Nationalists of various kinds, ranging from the comparatively mild national conservatives to their more radical expressions, are often rather well-educated people, either by means of formal education or by the deep reading of classic autodidacts. It’s natural that their nationalism is molded by a deep love of their people expressed in different ways.
Nationalists have a deep appreciation for the history of their kin. This is expressed in a nation’s battlefield victories and even defeats. I have often reflected upon the similarities, for instance, of groups as diverse as Serbs and whites of the American South. Serbs still mourn their defeat at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, while the older residents of Dixie still painfully reflect upon the surrender of the noble General Lee at the Appomattox courthouse. There are victories to be celebrated too. Few modern Russians would be too eager to return their country to the ideology of Stalin and Brezhnev, but the victory over Germany and its allies in “The Great Patriotic War” still stirs patriotic emotions in the Russian breast.
Learned nationalists also have an appreciation for their nation’s architecture, painting, sculpture, literature, film, theater, dance and music. These things can be a great point of national pride, especially if other Euro cultures appreciate them.
We would be remiss, though, if we ignored the nationalism of the common man. We must not despise the habits, mores and folkways of people of all classes in our various Euro ethnic expressions. Things like history and culture are vitally important, but the lives of the common folk, workers, tradesmen, farmers are just as valid. This was brought to mind by the recent demonstrations in England and Ireland by the white working classes in those countries in response to the atrocious behavior of their third-world guests.
Nothing causes the Establishment more hatred and outrage than a white riot. The media in the US downplayed the savage violence of the black George Floyd riots of 2020. Politicians and policemen literally took the knee in front of Black leaders wearing kente cloth scarves during the Floyd riots, while a little cheeky trespassing on Capitol Hill during the January 6th, 2020 march protesting Democratic election fraud was treated as treason and insurrection.
The anger of the British white working class was entirely appropriate. Decades of British girls being “groomed’ by Muslim sex gangs deserved a response. Middle-eastern knife culture with its constant stabbings of people of all sorts and conditions was completely ignored by both Tories and Labour. Time and time again, working-class Brits told pollsters that they were upset at the third-world avalanche enveloping the country. For fourteen years, Tory governments told the people that decisive action would be taken to stop the migrant invasion and then the conservative establishment went back on its word and did nothing.
The biggest villain in all this was none other than Boris Johnson, who led the Tories to a great victory in 2018, taking huge swaths of Labour strongholds in the working-class industrial north. You would think that this uncouth man would have granted the white working class just one little favor by stopping the illegal “migrant” boats, but no, he couldn’t be bothered. Johnson will be remembered as one of the great villains of history. A large share of the blame for the horrible and useless loss of 400,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers and countless Russians in an unnecessary war rests on his shoulders.
In the common life of regular people, the two very similar ideologies of right-liberalism and left-liberalism combine to turn them into atomized, deracinated individuals with no or little connection with the people who live around them. A lot of this sense of community used to be associated with church life in the West. If someone was troubled and distressed, they could see a pastor or priest and at least get a sympathetic ear and some words of comfort, but the powers that be have worked hard in recent decades to sideline the church as an institution. The left-liberals are largely militant atheists, actively working to discredit the churches. Large parts of American and American-style Evangelicalism (right-liberals) have adopted the megachurch model, which combines impersonal self-help lectures with a rock concert before huge “audiences.” The tradition of good pastoral care and personal relationships with one’s fellow saints has gone to the dogs and has depersonalized the church for millions.
Television and social media have weakened local institutions a great deal in the last 30 years. There used to be more small, locally-based, social, fraternal and athletic organizations in the recent past. Most of that culture is long gone. One may scorn these little local organizations — amateur sports clubs, ladies’ charitable organizations, veterans groups, local historical societies and the like — but in many ways these are the social glue that holds communities together. Many organizations like these exist in the small, southern US city where I live, but the average age of people participating in them is very high. Younger folks have other interests: things like video games and TV sports for the men and social media and celebrity culture for the women, neither of which contributes anything to social cohesion. This is just what our neo-liberal overlords want. No connection to the soil, no connection to one’s culture, community, race and ethnicity. Even the institution of the family, the basic unit of society, has been ruined by divorce culture and feminism.
I don’t consider myself a populist in the literal sense of that term. The great elitist political thinkers — like Pareto, Mosca, Burnham and Francis — were right that elites are inevitable in human society. The neo-liberal globalist elites are failing and their iron-fisted control over Europe and America will end someday and be replaced by another paradigm. Neo-liberalism will die in ten years or fifty, but it will die, murdered by its inflexible dogmatism. I earnestly hope that the new elites will take a more kindly posture toward the common man and not be so inwardly focused. We have to love and care for our ethnic and racial kindred and not merely look at them as means to an ideological end.
