REFLECTIONS ON RACE AND SPIRIT

By Arthur Henderson


 

Introduction

For many years I had personally studied race, along with other issues which concern the European Right, and had found not only a deficient comprehension of the issue in others, but in myself as well. There was too much reliance on old and flawed methodology and science (in fact, an almost fetishistic obsession with it) which over time I realized needed to be abandoned in favor of a new understanding of race.

I engaged in a study of race from the perspectives of various philosophers and researchers who are often ignored. These men, to whom I am indebted for my current knowledge on race as well as other issues, and whose works I recommend to all readers, were: Alfred Rosenberg, Julius Evola, Francis Parker Yockey, Tomislav Sunic, and Johann Gottfried von Herder. What I intend to present to the reader in this article is an introductory overview of some significant thoughts on race which I hope will rectify and improve their understanding of the reality of race.

Disappointing Trends

To further elaborate on my purpose for writing this essay, I must point out that I see among racialists and Nationalists today a disturbing trend. When the question of biological race comes up I see those that overestimate its importance and underestimate the importance of other factors in race, and then I see those that underestimate the importance of biological race and care only about the other factors, such as culture and spirit. There are racialists out there who seriously believe that just a drop of Jewish blood distorts the genetic composition of an individual, who is otherwise racially and culturally a European, enough so that this individual must be considered non-European (in this essay we will use the term “European race” instead of “White race” or “racially European” instead of “White”).

Another example is perhaps those racialists who believe that peoples such as Bosnians and Albanians have literally exited the European race; that is they have somehow proven themselves to be genetically different from other Europeans simply by submitting to Islam. In this sense they must thus be regarded as hopeless and racially foreign, never to be accepted as European even if they give up Islam and assimilate to Christian European culture. But then there are other European Nationalists who, believing that race is largely only cultural or “spiritual,” would seemingly gladly accept an assimilated Arab who converted to Christianity and now “feels European.”

It is disturbing to see racialists who exaggerate the influence of genetics and care little about the cultural and spiritual aspects of race, and it is likewise disturbing to see those who do not care much in regards to the genetic makeup of men and only about what these men “feel” and “value.” This is the old battle between Spengler and racial anthropology, between spiritual concepts of race and biological ones.

I find that many have a difficult time in regards to this issue, and I will attempt to present my own thoughts on the subject. I will attempt to diagnose the problem and its cause, and I will present what I believe is the solution. Although I am fully aware that many will vehemently reject my proposals due the nature of their personal attitudes, I hope to reach those who are open to these views.

Biological Race and Its Role

All across the millennia man has, to a greater or lesser extent depending upon the situation, recognized the reality of and concerned himself with race whenever he encountered the existence of other races. While concrete historical evidence from the Greco-Romans and the Near East reveals this to us, the people of the ancient world did not always directly write or speak about race, and more often than not, the importance of blood and race was taken for granted or even recognized largely at an unconscious level. Ancient man instinctually felt the reality of race, but modern man often fumbles to an embarrassing extent when trying to understand race.

This problem’s greatest cause is the mentality which arose during the Age of Materialism of the Western world, which began in the 18th Century, but achieved a greater force during the 19th Century. Man sought to explain all aspects of life and the world purely materialistically. Science became a force as powerful as religion was in previous centuries. Man’s century-old ontological outlook – in which he recognized the reality of both the physical realm as well as the metaphysical realm, of both the Material existence and the Spiritual existence, of both the Profane and the Sacred – was slowly being replaced by science-worship and materialism. This is best viewed as a grave mistake, although it is in no way implied here that science is in and of itself negative, only the mentality through which it was used. (See Francis Parker Yockey’s Imperium for more on this subject. For a purely religious discussion, see the works of Mircea Eliade).

Thus arose the attempts to define race solely by scientific methodology, focusing on such aspects as color, skeletal and cranial features, facial features, and intelligence differences. Numerous and often contradictory attempts were made across the past two centuries to classify the various races and sub-races using physical characteristics, particularly those of the skull and face. Many of these attempts were ridiculous (such as those of Joseph Deniker), and had no correspondence to what men felt as the reality of differences. Although some such anthropological theories found popularity among the masses for large periods of time, none could ultimately be satisfactory in classification or definition. Physical features alone cannot be used to classify and identify a force which one feels inside oneself, however important its outer image may be.

For instance, although Carleton Coon held that there were both a Cro-Magnon sub-race and a Nordic sub-race, with individuals belonging to such types being present across northwestern Europe, these were not valid divisions. It is foolish to think that two Swedish men largely similar in appearance, one “Cro-Magnon” and the other “Nordic” by Coon’s standards, are of two different racial types. To think that such inconsequential anthropological features constitute races is to be seriously misguided. Consider also Arthur Moeller van den Bruck’s objection to the unrealistic division of Germans into various different sub-races and mixtures in anthropological theory, which he believed was incorrect since the German people as a whole were essentially of the same racial type.

