Brief Notes, 9/24/22

Some notes.  In all cases, emphasis added.

Recently, I wrote of my differences with MacDonald, re: individualism:

It comes down to how one defines individualism.  I define individualism as most people do – prioritizing the autonomy of the individual over the demands of the group; thus, the focus in on supporting the opinions, desires, and identity of individuals over that of their community.  Individualism promotes the independence of the individual, allowing for their self-actualization regardless of what the group requires of the individual.  According to this, any group that is conformist, suppresses individual autonomy, and strictly enforces group social norms via social pricing including ostracism (or worse!) cannot, by definition, be “individualist.”  Such a pattern would be considered collectivist and completely inimical to individualism. 

Then, MacDonald wrote this nonsense; apparently MacDonald can't write a post without shilling for his refuted work on "western individualism." And apparently he has attended the Greg Johnson school of editing:

...going against such views may have a variety of negative consequences—form getting fired from your job or getting ostracized from friends and family.

Note: "...form getting fired..."

More to the point, he wrote:

The social glue of Western societies is based on establishing moral communities rather than communities based on kinship...The moral communities of the West are a powerful force for social cohesion...violating the moral sensibilities of the group was an evolutionary dead end...These lock-step moral communities produce a hive-mind, cult-like mentality.

And MacDonald calls those communities "individualist!" That is precisely my point - by definition, according to all reasonable definitions of individualism, communities that are are "lock-step" and enforce a conformist adherence to social norms via a "hive-mind, cult-like mentality" cannot be individualist, they are instead collectivist. Think about this, and consider how virtually everyone except for MacDonald defines individualism and then re-read: "These lock-step moral communities produce a hive-mind, cult-like mentality." How can that be in any way, shape, or form "individualist?"  

But you see, in the Anglosphere, with its pretensions of "individualism" (to hide its conformity), individualism has positive connotations - the "rugged individualist" defying the faceless mob and going his own way - while the designation collectivist is a de facto pejorative. Thus, superior Nordics must be individualists, facts and common sense be damned.

The whole guilt vs. shame culture paradigm is suspect as well. So-called individualist guilt cultures end up forming “lock-step moral communities” that enforce social norms with punishments including public shaming. So, aren’t they in reality actually shame cultures? What is the real difference between an individualist guilt culture that enforces collectivist conformity via shaming as opposed to a so-called collectivist shame culture? Practically speaking, they both conflate to the same thing.

The thing is, Der Right considers individualism and guilt cultures to be good and Western, and hence that must be characteristic of Nordics, while collectivism and shame cultures are considered bad and alien, and hence must be characteristic of non-Nordic wogs. However, the actual behavior of the people in question, the real-life behavioral facts on the ground, is often completely the opposite of this dogma.

Likely, egalitarianism explains more of the types of behavior that are wrong ascribed to individualism and guilt, but egalitarianism is bad according to Der Right, so in order to make Nordic egalitarianism more palatable, it is falsely coupled to individualism, while in reality it is collectivist (egalitarian collectivism being the hallmark of the Left, whether it manifests as communism or as SJWism).

The High Trusters in the EU seem to prefer to socialize production EU-wide but to privatize debt nationally. They dictate to other nations what they are allowed to produce and export and what they must import. Then when those nations suffer the economic consequences of this restricted production/export and run up debt, they are called "lazy and undisciplined" and the High Trusters ask "why should we bail them out?" It's OK to control, in socialist fashion, economies within the EU to benefit certain industrialized nations in the north, but when others run up debt because of this, the ones who benefit from these economic controls whine and complain about sharing paying down that debt.  Very well. Then everyone should produce and export whatever they wish and if they prefer native products to imports, good for them as well. How about a PIGSexit?

Interesting that it also seems that the same folks who express hostility to White ethnics (and especially anti-Italianism) are the ones who have, in general, lurched from one catastrophe to another, manifesting piss-poor judgment, ineptness, and endless failure. When is the last time American Nordicists did anything right and had a success? The Reed-Johnson Act of 1924? Even that was questionable from a Nordicist perspective, since it still allowed Colored Western hemisphere immigration (from the WN 3.0 perspective, perhaps a feature and not a bug, eh?). While that failure fits well with Racial Proximity Theory (and once again refutes MacDonald, since the 1924 Act was a manifestation of Nordic ethnocentrism targeted against Southern and Eastern Europeans) it didn't help "Nordic preservationism" to have Caribbean and Latino peoples enter the USA. In Europe, Nordicist racism, coupled to German nationalism and militarism, not only helped instigate WWII, but then prevented the Axis from gathering the support of Europe as a whole in an anti-communist, anti-democracy, pan-European crusade. The end result of all of that has been mass Colored immigration into Europe. So, now all of these constant failures, these raging incompetents, are left with nothing but sniping at White ethnics online, as part of their tragicomic "movement."

Odds and Ends, 9/21/22

In der news.

See this.  That's fine as far as it goes and helps to explain much Der Movement behavior.  But what about leftist conspiracy theories and the flawed thinking therein? Such as:

• Race does not exist
• Institutional racism (in the absence of race, by the way) exists, and is what holds back Coloreds (instead of their well-documented deficiencies)
• Biological men can get pregnant
• Some guy running around the capitol building dressed like a buffalo was a dire threat to democracy
• Police are killing thousands of unarmed Blacks every year
• Months of protests that caused over a billion dollars of damage, and which included arson, assault and battery, murder and attempted murder, were "mostly peaceful"
• Trying to storm the White House, forcing the President into a bunker, and then burning down the church across the street was not insurrection and neither was setting up an autonomous zone in Seattle
• White Privilege is a real thing
• Man-made global warming must be real and if you question it you're crazy
• Lying about population genetics to obfuscate White identity is good
• The popularly elected Viktor Orban is an "authoritarian leader"

Should I go on?

An enlightening interview.  A leftist political beginning, influenced by Jews (and alienated from “stuffy country club Republicans” – a bit of innate anti-WASPism?).  The time in Jamaica, etc. He talks about collectivist Jewish behavior of group controls enforcing social conformity - the exact same types of behavior he ascribes to "individualist" egalitarian NW European societies.

Laugh at this:  [Note: Shortly after being posted, the Jeelvy Counter-Currents article about Lady Diana's phenotype was taken down. It is still down at the time (9/21/22) that this EGI Notes post is out. Was the article's deranged Nordicism too much for even Counter-Currents? If not for that reason then why was it pulled?  Will it be going back up later, perhaps in edited form?  Who knows. But you can enjoy the relevant excerpt below; keep in mind there was much else equally, if not even more, ludicrous, in the deleted article. The excerpt:

If I met Lady Di — blue eyed, her blonde hair worn boyishly short or in the ‘80s blowout with a hint of Margaret Thatcher, with a slender figure and rarely disfiguring her strongly Nordic figures with makeup — on the street, I’d assume she was Danish. Lady Diana Spencer had a wide smile full of perfect pearly whites and delicate arms and legs, and always the hint of an eating disorder about her — never excess flab, but she had it where it counted. Contrast her with Diana, Princess of Wales, at home in Balmoral and Buckingham as well as her London flat, the pinnacle of Norman womanhood, her ancestors more noble and more ancient than the upstart Windsors themselves…the delicate-limbed, Nordic-featured, blonde and blue-eyed Diana Spencer…

Reverse Sallis' Law in action again; in every possible circumstance, Nordics must be praised. No wonder High Trusters believe that they are Eloi, swans, and angels when they have fetishists like Jeelvy and their worshipful groveling. Der Movement’s typical obsessions duly noted.

In the broader American society, White ethnics experienced a one-two punch.  First, they were insufficiently White, discriminated against, and occupied lower strata of society.  Later, as they underwent assimilation and exhibited upward mobility, they were then begrudgingly classified as White and then, as “White bigots,” were subjected to ethnic cleansing via racial integration of the cities and had the professional advancement retarded by affirmative action, which disproportionately impacted urban Whites. 

In Der Movement, White ethnics experienced a three punch combination.  First, the left jab of being considered non-White.  Then the right cross of being begrudgingly classified as White but placed in a lowly subaltern stepandfetchit position below their “masters,” and, finally, the left hook of once again being considered non-White and placed in status below Jews/Coloreds in WN 3.0.

I can concisely and without (too much) ad hominem summarize my differences with MacDonald, re: individualism.  It comes down to how one defines individualism.  I define individualism as most people do – prioritizing the autonomy of the individual over the demands of the group; thus, the focus in on supporting the opinions, desires, and identity of individuals over that of their community.  Individualism promotes the independence of the individual, allowing for their self-actualization regardless of what the group requires of the individual.  According to this, any group that is conformist, suppresses individual autonomy, and strictly enforces group social norms via social pricing including ostracism (or worse!) cannot, by definition, be “individualist.”  Such a pattern would be considered collectivist and completely inimical to individualism. It seems to me – and maybe you would consider this to be ad hominem – MacDonald is defining “individualism” as encompassing all behaviors typically exhibited by Northwest Europeans and then works backwards from there; in contrast, I believe that you first need to establish a reasonable definition of individualism and then you can investigate what groups actually exhibit such individualist behavior.

I also see MacDonald's focus on families and marriage with respect to individualism as being irrelevant in the current day. I look at extant European-derived peoples and everywhere I see nuclear families and marriages based on individual personal preferences. In America, all White ethnic groups are primarily intermarrying with other Whites ethnic groups, and have been doing so for many decades. The idea that Southern and Eastern Europeans are, like NECs, marrying their cousins in arraigned partnerships to further clan networks is, frankly, bizarre. It is a non-issue, a diversion.

