Category Archives: Ideology

The Intellectual Dark Web…

Posted on May 11, 2018 by bsixsmith

The first and most obvious thing to say about the “Intellectual Dark Web” is that it is an awfully pretentious and self-serving name. The odour of smugness that it emanates is symptomatic of a deeper rot: a self-satisfied Whiggishness that … Continue reading →

Posted in Ideology | 13 Comments

A Hundred Years of Communism…

Posted on May 10, 2017 by bsixsmith

My essay on communism has been published by Quillette… We must give the Bolsheviks their due. Their success in gaining power was astonishing. A ragtag gang of activists and intellectuals, they seized control of Russia in October, 1917, and defended … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Ideology | 3 Comments

The Marxist Philosopher, In His Own World…

Posted on April 21, 2017 by bsixsmith

The failure of communism in Eastern Europe, and the failure of Western Europe to become communist, left Marxists disillusioned and resentful. They turned, increasingly, to internationalism, projecting their ambitions onto peoples in the third world, with, in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, … Continue reading →

Posted in Identity, Ideology, Multiculturalism | 8 Comments

Jonathan Bowden, a Force of Nature…

Posted on February 9, 2017 by bsixsmith

Though the alternative right largely consists of young men, it draws on the ideas of old men and, indeed, dead men: long dead, like Friedrich Nietzsche and Julius Evola, and more recently dead, like Samuel Francis, Joe Sobran and an … Continue reading →

Posted in Fascism, Identity, Ideology | 5 Comments

Projecting Liberalism Backwards…

Posted on January 5, 2017 by bsixsmith

An article in the Economist, objecting to the Alt-Right’s appropriation of medieval history, implies that European societies were multicultural… Academics are placing a new emphasis on the ways in which medieval societies differed from the homogeneous world imagined by the … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Ideology, Liberalism, Uncategorized | 19 Comments

The Extreme Centre…

Posted on December 7, 2016 by bsixsmith

What does it mean to be “moderate” or a “centrist”? As far as I can tell it means to support supranational institutions, globalisation, mass immigration, social liberalism and some sort of Wilsonian interventionism. This is “moderate” only because it has … Continue reading →

Posted in Ideology, Liberalism | Leave a comment

Enemies to the Right…

Posted on December 4, 2016 by bsixsmith

The absurd idea that one should have “no enemies to the right” is based on the absurd idea that progressives do not police their ranks. Only people with no knowledge of the left could think this. Take Noam Chomsky: by … Continue reading →

Posted in Ideology | Leave a comment

Atomised Ethnonationalists…

Posted on November 27, 2016 by bsixsmith

To put whiteness at the core of one’s identity is to imagine oneself as possessing some kind of deep kinship with Slavic miners, Sardinian olive farmers, New York real estate agents, Swedish academics, Texan ranchers, Belgian chocolatiers and Westminster politicians. … Continue reading →

Posted in Identity, Ideology | Leave a comment

Ideology and Scale…

Posted on November 21, 2016 by bsixsmith

What do Marxists, fascists, Islamists and liberals have in common? This is not some cheap joke. There is one thing. They all exaggerate the scale of people’s loyalties, to their class, their race, their faith and, well, their fellow man; … Continue reading →

Posted in Community, Conservatism, Ideology | 4 Comments

How Abnormal Journalists Normalise Abnormal Ideologues…

Posted on November 21, 2016 by bsixsmith

It has struck me there is, contrary to what I suggested in a previous post, an element of “normalisation” that goes on when mainstream journalists interview radical right wing figures. Journalists are abnormally sensitive to expressions of nationalism or traditionalism, … Continue reading →

Posted in Ideology, Media | 2 Comments