Francis Parker Yockey was born in Chicago in 1917. He graduated with honors from Notre Dame in 1941. After a short wartime stint in the Army he served as Assistant Prosecuting Attorney for Wayne County (Detroit, MI). He took a position with the War Crimes Tribunal in 1946 (a legal bit of gobbledygook which preceded a hanging orgy*) and shortly quit in disgust. Later, in 1948, he wrote Imperium while living in Ireland. Our State Department refused to renew his passport. He was seized when he entered the country, and thereafter jailed where he mysteriously died on June 21, 1960.
* So sadistic was this Purim execution, that the trap door and rope length were calculated in a fashion that the victims would drop and smash their faces on the ledge before the slack was taken up. In addition, most were brutally beaten and tortured prior to their hanging.
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On Propaganda in America by FRANCIS PARKER YOCKEY
LIBERALISM by Francis Parker Yockey
Introduction to
IMPERIUM
DIMLY, I could make out the form of this man -- this strange and lonely man -- through the thick wire netting. Inwardly, I cursed these heavy screens that prevented our confrontation. For even though our mutual host was the San Francisco County Jail, and even though the man upon whom I was calling was locked in equality with petty thieves and criminals, I knew that I was in the presence of a great force, and I could feel History standing aside me.
Yesterday, the headlines had exploded their sensational discovery. "MYSTERY MAN WITH THREE PASSPORTS JAILED HERE," they screamed. A man of mystery -- of wickedness -- had been captured. A man given to dark deeds and -- much worse -- forbidden thoughts, too, the journalists squealed. A man who had roamed the earth on mysterious missions and who was found to be so dangerous that his bail was set at $50,000 -- a figure ten or twenty times the normal bail for passport fraud. The excitement of the newspapers and the mystery of it all seemed to indicate that this desperado was an international gangster, or a top communist agent.
At least, this is what the papers hinted. But I know now that it erred in many ways, this "free press" of ours.
I know now that the only real crime of Francis Parker Yockey was to write a book, and for this he had to die.
It is always impossible, of course, to come to grips with the essence of greatness. There are known facts of a great life, but facts are dead and almost mute when we seek the essential reality of a creative personality. But let us review some of the facts we know of a life which is at once significant, fascinating and tragic.
Francis Parker Yockey was born in Chicago in 1917. He attended American universities, taking a B.A. degree in 1938 and, three years later, a degree in law from Notre Dame, where he was graduated cum laude.
From earliest childhood, Yockey was recognized for his prodigious abilities, and resented for them by many. History may reveal that the combination of originality and high intelligence in rare individuals is essential for human progress, but we mortals find these qualities more admired in biographies than in classmates, friends and underlings.
Yockey was a concert-level pianist; he was a gifted writer. He studied languages and became a linguist. As a lawyer, he never lost a case. He had an extraordinary grasp of the world of finance -- and this is surprising, for we learn that in his philosophy economics is relegated to a relatively unimportant position. And it is as the Philosopher that Yockey reached the summit; it is this for which he will be remembered; he was a man of incredible vision. Even so, his personality was spiced by the precious gift of a sense of humor.
Like the great majority of Americans, Yockey opposed American intervention in the Second World War. Nevertheless, he joined the army and served until 1942 when he received a medical discharge (honorable). The next few years were spent in the practice of law, first in Illinois and subsequently in Detroit, where he was appointed Assistant County Attorney for Wayne County, Michigan.
In 1946, Yockey was offered a job with the war crimes tribunal and went to Europe. He was assigned to Wiesbaden, where the "second string" Nazis were lined up for trial and punishment. The Europe of 1946 was a war-ravaged continent, not the prosperous land we know today. Viewing the carnage, and seeing with his own eyes the visible effects of the unspeakable Morgenthau Plan which had as its purpose the starvation of 30 million Germans, and which was being put into effect at that time, he no doubt found ample reinforcement for his conviction that American involvement in the war had been a ghastly mistake. And feeling the might of the sinister power in the East, he might well have wondered whose interests were being served by such a "victory."
As Senator Robert A. Taft and many other responsible and thinking men of the day who had the courage to state their convictions, Yockey concluded that the entire procedure of the "war crimes trials" was serving the interests -- and was meant to serve the interests -- of international communism The use of torture, doctored evidence and ex-post-facto law before a court which was judge, jury, prosecutor and defense were merely part of the preposterous juridical aspects. Of even more importance was the reversion to barbarism which was inherent in the spectacle -- a reversion so pointedly explored later by Britisher F. J. P. Veale in Advance to Barbarism.
For eleven months, Yockey's duty in Wiesbaden was to prepare reports on the various cases. Having a long view of history, he tried to do an objective job. Finally, in Washington, someone complained, and his superior called him on the carpet. "We don't want this type of report," he was told. "This has entirely the wrong slant. You'll have to rewrite these reports to conform with the official viewpoint."
Yockey felt that the time had come to take a stand, even if it meant to break with conformity and plunge into the lonely waters of social ostracism. "I am a lawyer, not a journalist," he said, "you'll have to write your own propaganda"; and he quit on the spot.
After Wiesbaden, he returned to America for five months. But following this taste of weltpolitik he was unable to settle down. He could not ignore an insistent feeling that he must immolate himself in the flames of controversy. And this conviction so destroyed his peace of mind that he knew he had no choice.
It was late 1947 when Yockey returned to Europe. He sought out a quiet inn at Brittas Bay, Ireland. Isolated, he struggled to begin. Finally, he started to write, and in six months -- working entirely without notes -- Francis Parker Yockey completed Imperium.
The formidable task of publishing it was the next step. Here, also, Yockey ran into serious problems, for no publisher would touch the book, it being too "controversial." Hungry publishers of our advanced day know that any pile of trash, filth, sex, sadism, perversion and sickness will sell when wrapped between two gaudy covers and called a book, but under no circumstances may they allow readers to come into contact with a serious work unless it contains the standard obeisances to the catchwords of equality, democracy and universal brotherhood.
Finally, however, Yockey was able to secure the necessary financing, and production began.
The first edition of Imperium was issued in two volumes. Volume I has 405 pages and three chapters. Volume II has 280 pages and also three chapters. Both were published in 1948 in the name of Westropa Press. Volume I was printed by C. A. Brooks & Co., Ltd. and Volume II by Jones & Dale -- both of London. Both volumes measure 5 x 71/4 inches in dimensions and have a red dust jacket with the title in black script on a white field. The cover of Volume I is tan and that of Volume II is black.
It is known that 1000 copies of Volume I, but only 200 copies of Volume II, were finished. The discrepancy in quantity and the change in printers point to the difficulty in financing the job. Copies of the first edition are, of course, virtually unobtainable today.
The rarest combination in man is that of the philosopher and man of action. When Yockey tried his hand at political organization he proved that he was no exception to the rule -- or was it that the times then were too out of joint with the future for a constructive movement to be started? Organizing the European Liberation Front in 1949, he and friends issued a manifesto called The Proclamation of London. But outside of getting beaten up in Hyde Park, nothing much happened. And here again he encountered the old trouble. Even among the forward-looking intellectuals and individualists who were his co-workers, his brilliance shone through. He was resented, and the effort soon collapsed.
His money and immediate hopes gone, Yockey procured a job with the Red Cross. He resigned in 1951 and travelled throughout Europe.
In 1952 the State Department refused to renew his passport. Repeatedly, he applied; each time he was rejected. A game then developed between the FBI and Yockey, for the FBI had received orders to keep him under surveillance at all times. This is a pattern which has since become obvious to vigorous anti-communists in all parts of the United States, especially in the South. When Yockey's whereabouts was known, the FBI would watch him night and day. When he dropped temporarily from sight, as he did frequently, his friends and relatives and contacts were constantly interrogated by agents who -- they kept repeating -- "just want to talk to him.
And this was undoubtedly the truth. This is all they wanted to do. They just wanted to know where he was, what he was doing, whom he was seeing, what he was saying and where he was going next.
Why, you ask? Why all the interest in Francis Parker Yockey, author? He himself gave the answer to a friend. "My enemies have evaluated me better than my friends," he said, and it was true.
And as I peered through the thick screens in the San Francisco Jail, and made out the indefinite shape on the other side, that tenth day of June, 1960, I knew that I would have to help the prisoner as best I could. I could do nothing else.
I have read your book, I said to the shadow, and I want to help you. What can I do?
Wait, he said. Wait, and do as your conscience tells you.
The following week was full of news of Yockey s appearance before Rabbi Joseph Karesh, the U.S. Commissioner.
Twice, I attended the hearings, and each time was fascinated by this man, Yockey. In stature he was about five feet, ten inches. He was light of weight, perhaps 145 pounds, and quick on his feet. His hair was dark, and starting to grey. The expression on his face -- pensive, sensitive, magnetic -- this was the unforgettable thing. It was his eyes, I think. Dark, with a quick and knowing intelligence. His eyes bespoke great secrets and knowledge and such terrible sadness. As he turned to leave, one time, those eyes quickly searched the room, darting from face to face with a sort of desperation, though the expression on his face of a determined resignation never wavered. What was he looking for? In that lions den, what else but a friendly countenance? As his gaze swept across, and then to me, he stopped and for the space of a fractional second, spoke to me with his eyes. In that instant we understood that I would not desert him.
Friday morning, June 17, I arose as usual. I heard the radio announcer pronounce words that stunned me.
Yockey was dead.
"I'll sleep through 'til morning" was the cryptic message he gave his cellmate, last night. Was the morning he anticipated the dawn of a new age?
A garbled note was found. The coroner declared it suicide and said the poison was potassium cyanide. No one knew where he had gotten it. The case was closed.
As Americans, we have been taught from infancy to believe that we live in a free country. But times change, and America has become transformed in many ways. Often, the old formalities are observed, but the meaning and inner reality of America has changed, and no one saw this more clearly than Francis Parker Yockey. How the press, for example, loves to brag to its victims -- its readers -- about its freedom. Yes, the press may be free to lie and distort and suppress and deceive and malign, but is it free to tell the truth?
The spectacle of a man being persecuted, framed and driven to his death simply because he wrote a book is not one we would expect to see in the Twentieth Century in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
But are we free when an American citizen whose only crime was to write a book is denied a passport by the State Department -- a privilege which is given to all but the most notorious degenerates and criminals? It was not until April 24, 1962, that the State Department finally got around to beginning hearings to deny passports to the most important communists -- but the "free press somehow forgot to report at the time that no report of a confidential nature from the FBI or any other source would be used against a communist unless he was given the "right" of confrontation with his accuser. And, of course, the right of appeal would be scrupulously honored, even then.