Funny how the "threats to democracy" all come from the Right. How about these alternative (and real) threats to democracy: Race replacement immigration, in part utilized to subvert democracy by "electing a new people" rather than convincing existing native voters; social pricing and other methods (including violence) to suppress dissident opinions; and the unequal application of the law for political purposes - all courtesy of the Left?  And by the way, as regards "the will of the majority" being ignored, how about decades of ignoring majority opposition to mass immigration and affirmative action? How about state referenda being overturned by leftist judges?

First, see this nonsense.

A Chilean who is 50 percent Italian, 25 percent Basque, and 25 percent Greek would be considered white as well — though his skin may be darker than a Chilean who is actually less European, such as one who is 10 percent Araucano, 10 percent Incan, 50 percent Spanish, and 30 percent Belgian.

Because of the large presence of Mediterranean whites, the genotype and phenotype of whiteness in Chile do not correlate as neatly as in the Anglosphere. The result of this is that Chileans have a “big tent” view of whiteness; those who are considered white in Chile are certainly majority white, but plenty would not be considered white in the United States or Australia...

...The Basque genetic makeup is easily distinguished, and Basque skin tone is whiter and their IQ is higher than the average Spaniard. Many people find Basque people very attractive.

A person's work needs to be judged objectively, independent of personal variables, such as an untimely death. Thus, I can seriously question Rojas. The same person (who was Roberts/Rojas) who wrote that Amren article having an Anglo-Nordicist criterion for "Whiteness" wrote a series of articles for Counter-Currents, ending with this.

In that last article he claims that this person is "White" with "no qualifiers." That woman’s mixed race ancestry is described here.  That ancestry is clearly written all over her phenotype.

I understand that people can change their mind about things, but here we have a radical change about a fundamental - an existential - core concept of racial identity, in the context of the general ideology staying the same. Something here is not right. In one forum, he suggests that Old World Europeans from Southern Europe can be darker than outright mestizo types and not perfectly White in a Nordic/Anglosphere sense, and then in another forum he shows an outright Mestiza, obviously non-White, who is likely at least 25% (and maybe 50%?) Amerindian (and maybe part-Black as well), and says that that's White with no qualifiers and he expects American Whites will one day agree with that absolutely absurd classification.

Either this guy was so confused about race that his opinions were essentially worthless or else all of this doesn't (to me at least) pass the smell test of sincerity. We'll likely never find out now what the real deal with that guy was.

The American “civil rights movement” and its aftermath was a perfect example of Suvorov’s Law.  When White America held firm with Jim Crow, the Negro and his handlers could make little headway against White survival instincts.  But once Whites showed weakness and made concessions, opposing the resistance of the White Southrons and the White ethnics, and suddenly relieving the repression of segregation, etc. than it all fell apart, and fell apart quickly, resulting in a decades-long racial and cultural revolution in America that is only accelerating in its pace.  Thus, Coloreds, Jews, and their High Truster junior partners pushed against White America and found very little pushing back. Once that emptiness was revealed, the collapse was inevitable.

E. Michael Jones makes some good points about the ethnic cleansing of White ethnic urban neighborhoods, but then goes off the rails, making it about religion and narrow ethnicity, rather than its reality that was race and ethnicity. Blacks ethnically cleansed the White ethnic enclaves because they were Black and behaved as Blacks, not because they were mostly Protestant.  And their Hispanic junior partners in that enterprise were mostly Catholic, so whither religion?  Did Blacks make distinctions between White Catholics and Protestants (or Orthodox for that matter)?  To Blacks, even Jews are “White.”  Of course, the cleansing was mostly focused on White ethnic Catholic areas so in practical terms it was mostly Black/Hispanic vs. White Catholic conflict, but the White Catholics were targeted because they were White, not because they were Catholic, and, yes, while most of those White Catholics were Irish and Italian, they were, again, targeted by the Blacks/Hispanics for being White – not because they were Irish of Italian.  If any WASPs or Germans or whatever – even Jews – happened to get caught in the crossfire, they got it too. Now, the fact that the Blacks and Hispanics were weaponized in this fashion by the High Truster-Jew alliance was ethnic and religious (although with the Jews it can be a racial conflict as well, but let’s pass over that for a moment).  But it was as much (or more”) ethnic than religious and the race issue loomed large over the whole situation. Again putting aside the racial issue of the Jews, broadly speaking, one can say that the ethnic cleansing was a racial conflict being used as a proxy to fight an intra-White and White-Jewish ethnic conflict (with religion as an identity – not actual practice – being a part of ethnic definitions).  But after a while, the race proxy took a life of its own, and the race weapon began to slip out of control; Coloreds became a threat on their own, even independent of the guidance they were initially given.  To deny the fundamental racial basis of the conflict is mendacious and cowardly. The ethnic cleansing could take place only because of the race-based behavior and hatreds of Blacks and Hispanics.

Fool Britannia

Laugh at this.

Laughably, MacDonald hosts at his site an essay that oozes with extreme ethnocentrism from one of his individualistic altruistic ethnically disinterested high trusters. Some excerpts and comments:

We recently saw the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, who may not have shared our beliefs entirely (we don’t know for sure) but who I thought spent her entire life maintaining the proper decorum and class of British tradition and conducted herself like a lady the whole time. Her tragic but expected passing has caused me to spend a few moments thinking of these special islands in the North Atlantic where my ancestors came from. I also shed a few tears thinking about them. I don’t think I love any other ethnic group more than the British when recognizing them historically and not just in the modern sense. I love them even more than I do being a Southerner. You could call me an Anglophile. Shouldn’t I be one since that is where my blood is from?

By her own standards (see below), if she loves Britons more than being a Southerner she should leave for the UK immediately. And of course, the paragraph reproduced above is a perfect example of altruistic low-ethnocentrism individualism, right?

People on both the Right and the Left look down on the Anglosphere for different reasons, yet they all choose to remain in Anglosphere countries.

Ah, yes, the Right. Der Movement as we know is just oozing with anti-Britishness, what with all of these non-British ethnics like Taylor, Spencer, and Johnson shitting on the British 24/7, right?  Just like William Pierce, that swarthy ethnic hater of everything British!

I have a great deal of respect for Eastern Europe. I think it is an interesting place with a remarkable culture and I wish the best for its people. Much of our movement has an odd fascination with moving to Eastern Europe, even people who have no ancestry from there. They fantasize about that part of the world, yet almost nobody moves there to start over. Nor do I encourage people to move there unless they themselves have blood ties to that part of the world. I want to see Eastern Europe survive just as I wish the same for Great Britain.

Hint - they have that attitude because they want Eastern European women. You wouldn't happen to be an obese Walmart land whale would you?  

…yet almost nobody moves there to start over. Nor do I encourage people to move there unless they themselves have blood ties to that part of the world. I want to see Eastern Europe survive just as I wish the same for Great Britain.

Tell that to all the British expats who are colonizing the warmer parts of Europe (including the southern parts of Eastern Europe).

What I find particularly disturbing is how many in our movement seem to cheer the future of Eastern Europe as our only hope for the future while condemning Great Britain as a lost cause doomed for destruction and no chance of survival.

Since you love Britain so much, spend time walking around London (or Rotherham) and report back to us.  By the way, you retarded ignoramus, commenting on the state of race and culture in a nation is not “condemning” it.  

...should not be condemned to disappear just because it has become obsessed with multiculturalism for 70 years. Again, to see actual people with British ancestry in our movement think this way is very concerning to me.

Dear dumb cunt: The ethnocultural future of the UK will unfold independent of what you and other online Nutzis think about it. Commenting on the racial facts on the ground is not "condemning" anything, you stupid bitch.  

I follow Mark Collett and his work with Patriotic Alternative over in Britain. He seems to be an optimist about his country. He is always giving uplifting reports about the progress of his organization and how they are constantly attracting more and more White British people. They even do door-to-door surveys all over the country and have interviewed a large number of White British people. If I recall correctly, one such survey had at least 60 to 70% of respondents agreeing that the current immigration to Britain is not a good thing. As Mark pointed out, how many more would have answered honestly if they could say so in private with nobody coming to their door?

Let us know when that translates into electoral victories, you yeast-on-the brain moronic imbecile.

I love being an American Southerner, but if the day comes where I have to move from Dixie, my first choice is Great Britain. I don’t care if they have a bigger diversity problem than Eastern Europe. I pick Great Britain because that is me. That is my blood. I can’t imagine going elsewhere.

Rotherham is waiting for you. Colored men like fat White women, don't they?  Not that has anything to do with you of course.

And I still have hope for that great country because that is naturally what you are supposed to do for your homeland where your very blood came from. If you think the future will be wonderful for the White race without Great Britain, I would be careful what you wish for. It might not be so grand. The world would be unrecognizable. So don’t give up on it so quickly.

This writing has the intellectual depth of a five year old with Down's Syndrome. Does someone need to explain to this unmitigated moron that reporting on a situation is not the same thing as wishing for it?  If I say “my friend John Doe has cancer and I’m afraid it may kill him” that does not mean I am wishing that he dies from cancer. If I see him on his deathbed and his doctors agree that he is likely to die soon that doesn’t mean I’m giving up on him “quickly” and that his impeding death is somehow my fault.

