The first thing that might have struck anyone acquainted with the alt-Right & their arguments, is that it's pretty futile trying to dispute the accuracy of their claims. Even those propagating many of the alt-Right's 'deplorable' racial & conspiracy theories, seem pretty unconcerned about their factual accuracy. In a long tradition of radical right wing propaganda, the emotional impact of sensationalist accusations emerging from a constant hum of self-reproducing 'anti-establishment' white-noise, seems to be what is important.
Jean-Paul Sartre had already written about the tendency to flaunt accepted standards of social discourse, prevalent among anti-Semites just after the liberation of Paris from Nazi forces around 1944.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. "[1]
Like the Radical Right of the past, not all alt-Right adherents are anti-Semitic, which is a major cause of disagreement between them, but the conceptual framework underpinning anti-Semitism, & tendency towards hysteric exaggeration is universal to them all. Sartre could have easily been describing any number of widely read, if not obscure online conspiracy forums, vlogs, blogs & news outlets, churning out sensationalist garbage every day, inculcating blame for predictable market failures & inadequacies, not to mention personal ones, to some nefarious conceptual figure.
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| From some alt-Right blog. On the left you can see the Ultra-Conservative, White Nationalist, contingent, pitted against the more ambiguous, more libertarian, apparently 'Jew controlled' arm of the alt-Right.. |
On one hand are those generally inhabiting a higher socio-economic sphere, who seek to conserve the power of the individual & private corporations which they see as being eroded by the State, who's various regulations, the result of the conflicts ongoing between various competing forms of power & influence: organized labour; scientific, ecological, international institutions; the institution of government itself, particularly in it's supra national emanations, etc,. threaten long established interests. Their ideological values are pretty irrelevant, besides signifying some brand of modern Capitalist objectivism derived from Randian 'principles'[2]. They largely identify as libertarian, against strong government, until in the case of Alex Jones their boyhood crush Donald Trump becomes commander in chief, then they excessively fawn over & align themselves to power wielded by the unholy alliance of Capital & Religion. They view the current wave of refugees, or potential influence of other cultures, & other ways of life with deep suspicion and animosity, they favor political isolationism, defense spending, home schooling & the zero to little state 'interference' in their liberty. They are fundamentally interested in businesses, conducting business and making money. In pre-Nazi Germany these were the likes of Fritz Thyssen, Hjalmar Schacht, Albert Voegler, Gustav & Alfried Krupp, industrial tycoons of huge wealth and influence who funded Hitler's Nationalist party, lobbied him to clamp down on Socialist groups & Trade Unions, and even eventually to purge the radical Strasserites within the Nazi party, during the infamous "Night of the Long Knives". The point here is not their ideological 'purity' or their Germanic values, but purely their wealth & financial interests, in that sense they are fundamentally conservative, & perfectly represented by the alignment of interests based around Donald Trump.
On the other hand, are the element from what Hegel had referred to previously as, the rabble[3]. Those who seek to halt what they define as, 'the negative effects of the decadent liberal Jewish conspiracy to undermine aryan nations', through greater state control and influence over the individual, meaning social imperialism, forging the race, ridding it's weak elements etc,. They are more often found online where they have exploited access to centuries of historical conspiracy literature, declassified CIA mind control literature & research to develop propaganda campaigns, & use some of the most advanced technological means of communication to resurrect some of the most regressive ideas in human history. These are people who have left the world to seek the answers as to why they failed or continue to fail in that world, they constitute not only the majority of infantry personnel, but the majority of members of extremist groups of all varieties. They are the victims of our inherently & increasingly alienated, technological societies, reaching for any means of escape, obtaining security or assuming an identity. They react to the vague awareness of social control of one group of people by another, more powerful group, & find demagogues ready to exploit this loss of personal control and responsibility, and their need to place blame for misfortune elsewhere.
