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| Jews trying not to have their backs against the wall. |
Ellison Lodge’s attempt to bring order to the debate about Jewish nationalism and influence in America was very laudable and plausible. His categories have the appearance of fairness and balance, which is an achievement in an area that generates so much “heat” and miasma.
His four categories also have a pleasing symmetry and simplicity that almost reminded me of Newton’s laws of planetary motion. However, after a few days rolling them around in various portions of my rather convoluted and un-geometrical mind, I couldn’t help thinking that they made the classic Western (or White) intellectual error of equivalence, which is treating things as if they all exist on the same plane.
This sort of thinking, rather like Newtonian physics, has the appearance of rationality, extension, and universal applicability, and, more than this, just like Newtonian physics, it almost always works. For example, there is certainly equivalence between German and French national rights and interests. Although these might have been addressed at various times by different methods—politics, economics, and war—the idea that both countries had roughly equal national rights and weight has always informed their history and their relationship.
When France was dominant at the time of Napoleon’s ascendancy, the idea of a German national interest mobilized things beneath the surface and prepared the way for his downfall. Likewise, when France was crushed by the superior military genius of the Germans in 1870 and 1940, the idea that France was somehow still equal to Germany kept the national flame burning strongly. This idea of a just equivalence of national interests between all the European nations has led at various times to wars and more recently to the unfortunate situation where the nations have agreed—based on the idea of a kind of negative equivalence—to temporarily subsume their legitimate national interests in the bureaucratic swamp of the European Superstate.
In the intellectual culture of the West, which has basically been shaped by Christian universalist notions, equivalence seems both logical and moral, but the case of Jewish nationalism actually serves to show the flaws in the system.
Just as Newtonian physics breaks down where the space/time fabric seems to be bent and distorted by Black Holes and Dark Matter, so the idea of equivalence becomes an increasing absurdity when applied to the issue of Jewish nationalism.
This is essentially because the Jews have not existed as a nation (people + land), but merely as a people, since the fall of Masada in the year 73AD. To continue existing as a separate people, the Jews have been forced to adopt policies that are the very antithesis of equivalence. Indeed, any attempt at “equivalence” in the Dark Age or Medieval periods, or before the so-called European Enlightenment, when legal restrictions against Jews started to be removed, would surely have seen the Jewish people wiped out.
In essence, the Jews survived by existing on a different plane and in a different dimension from other peoples, their only equivalents being minor ones like the Romany or Parsees. In Newtonian terms, they retreated from the clear, straight spaces of upstanding national assertion into the Dark Matter of ghettoes and the Black Holes of behind-the-scenes influence.
Although the world has clearly changed a lot since the so-called Enlightenment, the example of the Nazis, Stalin’s intended pogrom before his death, the rabid hatred of Jews in the Islamic world, and the smouldering distrust of Jews in the Orient, should remind us that the more things change the more they stay the same. Anti-Semitism may have been in abeyance in the West, especially in America, where it seems to be mitigated by Judeophilic versions of Christianity, and Jews may have attained the undue cultural and political influence in that country that is needed to support their guilt-bought state of Israel.
But how stable is this really?
American power is on the wane, the guilt-bought state is now morally over-mortgaged, and old notions of the Jew as a parasite and manipulator seem set to make a comeback—even in America, as the economy slides and the culture becomes less Anglo. The fact is, any idea of an equivalence for Jewish nationalism is purely based on extreme and temporary factors. Unlike my nation, Scotland, and a host of others, which won their right to exist through incredible moral and physical courage, the Jews lost their battles and chose instead to exist in a shadow world until the artificial creation of the Neo-Jewish state attempted to thrust their national interests onto the same plane as others; and while that state has so far vindicated itself militarily, how much of this is due to “special assistance” from the Dark Matter?
Let us consider Jewish interests through Lodge’s four categories in the light of the full historical and likely future picture.
Option 1 is short-termist and, as Lodge rightly points out, is blatantly intellectually inconsistent in our dominant intellectual culture. This view will only lead to growing hatred of the Jews and a final repudiation and isolation of the Israeli state.
Option 2 is generally acceptable in the same way that most European nations “accept” the European superstate, but this also reveals the essential artificiality of the Israeli state. While the European nations can pristinely survive a few decades of bureaucratic standardization, Israel, situated where it is, can’t survive without rabid ethno-politics.
Option 3 sounds good, but with America pursuing its own interests and cozying up to the far more numerous and economically important Arab world, Israel will have to go it alone; estimated time of survival 20 to 30 years.
In short, none of the first three options work for the Jews, which leaves the fourth option—anti-ethno-politics for Israel plus pro-ethno-politics for Europeans and the West. Lodge calls this intellectually inconsistent, and it is—but only based on the premise of the equivalence of Jewish nationalism. It is at this point that the flaws of equivalence and “intellectual consistency” become most apparent, because option four is actually the best option for the Jewish people as it reflects the conditions that have allowed them to survive as a people, although not a nation, for nearly 2000 years.
By throwing away their Zionism, by remembering that their nation was totally crushed, and by accepting the historical fact that they have always subsisted by existing on a different level from other peoples, the Jews will ensure their survival as a people for another 2000 years. The alternatives will crush them as a people as surely as the Roman legions at Masada crushed any hope of a Jewish state.