Perhaps, some commentators are unnecessarily pessimistic about Great Britain – if you want to make that case, fine. But don’t conflate pessimism (typically expressed as concern and regret) with some sort of malicious joy in “quickly” “condemning” Britain and “wishing” for a White future without Britain. This essay is the worst type of hysterical female inanity.

Zero ethnocentrism no doubt:

British men should stop having a low opinion of themselves. You have so much to be proud of. You are Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Isaac Newton, George Washington, Thomas Savory, Francis Drake, Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, and many others. You are the creators of the Industrial Revolution, much of calculus, and much of modern medicine. You created the fairest justice system in the world. You settled new continents. Everyone in the world wants to move to countries you created. If they don’t respect the founders of these countries, then they should leave. I would be happy to see them go.

Zero ethnocentrism again:

A culture that has existed on that island (islands) for over 1,000 years and that spent the past few centuries leaving a mark on the world far more impressive than any other group...

No ethnocentrism here, no siree:

I see parallel disdains in other parts of the Right. In our very own movement, it seems common to look down on many of Britain’s achievements from more recent centuries, such as the idea of freedom, the creation of America, and what the Founding Fathers achieved. I am personally a loving fan of the Founding Fathers. They created something remarkable and monumental. I don’t think any other ethnic group would have come up with something remotely similar. What I find peculiar about the people in our movement who criticize Britain’s achievements and ideas from the Enlightenment is that they do it while choosing to remain in a country created by British men from that time, instead of moving elsewhere, and they also do it while speaking the English language and while using many British inventions.

Look, I have nothing against a person of British descent being proud of their ancestry, being ethnocentric, being concerned with the future of their mother country, and being critical of people who may be unnecessarily pessimistic. But:

1. This type of ethnically British hyper-ethnocentrism is ludicrous when it is hosted on a site whose fundamental premise is that Northwest European groups like the British are composed of altruistic individualists lacking in ethnocentrism.

2. The idea that Der Movement – as part of the “Right” – is somehow anti-British is almost as ludicrous as Andrew Hamilton writing at Counter-Currents long ago that the “movement” is “anti-Nordicist.”  A “movement” deeply steeped in Anglomania, with most of its leaders being of full or part British descent, is not “anti-British,” any more than a “movement” whose fundamental founding principle is Nordicism, and that literally worships Nordics, is somehow “anti-Nordicist.” These types are so full of themselves, so expecting to have they and their ethnies worshipped, that they construe the slightest criticism or even mere pessimism as some sort of innate animus.  If these types had to experience even a fraction of the constant attacks in Der Movement toward Southern (especially) and Eastern Europeans, they’d spend all their time curled up in a fetal position, weeping bitterly.

3. This idiot needs to distinguish descriptive from prescriptive comments. Just because someone is pessimistic about the racial and cultural future of Britain doesn’t mean that they are wishing for that negative future, they are not responsible for it, and they are not condemning anyone to it.

4. The idea that if anyone dares criticize the British they need to leave nations founded by the British is the sort of extreme intolerant ethnocentrism that helps to refute MacDonald’s theories.  Every group has something that they can be criticized about. I thought "freedom" was a British virtue in America that she admires - so what about freedom of speech that may include criticism of the British?  Or do such critics get deported?  And if criticism from non-British of the British means that they “need to leave” British-founded nations then the same can be said of people of full or part British descent who live in Southern or Eastern Europe and who critique those nations and peoples. Anyone remember Munro in Amren, re: Romania?

Archie Munro is of predominantly Scottish and German ancestry, and has been settled in Romania for longer than he would like.

“Scottish” is part of being “British” – right?

5. Good that this author stressed defending British men, because her essay hasn’t done anything to raise anyone's confidence in the abilities of British-descended women.

Addendum:

A High Trust Herrenvolk individual left the following articulate and erudite comment for that essay:

Howad A.says:

September 12, 2022 at 5:15 pm

I agree brittish males are great. And being orwegian I am apparenty patly brittish since the averege norwegian is like 15 % to 25 % brittish probs since WIKING times.

And I’m super awesome so….

Well britts invented the internet and computer also plus tons of other things.

Are all brittish men self hating now or just libtards.

Odds and Ends, 8/7/22

In der news.

Counter-Currents madness:

Let’s cut straight to the chase: germs don’t cause disease; disease causes germs.

Der Movement MUST be unalterably opposed. If Der Movement wins, the Dark Ages will look like a futurist paradise by comparison.

A possibility to consider: Der Movement is a greater threat to White interests than is the System. I'm really coming around to that view. We should all ponder this.

Gaston:

Der movement" is simply put a mass of dysfunctional individuals that are so for reasons transcending their political views, since I can see how any fringe movement/subculture will attract dysfunctional types that didn't fit in normal society anyway so they see in the fringe movement/subculture an opportunity to find a place where "they belong"; it was so in early far left circles (and it is today as well in radical antifa), but with the societal norms shifting left at a neck-snapping speed it is now the far right experiencing this phenomenon.

Der movement's leaders are just smarter (compared to the average type I activist, at least) guys that figured out a way to exploit financially a mass of low IQ individuals.

Sallis:

Exactly. Note that this clearly demonstrates that the "movement" leaders are frauds. Any real, sensible leader would of course have nothing at all to do with ultra-freaks, the type who say viruses don't exist, reject the germ theory of disease and who say that nuclear weapons are a hoax. Such an authentic leader would realize that not only are such people useless by themselves but that they taint the group and cause high IQ educated people to stay far away. But, no. The leaders exploit the freaks as supporters and sources of money.

More TOO: 

John Samuelssays:

July 30, 2022 at 6:46 pm

Since Sallis has linked to my comment, I’d like to elaborate on something he just wrote with some speculation on my part. Sallis wrote: “How is it possible that the same person who wrote The Trilogy now agrees that an ‘individualist’ is defined as someone who never calls their mother? Am I the only one who thinks that is absolutely ludicrous?”

Someone emotionally distant from his family in the way described is more appropriately referred to as “schizoid.” While some might argue that such emotionally cold individuals simply exhibit a unique cognitive or emotional profile that should not be maligned or pathologized, it’s worth noting that on the whole, even though schizoid individuals may not see themselves as problematic (given that they rarely seek treatment), they tend to have poorer than average social and professional outcomes.

The schizoid personality is not, in my view, one to idealize in any way, as aberrant as it is. Yes, some geniuses, perhaps Tesla among them, were arguably schizoid, but for every Tesla among schizoids there are hundreds or more with very subpar and socially dysfunctional lives (this emotional coldness is not more widespread precisely because there were – and continue to be – selective pressures against it). It’s worth noting that brain scans appear to show schizoid and autistic brains as basically the same (showing a relationship).

My speculation, given the subculture of HBD, is that the autistic or schizoid personality is pedestalized, which is an inversion of sorts with normie society given the penalties associated with such an aberrant personality type (the proliferation of autistic/schizoid incels and the increasingly competitive nature of our society has really brought their frustrations to the fore among very young adults today).

HBD is really a form of projection on the part of men high in schizoid/autistic traits. Ironically, the normies are too smart to fall for this (yeah, they are smarter). Schizoid traits, in my view, should be culled, not idealized.

What about the idea promoted by TOO that I am some sort of ethnic advocate (pot calling the kettle black, perhaps) for Italians? Really? Here's some "Italian advocacy" I suppose:

See this.

Therefore, as a theoretical example, if it were necessary to exterminate 10-20% of the population of, say, Italy, in order to improve the national stock through eugenics, then that would be a quite appropriate price to pay in order to have a population that is more intelligent, disciplined, productive, and creative. 

See this.

If there are Italian readers who are upset with these negative opinions, and who are now gesticulating in outrage, they should consider the following hard truths.

If you behave in a contemptible manner, others will treat you with contempt. If you allow yourself to be the anvil of history, others will be the hammer. If you want respect, you must earn it.

If the Italian people, as currently constituted, have it within themselves to overcome their deficiencies then they need to do so as soon as possible. If they lack the racial character for such an undertaking, then they must submit to an absolutely ruthless regimen of eugenics, to reverse millennia of dysgenic influences. A willingness to continue as an inferior species will do nothing except prove Kesselring correct.

That's my work. That's what TOO asserts is me being an ethnic advocate for Italians with an envious grudge against Nords. It's there in digital black and white - PROOF that TOO is absolutely wrong about what they write about me.

The real "crime" of Ted Swarthis - adhering to truth and facts and logic and refusing to kowtow to "movement" dogma or to "movement" "rock star" gurus. Individualist independence of mind always results in a negative reaction from collectivist conformists. Indeed, ironically enough, given proper definitions of individualism and collectivism, it is Ted Swarthis who is being the individualist and the TOO crowd who are the ostracizing collectivists.

Kevin MacDonald – wrong, wrong, wrong.  According to that, Hungary and Italy are more individualistic than any Scandinavian country, much less Germany. Looking at the differences between Italy and Greece in that table, or between Hungary and Poland (never mind Croatia and Slovenia), it is clear that the differences are most likely due to historical-cultural mechanisms instead of "primordial" evolutionary-ancestry mechanisms - how different are the ancestries in those comparisons? And how do the outcomes differ anyway? Both Italy and Greece are subject to migrant invasion. Hungary and Poland both attempt to resist the EU. Meanwhile, Denmark is less "woke" than Sweden; on other hand, MacDonald talks about Denmark being more "German" than are other Scandinavians yet the Danes are both more individualist and less "woke" than Germans and Scandinavians. Primordial evolutionary explanations? MacDonald's thesis seems not supporting by the facts - unless one accepts his peculiar definitions of individualism.