Are we free when a citizen
can be arrested without a warrant and held in jail without charges, but with the
fantastic bail of $50,000 levied against him? Are we free when the vultures of
the "free press" can swoop down upon the victim to heap calumny and
scorn upon his head and accuse him of doing things he never did and saying
things he never said in an effort to build up "public opinion" against
him? Is America a free country when a sensitive genius can be held in the
filthiest of jails with Negro and White criminals and is denied even clean
clothes and a bath? Are we free when such a "criminal" is not allowed
to see his sisters in private, and when a group which has supposedly been set up
to defend the constitutional rights of citizens -- the American Civil Liberties
Union -- would rather defend the "rights" of homosexuals, traitors,
murderers and pornographers than a sincere patriot like Francis Parker Yockey,
whose every thought and effort was in behalf of his fellow man? Are we free, I
ask, when a judge can rule that a prisoner is not to have a "speedy and
public trial by an impartial jury . . ," as guaranteed in the Bill of
Rights, but, instead, must have a mental examination for the obvious purpose of
eliminating a jury trial altogether? And finally, are we free when another group
-- vastly more powerful than the ACLU or the government itself -- so powerful,
indeed, that men dare not speak its name above a whisper, unless in terms of the
most groveling praise -- are we free when this group is able to dictate to the
government the exact procedure which is to be used in disposing of troublemakers
like Francis Parker Yockey?
If such things as I have enumerated can happen -- and they did
-- then our vaunted "freedom" is a fake thing; an empty word given to
us by our watchful masters to keep us amused and quiet -- as a parent gives a
shiny bauble to a child.
It is enlightening to review the standard means whereby our masters combat positive ideas and movements. There is a pattern in such tactics which constructive forces will do well to study. The first tactic is suppression and determined non-recognition of the rebel and his works. The press will unanimously give the well known "silent treatment." Even at this early stage, if the movement gives promise of becoming significant, assassination is considered and carried out if possible. The murder of young Newton Armstrong, Jr., in San Diego, on the night of March 31, 1962, is a case in point. Quoting from Che Guevara's s book on guerilla warfare and the question of when to resort to assassination:
It is generally against the policy of the Communist Party to resort to assassination ... However, it requires two criteria and a high-level policy decision ... The criteria for the individual in question are that he must be highly effective and it must serve some sort of example -- some sort of a highly effective example.
The next tactic is the Smear through libel, distortion, misrepresentation and the sowing of confusion wherever possible.This may be a negative smear with the purpose of destroying the effectiveness of an enemy or a positive smear for the purpose of building a haze around the truth to enable a disintegrative movement to develop. The falsification of the truth about Castro which was indulged in by virtually all of the press and, of course, the State Department, is a classic example of this. The Smear is usually started as an underground whispering campaign that viciously builds up to an outright and overt campaign, with the "free press" called into play. The object is to isolate enemies of the present regime and discredit them. The third tactic is infiltration into the movement and/or the building up of false leadership in order to sabotage the movement at the optimum time, meanwhile diverting patriot energies into harmless or controlled activities. The fourth and final stage is called upon only as a last resort, after the movement or philosophy has become institutionalized and is immune to grosser tactics. This is to "interpret" it so as to bring it as closely as possible into conformity with approved patterns. (Characteristically, the conflicting philosophies of both Jesus Christ and Friedrich Nietzsche have suffered this deadening interpretation.) Two or more of the above maneuvers are usually used simultaneously. For instance, in addition to the suppression of his Imperium, Yockey was also victimized by the Smear; and he was also in danger of assassination -- and his enigmatic end settled the problem. Now it is with no gift of prophecy that one may predict that this present republication of his work will call forth the same sequence.
I tell you that the injustice of it all is enough to drive one mad. How can a man stomach the cynical or ignorant drivel of the liberals as they whine for "freedom of speech" and "right to dissent" and shake their bony fists at "conformity" and all the rest of their legerdemain when one knows that these moral cripples and ethical perverts demand their peculiar freedoms only for those who are working to destroy the West? We have seen their reaction when one committed to saving the West is in need of some of their medicine.
It was like a certain wise, old reporter whispered to one of Yockey's sisters as she slumped tearfully and quietly in her solitude. "Your brother is a martyr -- the first of a long line of them -- if we are to take back our country from those who have stolen it from us."
A surprising word on the Yockey affair came some weeks after his death, and was provided by the tight-lipped silence of the man who had been charged with railroading him to the insane asylum, the United States Attorney. Suddenly, inexplicably, he resigned his job, left his wife and children and joined a monastery.
Let us assume that at least one devoted servant of the Democracy has a conscience, even if displayed a little late.
Please allow me to expose to you my prejudice so that there will be no misunderstanding. I favor the survival of our Western cultural organism. I love those who fight for the integrity of the West, whoever they may be. And, as much as I fear and mistrust the outer enemies of the West, I despise our inner enemies and the cowards who support them far more -- and I hate their putrid doctrine that calls our continuing degradation "inevitable."
Further, I believe that the West can survive. It all hinges on faith: faith in our future; faith in our superiority and survival. Skepticism, sophistication, cosmopolitanism, cynicism has destroyed the old faith, and it has not been replaced by a new one. But faith is and will always remain the essential ingredient in every historical force. Only a unifying faith can provide the common motivation for survival -- the just and deep conviction of our right to live -- and spark the single-minded and intolerant power which can clean and redeem our fast-decaying, rotting milieu. Very simply: the imperative of inspiring that faith is the central problem of our time.
And when I say, "survive," I mean nothing more. For we are so far gone; our philosophies, liberties and cultural patterns are so perverted or eroded that bare survival is all that is possible. I mean to say that those who are to save the West must realize at the outset that only part of it can be saved; that much must be sacrificed and that the resulting structure will be different from the past. Those who have gone before have allowed the dank "winds of change" to corrode the old life, and many weeds have sprung up which cannot entirely be eliminated. It is one thing to fight for an attainable ideal, but another to sacrifice for a lost cause. In determining what is attainable and what is forever lost a philosophy of history is needed.
And although our job is to rebuild we must not lose sight of the reality, for we cannot rebuild until we have captured. Political power is the essential criterion, not wishes or windbags, and to the goal of political power all else must be temporarily sacrificed. To say less is to insure defeat. He who is on board a sinking ship in a storm may be required to throw all his possessions overboard if this is necessary for common survival. Or, to use another image:
Those who would guide the West back across the Styx and out of the dark must travel first through the gates of Hell.
The practical problem of the recapture of political power divides itself into other questions. For one, is it possible to formulate an ethic and faith which, in itself, offers at least as much popular attractiveness as the painted lie of Marx? For another, how can those who would naturally lead such a movement compete with the highly-developed Leninistic operational diabolism in the perpetually savage and untamable jungle of political warfare -- or is it necessary to do so? After all, the conspiracy we face is the hideous monster spawned of four millenniums of experience in guile and deception; so much so, in fact, that its main ally always has been the obtuse blindness of those on whom it feeds. "Struggle" to a man of the West means bullets, armies, and aircraft carriers. But to our enemy, international wars are of little meaning; "struggle" to him means not war but politics, and accordingly he has perfected his weapons in this most decisive of areas. Soldiers have never made good politicians, and, by the nature of their respective crafts, the soldier must always lose to the man of politics.
Finally comes the main consideration in formulating such a doctrine: will it certainly eradicate the politico-social evils and diseases of our day and lead mankind toward a better world?
It is by this standard and no other that you will, if you are wise, judge the work of Francis Parker Yockey.
To quit the search for such an ethic is to abandon history like the intellectual and spiritual nihilists -- the liberals and beatniks. To quit the search is to turn over to the inner enemy carte blanche control over our lives, souls and fate.
The failure to provide this philosophy is not alone the fault of the saprophytes among us, however. Nor is it only the fault of the chameleon-like inner enemy of the West (the Culture Distorter; to use Yockey's apt term) which mercilessly persecutes and smashes all who dare to cry out against our rapid decline and degeneration; in all truth, it is mainly the fault of the many thousands who fully know the issues at stake yet have not the moral courage to identify and light the Culture Distorter; or -- worse yet -- who have, by diligent self-persuasion, convinced themselves that the battle for survival against an enemy that demands nothing less than total surrender can be fought and won with tax-deductible corporations, measured, "moderate" words and avoidance of "extremists." These dainty combatants swarm over every anti-communist movement like ants on sugar. By shrilly demonstrating their anti-communism they bribe their consciences to give them peace and often go so far as to join in the crucifixion of those few with moral courage lest they, too, be adjudged "guilty" by association. America has too many of such anti-communists and too few real patriots.
There is much in Imperium which can be easily misinterpreted. There is something for everyone to agree with. And there is something for everyone to disagree with. This is a distinguishing characteristic of every truly vital and revolutionary departure.
Yockey's criticism of Darwinism is an example of the first possibility, and it should be borne in mind that he is speaking of journalistic Darwinism, not the theory of evolution. A related point is his usage of the word, race. It would have added to clarity if another word, such as nobility, was used to describe those who feel the Imperative of the Age, for the genetic interpretation of race is a necessary, useful and valid one if we are to see all of our problems clearly and accurately. Also, Yockey cites some tests of doubtful validity when he asserts that children of immigrants into America are quite different in anthropological measurements than their parents. There is no doubt some truth to this; there are bodily differences caused by food and climate, but such conclusions can be carried into the realm of Lysenkoism unless great caution is used. Troyfim Lysenko is the Russian communist quack and high priest who "proved" through his hocus-pocus that environment and not heredity creates the man. Such a theory is the basic fallacy upon which the entire communist theory of man rests, though few people realize this. But heredity is a matter of genes and genes never change except through mutation unless genes of one type (race) are mixed with genes of another type (race). One of the best books on the subject to appear recently is Dr. Conway Zirkle's Evolution, Marxian Biology and the Social Scene. Evolution, biology and genetic inheritance must be treated as matters of life-facts, and any theory for the future has to accept them.
Yockey's usage of the word authority may be a source of misinterpretation. It should be remembered that the individual enjoyed far more liberty in Europe under the monarchs than in America, today. Doubters should familiarize themselves with Edmund Burke, Thomas Carlyle, Herbert Spencer, and the more recent work of Otto von Habsburg, The Social Order of Tomorrow. It is sure that by the use of this word, he does not mean Marxist-type collectivization.
Some readers have raised the question of Yockey's apparent anti-Russianism, and a clarifying word is necessary here. In later writings, Yockey made his views on Russia more clear; in fact, certain of his captors called him "anti-American and pro-Russian," during his San Francisco ordeal. Although this libel was of course vomited for the benefit of gullible newspaper readers, it shows that some of his later writings could have been misinterpreted as being pro-Russian, just as Imperium indicates an anti-Russian attitude. Of course, Yockey was neither pro- nor anti-Russian; he was concerned with the health and continuity of the West, and his view of the rest of the world was at all times subjective to what he considered in the best interests of the West at that time.
Accusations of "anti-Semitism," unless the imprecation is meant as simply having an open mind on the Jewish question, should be interpreted on the same level. The fact that he was captured in the home of a Jewish friend -- even though that friend subsequently repudiated him -- is instructive to the truth here.
