Pennsylvania
I’m sure everyone has heard the news that Lawrence Auster of View From The Right lost his battle with cancer on Good Friday.
There isn’t much left for me to say that hasn’t already been covered in the tributes that have been posted at VDARE and Amerika. When I was in college at Auburn, I stumbled across his book The Path To National Suicide, and it was a formative influence on my views about immigration and multiculturalism.
I would prefer to remember the Auster that I encountered in that insightful book rather than the blogger that I came to know in later years. Like Alex Linder, it would be the understatement of the century to say that Larry Auster clashed with other bloggers and far too often allowed ideological disputes to devolve into personal feuds.
As death approached, I had considered reaching out to Auster to thank him for his life’s work and to wish him luck in the next life (future historians trying to figure out what happened to America in the first decade of the 21st century will find VFR a nearly unparalleled resource), but he made it plainly clear toward the end that he didn’t want any “anti-Semites” among his well wishers.
Larry went to the grave fighting anti-Semitism. After all these years, I had come to believe that he was sincere in his desire to preserve Western civilization (no one who was faking it would blog to his deathbed), but for whatever reason (choose your explanation), he could never really bring himself to acknowledge the starring role that Jews had played in undermining that civilization. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the thought that the Jews aren’t going to take “will you knock it off, pretty please” for an answer.
Anyway, I will miss Larry’s unique take on “the passing scene and what it’s about viewed from the traditionalist politically incorrect Right.” Although I didn’t always agree with him, I still enjoyed reading his thought provoking website.
I sometimes wonder what could have been the reason, Lawrence Auster (as arch-Zionist !) was so fascinated by Jesus Christ?
I cannot entirely rule out the possibility that he was influenced by Ouspensky: an entire chapter of “A New Model of the Universe” was devoted to the study of the New Testament.
And also influenced by Maurice Nicoll, one of the disciples of George Gurdjieff, who wrote “The New Man: An Interpretation of Some Parables and Miracles of Christ”.
Hunter, well done and well said. You covered it all 🙂
I know a few people who think that “there are non-jewish degenerates too” absolves jews, or somehow proves they had nothing to do with the current mess. I imagine it would be even harder for a jew like Auster to stay sanguine on this topic.
Calling Kevin MacDonald an “exterminationist anti-semite” was way out of line though.
From the comments at Steve Sailer’s:
Lawrence Auster arrives in Heaven. He is subsequently disgusted to find St. Peter sporting a tattoo, modeling an untucked shirt, spouting split infinitives, and casually sipping a bottle of water. Larry turns around in disgust, shakes his head, and voluntarily embarks on Dante’s descent.
LOL
Yeah, I saw that.
LOL by now, Larry has probably started an argument in Heaven.
Black: I hate whites.
Jew: I hate whites.
Auster: Blacks and anti-semites are killing us.
One can debate whether this was a deficiency of intellect or honesty, though for those seeking to understand the ambivalence in some quarters toward his contributions…there it is.
—Sorry if this gets posted more than once. Larry’s spirit seems to have left his body and entered my computer, where it remains no less quarrelous in death.
IMO he was a nut, but then again I think all ideologues are nuts. He was a good jew though, meaning he in an intellectual sense provoked thought in more or less an honest fashion outside of his nuttiness for protecting the cult.
I totally agree with your assessment, Hunter. Despite his eccentricities, he was a prolific blogger and a powerful voice on race realism. De mortuis, nihil nisi bonus.
What Porter said….you are toooo much…: = )
“He couldn’t wrap his mind around the thought that the Jews aren’t going to take “will you knock it off, pretty please” for an answer.”
Absolutely right; and until many folks come to grips with that, they will just be spinning their wheels.
…he could never really bring himself to acknowledge the starring role that Jews had played in undermining that civilization…
This is incorrect. Did you know that when Auster was dying he disclosed a hidden chapter that demonstrates he always was perfectly aware of the JQ?:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/024334.html
Even MacDonald wrote a long article reviewing Auster’s incredible disclosure before dying:
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2013/03/lawrence-auster-on-the-role-of-jews-in-disestablishing-white-christian-america/
(By the way, my latest two blog entries have also been about Auster.)
Jack responded to him.
I have to agree with Tan in his assessment.
A lying Jew who used his great intellect as Jews often do to protect his tribe at all costs.
I have no way to prove it, but I have always suspected Auster wrote the well-honed anti-KMD and anti-WNist talking points that one often sees circulating in race realist and HBD circles.
The most annoying thing about Larry was how he tried to set himself up as the Pope of the racialist blogosphere.
In between Larry and Linder, there is a middle ground on the JQ.