More:

Low individualism traits include:

• sacrifice for others
• dependence on social unit
• external loss of control
• moral relationship
• external locus of control

ALL of those are attributes of Law of Jante Scandinavian conformist collectivism and enforcing social norms through external social control and ostracism.

Further, it is amusing that MacDonald both defends the validity of HBD and says he is a bit of fan of Salter's EGI, since many HBDers have been attacking "Salterism" from day one, while dastardly Ted Swarthis has been defending it. Indeed, hostility to the idea of EGI and of kinship-based interests is a hallmark of pro-Jewish and pro-Asian HBD, which generally promotes the idea of aracial cognitive elitism instead.

Of related interest: If racial diversity decreases social trust, then it stands to reason that monoethnic populations that have greater genetic heterogeneity will manifest less social trust than more genetically homogeneous populations - relative genetic homogeneity likely being detected at the "street level" by the (crude) proxy of physical appearance phenotype. Although this scenario may manifest only in populations that are overall more individualistic on the global level - like Europe as a whole. Other populations that are very highly collectivist, like the Chinese, can dispense with social trust per se, and they all look alike anyway.

The elites must know that diversity is a devastating weakness and that a multiracial society is a catastrophe. But they have made the (in my opinion incorrect) calculation that fixing the problem is either impossible or too painful (at least for them) and that the solution is worse than the problem. They prefer a slow rot, the frog slowly boiling, with the hope that they and their descendants (if they have any) have enough security to "ride the tiger" of the decline. To them, slowly dying of a cancer is better than a curative painful radical surgery and extreme radiation and chemotherapy. Meanwhile, they'll make the best of it, getting rich and exploiting non-White support and racial conflict for political, social, and economic power. At least they can be the big fish in a polluted small pond, eh?

It is not only the racial and cultural conflict, inflation and other macroeconomic problems, lack of law and order, decaying international standing, etc. that demonstrates a declining America correlating with increased diversity. There's also the general decline in standards and services, crumbling infrastructure with potholes like moon craters, empty supermarket shelves, wildly inconsistent mail delivery, wild animals like coyotes and pumas roaming busy urban areas, and 1001 other signs of a decrepit, dying America. Presciently, in the early 1960s, Thiriart predicted that America's racial problems, particularly with Blacks, would spell the end of America as a major world power.

Listen to this.  Now, I don’t endorse the “Afro Sephardic” host and his opinions, or Monoxide’s conspirtardism, but that’s not relevant here. What is relevant is the content.  I’ve been content the juvenile jackassery of the Alt Right, as is exemplified by TRS, from the start.  But others took TRS seriously – Greg Johnson before he and TRS apparently had a falling out (surprise!) and see this. And note the comments about TRS' anti-Italianism, Nordicism, and Anglomania in that podcast.

Der Movement is a complete catastrophe as I have been saying for years. It is all silly hobbyism.

As a thought experiment, imagine that covid-19 originated in (Southern) Italy. What would be the Der Movement attitude toward the pandemic then? The virus (viruses now, of course, exist) would be a medical public health catastrophe, its origin reflects on the innate deficiencies of the population where it originated, Nutzis would be walking around with masks glued to their faces like the original Baron Zemo, and they'd get so many covid vaccinations that they'd look like Pinhead from Hellraiser. Strip away the facetious hyperbole (not much, truth be told) and there are underlying realities about Der Movement and its obsessions revealed.

Riposte to KMacD

A response. In all cases, emphasis added.

See this

First, I will summarize my initial criticism of MacDonald’s western individualism work:

1. I do not see that MacDonald and supporters view the work as a properly scientific, testable, falsifiable hypothesis, because every time data points falsify the hypothesis, they either ignore the data or utilize Occam’s Butterknife to invoke overly complex absurd explanations to save the thesis (e.g., “Scandinavians are conformist and collectivist because they are so individualistic”) or to constantly redefine “individualism” or to ignore inconvenient genetics data.

2. Related to #1, the data do not support the theory (e.g., Scandinavians are not particularly individualistic by reasonable definitions of the word) and things like population genetics are being completely ignored, misinterpreted, or lied about. This is dogma, religious belief; there is no critical thinking here whatsoever.  This is Kuhnian “prove my theory correct” rather than Popperian “attempt to falsify my hypothesis.”

3. If any observations support the hypothesis, are they due to genetics? Can they be reproduced in the American context?  Twin and adoption studies?  Are they stable over time in novel environments?  Or are they merely cultural?

4. These people never seem to consider the consequences of the hypothesis, even if it was true. If they really believed in such marked intra-European differences in individualism vs. collectivism, universalism vs. ethnocentrism, etc. then you’d think that they would promote recruitment for pro-White activism among the more collectivist, ethnocentric European groups, and focus on having such people in leadership positions, instead of actively attacking, rejecting, and alienating such groups while focusing on having a “movement” – top to bottom – consisting of those Europeans they consider the most individualist, universalist, altruistic, high-trusting, etc.  

5. Racial Proximity Theory is more closely aligned to the data and is more closely aligned to Occam’s Razor in not requiring endless ad hoc modifications to maintain its validity.

Now to answering MacDonald’s response to my criticisms - I’m not going to answer every point of MacDonald for two reasons.  First, I’ve already spent years at this blog critiquing the “western individualism” thesis in extreme detail and I’m not going to repeat everything I previously wrote on the subject.  My concern here is addressing those points of greatest concern to my major critiques of that work (and note that my critiques were targeted toward specific aspects of the work, not all of it, so I see no point answering defenses of material that I never critiqued in the first place).  Indeed, much of MacDonald’s “answer” to me has nothing at all to do with the substance of my critiques and is instead an excuse to gibber about his various theories on this subject. I’m not going to waste effort answering points that have virtually nothing at all to do with my major criticisms.

Second, unlike others, I am not retired and I am not a full time activist. Thus, to save precious time, I’m going to invoke The Pareto Principle and focus on the core fraction of MacDonald's comments that cover most of the important issues. There are opportunity costs here, particularly for part-time activists who need to support themselves.

I will give credit to MacDonald for actually attempting to engage with my critiques, as opposed to Greg Johnson, whose response to criticism is “banning,” defamation of critics, and a refusal to engage and debate.

Nordicism

I suppose one can argue with that, but I don’t see an argument in Sallis’s writing. 

So, basically he ignores all of my extensive writing on population genetics. For example, see the genetics comments here.

Unless I missed it in his screed, he hasn’t defended his bizarre characterization of Northern Italians as “Germanic.”

The family history data show a more collectivist pattern in southern Europe (e.g., brothers living together with wives and parents) than in northern Europe, the extreme being Scandinavia with nuclear families characterized by very weak ties among their members.

MacDonald has certain ideas about family structure in non-Nordic Europe:

…a tendency toward nuclear families rather than, say, compound families common in Southern and Eastern Europe based on brothers living together with their wives…

Let’s focus on the reality in Southern Europe. See this.  Also see this (including Figure 1), from the paper:

Egalitarian nuclear families were strongest in northern and eastern France, most of Spain, and southern and north-western Italy…this map of family structure does not appear to reflect an opposition between Northern and Southern Europe. Communitarian families are heavily concentrated in a few areas, whereas stem and nuclear families can be found nearly everywhere.

Back to MacDonald:

But the claim that I am a Nordicist has an evaluative ring to it—that I think that the Nordics are superior in some way. In fact, Individualism reveals the weakness of northern Europeans, especially in the current cultural environment in which traditional social controls embedded in religion have disappeared, resulting in a dysfunctional, guilt-prone culture unable to oppose the invasion of other peoples that is now besetting them. 

Implicit in this and how MacDonald’s fans interpret it – Northern Europeans are just too good for their own good, too noble, too honorable, too altruistic, too individualist, too productive, too disinterested, etc. The Eloi-Morlock distinction at Counter-Currents derives from this.

Even more important, assuming this is all true, consider my point # 4 in my summary above. If Der Movement, including MacDonald, really believes his thesis, then why don’t they focus more on recruiting Southern and Eastern Europeans, and having such people as pro-White leaders, instead of focusing exclusively (which they do) on recruiting those “weak” “altruistic individualist” Northwest Europeans, and having as leaders people whose “primordial” evolved traits make them vulnerable to Jewish manipulation (Taylor?)? They never answer that, do they?

Moreover, Scandinavia was a relative backwater in European culture compared to the dynamic northcentral regions of Western Europe. Charles Murray’s map of human accomplishment (discussed in Ch. 9 of Individualism) excludes the great majority of Scandinavia, apart from Denmark which has a strong infusion of German genes (Ch. 1). 

Please point out where in my arguments I have brought up the issue of accomplishment. Plus, MacDonald is being disingenuous if he thinks that these fine points are noted by the rabid Nordicists who support his work.  They view “Nordics” as a whole.

If anything, I suppose one could call me a Germanicist.

No real difference. By the way, isn’t MacDonald himself mostly of German ancestry? Ethnocentrism perhaps?

I’m reminded of the old days at the Legion Europa site, in which the person running the website told me he received a message from Arthur Kemp objecting to being labeled a Nordicist.  That’s the neo-Nordicism of Der Movement – they reject the label while being as radical, or more so, that the old-school Guntherite crowd. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck….

