User talk:Gnostrat

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[edit] Your views on race?

What are they? I'm curious based on the things on your userpage and your contributions. Ungovernable ForceGot something to say? 05:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's say I object to a simplistic sort of anti-racism as much as I object to racial bigotry. I know that needs more explaining so I'll get back to you. Not sure when, because I'm going to be moving around a bit; watch this space. Meanwhile, see my post on the National anarchism talk page; it looks like somebody had a massive hissy fit over the Black Ram/anarcho-swastika stuff - and, surprisingly, it wasn't the 'mainstream' anarchists! Gnostrat 03:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
So I see you put more extensive views on your userpage. Based on what you said, I agree more or less. There are clearly differences between different racial groups, and there is a biological cause for some of them (although socioeconomic status is probably the largest factor in a lot of it). Certain groups are more prone to certain diseases than others for example. That's probably biological, whereas the high rates of incarceration for non-whites in the US is almost definitely a socioeconomic issue at its core. Just like there are differences between men and women: women score better at verbal tests, whereas men score higher on mathematical ones (on average). I'm guessing that's biological. And as you say, difference does not equal inferiority or supremacy. I too am critical of the whole "everyone is exactly the same" stuff people try to push. I guess if they are saying it in terms of everyone deserves equal consideration and respect, than I agree, but if they really mean to say there are no inherent differences between various groups then they are ignorant. Although I don't think I'm as upset by it as you, just mildy amused.
I also agree, though some may give me shit for it, that humans are naturally more comforatble with people of their own ethnic backgrounds usually. I am sure to emphasize usually because, like most things, it is by no means universal. It gets slippery though because those types of beliefs can lead to separatist beliefs, which are usually a mask for supremacist beliefs. On a psychological level, people are just naturally racist, at least on a subconscious level, but that doesn't mean that racism is ok, or that it should mean we just abandon the idea of living with others. It just requires trancending an easy, non-conscious existence and actually looking at things from a rational viewpoint.
Your mention of the melting pot as racist made me find a passage that really struck me in The Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen:

I've always been amazed that so many people continue to think of the notion of the melting pot as a good thing. Unless all parties act under conditions of equivalent power, and unless the melting is purely voluntary at every step of the process by everyone concerned, it seems by definition genocidal: whoever gets melted--assimilated--loses separate cultural identity. That's genocide.

But if you start making the claim that the melting pot is genocidal, you quickly find yourself alone (except for a few radicals, mainly people of color) in a room full of white supremacists...