More recent racial scientists have examined various physical-biological features of race and presented new arguments, but in the light of unbiased scientific research as well as philosophical discussion, it can be seen that many of these physical differences are often insignificant or simply have no reality. It is also apparent that the various materialistic assertions of the supposedly nearly total domination of genetics over character traits are inaccurate. There is no conclusive scientific evidence to support the common claims among absolute materialists, who like to think that all mental and physical traits and tendencies are entirely hereditary. It is not even necessary to look at scientific debates to see the absurdity of such views. Humans are not simply automatons with a meaningless existence in which all instincts and personality are totally controlled by genes (except for certain environmental influences which are regarded as essentially unimportant by such geneticists). This is no place to explain lengthy arguments between racialists and egalitarians. It should suffice to say that however repulsive egalitarian scientists may be, since they usually support the ideology of liberalism, they sometimes make valid points.

To summarize the issue, like the old anthropologists, many racialists today, especially believers in the so-called “one-drop rule”, often forget that biological race matters only to the extent that it actually affects people. Having just a minute amount of mixture does not affect a person in any way – not in their character, not in their instincts, not in any genetically predetermined tendencies. If one cannot quantify or measure the difference caused by whatever mixture a person has in their racial makeup, one must therefore disregard that mixture, for it is unimportant without any effect. Thus it must be concluded that such obsessive attitudes about race are completely unnecessary and in fact harmful to the reputation of racialism everywhere.

Of course, there is a clear reality to biological race, and genetics do have some influence over character. The point being made is that scientific racialism presents exaggerated arguments which do not provide us with a valid view of race. To try to view race from studies on traits which cross races, such as intelligence levels and predispositions to diseases, gives one a very deficient understanding of race. Two individuals, one a member of the European Race and the other of an Asiatic race, who are equal in intelligence and other such features typically studied by racial scientists (excluding phenotype), are still vastly different from each other. Yet another mistake was to view humans in the same way one would view horses and dogs, merely varying types which should be bred toward some aim of physical improvement (it is not implied here that eugenic improvement is bad, only the manner in which it was utilized in the early 20th Century).

 

Race and Spirit

To understand race, we need to understand certain factors which give a person his identity. However incredibly important purely individual identity and the factors which create it are, there are collective powers which are also of vast importance. Culture, is self-evidently of significance, but it is often not understood correctly. Art, architecture, morals, language, law, music, literature, economics, and all the other various traditions and practices which unmistakably constitute a culture do not alone comprise the culture. All of these customs and practices are the manifestations of an essence. This Essence remains the same even if customs change over the centuries to some extent, and thus the culture is not changed in any crucial way. To give an example, many customs and practices of the Irish people have changed from one century to another, but the Essence which shaped the style in which they made use of both the old and the new customs was for the most part static, and thus they still remained the same people.

The Essence of culture which is mentioned here is known among the Germans as the Volksgeist (“Folk Spirit” or “spirit of the people”), a term coined by the philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder, which refers to the collective psychological character and life-essence of a Volk (“Folk”). Every Folk possesses its own unique Folk Spirit, formulated by ancestral history and environmental experience, which is the true basis of nationality. Only when the Folk Spirit undergoes an actual change through a very extensive experience and transformation in the Folk can we say that a Folk has truly changed. Folk can therefore be seen to be a very powerful influence on a man’s identity, one which is frequently and foolishly ignored by many in the modern world.

However, based on my studies I have concluded that there is a force which is in many ways above Folk, which determines how different Folks interact with each other. If two Folks possess it and are created by it, they are linked with each other and feel a similarity with each other even if they engage in war with one another; those who are different in this regard feel totally alien to each other. In the same way we can speak of a Folk Spirit, we can also speak of a Race Spirit, a greater and totally permanent Essence, feeling, and racial style, which may be similar or related to the Race Soul concept which the great National-Socialist philosopher Alfred Rosenberg attempts to convey in his masterpiece The Myth of the Twentieth Century.

However, unlike Rosenberg, I do not believe that the Race Spirit is entirely dependent upon blood and blood purity; as Julius Evola and Ludwig F. Clauss asserted, it appears that the Race Spirit survives physical racial mixture. It is dependent partially on blood, since the blood partly conditions the Spirit, but as long as the physical mixture is insignificant, it remains the same. This is why various southern and eastern Europeans who may have some minor admixture still clearly belong to the same Race Spirit, and thus the same race, as other Europeans (that is, of the European Race). It is for example unreasonable to view Finns as being of a different race because of suspicions about some minute Asiatic mixture they may have, as they are clearly of the European Race.