Of relevance to the Nordicism question, this is the Amazon review of MacDonald’s book that MacDonald believes is a good summary; excerpts of relevance for my case, re: Nordicism:

Western Hunter gatherers, and to an even greater extent Scandinavian Hunter gatherers were fiercely egalitarian warrior societies…

…MacDonald argues that for some combination of reasons, including geography, Western and Scandinavian hunter gatherers developed highly communal societies without strong kinship bonds. They married exogenously…

…MacDonald further argues that the above-named traits led to individualism. The harsh northern European environment required a lot of intelligence to survive and leave offspring. Exogenous, monogamous mating created married couples matched in ability, each with considerable status within the family and community. Individuals rose within the community on the strength of their abilities rather than family connections. This emphasized individual accomplishment – individualism.

He posits that the northern European hunter gatherer society was so efficient, especially in warfare, that they withstood the advance of agriculture for a couple of millennia past the point at which it would have taken hold in less severe climes. This hunter gatherer society was an incubator for individualism and intelligence…Mate selection in the harsh environment resulted in a great deal of evolutionary pressure for higher intelligence. Conversely, in agricultural societies in more benign climates a man would achieve reproductive success by controlling a large number of women – and the quality of the mate didn't matter as much…MacDonald remarks on the extremely high level of altruism in today's Scandinavian countries…

[Sallis note – "High level of altruism" just like with hyper-collectivist and ethnocentric purity-spiraling of blood-obsessed Norwegians viciously persecuting half-German children after WWII, see below]

…MacDonald contends that the Indo-European warrior ethos gave way to the even more individualistic and altruistic Puritan ethos. The Puritans had Scandinavian roots, from the Jute resettlement from Denmark into East Anglia. They had always been a highly productive and monogamous people with large families. They were to play an outsize role in the Industrial Revolution and subsequent English history…A feeling that there was too much immigration from southern and Eastern Europe that dated back to the 1880s led finally to the immigration act of 1924 which set quotas consistent with the current levels of representation within the American population...

…protestations of non-racism, and violent suppression of free speech – dissent from government policies - is baffling to many in the United States but totally consistent with the sentiments in Scandinavia and much of northern Europe.

[Sallis note – and those are the people we are supposed to recruit and have as leaders, right?]

That’s just warmed-over Nordicism injected with HBD pseudoscience - the same as the whole “western individualism” thesis. 

And as regards the hypocrite who wrote that review, see this. You see, those High Trust Nordic Aryan hunter-gatherers are so wonderful and altruistic and all, but Mr. High Trust Inner Hajnal Seibert has to go and live in nasty Outer Hajnal Ukraine married to an Eastern European collectivist Ukrainian woman.  After all, Eastern Europe is merely a flophouse and an incubator for female mates for the High Trusters, right?

Finally, Sallis’ Law of Tropism – that “movement” entities tend to attract writers, commentators, and supporters who fit with the real underlying worldview of that entity – is relevant here. Amren attracts Jews, Asians, and the Whites who love and defend those groups; Counter-Currents attracts the LGBTQ crowd as well as ethnoimperialists who live in other people’s countries; and TOO attracts Nordicists and conspiritards (as well as the obvious category of anti-Semites). None of that is by accident.  Thus, in the comments thread to MacDonald’s reply to me, one of his commentators writes:

The extremities of Eastern & Southern Europe have been thoroughly colonized with members of the pure Black races…

No Nordicism at TOO?

Individualism and Conformity

I portray Scandinavians as highly individualistic but also as highly conformist—what I regard as a paradox in need of explanation, but Sallis regards their conformity as a fatal flaw in my argument. I regard this paradox as a fundamental problem for any analysis and certainly not solved by Sallis’s theory that individualism resulted from geographical distance from racially dissimilar others (see below). 

No, No, NO.  That is NOT my theory. See more discussion of my theory below (with link).  I note here that my theory is described as:

I suggest a new theoretical paradigm for intra-European differences in ethnocentrism – Racial Proximity Theory.

Consistent with my Occam’s Razor ideal that one should not over-complexity theories, and should instead aim for the most direct and simple ideas that have sufficient explanatory power (*), Racial Proximity Theory is indeed more simple than its competitors.

Thus, I suggest that European groups whose ethnogenesis took place farther away from non-Whites, i.e., a greater geographic distance from Afro-Asia, would tend to exhibit relatively less inter-racial hostility but relatively greater intra-racial hostility; in contrast, European groups whose ethnogenesis took place closer to, or at, the periphery of Europe, geographically close to Afro-Asia, would tend to exhibit greater inter-racial hostility than intra-racial hostility… Thus, Racial Proximity Theory is associated with the relative amount of ethnocentric hostility toward racial (and sub-racial and ethnic) outgroups in nearest geographic and historical proximity.

I am talking about ethnocentrism, not individualism (which is mostly a separate, but related, issue). MacDonald is TOTALLY MISREPRESENTING my views.  He is debating a straw man. This is not good. Back to MacDonald:

There is no question that Scandinavians are conformists.

Thank you.  Here we get to the core of the matter.  To me, and to standard definitions of individualism that everyone except for MacDonald and his supporters accept, conformity is inimical to individualism and vice versa.  If a society is all about strictly conforming to group norms, then how is that “the most individualistic society on Earth?" It seems definitions of individualism are key to this debate.

My solution was thus to emphasize the point that extended kinship is less important as a social glue among Nordics (and to a lesser extent, among the Indo-Europeans compared to southern Europeans). All cultures require mechanisms of social cohesion, but rather than relying on kinship distance, as in the rest of the world, social cohesion is maintained mainly by reputation in the community: Can you be trusted? Do you uphold the moral values of the community? Are you a courageous, competent warrior? 

Note the implicit suggestion that Southern Europeans do not care about reputation, moral values, courage, or competence.  Just like Middle Easterners, all they care about is “kinship.”  

And this is all beside the point.  Why Scandinavians are collectivist conformists is one matter; the point is that they ARE collectivist conformists.

Although all Western European-derived societies are undergoing replacement-level, non-White migration, there can be little doubt that Scandinavia and especially Sweden, are extreme in welcoming replacement of their peoples and cultures. 

Yes, as long as the replacement is composed of Afro-Asiatics; see Racial Proximity Theory.  When the replacement is, say, Germans, well, see the Norway case discussed below.

As elsewhere in the West, a major role in these transformations has been played by Jewish activists and Jewish media ownership,[1] but Scandinavians seem particularly favorable to these transformations. 

For reasons I discussed.

Indeed, Noah Carl, analyzing 2015 survey data from the European Union, found that Swedes were the least ethnocentric group as measured by items such as approval of children having a love relationship with various ethnic groups, sexual minorities, and disabled people.[2] 

But if the children are half-German, they are persecuted and put into mental institutions.  

Respondents from the U.K. and the Netherlands were also highly tolerant, with Eastern European countries on the low end…

Including nations with lots of hunter-gatherer ancestry.  FAIL.

The reputation-based moral communities of Scandinavia have been strongly egalitarian. The “Jante Laws” of Scandinavia are paradigmatic: 1. Don’t think you are anything; 2. Don’t think you are as good as us. 3. Don’t think you are smarter than us. 4. Don’t fancy yourself better than us. 5. Don’t think you know more than us. 6. Don’t think you are greater than us. 7. Don’t think you are good for anything. 8. Don’t laugh at us. 9. Don’t think that anyone cares about you. 10. Don’t think you can teach us anything.[3] In short, no one must rise above the rest. Such egalitarianism is typical of hunter-gatherer groups around the world[4] and is antithetical to the aristocratic ideal of the Indo-Europeans.

Again – the important thing is that it is conformist collectivist behavior.

Extreme egalitarianism results in high levels of conformism and social anxiety. 

Throughout history, egalitarianism has been inimical to individualism and vice versa, which is why extreme egalitarianism has been linked to the authoritarian and totalitarian Left – to collectivist ideologies.

So my view is that Scandinavians are conformists in a social setting where reputation is paramount because of their evolutionary background as hunter-gatherers living in socially enforced, highly egalitarian moral communities where extended kinship relationships were relatively less important. In interacting with another person, the important issues are whether another person is trustworthy and whether one can benefit from the relationship, not how closely related the person is...

Collectivism. All else is not really relevant to my argument.

The radical individualism of Sweden is illustrated in the following, from Chapter 4:

Nordic societies also cluster at the top of social trust, despite also being high on secular/rational values and despite trust typically being associated with religiosity. [9] Finally, the high standing on “generalized trust” provides economic advantages because it lowers “transaction costs”—less need for written contracts and legal protections, fewer lawsuits, etc.[10]

All of which can be explained by collectivist conformity.

The concept of moral communities as the social glue of Western societies is recurrent throughout Individualism, particularly in Chapter 7 on the movement to abolish slavery. It is not cherry-picking but backed up with numerous examples and is strongly rooted in theory. Sallis writes, “unfortunately, MacDonald started to extend that idea into bizarre HBD-Nordicism, and stretching facts to fit into some overarching theory of heritable group differences to explain even relatively shallow differences in national behavior.” I need specific examples of how I have stretched facts in order to reply. 

Your entire work, for godssakes!  Thus: Saying that extreme conformists are individualists, that amoral familists who are stereotyped as being undisciplined to organize collective social goods are collectivists, ignoring contrary data points (e.g., Norwegian hyper-ethnocentrism against other Europeans; Southern European acceptance of immigration, etc.).

