Perusing this humanist blogger’s semi-apt comparisons of various dissident Right figures to characters from the Godfather saga, one comes across this howler:
Also, because of excessive pride, Fuentes is too often and too easily dismissive of views and ideas that doesn’t jibe with his paradigm, and this is especially true when it comes to Catholic vs Pagan debate. His sadistic side just can’t resist putting on the robe of the grand inquisitor and insulting neo-pagans on the right and stretching them on the rack.
There’s a reason why secular humanists white knight for neo-pagans. The latter are simply atheists who crave the ritual and fellowship of real religion without the morality or discipline. Similarly, atheists on the Right all too often turn out to be indistinguishable from Leftists who hate Christians and Jews instead of just hating Christians.
…Perhaps, Fuentes is drawn to Catholicism because he senses that his immense ego, if un-anchored to faith in God, can easily fly off the handle like that of fellow Latin Mussolini. It’s like a willful dog needs an especially powerful leash to prevent it from running wild and crazy. But for Fuentes, his Catholic leash has become more than a check on his emotions. It has become a check on his intellect and imagination, even to the point of dismissing evolution and entertaining the notion of geocentrism.
It has also become an easy whip of moral indignation. In this, Fuentes has something in common with the young Pat Buchanan who, as a young conservative, was an odd-man-out in Columbia Journalism school filled with Liberals(as recounted in his delightful autobiography RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING). Buchanan always had brains and passion, but his overt Catholicism limited his imagination and scope as a thinker, culture critic, and politician. It’s interesting that Fuentes is most like Buchanan but really admires Donald Trump who, being free of religious dogma, has been able to forge a new kind of politics.
If Catholicism is a limiting principle on political thought and imagination, then Matteo Salvini, Jair Bolsonaro, and Andrzej Duda, to name a few, seem oddly unaffected.
Exhibit A: Contra the OP’s association of Trumpism with “being free of religious dogma”, Trump had more support from Catholics, Protestants, and Jews than from atheists.
Exhibit B: a telling exchange between the Audacious Epigone and the decidedly less-antichrist Dissident Right atheist the Z Man:
Heritage Americans are devoid of purpose because, like the American Indians, our culture and religion have been stolen from us. Christianity is the rock on which Western civilization was founded. It cannot be replaced with appeals to materialism or racial idolatry. It most certainly cannot be replaced with false graven images.
Self-styled Right wing commenters like Andrea have drunk deep of the Boomer Kool-Aid. They’ve been conditioned by enemy propaganda to abandon the religion of their fathers, never noticing that the enemy hates and fears the Christ more than any political movement. Perhaps the anti-Christian atheists and pagans on the Right don’t serve the enemy’s designs knowingly, but they serve them all the same.
Decision time is rapidly approaching. The Left will not allow anyone to pursue the drug high, sexual thrill, or consumerist indulgence of their preference while maintaining neutrality on Christ. Atheists on the Right have four choices:
- Join the Left–most will.
- Repent and convert to Christ.
- Failing 2, LARP in their church of choice for an hour on Sundays.
- Shut up.
Are Christians more or less cowardly than the average American? My personal observation tends to be that they are more cowardly than the average. Which is weird if they actually believe in real Christianity. I have to assume many Christians are fake Christians if that is true.
You assume correctly.
Christianity "limiting imagination". What a joke.
Why do atheists so often come across as … desperate … in these analyses? Too often they assume a state that is merely a benefit to their own threadbare religion, lacking any evidence thereof. e.g. Fuentes.
I stopped trusting analysts who identified as atheists early on into my present job. Their results were too often colored by their own biases, and far too often their own sense of smug superiority.
Mid-wittery, thy name is Atheist.
If they're not desperate, they should be.
New atheism was a symptom of Western decline–a "Fuck you, Dad!" tantrum aimed at the Church. Now the fad has run its course. Atheists on the Right are now watching as their former coreligionists either convert to Christianity or assist the West's invasion by other theists who will make it a priority to stone them.
Man of the Atom,
As Brian correctly cites: they crave the rituals and sense of belonging of real religions but without their demands and commitment.