Comment could be made on dozens of the brilliant thoughts and concepts presented in Imperium, such as, for one example, his relegating economics to its proper level -- organically, the alimentary tract. His advocacy of European unification, long before this idea had gained any headway, is another case in point. This is perhaps a proof of his assertion that things that are considered "extreme today are the dogmas of tomorrow; the genius lives in the future, as he says, and whereas he used to be considered merely a little "odd" by his contemporaries, and avoided or tolerantly humored (unless, that is, he incurred the righteous wrath of the Church, in which case things could be made very hot for him) he is today declared by modern Freudianism to be mentally ill and unfit for the ancient protections of law; and this is surely indicative of the "progress" we have made in a thousand years.
The significance of the pseudonym Yockey chose as author of Imperium, Ulick Varange, should be noted. Ulick is an Irish given name, derived from Danish, and means "reward of the mind." Varange, of course, refers to the Varangians, that far-roving band of Norse heroes led by Rurik who, upon invitation from the Slavs, came to civilize Russia in the 9th Century, built the Russian Imperial State and formed the gifted and handsome Russian aristocracy until they were butchered by the Bolsheviks -- along with some 20 million other Christians and Moslems -- in that bloody terror. The name, therefore, drawn as it is from the Eastern and Western antipodes of Europe, signifies a Europe united "from the rocky promontories of Galway to the Urals," as he, himself, exhorts. Finally, the surname, Varange, by itself signifies the Western origin of historic Russia.
Imperium throughout is -- again as the author says -- not a book in the sense that it presents argument. It is prophetic, the work of an intuitive seer. You will find no bibliography or footnotes in Imperium for this reason in spite of the vast reading that the author has obviously done. And it is prophetic not only in the large historical sense, for could Yockey have been thinking of himself and predicting his own violent end when he stresses that the prophets of a new age often come to unnatural deaths? Twice this thought is brought out -- once in the chapter THE ARTICULATION OF A CULTURE, and again, GENIUS.
Another interesting and mysterious fad about the manuscript he completed at Brittas Bay and that you now hold in your hand is that it is "keyed" so that, if the secret code can be discovered, the author's name is spelled. Thus, the question of authenticity which is always raised about a great work after the author dies cannot ever be a problem with Imperium.
It is important to seek the origins of Yockey's philosophy, for all are compelled to build on the backs of those who have gone before and to see the past clearly is to understand more fully. With more exaggeration than accuracy, Yockey states, "There is nothing original in the content of this book."
A grounding in Oswald
Spengler is fundamental to understanding Yockey; in fact, it can be said that Imperium
is really a sequel to Spengler's monumental The Decline of the West.
Spengler, of course, is persona non grata to prevailing
"intellects" for reasons that become very clear to any reader of Decline,
so this revival of his influence -- an inevitable revival, I'll add -- will be a
great shock to the tender minds of the beatniks, liberals and communists who
have sucked at the dry pap of historical conformity for so long. These
intellectual infants are always very eager to assure us that Spengler is
"repudiated," a favorite semantic weapon of theirs, used regularly
whenever they wish to avoid discussing issues and facts.
But Oswald Spengler -- "the philosopher of the Twentieth Century, as Yockey
calls him -- along with Gregor Mendel, Thomas Malthus and Charles Darwin -- has
shown us the pattern of the world of yesterday and the outline of it in the
future, for better or for worse. Each of these giants is primary in his own
field of study, and to study history while rejecting Spengler is quite as
foolish as studying disease and rejecting the germ theory, or studying
mathematics and rejecting numbers. The pathetic intellectual nihilists,
materialists, equalists and do-gooders may yap, yap at the heels of Spengler
until they are hoarse, but History cannot hear them.
"In this book is attempted for the first time the venture of predetermining history..." Spengler opens Decline, and follows it with two thick volumes of delightful and profound excursions into world history, war, philosophy, poetry, music, art, politics, religion, even mathematics.
Perhaps the best synopsis of Spengler -- if there can be such a thing -- has been done by Egon Friedell in his A Cultural History of the Modern Age, a three-volume work of which, incidentally, Yockey was very fond. Says Friedell in listing significant thinkers:
Lastly, and with deep admiration, we come to the name of Oswald Spengler, perhaps the most powerful and vivid thinker to appear on German soil since Nietzsche. One has to climb very high in the world's literature to find works of such scintillating and exuberant intellect, such triumphant psychological vision and such a personal and suggestive, rhythmic cadence as his Decline of the West. What Spengler gives us in his two volumes is the "outlines of a morphology of history." He sees, in place of the "monotonous picture of linear world-history" the "phenomenon of a plurality of mighty Cultures." "Each Culture has its own new possibilities of self-expression, which arise, ripen, decay and never return. There is not one sculpture, one painting, one mathematic, one physics, but many, each in its deepest essence different from the others, each limited in duration and self-contained, just as each species of plant has its peculiar blossom or fruit, its special type of growth and decline. These Cultures, sublimated life-essences, grow with the same superb aimlessness as the flowers of the field." Cultures are organisms, and cultural history is their biography. Spengler establishes nine such Cultures, the Babylonian, the Egyptian, the Indian, the Chinese, the Classical, the Arabian, the Mexican, the Western and the Russian, and he throws light upon each in turn, naturally not an equally bright and full light in every case, as, of course, our information concerning them is very unequal. But in the evolutionary course of these Cultures certain parallelisms rule, and this leads Spengler to introduce the conception of "contemporary" phenomena, by which he understands historical facts that, "each in its own Culture, occur in the same -- relative -- positions and, therefore, have an exactly corresponding significance." "Contemporary," for example, are the rise of the Ionic and that of the Baroque; Polygnotus and Rembrandt, Polycletus and Bach, Socrates and Voltaire are "contemporaries." But within the individual Culture itself, too, there is naturally complete congruence of all its life-expressions at each of its stages of evolution. So, for instance, there is a deep connection of form between the Classical Polis and the Euclidean geometry, between the space-perspective of the Western oil-painting and the conquest of space by railways, telephones, and long-range weapons. By means of these and like guiding principles, now Spengler arrives at the most interesting and surprising discoveries. The "Protestant brown" of the Dutch and the atheistic plein air of the Manet school, the "Way" as prime symbol of the Egyptian Soul, and the "Plain" as the leitmotiv of the Russian world-outlook, the "Magian" Culture of the Arabs and the "Faustian" Culture of the West, the "second religiousness" in which late Cultures revive the images of their youth, and the "fellahdom" in which man becomes again historyless -- these, and many more like them, are unforgettable glimpses of genius that light up for a moment vast tracts of night, incomparable discoveries and hints of an intellect that possesses a truly creative eye for analogies. That the Cimmerians of learning have opposed to such a work nothing but stolidity and a deaf incomprehension of what his questions and answers are about is not surprising to anyone who knows the customs and mentality of the republic of scholarship.
Spengler published Decline in July, 1918, and we are still being washed in the very first breakwaters of that titanic event. For The Decline of the West was fully as revolutionary to the study of history in 1918 as Copernicus theory of heliocentricity was to the study of astronomy in 1543.
What, we may ask, is the main cause of resistance to accepting Spengler aside from the fact that he is a massive roadblock to the total victory of the marxist-liberal "intellectual"? The main difficulties, I think, are two: the necessity of acknowledging the essentially alien nature of every cultural soul, and the apparent necessity to reconcile ourselves to the dismal fact that our own Western organism must, too, die as have all those which have passed before.
Paradoxically, the fundamental problem of the second difficulty lies in the very Faustian Soul of the West which Spengler himself defined: "The Faustian Soul -- whose prime symbol is pure and limitless space," he said; and it is true, for we need, in our innermost being, the perpetual reach to infinity. The idea of unlimited progress flows from this spiritual reality; this is a concept which is deeply and inextricably imbedded in every man of the West. Thus, the thought of inevitable death draws a fundamental rejection and is called pessimism.
As for the first specific difficulty, the acknowledgment of the essentially alien nature of each cultural soul, it follows that if every culture has its own inner vitality, it will be uninfluenced by the spirit of any other. This also runs against the very deepest grain of Western man who, for five hundred years and more, has been proselyting men all over the world in the vain hope of making them over into his own beloved image.
This psychological block runs deep in the West -- so deep that it is an error which is apparent in all philosophical strata, certainly not only the leftist variety. Name any philosopher, economist or religious adept of Western history, except Hegel *1 (yes, even including Spengler) and you are virtually certain to find a man who sought to lay universal laws of human behavior; who, in other words, saw no essential difference between races. This error is so fundamental it is usually unconscious. (What would Lord Keynes, for example, do with his "universal" theory of oversaving if he were to try to apply it to Ghana or Haiti?) The Roman Catholic Church is a case in point. Tradition-minded Westerners rightly speak of the Church as being a bulwark of the West, but sometimes go so far as to identify the Church as the West. Unfortunately, the compliment is not returned. The Holy Roman Church is a universal Church -- one Church for all men -- which sees all people, wherever they are and whoever they be, as equal human souls whose bodies are to be brought to the holy embrace of Vatican City. It is the first to reject the impious suggestion that it owes a primary loyalty to the West. Scientific and philosophical demonstrations that men and cultures are, nevertheless, different in many fundamental respects and that it is unhealthy -- unethical -- to mix them are sure to meet with the same inhospitable reception that the Church earlier gave to Copernicus and Galileo. In April of 1962 three Catholics in New Orleans were excommunicated for daring to stand on this heretical Verity.*2
A central point when thinking about this subject is the growth and now the total supremacy of the Western idea of technics. The entire world of science is a reflection of Western man and no other, and we have seen Western technics conquer the world. We see our science being appropriated to varying degrees and in varying manners by every simian Culture on the planet which has advanced beyond the arboreal stage. The stone age Negro denizens of Africa, Haiti, New Guinea and the southern Philippines are fascinated by clocks, radios and even sails. When an American city wants to get rid of its old street cars, it sells them to Amerindian Mexico. The Semitic Arabs ride their Cadillacs and use rifles made in Belgium; both of which are bought with the gold of oil royalties from Wall Street, Dallas or London. The Oriental Chinese have learned well, and are expected to explode an atomic bomb at any moment. And even the half-Western Russians, from the days of Peter the Great, or even Rurik, have constructed their ships, cannon and rockets with European engineers. But does this mass appropriation of Western technics have the slightest effect on the inner and distinctive soul of the culture which appropriates? The answer is no, and we should not allow our foolish pride to think otherwise.
The other cause of rejecting Spengler lies in the difficulty of reconciling ourselves to the apparent necessity of the death of the West as a cultural organism.
But it is not necessary, in my opinion, to make this reconciliation. For although a Culture is an organism, it is a peculiar one; and, by accepting the analogy in the first place, we are able to intelligently seek for the possibility of extending or renewing its life.