And I should add that one thing that stands out from my reading is how persistent family structures are…

I have written about family structures above. That is not really relevant at all to my critique, which makes me wonder if that is the real reason MacDonald keeps on harping on about it.

Sallis:

For example, the HBD Nordicists claim as part of their theory, their hypothesis, the importance of intra-European differences in individualism vs. collectivism, with groups descended from (altruistic) northern hunter-gatherers, exemplified by Scandinavians, being extremely individualistic, particularly compared to those selfish collectivist swarthoids and other non-Nordic groups.

This is falsified by data such as this. See the Y axis, which describes group individualism vs. collectivism. On the one hand, Sweden and Denmark are more individualistic than, say, Spain, Russia, or Poland (but Russians and Poles have a lot of “northern hunter gatherer” ancestry, so their collectivism is itself a partial refutation of HBD Nordicism).

I never claim that any group of Western Europeans is altruistic simpliciter apart…

The last part could have been worded better.

Such willingness to punish others at cost to self for violations of the standards of a moral community is important for understanding the behavior of individualists—apparent now in the willingness of many Whites to punish defectors from racial egalitarianism (although at this point, such punishment can easily be in one’s self-interest because of the reward structure that goes along with contemporary racial orthodoxy).

One can redefine individualism any way they wish but it doesn’t convince me.

….Henrich explains relative lack of individualism in southern Italy…

Amoral familism is not collectivism; I have argued on my blog it is a form of individualism; I need not repeat all of that here.

Regarding Sallis’s link to the paper on individualism-collectivism, it goes to a chart from an unidentified study linking variation in a single gene, the 5-HTTLPR gene, with individualism-collectivism. Unless one believes that individualism-collectivism is influenced genetically by only one locus, this is hardly conclusive and ignores all the data on geographical variation in family structure.

Absolutely ludicrous. I was not commenting on the X axis – the allele frequency – but instead only on the Y axis, which was a measure of national individualism-collectivism. I NEVER said, or even implied, that “individualism-collectivism is influenced genetically by only one locus” so I think MacDonald needs to actually reread what I wrote.

Regarding the point that Russians and Poles “have a lot of northern hunter-gatherer ancestry,” the review of population genetic evidence from Chapter 1 does not support a general northern hunter-gatherer profile….

Instead of citing your own book, look at Belarusians and Ukrainians as reasonable stand-ins for Russians and Poles. Northern and Eastern Slavs have approximately as much WHG ancestry as do Northwest Europeans - but the Slavs rank high on collectivism.

Let us consider a definition of individualism that is consistent with most people’s understanding of the term.

Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reliance and advocate that interests of the individual should achieve precedence over the state or a social group while opposing external interference upon one's own interests by society or institutions such as the government.

Do we agree then that a society that stresses a hyper-conformist adherence to strict social norms is not individualist by that definition?  How can one reasonably argue otherwise?

A problem is that MacDonald invents his own definitions of individualism, contrasting his conceptions of “aristocratic” vs. “egalitarian” individualism without understanding the practical reality that his fanboys throughout the “movement” simply conflate all of that to the standard definition of individualism and make blanket statements about how Northwest Europeans, particularly Scandinavians, are “the most individualist peoples and societies on Earth” – which is not true based on the standard definition that everyone except MacDonald uses. Laughably, MacDonald believes the following is consistent with extreme individualism:

In such societies people are closely scrutinized to note deviations from social norms; violators are shunned, ridiculed, and ostracized.

Err, no, sorry. That is not individualism. You cannot redefine individualism by conflating it with egalitarianism and ending up with an individualism that is rigidly conformist and enforced with collectivist group-think. If MacDonald is going to argue that Scandinavians are “individualistic” based on his own invented definitions of individualism, then his definitions are worthless and have no practical informational value. It is intellectual masturbation at best and destructive gaslighting at worst. If MacDonald wants to define individualism in a manner so as to be indistinguishable from collectivist Law of Jante conformity, then I suppose he can truthfully label Scandinavians as “extremely individualistic.” However, that is a definition that has no explanatory power and that is not going to be well received by informed individuals. The idea that (Scandinavian) collectivism is individualism is an Orwellian formulation.

And of course these problems opens up the work to misuse by those who use it to promote views about “individualism” not strictly consistent with MacDonald’s definitions. Is he responsible for the misuse of his work?  Yes, because the misuse is obvious and ubiquitous, and how can he be so oblivious that he is unaware of it?  Just read the comments sections of TOO posts. If he would put a fraction of the energy he expends on defenses of his thesis (instead of a scientifically sounder attempt at falsification) to combating misuse of his ideas, then at least he would have some moral high ground to stand on.  

And my argument is really not so much with the basic thesis of the work (although I have reservations about that as well) but with the irrational and unscientific manner in which it is presented, the factually incorrect statements about population genetics and about the behavior of non-Nordic Europeans, and, as alluded to above, the acceptance of the use of the work in ways that are damaging to White solidarity – ways that both misuse the underlying thesis AND leverage the factually incorrect statements and inferences.

I want to make clear – in general I do NOT believe that scientists and other academics should be responsible for how others may misuse their work (e.g., discover a new form of energy and have it used as a weapon, etc.) IF the work was done in good faith, in an objective, scientific manner. But if one’s work is a pseudoscientific polemic with obvious political implications, then the misuse problem becomes relevant and very salient.

Let’s consider this example of Occam’s Butterknife:

And the chapter on Puritanism shows that essentially it started out as what one might call a group of individualists (because of their evolutionary background as northern Europeans). This concatenation of individuals formed a cohesive group via powerful social controls embedded in Calvinism. In America, the Puritans originated with the intention of keeping non-Puritans out of Massachusetts (building “the proverbial city on a hill”), but this gradually gave way, mainly because of the colonial policies of the British government preventing the colony from restricting immigration and settlement. During the nineteenth century, several intellectual offshoots of Puritanism, having escaped the powerful social controls of Calvinism, revealed themselves to be radical individualists (e.g., the libertarian anarchists).

So, the Puritans were individualist Northern Europeans who acted in a collectivist, conformist manner because of “Calvinism” (itself a Northcentral European theology), including the ethnocentric exclusiveness of trying to exclude non-Puritans. So, the ultra-collectivist and ultra-conformist Puritans were really, really, really, Nordic individualists who were somehow controlled by (Nordic) Calvinism.  Then, freed from Calvinism, they “revealed themselves to be radical individualists” presumably because some people of Puritan background were “libertarian anarchists.”  Of course, one can find “libertarian anarchists” of all different ethnic origins (e.g., Rothbard in an economic sense), so this says nothing specific about evolved individualism in Puritans.

MacDonald:

Ideologies are cultural creations enabled by human general intelligence and language; they are not a deterministic outcome of evolved psychological mechanisms. In Chapter 8 I discuss the ability of ideologies such as racial egalitarianism created by elites throughout the West that dominate the media and academia to control evolved tendencies toward ethnocentrism—a major problem for White people now. Hence, I absolutely reject biological reductionionism.

Yes, but remember:

Puritanism shows that essentially it started out as what one might call a group of individualists (because of their evolutionary background as northern Europeans).

And this:

However, a purely cultural shift would have to entail strong social controls to prevent evolved predilections for kinship ties from dominating. Seems difficult and there is no evidence for it.

Inconsistency abounds, and is troubling.

Essentially, he will, at one time, write about “primordial” genetic evolved behaviors and then, later, denounce “biological reductionism.” Is this because he really believes in strictly biological explanations but is trying to evade accusations of “genetic determinism?”

Getting back to Puritans, the Amazon review that MacDonald endorses states:

…the even more individualistic and altruistic Puritan ethos. The Puritans had Scandinavian roots, from the Jute resettlement from Denmark into East Anglia.

But the Puritans were not individualistic, far from it, and their “altruism” was in-group only. Thus, they were ethnocentric collectivists, which actually makes sense since the “…Puritans had Scandinavian roots, from the Jute resettlement from Denmark into East Anglia.”  If we agree with Sallis that Scandinavians are collectivists who are ethnocentric against other Europeans, then the Puritan behavior – that differed from the true individualism generally observed in the Anglosphere – makes sense. The behavior does not make sense from MacDonald’s perspective, unless one invokes ad hoc Occam’s Butterknife “explanations.”

See this.

The Puritans felt that conformity was essential to keeping the community together. The leaders not only demanded conformity and enforced it, but dissention and divisiveness were silenced. The community could not thrive if too many independent thinkers attempted to change the power structure of the community. Individual beliefs and liberties would have to be sacrificed in order to promote a strongly linked community. Individual beliefs and liberties would have to be sacrificed in order to promote a strongly linked community, according to the Puritans.

Is that individualism?  No.

Back to MacDonald:

Culture and Evolution

My work has always featured a strong role for culture…

See all that I have written above about how MacDonald lurches from explaining everything in terms of “primordial” genetic evolution to then denying he engages in biological reductionism.  

Individualists can be molded into cohesive groups—think of a Western military unity with a strong ideology of patriotism (even of the civic nationalist variety), courage in the face of lethal danger, and the importance of following orders, but combined with severe penalties for desertion or treason. In Individualism I discuss group cohesion among the early Puritans as enabled by the powerful social controls and ideology of Calvinism, but with the disappearance of these controls there were movements of Puritan-descended intellectuals promoting radical libertarianism.

As have Jews.  So what?