Note (2021): It appears that Richard Spencer is now "borrowing" these insights and presenting them as his own, as seen in this recent live stream:
His four categories also have a pleasing symmetry and simplicity that almost reminded me of Newton’s laws of planetary motion. However, after a few days rolling them around in various portions of my rather convoluted and un-geometrical mind, I couldn’t help thinking that they made the classic Western (or White) intellectual error of equivalence, which is treating things as if they all exist on the same plane.
This sort of thinking, rather like Newtonian physics, has the appearance of rationality, extension, and universal applicability, and, more than this, just like Newtonian physics, it almost always works. For example, there is certainly equivalence between German and French national rights and interests. Although these might have been addressed at various times by different methods—politics, economics, and war—the idea that both countries had roughly equal national rights and weight has always informed their history and their relationship.
When France was dominant at the time of Napoleon’s ascendancy, the idea of a German national interest mobilized things beneath the surface and prepared the way for his downfall. Likewise, when France was crushed by the superior military genius of the Germans in 1870 and 1940, the idea that France was somehow still equal to Germany kept the national flame burning strongly. This idea of a just equivalence of national interests between all the European nations has led at various times to wars and more recently to the unfortunate situation where the nations have agreed—based on the idea of a kind of negative equivalence—to temporarily subsume their legitimate national interests in the bureaucratic swamp of the European Superstate.
In the intellectual culture of the West, which has basically been shaped by Christian universalist notions, equivalence seems both logical and moral, but the case of Jewish nationalism actually serves to show the flaws in the system.
Just as Newtonian physics breaks down where the space/time fabric seems to be bent and distorted by Black Holes and Dark Matter, so the idea of equivalence becomes an increasing absurdity when applied to the issue of Jewish nationalism.
This is essentially because the Jews have not existed as a nation (people + land), but merely as a people, since the fall of Masada in the year 73AD. To continue existing as a separate people, the Jews have been forced to adopt policies that are the very antithesis of equivalence. Indeed, any attempt at “equivalence” in the Dark Age or Medieval periods, or before the so-called European Enlightenment, when legal restrictions against Jews started to be removed, would surely have seen the Jewish people wiped out.
In essence, the Jews survived by existing on a different plane and in a different dimension from other peoples, their only equivalents being minor ones like the Romany or Parsees. In Newtonian terms, they retreated from the clear, straight spaces of upstanding national assertion into the Dark Matter of ghettoes and the Black Holes of behind-the-scenes influence.
Although the world has clearly changed a lot since the so-called Enlightenment, the example of the Nazis, Stalin’s intended pogrom before his death, the rabid hatred of Jews in the Islamic world, and the smouldering distrust of Jews in the Orient, should remind us that the more things change the more they stay the same. Anti-Semitism may have been in abeyance in the West, especially in America, where it seems to be mitigated by Judeophilic versions of Christianity, and Jews may have attained the undue cultural and political influence in that country that is needed to support their guilt-bought state of Israel.
But how stable is this really?
American power is on the wane, the guilt-bought state is now morally over-mortgaged, and old notions of the Jew as a parasite and manipulator seem set to make a comeback—even in America, as the economy slides and the culture becomes less Anglo. The fact is, any idea of an equivalence for Jewish nationalism is purely based on extreme and temporary factors. Unlike my nation, Scotland, and a host of others, which won their right to exist through incredible moral and physical courage, the Jews lost their battles and chose instead to exist in a shadow world until the artificial creation of the Neo-Jewish state attempted to thrust their national interests onto the same plane as others; and while that state has so far vindicated itself militarily, how much of this is due to “special assistance” from the Dark Matter?
Let us consider Jewish interests through Lodge’s four categories in the light of the full historical and likely future picture.
• Pro-ethno-politics for Israel + Anti-ethno-politics for Europeans and the West
• Anti-ethno-politics for Israel + Anti-ethno-politics for Europeans and the West
• Pro-ethno-politics for Israel + Pro-ethno-politics for Europeans and the West
• Anti-ethno-politics for Israel + Pro-ethno-politics for Europeans and the West
Option 1 is short-termist and, as Lodge rightly points out, is blatantly intellectually inconsistent in our dominant intellectual culture. This view will only lead to growing hatred of the Jews and a final repudiation and isolation of the Israeli state.
Option 2 is generally acceptable in the same way that most European nations “accept” the European superstate, but this also reveals the essential artificiality of the Israeli state. While the European nations can pristinely survive a few decades of bureaucratic standardization, Israel, situated where it is, can’t survive without rabid ethno-politics.
Option 3 sounds good, but with America pursuing its own interests and cozying up to the far more numerous and economically important Arab world, Israel will have to go it alone; estimated time of survival 20 to 30 years.
In short, none of the first three options work for the Jews, which leaves the fourth option—anti-ethno-politics for Israel plus pro-ethno-politics for Europeans and the West. Lodge calls this intellectually inconsistent, and it is—but only based on the premise of the equivalence of Jewish nationalism. It is at this point that the flaws of equivalence and “intellectual consistency” become most apparent, because option four is actually the best option for the Jewish people as it reflects the conditions that have allowed them to survive as a people, although not a nation, for nearly 2000 years.
By throwing away their Zionism, by remembering that their nation was totally crushed, and by accepting the historical fact that they have always subsisted by existing on a different level from other peoples, the Jews will ensure their survival as a people for another 2000 years. The alternatives will crush them as a people as surely as the Roman legions at Masada crushed any hope of a Jewish state.
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