Post a Comment On: Bruce Charlton's Notions

I've written a lot about nationalism over the past decade, because it seems that far too many people have pinned their hopes on it in the belief that nationalism is a way-out from the incremental suicide of The West... It is not.

Nationalism is far too feeble a motivator in Western societies here and now; it amounts to little more than a lifestyle choice. And indeed nationalism has historically only been a strong motivator very temporarily, and for the first post-religious generation after Christianity was abandoned.

In our modern West, nationalism has two different faces -

1. Secular Nationalists/ Christian Nationalists

2. Nationalist Christians

The distinction is between those for whom nationalism is the bottom line - and who may be also be mainstream atheists, or Christians - or indeed neo-pagans; and those for whom Christianity is the bottom line. (In this respect is does not matter much whether the nationalists are secular, Christian or pagan - because their motivations are not religious; hence their motivations are inevitably feeble.)

In this modern world, all those for whom religion is Not the priority are all in the same category, which is: demotivated and doomed.

And on the other hand, those for whom Christianity is the bottom line, and whose nationalism appears within that context, are qualitatively different. A genuinely religious perspective is (almost always) an absolute requirement for a coherent (hence courageous) life.

Only when a (first) devoutly religious Christian (secondarily) becomes a nationalist, is nationalism given a solid base in motivation hence courage. 

And only such nationalism is Good nationalism. Nationalism that is not rooted in religion is merely a variant of mainstream hedonic materialism - it is just a difference of opinion about which groups should be favoured by The System.

And for a Christian, it is mainstream hedonic materialism that is the primary enemy, the primary evil, the 'Ahrimanic' demonic side of our pervasive spiritual war.

And in that war, those who are primarily-nationalists are on the wrong side; even when they are not quite so bad as the globalist left.


Note added. Secular Nationalists will complain that all the mainstream Christian Churches are corrupted by Leftism (which is true); but they therefore decide not to have anything to do with Christianity. Yet these same people regard all the mainstream Political Parties as corrupted by Leftism (which is true) but in this instance, instead of having nothing to do with politics; they instead decide to expend considerable time, effort, resources in reading and thinking about Nationalism, trying to develop a more-correct political philosophy - and perhaps even working upon a new and less-corrupt Political Party. If someone was really serious about Christianity, he would not regard his relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ to be restricted and determined by the range of possibilities that happen to be offered by his current local churches. A serious Christian would put at least as much effort into developing a true personal faith in the face of (despite) church decline/ corruption/ treachery, as a serious Nationalist puts effort into following blogs, debating issues, reading magazines and texts, attending meetings, canvassing votes and planning direct actions. Our revealed preferences, our actual choices, show our underlying lack of seriousness about religion. For modern Man, the feeblest excuse is sufficient to give up entirely on Christianity. For example, many are eager to find an excuse to eject Christian faith because it constrains their sexual gratification. Instead of becoming a Christian outside any church; such eagerly declare themselves morally disgusted by 'the whole Christian thing', and promiscuously embrace whatever forbidden sexual practices happen to appeal under cover of 'right wing' idealistic nationalism.