Moreover, my claim that Western Europeans tend to be individualists does not imply that there is no shred of ethnocentrism or racial ingroup-outgroup feeling among them. We are naturally drawn to people who are like us (e.g., Rushton’s Genetic Similarity Theory, reviewed in Chapter 8). As reviewed in Chapter 6, in the nineteenth century it was common to take pride in America’s Anglo-Saxon heritage (often combined with the view that other groups could and would become “just like us” after immigrating so that America would retain its Anglo-Saxon character forever—a view that soured toward the end of the nineteenth century). 

First, I never denied that Anglo-Saxons are individualists – Scandinavians and Germans not so much.  And this idea that people’s relative ethnocentrism can be turned around can cut both ways – what about Southern Europe being flooded with migrants and being demographically transformed like other parts of Europe? And then you have Salvini prosecuted for attempting to stop illegal immigration into Italy – Italy sounds fairly Universalist to me.

By the way, the “souring” MacDonald refers to coincides with Southern and Eastern European immigration to the USA, doesn’t it?

But whereas ethnocentric tendencies are difficult to inhibit among people with strong genetic tendencies toward ethnocentrism (e.g., the Jews), they are much easier to overcome among relative individualists. 

Like in Southern Europe today?

Racial Proximity Theory

There are alternative theories to explain intra-European differences in behavior, such as mine that Northwest Europeans underwent ethnogenesis in an environment in which their enemies, those they engaged in conflict with, were other Europeans (given the greater geographic distance of Northwest Europe from Africa-Asia), while in Southern and Eastern Europe, conflict with Afro-Asiatic non-Europeans was an important part of ethnogenesis.

At times, Sallis appears to deny that Nordics are highly individualist, while here he is proposing to explain the high levels of individualism among some Europeans (presumably including Nordics) as the result of geographical distance from racially distinct others. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong.  I’m looking at the TOTALITY of the Universalist vs. Ethnocentric axis (that a contain undertones of individualism vs. collectivism, but is not equivalent to it) and am trying to explain why Nordics act as Universalists toward non-Whites but are Ethnocentric vs. other Europeans (for Norwegians even against Germans!).  I believe that Anglo-Saxons can reasonably be seen as individualistic, and the Anglosphere in general ranks high in individualism. But I see Scandinavia as being collectivist. However, in both cases, the ethnocentrism seems more focused on other Europeans than on non-Europeans, so this “dislike those closest to you and love the aliens” mentality seems independent of the individualism-collectivism spectrum. Or, perhaps this “inside-out” ethnocentrism is the only thing the WASPs are really collectivist about.

For example, he seems to deny that Nordics are particularly individualist when he complains about my statement that “Scandinavian [societies] are the most individualist cultures on Earth…” (Sallis’s emphasis): “That MacDonald continues to assert that lie, refuted at my blog, and then cites himself as evidence (!!!), really trashes his reputation as an objective scholar.” I think I have made clear here why I think Scandinavian cultures are the most individualist cultures, and a more elaborate version is in Individualism. And it’s based on much more than citing myself. And calling it a “lie” is outrageous—at most it’s a garden variety scholarly mistake.

Outrageous to dismiss the evidence that Scandinavians are collectivist conformists.

In any case, I find Sallis’s theory of European individualism unpersuasive for a number of reasons. For example, eastern Europe in general is more collectivist in terms of family structure than western Europe despite living among racially and ethnically similar peoples for the vast majority of their history.

Absolutely ludicrous. The Mongol Yoke? The Turkish occupation of the Balkans for centuries?  Der Movement’s constant refrain that Eastern Europeans are admixed for these reasons?  The low level of Asian/Siberian genetic admixture in Northeast Europe (e.g., Russia)?  This is basic history – History 101.

When called out on that, he answers weakly thus:

Happy bugsays:

July 26, 2022 at 10:16 am

‘For example, eastern Europe in general (e.g., Poland) is more collectivist in terms of family structure than western Europe despite living among racially and ethnically similar peoples and not prone to being invaded by racially dissimilar others’

Turks? Mongols etc?

Reply

Kevin MacDonald

Kevin MacDonaldsays:

July 26, 2022 at 10:32 am

OK, but I doubt that invasions in the 13th and 17th centuries would have changed family structure, & didn’t make the Austrians more collectivist.

First – STOP FOCUSING ON FAMILY STRUCTURE WHEN I’M TALKING ABOUT ETHNOCENTRISM. As regards Austrians, first, my theory is not necessarily about individualism vs. collectivism, and, second, Austria was not occupied (long term) by the Turks as was the Balkans. When I’m talking about long-term evolutionary pressures I’m not talking about the Siege of Vienna for godssakes.  Sometimes, I cannot believe what I’m reading here.

Most Western groups lived with Jews as a very distinct alien, often hated outgroup for centuries without effects on family structure or obliterating individualism. 

True, and this is one weakness in my thesis, although Jews are genetically much closer to Europeans than are full-blooded Afro-Asiatics.

How does the theory explain the uniqueness of Western individualism cross-culturally—were Western European peoples the only people in the world with no experience confronting racially dissimilar others? How does the theory explain the relatively collectivist family structure of traditional Ireland compared to Germanic family structure (reviewed in Chapter 4)? 

He keeps on yapping about “family structure” but I’m talking about ethnocentrism.  The Irish are very anti-English.  If only they are as intolerant to Afro-Asiatic migrants, eh?

In Individualism I make a major point about the contrast in family structure within France between northeastern France and France south of the Loire. I rather doubt that the latter area was threatened by more racially dissimilar others—the only invasion from the south that I am aware of were the Muslims defeated in 732 by Charles Martel of the Germanic Franks who are more individualist in terms of family structure than France south of the Loire; the Huns came from the east, but their invasion was short-lived and would have affected Germanic groups at least as much. Indeed, how would it explain Murray’s map of human accomplishment in general? Moreover, it is at best an incomplete theory because it does not provide a mechanism for understanding the paradox of individualism mentioned above: If, say, Swedes are so individualist because they evolved at a greater distance from racially dissimilar others, why are they also the most conformist?

First, the French data would put my theory in question IF I was talking about family structure, which I am NOT, instead of relative ethnocentrism, which I AM.  Second, why stop at the eighth century AD?  Southern France has a history more ”Latin-Mediterranean” while Northern France is more “Germanic-Nordic.” How about the histories of those groups going back thousands of years? Third, why the hell is he talking about “Murray’s map of human accomplishment” when I’m talking about ingroup/outgroup ethnocentrism? And, again, I’m NOT talking about “individualism” in isolation, but in conjunction with ethnocentrism. By the way, thanks for admitting Swedes are conformist.

I want to talk more about my Racial Proximity Theory. Let’s consider Norway first; the Scandinavian Norwegians being the kind of northern population that MacDonald considers the archetype of high trust, low-ethnocentric, altruistic and welcoming individualistic populations.

See this.

How is that in any way consistent with “individualistic high trust” behavior?  Mental institutions? Really? In reality, that is reflective of EXTREME collectivist and ethnocentric behavior, something you might expect from Hasidic Jews in some Polish ghetto, but not from the wonderfully hyper-individualistic WHG-Steppe Herrenvolk. The deportation that took place - that I can understand (but it is certainly not reflective of "individualist" behavior). They - in a collectivist fashion - wanted to safeguard their genepool (but how much damage could some half-German children really do to Norway?). But - "abused, attacked and confined to mental institutions because of their parentage?" I cannot even envision the most extreme Hasid putting children into mental institutions (!) based on their parentage. That's a level of sadistic maliciousness beyond the pale of normal human decency.  "Inner Hajnal," I suppose.

In contrast to HBD fantasies, my Racial Proximity Theory explains this behavior. Thus, the ethnocentrism of the northern-isolated-evolved Norwegians is primarily aimed against neighboring, closely-related, European groups like Germans. More distant, racially alien groups, not the targets of evolved negative reactions, would be viewed more benignly.  Thus, German-Norwegian hybrid children are viciously persecuted in a shocking manner, while, say, Nigerian-Norwegian hybrid children would be worshipped and met with warm smiles and tears of unbridled joy.

That Norwegian behavior is not only collectivist ethnocentrism but radical extreme collectivist ethnocentrism that seems to have a “purity of blood” component – the half-German children were “impure” and were subjected to vicious persecution.  That’s completely inconsistent with MacDonald’s thesis – a very good falsification. Oh, you may say, but the Germans were invaders.  Aren’t alien immigrants invaders as well, particularly illegals and “asylum seekers?”  And who abused/abuse natives more – disciplined German soldiers or criminally inclined Afro-Asiatics? No, WWII is no excuse for the vicious behavior to half-German children contrasted to “hugs and kisses” for Colored invaders. That is wholly consistent with Racial Proximity Theory. How is any of that absolutely inhuman and crazed Norwegian behavior in any way altruistic?  

We can consider Brexit, where Eastern European immigration to the UK was happily replaced with more Afro-Asiatic “commonwealth” immigrants, as well as Germany, which seethes with hatred toward the Southern European “PIGS” countries (with subtle racial undertones), while enthusiastically welcoming the Afro-Asiatic migrant invasion. We can consider John Lindsay, who was the living embodiment of Racial Proximity Theory. Lindsay combined lickspittle groveling to Blacks and Hispanics – including radical Black nationalists – with contemptuous disdain for New York City’s White ethnics.  If Lindsay was merely an altruistic Universalist, why did he reject White ethnics?  If we ascribe his behavior in that regard to “altruistic punishment of Whites” then why didn’t he apply the same attitude to his fellow Anglo-Dutch New York founding stock elites? There seems to be a damning consistency here. All that is more consistent with my thesis than MacDonald’s.