They're like converts on the very threshold of enlightenment but pull back due to pride, sloth or envy.
Yeah limiting imagination I just have to look at the Sistine chapel, the stained glass windows, the Book of Kells, Gergorian chant, the calligraphy etc etc etc to laugh until my stomach hurts.
What have atheists created?
O yeah the gulag and modernist architecture.
xavier
So many remoras in the West who have significant reason to fear if the invaders happen to win … advocating for invasion. The same remoras who claim to be the "most intelligent" in the West.
Should that invasion succeed, it'll be a treat to see the remoras go first to the wall. Such shock, such surprise, such desperation. So much popcorn.
I've come to the conclusion that many of these people are civilizational kamikaze pilots. They're childless for the most part, and they advocate suicidal policies. The only explanation is that they want to die while taking as many people with them as possible.
The difference between them and WWII kamikaze is that the current iteration's targets are their own nominal countrymen.
I'm fully supportive of wiring them to chairs … in a auto-driven speedboat filled with millstones, headed to the deep Atlantic near the Sargasso Sea.
But, hey, I'm a traditionalist.
As Screwtape said, argument, especially from the standpoint of reason, is a dangerous thing. The divide in the former New Atheists is essentially down to who's stuck with reason, and who's dumped it. (Albeit dumping reason doesn't NECESSARILY mean dumping the anti-Islam angle. It's only peer pressure that makes it so. Reasonless atheist misanthropes can still go to town.)
It's particularly ironic watching New Atheists and Neopagans assert that Christians can't do science, or lack imagination. Churchmen invented science. Only a people who believe that the universe is rational because God Himself is rational could achieve what Christendom has. The Indians and the Chinese have had five thousand years in which to build, but they did not, because their gods are irrational, unknowable, and dead. Instead, men who had bowed their knees to the Crucified and Risen Lord reordered the world.
The MCU's Pagan-magic-negro-land is false to fact, because men with nothing to believe in do not build the future, not even while living on a mountain of unobtainium.
Hence why the Big Brain Nietzsche bunch and the Odin LARPers aren't really on our side. Their arguments for an ethnostate all boil down to seeking the creature comforts of a post-industrial society–which they'd be no more able to maintain than first century Germanic barbarians.
How many guns are needed to salute this sentiment? I think I'll just bring over the 1812 Overture cannoneers; they'll have time to reload before the 28th.
Fedora tipping is peak Gamma male. Over ten years of dealing with this type and I've never met one who wasn't a hateful, gross, and miserable, loser with undeserved smugness and bitterness wafting from their dumpy and unkempt frames. I've never met a normal person who didn't find them viscerally repulsive.
The worst thing the atheists ever did for their "movement" was letting these people have a platform.
Kind of a win for Christianity. Something I've noticed at mass: The chunk factor is lower. Oh sure, there's overweight people there, but 1)they aren't exposing stretch marks with pride, you body-shamer! 2) they don't wear nasty expressions on their faces, and 3) they don't stink.
Comparing that to the Fedora tippers? Who does an average person want to be around?
Just part of the reason why, despite her best efforts, the Church is seeing an influx of Gen Jones-Zed converts. The USCCB might be out to lunch re: the crises besetting real Americans, but Christ is not.
2 is ideal, but a combination of 3 and 4 is next.
3 without 4 means that these LARPers become snakes who undermine the churches from the inside.
That's a valid concern. But keep in mind, I'm not taking about the 77% of atheists who voted for Clinton, or even shallow trend-chasers like Carl Benjamin. I'm talking about atheists who already profess allegiance to the West. Guys like Stefan Molyneux, Roosh, and even Mister Metokur spring to mind.
We are the Easter people. Let us avoid the folly of Pelagius. Conversion is a grace. Don't underestimate the salutary effects of simply coming into God's presence. John C. Wright paved the way for his own dramatic conversion by uttering an admittedly haughty and dismissive prayer.