I'm not quite so keen on the whole racialist label though for a number of reasons. One, I'm not convinced that race exists outside of a social construction. There are clearly many aspect that are socially constructed. But I'm more into cultural than physical anthropology, which would explain my bias in that direction, as well as my lack of having read much about the topic. I read a bit about the biological reality or lack thereof during my physical anthro class a couple years back, but it was just a brief intro to the subject. Second, far too many outright racists use the term racialist as a way to make themselves look more appealing and to hide their true beliefs, so I would never use the term myself, even if I did believe in the existance and differences of races.
As for the issue of PC, I don't see what's wrong with trying to avoid pissing people off with clearly crass wording. Some people take it too far, but I really fail to see how it is acceptable to go around calling people fags or niggers. Not to say it should be forced on people, but it's really quite sad to me that people wouldn't do it voluntarily. I really like this song by the way, which fits in well with my beliefs.
Finally (as if it didn't take long enough), I'm interested in knowing about your experiences with Christian Identity. From what I've read about it (all of which has admittadly come from biased sources), I don't see how you could have been a part of that unless you had different views on race in the past. Isn't the whole theology about how non-whites are all inferior mudpeople working for the Jews? Ungovernable ForcePoll: Which religious text should I read? 06:19, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
At last I've got some free time, and nothing on Talk:Anarchism needing attention, so I'll get right down to your post. I think we're close to agreement in a lot of areas (though I'm not sure about the song). And I'd go along with the idea that race is socially constructed to a degree. There is no such thing as a white race really, but there is a Caucasoid continuum which embraces people of European, north African, west Asian and south Asian descent, many of whom are of course shades of brown. This continuum is well-defined genetically and physically (although the edges are a little fuzzy in the Horn of Africa and across northern Asia) in a way that 'whites' are not. When I speak about my race, Caucasoids are the people I mean. The fact that a lot of 'whites' think people from India belong to a different race (instead of the other 'end' of the same race) only demonstrates why educational establishments need to give students a good grounding in race-science!
That's a brilliant quote from Jensen. He's right on the button, in fact I think I'll start reading the guy. What he writes there about polarised views is true to my experience. Oppose the monoculture and you do find yourself fellow-travelling with, at least, white separatists. There isn't a lot of room for a middle ground where sane views can establish themselves, and more likely than not anybody who tries is going to get shot up from both sides and treated like subhuman scum. Anti-racists can be as bigoted and dehumanising as their opposite numbers. I long ago realised that the only way through is to make a virtue out of the inevitable. So I'm not shying away from terms like 'nationalism' and 'racialism' (though probably you're right in saying that we're not ready for swastikas yet).
I can understand why you're backing off from them, though, and impressions do count with some people. But hey, I'm trying to do some crude (and maybe premature) 'Hegelian' synthesis here. That means both sides are in the picture. It's risky to step outside of left/right 'tribal' politics, but that's true of anything that's worth doing.
So here's the other way of looking at it: it can't do any harm if some entrenched ideas get shaken up and a few minds jolted out of their easy assumptions. I mean, I've had to ask myself whether the way in which political ideas are classified could almost be designed to divide and conquer by parcelling out the radical opposition into left and right 'extremes', which (a) suggests that the capitalists in the middle are 'moderate', and (b) persuades the 'extremes' that they are necessarily each other's polar opposites so as to prevent them forming alliances. Maybe some on the 'radical right' that 'we' (lefties, though that's not a category I care for much) had dismissed as fascist bigots, aren't that at all. Look past some differences in attitude and style, and maybe it turns out they're travelling the same way. Third positionists are people from a radical-right background who cottoned on to the same realisation (about some of the left) three decades ago. And they're still getting called 'fascists' by people who don't know the difference. (Unfortunately, some third positionists also don't know the difference, which doesn't help any.)
There are reasons of personal history which account for why I look at things in this way. In the 70s, what some British anarchists did wasn't anti-fascism but counter-fascism. Anti-fascists (largely Trotskyist-led) just wanted to get out on the streets and "smash the fash". Counter-fascists (lagely nonviolent-anarchist) wanted to struggle creatively with them in ways which appealed to their humanity and sense of justice. The rationale was that people who dehumanise others are people who've been dealt some pretty dehumanising treatment themselves. We wanted them to let go of their hate and redirect their anger, not persecute them into the ground and screw them up further. If you don't want them as enemies, don't relate to them as if they were.
I've also had some real nightmare experiences with anti-fascists, and reaction against that had a lot to do with how I got into Christian Identity. It seems you're not the only one who's curious about that involvement, which gives me an excuse to cunningly sidestep the PC question (though we could come back to it).
