Interviewed by Ryan Andrews
The intention of this series is to provide the reader with thumbnail introductions to a variety of Dissident Right personalities and their ideas. The three main questions will be the same for each interview, though the lightning round questions will vary.
The subject of this interview is essayist and novelist Alex Fontana. Fontana hosts “The Fascist Pigs” podcast and blogs at alexfontana.wordpress.com. And of course, he is a frequent contributor to these pages.
Briefly describe your journey to the Dissident Right.
I think I got here very uniquely and naturally by a curious mixture of happenstance, circumstance and volition, self-education, self-refection, and self-becoming. Firstly, I was never a disenchanted libertarian. I always say two major facets came together around the same period of my life to shape my worldview.
The first was my studies—I've met a lot of like-minded people, young nationalist types, who were awoken to racial politics in university. The hamfisted approach of liberal academics pushed a lot of people in my generation towards the extreme right and they will continue to do so. I think we are all "Stirner's own" ultimately, and all the crying of the Left for more Rights for (insert special interest group) is really about them stroking their own egos at the expense of the hegemonic and demonic figure of the white male who has been kowtowing for too long now.
Secondly, there was a very personal aspect in which my family was swindled by Jews—our property was then sold off to foreign Asian buyers. I think this is where I developed a real connection to other aspects of the [Dissident]-Right, namely a healthy distrust of the Jews and a fierce anti-globalism that I already had even in my default leftist days—a kind of self-evident common-sense nationalism and tribalism. There is indeed a sense of the personal, that is a subjective dimension, to my politics and worldview, but I do not think they are lessened because of it, quite the opposite actually. This fueled a desire for retribution and knowledge that functions in a 'Lenin's brother' sense of wanting nothing less than complete and total revolution.
The Dissident Right is an umbrella term covering several different ideologies and sub-ideologies. Whether it be big or small, an ideological or a factual belief, what is your personal pet issue?
I have the unfortunate tendency to be interested in too many things all at once and then suddenly nothing at all holds my thoughts beyond some pitiful bromide—the struggle is real. One perennial concern of mine is to parcel out metaphysical differences between states of orientation. I really believe that the Left and the Right, for all their shared similarities on their extremities, represent different polarities in a metaphysical sense. This is something that bothers me to no end, most especially the tendency towards Manicheanism that can come from this sort of thinking. Beyond that, I have sort of become the Tomato Joe of this thing, which has made me focus on my ethnicity more than I thought I would due to...
What strand of Dissident Right thought do you most dislike/disagree with, and why?
Nordicism. I'm not into the whole genetic determinist argument, which dovetails into this as well. I am far more a cultural determinist than a Spencerian. Flatly, see Stirner: I cannot be what I am not, but also I think it's a product of a bygone era, the vestiges of such craniological determinates only raise WASP blood up to a lukewarm candor where "wyhte" is just right.
I also think it's the wrong argument to make. The superior argument is given in Tonnies's dichotomy—one of the advantages of this framework is that Asians do not suddenly get a pass. I am more concerned with the Asians than perhaps anyone else on the [Dissident] Right and see them as one of our biggest threats, a silent one. Historically the Jews have used an emerging power against the one that just housed them, transferring their loyalty and gifting their many attributes to a new host. Belshazzar's feast has occurred more times historically than other rhyme.
–For the sake of clarity, I have to ask about this passage:
You got what I was saying, and phrased it very well.
–And I'm not familiar with Tonnies, but I presume that as an Imperium-ist, that for you the nation is the Gemeinschaft and the (Imperial) state represents the Gesellschaft?
This is very well summarized as well. Tonnies himself saw his dichotomy at play whereby the state (Gesellschaft) and the society (Gemeinschaft) corresponded to these forms. He was not thinking in terms of empire, but it can easily be applied.
Greeks or Romans?
Greco-Roman.
European Imperium or the Ethnostate?
Imperium.
Blacks or Jews?
Jews socially, creatively and intellectually—although I will probably disagree with them.
National Review or Huffington Post?
Counter-Currents.
Batman or James Bond?
I hate James Bond; its a puerile fantasy with little redeeming or justifying attributes. I grew up a HUGE Batman fan. Out of the thousands of comic books that I still have, at least 3/4 are from the Batman universe. In contrast to 007, Batman is an Ubermensch in a symbolic and fictitious context that alleviates the suspension of disbelief and transcends into the realm of myth and Jungian archetypes.
Coppola or Scorsese?
My dad's an Italian that despises gangster movies, I don't really share his distaste but I know where it's coming from. I just read a book on Scorsese by Robert Casillo, still Scorsese lost me when he changed the main character in The Wolf of Wall Street from a Jew into a WASP—he has no problem depicting Italians as criminals, but draws a line with the Jews? Although I love Gangs of New York. Short answer is "Charlie don't surf."
Don Cherry or Degrassi? (Fontana is Canadian, and I didn’t have the heart to ask him to choose between Bieber and Drake.)
I love Don Cherry.
The subject of this interview is essayist and novelist Alex Fontana. Fontana hosts “The Fascist Pigs” podcast and blogs at alexfontana.wordpress.com. And of course, he is a frequent contributor to these pages.