Yockey rejects this
hypothesis and, as a thorough Spenglerian, foresees the end of the West. But it
can be argued that the very introduction of the organic concept into historical
philosophizing and theorizing plus the unparalleled mastery over Nature which
the West has attained -- and the infinite possibilities of this for the future
-- hold out the conception that the organism of the West need not suffer the
same Destiny as cultures which have gone before and which had none of this
knowledge. In other words, we now have the proper concept, thanks
to Spengler, and have, for the first time in all history, identified the
pathology of Culture, thanks to Yockey. And, in addition, Western technics have
created the equally unique physical means to apply to the problem.
To carry this examination further, the Western Culture excels all others in
history in these areas:
(1) The obsession with fact-history.
(2) The development of the organic concept of Culture, and recognition of its
pathology.
(3) The development of science and master technics. Nearing-subjection of the
microcosm and time, and the macrocosm and space.
Let us now turn to the so-far final and, according to Spengler, the "inevitable" phase of a Culture -- the imperialistic. First of all, it is in this area that the Spenglerian theory, as applied to "the venture of predetermining history," appears to falter because the West appears to be behind on the timetable. Yockey comments on this and attributes it to the retarding influence of Money. This is probably true. The question is, if Money can disturb the cycle, cannot other things, too?
Here may be mentioned another unique fact as regards the Western situation. The condition of overproduction has become a fact of life that almost all sectors of political opinion are loath to recognize. Nevertheless, this is a fundamental departure for men, with widespread implications. Until now, slavery was necessary to support a high standard of living. (And, of course, slavery has always been sanctioned by religion and law when it is economically desirable.) So were foreign conquests for exploitation. This is no longer the case. The main economic problem for the West is to dispose of its surplus production, not to feed and clothe its masses. (This elemental truth is known by every so-called "laboring man" but it has escaped the notice of theorists and economists of both Right and Left.) Overproduction and technics, then, appear to have destroyed the economic imperative for imperialism. Finally, the atomic bomb and its far more terroristic descendants have infinitely diminished the use of war as an instrument of national policy. From these points of view, imperialism as a policy of gain is as dead as the slave trade and the battleship. And if imperialism is not to be undertaken as a deliberate policy of gain, from what standpoint is it to be undertaken? Religious fervor? Popular enthusiasm for capitalism? No, the day of the Crusades is also past for the West. We shall not see the West march to conquer the world in any other fashion but that of Wall Street's and the Peace Corps' -- unless the need to dump our products finally can be resolved only in "war, the coward's solution for the problems of peace."
Now if one were to object that the above considerations smack of the causal view of history -- against which Yockey inveighs -- and assert that the final phase of our Culture is subject to purely spiritual phenomena, I should be bold to suggest the possibility of a miscalculation by Spengler which could have been based on a misinterpretation of his own data and his own theory which, if seen in a slightly different perspective, not only clears up the meaning of the theory in the light of present developments, but also validates it completely. Space permits only the barest of outlines here, at the risk of unintelligibility to all but those initiated in the mysteries of Spenglerism.
Spengler's method was to show the correlation of all aspects of the history of a cultural organism. As the Friedell quotation earlier suggests, Spengler drew analogies between apparently diverse elements within a Culture, all of which are given shape and meaning by the zeitgeist (spirit of the age) which is the creation of the cultural soul in its singular Destiny. Hence, in the search of the past he saw as the culminating stage that which expresses itself spiritually as universalism. In the realm of religion, it becomes a "second religiosity," starting as a conglomeration of many sects and cults which no one takes seriously but everyone concerns himself with. (This is what we have today. It is called the "social gospel" and appears in a thousand forms, profane as well as sacred. It is not true religion at all but cultism.) Finally this anarchy stabilizes into the form of a generally-accepted and genuine religion -- and we are about 200 years away from this. In the realm of the economic, there is "big business" and the growing power of Money, which, however, is finally broken by the force of politics. In art, the zeitgeist expresses itself as the importation of exotic art forms, and inane experimentation which has no significance whatsoever except as natural degeneracy of the native form. Finally, in foreign outlook, there is imperialism, military expansion.
We can plainly see all of the above running true to form and right on schedule except for the latter. Why? Simply because the subjection of technics to the service of the West and the mastery of economics over the West has sublimated this stage of spiritual universalism from militaristic imperialism to other forms of expansion. Verily, never before has there been such an aggressive army of gun-shy expansionists and pacifist imperialists. World government fanatics literally swarm over the West. They and others staunchly support the United Nations -- an anachronism which cannot possibly be effective toward its alleged purposes -- yet support for this harmful fossil is a matter of personal morality with millions. The zeitgeist is always reflected in definitions, so it is the height of insult for a White man today to be labeled an "isolationist" or "nationalist." White folks must all be "free traders," "internationalists" and "cosmopolitan" in our outlook, and how we admire the "citizen of the world," whatever that is. Our view is intently focused away from our marches; it is far easier, we have discovered, to solve the problems of total strangers than to solve our own. Non-Western peoples are not so enlightened as we, and it is eagerly excused, utilizing a newly-discovered Christian double standard which is a mark of modern moral superiority, like belonging to the Classics Book Club or contributing to the Negro College Fund. What, asks Nietzsche, has caused more suffering than the follies of the compassionate? It is good for colored peoples to be nationalistic; we encourage it, in fact, and snap up Israel Bonds with a warm feeling of self-righteousness. We are joyful when colored peoples and Jews exhibit "race pride," the cardinal sin and taboo of our own puritanical environment. (Incidentally, why is it that every subject except one can be discussed in our enlightened age? Atheism is now a dull subject. Marxism is even duller, after one hundred years of popularity. A step further has taken us past plain sex to sadism and perversion; the Marquis de Sade is even becoming jaded. What racy topic is left to discuss since the equalists have brought democracy's blessings? Only one thing cannot be discussed in polite company: race.)
The heroes of Wall Street reap the most from this type of "imperialism," and today investors big and little interest themselves in foreign investments which are actually given tax advantages over domestic investments (Tax favoritism: the final criterion of status in our democracy) -- or they support "foreign aid" -- remembering to stipulate, naturally, that a portion of this neat gimmick to dispose of our surplus production be allotted to their own products. The ultimate expression of this militant water-pistol imperialism is the hilarious yet deeply symbolic "Peace Corpse," the true expression of the zeitgeist. Created out of the typically American combination of abysmal do-good stupidity and inability to gauge the feelings of others, and enlightened greed, this is the perfect symbol for today.
No, we do not need imperialism so long as we have leaders like Mennen Williams and Adlai Stevenson; savants like Eleanor Roosevelt and Arnold Toynbee and altruists like Herbert Lehman, James Warburg, and Douglas Dillon to solve our problems for us.
To further pursue this inquiry into the applicability of Spengler today it is important to bring out a certain point of view which is heard most infrequently, thanks to the purveyors of intellectual freedom and democracy. Neo-Spenglerians who are attuned to the racial view of history (call them "racists" for convenience) hold that the "final" phase of a Culture -- the imperialistic stage -- is final only because the cultural organism destroys its body and kills its soul by this process.
Obviously, if we are to draw analogies between cultures and organisms we must agree that the soul of the organism dies only because of the death of the body. The soul can sicken -- the soul of the West is now diseased and perhaps mortally ill -- but it cannot die unless the organism itself dies. And this, point out the racists, is precisely what has happened to all previous cultures; death of the organism being the natural result of the suicidal process of imperialism.
A word on the racial view of history before proceeding further. Today, of course, history is written from the marxist standpoint of economics, linear progress and class warfare -- and Yockey explains this triple error well. Previous to the first World War history was written largely from the racial point of view. History was seen as the dramatic story of the movements, struggles and developments of races, which it is. Suppression of the racist point of view reached its apex about 1960. (It is no coincidence that the power of the Culture Distorter in every other field, including the political, gave signs -- however faint -- of wavering at that time, too.)
Perhaps the biggest reason for a growing tendency of White folks to look at the races objectively is, paradoxically, precisely because they have been forced to look at them subjectively! It is no problem to maintain a myth in ignorance. Negro equality or even supremacy, for example, is easier to believe in if there are no Negroes around to destroy the concept. In a word, internationalism in practice quickly metamorphoses into racism.
To turn from experience to academic matters, how many Americans or Britons are acquainted with the stupendously elemental fact that they are -- in the historical sense -- Germans; that they are, like it or not, a part of that great Teutonic-Celtic family which -- millenniums before the dawn of Rome or even Greece -- was one tribe, with one language? How many otherwise enlightened and well-meaning people who have heretofore judged their patriotism according to the degree of hatred they have had for their continental brothers know that the ancestors of the great Teutonic-Celtic family were the same Aryans who subjected India and civilized it, speaking the Sanskrit language and creating the caste system which, incidentally, was nothing originally but a system of racial segregation endowed with a religious significance in order to maintain it? Or that, before this, there were the Sumerians and the Persians, and that the modern name for Persia -- Iran -- is merely a corruption of Aryan?
Greece and Rome, also, were created by this great, far-roving, culture-bearing race of conquerors. In whatever part of the world it went, a different civilization was created, each of which was distinctive because it developed in tune with the environmental conditions in whatever location its history began, yet bearing unmistakable traces of its Aryan origin.
There are some civilizations about which we know little, as far as the racial elements are concerned. All we know for certain about the Egyptians is that they were Caucasian, and that they, like all slavemasters, mingled their blood with that of their Negro slaves. As for the so-called Amerindian civilizations, we now know without doubt that civilization was superimposed upon Indian savages by a White racial stock. In his popular books, Kon-Tiki and Aku-Aku, Thor Heyerdahl cleverly reveals the forbidden racist view, in spite of the fact that a million people who are familiar with the adventure described in the books are totally ignorant of the deep racial message he wrote into them. (It is a sad commentary indeed when a gifted scientist, in order to reveal a simple truth, must risk his life and then write an adventure story in code which, when interpreted, shows a forbidden fact.)
In Kon-Tiki, Heyerdahl writes, "... There is not a trace of gradual development in the high civilizations which once stretched from Mexico to Peru. The deeper the archeologists dig, the higher the culture, until a definite point is reached at which the old civilizations have clearly arisen without any foundation in the midst of primitive cultures." All of the wonders in South and Central America before the arrival of the Spaniards had been brought about suddenly by a race of White conquerors and that, as they melted their blood slowly into that of their subject native population, the civilization dwindled. The very reason Cortez conquered the Aztecs so easily was because Montezuma believed that the Spaniards were the fair-skinned, bearded men coming from the East which, Quetzalcotl' s prophecy foretold, would return; and the Incas in Peru had the very same legend. The name, Inca, by the way, is the name only of the aristocracy of the Peruvians. The Incas were White and the princesses were quite beautiful; so much so that many of the Spanish officers married them and took them back to Spain. A glance at the present ' Incas in Peru shows at once that these were not the creators of the great Peruvian Culture.
