WATCHING "THE INVERSION RULE" UNFOLD IN REAL TIME

by Brett Stevens

Since society broke down some time ago and the family collapsed with it, most of us inherit none of the wisdom of fathers and grandmothers that used to form the basis of the “social capital” passed on to children in a functioning society. We are cast out with nothing but self-help books to guide us. As a result, we do not know even the basics of reading people. Conventional wisdom a century ago held out something we might call The Inversion Rule, which states that whatever people have to tell you about themselves is probably false and whatever they do not have to tell you—i.e. that is evident—is likely true.

CENTRALIZATION VERSUS HIERARCHY

Hierarchical bad optics?

by Brett Stevens

Some of the best advice received in this life goes as follows:

“All of life comes down to being organized.”

To a young person, this is perplexing. What does it mean to be organized? It turns out that being organized refers to preparation, state of mind, and, eventually, to "group including" at its utmost level, namely civilization itself.

ABANDON THE LEAKY BOAT

by Brett Stevens 

Humanity offers many paradoxes, but one is how we either gamble it all or nothing at all. A man may win a bar in a poker game, but be unwilling to leave a bad job, marriage, or social group because the unknown is scarier than the devil he knows.

CELIBACY AND CIVILIZATION

The passage below is taken from Andy Nowicki’s collection Ruminations of a Low-Status Male, Volume 2, now available for purchase (along with Volume 1) in paperback and on Kindle. 

 by Andy Nowicki

Within Catholicism, institutional celibacy has retained a place of high regard.

Monks and nuns take oaths to enter into Holy Matrimony, the former choosing to marry the Church, the latter opting to become “brides of Christ”; in each case, each is modeling his or her bond after the example set by the Holy Family, in which devotion is completely untethered from carnality.

WHY LIBERALS ARE THE REAL FAUSTIANS

by James Lawrence

In the discourse of the True Right, one does not have to look hard for the influence of the German philosopher-historian Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) and his two-volume tome Decline of the West. Even where we do not hear the name, this influence betrays itself in the use of terms like ‘Faustian Man’ and ‘Caesarism’, as well as in the general tendency to contrast a lost organic ‘Culture’ with a soulless and materialistic ‘Civilisation’. But while these conceptual rays of enlightenment are widely appreciated, few of us muster the determination to squint for long at the darker core of Spengler’s theory, because its notorious pessimism and fatalism might annihilate our entire project for European resurgence.

TEN THINGS THAT SHOW YOU THE COLLAPSE HAS ALREADY HAPPENED

by Brett Stevens

Western Civilization was a good thing. Starting a thousand years ago, it fell into decline, but, as is the nature of decline, this was not an absolute condition but a gradual one, overlapping some of the greatest moments of Western Civilization. Thus it seemed to be both rising and falling at the same time, but its ultimate direction was toward failure.

Between 1789 and 1968 the West fully collapsed, and all of us born after those times have inherited a vast disaster which we alternately try to save and escape from. This schizophrenic state cannot last; we must choose one, and the sensible answer is to stand and fight, saving what is good and throwing out the rest.

That requires however that we give up false allegiances. Our only allegiance can be to Western Civilization and the genetic stock of Western Europeans that produces it. Everything else is an intermediate, a symbol standing for those great things, and by misdirecting us from the reality to the symbol, these become parasites.

THE DEATH OF "RACISM"

by Brett Stevens

From the Financial Times, an intriguing article entitled “White self-interest is not the same thing as racism: Accepting that all groups have legitimate interests fosters mutual understanding”:

"Modern liberals tend to believe that preference for your own ethnic group or even your own nation is a form of racism. Conservatives regard it as common sense and resent being labelled as racist…The question of legitimate ethnic interest is complex. Multiculturalism is premised on the rights of minorities to maintain certain traditions and ways of life. But liberals have usually been reluctant to extend such group rights to majorities…As Eric Kaufmann argues in a new Policy Exchange paper, accepting that all groups, including whites, have legitimate cultural interests is the first step toward mutual understanding."

The barrier wall, constructed of the illusion that racism is the ultimate evil, that any majority self-interest is racism, and that nationalism is unacceptable, has now permanently fractured. The concept of “racism” has died, just as the notion that diversity can work has disintegrated. There is no longer any faith in these ideological concepts.

CULTURIST ART CRITICISM AND THE SALVATION OF THE WEST

The Last Judgement

by John K. Press

Twenty-five years ago Camille Paglia cured me of veganism.  Her amazing art history book, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertitti to Emily Dickinson, argued that art criticism needs passion, violence, and sex, not PC censorship.  In a side note, she said vegetarians are out-of-touch with nature because they work for a clean, sinless world; real nature worshippers feel its cruelty. I love Camille Paglia.

However, this article will harshly criticize Paglia’s newest art survey book, Glittering Images. And you may be thinking, "Who cares? I'm into politics, not art." But, appreciating art is central to Western survival. Multiculturalists tell us that the West has no core traditional culture to protect and promote. Western art refutes that, and can serve as a guide to our cultural revitalization. To make this point firmer, the article will contrast Paglia's work to Kenneth Clark's marvelous culturist 1969 BBC survey of Western art, Civilisation.

THE PEAT PARTY

A (re)peat offender?

by Brett Stevens

Back in the day, people were more alert and attentive to what was going on around them. They were not obsessed by detail, but trusted themselves because of their intuitive connection to their world, and so when they noticed a general change in the “shape” of events, they knew it was time to act.

The boys would break into the mead early one afternoon and talk it over. There would be some low, quiet voices from the elders, and louder voices from the young. Eventually, they would identify nodal points where things were going wrong. These points were people.

“REACTIONARIES” — AGAINST WHAT?

by Brett Stevens

They tell us we are reactionaries. Against what are we reacting?

The obvious answer is liberalism, since its mental lock on the population of the West is used to exclude any common sense that might limit the license of the mob.

But I think it goes farther: We are also reactionaries against hubris.

The modern definition for hubris is "excessive pride," but the original definition — the one that sent thousands of editors with liberal sympathies scurrying to erase, obliterate, and destroy — is more complex.

CAUCASIANISM

by Brett Stevens

If you were a disembodied soul floating in the aether, and you knew you were to be incarnated on earth, where would you choose to be born?

You have many options, starting with continent. Asia? Africa? Australia? America (N, C, S)? Europe? Eurasia? The middle east? But then you have to ask yourself what country you would favor.

For example, you could choose Uganda. Or Costa Rica. Brazil, or Indonesia. South Africa, or Ireland. Canada, or Argentina. Kenya or Madagascar. Iraq or Mexico. Even Vietnam or Texas the United States.

DOWNFALL

by Brett Stevens

The world is changing. We are slowly reversing two thousand years of decline.

Like most decline, ours has not been absolute. It happens in stops and starts, in little increments, working inward from the details. It’s like getting the flu during a busy work week: on Monday, you sneeze (once). Tuesday the eyes water. Wednesday morning you feel a little off, but have a sudden burst of energy. Wednesday afternoon it looks like a cold. Thursday you’re a wreck.

Despite the relative density of most people, more and more of the people who make crucial decisions are noticing that a wrong turn occurred in the past. When you take a wrong turn, you re-trace your steps and go back to where you made the wrong decision, and then fix it, preferably without undoing anything positive you’ve done since that time.

We live in a society of people drugged on the progressive vision that says greater year numbers and greater permissiveness go hand-in-hand, and mean that we’re getting somewhere. These will try to tell you that changing anything we do to a version from the past is a defeat, but they’ve obviously never trailblazed any woods. When you take the wrong course, the sooner you fix it and get back to the old course, the more you win.