I have written elsewhere about the need for pro-White campaigners to provide their target audience with better incentives than the apocalyptic warnings about economic collapse, race wars, and extinction that have constituted the traditional fare of the White Nationalist movement. I have argued that the reason campaigners have failed to make real political progress, in spite of having logical arguments, a moral case, and massive supporting data, is that, in the effort to persuade and inspire action, key aspects of human psychology have been ignored. Even though he is typically steeped in sociobiology, the White advocate has generally relied on rational persuasion to advance the pro-White agenda, neglecting well-known pre-rational motivators, such as the need for status and self-esteem (which he knows well enough), and the role of emotion (which he often deplores). We often hear about confronting the boobs with "the facts," even though it has been amply demonstrated that, on their own, facts make no political difference.
In response to this, I have stressed the importance of style and status as pre-rational campaigning tools. And in my most recent article, I have also stressed the need to move away from the negativity, the pessimism, the paranoia, the emotional masochism, and the obsessive conspiratology that permeates much of the White advocate's discourse, in favor of a friendlier, more positive presentation. Overall, my message over the past year has been that White advocates need to become pleasant and sought-after company, look attractive, and create a parallel economy and status system so that they can both impress and have, here and now, something to offer the White folk whose attention are seeking to gain.
I deem these essential ingredients to a successful strategy, because the evidence shows that ordinary White folk, no matter what the state of the economy or the politically correct indignities they are asked to endure, continue to see White advocates as scary, angry, boring, stupid, impoverished, and old, full of complaints but without solutions, full of analysis but unable to tell them exactly how signing up to the White advocates' program would improve their lives. Ordinary White folk continue to entertain the misconception -- perhaps partly justified, and in any event gleefully perpetuated by the Left -- that were a pro-White faction to achieve political victory, it would inevitably create a fascist dystopia like the ones commonly seen in Hollywood films. This deterrent is further reinforced by the fact that White advocacy's "perks" often consist of ostracism, lost livelihood, prison sentences, and even death. Ignorance of "what is really going on" might be, for most, a small price to pay when there is no immediate threat and when pretending that everything will be fine means retaining one's social status, peace and quiet, and affluent lifestyle.
How to change?
Evidently, I am not suggesting that pro-White campaigners ought to change their message, compromise, or sell out. I am simply saying that they need to change how that message is delivered; that they need to reformulate the pro-White discourse so that it achieves its political aims rather remain a method of personal catharsis.
The first step towards achieving this is understanding the White advocate's role in contemporary society. Presently, the White advocate is the gentleman who arrives at a party wanting to switch on the bright lights and turn off the music, to tell everyone to sober up and put out their cigarettes, to scold them for wasting food and electricity, and to inform them that the lawn needs mowing, the floors need scrubbing, the drains need clearing, the overdraft needs paying, the and garbage needs taking out. And when the lung cancer patient is dying, the White advocate is the gentleman who tells him, "See? I told you so! I told you smoking is bad for you, but no, you wouldn't listen! Now you've got what you deserved! And if you think you have it bad now, it will only get worse!"
This is hardly a recipe for popularity, and it is no surprise, therefore, that so many choose to ignore this gentleman; that they applaud when the Leftist host says, "Oh... Let's get him out. He's a psycho"; and even help him loose the guard dogs against the party pooper, even though the latter is looking after many of the partygoer's best interests.
Yet, the task is not as difficult as my analogy makes it seem.
This is not just because some parties are dreadful, but also because its ideological matrix confers upon the radical traditionalist Right a number of discursive advantages, in the same measure that the Leftist's own ideological matrix saddles him with a number of discursive disadvantages. In other words, the radical traditionalist Right tends to be uniquely proficient in the areas where the Left cannot be -- because of the Leftist system of belief -- an adequate match without superhuman effort and without Leftists twisting themselves into highly artificial convolutions. Identifying the areas of advantage is the second step.
Where does the radical traditionalist Right's mindset enjoy natural advantages?
One area, in my opinion, is the ability to inspire heroic feelings of superiority, pride, and glory. This is strategically advantageous, because humans like to think that they are strong, and because they enjoy feeling that they are part of something powerful; it flatters their vanity, it caters to their need to belong in a manner that enhances their self-esteem. The radical traditionalit Right excels at this for the same reasons that the Left does not even try: the former has a Romantic ethic, aspires to greatness, strives to push forward and upward in an organic and metaphysical sense. This, of course, implies elitism, a hierarchical conception of life. Leftists, by contrast, are egalitarians, so they resent hierarchy because it reminds them of their own mediocrity -- after all, only the mediocre benefit from egalitarianism. Rather than elite, proud, and glorious, Leftists are resentful, envious, and self-hating. Accordingly, their tactics rely on guilt-mongering and on inspiring a sense of grievance; they are champions of the weak and the pathetic. It is difficult to feel inspired by this, let alone be roused into heroic action for abstract principles like "equality." The best they can hope for, therefore, is to inspire feelings of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is unattractive, and people who are self-righteous tend to be preachy and irritating.
