THE RADICALLY HONEST RIGHT

by James Lawrence

The main weakness of modern self-help books, as opposed to those written in antiquity by the likes of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, is that they begin not from truth but from the desires and aspirations of the multitude. Far from a teacher pointing the way toward virtue, the modern “self-help guru” is reduced to a servant, cannibalising certain philosophical techniques in order to help people achieve money, “success”, and heightened endorphin production more effectively. But there is at least one modern self-help book that in its essential content harks back to the older tradition, and that book is Radical Honesty, written by a Texan psychotherapist named Brad Blanton who describes himself as “white trash with a Ph.D.”. 

The self-help method of Radical Honesty and its sequel Practicing Radical Honesty is  simple: tell the truth, about everything, all the time, without lying or withholding anything. It is important to emphasise that Blanton does not advocate this commitment to honesty out of a moral opposition to lying. Rather, working back to traditional virtues through modern utilitarianism, he sees radical honesty as the only truly effective therapeutic path to health and happiness.

CODREANU AND THE WARRIOR ETHOS

by Keith Preston

European civilization of the early to middle twentieth century was characterized in part by the growth of political movements with a martial character. These included both the many variants of fascism from the far Right and revolutionary socialist currents from the far Left. The proliferation of such movements accelerated sharply in the interwar period. Particularly noteworthy were Mussolini’s Fascisti and the National Socialists of Germany, given the later success of these at actual achievement of state power, as well as the various factions involved in the Spanish Civil War. Romania’s Iron Guard, under the leadership of Corneliu Codreanu, was unique among these movements in that it was one of the few such tendencies with a strong religious orientation, and a highly eccentric religiosity at that. (Payne, 1995)