“Contemporary people living under liberalism have two idiot alternatives: either we’re liberal globalists or we’re Nazis. That’s the total universe of possibilities for modern liberal Westerners. And that limited view is killing us. Americans and other Westerners have to break out of that simplistic and false way of thinking and realize that the consciousness of differences, the desire to preserve our own distinctness, our uniqueness, is perfectly legitimate and moral.”
Lawrence Auster
JR comments. These are wise words.
Lawrence was the first race realist writer I read. He told the truth about race. I thank him for his courage in doing this. On his blindness to the Jewish Question, I can cut him some slack. He was, after all – Jewish. His characterization of black on white violence in this country as “low level jihad” was brilliant. I also thought his defense of John Derbyshire was uncharacteristically generous to a former foe.
Jack responded to him.
Link?
I have to agree with Tan in his assessment.
Still, Auster’s hidden chapter on the Jewish Question (which very well could have been published at The Occidental Observer or The Occidental Quarterly), disclosed a few days before his death, must be taken into account.
Last-minute repentance for having obfuscated his real views on the JQ for so long?
Gee, I wonder how some of the dumbasses here will be remembered. Hahaha
You’re not worthy of wiping Auster’s ass. hahahaha
Larry went to the grave fighting anti-Semitism
That is the problem: he was more interested in fighting the enemies of the enemies of Western civilization than he was in preserving that civilization. Because of his ancestry he could never acknowledge that Jews were a threat to Western civilization.
Black: I hate whites.
Jew: I hate whites.
Auster: Blacks and anti-semites are killing us.
Porter, you have summed up Auster’s philosophy perfectly. To Auster there were few things worse than being an “anti-Semite”.
LOL by now, Larry has probably started an argument in Heaven
I think you mean the other place.
An off-topic but timely note: Pope Gregorius’ New Calendar can make Easter coincide with Passover, whereas Easter could NEVER coincide with Passover according to the Old Calendar (Julian) — according to which Easter this year falls on the fifth of May!
Some conservative Protestant Old Calendarist holdouts were practicing “Old Easter” well into the twentieth century in the Appalachian mountain region.
http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/BillInfo/ReligiousCalendars.html
“Last-minute repentance for having obfuscated his real views on the JQ for so long?”
PPPPPTTTTT.
Darryl Lamont Jenkins is better for WN than that dissembling POS.
Better a true enemy than a false friend.
There are advantages to Old Calendar holidays, chiefly: avoiding coincidence with Passover, Saturnalia, full lunar and solar events.
The main objection to the New Calendar system has always been that it makes Easter coincide with Passover (in some years).
“PPPPPTTTTT… Better a true enemy than a false friend.”
I never said he was a friend. Have you read either MacDonald’s recent article on Auster’s “repentance” or, still better, the long Auster chapter itself?
“I never said he was a friend”
I know, Chechar. My pppttt was not directed personally at you — merely on general principles only.
Far too many in the pro-White camp saw Auster as a friend and ally, when what he is, is, a Trojan horse to get Whites to ignore the jewish fifth columnists who do in fact exist and operate in America and who are in fact working to destroy her.
Didn’t pass away on Good Friday either, conservatively speaking.
I’m really, really going to miss Larry’s site. The alt right blogosphere doesn’t necessarily attract the best writers, but VFR was easily a cut above the rest. I’m happy to ignore his outspoken position on antisemitism. Frankly, I don’t ask self loathing of anyone.
I’m also willing to overlook his personality — people don’t join the movement because they want to be loved. The guy obviously didn’t play well with others in the sandbox.
But he was dedicated to the traditionalist cause. And staunchly pro-white. Very sad to see him go so young.
“Some conservative Protestant Old Calendarist holdouts were practicing “Old Easter” well into the twentieth century in the Appalachian mountain region.”
Russia didn’t change their calendar until after the Revolution. Backward areas are backward areas.
“The main objection to the New Calendar system has always been that it makes Easter coincide with Passover (in some years).”
Well duh!
“There are advantages to Old Calendar holidays, chiefly: avoiding coincidence with Passover, Saturnalia, full lunar and solar events.”
How is keeping out of synch with the real heavens an advantage unless you are a pig ignorant Biblical literalist? (I’m talking about you Baptists, Pentecostalists, and other assorted snake handlers.) Keeping in synch with the music of the spheres is THE WHOLE POINT of accurate calendars.
Leap seconds FTW!!!
First of all, I actually think Auster’s position on Jews is fairly reasonable if you are only talking about domestic issues. He acknowledges that Jews are a force against ‘pro-white’ interests, but he doesn’t blame them as the ‘single cause’ and he doesn’t argue for total exclusion of Jews from his social networks. Where he is unreasonable is his views on Israel. His views on domestic Jews are pretty moderate and pretty correct.