I first ran across Christian Identity publications in the 80s. I had joined the committee of a welfare claimants' campaigning group and one of the other committee members had been the local parliamentary candidate for a recently-defunct English Nationalist outfit. He passed me some zines from a South African CI group which had an agent in the northeast of England. At the time, I was a practising Wiccan with Odinist leanings, and the Identity Christians struck me as paranoid reactionary nuts. Still, there is a 'racial' aspect to Odinism too, so I couldn't dismiss the CI worldview totally.
Anyway, the ex-EngNat guy had done magnificent legal work on behalf of black and Asian claimants but, incredibly, the left in my home town had him tagged as "more right-wing than Hitler". They turned on the claimants' organisation, figuring it was a fascist front, and all of us - presumably including one Christian Marxist - were damned by association.
I took myself down to the local 'alternative' paper to put the case for the claimants' group, only to find they were planning a big exposé and I was thrown out on my ear. It seems that these people - who included former colleagues from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - then got together with some Trotskyists, concocted a story that I was an active member of a far-right party called the National Front (nobody here calls it the British National Front), and on this basis blocked my membership of the local socialist club. I was left politically and socially isolated, except for the committee. Aversion to left/right tribal politics apart, maybe you can see why I went a tad sour on anti-fascists, who I have often found to be the very mirror-image of bigotry. (As Nietzsche observed, he who fights too long with dragons becomes a dragon himself.)
One guy from the claimants' committee did turn out to be a Ukrainian nationalist with connections to Count Nikolai Tolstoy. We became friends for a few years, especially after my Christian conversion experience in '85 (and Christianity with me was always inclusive or pluralist, so I never renounced any prior interests and affiliations, even though the Elim Pentecostals were really anxious for me to do that.) His background was Ukrainian Orthodox but, like his ex-EngNat friend, he was heavily into Christian Identity as well. Before long, we had a small study group going (the 'Ariosophy Circle'); I was sour enough on the trad left that CI started to make a lot more sense (as in the idea that anti-fascist and anti-racist movements were being manipulated from behind the scenes by the same shadowy Zionists and finance-capitalists who were behind fascism in the first place).
The outfit that we were most connected with was Bill Gale's Ministry of Christ Church in Glendale, California. Although we were independent, they sent us tons of their stuff. We would sit for days listening through their sermons on cassette tape, and then we would copy and distribute them. The MCC was a seminal CI organisation, but I never heard them use the expression "mudpeople". There was plenty of ranting against "Jew-boys". Blacks and Muslims were seen as potential allies against the Jews; they could swing either way. The Jews were always the enemy (and we would have to edit out the crasser anti-semitic remarks from the tapes), but the real vitriol was reserved for white gentiles who supported them. We also received material from other CI churches who reckoned Jews were actually ok; I'm not quite sure who they thought the 'real' enemies were, though it usually boiled down to some combination of high finance, Communism, Freemasonry and the United Nations.
That's how I came to find myself in the company of Christian Identity for a while. But, as I wrote on the Anarchism talk page, it was the obsession with Jews that pissed me off finally. I don't subscribe to the classic Elders of Zion conspiracy theory, nor to Holocaust denial. I am a passionate anti-Zionist though (meaning inter alia that I don't recognise Israel's right to exist as a state), and it's as plain to me as the nose on my face that you and we do now have what is effectively a Judeo-Evangelical conspiracy on our hands (called neocons).
Actually, I never changed my basic views on race through all of this. There have been changes of emphasis, but my current views are essentially the same ones as I've always held. I simply switched my ideas of who I thought best represented them, from 'left' to 'right' and back again. During my CI phase I was more open to white separatism, but I wasn't into hate, supremacy or (God help us) exterminationism. I make no claim to righteousness but, with me, that was genuine. With some ICs and white nationalists, when they said "We believe in difference but we don't hate", it was window dressing.
But at the same time, I've brought away with me some big ideas and insights that I still find valuable, theologically and politically. I don't mean that I bought into the theory that white folk are the lost tribes of Israel; that's full of supposition. I mean three other big ideas, and I think these stand up rather better (in scriptural terms). First, the idea that the human races are separate creations, and only Caucasoids are descended from Adam and Eve. (That, in part, underpins my convictions about diversity and shouldn't bother you if you're an anti-speciesist.) Secondly, the idea that Jews are not Israel and are mostly not even of Semitic descent. (That invalidates the premisses of Zionism and anti-semitism at one fell swoop.) And third, the idea that you can't save yourself Billy Graham-style by making your own "decision for Jesus", since it's not a matter of choice, but of heredity. (That means you really don't need to worry about salvation: Caucasoids are born saved, other races never needed saving - they never 'fell' - and the only ones bound for hell are the demons.) All of these ideas, by the way, have analogues in one or another version of ancient Gnosticism, which points up one route by which I arrived at my present beliefs.
By all means get back to me if there's anything you want to discuss further. I'm not sore about the template, although I hope my posts on Talk:Anarchism incline people to reconsider. Gnostrat 01:22, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thx