For the mystically-inclined, another area of natural advantage is our esoterica, which is linked to the Romantic ethic, which is in turn linked to traditionalist tendencies. Marxists would have never been able to produce a Left-wing analogue to, say, Armanism. Esoteric Marxism? Such a thing, were it ever to be invented, could erupt only out of a right-wing mind. Leftists are rationalists, materialists, anti-traditionalists; they see the world as a machine, without a soul. Whereas our side has thousands of years of rich and deep mythology and tradition, both exoteric and esoteric, to draw from for the elaboration of alternative, meaning-laden narratives, Leftists impoverish themselves by their wholesale jettisoning of the past, of tradition, of metaphysics. If the Left has any use for any of these, it is to subvert it, pervert it, mock it, and uglify it. The Leftist desires to be unmoored in order so that he may be given free rein to indulge his selfish individual appetites and impose his speculative schemes on pliant human guinea pigs. This confers our side with another strategic advantage: firstly, many ordinary folk feel attached to, and reassured by, traditional forms -- they are upset by fundamental change; and, secondly, for many ordinary folk everyday life is tedious and filled with drudgery -- esoterica caters to the human need for fantasy and escape, for something that supersedes the pedestrian reality of the material plane of existence. The Left, being solely concerned with material reality, can only emulate this with sneers, cynicism, and poor taste.
These unique areas of advantage can and ought to be further elucidated. They are also not the only ones.
They are sufficient, however, for us to begin elaborating our own, forward-looking utopian vision. A utopian vision is necessary, because it provides direction, an ideal to aim for; because it unites behind a common purpose, it inspires aspirational sentiments of greatness and glory, and caters to the aforementioned human need for fantasy and escape. A utopian vision is like the advertisement in a marketing campaign. It needs to be forward-looking, because the arrow of time, indeed life, moves inexorably forward: you can kill a baby and make a new one; but you cannot put the baby back in the womb.
Those who doubt the political significance of utopian inspiration ought to remember that while the Left was in opposition, it was as fundamentally critical of the existing system as we are today -- its message was "No, it's not OK and things will have to change radically, and I'm afraid you'll have to give up some of your privileges." On the face of it, this is not a message likely to prove popular with a ruling class or a dominant culture. Yet, at no point did Leftists forget to couch their critique with uplifting, moral language ("dignity," "inalienable rights," "fairness," "social justice," etc.) And neither did they forget to tell their constituents concretely how they would benefit from the Leftist program ("equal pay for equal wok," "universal healthcare," "no child left behind," etc.) The Left was successful because its leadership understood human motivation and it knew how to market its program effectively in a manner that was both consistent with the Leftist system of belief and difficult, for that reason, for the Left's opponents to emulate without looking like hypocrites.
On the basis of the above, I propose that our marketing strategy needs to focus on positive values that come naturally to us and which the Left finds difficult, or impossible, to replicate: quality, greatness, spirituality, heterodoxy, and romanticism. These values need to appear in contrast -- more often than not by implication rather than by accusation -- to the Leftist tendency to produce a world of cheapness, monotony, mean-spiritedness, materialism, and utilitarianism -- all of which are consequences of egalitarianism's race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator. If we are able to develop a style of presentation, an image, that encapsulates our core values and message in an attractive, uplifting, and forward-looking manner, that captures White people's imagination, that enraptures them with images, sounds, tastes, textures, and smells that hint at what could be; and if we are able, at the same time, to develop economic opportunities (quality goods and services, as opposed to the modern con jobs) and status systems (awards, clubs, etc.) we are likely to make our target audience more receptive to the pro-White arguments and supporting data than it has been so far. The arguments and the data would then be marshaled by our target audience to justify their fantasies, yearnings, and ambition; the enemy's arguments and data would be dismissed, because boring and inconvenient. And access to parallel business opportunities and status systems unencumbered by political correctness would, in turn, inoculate our target audience against its dependency on the anti-White establishment. We would then be offering a carrot, available now, and not just the stick of fear of a cataclysmic future.