Briefly describe your journey to the Dissident Right.
I think I got here very uniquely and naturally by a curious mixture of happenstance, circumstance and volition, self-education, self-refection, and self-becoming. Firstly, I was never a disenchanted libertarian. I always say two major facets came together around the same period of my life to shape my worldview.
The first was my studies—I've met a lot of like-minded people, young nationalist types, who were awoken to racial politics in university. The hamfisted approach of liberal academics pushed a lot of people in my generation towards the extreme right and they will continue to do so. I think we are all "Stirner's own" ultimately, and all the crying of the Left for more Rights for (insert special interest group) is really about them stroking their own egos at the expense of the hegemonic and demonic figure of the white male who has been kowtowing for too long now.
Secondly, there was a very personal aspect in which my family was swindled by Jews—our property was then sold off to foreign Asian buyers. I think this is where I developed a real connection to other aspects of the [Dissident]-Right, namely a healthy distrust of the Jews and a fierce anti-globalism that I already had even in my default leftist days—a kind of self-evident common-sense nationalism and tribalism. There is indeed a sense of the personal, that is a subjective dimension, to my politics and worldview, but I do not think they are lessened because of it, quite the opposite actually. This fueled a desire for retribution and knowledge that functions in a 'Lenin's brother' sense of wanting nothing less than complete and total revolution.The Dissident Right is an umbrella term covering several different ideologies and sub-ideologies. Whether it be big or small, an ideological or a factual belief, what is your personal pet issue?
I have the unfortunate tendency to be interested in too many things all at once and then suddenly nothing at all holds my thoughts beyond some pitiful bromide—the struggle is real. One perennial concern of mine is to parcel out metaphysical differences between states of orientation. I really believe that the Left and the Right, for all their shared similarities on their extremities, represent different polarities in a metaphysical sense. This is something that bothers me to no end, most especially the tendency towards Manicheanism that can come from this sort of thinking. Beyond that, I have sort of become the Tomato Joe of this thing, which has made me focus on my ethnicity more than I thought I would due to...
What strand of Dissident Right thought do you most dislike/disagree with, and why?
Nordicism. I'm not into the whole genetic determinist argument, which dovetails into this as well. I am far more a cultural determinist than a Spencerian. Flatly, see Stirner: I cannot be what I am not, but also I think it's a product of a bygone era, the vestiges of such craniological determinates only raise WASP blood up to a lukewarm candor where "wyhte" is just right.
I also think it's the wrong argument to make. The superior argument is given in Tonnies's dichotomy—one of the advantages of this framework is that Asians do not suddenly get a pass. I am more concerned with the Asians than perhaps anyone else on the [Dissident] Right and see them as one of our biggest threats, a silent one. Historically the Jews have used an emerging power against the one that just housed them, transferring their loyalty and gifting their many attributes to a new host. Belshazzar's feast has occurred more times historically than other rhyme.
–For the sake of clarity, I have to ask about this passage:
I also think it's [Nordicism] the wrong argument to make. The superior argument is given in Tonnies's dichotomy—one of the advantages of this framework is that Asians do not suddenly get a pass.–Are you saying here that because Nordicists often argue for an "objective, scientific superiority" (for lack of a better phrase), that East Asians get a pass under this scheme because they average high intelligence, low time preference, et cetera? More broadly, White nationalists should be arguing that we are, and must remain, a community—a community of common blood and culture, rather than justifying ourselves on the grounds of material utility—i.e. the white ethnostate would have less crime. Is that about right?
You got what I was saying, and phrased it very well.
–And I'm not familiar with Tonnies, but I presume that as an Imperium-ist, that for you the nation is the Gemeinschaft and the (Imperial) state represents the Gesellschaft?
This is very well summarized as well. Tonnies himself saw his dichotomy at play whereby the state (Gesellschaft) and the society (Gemeinschaft) corresponded to these forms. He was not thinking in terms of empire, but it can easily be applied.
Lightning Round:
Greeks or Romans?
Greco-Roman.
European Imperium or the Ethnostate?
Imperium.
Blacks or Jews?
Jews socially, creatively and intellectually—although I will probably disagree with them.
National Review or Huffington Post?
Counter-Currents.
I hate James Bond; its a puerile fantasy with little redeeming or justifying attributes. I grew up a HUGE Batman fan. Out of the thousands of comic books that I still have, at least 3/4 are from the Batman universe. In contrast to 007, Batman is an Ubermensch in a symbolic and fictitious context that alleviates the suspension of disbelief and transcends into the realm of myth and Jungian archetypes.
Coppola or Scorsese?
My dad's an Italian that despises gangster movies, I don't really share his distaste but I know where it's coming from. I just read a book on Scorsese by Robert Casillo, still Scorsese lost me when he changed the main character in The Wolf of Wall Street from a Jew into a WASP—he has no problem depicting Italians as criminals, but draws a line with the Jews? Although I love Gangs of New York. Short answer is "Charlie don't surf."
Don Cherry or Degrassi? (Fontana is Canadian, and I didn’t have the heart to ask him to choose between Bieber and Drake.)
I love Don Cherry.
