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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   25759 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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Hijacking latest comment to repost the deleted comment from nowimjustcurious:

In my continuing profile of disagreements among the alt-right, I'd like to summarise two competing viewpoints on a important topic to the online right: the definition and feasibility of "ethnonationalism".

In Is Ethnonationalism Compatible with Genetic Interests in Practice?, Asier Abadora argues that ethnonationalism is largely a doomed project because it will never obtain enough popular support, that "white" people in the West, and particularly the US, are too culturally distinct to form a cohesive polity, and that ethnonationalism amounts to "cultural Marxism".

In contrast, Greg Johnson argues that ethnonationalism is both necessary and politically attainable. First, he takes issue with the Abadora's claim that ethnicity cannot be defined:

I don’t know how to define Irishness, Basqueness, or Norwegianness. I doubt that the natives do, either. But we all know more than we can say. I can’t define “blue,” but I know it when I see it. I can’t define “cabbage,” but I never confuse it with lettuce. The idea that you don’t know something, or that things don’t even exist, if you can’t define them is an old sophism. In this context, it is more often used by the Left. “What do you mean by ‘English’? Angles, Saxons, Jutes?” The nice thing about sovereignty is that peoples get to define themselves.

Next, Johnson spells out his criteria for his favoured brand of ethnonationalism, White Nationalism. This criteria is based on his belief that all "European" people have a right to their own sovereign ethnostates.

He first explains the nature of this "right":

First, your rights are not obligations. A right is simply an option that you can choose to exercise or not. The obligation pertains to others, who are obliged to get out of your way. The right to have a homeland is not, therefore, an obligation to have one. Some peoples may be content within multiethnic states. If they are, they are not obliged to change anything. However, if they aren’t happy — if they believe that independence is necessary for them to maintain their identity and way of life — then they have the right to exit and create their own homeland, and everybody else is obligated to get out of their way.

Second, Johnson argues that "the most natural locus of sovereignty is an ethnic group, which is defined by shared blood, history, language, and culture" because greater diversity means greater disorder and increased conflict. He provides an analogy: "Any traveler knows how stressful it is to be in a country where you do not speak the language. Imagine living like that all the time. That’s life in a multiethnic society."

Third, because the right to self-determination is a obviously true, and because other ethnic groups around the world pursue their ethnic interests all the time, whites/Europeans should be allowed to do the same.

Lastly, Johnson argues that white racial solidarity "needs to supervene upon more particular white ethnic nationalisms."

But why "white racial solidarity" rather than pursuing ethnic interests at the country level? Johnson rounds up his essay with this explanation:

Why speak of “white” nationalism at all? Why not speak only of more particular ethnic nationalisms? Because that leaves something out. First, all European peoples share a common racial descent, and with kinship comes responsibilities. White peoples should give preferences to one another over non-whites. Second, all European peoples face the same threats to our survival — low fertility, miscegenation, replacement migration — thus we should work together whenever possible to solve these problems. Third, one of the principal threats to white genetic interests is “civic” nationalism: the idea that non-whites can become members of white nations simply by being granted citizenship. But whiteness is a necessary condition of belonging to any European people. Not all white people are Irish, but all Irish people are white. Fourth, assimilation is a real thing, although it is rare and difficult and should only be allowed in small numbers. Race sets the outermost boundaries of assimilation. An Irishman can become an American, but a Nigerian simply can’t. Finally, we need to talk about “white” nationalism just because whites are being attacked as whites by our enemies, not as Germans or Swedes or Poles. Of course none of us are merely white. We all belong to particular ethnic groups. But over and above that, we are also white, and White Nationalism does justice to that.

There is more to essay, but this is probably enough for now.

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