Anti-WhiteCrusader Tim Wise
It's Not the Arguments
Alex Kurtagic
February 22, 2010
Looked at from a purely rational perspective, it seems incredible that, despite maintaining a sensible position, deploying logical arguments, and having the data on our side, when it comes to the small matter of White people's right to exist, we find ourselves fighting a losing battle. How can this be? The simple answer is that in attempting to win a debate "scientifically", the White advocacy movement has been concentrating its efforts on aspects of the debate that are, ultimately, comparatively unimportant. The triumph of the Left during the 20th century has proven conclusively that having a sensible position, logical arguments, and a mass of substantiating data is not what wins a debate: They have none of these and yet it is the Left who occupies the positions of power, who comprise the established order, and whose ideas enjoy the status of legitimate orthodoxy. The reason is that the Left, for all its abstract theory and its idealized conceptions of humanity, not only understands human nature as well as the best sociobiologist, but also knows better than we do how to apply — and are indeed more ruthless in applying — that knowledge to achieve practical aims. The Left understands that humans are more strongly motivated by status than by rational persuasion, and that, therefore, it is status that offers the key to winning a debate, not science or logic or reasonableness: They know that an argument linked to high status will succeed, while one linked to low status — no matter how correct— will fail.
Sigmund Freud: although a fraud, his status was assiduously cultivated. Images of Freud are calculated to signal his eminence. His terminology has become part of everyday parlance
The irony is what the authors on our side have known this for decades, as the process is explained in the scientific literature that informs their writing and general worldview. Status is a cultural invention that responds to a biological need to maximise life chances and reproductive success. Status signifies power, for status both derives it and confers it, and power affords access to resources. The greater the power, the greater the access to more and better resources. Included among the latter is, of course, women. The evolutionary explanation of sexual selection in humans is that females will tend to be drawn to powerful, high status males, as power and status are indicators of fitness, and mate quality. In complex societies this primal process is sublimated in many different ways, and becomes encoded in social norms, social organization, institutions, and so forth. Often, the process will become obscured, even distorted, by intellectual activity. But it is always there, underlying the entire structure of society, language, and knowledge.
Of course, the Left did not always enjoy high status. They were fiercely persecuted by a conservative, elitist establishment that sought to ban, criminalize, and suppress the their ideas. Unfortunately, that establishment suffered from the common human malady of egotism and short-sightedness, while the Left benefited not only from their pitiless revolutionary energy, but also from gifted intellectuals who found the way to exploit the characteristics of Western culture to advance the Leftist cause.
It is difficult to portray Susan Sontag in a flattering manner. Nevertheless, images of she who once said "the white race is the cancer of human history" convey status and prestige: she is photographed against book-lined walls, often deep in thought; her younger and older portraits are highly stylised, and she appears serious, distant, iconic.
The Left relied heavily on a very elaborate body of theory, which, because of its radical aims, on the surface differs greatly from that upon which the Left's inegalitarian opponents tend to rely. Yet, a close study of Leftist theories uncovers surprisingly numerous correspondences of insight between the egalitarian and the inegalitarian factions. The former's recipes for solving world problems may differ, the former's concepts and terminology may differ, and the former's explanations may differ. But when it comes human nature and the order of things, a number of fundamental verities are found in common with the inegalitarian view beneath the masses of verbiage. That the Left share a number of our key insights with regards to humans and human societies is silently but eloquently demonstrated by the Leftists' typical choice of neighbourhood: They tend to preach multiculturalism, yet live in all-White communities.
This alone would have been insufficient to guarantee the triumph of the Left. There is no doubt that they benefited from events not entirely in their control, such as the outcome of a number of European wars. However, there is also no doubt that they fought a degenerate establishment: where the conservative, elitist establishment was egotistical, short-sighted, and focused on the past, the radical Left was idealistic, long-sighted, and focused on the future. Antonio Gramsci's "march through the institutions" did not assume thinking in terms of the next quarterly profit report or the next general election.