Back to my party analogy, we need to be like the gentleman who is throwing the rival party across the street, which is so much more vibrant and impressive in terms of music, food, décor, theme, cache, quality of attendees, and organization -- so much better, in sum, than the one being hosted by the Leftist that the latter's guests eventually desert him. A frivolous analogy, perhaps, but such is the world we live in.
Obviously, I do not regard political activism as a party, or as it being all about fun, style, and presentation -- to be sure, there is no reason why political activism cannot or should not be fun, but seriousness and substance still matter. I do maintain, however, that successfully selling a message involves necessarily making those to whom it is aimed feel good about themselves and their affiliation with the messenger; and that, if our side is to make political progress, this process and the methods, strategies, and tactics it involves needs to be understood and afforded much greater focus than it has enjoyed hitherto.
Some final thoughts. In some of my articles, including this one, I have used the terms "Left" and "Right". I use the Left-Right dichotomy for the sake of expediency. In reality, however, I do not see our mission in terms of a simple political binary, as the situation is far more complicated, indeed superseding the realm of politics (it has been suggested that our crisis is spiritual, for example). But I trust my readers will know what I mean; that they will understand that "Left" does not mean Democrat or Labour any more than "Right" means Republican or Tory - these are all liberal parties, all Leftists in my book. Essentially, "the Left" refers to the enemy: the rationalist materalists who believe in the ideology of equality and progress.
Also, sometimes I come across organizations that claim they exist to defend Western civilization and / or the interests of the White race, without making it obvious how they do this or what they plan to do. They tell us what they believe in and what they are against, and... they ask for money; but the prospective donor is not given in advance any real sense of what his / her money will be used for, let alone whether it will be used effectively. These organizations are not political parties, evidently, because they do not systematically campaign in elections, but... are they lobbyists? Award bodies? Literary agencies? Record labels? Or are they just websites, pumping out information for the benefit of the converted? Thankfully, White advocacy has in recent years been gradually moving away from this model; but, all the same, it needs to be re-stated: a generic organization with a grandiloquent remit is not sufficient. It is better to create narrowly focused organizations (small businesses, clubs, charities) that operate within a specific area, in a specific role, with a clearly circumscribed mission, offering opportunities and real goods and services in the market place. It might be that, looked in isolation, a record label, a battle re-enactment society, or a charity aiming to preserve specific monuments or sites, does not appear crucial in the battle for survival; but they are important in their aggregate, and, because specialized, they are much more likely than a generic organization to achieve tangible objectives within their scope of operation. Remember: focus is important in marketing. Another advantage to this approach is that the organizations need not be overtly political, and, therefore, not make themselves an immediate target for the censors.
In sum, I believe that ultimate success or failure will depend on, among other factors, whether our side is able to recast itself as the energetic forger of tomorrow, rather than simply the embittered critic of today.
In response to this, I have stressed the importance of style and status as pre-rational campaigning tools. And in my most recent article, I have also stressed the need to move away from the negativity, the pessimism, the paranoia, the emotional masochism, and the obsessive conspiratology that permeates much of the White advocate's discourse, in favor of a friendlier, more positive presentation. Overall, my message over the past year has been that White advocates need to become pleasant and sought-after company, look attractive, and create a parallel economy and status system so that they can both impress and have, here and now, something to offer the White folk whose attention are seeking to gain.
I deem these essential ingredients to a successful strategy, because the evidence shows that ordinary White folk, no matter what the state of the economy or the politically correct indignities they are asked to endure, continue to see White advocates as scary, angry, boring, stupid, impoverished, and old, full of complaints but without solutions, full of analysis but unable to tell them exactly how signing up to the White advocates' program would improve their lives. Ordinary White folk continue to entertain the misconception -- perhaps partly justified, and in any event gleefully perpetuated by the Left -- that were a pro-White faction to achieve political victory, it would inevitably create a fascist dystopia like the ones commonly seen in Hollywood films. This deterrent is further reinforced by the fact that White advocacy's "perks" often consist of ostracism, lost livelihood, prison sentences, and even death. Ignorance of "what is really going on" might be, for most, a small price to pay when there is no immediate threat and when pretending that everything will be fine means retaining one's social status, peace and quiet, and affluent lifestyle.
How to change?
Evidently, I am not suggesting that pro-White campaigners ought to change their message, compromise, or sell out. I am simply saying that they need to change how that message is delivered; that they need to reformulate the pro-White discourse so that it achieves its political aims rather remain a method of personal catharsis.
