Journal Entry, Oct. 3, 2021: On existence, work and authenticity

I have become slightly acquainted to the truth of existence, work and authenticity.

The path of spiritual growth of all things involves starting out in a state of affirmation, entering and passing through a state of negation, and from thence entering a state of superaffirmation, which is at the same time a return to the first state of simple affirmation. Thus things only reach to their full potential in their negation, which is to say more specifically, a life-or-death encounter, a conflict, a battle, a war with their diametrical opposite, which threatens to destroy them, and from that encounter emerging victorious. This is what I call to be “tempered by the furnace”; in the struggle of wrestling with one’s own negation, one becomes stronger and is able to reassert one’s self with a new vivacity, returning to the affirmation of the self. What this means, is that the negation is an essential component, a critical moment, that makes it possible for the affirmation to truly be affirmed in reality, and not in theory or conception. This line of thinking is, on its own, nothing new; it is not much of a modifcation of Hegel, except that it is a true treatment of Hegel, taking him at his own word; and in that, we arrive at something which is greater than the thought of Hegel, that completes his thought, and, in turn, brings it to its full potential.

That is because what all this means is that the self can only truly be affirmed by being negated. I can only truly act authentically, and authentically be myself, when I negate myself, and in that way am not myself. Self-negation is an essential phase, a critical moment that leads to self-affirmation; if I myself do not temper myself in the furnace, that is to say, face off with my own negation of myself, I do not truly get to be myself. Only is my concept of self strengthened and invigorated, and given true life and true form, by passing through that shadow realm, where my self is negated and brought to the brink of destruction. I think that this is the reason why Buddhism holds the notion of anatman to be true. Nirvana is the extinguishment, not of existence, but of the self; it is the full realization and accomplishment of anatman, the realization that my self does not exist. And in that, in passing through that self-negation and realization of anatman, I become truly myself, and am able to act in the most authentic way, and in that sense I truly exist, with a new power and vivacity that I did not possess before this realization.

The word realization, however, implies both a coming to understand (or gaining of the heart, kokoroeru) of a thing, and the putting into practice of a thing (as literally, realizing, “to make real”, lit. “to make into a thing”). Therefore to merely understand that the self does not exist, and to think my self to not exist, is not enough. One must also practice this principle, and put it to work in one’s real life.

The idea of action in the real world is inextricably tied up with the idea of work, or labor. As Nishitani says, (and here I don’t know how much is his own thought or an interpretation of Heidegger, whom I have not read yet) our being is being in both a place and a time, and in its being as a being in time it is extruded along the dimension of time, and therefore involves contortions, transformations and inflections along that dimension of time. This means that we are only existing in time and existing in general in that we are doing things, that is, in that we are doing work, and changing ourselves and the world around us. I reject the modern notion of work as something you do for a certain number of hours at some company’s office. Work is natural to all things that exist, and all things that exist only exist in that they are doing work. Working in that sense is the same as breathing; if one stops working, just as if one stops breathing, one might as well not be living, existing. Whether one is doing physical exercise or labor, or mental as in reading or learning, or some creative pursuit or craft that involves working with the hands or with either fine or gross movements, one is doing work. What we do becomes what we are. Since work is being, authenticity in being requires an authenticity in one’s doing things, or an authenticity in work.

Remember, the true realization of the authentic self is only possible through self-negation. And as we have mentioned above, existence is inextricably tied up with work. This means, in order to be authentic in our being, we must be authentic in our work, and, just as authenticity of being is only possible through self-negation, authenticity in work is likewise only possible through self-negation. When we do our work, we must completely forget ourselves. We must not think about what we will think of the outcome, or what others will think of it, but only do it. This is the basic formula, but it is vague and alone it is not enough. We must also consider the completed product of our work in itself and our relation to that product. The relation of one to the product of one’s work is usually understood as an attachment of one’s name to that product, in order that when others see it, they will know whose deeds these were. In attaching our names to our works, we are polluting them with the future intention of having others associate our work with ourselves and spreading our name and fame in that way. This intention polluted by the seeking of fame erodes the authenticity of the work, which, to be truly authentic, must have its intention within itself (exist for itself). Because it doesn’t pass through the shadow realm of self-negation, it cannot be truly authentic.

Thus the most authentic work is the anonymous work. It is the work that one has poured one’s heart and soul into, exerted hundreds to thousands of hours of physical or mental labor, the whole time with the full understanding and acceptance of the fact that one will never receive any credit for the work. In creating an anonymous work, or doing anonymous deeds, one is putting self-negation into practice. When one does not care whether or not one will even be associated by others with the finished product, knowing he will receive no credit for its merits, nor criticism for its defects, one is able to put one’s fullest effort and authentic intention into the work. This is true not only for creative works, but for any and all forms of labor, whether physical or mental. Even raking leaves behaves according to these formulae. When there is a name attached to a deed, one cannot help but wonder, and indeed cannot no matter what dispel the doubt or fear, that the deed was done merely to boost the fame or reputation of the doer. By engaging in anonymous work, one is able to do deeds which do not have this doubt attached to them, and that way the deeds become purified, and can truly be considered authentic expressions of the nameless self. An anonymous deed has this form of credit built into it. I prove to you that my deeds were authentic, that I had no ulterior intentions of seeking fame, by abstaining from attaching my name to them and thereby forfeiting any and all fame that may come by them.

This will inevtiably bring a man into great conflict with himself. The self never wants to be negated. Man will, upon hearing of these formulae, rack his brains, thinking, “but what is the point of doing anything, if I should receive no credit whatsoever? It is as if I am wasting my labor.” A true waste of labor is a labor that does not accomplish what it sought out to accomplish; as long as the end is achieved, regardless if there is a name attached or not, is it truly a waste of labor? Does the lack of a name really harm the work? Of course not, it is only a matter of ego. We revel in hearing the praises of people when they give us credit for our deeds; that is human nature, and there is nothing wrong with it. But when we come face-to-face with our negation, and entertain this dilemma in our heads, we are engaging in a battle. We are entering the forge to be tempered. Most cannot make it through, cannot dispense of the appetite for validation by others. But some will think, “I will indeed receive no credit for this, but I do not care! I will do it anyway.” This is the attitude of the Chad. He doesn’t care about what others think, and in not caring about what others think, he is practicing self-negation. His deeds and his works will be infinitely more authentic than anything made for the purpose of seeking fame. And in that infinite authenticity, his self, which has created these anonymous works, has attained a true form of existence, which is purified by self-negation.

There is a reason why many of the great ancient literary works were written anonymously. While Homer wrote down the Illiad and Odyssey, who knows who originated them. All folklore, and the infinite trove of truth they contain, is anonymous, as were the classical Indian works of literature. They were originally not even written down (for, as I believe, writing things down with letters has a similar polluting affect as attaching names, which the ancients must have understood), but merely composed by anonymous sages and passed down orally. They transcend the individual and become truly universal works.