Once the Left began gaining acceptability and ascending in status, Leftist activists and intellectuals devoted a great deal of effort to the conferring of social prestige to their luminaries, their vision, and their ideals, while disprivileging — radically critiquing — the luminaries, the traditions, and the ideals of the establishment they sought to replace. In other words, they waged a war of status, and if they became proficient debaters and persuaders in the media, in universities, or in the political campaign trail, they remained focused on the status of their opponents and their opponents' ideas. Hence, the liberal use by the Left of degrading, shut-up words like "racist", "Nazi", and "anti-Semite"; the creation of negative White identities in educational textbooks; and the outrageous promotion of anti-White stereotypes in advertisement and Hollywood films. These words, identities, and stereotypes do not constitute evidence or logical proof of anything: They are simply an attack on an opponent's status.
The Case of Kevin MacDonald
The $PLC's campaign against Kevin MacDonald is well known in White advocacy circles. Is it a surprise, then, given what has been said above, that said campaign has focused purely on his status of university professor? It will be noted that Professor MacDonald's opponents have been less worried about his theory of Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy than about his professional position and title. It will be noted also that the generalized refusal to debate Professor MacDonald is based on the fear that the latter's status may be enhanced by (a) his being attacked by, or pitted against, a prestigious opponent; (b) his putting himself across as an honest, sensible, and intelligent academic; (c) his proving to have a charismatic or sympathetic character; and (d) his being successful. They fear this because they know that the data are too abundant and complex for most laymen to be able accurately to evaluate it: Sides on a debate are chosen usually on the basis of who the spectator would rather associate with; and, for all practical purposes, the side that is right on a debate is the side that looks better and makes the spectator feel better about himself. A professorship tends to make a spectator more receptive, as an argument articulated by a professor then appears to emanate from an authoritative, high-status source, which in turn infuses the argument with high status. Adopting the intellectual positions of high-status individuals is a proxy method for laymen to signal their own high status.
The demonization of Kevin MacDonald: the enemy have attacked his status — never sought to debate him.
The ideal outcome for Professor MacDonald's detractors would be, therefore, to have him fired. Their main source of frustration is the fact that his tenured status protects him from their politically motivated efforts to silence him. (That is what tenure was meant to do, incidentally). And as long as he continues to hold the title of tenured professor, employed by a large state university, enjoying a middle class lifestyle, residing in a respectable part of town, and having high status friends and associates, Kevin MacDonald cannot be dismissed as a crank, a conspiracy theorist, a dysfunctional reprobate, an idiot, or a paranoid nut.
Unable to have him fired and relegated to the dole queue, Professor MacDonald's enemies have, consequently, attempted to undermine his personal status by traducing him in the media, embarrassing his employers, scaring his colleagues, and sowing antagonism and distrust among his students. Professor MacDonald's enemies hope that if they create around him visible signs of marginalization and ostracism, of his having a low social status, his ideas will become déclassé, and will therefore scare people off associating themselves with them. No one wants to be scorned.
Professor MacDonald has combated these efforts by defending his position as well as going on the offensive, and escalating that offensive each time his opponents have renewed their campaign against him. His courage and fortitude in the face of adversity, being admirable and difficult qualities, have largely frustrated his attackers. Indeed, judging from the ever-growing internet traffic passing through his website, and the fact that he has even been immortalized in popular fiction, he appears to have increased his readership and support base, and therefore his status as a man. No doubt Professor MacDonald's enemies are exasperated by his energy. So they should. Personally, I enjoy imagining their fury as they notice how his website thrives, publishing ever more articles, by ever more authors, at an ever increasing pace, to an ever growing audience; I enjoy imaging their banging their heads against stone walls, over and over again, until their foreheads crack open and bleed, as they see their anti-MacDonald campaigns backfire; I enjoy imagining them blasted into lunacy every time they see The Occidental Observerdisseminating information they would rather suppress, in articles that bear hallmarks of high social status: erudition, sophisticated syntax, educated diction, tasteful style, and nuanced argumentation.