The first step towards achieving this is understanding the White advocate's role in contemporary society. Presently, the White advocate is the gentleman who arrives at a party wanting to switch on the bright lights and turn off the music, to tell everyone to sober up and put out their cigarettes, to scold them for wasting food and electricity, and to inform them that the lawn needs mowing, the floors need scrubbing, the drains need clearing, the overdraft needs paying, the and garbage needs taking out. And when the lung cancer patient is dying, the White advocate is the gentleman who tells him, "See? I told you so! I told you smoking is bad for you, but no, you wouldn't listen! Now you've got what you deserved! And if you think you have it bad now, it will only get worse!"
This is hardly a recipe for popularity, and it is no surprise, therefore, that so many choose to ignore this gentleman; that they applaud when the Leftist host says, "Oh... Let's get him out. He's a psycho"; and even help him loose the guard dogs against the party pooper, even though the latter is looking after many of the partygoer's best interests.
Yet, the task is not as difficult as my analogy makes it seem.
This is not just because some parties are dreadful, but also because its ideological matrix confers upon the radical traditionalist Right a number of discursive advantages, in the same measure that the Leftist's own ideological matrix saddles him with a number of discursive disadvantages. In other words, the radical traditionalist Right tends to be uniquely proficient in the areas where the Left cannot be -- because of the Leftist system of belief -- an adequate match without superhuman effort and without Leftists twisting themselves into highly artificial convolutions. Identifying the areas of advantage is the second step.
Where does the radical traditionalist Right's mindset enjoy natural advantages?
One area, in my opinion, is the ability to inspire heroic feelings of superiority, pride, and glory. This is strategically advantageous, because humans like to think that they are strong, and because they enjoy feeling that they are part of something powerful; it flatters their vanity, it caters to their need to belong in a manner that enhances their self-esteem. The radical traditionalit Right excels at this for the same reasons that the Left does not even try: the former has a Romantic ethic, aspires to greatness, strives to push forward and upward in an organic and metaphysical sense. This, of course, implies elitism, a hierarchical conception of life. Leftists, by contrast, are egalitarians, so they resent hierarchy because it reminds them of their own mediocrity -- after all, only the mediocre benefit from egalitarianism. Rather than elite, proud, and glorious, Leftists are resentful, envious, and self-hating. Accordingly, their tactics rely on guilt-mongering and on inspiring a sense of grievance; they are champions of the weak and the pathetic. It is difficult to feel inspired by this, let alone be roused into heroic action for abstract principles like "equality." The best they can hope for, therefore, is to inspire feelings of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is unattractive, and people who are self-righteous tend to be preachy and irritating.
For the mystically-inclined, another area of natural advantage is our esoterica, which is linked to the Romantic ethic, which is in turn linked to traditionalist tendencies. Marxists would have never been able to produce a Left-wing analogue to, say, Armanism. Esoteric Marxism? Such a thing, were it ever to be invented, could erupt only out of a right-wing mind. Leftists are rationalists, materialists, anti-traditionalists; they see the world as a machine, without a soul. Whereas our side has thousands of years of rich and deep mythology and tradition, both exoteric and esoteric, to draw from for the elaboration of alternative, meaning-laden narratives, Leftists impoverish themselves by their wholesale jettisoning of the past, of tradition, of metaphysics. If the Left has any use for any of these, it is to subvert it, pervert it, mock it, and uglify it. The Leftist desires to be unmoored in order so that he may be given free rein to indulge his selfish individual appetites and impose his speculative schemes on pliant human guinea pigs. This confers our side with another strategic advantage: firstly, many ordinary folk feel attached to, and reassured by, traditional forms -- they are upset by fundamental change; and, secondly, for many ordinary folk everyday life is tedious and filled with drudgery -- esoterica caters to the human need for fantasy and escape, for something that supersedes the pedestrian reality of the material plane of existence. The Left, being solely concerned with material reality, can only emulate this with sneers, cynicism, and poor taste.
These unique areas of advantage can and ought to be further elucidated. They are also not the only ones.
They are sufficient, however, for us to begin elaborating our own, forward-looking utopian vision. A utopian vision is necessary, because it provides direction, an ideal to aim for; because it unites behind a common purpose, it inspires aspirational sentiments of greatness and glory, and caters to the aforementioned human need for fantasy and escape. A utopian vision is like the advertisement in a marketing campaign. It needs to be forward-looking, because the arrow of time, indeed life, moves inexorably forward: you can kill a baby and make a new one; but you cannot put the baby back in the womb.
