Race and Culture

With a working knowledge of the biological aspects of racial theory, examining its relation to human societies is the next major step for a more comprehensive idea of race. Whilst biology can sometimes inform us about how we function and respond to our environment, we need not defer to it in order to assert the importance of racial integrity. Our aim herein is not to defend those white nationalists whose every second statement entails accusations leveled at other ethnic groups regarding all manner of social ills, but to point out that acknowledging the differences between races needn't be accompanied by any feelings of hostility. Furthermore, it should be understood that realizing the importance of ethnicity in the maintenance of healthy civilizations and cultures, even when one’s own is regarded as of primary importance, in no way requires that one bears any ill will to another ethnicity. What is objectionable is the forced merging of cultures, not anything inherent to the cultures themselves.

The fact that the term “racism”, upon its inclusion in dictionaries (predominantly after World War II) is usually defined so that it necessitates a feeling of superiority is either a work of incredible cleverness or dangerous oversight. It elicits in the minds of anti-racists a hateful sentiment. One who believes in the divergent value of human cultures and recognizes the role that race has to play is denigrated as a “racist”, one who hates other races, or feels that one race is superior to another. The problem is that people who are racially conscious have been by and large defined by their opponents, who have lumped horrific charges upon them before giving their ideas a second of thought. So whilst some people may deserve a label denoting racially focused hatred, a great continuum of other related ideas about race have been assimilated and pushed to the extreme end of the scale. The result from the point of view of an anti-racist is to make their enemies easier to tackle, but this has only been achieved at the expense of reality and honesty. Such a straw-man has ensured that no real discussion about race has taken place in recent times without great anxiety and mendacity.

This process can be illustrated by regarding the rags of philistinism in which racial doctrine cloaked itself in the Nazi era, which has been subsequently universalized by either guilty or hostile post-war interests. Carol Swain and Russ Nieli have highlighted the recent intellectualizing of racist groups as though it was building houses upon Nazi sand. The truth is that the Nazis reduced a body of thought that had persevered for millennia into a material and profane outlook, which was sadly necessary in order to make it politically viable in the twentieth century. The current intelligent racialists are not therefore building up from lowly ideas, but seeking to rid the idea of racial integrity from such reductive thought. The fact that what white nationalists see as truth at times comes close to a socially illegitimate world-view does not mean that the position can be abandoned. Whilst Swain and Nieli admirably warn their readers about the problems of group polarization, which occurs when a group’s ideas are radicalized due to a lack of opposition subsequent to their rejection and isolation from mainstream discourse, and offer their book of interviews as a countermeasure to such a problem, they in fact only further contribute to group polarization by having their biased say in the introduction, before the interviewees even have a chance to be heard. The subjects are dismissed as racist, supremacist and dangerous. If white nationalist leaders are always going to be so blatantly slandered whenever they’re represented in the press then of course they’ll retreat and seek to control the way in which they’re presented. Ultimately Swain and Nieli are ensuring that a straightforward and honest discussion about race remains impossible, and that only radical manifestations of racial identity are allowed to exist.

Undoubtedly, there are individuals and groups who do feel their biological heritage to be superior to that of others. In some cases, this attitude might not need to be taken so rigidly. These people are indeed troubled by their cultural dissolution, but some may simply be incapable of expressing, or perhaps comprehending, the complexities of the issue. The mistake made in interpreting these issues is misunderstanding their relative nature; the racialists are expressing a preference, not a universal. Both parties at times neglect this fact. Sadly, as noted above, much anti-racial discourse focuses on these perspectives, which of course, will not concretely change the conditions which foster them.

Any strong culture requires some degree of unity between its parts, such as a common set of values within the population. The tendency of people to prefer people of their own race is a manifestation of this requirement, and the blurred lines between culture and race continue to the present. In fact they’re only blurred because of our attempts to sever them. The ancient Greeks notably regarded all other races as barbarians. However, this was applied indiscriminately to both the civilized and uncivilized tribes whom they encountered. While the Greeks held their society to be the superior, the name “barbarian” had more to do with the strange language of the foreigners than our modern interpretation of the word, that is, brutish and uncivilized—the expression was not one of contempt or spite—they merely held their values and way of life as being better for themselves, and let the other civilizations do as they pleased. Similarly, we have no interest in attempting to establish whether or not a culture is or isn’t superior to another in some sort of universal scale. We do not believe that such a scale can exist in a meaningful manner. What is important is that there different cultures each with their own scales of value in relation to which they strive to improve themselves. Attempting to substitute the scale of one culture for that of another, or attempting to establish a normalized scale applicable to all cultures is impossible.

Of course, we believe that cultures are superior when they aren’t mixed into homogeneity. The perks of multiculturalism are only available to us now because we are able to access cultures that have developed separately—the richness of cultures that multiculturalism has allowed us to sample should not be denied. However, it should be noted that the West is destroying these cultures as it consumes them and blends them into a vulgarization of higher ideas. The various cultures that exist and have come into the melting pot of the multicultural, first world states, have dissolved in these lands. What's more, as new immigrants come from lands with ideals and values unrelated to that of the multicultural nations to which they migrate, a clash emerges: their inability to speak the vernacular bars them from most professions; the cultural values of newer immigrant generations clash with other immigrants, and with the civilization that now hosts them; and ultimately, many of these people identify with their own rather than with people of other races and the natives of the society. The threat of cultural clashes, which anti-racists readily acknowledge, cannot be absolved by enforced assimilation. Assimilation will either succeed, and homogenize what were once a number of diverse cultures, resulting in the exact inverse of today’s indubitable value of diversity, or it will be an exercise in futility, as it will be attempting to enforce cultural death on groups of people who will not accept it. Neither of these states of affairs is desirable.

