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—which are straightforward and aimed at revealing the core—will be the same for each interview. (The lightning-round questions will vary somewhat.)
The subject of this interview is Brett Stevens. Stevens’s writing—common themes include his preference for hierarchy and nationalism, and his opposition to unrestrained materialism—has appeared in numerous Dissident right publications (including this website). He is the editor of Amerika.org, and the author of Nihilism.
Briefly describe your journey to the Dissident Right.
The [former] Alt Right formulated itself during the late 00s when it became clear that George W. Bush, for whatever his strengths, was essentially fighting wars for the Leftist ideal of equality. This meant that mainstream conservatism had rejected the idea of being an alternative to the malignant creep of Leftism through our civilization; it had adopted the core idea of Leftism, and so served as a delaying action but little more. There was a need for a movement which exhibited the core of the Right, with a belief that humans have never changed and some ideas are eternal in that they work in any age to make human experience not just tolerable, but excellent, existentially pleasurable and good.
For this reason, the [former] Alt Right launched itself as an alternative to not just Leftism, but also mainstream conservatism, which was infested with Leftism, and the underground Right of white nationalism which had become a type of "ethno-bolshevism" which was ridden with Leftist ideas. We needed a real Right. At that time, I had already been writing on realist topics for over a decade and pointed my own writing toward the eternal right or ultra-right, which rejects all modern ideas starting with equality, and instead aspires to a traditional society built around culture, aristocracy, social caste and a transcendental goal, which is not necessarily religious but rejects purely material reasoning for a sense of aspiring to ideals, or the notion that principles rise above physical convenience. At this point, I had founded and was writing for a site named CORRUPT which expressed many of the core [Dissident] Right ideas—HBD, inequality, complementary gender roles, nationalism and rejection of egalitarianism including democracy—and so found the [Dissident] Right was pursuing similar paths and much compatibility could be found.
Somewhere in there, my editor Alex Birch and I discovered [the old] Alternative Right, the online magazine, and began submitting pieces. My own awakening dates back to years earlier, when I spent a lot of time in the forest and discovered the principle that guides my life, nihilism, or the rejection of ideas that are based on human intent alone. Instead, I seek to find parallels between my thinking and the external world, and by disciplining myself to that world, can avoid hubris or the solipsism of the arrogant individual, discovering instead an order of nature and a hierarchy of humans by excellence in which we all fit.
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 and why?
I have one issue: restore Western Civilization. This is necessary as a means to the end of my ultimate hope, which is to limit or avoid ecocide, a consequence of overpopulation and land overuse which was set in motion by the liberalization of Western society following the French Revolution. The rest of the world has followed our lead. The philosophy of deep ecology states that we cannot directly attack our environmental damage, but must re-order our civilization to avoid the excesses which cause ecocide. In other words, ecocide is the result of a leadership problem, and our only solution is to fix our leadership and make our society sane again, so that we can clearly see. The knowledge that we are committing ecocide makes our people self-hating, which in turn makes them despair, and so they become even less likely to address this problem. For that reason, the theory of deep ecology led me to realize that Western Civilization must be restored and made healthy in order to avoid the insanity that perpetuates ecocide.
You are quite correct and perceptive in noting that the [Dissident] Right is an umbrella term. Most conservative movements are "big tent" enterprises because they do not believe that one single theory can address all of the questions of human life, since the universe is wired according to its own order and not ours. Instead, we need a laundry list of stuff that has worked in every context over time, or "time-proven solutions," which we then adopt as principles. These are abstract but geared toward application so that they can be interpreted in any situation without too much effort and ambiguity. The [Dissident] Right was birthed of multiple strands—HBD, libertarianism, traditionalism, new right, possibly deep ecology—and these struggle for power within it, alongside the mainstream influences of Leftist and Right-lite parties and the background influence of white nationalism. What holds them together is that they are all conservative views, or those based on results in reality and guided by some form of transcendental truth, like a yearning for beauty, significance, meaning, eternal truth, purpose, goodness and existential pleasure.
What strand of Dissident Right thought do you most dislike/disagree with, and why?
All of us in the [Dissident] Right come from a Leftist-dominated time, and so our first task is to purge ourselves of Leftism, but this is more complicated than it sounds. The assumption of equality pervades all that we do and is invisible because as an assumption, it is not even considered in our analysis. Some on the [Dissident] Right have not rejected egalitarianism and so hang on to the idea that if we just purge certain scapegoats, society will be fine as democracy where people insist on equal rights, and that there is no need to have aristocracy or any nationalism past the idea that all white people can join together in a universal Caucasian, classless, and egalitarian society. These are often the ones that HitLARP (1488) or adopt seemingly the most extreme positions involving eugenics and genocide, but they miss the fundamental point: when we went egalitarian, our individualism caused us to deny reality, and this is the root of our broken civilization.
Lightning Round
Greeks or Romans?
Greeks, by far. They got there first and did everything right, then self-destructed because societies that do everything right lose purpose and fall into internal conflict.
European Imperium or the ethnostate?
Both. European groups—Southern/Irish, Western and Eastern—can fight for Europe, but must remain individual nationalist entities so that they can preserve themselves. Mixing Europeans will destroy what is unique about our groups and allow for mass introduction of trace admixture, which will result in a destruction of the Western people.
The National Review or The Huffington Post?
Ever since the National Review canned John Derbyshire, I have had trouble supporting them, so I have to go with the Huffington Post here.
Nirvana or the Pumpkins?
Who? Only death metal and classical are true. Hook a nilla up with some Burzum or Bruckner and never trust the mainstream!
Sam and Diane or Rachel and Ross?
I had to use DuckDuckGo to look this one up. Apparently it involves television. I have to go with the show that happens in a bar as opposed to the navel-gazing apartment dwellers, but really I am out of my depth on this question. Gilligan?
Kierkegaard or Nietzsche?
Nietzsche, by a mile. I get my Christian fix from Meister Eckhart and indirectly from Baruch Spinoza. No disrespect to Kierkegaard, but Nietzsche took Kant to its logical conclusion and showed us the challenge of the next millennium.