Those who doubt the political significance of utopian inspiration ought to remember that while the Left was in opposition, it was as fundamentally critical of the existing system as we are today -- its message was "No, it's not OK and things will have to change radically, and I'm afraid you'll have to give up some of your privileges." On the face of it, this is not a message likely to prove popular with a ruling class or a dominant culture. Yet, at no point did Leftists forget to couch their critique with uplifting, moral language ("dignity," "inalienable rights," "fairness," "social justice," etc.) And neither did they forget to tell their constituents concretely how they would benefit from the Leftist program ("equal pay for equal wok," "universal healthcare," "no child left behind," etc.) The Left was successful because its leadership understood human motivation and it knew how to market its program effectively in a manner that was both consistent with the Leftist system of belief and difficult, for that reason, for the Left's opponents to emulate without looking like hypocrites.
On the basis of the above, I propose that our marketing strategy needs to focus on positive values that come naturally to us and which the Left finds difficult, or impossible, to replicate: quality, greatness, spirituality, heterodoxy, and romanticism. These values need to appear in contrast -- more often than not by implication rather than by accusation -- to the Leftist tendency to produce a world of cheapness, monotony, mean-spiritedness, materialism, and utilitarianism -- all of which are consequences of egalitarianism's race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator. If we are able to develop a style of presentation, an image, that encapsulates our core values and message in an attractive, uplifting, and forward-looking manner, that captures White people's imagination, that enraptures them with images, sounds, tastes, textures, and smells that hint at what could be; and if we are able, at the same time, to develop economic opportunities (quality goods and services, as opposed to the modern con jobs) and status systems (awards, clubs, etc.) we are likely to make our target audience more receptive to the pro-White arguments and supporting data than it has been so far. The arguments and the data would then be marshaled by our target audience to justify their fantasies, yearnings, and ambition; the enemy's arguments and data would be dismissed, because boring and inconvenient. And access to parallel business opportunities and status systems unencumbered by political correctness would, in turn, inoculate our target audience against its dependency on the anti-White establishment. We would then be offering a carrot, available now, and not just the stick of fear of a cataclysmic future.
Back to my party analogy, we need to be like the gentleman who is throwing the rival party across the street, which is so much more vibrant and impressive in terms of music, food, décor, theme, cache, quality of attendees, and organization -- so much better, in sum, than the one being hosted by the Leftist that the latter's guests eventually desert him. A frivolous analogy, perhaps, but such is the world we live in.
Obviously, I do not regard political activism as a party, or as it being all about fun, style, and presentation -- to be sure, there is no reason why political activism cannot or should not be fun, but seriousness and substance still matter. I do maintain, however, that successfully selling a message involves necessarily making those to whom it is aimed feel good about themselves and their affiliation with the messenger; and that, if our side is to make political progress, this process and the methods, strategies, and tactics it involves needs to be understood and afforded much greater focus than it has enjoyed hitherto.
Some final thoughts. In some of my articles, including this one, I have used the terms "Left" and "Right". I use the Left-Right dichotomy for the sake of expediency. In reality, however, I do not see our mission in terms of a simple political binary, as the situation is far more complicated, indeed superseding the realm of politics (it has been suggested that our crisis is spiritual, for example). But I trust my readers will know what I mean; that they will understand that "Left" does not mean Democrat or Labour any more than "Right" means Republican or Tory - these are all liberal parties, all Leftists in my book. Essentially, "the Left" refers to the enemy: the rationalist materalists who believe in the ideology of equality and progress.
Also, sometimes I come across organizations that claim they exist to defend Western civilization and / or the interests of the White race, without making it obvious how they do this or what they plan to do. They tell us what they believe in and what they are against, and... they ask for money; but the prospective donor is not given in advance any real sense of what his / her money will be used for, let alone whether it will be used effectively. These organizations are not political parties, evidently, because they do not systematically campaign in elections, but... are they lobbyists? Award bodies? Literary agencies? Record labels? Or are they just websites, pumping out information for the benefit of the converted? Thankfully, White advocacy has in recent years been gradually moving away from this model; but, all the same, it needs to be re-stated: a generic organization with a grandiloquent remit is not sufficient. It is better to create narrowly focused organizations (small businesses, clubs, charities) that operate within a specific area, in a specific role, with a clearly circumscribed mission, offering opportunities and real goods and services in the market place. It might be that, looked in isolation, a record label, a battle re-enactment society, or a charity aiming to preserve specific monuments or sites, does not appear crucial in the battle for survival; but they are important in their aggregate, and, because specialized, they are much more likely than a generic organization to achieve tangible objectives within their scope of operation. Remember: focus is important in marketing. Another advantage to this approach is that the organizations need not be overtly political, and, therefore, not make themselves an immediate target for the censors.
In sum, I believe that ultimate success or failure will depend on, among other factors, whether our side is able to recast itself as the energetic forger of tomorrow, rather than simply the embittered critic of today.