Some of the very best writing on this subject and, for that matter, on the fascinating subject of world prehistory generally is found in Paul Hermann's Conquest By Man, an extremely valuable book which, strangely enough, is now in print (Harper)!
An even cloudier origin must be ascribed to the Chinese civilization. Suffice it to say that there is abundant indication of early White movements to North China and there is much similarity between early Chinese culture and Babylonian. Genghis Khan, a Mongol, came from a tribe called 'the gray-eyed men," according to biographer Harold Lamb, and he had red hair and green eyes. The Chinese have shown that they have the ability to maintain a civilization but we cannot prove that they have ever created one.
The intensive suppression, misrepresentation, condemnation and opposition to the racial view of history has had its effect. We still not only have much to learn (the surface of prehistory has barely been scratched and will never be more than scratched if the scientists persist in spending their time in well-financed projects in the so-called "cradle of civilization" in the Middle Fast) but the results of historical perversion have been satisfyingly abundant in the social area. This has allowed the Distorter to convince Europe that all that Europe has it owes to the Greeks, the Romans and an obscure tribe of vagabonds which some religious crackpots refer to as "God s Chosen People." *3 In The Testimony of the Spade, however, Geoffrey Bibby relates some results of his straying off the beaten archeological track and looking for the origins of Europe in Europe instead of the alien Orient; results which will be surprising to persons brought up to believe that their ancestors were bearskin-clad savages, civilized only when forced to acknowledge the superiority of Rome. In truth, virtually everything the West has it owes to itself, including holidays like Christmas and Easter (originally Teutonic celebrations of the Winter Solstice and the coming of Spring, with the latter celebration dedicated to the Goddess Eostre), to law, ethics and single-breasted jackets. The world wears leather shoes and trousers, not sandals and togas. Wearing apparel very similar to items sold at Sears, Roebuck today have been discovered in Europe dating back some three thousand years.
The Western Culture had its birth many millenniums ago. It began autochthonously and developed to the present point, when it now stands upon the verge of physical and spiritual annihilation only because it has ceased to believe in itself. This is the lesson we glean.
Further, there is a correlation too perfect to be a coincidence in that, in every case on record of the death or stagnation of a Culture there has been simultaneously an abortive attempt to digest large numbers of cultural and racial aliens into the organism. In the case of Rome and Greece death came about through imperialism and the resulting, inevitable backwash of conquered peoples and races into the heartland as slaves, bringing exotic religions, different philosophies; in a word, cultural sophistication first, then cultural anarchy. In the case of Persia, India and the Amerindian civilizations, a race of conquerors superimposed their civilization upon a mass of indigenous people; the area flourished for awhile, then the Culture vanished or, in the case of America, was on the verge of vanishing, as the descendants of the conquerors became soft, fat and liberal and took on more and more of the accoutrements and blood of the subject population. In the case of Egypt, the alien blood was brought in over the course of many centuries by the importation of Negro slaves. The inevitable racial mongrelization followed, creating the Egypt we know today.
We thus see the real reason underlying the "inevitable" decline and destruction of a cultural organism. It is because, at a certain stage, a Culture develops a bad case of universalism. Speaking pathologically, unless this is sublimated to harmless channels by proper treatment, it will inevitably kill the organism through the absorption of a resulting flood of alien microbes.
It is, therefore, the natural by-product of universalism which kills the organism; the death of the organism itself is neither natural nor necessary!
This conclusion comes by a synthesis of the Spenglerian and the racial point of view. Each tempers the other; together a comprehensive and hopeful theory of history can be developed which holds a deep meaning to Westerners of this day. At all costs, the imperialistic phase of our development must be avoided, and we must guard against the digestion of alien matter we have already partially absorbed. The West need not die if it learns to sublimate the present "universal" stage of the West from the orthodox to something more constructive which will not only satisfy the "inevitable" yearning that the West now displays for expansion and universalism but, at the same time, will provide a basis for the West to continue its development. What can that be?
Faintly shining above the wreckage of seven Cultures we can now detect a dim ray of hope which gives to us, as men of the West, reason to believe that the Destiny of our Culture can work itself out through a completely new path. This ray of hope shines from the same developments which have brought the West to its position of unqualified superiority to every other Culture. For the West has already embarked upon the greatest adventure in all history -- the attempt to conquer Space -- the attempt to bring the very Universe under the control of the race! This imperative needs no justification other than the one Sir Edmund Hillary gave when he was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest: "Because it's there." This is the pristine reality of the Faustian Soul of the West, and it is beyond the logic of the rationalists.
Could any goal be at once so totally challenging, so impudent and impossible as this -- and also so metaphysically necessary to the spiritual need of our Culture? And more -- could any goal be so perfectly adapted to the physical situation in which we find ourselves?
The fates have provided the West well with the means of survival. At this point in history, our technics, industrial overproduction and the "population explosion" become all-important, for we see that finally the West has the means to turn the poetic imperative of the Faustian drive for the Infinite to reality; indeed, the inescapable need to do so.
For it is true that, regardless of all arguments to the contrary, Western man is bound to conquer Space or to die in the attempt. No longer is the drive toward infinity and largeness held back by earthly boundaries. Now, in fact, we have infinity at our elbow.
What I am suggesting is that at last the White man has burst the ties to Earth. I am stating the simple fact that, barring calamity caused by universal physical or biological destruction, we are now headed for the stars, and there is no power in heaven or earth to stop us. Coming days will see the present drive for Space magnified a thousandfold -- a millionfold. All limits to the possibility of expansion have disappeared. Geographical expansion on Earth is senseless -- and worse than senseless -- it is suicide. The Frontier has come back -- a Frontier that can never be dissipated. And with that Frontier comes literally limitless opportunities not only for physical expansion but for economic exploitation -- and for the Soul of Faustian man to find its true expression.
Of course, man cannot conquer the heavens. Man cannot move the solar system, change planets in their orbits, add billions of square miles of dirt to the surface of the Earth, move other planets closer to the life-giving Sun to adapt them for colonization, refuel the Sun when it starts to fade and, most noble impossibility of all, actually upgrade the human species through deliberate biological mechanics *4; for, in the attempt to conquer Nature, we must fail; this is the eternal tragedy of the Faustian Soul, says Spengler in Man and Technics. But -- and this is the important thing -- we can try. And we will. The final end does not matter; time has no end; only the goal matters.
At the same time there is the grave danger that we will, with our attention fixed on the nearing stars, succumb to the subtle urging of the Culture Distorter and ignore the problems at home. The Infinite Challenge is of unspeakable excitement, but the mundane problem of the quality of men and their earthy environment is of more importance. Our venture to Infinity will be very short-lived if we come home to an earth peopled with a rapidly-degenerating human species; to nights that crawl with the prowlings of depraved, raceless savages, with only barred doors keeping the jungle out of the laboratory and the boudoir until day breaks; to a tyranny over our government that is exercised by organized and predatory minorities; to impossible taxes to support degenerative "welfare" schemes that are deliberately designed to proliferate the unfit and inferior at the expense of the productive and creative; to an organized filth that calls itself literature; to the ethical syphilis of Hollywood; to systematic lies that masquerade as scholarship; to purposeful journalistic and official propaganda that has as its sole aim the perpetuation of cultural decline; to thralldom to an economic system dedicated to extirpating individual excellence and personal responsibility; to a liberal philosophy and a sick religion -- perfect for slaves -- which ferociously combats all creative efforts of noble souls, revealing its own loftiest aspiration to be the implantation of a subconscious death wish in our people; to a cowardly hypocrisy that makes it impossible to speak of our real problems -- and all of this for the purpose of stabilizing the total supremacy of the Culture Distorter, which feeds and fattens on these conditions.
Oswald Spengler, then, can be seen not as the prophet of inevitable doom, but as a challenger, as a seer who was -- in common with all great creators -- unable to see the final consequences of his creation. Hence, the importance of Spengler becomes the size of the future, and all men who are free from the grip of the destroyers must, as a categorical imperative, accept his basic teaching. What we do with it -- whether or not we have the courage to build on the structure he built -- this is up to us. We must hope that more men like Yockey will come to add a little more onto the concept he created, for the development of the Western cultural organism is not coming to an end, it is just beginning.
What is the significance of Imperium? Simply this. That now, for the first time, those soldiers who enlist in the service of the West have a profound theory to inspire and guide them. Imperium, after conquering all attempts to suppress it and destroy it -- as have all constructive advances in the past of man -- is seen as the only foundation which can be used to overthrow the inner enemies, re-conquer the Soul of the West and pave the way to the future.
In spite of the difference of opinion which Imperium will stir, this much is certain: here is a book which is basically different from other books, precisely as the author states on the first page. Whether it does, indeed, signal a turning-point in history such as the author describes, or not, it contains a vast amount of pregnant thinking and new concepts which any fair-minded person will welcome. It breaks through the straitjacket of present sterile intellectualism which affronts us from a thousand futile towers of "higher learning" and will undoubtedly endow every reader with possessions of thought which will enrich him and, in time, our Culture. Whether the apocalyptic prophecies are borne out, or whether an alternative and more constructive course can be imposed upon history -- or whether the West and the world will come to its finality not with a bang but with a whimper, only the unfoldment of time can tell; but no intelligent man will ignore Imperium.
In one respect, Imperium is akin to Das Kapital, for Karl Marx gave to the conspiratorial Culture Distorter the necessary ideological mask to hide its mission of ruthless, total destruction. He provided an ugly and invalid theory of man, cloaked in putrifying equality, mewling hypocrisy, the disease of undiscriminating altruism and the "science" of economics. By so doing, he thrilled the rationalists with a totally specious verity, something their stunted, guilty souls desperately needed after they killed God.
Francis Parker Yockey has
done the same thing for those who are constructive-minded and who have the
intellectual and moral courage to face reality and seek and speak truth.
This is why, although Yockey's plan for the West may not be perfect, it contains
atomic power. If only one man reading this book is influenced to lead, and if
others are made to see the world a little more clearly than they do now -- and
if they are thereby enabled to discriminate between their true friends and their
real enemies, and to recognize the need for leadership and coordinated action --
then Yockey's life of suffering and persecution and his monumental
accomplishment in spite of all has not been in vain.
And whatever course Destiny may take from this day forth, I shall always be baffled by two questions.
For one, is the republication of this book, in itself, concrete evidence that its prophecy is being worked out?
And lastly -- now you must accept this at my word and question me no further -- it is most strange that two men -- neither of whom can bring themselves to believe in either "Destiny" nor "Eternal Justice" -- that these two heathens and bitter realists -- these two rationalists, if you will -- were the only ones with faith enough to take it upon themselves to see that Imperium is not forgotten but is made available for you, dear reader.
IMPERIUMby
Francis Parker Yockey
aka "Ulick Varange" The entire book on this web site!