I have heard that in Japanese culture there is the belief that one has three faces: one that is shown even to strangers, one that is shown only to ones friends and family, and one that is never shown to anybody. In that third face lies the true, most authentic form of the self. The self as it exists and what it does when nobody is watching. But, in that most authentic version of the self, there is also present the element of self-negation, for nothing that exists in that inner world, none of the thoughts there, nor the words one says or the deeds one does when nobody is around, have any name attached to them; they won’t even be beheld by anyone in the first place. The self is robbed of its validation, of its selfness, and yet carries on existing anyway, continuing to think and to do. It is purified. That is why it is the most authentic version of the self.

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This is not a proper article like I usually do, but just an informal composition from my journal. I hope the reader will enjoy it all the same

The Decline of the American Empire and the End of History

 

The way a civilization views and understands history tells a lot about that civilization. In our notions of history ultimately lie the very goals of our civilization. Understanding history means knowing where we have come from, and knowing where we are (supposedly) to end up, according to that knowledge. All historical models can be boiled down to two basic types: cyclical history and linear history. Among the various peoples of Europe and Asia, it was cyclical history that was believed in. In cyclical history, time, like the seasons and the revolution of stars and planets, follows a constant schedule, and when it reaches the end of that schedule, it repeats itself. The Vedic religion is among the best examples of the Aryan notion of cyclical time, and the most exhaustively thought-out, although this notion of time also existed among the Chinese and other native groups of the East. Time was seen as a gushing river that was never to dry up, and the events and personalities of history, nothing but stones haphazardly tossed in, at the mercy of the rapids.

The other notion of time, linear time, originates among the Semitic peoples, and eventually was inherited by the Christian religion. In linear time, the universe has a definite starting point and a definite ending point. The events of history are strewn out statically between these two extremes, and nothing exists outside of them. At the end of history, there is nothing less than Judgement Day. God judges the masses of humans, who either spend the rest of eternity in Heaven or Hell. The End of History thus is the point in time when all evil is exterminated, and the good, who are all that remain, live in a perpetual utopia. With the spread to Europe of Christianity, this notion of time and of history all but replaced the native Aryan notion of cyclical time, and we find this reflected again and again in Western Enlightenment philosophy.

The ultimate goal of those who believed in the End of History, then, became the very achievement of that utopia. Utopianism is itself a very Western concept, and has its roots in Plato (one can say it reflects the Aryan spirit of constantly striving for improvement), but after Christianization and the Enlightenment, there was a lively conversation among the philosophers of Europe as to how that utopia was to be achieved. In many cases, this was accompanied by a Christian religious mission, as, for example, in the doctrine of the Social Gospel, which held that Judgement Day and the true End of History would only happen when man of his own ability created a utopia rid of evil on Earth. But, it is accurate to say that the modern notion of the End of History and its utopianism comes from Hegel. According to Hegel, the ultimate goal of mankind is the perfection of spirit (or "mind"), which is to say, spirit's full realization (both in the sense of "knowing" and "achieving") of itself, whereupon mankind enjoys perfect freedom. History, then, serves as the grueling journey of the spirit from the "state of nature", which is pure slavery, to the perfect civilization, aided by reason, rationality and scientific advancement, embodied in the modern omnipotens, omnifaciens state, where all citizens are perfectly moral and perfectly rational.

Hegel's model was expanded and brought to its full life (and, as is to be expected, stripped of its religious undertones) by Marx. In Marx, as in Hegel, history is man's one-way journey to perfect freedom, although that journey is ultimately limited by the availability of material substances which are the currency of economic life. Perfect freedom, therefore, consists in man's common ownership of all these material substances and the economic means of their transaction and production. Hegel's concept of the "contract", as explained in Philosophy of Right as "the process...by which I, existing for myself and excluding another will, am and remain an owner only in so far as I identify myself with the will of another, and cease to be an owner." (PoR, 24) is taken to its logical extreme in Marx, who advocates for a "contract" in which every citizen of the state is a party, at once owning everything and owning nothing. The entire history of the 20th century was defined by the attempted putting into practice of notions such as these, and not only in those states that called themselves "Marxist". For the very same Hegelian ideas of history, which posit us very close to the "end", went on to inspire, not just the communist and socialist regimes, but also the capitalist and liberal ones. In liberalism, the goal is the same as Marxism: the realization of perfect human freedom, albeit through democracy and the free market instead of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and state ownership. Marxism and liberalism thus differ not in their ends, but merely in their means. Nowhere is this more clear than in the Cold War, which was nothing but the liberal West and the socialist East competing to universalize their own specific version of that utopia; both were animated by the same Hegelian dream of "progress".

The idea of universalization is inherent to any linear model of history, because for history to come to its end, the "best" system must be universalized and spread to every continent and every nation. Hegel's perfection of the spirit consists in nothing less than that universalization, for the spirit which is perfectly rational necessarily will produce the perfect system with which to rule the masses of the world. Just as Christ said "there is no Greek or Jew" (in stark contrast to the pre-Christian ethnoreligions of Europe), so too must this system be as perfect for the people of Denmark as it is for the people of Zambia. The Marxist mission and utopian dream may have died with the USSR in 1991 (though it may live on in Xi's China), but the liberal West, spearheaded by the American superstate, has not given up its own version of that dream. The End of History is still in the works.

In 1992, just after the fall of the USSR, American political scientist and ardent apologist for the globalist liberal order, Francis Fukuyama, published The End of History and the Last Man. He argued that the history of humanity was ultimately the history of ideas, and that eventually the best idea would emerge that allotted the maximum amount of freedom to all peoples. This idea he identified as liberalism. With the emergence of this ideology, a few people may stubbornly fight against the rising tides of liberal "progress", but eventually, the whole world would come around to realize that liberalism was the best ideology we have, and would adopt it. With the fall of the USSR and the seeming defeat of liberalism's cousin ideology of Marxism, it would have seemed Fukuyama was correct. Since then, America has continued to live out that fantasy, in its worldwide promotion of "democracy", "human rights", "freedom" and the like. Not to mention the massive American corporations who are feverishly itching to "globalize", and expand their consumer markets to wherever man has set foot. The final version of the world, then, is to be an internationalized, denationalized world, where one cannot tell the difference between New York and Kabul, where everybody enjoys a narrow, Western notion of "freedom", and is never more than five minutes away from a McDonald's.

