Which Way Movement Man?

Dionysian vs. Apollonian.

I am sure that readers notice that I spend much time attacking the stupidities of Der Movement, and of Der Right in general, including mainstream topics such as vaccination, etc.  Some reasons for this is to express my own opinions, to refute lies and to champion truth and scientific realities, and to expose childish conspiracy theorizing.

But there is a deeper issue here as well. There is a battle here for the heart and soul – never mind the brain – of pro-White activism, and I intend to defend my side of the battle line, while attacking the other side. Do we want White nationalism to be defined by bizarre theories, fetishism, pseudoscience, a childish lack of critical thinking, the paranoid ideation of conspiracy theorizing, freakish ideas and weird paradigms, and all the rest?  Do we want to build a movement on a foundation of easily disproven lies, a complete lack of logic, and fever dream fantasies? I think not.

At some point, the sane among us, the rational, the adults in the room, need to take a stand, regardless if it goes against dogma and/or makes up unpopular.

One can argue that Der Movement, and Der Right as a whole, is too Dionysian and insufficiently Apollonian.

The terms Dionysian and Apollonian need to be defined with respect to how I am using them in this essay. By Dionysian I mean irrational, emotional, primal, directed more by feeling than by thought, the physical over the abstract, subjectivity over objectivity, exuberance over discipline, intoxication with one's warped ideology, and so forth. Apollonian in contrast is rational, thoughtful, disciplined and prudent, more theoretical and abstract, objective, empirical, scientific, characterized by ice-cold analysis, and so forth.

Comparing the two poles of Yockeyism vs. Salterism, the former would be more Dionysian and the latter more Apollonian. Der Movement is extremely Dionysian, and, within activism, Type I activists are more Dionysian and Type II activists are more Apollonian (although the Type IIs are Yockeyian; there is no absolutism here). Interestingly, much of what Der Movement considers to be Apollonian is actually Dionysian; here I refer to things such as HBD, HBD race realism, HBD Nordicism, “movement” racial science, etc., which are for the most part tragicomic pseudoscience, rigid dogma, and fetishism, all promoted with the subjectivity of religious faith.  Of course, the Left is also thoroughly Dionysian; there isn’t the slightest empirical credibility about any leftist ranting, with respect to race or anything else.

Most established movements fail because they are too Dionysian; they get carried away, intoxicated, by their own rhetoric and belief systems, and lack the objective, ice-cold analysis to avoid problems, to solve problems, and to be adaptable in challenging environments. This includes, for example, on the Right, National Socialism, Fascism as a whole, right-wing populism (including and especially Trumpism), and Der Movement; and, on the Left, the French Revolution, Marxism in all of its incarnations, Social Democracy, and, today, Wokeism is completely Dionysian in the worst ways possible, and hopefully headed to inevitable failure. 

On the other hand, some incipient movements fail to “get off the ground” in the first place because they are too Apollonian and fail to inspire people, they fail to ignite the irrational spark of faith and passion that leads to dedication and heroic self-sacrifice. Note there have been many martyrs for religion (religion being very Dionysian indeed) and for the secular religions of Dionysian radical politics. In contrast, apart from Giordano Bruno (himself a man of religion, by the way), who has martyred themselves for science?  Note that Galileo recanted under threat. Science is too coldly Apollonian to inspire self-sacrifice and martyrdom.

There needs to be a balance between the Dionysian and the Apollonian. We need both irrational inspiration as well as objective, empirical analysis.

Having said all of that, Der Movement is in a bad place. On the one hand, being extremely and radically Dionysian, excessively Dionysian, it engages in the most cringeworthy nonsense and lacks the intelligent and sober objectivity to recognize, avoid, and solve problems, and hence goes from one failure to another. On the other hand, due to a defective ideology, horrible “leadership,” low quality hobbyist membership, and various other factors, it for the most part fails to excite the sort of dedicated self-sacrificial heroism of the Dionysian movements of today’s Left, or of religion. Der Movement’s radically Dionysian aspect is not only stupid and false, but it fails in its elementary role of inspiring faith and self-sacrificial heroism. It is merely an embarrassment and an impediment.

So, the worst excesses of Der Movement’s defective Dionysian attitudes need to be opposed by rational Apollonian truth and objectivity. At the same time, the unhealthy and defective Dionysian dogma of Der Movement needs to be replaced by fresh Dionysian ideals that can inspire activists to greatness while still being consistent with Apollonian standards of objective truth and rational logic.

So, my critiques, whatever else their motivation, has this as an underlying objective.