On Propaganda in America
FRANCIS PARKER YOCKEY
Far more important to Europe than the propaganda about domestic affairs in America is that about foreign affairs.
The numen "democracy" is used also in this realm as the essence of reality. A foreign development sought to be brought about is called "spreading democracy"; a development sought to be hindered is "against democracy," or "fascistic." "Fascism" is the numen corresponding to evil in theology, and in fact they are directly equated in American propaganda.
The prime enemy in the propaganda picture was always Europe, and especially the Prussian-European spirit which rose with such self-evident force in the European Revolution of 1933 against the negative view of life, with its materialism, money-obsession, and democratic corruption. The more surely it appeared that this Revolution was not a superficial political phenomenon, a mere transfer of one party-regime for another, that it was a deep spiritual, total revolution, of a new, vital spirit against a dead spirit, the more violent became the hate propaganda directed against Europe. By 1938, this propaganda had reached an intensity, both in volume and in emotional frenzy, that could not be surpassed. Ceaselessly the American was bombarded with the message that Europe was attacking everything worth-while in the world, God." Religion," "democracy," "Freedom," "peace," America."
This excessive use of abstractions was itself indicative that there was a lack of concrete realities to use. The failure to arouse excitement, despite the propaganda bombardment, led to the thesis that Europe was planning to invade the United States with fleets and armies. Ideas like these indeed conquered the intellectual side of the American mass-mind, but did not penetrate to the emotional level of rousing genuine apprehension or effective hate. "Aggressor" was another leading word in the intellectual assault. Again, it did not relate to facts, and was only allowed to work one way as a term of abuse. "International morality" was invented and formulated so that the enemy of the Culture- distorter became ipso facto immoral. If they could not find political reasons for their politics, they were all the more resourceful in creating moral, ideological, economic, and esthetic reasons. Nations were divided into good and bad. Europe as a whole was bad when it was united, and if Culture distortion was able to secure a foothold in any European land, such land became thereby good. The American propaganda machine reacted with venomous hatred against the European partitioning of Bohemia in 1938. Every European power which had participated in the negotiations was denounced as evil, aggressive, immoral, anti-democratic, and the rest of it.
Fundamental in this political picture was the thesis that politics was a matter of "forms of government" struggling against one another. Not nations or States, but abstractions like "democracy" and "fascism" were the content of the world-struggle. This imposed the necessity of calling the opponent of the momentary situation as "democratic" or "fascistic," and changing it from month to month, year to year. Serbia, Poland, Japan, Russia, China, Hungary, Rumania, and many other units, have been both "fascist" and "democratic," depending upon precisely what treaty they had made, and with what power.
The division into "democratic" and "fascistic" corresponded exactly with that into treaty-breaking and treaty- observing powers. Supplementing it was the dichotomy: peace-loving nations, and -- the other kind. The phrase "international law" was popularized, and it was used to describe something which has never existed, and cannot exist. It had no connection whatever with the real international law of 500 years of Western practice. It was popularized to mean that any change in the international territorial status quo was "forbidden" by "international law." Any words whatever that had good connotations were linked with the leading catchwords of the picture. Thus Western Civilization was too impressive to treat as a hostile term, and it was used to describe parliamentarism, class-war, plutocracy, and finally - Bolshevik Russia. It was insisted by the propaganda machine during the time of the battle at Stalingrad in the Fall of 1942 between Europe and Asia that the Asiatic forces represented Western Civilization while the European armies were the enemies of Western Civilization. The fact that Siberian, Turkestani, and Kirghizian regiments were being used by the Bolshevik regime was adduced as proof that Asia had saved Western Civilization.
To Europeans, this sort of thing testifies to two great facts: the total lack of any political or cultural consciousness whatever in the masses of the American population, and the deep, total, and implacable enmity toward Europe of the Culture-distorting regime in America. Japan was also treated in the propaganda picture as an enemy, but not as an irreconcilable enemy, like Europe. The propaganda against Japan was never allowed to take a racial form, lest the racial instincts of the American population be awakened into a storm that would sweep away the distorter. The generally milder tone of the anti-Japanese propaganda was owing to the fact that Japan had not experienced, and could not possibly experience, anything like the great European Revolution of 1933.
Because of the primitive intellectuality in a country whose population had been mentally uniformized, this propaganda was able to adopt extremely crude expedients. Thus during the war-preparation, 1933-1939, the press, cinema, and radio were filled with stories of insults to the American flag abroad, of secret documents accidentally discovered, of conversations heard over tapped wires, of discoveries of arms caches in the possession of American nationalist groups, and the like. "Newsreels" purporting to have been filmed abroad were actually made in some cases in Hollywood. So fantastic did it all become that when, a year before the Second World War, a wireless program carried an imaginative story of an invasion from Mars, there were symptoms of widespread panic among the propagandized masses.
Because America had never come strongly under the impression of the Spanish cabinet-politics usages which became engrafted on the European spirit, the Culture-distorting regime was able to engage in propaganda attacks of an extremely repulsive and vile kind directed against the private lives and characters of European leaders who represented the 20th century world-outlook. These leaders were represented as having been panders, homosexuals, dope-fiends, and sadists. The propaganda was entirely free from any cultural basis, and was completely cynical with regard to facts. Precisely as the cinema-factories of Hollywood ground out lying plays and "newsreels," the propagandists of the press created what "facts" they needed. When the Japanese air forces attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, the Culture-distorters did not know that Europe would take this occasion to retaliate against the undeclared war which the Culture-distorting regime in Washington had been waging against Europe. The regime therefore at once decided to exploit the Japanese attack as a European military measure. To this end, the propaganda organs at once spread the "news" that European planes with European pilots had participated in the attack, and had even led it. Although every capital ship in the base was sunk in this attack, the regime officially announced that only slight damage had been done. These fact-creations were as nothing, however, to the massive, post-war, "concentration-camp" propaganda of the Culture-distorting regime based in Washington.
This propaganda announced that 6,000,000 members of the Jewish Culture-Nation-State-Church-People-Race had been killed in European camps, as well as an indeterminate number of other people. The propaganda was on a world-wide scale, and was of a mendacity that was perhaps adapted to a uniformized mass, but was simply disgusting to discriminating Europeans. The propaganda was technically quite complete. "Photographs" were supplied in millions of copies. Thousands of the people who had been killed published accounts of their experiences in these camps. Hundreds of thousands more made fortunes in post-war black-markets. "Gas-chambers" that did not exist were photographed, and a "gasmobile" was invented to titillate the mechanically-minded.
We come now to the purpose of this propaganda which the regime gave to its mentally-enslaved masses. From the analysis in the 20th Century Political Outlook, the purpose is seen to be only one: it was designed to create a total war in the spiritual sense, transcending the limits of politics, against the Western Civilization. The American masses, both military and civilian, were given this mental poison in order to inflame them to the point where they would carry out without flinching the post-war annihilation-program. In particular: it was designed to support a war after the Second World War, a war of looting, hanging, and starvation against defenseless Europe.
(The above article was excerpted from Imperium [pp 529-534], which is published by The Noontide Press and available for purchase from the Institute for Historical Review.)
Source: Reprinted from The Journal of Historical Review, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 143-147.
Liberalism
Francis Parker Yockey
Liberalism is a most important by-product of Rationalism, and its origins and ideology must be clearly shown.
The "Enlightenment" period of Western history which ... set in after the Counter-Reformation laid more and more stress on intellect, reason and logic as it developed. By the middle of the 18th century this tendency produced Rationalism. Rationalism regarded all spiritual values as its objects and proceeded to revalue them from the standpoint of "reason." Inorganic logic is the faculty men have always used for solving problems of mathematics, engineering, transportation, physics and in other non-valuing situations. Its insistence on identity and rejection of contradiction are practicable in material activity. They afford intellectual satisfaction also in matters of purely abstract thought, like mathematics and logic, but if pursued far enough they turn into mere techniques, simple assumptions whose only justification is empirical. The end of Rationalism is Pragmatism, the suicide of Reason.
This adaptation of reason to material problems causes all problems whatever to become mechanical when surveyed in "the light of reason," without any mystical admixture of thought or tendency whatever. Descartes reasoned the animals into automata, and a generation or so later, man himself was rationalized into an automaton — or equally, an animal. Organisms became problems in chemistry and physics, and superpersonal organism[s] simply no longer existed, for they are not amenable to reason, not being visible or measurable. Newton provided the universe of stars with a non-spiritual self-regulating force; the next century removed the spirit from man, his history and his affairs.
Reason detests the inexplicable, the mysterious, the half-light. In a practical problem in machinery or ship-building one must feel that all the factors are under his knowledge and control. There must be nothing unpredictable or out of control. Rationalism, which is the feeling that everything is subject to and completely explicable by Reason, consequently rejects everything not visible and calculable. If a thing actually cannot be calculated, Reason merely says that the factors are so numerous and complicated that in a purely practical way they render the calculation unfeasible, but do not make it theoretically impossible. Thus Reason also has its Will-to-Power: whatever does not submit is pronounced recalcitrant, or is simply denied existence.
When it turned its gaze to History, Rationalism saw the whole tendency as one toward Reason. Man was "emerging" during all those millennia, he was progressing from barbarism and fanaticism to enlightenment, from "superstition" to "science," from violence to "reason," from dogma to "criticism, from darkness to light. No more invisible things, no more spirit, no more soul, no more God, no more Church and State. The two poles of thought are "the individual" and "humanity." Anything separating them is "irrational."
This branding of things as irrational is in fact correct. Rationalism must mechanize everything, and whatever cannot be mechanized is of necessity irrational. Thus the entirety of History becomes irrational: its chronicles, its processes, its secret force, Destiny. Rationalism itself, as a by-product of a certain stage in the development of a High Culture, is also irrational. Why Rationalism follows one spiritual phase, why it exercises its brief sway, why it vanishes once more into religion — these questions are historical, thus irrational.
Liberalism is Rationalism in politics. It rejects the State as an organism, and can only see it as the result of a contract between individuals. The purpose of Life has nothing to do with States, for they have no independent existence. Thus the "happiness" of "the individual" becomes the purpose of Life. Bentham made this as coarse as it could be made in collectivizing it into "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." If herding-animals could talk, they would use this slogan against the wolves. To most humans, who are the mere material of History, and not actors in it, "happiness" means economic well being. Reason is quantitative, not qualitative, and thus makes the average man into "Man." "Man" is a thing of food, clothing, shelter, social and family life, and leisure. Politics sometimes demands sacrifice of life for invisible things. This is against "happiness," and must not be. Economics, however, is not against "happiness," but is almost co-extensive with it. Religion and Church wish to interpret the whole of Life on the basis of invisible things, and so militate against "happiness." Social ethics, on the other hand, secure economic order, thus promote "happiness."