In recent decades, that "freedom" has been subject to continual redefinition. This is what I call the transition from liberalism to neoliberalism. The liberal ideology, in its Christianity-esque eschatology, is modernist to its core. It's greatest moment of glory was its triumphant conquest of Japan, dismantling the ancient rule of the Emperor and forcing him to renounce his divinity, and forcing that country to adopt a modern, "democratic" constitution that guaranteed "rights for all". Civilization's conquest of barbarity. Therein was the conquest of the old world, the "state of nature" as Hegel would have called it, a backwards world ruled by religious superstition and selfish despots and traditional sociocultural notions that oppress the people. But this species of American modernism underwent a radical mutation over the course of the second half of the 20th century. These notions of "freedom" and "equality" were taken to their logical extremes, extrapolated into every sphere, and thus arose the neoliberal critical doctrines of race, gender, sexuality and so on. This transition also marks the boundary between what Hans-Georg Moeller calls the "right and left wings of American civil religion," the former represented by such figures as Trump and Jordan Peterson, and the latter by what is generally called "Wokeism", and which is the state ideology under the Biden regime. Still, despite their differences, they are two phases of the same thing, and ultimately have the same goals. The older phase is more associated with the Boomer generation, and mainstream American "conservatism", which does nothing but cede ground to the younger neoliberal phase anyway. In any case, it is well on its way out, to be replaced by a more virulent and insane version of itself.

This more recent phase is much more characteristic of postmodernism than modernism, though it retains the same mission as modernism: to universalize itself, and propagate itself all over the world, as the objectively best system, and thereby to create a global utopia of "freedom" at the End of History. As the US establishment and military became dominated by the new, neoliberal phase, images like the following--a pride flag flying above a US military base in Afghanistan--became more and more common.

The modernist mission of US foreign policy, which was to spread "freedom" and "democracy" has, as of the present year, largely been subsumed into the new phase, which is much more focused on these "woke" issues--a perverted Western "freedom" which consists in excess, abuse and license--and humorously been described as a campaign to promote "buttsex in Botswana". It requires the sacrifice of soldier's lives and taxpayer's money in no less magnitude. After all, Biden has made it clear that "human rights" is to be the central focus of US foreign policy going forward. The Western ruling class has convinced itself and all the Western people that this is what Fukuyama's End of History will truly consist in. A world which, in the words of neoliberal "intellectual" Richard Rorty, is a "global civilization in which love is the only law."

If there is to be only one law, regardless of what it is, then it must be a universal law, or a law made universal by its universalization (either willing or forced). A global civilization can only come about through the destruction of all previous civilizations, and their assimilation into the monoculture. Battles for such universalization have taken place all across the world since the start of the 20th century, all in accordance with the eschatology of modernism. Most recently one of those battles reached its conclusion in Afghanistan. But contrary to those who believe, as Fukuyama would have, that the triumph of (neo)liberalism is inevitable, the outcome was rather the victory of the old world over the new. The victory of illiberalism over liberalism. The Taliban, an organization which represents at one and the same time the righteous anger felt by the Afghan people over decades of imperialist domination, and the winds of an ancient force that lies deep within the tradition of Islam, is now in control of the Afghan state. And the US's departure from that country can be described as nothing less than an embarrassing blunder.

For some, the victory of the Taliban may be taken as proof that the road towards "progress", while inevitable, is not always straightforward, and may from time-to-time face setbacks; for me, it simply proves that "progress" is not inevitable, and further that there simply is no such thing as "progress". "Progress" is meant to create a system that is perfect for Man, that is to say, for all men, regardless of nation, race, religion and culture. Man's "Manness" or "humanity" is seen as essential, and these other things as accidental, like a coat of paint that can be changed at any time without consequence. But the reality is the opposite. Man on his own is little more than an animal with red blood and four limbs; it is nation, race, religion and culture that give to men their essential characteristics. These statements would be faced with much opposition if put forward before any Western anthropologist, but, I say, they need no further proof of their validity than the recent events in Afghanistan.

If Western ideals were so perfect and truly worthy of being universalized, why would an entire organization, consisting of average Afghan people from every corner of the country, dedicate decades and risk their lives to oust them? As much as they claim to love "human rights", the Western elites do not seem to think the Afghan people have the right to choose how to run their own country, but must have Western ideals, made for a different people in a different place and different time, forced upon them. If these ideals were so perfect, we would see people flocking to them from all corners of the world. Instead, we see nation after nation rise in opposition to them.

At the same time, these events show the world that America's perverted flavor of (neo)liberal imperialism is not invincible. Like every powerful civilization before it, American has convinced itself of its own history-ending perfection. It is a hubris unlike any seen before, underlined and given form by the notion of linear time. But pride always comes before the fall. The embarrassment in Afghanistan just shows that maybe the American way of doing things isn't as infallible, and the American empire as mighty, as was previously thought. I believe trajectories such as these are all heading towards one inevitable conclusion: the end, not of history, but of modernity.

On Race

People of all political and philosophical persuasions love to talk about race. But it seems that nobody knows what race actually is, and what it means for our world and the people that live in it. In this article we will be discussing race, what it is, how it works, and why it is important.

One of the two preliminary assumptions of Eurasianism is that race is real (the other is that Tradition is real, a topic I will save for another time). Hence race is very relevant in the Eurasianist school of thought.

But, many people today believe that race isn't real. They say it is a "social construct", and that it has no basis in scientific reality. And if you question this, even in a civil and intellectual, evidence-based and logical way, they will accuse you of "scientific racism", whatever that means. Their argument boils down to the notion that race was invented during the European colonial period for Whites to justify "racist" domination of non-White people, and to draw a divisive line between themselves, the "superior race" and their subjects, the "inferior races". They claim that our modern conception of race is inherited from this historic one, and thus represents vestiges of an old "White supremacist system". Biologically speaking, they believe that there are no real differences between the populations we ascribe to one race or another, other than surface-level cosmetic ones, such as skin color, hair color, facial morphology, and the like. Their argument can be summed up in one sentence, there is only one race, the human race.

The main flaw in this argument is that it is completely ignorant of what race actually is, of what we mean when we say the word race. Their treatment of race is semantically very specific, even though race in its present usage is a somewhat imprecise term. At any rate, if we are to have any meaningful dialog, we need a precise definition of the term. That definition should, hopefully, overlap enough with people's everyday understanding of race to be able to explain why it is real, and why it is important.

What is race, then? Race, as a concept, is the natural variation of human types and morphology, the mechanism of which is descent with modification. Indeed, in a biological sense, race is very closely related to the concept of species, although a race is not a species, because members of different races are able to mate and produce fertile offspring. Races are smaller than species, thus we can say that races are equivalent to subspecies, akin to different breeds of dog or cat. Races are basically independent branches of evolution which are younger than the species itself, and are paving the way for the eventual formation of new species in the future via divergent evolution. If you believe in evolution, then you cannot deny that there are human subspecies, unless you also believe that all other creatures have subspecies but somehow man alone does not. It is not too great of a semantic leap from subspecies to races. White, Black, Asian, these can effectively be considered subspecies. In that sense, race is a valid concept.