If Larry did not show his true feelings, Possible reasons include:
1) His own ancestry. He may have been uncomfortable with ‘self-criticism.’
2) His desire to court mainstream respect and maximize his social network.
3) The fact that he lived in Manhattan (he had to have money) and didn’t want to be ostracized.
You have to remember that Auster was not some nobody blogger, but relatively a “big name.” He didn’t get his start on stormfront.
Rudel, improved accuracy is one thing, and the misplacement of holidays is another. The calendar COULD be made accurate without spoiling the religious symbolism.
Subsistence farmers and other “primitive” folk can live as well without the accuracy.
The point of connexion to the thread topic is Hunter’s statement that Auster “died on Good Friday.”
Well, warts and quibbles aside… godspeed, Larry, may you rest joyfully in the peace of Christ.
May his soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace, and say we all Amen.
Auster had a comically gigantic blind spot on the JQ of course, but once you recognized that you could simply set it aside, place it in bracketsso to speak, and appreciate the vigor and clarity of the other things he had to say. Larry wrote a lot of valuable things, and he also brought a humane quality to these difficult, highly flammable issues. WNs have every reason in the world to be spitting absolute fire and spouting flames at the despicable actions of their enemies; and yet it is important not to lose one’s humanity. Auster was filled with righteous fury, as any clear-eyed white person must be, yet he didn’t let it compromise his humanity. (Even his total blindness about Jews, whether wilful or not, can be somewhat pardoned out of sheer recognition of the very natural human quality of loyalty to one’s own.)
Hard to believe he’s really gone.
I had the good fortune to correspond with Larry from time to time, on simple matters; and I can tell you that in person he was genuinely sincere, and he had a genuine sense of humility which was quite admirable. He had his faults, as we all do, but he was a true gentleman, he was an educator and an awakener, and he fought with honor. May his memory aid us in victory.
Not sure I know what he’d personally think about the 14 words, but nevertheless, as his epitaph, and in his memory…
14 words.
One of Auster’s last posts was about how his views differ from Kevin Macdonalds.
I think it’s a pretty good post, although it doesn’t separate between “Muslims” and “Extreme Muslims.” Surely moderate Muslims can function day to day in a Western society.
Also, is it a good thing to function in America, when America is pissing off every other country with its imperial actions?
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/004562.html
You can say what you want about signs and wonders churches but they have not bought into one bit of the leftist agenda. Nor do they much care about calenders
“1) His own ancestry. He may have been uncomfortable with ‘self-criticism.’”
He was absolutely incapable of it.
There were repeated incidents where I would point out something that he had posted that was demonstrably false, and suggest that the cause might be due to his own perceptions and situation preventing him from having a clear view of the truth. Every time, the consequence was that the name I was using to write to him would get banned for having unacceptably insulted him. The first time, I was using my real name, and it just absolutely blew my mind that anyone could have reacted in such a way to such an innucuous remark, which is why I persisted in trying the experiment again a few times over the next few years. EVERYBODY suffers from this to a certain extent; nobody sees reality with perfect clarity. But not Auster. It’s absolutely inconceivable for that to apply to him.
I imagine that Auster wanted the West and the White Race to survive on some level. However, I think he feared that admitting the truth that it was his race bringing down the Whites, might lead us to conclude that Alex Linder’s notorious position on indiscriminate Jewry was correct. He wanted us to survive but he didn’t want disaster brought down on his own head.
I can’t improve on Oscar the grinch’s commentary. Auster had some serious blind spots, but they were obvious and easy to simply ignore. I’d just skip the posts when he was excommunicating yet another potential ally, criticizing natural selection and evolutionary psychology (which he didn’t understand), or channeling Alan Dershowitz.
I regret that he cut ties with so many of his admirers and potential allies. He had some fine commentators, but he only tolerated those who were either sycophants or who could serve as whipping boys. He was not suited to be a leader, but he was a brilliant defender of the West within his own sphere.
Over the past year I was particularly moved by the true virtue (manliness) he showed in facing his own slow and painful death. He maintained both hope and utter realism to the end, following the stoic and Christian philosophers he admired so much.
Texas district attorney, wife found dead at home
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-district-attorney-wife-found-dead-home-045407488.html
Let’s not make this too complicated.
Auster put Jews first, and Western civilization second.
His attack on KMD as an exterminationist anti-semite should have meant the end of his credibility and made the man a laughing stock.
He was a lying, hateful SOB who relished using Bolshevik tactics when they suited him.
This person commenting at Age of Treason sums it up:
Here lies Larry Auster, a typical whiny, rude New York City jew who spent his adult life complaining about being criticized while continuously attacking, smearing, denouncing, insulting, ridiculing and otherwise running down other people, and in the process became a guru to a creepy coterie of equally judgmental and fawning hangers-on.
