The Federalist: American Academia Helped Create The Alt-Right

December 23, 2016 Hunter Wallace Alternative Right, Philosophy, Politics 40

Robert Carle writes at The Federalist:

“American academics are rightly alarmed by the ascendance of the alt-right and its entrenchment in American politics. The alt-right includes nativists, conspiracists, isolationists, Putinists, white nationalists, and masculinists. The alt-right is pessimistic about the ability of people of different races and religions to live together, and is hostile to both legal and illegal immigrants. Alt-right websites warn against the dangers of miscegenation and criticize the pro-life movement as “dysgenic” because it encourages breeding by “the least intelligent and responsible” women.

But American academics have been slow to acknowledge how dependent the leaders of the alt-right are upon playbooks that they learned on university campuses. These leaders are not southern Klansmen. The president of the National Policy Institute graduated from the University of Chicago. The founder of American Renaissance graduated from Yale.

Over the past 50 years, universities have replaced the Enlightenment ideal of a common humanity with a vision of an America divided into warring races and classes. They have purged their schools of the Enlightenment liberals (“dead white males”) who trained earlier generations to defend universal values over tribal values.

Today, students on college campuses are much more likely to read identitarians like Lani Guinier and Marxists like Howard Zinn than to read John Locke, Adam Smith, and David Hume. In this environment, working-class white men have come to see themselves as an economically and politically marginalized tribe. …

In my case, I recall visiting the New Books section of the Auburn University Libraries and day after day seeing a new title about how All White Men Suck. I was also struck by the large number of Jewish names among the authors. Previously, I hadn’t given any thought to the Jewish Question, but I was starting to read Stormfront at the time and what I was seeing led me to believe the anti-Semites might be onto something.

I think it would be more accurate to say that the anti-White atmosphere on campus (this wasn’t my personal experience at Auburn, I only read about it from a distance) contributes to a growing sense of alienation among young White men. In turn, the alienation leads to an openness to new and unorthodox ideas. This is particularly true after one discovers that the Left is openly hostile to White men, but the mainstream Right is too “cucked” to become their champions. The only group around that unapologetically champions the identity and interests of Whites, who are under siege as a race on American college campuses, are the White Nationalists so that’s where many of us ended up.

In trying to make sense of the world, I remember having a long encounter with Friedrich Nietzsche in my early years. Obviously, Nietzsche had a much greater impact on the young Richard Spencer – the “Become Who We Are” theme of the 2016 NPI Conference comes directly from Nietzschean philosophy. In hindsight, I think it was Nietzsche’s book On The Genealogy of Morals that left the greatest impact on my worldview.

I was struck by Nietzsche’s idea that morality has evolved and radically changed across history. I was already a history buff and knew by that point that 19th century America was free of the concept of “racism.” The Old South, for example, could have only been created by a people who had no idea that “racism” was immoral. Actually, the more I learned about the past, the more I began to see that the concept of “racism” was absent from all of Western history, religion and philosophy until the mid-20th century. Nietzsche’s “transvalution of values” had taken place in the recent past in the United States.

Here in the South, I was seeing it all around me. The Confederate Battle Flag, for example, a long beloved symbol of Southern honor and pride was under attack. Confederate monuments were being removed. “Gay marriage” was being debated. Within my own lifetime, I have seen the rise of new concepts like “white privilege” and “homophobia” and “transphobia.” Isn’t this what Nietzsche was talking about in the concept of “slave morality”? What used to be evil was now good and what used to be good was now evil. Southern heroes like Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis were being recast as racist slaveowners and villains.

From Nietzsche, I discovered Michel Foucault while I was in college. It might sound really strange that a White Nationalist would be interested in Foucault given that Foucault was a French homosexual who died of AIDS in the 1980s, but Foucault built on Nietzsche’s work. Foucault wrote extensively about how power was exercised through discourses that construct subjects. He wrote about how power influences knowledge and how knowledge is used by those who wield power. For someone who is accustomed to being covered by the Lügenpresse as THE racist or THE white supremacist or THE hate group in the Narrative, which skews how ordinary people think about morality and politics, I found it all rather insightful. In 2015, we invented a subject of our own, the cuckservative.

From Nietzsche and Foucault, I was introduced to genealogy. I developed the habit of treating concepts like artifacts. Look here at “racism” or this notion of “white privilege” – what’s the history of “racism”? How did “racism” come to be seen as immoral? Why did “racism” come to be seen as immoral? When did “racism” come to be seen as immoral? Who benefited from constructing “racism” as a tool to bludgeon the Right?

A genealogy of “racism,” for example, reveals that Nietzsche and Foucault were on to something in their views on power and knowledge. Westerners came to think of “racism” as the great taboo during the Second World War. We know that being a “racist” makes you a really, really bad person as a result of … a massive war, one that continued for a generation during the Cold War, when fighting with the Soviet Union over the allegiance of the Third World made Southern segregation a foreign policy liability for the Kennedys.