Halting these processes and putting life into our respective cultures again is important. We don’t need to look to the exotic to see cultural richness, as we are as capable of it ourselves. This needn’t necessarily involve strict cultural isolation, but more of a definite recognition that when one experiences another culture, they are doing so as an outsider and as a representative of a different culture. This recognition should be able to maintain some integrity to both groups. We can see that our culture is best for us, and that theirs is best for them. The worth of a culture is only created and useful to its own members, so if it is ill, they can best fix it, if it flourishes they reap the rewards. Either way, making an exit is not an option, as it is a denial of one’s consciousness and responsibility.

It is interesting to note that our supposedly post-colonial world has highlighted the importance of the cultures of aboriginal peoples around the world. What is it about those cultures that make them so important? It’s that they’re regarded as unique, different and relatively unharmed, but threatened, by industrial society. Now, as aboriginals are integrated into modern societies, they face massive problems of identity which seemingly cannot be solved—certainly not by the token efforts of the host government. The aboriginals see their homeland unimaginably altered, their religion or spirituality ridiculed (and perhaps simultaneously fetishized), their laws ignored. Their cultural traditions fall apart in the face of the cultural vacuum that is modern capitalism, for traditional beliefs aren’t efficient when compared to consumption fueled by anomie. In this void they loose all sense of worth (and its certain to not be found in the alien culture that usurps them), and turn to drugs, crime and abuse. Nevertheless, these cultures are affirmed by the cultureless—generally in the most essentializing of ways—because of their own tacit cultural anxiety: in the aboriginal they see themselves before the process of cultural destruction began. This cultural obliteration has been repeated across the globe following the waves of European imperialism, and so far, all attempts at integration or interference have only worsened the problem. Glancing at the history of the aboriginals in North America or Australia should provide one with more than enough evidence of just how poorly this has worked in the past. It would be best for the aboriginal populations if they were left to themselves in peace. These populations lived off the land in relatively small numbers and were able to sustain themselves without expanding far into other territories where they would besiege the land as have Western cultures, and they have no need of our canned food and highways.

Though a massive revival and restoration of unique ethnic cultures is in order, the desire for traditionalism shouldn't be seen as attempting to replicate every little detail of a former manifestation of a culture. What is important here is not a facsimile, but a restoration of suitable values that an ethnic group possessed in the past, and will be able to easily put into practical use. This doesn't mean rejecting the knowledge that recent intellectual discoveries have provided us, either. If reality is seen to throw a belief or idea into obsolescence, then it should remain that way, but many traditional values do not fit in this category, and are, indeed, much more realistic than the shallow, wavering beliefs of modernity.

The charge of holding a romantic view of the past is far too easily dished out as an excuse for dismissal of an anti-modern proposal. There are clearly things that can be learned from past societies; this information should not be ignored simply because of the risk of being attacked by the above criticism. There are many lessons from history that we can learn and seek to apply to our own cultural situation, instead of existing in the endless present, reinventing the wheel. A newer idea isn't by that quality alone necessarily a better one.

For a legitimate revival of vigorous local cultures to occur, the first steps would have toward racial segregation. Historically, segregation has been associated with racial hatred, but this is because of other factors embedded with such a process, and the sharing of geographical areas despite segregation, as in South Africa under apartheid. We in no way affirm such as system, which ultimately fostered confrontation, not separation. Our belief is that communities where people can identify with each other strongly are best, in direct contrast the direction in which our current political institutions head, which is of special interest groups lobbying for their own limited, diverse and opposing interests. These interests might all be legitimate, but all cannot be fairly heard in such a cacophonous arena.

The possibility of our various ethnic histories being very mixed does in no way invalidate our claim. Perhaps our respective cultures are hard to recognize under the veil of an economic system that wants to normalize us all in order to sell us the same commodities. The challenge to European peoples is so much more opaque than that of Native Americans and aboriginal Australians, who may only need to look to their ancestors to know of another way. Nevertheless, if we can still see nuggets of value persisting in the current desert of profane culture we find ourselves in, we can and should seek to improve both ourselves and our respective cultures. The dignity of both organisms demands it. The more people identify with and take responsibility for improving their culture, the more that desert will be fertilized and watered, improved, and in so many varying ways does it have the potential to flourish.

We propose that, as opposed to the hitherto martyr-like efforts of anti-hate, civil rights, and white nationalist groups alike, this is where any meaningful dialogue regarding race relations must begin.

“Every kind of indiscriminate ethnic adulteration, on the one hand, is the consequence of a degenerated inner sensibility and of the tyranny of materialistic, individualistic and sentimental considerations, and, on the other hand, is the cause of the further degeneration of peoples and civilizations; this must be borne in mind.” - Julius Evola, Race as a Builder of Leaders