Race Spirit is conditioned not only by the blood, but also by a metaphysical force which we may refer to as a Race Archetype or Race Form, which can be understood somewhat in relation to Plato’s Theory of Forms, in which it was postulated that all things in the world are based off of corresponding perfect metaphysical Forms. This spiritual entity, the Race Archetype, may even be seen as the primary source of a race’s existence, shaping both the Race Physique as well as the Race Spirit, which in turn influence such aspects of human existence such as culture. Most ancient peoples had an unconscious or only partly conscious comprehension of what I am explaining as the Race Archetype; they inwardly felt that their race had a spiritual reality without possessing a philosophical theory of it. This spiritual force was depicted and understood by archaic man through religious symbols, myths, legendary ancestral figures, and sometimes conceptions of a god or gods, such as Wotan from German mythology and Apollo from Greek mythology.

From our understanding of race it can therefore be seen that in the same way we can differentiate the facets of an individual person’s existential form into body, mind, and soul, we can differentiate race into these same three facets, which each individual consequently possesses. The Race of the Body is the physical form, most notably color and the facial features, as well as the hereditary traits which in some measure influence character. The Race of the Mind is the belonging to a Race Spirit and the possession of certain character traits along with the unique outwards style in which they are manifested. The Race of the Soul is the nature of one’s soul and a connection with the Race Archetype.

All of these have some level of influence on each other; both the Race of the Body and the Race of the Soul influence the Race of the Mind, but ultimately race is determined by the Race of the Soul. This not to say that that spiritual race is the only aspect of race which has reality and importance, such a view would be incorrect. The Race of the Body is a material manifestation of the Race of the Soul, and thus it carries importance as it is the tangible image of a deeper, spiritual reality. Race of the Body is also the most suitable starting point in terms of identifying members of one’s own race and suitable mate choices.

As Evola pointed out in his works on race, racial miscegenation occurs between individuals and groups who have become decadent, degenerate, devitalized… in those in whom their Race Spirit has been weakened, and thus the feeling of true inner belonging to a Folk and Race is severely diminished or rendered entirely dead. Once this inner decay and mixing occur, the culture disintegrates and morphs after the loss of the founding people, for it cannot truly survive under a new race with a different style, a separate spirit, and a divergent history. Large-scale race-mixing can be observed to occur in most cases in those cultures and civilizations in which decadence, internal weakness and decay, and unhealthy instincts take hold. This was, for example, why the ancient Persians began to race-mix in their later decadent phase, while in their youthful and more energetic stage they valued the purity of ancestry and type. Needless to say, it is not only in decadent civilizations in which mixing occurs, even if that is most commonly the case; there are certain conditions, oftentimes enslavement after the loss of a war, which can weaken the Race Spirit in a largely healthy people.

Of course, it is a mistake to view miscegenation as being in opposition to the “laws of nature” as many racialists tend to do these days. What is natural is everything within the limits of what is possible, every possibility which Nature provides, and thus both race-mixing and maintaining race-purity are actually “natural.” The distinction which must be made is whether a behavior or activity is healthy or unhealthy, constructive or destructive, organic and inorganic, ascendant or decadent, rather than “natural” and “unnatural.”

Reviving Race-Feeling

A man such as Corneliu Zelea Codreanu is an example of a man in whom Folk-feeling and Race-feeling are expressed with vibrant energy, in whom vital, healthy, and ascendant instincts are strong. But how does one awaken Race-feeling in those people in whom it is dormant, even though they inwardly belong to a Race Spirit? It is a great error to believe that merely discussing and theorizing about race awakens the vital racial sense; in the vast majority of people, such things could never produce a meaningful effect. There are certain aspects of a people’s culture and history, religious and spiritual values, artistic ideals of Race-image and cultural construction, and other vital and mythical concepts and forces which awaken ancestral feelings, Folk-feeling and Race-feeling. Through the birth and growth of a powerful Myth, guiding a movement, Race can be awoken in those peoples in whom Race still lives.

Such Myths can be witnessed throughout history, but they are especially exemplified by certain notable movements in the early 20th Century in Europe. The Myth of the Romanian Legionary Movement was the dream of a new Romania dominated by the Christian religious-spiritual ideal of the Legionary New Man. The Myth of Italian Fascism was essentially an expression of the will to create a new Roman Empire. The Myth of German National Socialism was composed of the goal of a regenerated German Reich guided by a Folkish state promoting racial purity. Along with the Myth which empowered these movements, the use of art, religion, and certain aspects of culture and history created ancestral feelings and strengthened the sense of a unique identity. In short, these movements roused Folk-feeling and Race-feeling.

Although difficulties present themselves due to capitalistic culture-distortion, this is the general standpoint from which this problem should be approached today among those belonging to the European Race. We must formulate a new Myth making use of cultural-religious-artistic concepts, a new goal for which to strive for which will inspire the return of Folk-feeling and Race-feeling in European Man.