*witty remark about anti-semitic Germans and beer halls*
It is fashionable on the Right to bemoan the collectivising aspects of socialism, to snigger at those who aren’t aware of the calculation problem, and to proselytize on the mistakes of our leaders to no end. Ideologically these complaints may be valid but functionally they have completely missed the woods for the trees. Each of these complaints is underwritten with the assumption that via some other form of organisational structure, society would be fixed or at the very least “more efficient”. This is all very well and good, but what is society? Is it global, is it national, is it regional?
It is ultimately none of these things. Society to each and every one of us, is at best summarised as community. A social setting within which interpersonal relationships reign supreme; the household, your street, local businesses, your place of work and local leaders should be the cornerstones of your society. Instead we must make do with national government, multinational corporations, supranational governance, global projects and initiatives — and most insidious of all mass universalised culture.
Why must we be laden with these structures that usurp so much of what makes us, us. We are soon approaching a state of affairs within which the average person will need no ties to any semblance of community; global food production, national security, public health and social media, all provide the basic needs of the modern mass man. Community no longer resembles that which is around you, it is replaced instead with homogeneity across identitarian lines that breaches the boundaries of towns, cities and nations.
No quandary need be solved by knowing someone and their craft, one need only a phone and an internet connection. If problems arise that cannot be solved by these means you might soon find these things are no longer “problems” at all.
Why must this be?
The answer I'm afraid is not ideology, party loyalty or pure evil, however that may help to explain in part. It is instead a necessity demanded by the attempt to centrally control a “society” as large as the ones — and soon to be the one — that exist today. Both us and our leaders are riding the tail end of the wave created by the revolution of mass and scale, 10’s of thousands of years of human organisation almost entirely replaced in the matter of a century or so. Ideology, religion, values and community i.e. the standards by which society has been organised at all levels prior to the modern era, have been pushed to the wayside as the levels of organisation in society are flattened and absorbed. Those who sit atop this organisational structure must first consider the current scale of the society they wish to rule over, before any attempts to act in kind with some moral code can be made. So much of the rhetoric we absorb, the actions we partake in and the rules we live under are merely petty rationalisations of the necessary measures demanded by the scale of our society. Almost no one involved in this process is consciously aware of its existence; they are instead fooled into believing that they are benefitting an ever expanding mankind towards ever more abstract, distant and ultimately detaching milestones.
Detachment is the ultimate goal of mass society, and it’s most effective tool towards this is politics. When one can no longer rely on those in their immediate vicinity for food, shelter, health and meaning, one must look elsewhere. As cities swelled and agriculture waned towards the end of the 19th century an opportunity arose, one which was snapped up by that tiny minority that we often refer to as the managerialists. They began by subverting bourgeois ideologies to their own ends and reshaping a once privately dependent populace to a publicly dependent populace. This phenomena is best identified by Samuel T Francis:
“The reformulation of classical liberalism to justify social and economic action by the state and the popularisation of socialism, feminism, and other radical ideologies were part of the intellectual adjustment of the bourgeois order to the revolution of mass and scale; labour unions and radical political movements contributed to the wilful expansion of the state in the late 19th century as well as to the development of new political institutions to contain and discipline the mass population.”
Through this process leaders can begin to centralise control within society, each new state provision simultaneously attacks community leaders whilst stripping the community itself of independent options not wrapped up in the state’s supposed amorality. The irony of course is that each and every state measure argued for and eventually implemented, is described as a liberating force, yet each new measure brings the state into a more totalising and uncompromising form.
The direct attacks upon and the eventual sacrificing of local power centres in the name of national centralisation has been a phenomenon for as long as political struggles have existed; the King attacks the Church as he sees it’s strict moral codes as hindering his ability to rule, the Parliament attacks the King as his last vestiges of divine right to rule — has them playing second fiddle, special interest groups lobby parliament towards their goals or Prime Ministers create legislative bodies to circumvent the parliamentary process. Each and every time these evidently self-interested goals are strived for it is always framed as being towards the greater good, even out right lying in some cases to avoid addressing moral conflicts. The King knows faith better than the clergy and he can make you, his loyal subject, all the more holy if only you dispense with your local church. Of course this is a complete fabrication.