This biological definition is valuable, but I elect to take it a step further, to arrive at what can be called the essential definition of race. According to such, a race is defined as an ancestral individual or group in addition to all of his/their descendants that ever have been or will be born. This definition of race is much more useful than the subspecies definition, because it allows us to treat groups of related people which are smaller than subspecies. In fact, according to this radical definition of race, a race may consist of as few as three people: a man, his wife and their son. Any group, no matter the size, that shares sanguinary bonds may be called a race. Race thus overlaps with related words such as tribe or what the Romans called gens. In treating race as a concept, as I mentioned above, we are treating the natural variation of human types, we are treating lineages. A lineage can be as small as a household, and may range in size from thence to a clan, a tribe, a nation and further on to families of related nations, finally arriving at what is conventionally called a race today, which is to say a major subdivision or subspecies of the human gens. The concept of race is relevant at all of these levels. Thus all these terms, family, clan, tribe, nation, "race" are all races, and behave according to the same mechanism: descent with modification.

Part of the modern confusion around what race is arises from ignorance of scale. Those who say race doesn't exist will point out the fact that ancient people had no conception of "race", which they mean to say, ancient people had no conception of larger races or subspecies. Romans, Greeks, Egyptians had no conception of White or Black, the way we do today, they say, and here they are actually correct. However, that does not mean they had no conception of race. They simply could not perceive something as large as a White or Black race, because their view of the world was very limited geographically. Though they could talk at length about the differences between a Roman and a Greek, or an Arab and a Jew, and even about how a Roman was likely closer related to a Greek, than a Roman to a Jew, or a Greek to an Arab. They understood how lineages and descent with modification worked, but because their science was not as advanced, they could not comprehend something as large as an entire subspecies of humanity, as the modern race denialists with centuries of ethnography at hand are demanding of them.

Indeed, when Europeans saw a Black or an Asian for the first time, certainly they would have understood immediately that the difference between themselves and this kind of person was even further than between themselves and other European or Near Eastern races. Thus their racial field of vision expanded. Eventually, science got better, and proper studies of relations between human groups could determine the reality: who was related to whom, and by what degree? Today it has been almost completely demystified thanks to DNA science.

The natural variation of human types and morphology definitely is real. Race denialists' refusal to call that race is simply a semantic trap. Point this out to them, and they might then tell you that they do not deny the concept thus described, but that they deny there are any meaningful differences between races. "We are all one big human family," they will say. In their version of reality, the differences between races are purely aesthetic, and amount to nothing more than skin or hair color, that the underlying "individual" is exactly the same as that of all other humans. They also like to point out numbers like, "99.9% of human DNA is the same across all races". This is an infantile argument. Humans share 98.8% of their DNA with chimpanzees, and 60% with bananas. So a White and a Black may be 99.9% the same, but so what? A White and a chimpanzee are 98.8% the same; it's not about how similar 99.9% makes us, but about how different that 0.1% makes us. Just look how different humans are from chimps, even though the genetic differences amount to only a couple percentage points. And the differences between humans and chimps are far more than merely aesthetic.

That brings us to the next point: the differences between races are significant. The with modification part of descent with modification is what's important here. Human traits evolve and change over time, as populations move into different environments, separate themselves from other groups, and intermix with other groups still. We find natural variation not only of genes that determine skin color or average height, but also genes that effect internal physiology and brain function. Genes that make some people smarter, some stronger, others faster or better at digesting certain substances or more prone to certain diseases. It's just evolution and natural selection.

Of course, when you tell a race denialist that the differences between races are real and significant, they will automatically assume that means you think you and your people are superior to everyone else. You must be a "racial supremacist". I'm sure it has been said a million times, but I will say it here again. Just because we admit there are differences between races, and that these differences are significant, does not mean we think one race is better than the rest. That is like saying, which is better, a tiger, a lion, a bear or an eagle. Each one is different, has its own strengths and weakness, and has its own biological niche. A bear is stronger than an eagle, but a bear also can't fly. The same is true of human biodiversity. I'm not going to say anything more about this, because doing so would be coming up with a hundred different ways to say the same thing.

One final point to be made about race is that race is a complicated thing. Races are not neat categories with solidly defined boundaries. Once again, with modification is key. The main reason for this is that all human reproduction results in hybridization, obviously, because both a man and a woman are necessary for reproduction. The implication of this is that human lineages are not like the branches of a tree, emanating from a single source and only splitting from there. Rather, they are constantly both splitting and crisscrossing with other branches. Thus any given race most likely has several different ancestral groups, unless it has been isolated for a very long time. Of course, viewing human races like a tree is still somewhat valuable, as it illustrates the origins and historical development of a dominant part of that race's character. Still, the picture it offers is only fragmentary, as it ignores many potential substrates which contributed to the racial character along the way. A proper understanding of a race should take all of these into account.

A great example of this is the origins of the Japanese people, which even today remains somewhat of an anthropological mystery. What is known is that in ancient times, the Japanese archipelago was inhabited by a people later called the Jomon. Now the Jomon are not what we would conventionally call Asian; they had different cranial structures and much more body and facial hair. Then, around 2000 years ago there was a migration from the Korean peninsula of a people called the Yayoi, who were of a completely different racial character, much more conventionally Asian, like Koreans, with potential ties to a Transeurasiatic or Altaic race. These two races coalesced in ancient Japan and the modern Japanese people are their descendants. There is even evidence that a third ethnic substrate contributed to the formation of Japan, which was Austronesian in character, Austronesians being the dominant Asian subgroup that inhabits the islands of Southeast Asia and Polynesia. This evidence comes in the form of numerous Japanese words which appear to be loans from the Austronesian language, as well as striking similarities between certain episodes of Japanese and Austronesian mythologies. In the final analysis, this shows that while the Japanese are undoubtedly Asian, they simultaneously have ties to people who were not Asian.

In this article we went over the basics of race. We also should have sufficiently dealt with the arguments commonly used by race denialists. The three main points about race we want to emphasize here, are that race is real, the differences between races are significant, and race is complicated. These three will be revisited time and time again throughout the Eurasianist school of thought, especially the third one.

Pioneering is the Future of the Dissident Right

When a society has become unlivable, the disaffected citizens are left with two options: either overturn the society, or break away from the society. Either situation involves the creation of a new society, in the first, out of the ruins of the old society, which must be torn down, often by violence, and in the second, out of the pioneering and development of settlements in new lands, where the degree of physical separation from the existing society allows for the formation of new ones.

Those who are today truly disaffected citizens are, to use the words of Devon Stack, "a subset of a subset of a subset." This lack of numbers and hence lack of power, especially institutional power, makes the first option of overturning the present society impossible. When the disaffected citizens have no control over the societal institutions that rule over them--not even via proxy in the form of elections, as is the case now--there is no chance for them to overturn the present condition of society or otherwise reverse the course of events. Even if elections were fair and honest, time and time again it is demonstrated that even with "your guy" in office, very little changes. The ruling class has the entire apparatus of government, media and industry under lock and key. To preserve their power, the society's institutions have "blacklisted" legitimate use of the system by said disaffected population for the purpose of reversing things. You can't use the system to take down the system.

