TEXT TO AUDIO: ALTERNATIVE VERTICAL

Colin Liddell reads his 2013 article on the meaninglessness of political terminology founded on the outmoded linear Left/ Right political spectrum. The article proposes that much of the confusion surrounding political definitions could be cleared up by invoking instead a political spectrum founded on vertical and horizontal vectors. The article can be read here.

DEMOCRACY OF THE DEAD

by John Maelstrom

Traditionalists of the Alternative Right, or New Right, often find themselves bewildered when trying to explain how it is they consider themselves right-wing given what most people think when they think right-wing. There’s a feeling somewhere inside of us saying, “These are our people. With just a little nudge they might see the light.” But at the same time we embrace causes associated, for decades now, with the Left, such as: drug legalization, environmental concerns, anti-globalization, and crusades against factory farming that likely drive them away.

THE INTELLECTUAL VACUITY OF THE OLD RIGHT

by Alain de Benoist
Translated by Roman Bernard, edited by Colin Liddell

Translator's note: What follows is a selection I made from Alain de Benoist’s responses to an interview on the French Right that appeared in the quarterly review Éléments at the end of 2005 (#118). Benoist talks both about “the Right,” which refers to all the individuals and movements right of center, including the mainstream Right, and the “real Right,” which in an Anglo-Saxon context would be called the “Old Right.” The failure of the mainstream Right is well-known, and often commented on. But the failure of the “Old Right” is more difficult to deal with, as the men concerned (one thinks of Enoch Powell in Britain or Robert A. Taft in America) were most of the time well-meaning, courageous men, yet they failed. I removed most of the references to French history so as to make it understandable to a Pan-Western audience. Benoist's arguments are not without flaws — far from it. His call to go beyond Left and Right is contradicted by the fact that he goes far to the Left in this interview. But I believe this aspect is secondary. This text, thanks to a remarkable psychological analysis of the “right-wing mind,” is first and foremost a way for us to question our own way of thinking, thus making us more “fit and brisk” for the battle of ideas. It is the ideal complement to William Pierce’s “Why conservatives can’t win.”

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The Right has never been fond of intellectuals. Little wonder then that the phrase “left-wing intellectual” has for a long time been a tautology. For many right-wing people, intellectuals are just unbearable. They visualize them sitting on a chaise longue, of course, and view them as “sanctimonious types” who sodomize flies, split hairs and publish books invariably described as “indigestible” and “boring.”

A MODERATE MANIFESTO

by Colin Liddell

I have a confession to make. Despite contributing fairly regularly to this much demonized “extreme right-wing” publication, I’m really a rather bland moderate, possessed of unexceptional ideas. In fact, you could best describe me as a bit of a fuddy-duddy; strictly a pipe, slippers, and cocoa sort of guy as far as politics is concerned. If I have a true comfort zone, it is the white line running down the middle of the road that we all happen to be travelling on.

This probably sounds like I’m denying the old tried, tested, and time-worn political categories, and I know there are many who wouldn’t blame me if I ditched this terminology derived from 18th-century French parliamentary seating arrangements, but, no, not this week. For me there still is a Right, a Left, and a Centre; and my favourite locale is the latter, which means I’m very far from the “extreme Right”!