Left-liberal attitudes and habits of mind may at one time have been radical, provocative, and gutsy, but today they are staid, stale, conventional, and boring. Any honest contemporary cultural Marxist will have to admit that, politically speaking, his side now holds all significant power. Those who openly decline to subscribe to the ideological establishment's point of view on such matters as race, gender, and sexuality have in effect committed social suicide; having put themselves utterly at the mercy of the powers-that-be, such unfortunates have left themselves open to attack by legions of official Zeitgeist-enforcers and their numerous toadying minions.
Today's thought-criminals and ideological deviants are liable to be thrown in jail or fined for indulging in so-called "hate speech," or at the very least, to be subjected to harassment, humiliation, and deprivation of livelihood. It is, in short, a bad career move not to toe the company line. Even in a country where free expression is nominally protected, one still in actuality faces a stark choice: conform to the enforced conventional wisdom, or be thrust into the outer darkness.
Today's thought-criminals and ideological deviants are liable to be thrown in jail or fined for indulging in so-called "hate speech," or at the very least, to be subjected to harassment, humiliation, and deprivation of livelihood. It is, in short, a bad career move not to toe the company line. Even in a country where free expression is nominally protected, one still in actuality faces a stark choice: conform to the enforced conventional wisdom, or be thrust into the outer darkness.
For radical traditionalists, dissident rightists, race realists, and other such present-day thought-criminals, things seem dire indeed. Yet all is not lost, and much, in fact, has been won. For our adversaries’ victory on cultural matters is very much a pyrrhic one. In becoming the Establishment, the Left has haemorrhaged its mojo. To be a lefty today has none of the allure or glamour that it once possessed in halcyon times when one actually faced persecution and ostracism for taking up left-wing causes. In 2013, one who spouts liberal rhetoric and parrots politically-correct bromides doesn't seem like a troublemaker, but rather a brown-nosing goody-goody. A defiant rightist, on the other hand, has gained the status of a dangerous outlaw; though reviled, feared, and loathed by the authority-fearing populace, such a one nevertheless exudes an exciting primordial appeal for his insolent refusal to curtsy before the almighty Zeitgeist.
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| Jonathan Bowden via Obamamania |
What is more, oppression is often a boon to the cause of creativity. After all, complacency is typically the bugaboo of the ascendant, not the downtrodden. Those in control only have an incentive to play things safe, whereas the ideological outlaws have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Now, therefore, is the time to seize upon the opportunity with which circumstances have presented us. An artistic renaissance is in the works, blossoming ripely under the ongoing blizzard of scorn, revilement, and repression launched from official, sanctioned institutions of ideological dominion and control. A hearty harvest is being nurtured beneath the very steel-spiked boot of the tyrant's heel which now threatens to crush us utterly.
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Every significant and worthwhile social movement is not solely, or even primarily political in nature. Rather, it is buttressed by a spiritual understanding of man and the cosmos. Thus, the cluster of variously intertwining ideologies which make up the Dis-Right must be represented in aesthetic form, as art must undergird any philosophical conception of reality. Art goes where rhetoric cannot go; art communicates by showing rather than merely telling; being properly understood as elemental, rather than simply rational, it speaks to the soul, not just the mind. A thousand well-worded, thought-provoking articles don't have nearly the same psychic impact upon a reader as a single novel, play, or poem possessed of the spark of lusty inspiration.
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| "Mussolini and Biplanes" by Jonathan Bowden |
In order for our vision to be properly promoted, we must frame our mental and spiritual revolt against the bankrupt morays of the modern world in aesthetic terms. This means composing works which enable readers, viewers, or listeners (depending on the medium) to see the truth behind the malignantly deceptive simulacrum that is post-modernity and the bogus, trendy, ascendant ideologies that infest nearly all aspects of our current day-to-day consciousness. We want to help modern man rip off his blinders so that he may apprehend reality and truth, and the most effective manner to accomplish such a goal is through the cultivation of an artistic counter-movement, one which aggressively challenges the dominant contemporary paradigm on its own terms.
Alex Kurtagic, Wermod and Wermod publisher and author of the anti-multicultural, anti-egalitarian dystopian novel Mister, has made the point that people seldom change their minds based on a confrontation with facts or reasoned argument. Rather, they adopt a different mindset through what could be called aesthetic initiation, a process that Kurtagic himself has associated with a type of seduction. And the best literature does indeed possess a seductive power; it woos and ravishes its reader, and causes him to fall in love with the truths it presents; it makes him want to live and die for the virtues it depicts; it makes him as passionate and devoted as any ardent lover.
Let us work to redeem the time by bringing forth a muscular legion of artistic works in any genre which suits our particular gifts. Let us fling forth our devout defiance, and raise a formidable army of books, artworks, and poetry dedicated to subvert, undermine, and overthrow the Zeitgeist. Our enemies have much to fear from us, for the pen is mightier than the sword.
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| "The Smoker" by Colin Liddell |
Andy Nowicki, co-editor of Affirmative Right, is the author of seven books, including Under the Nihil, The Doctor and the Heretic, Considering Suicide, and his latest Beauty and the Least. He occasionally updates his blog when the spirit moves him to do so.
