An Intellectual History of “Woke” Left Modernism

Left Modernism is ubiquitous.

It is synonymous with American mainstream culture which is a composite mix of liberalism, modernism and cosmopolitanism. It is essentially what we are against.

Modernism rejects authority and tradition in favor of self-interest, self-expression, self-achievement, self-realization, self-fulfillment and self-advancement. It rejects the past in favor of the future. It is always trying to be new and shocking. It celebrates expressive individualism over collective duties and attachments. It is the ideology and perspective of deracinated and degenerate urban narcissists who feel like they are superior to their ancestors and owe nothing to future generations.

There is a scene in Game of Thrones in which Tywin Lannister dresses down his son Jamie Lannister the meaning of life. It is a great illustration of a premodern or anti-modernist worldview. Tywin believes in his family, house and dynasty and in loyalty and duty to these obligations. The modernist is someone who demands to be liberated from their obligations to other people.

About Hunter Wallace 12390 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

16 Comments

  1. Your description of modernism is precisely why I had found anarchism so appealing. The modern American world I saw as a younger man was centered on selfishness and materialism. Militarism permeated the West and East. Self-serving evil was everywhere. History was a continuous stream of manipulative, murderous egocentrics seeking and gaining power. With that view, wouldn’t it make sense that I (and the young Antifa types now, I suspect) saw it important to start anew? Try to make something better that rejected the failed models of the past? The elites have done nothing but exploit and control us, after all. We have nothing to lose but our chains, and all that.

    The only problem with the above is that it ignores hierarchies, which are in every strata of life. It also isn’t possible to build a completely free society where we can act as we see fit, because there is no such thing as a life of rights without responsibilities. Men are not endowed with equal abilities, of course. Not all are capable of leadership, even of their own lives. The only hope of neutralizing the effects of a remote elite is to establish a localized or regional one, I think, and not developing one beyond that. That doesn’t mean feudalism, but localism. If we’ll ever get to that point, I’ve no idea.

  2. Re: “rejects authority and tradition in favor of self-interest, self-expression, self-achievement, self-realization, self-fulfillment and self-advancement. It rejects the past in favor of the future. It is always trying to be new and shocking. It celebrates expressive individualism over collective duties and attachments.” Your “left” is a ridiculous strawman.

    “It is the ideology and perspective of deracinated and degenerate urban narcissists who feel like they are superior to their ancestors and owe nothing to future generations.” Yes, these people do exist and they may claim to be progressive, or leftists, but they are not the left, not real Socialists. It is capitalism, by any name, that is degenerative, deracinating and globalizing/cosmopolitan.

  3. We have to talk more about the WASP question. Jews didn’t do a hostile takeover of America. The WASP elite fell all over themselves to help jews take over all the elite institutions and spaces. The roots of this problem are in English/British philosemitism dating to the early Puritan movement. This philosemitic culture was transplanted to America by English and Scottish immigrants and left our country with no immune response against jewish take over tactics. There was never even a fight. The biggest example of WASP defense against jewish hegemony that anyone can find is “quotas” limiting the jewish 2% of the population to “only” 20% of students at the most elites universities. That only lasted a few years and happened almost a hundred years ago. You can’t find any other resistance to total jewish control in all of American history.

    This is why today you see the WASP South as the hotbed of israel-worship and philosemitism and at the same time, white resistance to jewish hegemony is largely Catholic. The remnant WASP population has to face it’s own culpability in their nation’s destruction. The insane American obsession with the individual is another whole topic that needs to be located in WASPness and not just attributed to whites in general.

    • ATBOTL,

      An interesting comment on a very important topic. The higher Catholic clergy–cardinals, bishops and of course Francis are very pro-Jewish. Most traditional Catholics I know are moderately to strongly anti-Jewish. I am not sure what the regular Catholic thinks on the issue however.

      The anglo Protestants I have met in Texas are in general very strongly pro-Jewish. I do not know if northern Americans are like that as well.