In this particular social dynamic they represent the bondsmen to an ersatz Master, variously misrepresented by the upper echelons of the Capitalist class, as "Liberal Commies like Obama", "big Gubmint", "The Globalist conspiracy" etc,. through their huge multimedia networks, printing presses and propaganda campaigns.
Hitler was rabble, a failed painter & serviceman in WWI often living among the disenfranchised, criminals & betrayed veterans of his era. He was influenced by mystics, demagogues & the grand mythic narratives of upheaval & radical transformation prevalent in Germany at that time. The band of thugs he accumulated in the years prior to establishing dominion, emanated the raw assertive power being fetishized in Italy by Benito Mussolini, & with the support of influential interests they fast became became the fascist shock troops of a state run expansionist machine. Hitler was the talisman which bridged the two worlds of exploited German citizen & exploiting capitalist class. His religious cult besides being a tool of great use for the masters above him, and a deeply motivating ideology for the bondsmen beneath his command, was the matrix unifying 'Germany' in a false totality, giving a more global and historical sense to the events they lived directly, and learned to disavow with the disappearance of their neighbours, friends & relatives.
As of yet the alt-Right lack this kind of talismanic figure, two of the forerunner's are pictured on the far left of the above picture, however Andre Anglin and Richard Spencer are particularly ridiculous, and not taken anywhere near as seriously as Milo or Alex Jones in the establishment discourse, the latter appearing, often favorably, among the likes of Piers Morgan & Bill Maher. The investigation of talismanic mass effect, such as that of Hitler, should proceed from the presupposition that a Fuhrer, or the champion of an idea, can be successful, only if their personal point of view, ideology or program, bears a resemblance to the average structure of a broad section of individuals in society.
What particular historical, economic, material situations contribute towards the development & determine the shape of these structures?
~What do you think will be the effect of them making reality even less comprehensible to themselves?
Will inserting these fraudulent, frequently paranoid narratives & ideas between themselves and reality, eventually sever what is apparently already a very tenuous link?~
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[1] Anti-Semite & Jew, J.P Sartre, 1944
[2] "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, appendix
[3]"When the standard of living of a large mass of people falls below a certain subsistence level – a level regulated automatically as the one necessary for a member of the society – and when there is a consequent loss of the sense of right and wrong, of honesty and the self-respect which makes a man insist on maintaining himself by his own work and effort, the result is the creation of a rabble of paupers. At the same time this brings with it, at the other end of the social scale, conditions which greatly facilitate the concentration of disproportionate wealth in a few hands." GWF Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 244 Reading section 240-247 really reminds me of what little bits of Mein Kampf I can remember reading.
The underlying mechanism driving a witch craze is the cycling of information through a closed system. Medieval witch crazes existed because the internal and external components of a feedback loop periodically occurred together, with deadly results. Internal components include the social control of one group of people by another, more powerful group, a prevalent feeling of loss of personal control and responsibility, and the need to place blame for misfortune elsewhere; external conditions include socioeconomic stresses, cultural and political crises, religious strife, and moral upheavals (see Macfarlane 1970; Trevor-Roper 1969). pg101
The motive, like the movement, is repeated historically from century to century as a shunt for personal responsibility—fob off your problems on the nearest enemy, the more evil the better. And who fits the bill better than Satan himself, along with his female co-conspirator, the witch? As sociologist Kai Erikson observed, "Perhaps no other form of crime in history has been a better index to social disruption and change, for outbreaks of witchcraft mania have generally taken place in societies which are experiencing a shift of religious focus—societies, we would say, confronting a relocation of boundaries" pg 107
Michael Shermer
http://metro.co.uk/2017/05/17/convicted-paedophile-claims-he-killed-madeleine-mccann-6643018/ ‘There’s a difference between narcissistic behaviour and the truth. The reasons I lied was to service my own purposes. I’ve got no reason to lie about anything else.’
He added: ‘I’d rather people hate me than nothing at all. At least it’s an emotion. I want people to love me or hate me. I don’t want people to think I’m insignificant.’
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