Whatever you believe and do in other edits, it seems to you are doing good cleanup work at Nazi mysticism an related articles -- they have been an ugly wart since long and always attract crackpots adding more and more speculation. You've also seen the flying saucers, Nazi moon base and Neuschwabenland.

BTW: I hope your Gnosticism prevents you from siding with Alain de Benoist and that faction, but whatever -- as long as you do good contributions.

Pjacobi 23:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouragement, much appreciated. It's a big article but I'll continue to do what I can. I've been watching Secrets of the Third Reich (on Nazi space stations, Aryans from Aldebaran &c.) which has a link from Nazi mysticism or somewhere similar. Actually I've a soft spot for UFOlogy but this is so bad it's hilarious.
You'll probably be disappointed when I tell you that I have sympathies with some of Benoist's positions but he's one influence among many. I think I'm closer to Third Way (UK), classical 19th-century National Liberalism and some strains of anarchism, but it isn't so much "where I stand" as where I shuffle about. Anyway Gnosticism isn't dogmatic, either theologically or politically, so I might go off all of them yet. Gnostrat 02:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah. Thought so already. That would put as in different "camps" I assume, only that I've ceased to be that much politically involved. And in Wikipedia co-operation can rather astonishingly succeed between people of different opinions. Can.
During my time in organized anti-fascism I was (a very hobbyist) "expert" on Nouvelle Droite and their german-speaking counterparts, especially Armin Mohler (oops! no article on enwiki!) -- never thought that it would mix with Gnosticism.
A somehat unrelated advice: If you ever feel not that bold and need a second opinion, you may perhaps want to ask de:User:Maya (mostly working on dewiki, but always willing to help), who isn't only a student of religious studies and sinology, but also the dewiki resident expert on all things magick, and to some extent, gnostic.
Pjacobi 15:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I'll bear that in mind. My boldness may get some testing around here.
Wouldn't say that I am Nouvelle Droite exactly (I'm not sure that even Benoist thinks he's Nouvelle Droite anymore) but I suppose if you go by Tomislav Sunic's understanding of European New Right as essentially a protest movement against "the dis-enchantment of the world", then I fit the profile. The idea of something magical and divine hidden within and beneath everyday material existence is pretty Gnostic. So is the idea that the material creator god of mainstream Judaism and Christianity (and the materialism of his followers) constitutes an obstacle to knowing it. But if that looks like it leads straight down the road to 'metaphysical anti-semitism', don't forget that Gnosticism emerged out of sectarian Judaism as a protest by First-Temple polytheistic conservatives against Second-Temple monotheistic innovators. That's a pretty nuanced 'metaphysical alignment' (which could also fit in with ND's neo-paganism).
My political history has been pushing me towards transcending the whole left/right polarity as a desirable outcome. That just happens to be in tune with what Benoist is articulating, but I also understand it as a particular case or form of the Gnostic path: harmonising polar oppositions as a route to achieving wholeness and realising inner divinity. (There's a widespread misconception that Gnosticism equals dualism. It isn't just about dualism, but about recognising a dualism and then overcoming it.)
I wouldn't be so quick to assume that we're in different camps. It's just that I can't figure ND as a fascist (even a neo-fascist) movement. That may put us at odds in terms of political analysis but not necessarily in political core values -- nor (as you point out) in editorial policy, which is what counts here. Gnostrat 17:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
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