Money Matters
Professor MacDonald's The Occidental Observer does occupy a unique place on the internet. It has attracted a high quality roster of authors and it has consistently presented an intelligent alternative perspective to current social, cultural, and political issues and events. But this alone is not enough. While it is true that the information and arguments presented on this website are as accessible to the cybernaut as the disinformation and sophistry presented on establishment internet media, more important than the accessibility and the quality of the information and the arguments is the ability to confer upon these an aura of prestige — the ability to present them in a manner that signals high social status. If the reason we have failed to make progress despite having the arguments and the data on our side is the fact that our side has overlooked the truly crucial role of status, then it is clear that a focus on projecting an aura of prestige while undermining that of the enemy ought to be one of the keys to success. Nothing succeeds like success, the saying goes.
This, however, requires funds.
Modern technology makes it possible for The Occidental Observer to be run on a shoestring, so long as the authors and the technical personnel are able and in a position to donate their labor. I believe that all of them are willing to continue to do so. There comes a point, however, when, in order to take things to the next level, and increase the website's effectiveness as a weapon of cultural war, additional resources are needed. Establishment internet media typically boast cutting-edge design and features; they run dozens of articles on a daily basis; they are able to pay, and therefore attract and employ, the best, the most ambitious, and the most talented writers; they are fully interactive; they are able to attract corporate advertisers and sponsors, and charge top dollar for a collection of pixels; and they are able to fully staff their operation with the qualified specialists that make it all run smoothly and seamlessly.
1925 Rolls Royce Phantom
All of this both derives from, and confers power to, establishment internet media, enabling them to attract and hold the attention of millions of readers, whose opinions and attitudes they form on a daily basis, year after year, decade after decade. "It was published in mainstream sources," a reader will often say, knowing that the prestige of establishment media is sufficient to cause the average interlocutor to believe the information. If we are going to do more than bemoan the power of the establishment media, we have to raise our game and compete on the same level. Otherwise, the public will continue to see us as marginal, unimportant, fringe, weird, low status, embarrassing, and best avoided. This is why the Left wages a war of status: by preventing dissidents from attaining qualifications or obtaining gainful employment, and by stripping qualified and gainfully employed dissidents of their sources of status, they limit dissidents' access to power, and therefore to the resources they need to wage a decisive war.
I have argued before that intellectual honesty is only possible where there is financial security and independence. There are millions of people out there, including thousands of highly accomplished writers and professionals, who privately agree, or at least sympathize, with the positions argued on this website. Most dare not make their opinions public, because they fear that associating themselves with obviously disprivileged ideas may lead to loss of employment and therefore to loss of status. An enormous amount of talent is being wasted this way — wasted, because it is not being put in the service of a good cause (our cause), and is, by default, put in the service of a bad one (the enemy's cause). If we are to change this, we have to make our side financially secure and financially independent.
Reliable access to funds would make it possible to improve the design of this website (a professional design firm could be hired); it would make it possible to add a variety of modern, interactive features that would keep visitors interested for longer, such as video and audio; it would make it possible for Kevin to give his writers added financial independence (I have my own business ventures, so I do not need to write under a pseudonym, but others do not have that luxury, and yet others will not write even under a pseudonym); it would make it possible for Kevin to hire one or two staff, who can assist him with editorial and other tasks, freeing time for him to devote to writing and campaigning; it would make it possible to line up an able successor (the editor is already 66); it would make it possible to attract new writers and, in time, even create career opportunities, like analogous mainstream websites. Would it not be nice to have a journalistic career where you get paid to kick the enemy and make him squeal day after day? Where pounding the enemy and exposing his perfidy leads to a nice car and a huge house and awards and a high quality mate? (That is how the Left lives! They have it good.)
Most importantly in relation to my discussion of status, it would make it possible for this website not only to be important, but to lookimportant, thus conferring added legitimacy and prestige to our side of the cultural argument. Consider that a great number of those visiting a website will stay for less than one second: it takes that long for them to make up their minds. Status is apprehended very rapidly. From this it follows that whatever those visitors see during that fraction of a second is absolutely vital. Let us not look like losers for lack of pennies. Let us look like winners, and make mainstream types look up at us and drool with envy, and exclaim to themselves, their eyes rolling out of their sockets, "WOAH… I want to be like them!"
The enemy would really hate that.
Alex Kurtagic (email him) was born in 1970. He is the author ofMister (published by Iron Sky Publishing, 2009) and the founder and director of Supernal Music.
Permanent link:http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Kurtagic-Fundraiser.html
