The Apotheosis of Francis Parker Yockey

Support Imperium, not deification of the man.

Hero worship is always a problem. When that hero worship results in shallow adoration that disregards, or defies, the “hero’s” ideas and ideals, it is a serious problem. It is an even more serious problem when faux-worship is used in an instrumental fashion to promote the interests of grifters and/or to promote ideas and ideals that oppose that of the erstwhile “hero.”

An example of this is the apotheosis of Francis Parker Yockey (“The Cult of Saint Francis,” to borrow Coogan’s term) by some in the “movement,” particularly by hardcore ethnonationalists, individuals whose divisive petty nationalism is in opposition to everything that Yockey believed in and was fighting for, for the very Imperium idea that Yockey died for. When someone is deified by people who oppose what the “demigod” believed in and, in this case, died for, this is very unfortunate indeed.

Some may point the finger of accusation at the Sallis Groupuscule – they would say, "don’t you praise Yockey (and have a picture of him at EGI Notes), while disagreeing with him on certain key issues?  Isn’t that a shallow deification?"  No.  As I have written before, we need to understand what Yockey’s main thesis was, and we need to distinguish the fundamental from the peripheral aspects of his work. Applying the Pareto Principle, the rule of 80-20, we can determine that the main thesis of Yockey’s work, the 80%, was the idea of Imperium, the Unity of the West. All the rest, the other 20%, is peripheral - the bizarre and wrong-headed ideas about biological race and about science, the Spenglerian “pessimism,” the negative attitude toward Eastern Europe, etc.  See my views here.

…it is clear that pro-White activists have had a number of problems with Yockeyism. The issue of biological race is often foremost among these…Yockey lacked the training and empiricist mindset to address Nordicist theory head-on, so he side-stepped the issue by equating biological race differences to what he termed “vertical race theory” to be considered outdated and wrong, in favor of the "new idea" of  "horizontal race.”  Another point of controversy is his objectively wrong opinions and dismissive attitudes toward science; there are also his attitudes toward Eastern Europe (see below), as well as the issue of “Spenglerian pessimism.”  

The major point I make in this essay is that those issues are all peripheral in the sense that they are not the fundamental idea promoted by Yockey, not his fundamental thesis.  Some of those issues are related to his main thesis, no doubt, but they are not fundamental to it…The main thesis of course is the subject of his last chapter, and the title of that chapter and of the entire book – Imperium.

So, if we are going to avoid a superficial and/or mendacious apotheosis of Yockey, if we reject deification, we can examine his views with an eye toward both objective truth and subjective utility for Imperium, and accept and reject parts of his worldview as is relevant for those objectives.  Of course, if we identify ourselves as “Yockeyians” of a sort, it makes sense that we promote his fundamental Imperium idea, otherwise why be Yockeyians at all?  However, in the absence of the deification of Saint Francis the Demigod, we need not feel like we are committing blasphemy if we reject other areas of Yockey’s thought. 

Therefore, the accusation against the Sallis Groupuscule is not legitimate. As a supporter of Yockey’s fundamental idea of Imperium, I am a legitimate Yockeyian, but because I engage with his ideas on their own merits, and do not deify the man, I can and do disagree with some of the more peripheral aspects of his belief system. That is in fact the complete opposite of those who constantly attack the idea of pan-Europeanism and of Imperium, but who engage in a shallow deification of Yockey the man, substituting a superficial Yockeyian apotheosis for a principled support of the main Yockeyian ideal. If you proudly promote divisive petty nationalism, what purpose is there to celebrate Yockey’s birthday, or breathlessly reveal “previously undisclosed pictures” of the man, or sell his books (other than to make money, always a driving force in the “movement”)?  Imperium the idea is more important than Yockey the man.  Rejecting the former but making the latter into some sort of holy saint, some sort of tin god, does Yockey’s memory no justice. He was a man of ideas and of political action, not a fetishistic totem for those who want to use him instrumentally to promote reactionary concepts totally antithetical to his most important Idea.

Individuals who engage in a de facto deification of Yockey while simultaneously rejecting Yockey’s main idea of Imperium are not serious people and/or they are being radically mendacious. Genuine Yockeyists, pan-Europeanists who support Imperium, are not interested in an apotheosis of Francis Parker Yockey, particularly when this deification is promoted by divisive ethnonationalists, the same sort of petty nationalist Culture Retarders who Yockey despised and opposed. Support the Idea of Imperium; do not deify the man.

The apotheosis of Francis Parker Yockey is most typically the product of Type I activists who tend toward hero worship of "men on white horses" (see: Trump, Donald), but who are intellectually shallow (persona over ideas) or who are mendacious grifters who exploit Yockey’s appeal to further other agendas, even agendas that are anti-Yockeyian.

Type II activists who respect, not deify, Yockey do so because they support, and indeed admire, Yockey’s fundamental idea of Imperium.

Apotheosis is not the proper outcome for a martyred political soldier; instead, admirers should carry on that martyr’s work.