Here Liberalism found its two poles of thought: economics and ethics. They correspond to individual and humanity. The ethics of course is purely social, materialistic; if older ethics is retained, its former metaphysical foundation is forgotten, and it is promulgated as a social, and not a religious, imperative. Ethics is necessary to maintain the order necessary as a framework for economic activity. Within that framework, however, "individual" must be "free." This is the great cry of Liberalism, "freedom." Man is only himself, and is not tied to anything except by choice. Thus "society" is the "free" association of men and groups. The State, however, is un-freedom, compulsion, violence. The Church is spiritual un-freedom.
All things in the political domain were transvalued by Liberalism. War was transformed into either competition, seen from the economic pole, or ideological difference, seen from ethical pole. Instead of the mystical rhythmical alternation of war and peace, it sees only the perpetual concurrence of competition or ideological contrast, which in no case becomes hostile or bloody. The State becomes society or humanity on the ethical side, a production and trade system on the economic side. The will to accomplish a political aim is transformed into the making of a program of "social ideals" on the ethical side, of calculation on the economic side. Power becomes propaganda, ethically speaking, and regulation, economically speaking.
The purest expression of the doctrine of Liberalism was probably that of Benjamin Constant. In 1814 he set forth his views "progress" of "man." He looked upon the 18th century Enlightenment with its intellectualistic-humanitarian cast as merely preliminary to the true liberation, that of the 19th century. Economics, industrialism, and technics represented the means of "freedom." Rationalism was the natural ally of this trend. Feudalism, Reaction, War, Violence, State, Politics, Authority — all were overcome by the new idea, supplanted by Reason, Economics, Freedom, Progress and Parliamentarism. War, being violent and brutal, was unreasonable, and is replaced by Trade, which is intelligent and civilized. War is condemned from every standpoint: economically it is a loss even to the victor. The new war technics — artillery — made personal heroism senseless, and thus the charm and glory of war departed with its economic usefulness. In earlier times, war-peoples had subjugated trading-peoples, but no longer. Now trading-peoples step out as the masters of the earth.
A moment's reflection shows that Liberalism is entirely negative. It is not a formative force, but always and only a disintegrating force. It wishes to depose the twin authorities of Church and State, substituting for them economic freedom and social ethics. It happens that organic realities do not permit of more than the two alternatives: the organism can be true to itself, or it becomes sick and distorted, a prey for other organisms. Thus the natural polarity of leaders and led cannot be abolished without annihilating the organism. Liberalism was never entirely successful in its fight against the State, despite the fact that it engaged in political activity throughout the 19th century in alliance with every other type of Stated-disintegrating force. Thus there were National-Liberals, Social-Liberals, Free-Conservatives, Liberal-Catholics. They allied themselves with democracy, which is not Liberal, but irresistibly authoritarian in success. They sympathized with Anarchists when the forces of Authority sought to defend themselves against them. In the 20th century, Liberalism joined Bolshevism in Spain, and European and American Liberals sympathized with Russian Bolsheviks.
Liberalism can only be defined negatively. It is a mere critique, not a living idea. Its great word "freedom" is a negative — it means in fact, freedom from authority, i.e., disintegration of the organism. In its last stages it produces social atomism in which not only the authority of the State is combated, but even the authority of society and the family. Divorce takes equal rank with marriage, children with parents. This constant thinking in negatives caused political activists like Lorenz V. Stein and Ferdinand Lasalle to despair of it as a political vehicle. Its attitudes were always contradictory, it sought always a compromise. It sought always to "balance" democracy against monarchy, managers against hand-workers, State against Society, legislative against judicial. In a crisis, Liberalism as such was not to be found. Liberals found their way on to one or the other side of a revolutionary struggle, depending on the consistency of their Liberalism, and its degree of hostility to authority.
Thus Liberalism in action was just as political as any State ever was. It obeyed organic necessity by its political alliances with non-Liberal groups and ideas. Despite its theory of individualism, which of course would preclude the possibility that one man or group could call upon another man or group for the sacrifice or risk of life, it supported "unfree" ideas like Democracy, Socialism, Bolshevism, Anarchism, all of which demand life- sacrifice.
II
From its anthropology of the basic goodness of human nature in general, Rationalism produced 18th century Encyclopedism, Freemasonry, Democracy, and Anarchism, as well as Liberalism, each with its offshoots and variations. Each played its part history of the 19th century, and, owing to the critical distortion of the whole Western civilization entailed by the first World Wars, even in the 20th century, where Rationalism is grotesquely out of place, and slowly transformed itself into Irrationalism. The corpse of Liberalism was not even interred by the middle of the 20th century. Consequently it is necessary to diagnose even now the serious illness of the Western Civilization as Liberalism complicated with alien-poisoning.
Because Liberalism views most men as harmonious, or good, it follows that they should be allowed to do as they like. Since there is no higher unit to which all are tied, and whose super-personal life dominates the lives of the individuals, each field of human activity serves only itself — as long as it does not wish to become authoritative, and stays within the framework of "society." Thus Art becomes "Art for Art's sake," l'art pour l'art. All areas of thought and action become equally autonomous. Religion becomes mere social discipline, since to be more is to assume authority. Science, philosophy, education, all are equally worlds unto themselves. None are subject to anything higher. Literature and technics are entitled to the same autonomy. The function of the State is merely to protect them by patents and copyrights. But above all — economics and law are independent of organic authority, i.e., of politics.
Twenty-first century readers will find it difficult to believe that once the idea prevailed that each person should be free to do as he pleased in economic matters, even if his personal activity involved the starvation of hundreds of thousands, the devastation of entire forest and mineral areas, and the stunting of the power of the organism; that it was quite permissible for such an individual to raise himself above the weakened public authority, and to dominate, by private means, the inmost thoughts of whole populations by his control of press, radio and mechanized drama.
They will find it more difficult yet to understand how such a person could go to the law to enforce his destructive will. Thus a usurer could, even in the middle of the 20th century, invoke successfully the assistance of the law in dispossessing any numbers of peasants and farmers. It is hard to imagine how any individual could injure the political organism more than by thus mobilizing the soil into dust, in the phrase of the great Freiherr von Stein.
But — this followed inevitably from the idea of the independence of economics and law from political authority. There is nothing higher, no State; it is only individuals against one another. It is but natural that the economically more astute individuals accumulate most of the mobile wealth into their hands. They do not however, if they are true Liberals, want authority with this wealth, for authority has two aspects: power, and responsibility. Individualism, psychologically speaking, is egoism. "Happiness" = selfishness. Rousseau, the grandfather of Liberalism, was a true individualist, and sent his five children to the foundling hospital.
Law, as a field of human thought and endeavor, has as much independence, and as much dependence as every other field. Within the organic framework, it is free to think and organize its material. But like other forms of thought, it can be enrolled in the service of outside ideas. Thus law, originally the means of codifying and maintaining the inner peace of the organism by keeping order and preventing private disputes from growing, was transmuted by Liberal thought into a means of keeping inner disorder, and allowing economically strong individuals to liquidate the weaker ones. This was called the "rule of law," the "law-State," "independence of the judiciary." The idea of bringing in the law to make a given state of affairs sacrosanct was not original with Liberalism. Back in Hobbes's day, other groups were trying it, but the incorruptible mind of Hobbes said with the most precise clarity that the rule of law rule means the rule of those who determine and administer the law, that the rule of a "higher order" is an empty phrase, and is only given content by the concrete rule of given men and groups over a lower order.
This was political thinking, which is directed to the distribution and movement of power. It is also politics to expose the hypocrisy, immorality and cynicism of the usurer who demands the rule of law, which means riches to him and poverty to millions of others, and all in the name of something higher, something with supra-human validity. When Authority resurges once more against the forces of Rationalism and Economics, it proceeds at once to show that the complex of transcendental ideals with which Liberalism equipped itself is as valid as the Legitimism of the era of Absolute Monarchy, and no more. The Monarchs were the strongest protagonists of Legitimism, the financiers of Liberalism. But the monarch was tied to the organism with his whole existence, he was responsible organically even where he was not responsible in fact. Thus Louis XVI and Charles I. Countless other monarchs and absolute rulers have had to flee because of their symbolic responsibility. But the financier has only power, no responsibility, not even symbolic, for, as often as not, his name is not generally known. History, Destiny, organic continuity, Fame, all exert their powerful influence on an absolute political ruler, and in addition his position places him entirely outside the sphere of base corruptibility. The financier, however, is private, anonymous, purely economic, irresponsible. In nothing can he be altruistic; his very existence is the apotheosis of egoism. He does not think of History, of Fame, of the furtherance of the life of the organism, of Destiny, and furthermore he is eminently corruptible by base means, as his ruling desire is for money and ever more money.
In his contest against Authority the finance-Liberal evolved a theory that power corrupts men. It is, however, vast anonymous wealth which corrupts, since there are no superpersonal restraints on it, such as bring the true statesman completely into of the service of the political organism, and place him above corruption.
It was precisely in the fields of economics and law that the Liberal doctrine had the most destructive effects on the health of the Western Civilization. It did not matter much that esthetics became independent, for the only art-form in the West which still had a future, Western Music, paid no attention to theories and continued on its grand creative course to its end in Wagner and his epigones. Baudelaire is the great symbol l'art pour l'art: sickness as beauty. Baudelaire is thus Liberalism in literature, disease as a principle of Life, crisis as health, morbidity as soul-life, disintegration as purpose. Man as individualist, an atom without connections, the Liberal ideal of personality. It was in fields of action rather than of thought that the injury was the greatest.
Allowing the initiative in economic and technical matters to rest with individuals, subject to little political control, resulted in the creation of a group of individuals whose personal wills were more important than the collective destiny of the organism and the millions of the population. The law which served this state of affairs was completely divorced from morality and honor. To disintegrate the organism from the spiritual side, what morality was recognized was divorced from metaphysics and religion and related only to "society." The criminal law reflected finance-Liberalism by punishing crimes of violence and passion, but not classifying such things as destroying national resources, throwing millions into want, or usury on a national scale.
The independence of the economic sphere was a tenet of faith with Liberalism. This was not subject to discussion. There was even evolved an abstraction named "economic man," whose actions could be predicted as though economics were a vacuum. Economic gain was his sole motive, greed alone spurred him on. The technic of success was to concentrate on one's own gain and ignore everything else. This "economic man" was however man in general to the Liberals. He was the unit of their world-picture. "Humanity" was the sum total of these economic grains of sand.
III
The type of mind which believes in the essential "goodness" of human nature attained to Liberalism. But there is another political anthropology, one which recognizes that man is disharmonious, problematical, dual, dangerous. This is the general wisdom of mankind, and is reflected by the number of guards, fences, safes, locks, jails and policemen. Every catastrophe, fire, earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood, evokes looting. Even a police strike in an American city was the signal for looting of the shops by the respectable and good human beings.