In the United States, the worst thing you can be is a “racist,” and it turns out that is the result of a political struggle … first, between the Allies and the Nazis in Europe, second with the Soviets in the Cold War, and third with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and anti-colonialism/independence movements in the Third World. It also had a lot to do with the changing demographic composition of the American elite in the mid-20th century due mainly to the meritocratic system at Ivy League universities. As Jews clawed their way into the American elite, they constructed new taboos around “racism” and “anti-Semitism.” These new taboos have only proliferated into the -isms and -phobias of political correctness that have replaced traditional morality.

“If academics are concerned about the degraded state of American politics, they should begin engaging, debating, and discussing politics with their political opponents instead of setting up echo chambers where only progressive points of view are allowed. The American experiment in human liberty depends upon universities that transmit to future generations respect for free speech and open and honest debate. To sustain our republic, we need desperately to recover the healthy intellectual habit of learning from opinions that we find offensive. A people that ceases to educate in freedom will cease to live in freedom.”

Circling back to Professor Carle, we have already drifted a long way from Enlightenment liberalism. Even if the system we have now was less anti-White, I’m sure Richard Spencer would agree that he still wouldn’t believe in Enlightenment liberalism. Neither of us have become who we are today because, say, Condoleezza Rice or Ben Shapiro was prevented from speaking on our college campuses in our formative years.

I don’t believe in anti-racism because it isn’t true. It is simply a taboo that was constructed and imposed on America by the media in the aftermath of the Second World War. It was created because it served an interest at the time. Why should I or anyone else be limited by that?

About Hunter Wallace 12390 Articles
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40 Comments

  1. In other words, the world used to run by the common sense Lech Walesa expressed as “A minority should not impose itself on the majority. They should know their place.”

    In our times you have to wonder why oppression of the majority is a good thing. Its certainly not natural.

  2. Cuckservatives are hell bent on defending Mommy Professor’s anti-White paradigm and ceaselessly imposing it. Alt-Right is hell bent on destroying it and replacing with a pro-White one.

  3. Imagine being a jew all that ism, ist and phobia crap stirring about in that mind, yet another reason why I find anti-semetism useless they elevate mentally damaged crackpots into super humans of omnipotence.

  4. Ah, yes—traditional morality. Drinkin’ and screwin’ in old Appalachia (or someplace like that) …

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ae359c2faa81f681f19b66141b847637e38c054ff056cc68be4fa3ce0eb33d61.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bcb24e3e90eff15ceff4e96d38a87f0243f030bc8f785b6e9f1af5bb464ce334.jpg
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    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c88c25ea0a956ed2bc3fab998ac503a50db99b179e9367f7878db707be1310db.jpg
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    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ed444ca510f45b75ec805d1c06cc4244a59eb4486088acb0ea501f99df1ac656.jpg

  5. “In my case, I recall visiting the New Books section of the Auburn
    University Libraries and day after day seeing a new title about how All White Men Suck.
    I was also struck by the large number of Jewish names among the
    authors. Previously, I hadn’t given any thought to the Jewish Question,
    but I was starting to read Stormfront at the time and what I was seeing
    led me to believe the anti-Semites might be onto something.”

    “So a Jewish opinion is exploiting a self hating stupid race of whites.
    They’re helping destroy a race of self hating stupid whites. Problem?” – Whitaker

    • I was struck by the above after observing Trump disavowing nationalist groups representing his OWN racial group, at the same time publicly enthusiastic for Jewish nationalism a group NOT his own.

      • Denigrating our own race for the sake of other ones is part of the self hating syndrome. It is a sickness so ingrained that we are often unaware of It. It cannot be said enough: White self hatred is SICK!

  6. Lots of articles on the Alt-Right from the The Federalist these days.

    The filthy cucks are trying to cash in and remain relevant.

    • Yes, lots of Jewish involvement at The Federalist. They’re no different than NRO and or The Weekly Standard.

  7. Conspiratorial elites are long gone.Ball was set in motion way back when that it was clear as day with media censorship in the 50s of school force integration.

  8. The last time anti-Semitism was allowed to flourish the goal was to find a way to force assimilated German Jewry to move to the desert. What’s the agenda this time? Greater Israel?

    • The organic German uprising was used as a springboard to promote anti semitism world wide starting in 1933 when Hitler took power, visitors to Germany at that time expected to see piles of dead jews everywhere, for all the worldwide atrocity stories being printed in every major newspaper, it was not allowed to flourish.
      That was not assimilated German jewry, the racial laws targeted jews That worked in Government in Germany after 1914 and came to Germany in 1918 or after, who took advantage of a weak war torn nation, much like the American Carpetbaggers after the civil war.
      I myself have always been disgusted with the power they wield in America, it is only till recently Americans could give voice to it.
      Should the beast grow stronger in Israel because of it, Freedom in America will be over with, just like in Germany.

      • Timber your comments would be much easier to read if you observed better syntax, like putting spaces after commas, etc.

        • I’m sure I have mistakes everywhere, some one called me a moron for my syntax a while back and I had No idea what He was talking about.
          Thank you for telling me. Fixed it.

  9. I stopped reading somewhere between ‘the Jewish Question’ and ‘the Left is hostile to white men.’

    There is no question. And no truly awakened white man actually believes that Diversity, Inc. is pro-white women.