Some suggest violent solutions, but these are not possible with significant numbers and financial backing, both of which are lacking. Since it is impossible, and because doing so will likely get one involved with federal law enforcement, there is no point in discussing forcefully overturning society--even fantasizing about it.

This being the case, the only option remaining is the second one: departure from the present society and the formation of a new society, with new institutions.

That is what we mean by pioneering; we are using the literal sense of that word. We do not mean "pioneering new ideologies" or "pioneering new solutions". We mean, literally, a migration of like-minded people to "frontier lands", where the influence of mainstream society is markedly less strong. These are almost by necessity rural, underdeveloped areas, where there is not a lot of preexisting wealth, and where making a living will be much more difficult than in urban, developed areas. It may involve more humble lines of work, such as agriculture, pastoralism and hunting. It may involve homesteading and self-sufficiency. It will require people to take responsibility for their own level of comfort and happiness, rather than relying on the existing infrastructure to provide it. This is the price that must be paid for a greater degree of freedom from the mainstream institutions and their disagreeable policies. But, with time, often several generations, the hard work of the pioneers pays off. From that work, the pioneers create their own wealth and their own, new institutions, and pass these on to their progeny. Eventually a new society emerges, with a new culture and new heritage, which may even be strong and wealthy enough to take on the previous society and win.

This is not without historical precedent, both in macro and micro forms. In the macro, there have been many peoples and tribes who migrated to new lands to found new societies. It is not only a natural, but also a common historical process. Just look at all the places across the Earth which are literally named, in their respective languages, "frontier", such as Ukraine and Xinjiang. One major instance of this was the migration of European people to the New World. This was often spurred on by real or perceived religious persecution experienced in their home countries, of for example many of the more puritan varieties of Protestantism, who in coming to America could set up and practice their religion without molestation from the mainstream religious and political institutions at the time. There were countless other reasons for the founding Anglo-Saxon stock of America to leave their societies in Europe to set up "parallel" societies in the Americas. The rural and unsettled state of America was also a lure, and a contrast to the more urbanized Europe. America was in effect a "blank slate" with infinite possibilities. This came to a climax with the creation of the United States, where true independence was declared from the old order, allowing for a new trajectory of development for the Indo-European race, especially its Anglo-Saxon-derived division.

A similar process likely contributed to the formation of Rome. This is reflected first of all in mythology. The founding mythos of Rome, relayed famously in the Aeneid, holds that the ancestors of the Romans were Trojans who fled Troy when it was sacked by the Greeks, wandered for some time, and finally arrived in Italy, which was a new land and the object of their pioneering. Rather than leaving their native society by choice because of some disillusionment, however, they left out of necessity, for their native society had been destroyed and subject to foreign domination. Regardless of the factuality of this migration, it closely exhibits the character Rome had in the early Kingdom days, when the city represented a place of refugee for people who had been rejected by their own native societies. Such people became the founding stock of the Roman civilization.

When a society has become unlivable, often pioneering is the only remedy for those who wish to carry on its true character.

In fact, preserving a civilization's true character is often one of the major motivations for engaging in pioneering and breaking away from one's native society in the first place. When the Anglos came to America, they were not suddenly just Americans, they were Anglo-Americans. They spoke English and carried on the traditions of England and its Anglo-Saxon heritage. But all things, including societies, age and decay, and in doing so they often suffer from the degeneration of their original character. When the Anglo-Americans declared independence from the British crown, they were not renouncing their Englishness, rather the opposite, they were affirming it. They felt themselves to be more in line with the Anglo-Saxon spirit of representative government than the present generation of people in England themselves, including the King. They carried on the true character of the Anglos when that character had been lost among the ruling class. Rather than giving it up, they chose to break away from domination by that ruling class, allowing their true spirit to survive and continue practice unmolested. They became more English than the English.

In the micro, too, we find many instances throughout history where individuals have undergone a similar process. Of modern examples, none can compare with Theodore K., who, finding the impact of industrialism on society, culture and economy intolerable without the renunciation of the entirety of one's dignity and freedom, opted out of the present society and carried on a self-sustainable existence in the wilderness. Another famous story is of the Lykov family in Russia, who were Orthodox Old Believers during the reign of the Soviets' state-enforced atheism. In 1936, when continuing to dwell in society without renouncing their religion carried a real risk of death, they left their town and moved into the wilderness of the Siberian taiga, where they remained for several decades. One of the daughters of the Lykovs remains there to this day.

Of course, in our time period, unlike the Lykovs, remaining in the society doesn't (yet) carry a risk of death. Our society is still relatively "comfortable". It is relatively easy to procure more than enough food, water and energy. Although, there are several ways our society diminishes both the physical and mental wellbeing of inhabitants. But because these are not severe enough for most people to care, the number of people who are truly disaffected--i.e. unwilling to participate in society out of a righteous indignation against mainstream values--is incredibly low. This is simply a reality those who truly get it must come to accept. The vast majority of people will not be moved unless some severe threat to their physical safety and/or comfort emerges, and that may not happen for a long time, if ever. Therefore, dissident movements would be wise to not waste time and energy attempting to "redpill" those people. We must accept the fact that no matter what logically rigorous arguments we may present, some people will still be less moved by them than they would be moved if the power went out for a few days. These people are of no use to any movement, and never will be--forget them. Instead, we should focus on forming small, closely-knit communities of "vanguardsmen". Pioneers, if you will.

We must admit, it is true that today there are no true "frontiers" left. Virtually all the world's land is claimed by some government or another. However, that is not necessarily a deal-breaking obstacle. Controlling land requires governments' wealth and infrastructure, and there are many places across the world, even in America, which are sparsely populated and with low levels of development. Still, it is not as important to gain actual control over land as it is to carve out our own cultural spaces which are insulated from the toxic mainstream. Even though that land might belong to the jurisdiction of the government, the influence of mainstream society and culture is definitely less pronounced there, and by living there it would be much easier to go about setting up communities with our values and way of life without being molested. These would be ideal places for modern "pioneering".

At any rate, a movement of people in this spirit is, in my view, the future of those who consider themselves "dissident right", whether they be ethnonationalists, anarcho-primitivists, eco-fascists, and the like. Our Eurasianist movement (or at least part of it) should also be conducted in this spirit, because our complaints largely overlap with those of the "dissident right". The present society is at odds with the traditions and spirit of Eurasia, and inimical to the people of the West and the East, including their Eurasian co-offspring. Our response, as explained above, should be the opening of new frontiers for Eurasian people, where, owing to the physical separation from the mainstream, we may better continue that spirit and affirm our rich heritages. We must become more Eurasian, more European, more Asian, than the mainstream people of European and Asian extraction are. And, like the American colonists, the only way we can do so is through pioneering.

Why are the Liberals Suddenly Concerned about `Hate Crimes against Asian Americans`?