“Russia didn’t change their calendar until after the Revolution. Backward areas are backward areas.”
Rude- l, your hubris and blasphemous BS continue on apace. Russia does NOT celebrate the Papist calendar- neither for Christmas, nor for Pascha.
Go back to reading National Re-jew, or whatever other organ of persiffilous BS you consider definitive.
Mosin, thanks for your observations. It’s a long road to hoe, trying to get Second Europe minds to actually wrap around the fact that they are the dispossessed…
I imagine that Auster wanted the West and the White Race to survive on some level. However, I think he feared that admitting the truth that it was his race bringing down the Whites, might lead us to conclude that Alex Linder’s notorious position on indiscriminate Jewry was correct. He wanted us to survive but he didn’t want disaster brought down on his own head.
I have a few things to say about Larry Auster. I’m quoting Ed’s comment because that’s the heart of the matter — not just for Auster, but for many, many people (myself included). If you don’t understand this about Auster the temptation to see him as nothing but a purveyor of racial-political ‘Yid ink’ will prove overwhelming. There was always more to it than that — Auster really did care about culture — but, ultimately, no honest assessment of Auster can avoid that he certainly was such a purveyor and his body of work must be judged accordingly.
I first became aware of Auster when he was sparring with Daniel Pipes in the pages of Frontpagemag back in 2005 (I think). I was impressed by Auster’s tenaciousness and contempt towards Pipes’ insistence on observing PC conventions in discussing the Islam problem. Later that year I read Auster’s response to a Mark Steyn Islam/”death of the west”-style essay that scolded Steyn for failing to mention immigration, and which pushed me to conclusively dismiss MSM commentary as either hopelessly delusional or completely FOS.
It was also somewhere around that time that I began to think more systematically about race, and particularly about what the racial future would hold. Auster, I noticed, was very reluctant to speak forthrightly about race. If you didn’t know any better you would have the impression that Auster was flouting racial taboos left and right, but the truth is there were certain taboos that he was desperate to maintain, foremost among them the silencing power of the ultimate shaming/shut-up word, the A-bomb: “anti-semite.” Auster was very stern in his rebukes of commentors who strayed too close to the “white right” — Auster’s term for those who don’t want to just discuss the racial landscape, but are intent on changing it — but was willing to tolerate them so long as they didn’t break radio silence on the JQ. Anyone who transgressed that standard quickly found himself Austericized, as Tanstaafl was during the memorable episode in which he and Auster crossed swords over the JQ in 2007. (I very much dislike Tanstaafl, but there’s no question he had Auster’s measure in those exchanges.)
As much as I appreciated Auster’s eloquent and impassioned defense of his beloved West I lost almost all respect for him over his inability/unwillingness to respond to his critics without reacting in the same manner and resorting to the same means as hysterical PC diversicrats. I scarcely read his blog from 2008 on, though the times I did I think I noticed a growing willingness to talk race; in this sense, at least, his end came too soon.
Texas district attorney, wife found dead at home
I wonder if this has anything to do with Mexican drug cartels and Hispanic immigration and, if it does, will the MSM try to bury it?
I’d just skip the posts when he was excommunicating yet another potential ally, criticizing natural selection and evolutionary psychology (which he didn’t understand), or channeling Alan Dershowitz.
Unfortunately, most of his posts fell into one or more of those categories.
“I think he feared that admitting the truth that it was his race bringing down the Whites, might lead us to conclude that Alex Linder’s notorious position on indiscriminate Jewry was correct. He wanted us to survive but he didn’t want disaster brought down on his own head.”
I just don’t get how the few Jews who are race realists who (supposedly) advocate for White people can’t see that when they keep blaming White people for all of the faults of the Jews they are only going to make White people that much angrier at Jews when Whites finally get with the program. For once I would like to see a Jew be brutally honest about the role Jews have played in the destruction of White people. There is no conspiracy behind this though. Jews ALWAYS put the considerations of Jews first, even if it means potentially destroying themselves. I had an Israeli professor in an art history class full of clueless negroes. The subject of St. Stephen Protomartyr came up so naturally she had to explain to the negroes who this character war. St. Stephen, of course, was the first Christian stoned to death by Jews (hence “Protomartyr”). My Israeli professor visibly hesitated before stating this fact and then claimed that St. Stephen was stoned by the *Romans*! I could have ratted her out in front of the negroes right there if I was more inclined to raise a public stink, but there you have it. Jews always opt to say what is best for Jews above anyone else, even telling flimsy lies that could make them look very foolish and deceitful.