Ironically enough, we can also consider Der Movement here, where the likes of Jorjani, Kumar, and Lipton Matthews are welcomed with open arms (as is Derbyshire’s inter-racial marriage) but Ted Sallis is “blacklisted” and called an ”insane paranoid piece of crap.” Old Stock American Jared Taylor runs American Renaissance, where Italians, Hungarians, and Romanians are attacked, but Jews are (notoriously) defended and one hears talk about the superiority of East Asians every five minutes or so. A comment left at Counter-Currents summarizes how Racial Proximity Theory works in Der Movement:

NikandrosNovember 26, 2021 at 8:33 am White nationalists are now more welcoming of Asians, Jews, Jamaicans, and mutts into the movement than they are of Southern and Eastern Europeans. Where did it all go so wrong?

Indeed. Well, it went “so wrong” because the Northwest Europeans who dominate Der Movement have their collectivist ethnocentrism triggered by Southern and Eastern Europeans and not by “Asians, Jews, Jamaicans, and mutts.”  Just look at actual behavior, not HBD Nordicist theory. Go back to the Norway case. It all fits.

MacDonald tried to explain why the Northwest Europeans of America went from social Darwinism and the racialist-oriented Reed Johnson act of 1924 (that by the way restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe but not from the Colored Western Hemisphere…hmmm, sound familiar) to the racial surrender of today:

These ideologies fell on particularly fertile soil because they dovetailed with Western European tendencies toward individualism. And whereas individualism has been the key characteristic of Western peoples in their rise to world dominance, these ideologies and their internalization by so many Europeans now play a major role in facilitating Western dispossession.

All the fault of the Jews!  Or maybe the earlier attitudes were hostility to White ethnics and the later liberal attitudes were “civil rights” for beloved Negro pets and open borders for non-Whites?  The response to me would be: What about Black slavery and Jim Crow?  Yes, but wasn’t that counter-balanced by radical abolitionism?  John Brown wasn’t alone. There were plenty of nice High Truster Whites who not only wanted full equality for the races but also promoted miscegenation.  Do you blame “the Jews” for that too?  So, I’m not sure if slavery and Jim Crow falsify my hypothesis. Even if so, MacDonald’s hypothesis is even more falsified.

Conclusion

It’s always difficult and a bit distasteful to have to respond to someone who is basically in agreement on many issues, and someone who has posted on TOO. But it has to be done, and frankly I thought the tone of many of Sallis’s comments was non-collegial to say the least. 

The Nordicist cries out in pain as he strikes you.  I consider the promotion of Nordicism, and the HBD reinvigoration of Nordicist doctrine, to be “non-collegial to say the least” and, further, the vicious comments at TOO over the years that this work attracts supports my view in that regard. Like I said, re: the Counter-Currents Eloi-Morlocks incident – these types believe their own propaganda, and therefore they do not see the problem with it.  Of course, Southern and Eastern Europeans are alien, collectivist freaks with bizarre family structures who are unconcerned with honor, courage, competence, and reputation. So what are those runty chicken Morlocks getting all worked up about, anyway?

I hope this can clarify some of these issues and move the ball forward a bit.

What about my comment:

These people never seem to consider the consequences of the hypothesis, even if it was true.  If they really believed in such marked intra-European differences in individualism vs. collectivism, universalism vs. ethnocentrism, etc. then you’d think that they would promote recruitment for pro-White activism among the more collectivist, ethnocentric European-derived groups, and focus on having such people in leadership positions, instead of actively attacking, rejecting, and alienating such groups while focusing on having a “movement” – top to bottom – consisting of those Europeans they consider the most individualist, universalist, altruistic, high-trusting, etc.  

“Move the ball forward a bit” on acting on the practical consequences of the theory you say you believe.  Thus, Southern and Eastern Europeans are better suited as pro-White activists and leaders than are Northwest Europeans, if everything you aver is true.

Further, perhaps MacDonald would be kind enough to tell us all what he would consider a reasonable falsifying test of his hypothesis, a test the results of which he would accept without proceeding to engage in ad hoc Occam’s Butterknife hand waving spin to salvage the hypothesis.

Ultimately, I see the problem with MacDonald’s “western individualism” hypothesis as being the same as with all HBD pseudoscience – it starts out with the desired conclusion and then works backwards to cherry pick data, invent definitions, and explain away aberrant data so as to confirm that conclusion. In this case, the desired conclusion is that Northwest Europeans have evolved to be high trust, altruistic, productive, nuclear family-oriented, individualists and Scandinavians are the extreme archetype of this genetically inherited (denying “biological reductionism" is dishonest here) phenotype. Other Europeans are genetically evolved ethnocentric dishonorable non-productive non-altruistic unpleasant collectivists.  And then we all work backwards to make sure all of the data points, explanations, and definitions fit. Whatever that is, it is not rational science.

What I see happening is that a moribund Nordicism has been reinvigorated by being infused with HBD pseudoscience. So instead of focusing on physical aesthetics and “spiritual” qualities, we instead observe an emphasis on individualism, IQ (“estimated” not actual) and “educational attainment,” Hajnal lines, fabrications and misinterpretations of population genetics (carefully ignoring contradictory data, especially archaeogenetics), family structure, GDP, etc. It’s the same old tired nonsense repackaged for the 21st century.  Occasionally, the original formulation percolates through, as in the Counter-Currents, Eloi vs. Morlocks (Nords vs. Meds) distinction.  But all of this fools no one with any sense and knowledge of actual data and the capacity for logic.  This whole “western individualism” work is essentially Ostara with a superficial veneer of “science.”

Addendum

From this, a particularly stupid TOO commentator (more succinctly, a TOO commentator) scribbles:

In other words, Ted Sallis says that the peoples of northwestern Europe—presumably including Scandinavians and Balts—learned effectively nothing that was usefully adaptive about the nature of the rest of the world and of the widely differing characteristics of the various peoples inhabitig [sic] that world after the period when their languages consisted of a thousand words and various grunts.

First of all, the EXACT same "criticism" can be made of MacDonald's theories of "western individualism" that this comically self-unware retardate is attempting to defend.

Second, it is factually incorrect. Ethnogenesis obviously continued into historic times, when, presumably, the language of the superior Nords was more than "a thousand words and various grunts."

Third, during this entire period, these Northern peoples were primarily in conflict with other Europeans, while Southern Europeans were not only in conflict with other Europeans but also Afro-Asiatics - which is my entire point.

Later in his screed, this moron mentions "the Vikings" and their travels –

…not to mention travel, something the northern peoples, the Vikings notably, are famous for?...

Which essentially supports my contentions, for apart from possible interactions with Amerindians in Western Hemisphere landings and whatever NECs were encountered in Byzantium, the Vikings had 99.9% of their conflicts and interactions with other Europeans.

The problem with Nordicists, past and present, is that they have a caricature-like "understanding" of European diversity. Thus, they see Northwest Europeans as all looking like Dolph Lundgren, all being high IQ, altruistic, trusting, disinterested, ethical, rugged individualists. Southern Europeans are dark-complexioned, akin to Bengalis, marrying (at age 10) their cousins, with extended kinship ties and "compound families." Eastern Europeans, with similar kin/family ties, are brutal, perpetually drunk semi-mongoloids. The latter two groups are, of course, low IQ, unethical, and completely corrupt. All of the fancy new HBD theories essentially boil down to all of that.

The comments thread for the TOO post linked directly above (the one about Zman) is disturbing. The TOO crowd likes to critique “Jewish gurus at the head of dogmatic cult-like intellectual movements filled with slavish adherents,” yet the situation there is exactly the same, with McDonald as a guru of a rightist intellectual movement and a host of slavish cultish adherents who treat any critique of their guru’s theories as if it was some sort of blasphemy or moral failing.  

My major problem with the “western individualism” thesis isn’t even whether it is right or wrong; it goes much deeper than that.  The whole milieu around the thesis is unhealthy and irrational. The thesis is polemic advocacy, not science, and it is practically non-falsifiable since the guru and the adherents (some of whom believe that any hypothesis correct more than half the time is therefore “proven!”) will never accept any possible falsification and will always come up with new ad hoc defenses (Kuhnian approach rather than Popperian).  There is no critical thinking, just blind religious dogma. And it is hypocritical, because if they really believed it, then why do they promote an activist approach that rejects allegedly more collectivist and ethnocentric Whites and instead puts all its energies into recruiting Universalist individualists?  Why is their “movement” exclusively led by people derived from what they believe to be the least ethnocentric White ethnies?

Lest anyone claim that I behave the same, re: Salter’s work; that is untrue. I will critique Salter when warranted and I engage in cult-like guru worship to no one.  However, denying the existence of EGI is as absurd as denying the existence of a continuum of individualism vs. collectivism. I do not deny the existence of such a continuum nor do I deny individual and group differences along this continuum. I do not deny objective reality (as do the EGI deniers).  What I do is to critique descriptive and prescriptive interpretations of that objective reality, I critique specific memes and paradigms related to it, and most of all I critique the irrational and unscientific cultism surrounding it (just like I critique idiots who invoke “EGI” to explain everything from bad weather to the price of milk).

See this for an explanation of how small differences in population cognitive traits can result in large changes in societal outcomes.