Anyone who has been even loosely following the mainstream media and discourse in Western countries, especially the United States, most likely has noticed that, as of the past month or so, the principle mouthpieces of the dominant internationalist liberal system have been drawing attention to so-called `hate crimes against Asians`. According to them, Asians in America and other Western nations have become targets of racially motivated abuse and violence at the hands of `White supremacists`. This is due, they further claim, to the `low-intelligence conservative underclass`s blaming of the present pandemic, which originated in an Asian country, on the Asian race in general. Trump is also implicated, simply due to the fact that popularized epithets such as `China virus`, which is apparently `racist`, even though it refers to a sovereign state (the People`s Republic of China), and not to a race or ethnicity. At the same time, these liberals completely ignore actual violence and discrimination against Asian Americans, perpetrated not at the hands of the White working class which they so despise, but at the hands of Black criminal gangsters and even liberals themselves.

Indeed this is a messy situation, with many actors each working in their own self-interests. In this article I will be dissecting the situation, and exposing the blatant hypocrisy and malice of the liberals` claims.

It would be simplest to start by analyzing this from the standpoint of domestic American politics and ideology. The recent and out-of-the-blue spark in interest in this so-called `anti-Asian hate` does not represent genuine concern for the Asian American community, nor does it have the interests of that community in mind in the slightest. It is nothing more than a political mechanism. It represents the latest in a very long string of political stunts staged by the liberals ever since this pandemic started. We don`t need to mention the outright refusal of congressional Democrats to work with Trump on the stimulus checks, simply because they knew doing so would guarantee his reelection. And just as that stunt involved liberals putting politics above their own electorate, so too does the present stunt involve them putting politics above the Asian Americans, whom they claim to represent. It is clear that they are simply using the Asian Americans to push a blatant political agenda.

Let us pick apart each of the liberals` central thesis in more depth. They claim that the pandemic has awakened racist attitudes among the White underclass, and this has lead to increased suffering of Asian Americans. For proof of this, they cite the growing anti-China sentiment among that segment of the population, which was instigated by, so they claim, Donald Trump during his presidency. Trump, despite having been out of office for two months, is still among their targets. They say his policies and rhetoric were `xenophobic`. This actually goes all the way back to the beginning of the pandemic, when Trump suggested shutting off the entrance of PRC nationals into the country to prevent the spread of the coronavirus to America. For this he was berated by the liberals, who said this ban was racially motivated, even though it was targeted against a sovereign state, not a race. Liberals, who pride themselves on intellectualism and open-mindedness, show their ignorance in assuming that the People`s Republic is the only place in the world where Chinese live, ignoring Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and many others. Did the liberals care about the Asian residents of those countries when they apparently spoke on their behalf in denouncing Trump? In their minds, to be opposed to the People`s Republic means to be opposed to the Chinese race. This is incredibly absurd. For one, there are plenty of ethnic Chinese, let alone members of other Asian ethnicities, who are opposed to the aggressive and subversive policies of the Mainland. Do we even need to mention Taiwan, which right now is dealing with the possibility of an invasion? When will the liberals stand up for the Taiwanese, who are themselves Chinese? What about the Mongolians, Uyghurs, Manchurians and many more who have suffered and continue to suffer from the racialist attitudes of the ruling Chinese Communist Party? According to this logic, those people are guilty of anti-Asian hatred, despite being Asians themselves! God forbid that a White person should oppose the PRC!

Uyghurs imprisoned by the CCP. If you are opposed to this, then you are a racist.

Ignoring the voices of critique launched by countless Asians at the Chinese Communists, the liberals are busy `standing up` for the Asian Americans, who are, they claim, being oppressed by Trump-inspired White supremacists. Again, there is no evidence for this. They will point to graphs showing an increase in crime against Asian Americans, but these graphs do not indicate the race of the perpetrators, let alone indicate that they are `White supremacists`. In fact, most of the anti-Asian violence and discrimination in this country is done at the hands of liberals themselves and their supporters.

Let`s talk about the Blacks. We find that many members of this overwhelmingly Blue voter block, which has been the focal point of liberal ideology for innumerable decades, harbor hatred and feelings of superiority towards Asian Americans. This is even evident in their cultural media. Songs written by Black rappers include lyrics such as `First you find a house and scope it out. Find a Chinese neighborhood cause they don`t believe in bank accounts.`¹ Lyrics such as these, depicting robbery of Asian Americans, are cultural expressions of what has been common practice among Black criminals for many years. They often view Asians and Asian-owned establishments as easy targets, believing that Asians are weak and unable or unwilling to defend themselves. And here I am not slinging baseless accusations; the behaviors of many Asian Americans themselves, who often cohabit the same Democrat-run metropolises with the Blacks, largely confirm this. We are reminded of the famous `Rooftop Koreans`, residents of Los Angeles who took the defense of their stores into their own hands during the Blacks` violent race riots of the `90s. Since then, not much has changed. In Minnesota, during the BLM riots of 2020, stores owned by Hmongs and other Asians were looted and burned by Blacks and their liberal White accomplices (such as Antifa). Did CNN publish any articles about this? Yet Trump saying `China virus` is a reason to be up in arms. The hypocrisy could not be more obvious...

 The 'Rooftop Koreans', who exercised their right to self defense during the violent LA riots of the '90s.

In some cases, it seems that anti-Asian attitudes are actually correlated with far-Left wokeness, not `White supremacism`. Have we forgotten when it was exposed that university admission teams, in the spirit of `diversity and equity` intentionally discriminated against Asians and Whites, on the grounds that they were `too privileged`, giving preference instead to Blacks and other dark-skinned races? Indeed, woke ideology such as this is inimical to the Asian American community and its values. The attitudes of many Asians, which were inherited largely from Confucianism, prize hard work, loyalty and paternalism. The liberals, on the other hand, wish to reward the lazy, punish loyalty and are feminist. Unlike their more beloved minority, the Blacks, Asians in America have for many decades understood the importance of hard work and family values, and as a result are have become one of the wealthiest minorities. Now, like the Whites, who too champion (or at least used to) hard work and family values, they are being seen according to the woke ideology as `privileged`. And this is not an isolated phenomenon. I have personally witnessed, in my own Midwestern locality, liberal education authorities speak publicly about how Whites and Asians are equally guilty of `privilege`, and that both must submit to policies which favor Blacks and other minorities. The present situation is just laughable: we now have woke liberals who, on the one hand believe Asian are, like Whites, `privileged`, on the other hand are `standing up` for Asians against `anti-Asian hate`.