      • Yes, but they sold out hundreds of years later than Puritans did. The point is not to praise Catholics, they weren’t running America, Puritan/Radical/Evangelical style Protestants were. It’s not a coincidence that the country with the highest level of jewish hegemony is also the one that was always most Puritan and still is. The South was founded by enemies of the Puritans, but was colonized by Puritan culture. Both groups were English Protestants. In a Catholic country, you have to blame the Catholics for the mess they are in. In this country, you have to blame the WASPs. It’s vital that our core culture examines itself for what went wrong at least as much as it examines the short comings of other groups.

        When you study the history of England, it’s clear that the bad liberal ideas were coming from the same people who were the first Puritans and their followers. The least Puritan influenced people, like the Founders of the South and aristocratic Catholics were clearly better from our perspective. There was a particular problem with philo-semitism in Puritanism and that spread out into the larger English culture. We are cleaning up the mess from that. It’s a legacy that other European cultures don’t really have to deal with. Cultural subservience to jews in the Catholic church and Continental Europe is a largely post WW-II problem, not a centuries old problem.

        • ATBOTL,

          I believe you are correct.

          Also, individualism is traditionally considered sinful by Catholic standards. Society and laws are made for the common good and society as a whole not the individual.

  4. Hunter: Thank you for doing the hard work of rethinking our first principles. As long as we share the same premises of our enemies, we will be forced, sooner or later, to accept their conclusions.

    Your point about modernism is right on target. Under the glitter and “sophistication” of modernism is pure and putrid selfishness.

  5. Modernism isn’t the problem per se…more the feckless consumerism and materialism that is our bane. Individualism isn’t necessarily bad as long as people have a sense of of purpose, in tune with spiritual and racial awareness.

    Also interesting that Anglin reports on the Den Hollander shootings but ignores Den Hollander’s links to Kroll and other agencies as well as the fact that Judge Salas was presiding over the Deutsche Bank cases linked to Epstein.

    I love a good conspiracy…but still….Hmmmm.

  6. Just to say; the essence of Modernism is relativism. Modernist do not believe in an ultimate truth thus by deduction then there is no authority as everything devolves to the individual want, thoughts and desires of every specific person. It is the flawed assumption from which everything grows in this country.

  7. ATBOTL and Christina,

    I’ve heard in passing that when Catholicism is strong that jewish power is weak, and when Catholicism is weak jewish power is strong.

    I am not a Catholic Church historian, so I do not know if the correlation is accurate or not.

    Both of you already know where I stand on the WASP question (WQ) in the JSA and JK.

    • November,

      I would say that would be true. Since the Catholic Church is authoritarian or even totalitarian in it’s control over Catholics and a Catholic society then it would be impossible for a powerful Church to exist in a country side by side with an openly powerful Jewish presence. One or the other will ultimately rule.

      Some Catholics get upset when I say the Catholic Church is totalitarian. But a religion that says you have to go to mass every Sunday, where Catholics are supposed to be educated by the Church, where we cannot eat meat on certain days, and has control over your soul and that you have to confess your sins to a priest etc in order to save your soul is what I would call totalitarian.

      Let’s not forget that we traditionally demand Church and State be united and only dogmatically believe in public freedom of religion for our Faith.

      Anywhere near the same control by a secular government would be considered totalitarian.

      When all of those factors are in play then Jews have to remain in the shadows and try bribery here and there, none of which usually affects who is ultimately in control in a society.

    • November,

      I get to say goodbye to you. Nothing dramatic really happened. Just that my father has been looking for any reason to yank me off here. Unlike before this is permanent. He believes this is no place for me. I like the owner of the website of course. And some of the people on here. The articles are fantastic as a general rule.

      Those websites you mentioned–anti-war and Barnes review I will look at. If they have a comment section I will comment. When school resumes next month I will give presentations on politics. I will continue to have a strong presence among my fellow students. Partly because of you and this website I know so much more than they do.

      My little sister Maria is sad. She wanted me to film her showing off her plastic knife. I also do a wonderful Mexican Hat Dance–my grandmother taught me.

      Unfortunately, if you respond I will not be able to see it for I am forbidden to come on here again. Like I mentioned before it is not anything specific just a fatherly belief on why I should associate with the enemies of my race and religion. Not you of course. My father spoke highly of you. By the way none of my family has anything against national socialism.

      Adios,

      Cristina Romana Alva.

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