Saxons

It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate.

They were not easily moved,
They were icy — willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the Saxon began to hate.

Their voices were even and low.
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show
When the Saxon began to hate.

It was not preached to the crowd.
It was not taught by the state.
No man spoke it aloud
When the Saxon began to hate.

It was not suddenly bred.
It will not swiftly abate.
Through the chilled years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the Saxon began to hate.

-- Rudyard Kipling --

     It would seem at this time that campaigns of condemnation amounting to outright hatred have become “ho hum,” “just one of those things,” and “nothing to write home about.” This is especially the case when the target of such a campaign can be associated with some behavior, attitude, or concept that the public has been exhorted to hate. And there are more such campaigns, whether organized or not, than ever before in American history.

     Remarkable, eh? It calls an old Tom Lehrer song to mind:

     Of course, there are more “behaviors, attitudes, and concepts to hate” being urged upon us today than ever before, too. I’m on the negative end of many of them, so I’m more than merely aware of the vilification being heaped upon them (and me).

     Make no mistake about it: If you hold to certain beliefs, many of which are well supported by evidence, there’s a significant body of people who: 1) hate you for it, and: 2) encourage others to hate you as well. Moreover, their hatred is fundamentally insincere. They don’t hate you out of the true, visceral perception of a profound moral wrong willingly embraced. They “hate” you and exhort others to do so because they hope to get something that way, usually through the political system.

     Welcome to the age of strategic hatred.

---

     John Hinderaker of PowerLine has a few words for us about the fomenting of hatred:

     I don’t think we have said much about Hillary Clinton’s speech in which she denounced Donald Trump as a racist of the “alt-right,” thereby confusing, no doubt, most of her audience. Much could be said about Hillary’s smears–a Republican racist running for president? Not again!–but I want to comment on just one aspect of it: her claim that “the billionaire businessman’s campaign [is] one that will ‘make America hate again.'”

     My question is: where has Hillary been for the last eight years? Has she failed to notice that she was part of an administration that went a long way toward making America hate again? Her boss, Barack Obama, deliberately fomented racial conflict for the purpose of political gain.

     Indeed. Yet Barack Hussein Obama wasn’t the originator of strategic hatred; he saw that it had been used effectively by the Left and by various left-leaning special interests, and adopted it for his own. He put it to use to excite racial hatred – specifically hatred among blacks toward whites – perhaps hoping that it would solidify his grip on power and cow the Republican opposition into acquiescing to his policies.

     But in social systems as in mechanical systems, action will always be met by reaction. The rise of racial animosity among blacks toward whites has evoked an equal but opposite feeling among whites toward blacks. As American whites are six to seven times as numerous as American blacks, this is not a lever that favors black aspirations, regardless of their nature.

     If we look at the illegal-immigration problem through this lens, the same sort of picture appears. Hispanic populations in California and the Southwest have become ever more militant and demanding. The majority of that demographic is in this country illegally. The more aggressively quarrelsome it becomes, the greater the reaction against it among American whites.

     Focus your attention on any identifiable group – feminists, homosexuals, Muslims, Bernie Sanders-style social fascists, or left-liberals generally – and the picture is essentially the same: those that have promoted the hatred of persons outside their group have elicited reactive hatred in equal measure. They should fear the probable consequences. However, most are either too arrogant or too stupid to do so.

---

     We come now to the nascent coalescence of those reactive hatreds: what’s been called the Alt-Right. Theodore “Vox Day” Beale has prepared a sort of bullet-point definition of this agglomeration. After his sixteen individual theses, he says:

     The Alt Right is a Western ideology that believes in science, history, reality, and the right of a genetic nation to exist and govern itself in its own interests.

     I have no doubt that whether or not he believes that summary to be an accurate characterization of the Alt-Right, Beale sincerely wants it to be so. Unfortunately, at this time that’s not the case. Many persons – possibly the majority – who’ve adopted the Alt-Right label are moved by a reactive animosity toward a single group they perceive to have targeted them or their priorities. Mind you, those folks might be absolutely correct about having been so targeted. That doesn’t mean that they subscribe to the broader list of convictions Beale has enumerated.

     Because the Alt-Right is at this time mostly a notion being entertained by writers and commentators, it’s easily put to use by propagandists for purposes of their own. Under this video on the subject there’s a brief statement that many who might otherwise find “Alt-Right” a suitable label for their convictions would reject:

     Equality is bullshit. Hierarchy is essential. The races are different. The sexes are different. Morality matters and degeneracy is real. All cultures are not equal and we are not obligated to think they are. Man is a fallen creature and there is more to life than hollow materialism. Finally, the white race matters, and civilisation is precious. This is the Alt-Right.

     Mind you, I agree with that statement. However, tone matters, and the tone thereof is belligerent, off-putting to many. Worse, the video nods to a kind of neo-anti-Semitism:

     Unjust, untrue, and deplorable – yet it was probably inevitable. The Jews have been scapegoated for centuries, both in Europe and here in America. Yet no people anywhere more passionately desires to be left in peace. Their “influence” arises from being above-average achievers, especially in scholarship and commerce...things a decent person can only admire.

     But when “the Saxon” begins to hate, he tends to lose a portion of his power to discriminate fairly. Old resentments, including some that were and are utterly unjust, will be lumped in with the newer ones.

---

     The next few months will surely see further discussion and polemics about this subject. It will be critical to remain critical: i.e., to insist upon the critical distinctions among facts, desires, opinions, values, and assumptions. Whether the term “Alt-Right” requires a firm, widely accepted definition will be part of the discourse. The “conventional Right,” which many regard as too Establishmentarian for the needs of the times, will participate – and not in a fashion that favors its competitors.

     For my part, I’m certain only of this: the old labels conservative, liberal, libertarian, socialist, authoritarian, et cetera will not be sufficient to express the passions that have flared in this era of pervasive and often strategic hatred, much less to contain them. Our discourse has already moved beyond them. It will move further still...and our actions will move with it.