These people clearly take Asian Americans to be fools. While harboring a silent disdain for them, liberals simultaneously speak on their behalf in order to push political agendas and worthless woke ideology. Now most Asian Americans are fairly intelligent individuals, and should be able to see through this obvious abuse. We might be surprised then, to see certain vocal members of the Asian American community actually come out in support of the liberals. For instance:

Do Asian converts to the cult of internationalist liberalism such as Jenny Yang really have the interests of Asians in mind? I am really curious about how decriminalizing sex work will benefit Asians. Is she trying to imply that Asians are more likely than other races to engage in sex work? Not only is that false, but, one can imagine, if a White person said that, they would be labeled a `racist` and cancelled immediately. Reading further, we find calls for `shifting resources away from the police state to support the basic needs of the most vulnerable members of our community.` Again, how is this supposed to benefit Asians? We see again the liberal party line being parroted, that the police need to be defunded. How does this stop anti-Asian hate? And who are `the most vulnerable members of our community`? This sure doesn`t refer to Asians, who, as I mentioned above, are one of the wealthiest and healthiest groups in this country. Further, Asians have the lowest rate of crime in America, especially violent crime. There are probably more Chinese Americans convicted for industrial espionage than there are convicted for robbery or rape. Of all people, Asians are the least likely to run into the police. Yet defunding the police will benefit them? I can only conclude that what Jenny Yang had in mind was not Asians, but another group of people...

Articles like this are popping up everywhere. This one in particular, from Vox, does us a favor in that it is incredibly honest about how the liberals really feel. In the end, this is not about Asians. If the liberals cared about Asians, we would have heard about it decades ago. Forget about all the Asians who have been the victims of Blacks, whether by riot or robbery, the real victims here are the Blacks, and the real enemies are the `White supremacists`. The only reason we are hearing about this now is because, thanks to the coronavirus and Trump saying `China virus`, liberals now can scrape together enough `evidence` that these `White supremacists` actually exist. And of course by `evidence` I mean exaggerated, sensationalized or even made-up indications that the coronavirus has somehow caused White supremacists to get up and go around committing hate crimes against Asians. The liberals are suckers for drama and narrative. Their entire worldview is based upon a `Human Story`, of which they are the author. This is why they have taken control of the media; telling this made-up story is how they disseminate their ideology. In a story, there is a sequence of events that are connected to one another by probability. Without the element of probability, a story is unbelievable². In this case, there was a pandemic that came from China. Because of this, the White supremacists began to hate China, and because they`re so ignorant and uncultured, they just automatically think that all Asians are Chinese and thus guilty for the virus. Therefore we have to ban guns/cancel people/put people on terror watchlists/etc. Sounds probable, right? An intelligent person can realize that it is a sham, but the average American, doped up on social media and mainstream culture, will read it on Vox and silently nod their head, thinking to themselves, `makes sense.`

It is a sham simply because it is untrue; if liberals would like to present actual evidence for their claims, I will revise what I have said. If liberals show me the gangs of White supremacists going around abusing Asians, I will delete this article and eat my words. The problem is that they have no actual evidence. If they had evidence, there would be no need for all this sensationalism and emotional story-telling. What is indisputable is that liberals are using this to further their silly agenda and make political gains. The Communist Chinese clearly benefit from this as well; from a realpolitik standpoint, a bleeding-heart liberal America is nothing but a weakened adversary. These two alone should be enough to cast doubt on every word that comes out of the liberals` mouth.

To any Asian American readers (including Eurasian American readers), as a fellow Asian American, I urge you not to fall for the liberals` lies. Contrary to their claims, they do not represent Asians, as I have laid out above. And I am not some shill for the Republicans either. The Republicans lack the courage and ideological and intellectual vigor to take on the liberals. They are obsolete. What is needed is a clean break from the present two-party paradigm, and increased focus on the fundamental truths and values of both the Western and Eastern civilizations.

Footnotes:

1: This is from the song of YG, entitled Meet the Flockers.

2: In fiction there is a concept know as the `willing suspension of disbelief`. It is based on the idea that the factual basis of a story does not matter, as long as the internal events seem logical and probable. For example, an author can please an audience by writing a story of complete fantasy, involving magic, monsters, deep space travel, etc. But if the protagonist dies suddenly from a heart attack right before fighting the antagonist, the audience will be frustrated. An audience will willingly believed that there could be magic, monsters, etc., but it does not seem probable to them that the protagonist dies randomly right before the climax. What I mean is that a probable series of events is easily believed, even if the substance of those events is dubious. A lot of people these days make judgements based on things that `could probably be true`, rather than confirmed facts.

Stay Tuned for my Upcoming Booklet: Eurasian Century

It seems I have been posting here less this month. But I have not quit writing.

I am currently working on a short booklet on Eurasians, Eurasian solidarity and what Eurasians need to do to make the most of the coming Eurasian Future. The working title is Eurasian Century. It will not be a long treatise on Eurasianism, but rather a short introduction. It will be a gateway to Eurasianism, designed to get average people thinking about Eurasians.

I plan to complete the book sometime next month or the following. In the meantime, I will continue to post here as well, as time allows (I have a full schedule). I will release a free PDF of the booklet here for downloading and distributing. Alternatively, you may support me by purchasing a physical copy off Amazon. To those who choose to support me with their purchase, you have my deepest appreciation. Of course, the best way to support me is to spread the word about the book and my blog and, when available, to distribute copies of the PDF far and wide.

Keep checking back here on my blog for future updates about the booklet, including exact release dates.

What is Tradition?

 

Tradition is one of the most misunderstood words in common use today. Those on both sides of the political and philosophical spectrum have become quite accustomed to discussing it. To the liberals and communists, Tradition is the ever-looming impediment that separates us from a utopia of equality and liberty. It is responsible for oppressing minorities and women; it promotes hierarchy and other systems of social inequality, they claim. Thus, the whole body of Tradition must be ripped out by the roots and forever resigned to history books (if even there). To the conservatives and the right in general, however, Tradition represents the legacy of the past, and connects us to it; it provides an objective set of principles which can be used to designate the identity and purpose of a nation. Thus it should be defended, even if it is not fully understood or appreciated.

In reality, both approaches to understanding Tradition, and the resulting attitudes towards it, are erroneous, each for their own reasons. As for the left, which holds the individual and subjective as the ultimate truths, their hatred of Tradition is understandable, because Tradition is community-based and objective. The right, on the other hand, at least in the mainstream and diluted form with which we are most familiar with today, Tradition is blindly taken as a basis, without concern for its origins, virtues and true meaning. Therefore, although they revere Tradition, their thinking is not deep enough to understand why it is worthy of reverence, and thus worthy of defending. In this article, I will be evaluating each viewpoint in order to establish what Tradition is, and what its true meaning is, because that truth has been diluted to such a ridiculous extent over the past century.

First, as with anything, it is best to understand a concept by looking directly at its origins and fundamental meaning. When one studies to become a doctor, the first thing he acquaints himself with are the cells and their various subcomponents. Without this knowledge, how could he understand the heart or liver? The same applies to concepts such as Tradition. Thus we would be wise to analyze the composition of the word and its etymological origins. The English word Tradition is derived from the Latin `traditio`, which is in turn derived from the verb `trado`, meaning literally `I hand over, hand across`. Here `across` (delivered by the element `trans` reduced to `tra-`) is in the sense of `across generations` or `across time periods`. Thus, `traditio` refers to that which is passed on from one generation to the next. That is why we find in the Latin dictionary of Lewis and Short (1879) the definition: `A teaching, instruction` and `A saying handed down from former times, a Tradition`. Speaking from an Eastern perspective, the Chinese word for Tradition (which exists also in Japanese, Korean, etc.) is 傳統 (chuan2tong3), the first element meaning `to pass on (something), promulgate, transmit`, and the second element meaning `to unify`. Thus we understand the whole word as a unified body of doctrines, concepts and viewpoints which are passed on from one generation to the next.