I saw that Vox Day had also linked to this blog post. I never saw The Godfather trilogy, but reading the post, the caricatures of Fuentes and Vox, along with others is that, straw man caricatures. A little research into the people will show that this “analysis” is poor. I bet even the analysis of the film characters and their motivations is likely off considering how biased he was on his targets.
Is that blogger popular and hence the commentary?
Rereading the portion on Fuentes again, it strikes me as a typical SJW hit piece from the MSM. I could see this being printed on Huffpo or Vox. She uses something that is true, Nick's emotions do at times get the better of him and a nasty side can come out (I can easily relate), but then she pivots to say his Catholicism limits his intellect…based on what? Catholicism rejects socialism? What specifically has been limited by his faith? Same question for Buchanan? It's the ole trick of state an obvious truth and then link it to your proceeding unsubstantiated claim so that the audience thinks it's also true because muh QED.
Andrea's insult by comparison is hopefully an accolade in Nick's eyes as he should be proud to be compared to the likes of Buchanan.
"Is that blogger popular and hence the commentary?"
Never heard of her before. I followed the link from Vox Popoli too.
"It's the ole trick of state an obvious truth and then link it to your proceeding unsubstantiated claim so that the audience thinks it's also true because muh QED."
Alt-Right atheists argue just like Lefists.
"Andrea's insult by comparison is hopefully an accolade in Nick's eyes as he should be proud to be compared to the likes of Buchanan."
Exactly. And I'm sure he would be.
"[Neo-pagans] are simply atheists who crave the ritual and fellowship of real religion without the morality or discipline."
I flirted with neo-paganism in my atheist days (didn't take long to realize I was just playing a directed form of Pretend, which is good, because I am told that demons are a definite presence further down that road). Let me tell you: wonder definitely plays a role. I didn't even want a coven; I frankly hated most people at that time. I just wanted the world not constantly brought down to the most mundane denominator.
(So, the obscurity disclaimer at the beginning of Pilgrim's Regress wasn't needed in my case.)
"Let me tell you: wonder definitely plays a role."
That's an important point. Thank you.
These atheists, left or right, are so goddamn boring.
So, this is basically a Nazi-flavored alt-righter, ripping into all the leading lights of the field as at least one of the following: too Nazi, not Nazi enough, and – here's the kicker – too prone to infighting.
Sort of shows the remaining half-life of this coalition, doesn't it?
The Alt-Right brand is dead. The movement's whole appeal was as an alternative to both Conservative Inc. and old white power crowd who'd already been a joke for decades.
Alt-Righters had a chance to break into the mainstream, but their self-styled leaders blew it spectacularly at Charlottesville. Not only did they willingly associate themselves with the Nazi LARPer types, they led their followers into an obvious trap.
Fuentes was right. Optics do matter.
It's 'Nationalist' versus 'Globalist' for the whole pie, one slice at a time.
I said relatively early on that any association with anyone Nazi would be disastrous. All Nazis are mentally ill, usually as a result of parental abuse, usually from the father. Certain People didn't listen… well, who would? I'm nobody.
Annnnnyway, it quickly became apparent that a visible chunk of the newly minted alt-right were mentally and emotionally unfit – unsurprising, given they idolized a failed occultist and a suicide, whose legacy was a fatherless generation, and three generations of shame and misery for his people.
Much of that is to be expected. Every new counterculture movement attracts misfits and kooks in the early days.
Then you have effete think tank types who labored in obscurity for years, then thought they'd hit the jackpot. Many Alt-Righters, including the C-Ville marchers, were Millennials and Gen Zeds born in quiet suburbs whose worlds were turned upside-down by diversity. They flocked to guys like Spencer for guidance, only to meet betrayal.
What we're seeing is the unserious posers and hucksters being weeded out. The accelerating pace of decay will bring the serious leaders to the fore.
For those who missed the magical/symbolic importance, Hitler, the Fuehrer, who by means symbolic and sorcerous (at least to his own mind) took on the role of Father for Germany and then proceeded to f*** it into a state of humiliation, mutilation, and indelible shame, continues to be a symbolic nexus and by the professed principles of European mages, a magical nexus, drawing those whose minds are turned, in fear or longing, to that same degradation.