Thus this type of thought starts from facts. This is political thinking in general, as opposed to mere thinking about politics, rationalizing. Even the wave of Rationalism did not submerge this kind of thinking. Political thinkers differ greatly in creativeness and depth, but they agree that facts are normative. The very word theory has been brought into disrepute by intellectuals and Liberals who use it to describe their pet view of how they would like things to be. Originally theory was explanation of facts. To an intellectual who is adrift in politics, a theory is an aim; to a true politician his theory is a boundary.
A political theory seeks to find from history the limits of the politically possible. These limits cannot be found in the domain of Reason. The Age of Reason was born in bloodshed, and will pass out of vogue in more bloodshed. With its doctrine against war, politics, and violence, it presided over the greatest wars and revolutions in 5,000 years, and it ushered in the Age of Absolute Politics. With its gospel of the Brotherhood of Man, it carried on the largest-scale starvation, humiliation, torture and extermination in history against populations within the Western Civilization after the first two World Wars. By outlawing political thinking, and turning war into a moral-struggle instead of a power-struggle it flung the chivalry and honor of a millennium into the dust. The conclusion is compelling that Reason also became political when it entered politics, even though it used its own vocabulary. When Reason stripped territory from a conquered foe after a war, it called it "disannexation." The document consolidating the new position was called a "Treaty," even though it was dictated in the middle of a starvation-blockade. The defeated political enemy had to admit in the "Treaty" that he was "guilty" of the war, that he is morally unfit to have colonies, that his soldiers alone committed "war-crimes." But no matter how heavy the moral disguise, how consistent the ideological vocabulary, it is only politics, and the Age of Absolute Politics reverts once again to the type of political thinking which starts from facts, recognizes power and the will-to-power of men and higher organisms as facts, and finds any attempt to describe politics in terms of morals as grotesque as it would be to describe chemistry in terms of theology.
There is a whole tradition of political thinking in the Western Culture, of which some of the leading representatives are Macchiavelli, Hobbes, Leibnitz, Bossuet, Fichte, de Maistre, Donoso Cortes, Hippolyte Taine, Hegel, Carlyle. While Herbert Spencer was describing history as the "progress" from military-feudal to commercial-industrial organization, Carlyle was showing to England the Prussian spirit of Ethical Socialism, whose inner superiority would exert on the whole Western Civilization in the coming Political Age an equally fundamental transformation as had Capitalism in the Economic Age. This was creative political thinking, but was unfortunately not understood, and the resulting ignorance allowed distorting influences to fling England into two senseless World Wars from which it emerged with almost everything lost.
Hegel posited a three-stage development of mankind from the natural community through the bourgeois community to the State. His State-theory is thoroughly organic, and his definition of the bourgeois is quite appropriate for the 20th century. To him the bourgeois is the man who does not wish to leave the sphere of internal political security, who sets himself up, with his sanctified private property, as an individual against the whole, who finds a substitute for his political nullity in the fruits of peace and possessions and perfect security in his enjoyment of them, who therefore wishes to dispense with courage and remain secure from the possibility of violent death. He described the true Liberal with these words.
The political thinkers mentioned do not enjoy popularity with the great masses of human beings. As long as things are going well, most people do not wish to hear talk of power-struggles, violence, wars, or theories relating to them. Thus in the 18th and 19th centuries was developed the attitude that political thinkers — and Macchiavelli was the prime victim — were wicked men, atavistic, bloodthirsty. The simple statement that wars would always continue was sufficient to put the speaker down as a person who wanted wars to continue. To draw attention to the vast, impersonal rhythm of war and peace showed a sick mind with moral deficiency and emotional taint. To describe facts was held to be wishing them and creating them. As late as the 20th century, anyone pointing out the political nullity of the "leagues of nations" was a prophet of despair. Rationalism is anti-historical; political thinking is applied history. In peace it is unpopular to mention war, in war it is unpopular to mention peace. The theory which becomes most quickly popular is one which praises existing things and the tendency they supposedly illustrate as obviously the best order and as preordained by all foregoing history. Thus Hegel was anathema to the intellectuals because of his State-orientation, which made him a "reactionary," and also because he refused to join the revolutionary crowd.
Since most people wish to hear only soporific talk about politics, and not demanding calls to action, and since in democratic conditions it matters to political technics what most people wish to hear, democratic politicians evolved in the 19th century a whole dialectic of party-politics. The idea was to examine the field of action from a "disinterested" standpoint, moral, or economic, and to find that the opponent was immoral, unscientific, uneconomic — in fact — he was political. This was devilishness that must be combated. One's own standpoint was entirely "non-political." Politics was a word of reproach in the Economic Age. Curiously however, in certain situations, usually those involving foreign relations, "unpolitical" could also be a term of abuse, meaning the man so described lacked skill in negotiating. The party politician also had to feign unwillingness to accept office. Finally a demonstration of carefully arranged "popular will" broke down his reluctance, and he consented to "serve." This was described as Macchiavellism, but obviously Macchiavelli was a political thinker, and not a camouflageur. A book by a party-politician does not read like The Prince, but praises the entire human race, except certain perverse people, the author's opponents.
Actually Machiavelli's book is defensive in tone, justifying politically the conduct of certain statesmen by giving examples drawn from foreign invasions of Italy. During Macchiavelli's century, Italy was invaded at different times by Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards and Turks. When the French Revolutionary Armies occupied Prussia, and coupled humanitarian sentiments of the Rights of Man with brutality and large-scale looting, Hegel and Fichte restored Machiavelli once again to respect as a thinker. He represented a means of defense against a foe armed with a humanitarian ideology. Machiavelli showed the actual role played by verbal sentiments in politics.
One can say that there are three possible attitudes toward human conduct, from the point of evaluating its motives: the sentimental, the realistic, and the cynical. The sentimental imputes a good motive to everybody, the cynical a bad motive, and the realistic simply seeks the facts. When a sentimentalist, e.g., a Liberal, enters politics, he becomes perforce a hypocrite. The ultimate exposure of this hypocrisy creates cynicism. Part of the spiritual sickness following the First World War was a wave of cynicism which arose from the transparent, revolting, and incredible hypocrisy of the little men who were presiding over affairs at that time. Macchiavelli had however an incorruptible intellect and did not write in a cynical spirit. He sought to portray the anatomy of politics with its peculiar problems and tensions, inner and outer. To the fantastic mental illness of Rationalism, hard facts are regrettable things, and to talk about them is to create them. A tiny politician of the Liberal type even sought to prevent talk about the Third World War, after the Second. Liberalism is, in one word, weakness. It wants every day to be a birthday, Life to be a long party. The inexorable movement of Time, Destiny, History, the cruelty of accomplishment, sternness, heroism, sacrifice, superpersonal ideas — these are the enemy.
Liberalism is an escape from hardness into softness, from masculinity into femininity, from History into herd-grazing, from reality into herbivorous dreams, from Destiny into Happiness. Nietzsche, in his last and greatest work, designated the 18th century as the century of feminism, and immediately mentioned Rousseau, the leader of the mass-escape from Reality. Feminism itself — what is it but a means of feminizing man? If it makes women man-like, it does so only by transforming man first into a creature whose only concern is with his personal economics and his relation to "society," ie. a woman. "Society" is the element of woman, it is static and formal, its contests are purely personal, and are free from the possibility of heroism and violence. Conversation, not action; formality, not deeds. How different is the idea of rank used in connection with a social affair, from when it is applied on a battlefield! In the field, it is fate-laden; in the salon it is vain and pompous. A war is fought for control; social contests are inspired by feminine vanity and jealousy to show that one is "better" than someone else.
Their
Generation, Now Unemployed, Must Fight the War
Then Become Slaves in Red State That Follows
August 1939
by FRANCIS P. YOCKEY
No SECTION of the American populace has been more completely deceived by the forces interested in keeping the truth from the people than America's youth. Youth stands to suffer most from the present regime of America's enemies in control of America. Therefore, it is from youth that the Leftist dictatorship might some day have the most to fear.
The alien-minded minority in control of the cinema, the radio, and the newspaper and magazine press has poured out a constant stream of propaganda with the intent of gaining complete spiritual power over the minds of young Americans emerging into maturity. With what success the attempt has met everyone knows who has talked on their own level to representative American youths from the ages of 19 to 27. One and all their world-views have been cut out for them in New York, Hollywood, and Washington.
Appalling numbers of youth have been led into a cynical ultra-sophisticated attitude which regards drinking as a badge of social aptitude, which makes a fetish of sport and professes eroticism as a way of life. A perverted and insane pictorial art, lewd exhibitionistic dancing and jungle music form the spiritual norm of this sector of America's youth.
Books, Magazines Carry Propaganda
For those serious-minded youths, who are genuinely interested in the tremendous problems now facing us, another insidious attack has been devised. Books have been written, plays staged, and an unending train of lecturers have mounted the platform all to convey to these thinking youths the same message of class war and international hatred.
Magazines have been founded for none other than propaganda purposes -- vide Life, Look, Click, Esquire, Ken, Coronet -- and have been made up in such a way as to prove attractive to the young readers.
The result of this campaign to destroy Christian Americanism among the youth is that every periodical, 95 per cent of the books, and all the lecturers are Leftist. Leftist ideas are a part of the very atmosphere which American youth breathes. The young person whose reasoning powers have come to full development within the past seven years has never even come in contact with a conservative, Christian view of life. His professors are in the main Leftists, those who are not are afraid to speak out for fear of their jobs. Most of the parents do not realize the spiritual regimentation of their children because they themselves have been indoctrinated along with them. Those parents who do think otherwise are considered "old-fashioned," and proponents of the "horse-and-buggy days" by the preachers of Roosevelt Leftism.
Youth Victims of Red Demoralization
The tragedy of this conscription of American youth under the banners of atheism, class-war, and social degeneration is just this: that the continuance of the economic and spiritual distress of the youth is an integral part of the revolutionary program of the same Communist forces which have seduced and indoctrinated them.
According to Communist leaders, the revolutionary struggle in the United States is in the stage of the "Popular Front," with Mr. Roosevelt as the leader pro tempore. The aim of a "Popular Front" government can best be set forth in the words of Maurice Thorez, French Communist leader:
"It will be a government which will give the working-class and the Communist Party all possibilities for agitation, propaganda, organization and action, a government which will make it possible to prepare for the complete seizure of power by the working-class (i.e., by their self-chosen leaders), in brief, a government which will be a prelude for the armed insurrection for the dictatorship of the proletariat... For the Communists, the Popular Front is not a tactic of expediency. Still less is it an election move. It is an element of their fundamental policy, and application of the principles of Marx and Lenin ... " (From his speech at Villeurbanne, January, 1936.)
Prosperity Fatal to Communist Hopes
Now it is easy to see that this program, however successful to date in America, cannot be fulfilled if our nation is prosperous arid if the population is engaged in productive, decently paid labor. Both the "Popular Front" which we now endure and its successor, the blood-bath Communist