedures, and organizational structure of the certifying agencies. Beyond that, however, we have to elaborate our own principles of certification, based on our own realities and designed around our own needs.

A generic “pan-Aryan” certification is at this time both the obvious choice and out of the question. So is a certification clearly based on race: Boasting that a business is White-friendly, or White-owned, would fall foul or current legislation, and no matter how sound an argument we present vis-à-vis Black- or Jewish- or Latino- or whatever-only organizations, any legal challenge would be met with a decision contrived to keep the conscious pursuit of White racial interests illegal. Nevertheless, this has to be the motive for developing and marketing a certification.

Kosher certification is predicated on religion — a single religion that is exclusive to Jews and recognized by everyone. Yet kosher certification transcends religion: For example, in the United States (along with Israel the country with the largest number of Jews), Jews represent less than 3 percent of the population, out of which only one sixth maintain a kosher diet. (Of course, to these we must add the Jews who maintain a partially kosher diet, by abstaining from pork and keeping meat and dairy separate.) Given the number of food products available and the number of them that are certified kosher, we can infer that kosher certifying agencies have been both very persuasive and met with receptivity in the food industry. Kosher certification agencies are probably aware that barriers to entry to non-Jewish-owned companies are likely reduced by corporate fear of the anti-Semitic libel. Whether reality or a canard, Jewish power is perceived to be considerable, so fear of the economic consequences resulting from the libel is real. To what extent it is possible for them to capitalize on this fear, and how many of them actually do, has not been researched, as far as I know. But there is no doubt that a White-friendly certification agency would not enjoy these advantages.



European-derived peoples are linked to Christianity, and Christians have some dietary prescriptions, such as avoiding meat on Fridays or during Lent. However, apart from the fact that these do not involve any specific preparation processes or a selection or separation of ingredients requiring supervision at the manufacturer level by an external agency, Christianity, unlike Judaism, is a universalist religion, not limited to a specific people or national origin: anybody can be accepted as a Christian, subject to conversion. Therefore, a Christian-friendly marking on a product, be it food or something else, would not be an indication of White friendliness. In can often be an indication of White hostility.

We can always return to pagan tribalism, and in some areas this völkisch approach seems to offer a viable solution, but in a globalized economy, only a very narrowly-defined subset of small and medium enterprise will want to market itself as advancing specifically Celtic, Indo-Germanic, or Anglo-Saxon traditions and values. Ethnically European-orientated companies, organisations, and subcultures do exist, and their approach may well become a mini-trend in the future, as White populations dwindle and European tribes become progressively more exotic in time and space. But an overtly racialised approach will probably remain prohibited and taboo until Whites cease to be perceived as a threat by a dominant non-White majority — something not likely to occur until that majority becomes as soft and as decadent as Whites have become during the past century.

A negative approach is always an option, and would consist of delegitimizing kosher certification. The BNP has campaigned against halal slaughter in the United Kingdom on the basis that it is cruel and inflicts unnecessary suffering to animals. The kosher and halal slaughtering methods are similar, and therefore kosher certification can be attacked using the relatively popular animal welfare, or animal rights, arguments. A detailed analysis of the actual costs and benefits of going kosher could also expose flaws in the kosher marketing arguments, particularly where kashrut requires the replacement of natural products by alternatives of synthetic origin. Yet, while the stick must always complement the carrot, without a carrot we are once again engaged in a purely negative campaign; and what we need is a positive message that broadcasts an uplifting vision of ourselves: No one likes an old codger who is always complaining and grumbling about how bad things are. A significant obstacle we face presently, therefore, is ourselves, for the White advocacy movement has yet to formulate an uplifting vision of Whiteness and the future that is not stuck in a slough of negativity or in nostalgia for a past that cannot and will never return. We must think of us pulling forward, not just of pushing others backward.

In sum, adapting the kosher certification concept is riddled with challenges. It might not be adaptable at all, given that it was designed by Jews, for Jews, and Jewish culture has a number of unique traits that go with the grain of the kosher certification concept, but which are alien to the diverse European cultures. Besides religious dietary laws of ancient provenance, we must include among these traits high levels of ethnocentrism, extended kinship social organization, and moral particularism (the European model, in contrast, is based on weak ethnocentrism, the nuclear family, and moral universalism).

I do not claim to have the answer, but it is certain that whatever certification we develop — if we are to develop anything of the kind (and, I repeat, it does not have to involve food) — must go with the grain of our own common cultural characteristics. It must, in other words, be difficult to emulate, individually and structurally, by those not sharing our blood, soil, history, heroes, and traditions, so that it is impervious, or at least resilient, to infiltration and subversion.