    • I think it likely you stop reading, period, after only a line or two of anything. BTW, did you ever learn there is nothing strange today about Russian servers, and that one does not need to speak or read Russian to use one?

      LOL, that was funny. I’m still chuckling thinking of it.

      • Dylan Roof’s didn’t have an English version, and required rubles for payment. This is just what an expert web hosting company guy tells me. He speaks Russian.

        • Well, your tech friend is no expert if he told you or led you to believe you need to be fluent in Russian to utilize a Russian server. More likely you just misunderstood him or you were not clear in asking him what you wanted to know. For a start, and of course, a server is not in English, Russian, French, or any other spoken language. Again, why don’t you take a little time to look up some information and learn a few things about websites and servers?

          Also, again, it is not 1950. It is of little matter what form of currency a seller or provider requires today, Lorax. One does not send a check or money order or cash to Russia to pay. The world is using “plastic” now, Lorax. Payment is done electronically. And a click of a mouse or a touch of a screen will convert American dollars to whichever currency is needed.

          • There was no English version. This guy is a somewhat well known person and absolute expert in that field.

            He invrstigated it immediately as the story broke. He and I still discuss it. There is no misunderstanding.

            Stop trying to rationalize what threatens you.

          • LOL, it doesn’t matter that there is no English version, dumbass. You still don’t get it. Obviously you still haven’t taken so much as a single minute to google what a server is. It is clear you don’t know, lol.

            Your friend must be a kook, too. He is obviously not an “absolute expert.”

          • To order the domain you needed to speak Russian. The web interface was all in Russian.

            He’s definitely an odd guy; having the 6th highest IQ in the country will do that to you.

            LOL

          • No, you don’t. And besides, it matters not now what language a website, etc., is in. Most people know why. You look more and more ridiculous.

            Sure he does. It looks more like the 6th lowest, since I did in about five minutes what he told you can’t be done.

            You still haven’t researched what a server is. Five minutes would be enough for you to know why 99 percent of people under about 70 are rolling their eyes reading you about this “server in Russia” so that means…LOL.

          • Here is the Russian website:

            https://www.reg.ru/

            Here is some Google translation:

            Special services and conditions of REG.RU
            Facilities and Services

            Each of our clients can take advantage of a wide range of services and the most advanced services to create projects of any complexity. In REG.RU presents a unique opportunity for the registration and sale of domain names, hosting a variety of tariff plans, large variety of virtual servers and physical servers VPS Dedicated; cloud services, SSL-certificates from the world’s leading companies, as well as designers of sites, ready-made solutions on popular CMS and all the necessary for a network of web-based tools. We constantly introduce new products and services, as well as additional related services that allows customers to receive REG.RU most comprehensive range of services to create your own website or online business and its protection.

            Once again, it’s not 1950.

  10. Most of academia today is nothing more than attempting to put an intellectual basis to Pop Culture. The books promoted and read in universities now would not be out of place on Wal Mart shelves. The old communists were head and shoulders above contemporary liberal intellectuals and their zombie followers. Hell, authentic Marx is over the heads of the snowflakes who like to banty about about how “educated” they are.

    • I think you have it backwards — it is the pop culture that is constructed to match and spread pseudointellectual academic bolshevik ideology. Subversion of academia to serve ideology instead of Truth was first, subversion of culture to follow academia was second.

  11. The campus commies are always boasting about their concern for under-represented minority groups. But the reality is the most under-represented group on college campuses these days is White, working-class males, a group the Marxists absolutely fear and despise.

    • Even if we could wave a magic wand and totally transform all college campuses into what they were meant to be, I think Marxist groups and Jews would be in little danger from being displaced by white, working class males on campuses.

  12. There was a very good reason why the administrations of Ivy League schools put a quota on the number of jews who could attend them during the early 20th century. They were concerned that the jews would take over those schools and use their control to promote Bolshevism and other forms of deviancy. The very idea!

    • And the funny thing is that those quotas were set at the level of 4× overrepresentation over their actual numbers in American society! The jew quotas were the first case of affirmative action in US history.

  13. There is an old maxim that says, ‘Beware what you do, because whatever it is, God shall send others to you to do it unto you.

    In this sense, I have long felt that Hitler’s movement was an unwitting creation by The Jews, though, only the very religious amongst them wish to own it – like Rabbi Porat…

  14. “and what I was seeing led me to believe the anti-Semites might be onto something.”

    They/we are absolutely correct in identifying the wellspring of our troubles. In fact until the JQ is dealt with all other considerations are either difficult or impossible to fix. The cancer at the center of our culture is Jewish in origin.

  16. John Locke was egalitarian as was many of these philosophers…and many of the people mentioned were cleared. The left were tolerant.

  17. Nietzsche was an individualist to the point of anarchism. He wouldn’t agree with any moral justifications based on tradition or the Bible. His boy Schopenhauer *hated* the American south:
    http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/10739/9.html#gsc.tab=0
    You could a paper on the relationship of power, knowledge, anti-racism, and institutions, but it would have to go back a lot further than the 1960’s.

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