The truth of the matter is that the Church of England was never designed to make man more “holy” ; it instead brought him under the cultural influence of the King and his selected clergy, whilst subsequently removing any moral accountability the Church could have had over the King. The once organic centre point of a local community, placed within a relatively decentralised regional structure, is entirely subverted towards the goals of the centralising power. It’s attendees now packed into a church sanitised of its local flavour within which outsiders must be heretics. Each and every aspect of cultural and economic life must be reduced to a singularity and then replaced by the central power; there can be no secondary institutions left standing in its wake. They must conform so that the masses can grow.
It is primarily this relationship that is to blame for the ever growing cancer that is modern civilization, its hunger is insatiable and no compromise is great enough to see its end. This is more than aptly described by Julius Evola:
“The opposition between modern civilisations and traditional ones may be summarised as follows: modern civilisations devour space, whereas traditional civilisations devoured time.
The former — modern civilisations — are dizzying in their fever for movement and for the conquest of space. This has led to the creation of an endless arsenal of mechanical means to reduce all distances, shorten all intervals, and contract into a sense of ubiquity whatever is scattered across a multitude of places. This is a frenzied need for possession; a dark angst towards all that is detached, isolated, deep or remote; an impulse to expand, circulate, associate with others and find oneself in any which place — anywhere except within oneself. Science and technology, which have been promoted by this irrational existential impulse, in turn strengthen it, nourish it, and exacerbate it: exchanges, forms of communication, ultrasonic speeds, radio and television, standardisation, cosmopolitanism, internationalism, unlimited production, the American spirit, the ‘modern’ spirit.
The net is swiftly being extended, strengthened and perfected. Terrestrial space practically no longer conceals any mysteries. All paths by land, water and aether have been disclosed. The human gaze has probed the remotest heavens, the infinitely great and the infinitely small. One no longer speaks of other lands, but rather of other planets. On our own planet, action is carried everywhere in a flash. A din of a thousand voices that gradually merge into a uniform, monotonous and impersonal rhythm. These are the latest effects of what has been termed Western ‘Faustianism’, which is not unrelated to the myth of revolution in all its various aspects, the technocratic included — all formulated within the framework of a degenerated messianism”
So, what do we do?
We do this, we seek out and group with those who are like minded, we come together to discuss; revere and exalt the virtues of lost ideals. Only through this can we ever hope to carry forth what made civilizations worth constructing in the first place, only through this can we ever hope to normalise a small minority of people into living a life consciously outside of the masses. I’m not asking that any of you go home and pick up a bible, or go to church every Sunday, as much as it might not go amiss. I’m asking that you learn to appreciate the world around you for what it truly is to you, not what you are told to appreciate. Understand how thin the threads that the last vestiges of tradition cling upon, and what we stand to lose if we do not first support these values in ourselves, our homes and our communities. Without this orientation there can be no struggle, as we will lack any true animating spirit, reformism will only see us consume more of the mass man’s deadly elixir, a total and explicit rejection is the only path that shall suffice. Our resistance must take the form of a spiritual conquest for something higher, otherwise there can be no hope for those who wish to break free of their chains.
Referenced works
Sam Francis - Leviathan and Its Enemies
Julius Evola - The Bow and The Club
"The opposition between modern civilisations and traditional ones may be summarised as follows: modern civilisations devour space, whereas traditional civilisations devoured time."
That is a phenomenal insight, incredible to think of the expanse of time (and tribulations) which societies of rich cultural traditions have endured ...where as now at its zenith modern civilization begins to buckle after having asserted itself for perhaps only a single century.. and even then was most of the time leeching off the life blood of Catholic energy.
It will leave nothing enduring for any future generations and only wastes time as it has noting to build
Nice piece. Have you read Nemesis by C A Bond? It talks a lot about the centralising power and the High-Low vs Middle mechanism that you describe.