What this means is that Tradition represents a strand of thought which stretches many thousands of years into the past. Like all things which perpetuate themselves across time (such as languages and bloodlines), Tradition mutates and evolves, splitting into multiple branches and subfamilies. Tradition, therefore, is something which exhibits both singularity and multiplicity. We may speak of Russian tradition or Japanese tradition, but we may also speak of Tradition as a single, intangible body of ideas which manifests itself across the world, and which serves as a prototype upon which various traditions are based. Furthermore, we may also logically assume that Tradition originates in an extremely ancient state of humanity. It therefore contains buried within it vestiges of extremely archaic practices, beliefs and ideas, which emerged at a time when man was in a highly natural state, as a body of social practices which were suited to a particular community. This is an essential part of understanding Tradition, because it illuminates the objective and immutable foundation of Tradition. Tradition ultimately arises from nature; it is not something that develops randomly or at the whims of individuals. For those cultures which are descended from the ancient steppe races, for instance, many aspects of their tradition were shaped by the realities of the nomadic steppe lifestyle. When we lose sight of this, Tradition seems arbitrary and pointless. This causes two problems: first, it is all the easier for progressives to convince people to give up Tradition; and second, it is all the harder for conservatives and traditionalists to justify their support of Tradition.

Here the fatal flaw of conservatism is revealed. While they understand that it is best to preserve Tradition, as all people think by default, since Tradition has been diluted extensively in this time period, it is not immediately obvious that Tradition is not arbitrary. Conservatives therefore find themselves defending something which they know to be correct, but are unable to prove to be correct. In the past, an argument which appealed to Tradition would pass with flying colors. However, conservatives are up against a beast known as Modernity, for which only materialist and subjective arguments are permissible. A mere appeal to Tradition is no longer enough, because the very principles of modernism invalidate Tradition.

As for the modernists and the liberals, their hatred of Tradition stems from their fundamentally humanist worldview, which is a direct inversion of the Traditional worldview. According to Tradition, God is the ruler of the universe, and the laws of Nature, which are His decrees, are impossible to surpass. However, according to humanism, Man should take the place of God, and the laws of nature are breakable given sufficient technology. With humanity as the most important thing in the universe, the only logical course of action is to maximize human `liberty` and `happiness`. This is seen as `progress`. Tradition, then, becomes a limitation to the `progress` of Man. Indeed, if, for the sake of human `liberty`, we elect to dethrone God Himself, what is wrong with trashing even the most sacred and ancient traditions? The problems with this line of thinking could not be more obvious.

The success of the derivative of humanism known as modernism in recent centuries is the result of a `perfect storm`, so to say. On the one hand, the ancient Tradition has been diluted and eroded over millennia, and its virtue has become latent. On the other hand, the emergence of modern technology in an event known as the industrial revolution, in bringing human capabilities to extraordinary heights, has convinced the zeitgeist that nothing is outside of Man`s grasp. This offered confirmation of what was for the original flavor of humanism purely theoretical. Modern technology and industrial society appealed to and exploited what is perhaps human nature`s worst trait: vanity. It increased the amount of physical things Man was capable of. Now we can fly across oceans, make trillions of calculations in a matter of seconds, and even send people to space. This went hand-in-hand with the progressive movement, which sought to continue the trend in the social sphere, increasing the amount of things Man can do without incurring societal consequences. Now, women should be allowed to have abortions, the poor should be given free food and lodging, and homosexuals should be allowed to marry.

We must also understand the relationship between Tradition and culture. In the modernist view, culture is something that develops inversely to Tradition. In the past, they say, humanity was in a state of extreme Tradition, but was completely uncultured. As time went on, and Tradition diminished, culture increased. Culture is thus seen as the triumph of humanity over Tradition, which was something backwards, unnatural and inimical to the human condition. It is no wonder that modernists are so full of praise for abstract, vulgar and pointless modern art, and of apathy or even straight-up disdain for the master painters and composers of the past. According to the Traditional view, however, culture and Tradition change in a direct fashion. In other words, as Tradition increases or decreases, so too does culture. Today Tradition has almost entirely disappeared, so culture has become degenerate and backwards. In view of today's world, it is the Traditional view that seems to be accurate.

However, this is something that the mainstream right tends to outright ignore. They do not understand that their enemy is not the liberals themselves, but rather the ideological modernism that spawned them. Nor are they aware that industrialization and the mass consumer capitalism that was born of it have anything to do with it. They are insistent in, and complacent with, simply attempting to `defend` what little remains of Tradition, without understanding the reasons why it is on the decline in the first place. They simply do not see modernism as an enemy; instead they somehow see it as compatible with their `Traditional values`. Somehow, they think, the Traditional ways of a nation can be reconciled with `liberty and equality` that the left wants. With this kind of attitude, it is no wonder that the conservatives` track record for defending Tradition is so poor. The past century was nothing but concession after concession of ground to the liberals. Virtually every single showdown between Traditional values and modernist, liberal values--whether it took place in the courts, in the media, in the academia, or in the hearts and minds of the common people--concluded in favor of the latter. In order to stay relevant, each new generation of conservatives, rather than doubling-down on their principles, would instead shift their views in favor of the liberal worldview, at the expense of more and more Traditional values every time. Modern conservatives revere Ronald Reagan to no end, even though he is the one who legalized no-fault divorce. Now what are the conservatives up to? They are busy defending statues in the South. Is this really `conservatism`?

This at last brings us to one fundamental truth about Tradition. Tradition must be continually watered at the roots, or else it will die. The conservatives have elected to ignore the roots and focus merely on the leaves and fruits--the finer parts of our civilization that Tradition furnishes us with, among them liberty, safety, wisdom and temperance. Is it any wonder that Tradition is dying on their watch? The things they claim to hold dear are vanishing before their very eyes, yet they don't seem to notice or care. Because they are unaware of the nature and origins of Tradition, as discussed earlier in this article, they do not recognize that Modernity is its mortal enemy and is actively killing Tradition.

If Tradition is to survive, we must accept that means Modernity must burn. If there is to be a Traditional future, that future must also be Archaic. Further, if Tradition is to survive, we must actively be implementing it in our lives and communities. For Tradition is much like a flame. A flame must be continually fed wood or charcoal, or else it will go out. The reason Modernity has become as powerful as it is now is because for years people have been neglecting the flame of Tradition. Modernity attracted the people with its empty promise of utopia, and so they abandoned that flame. When that flame is once again roaring, then Modernity will be on its last leg.