Kicking. Squealing.
Yesterday I wrote that I believed that John Derbyshire knew what he was doing when he wrote his piece for Taki’s Mag. I also tried to make the point that both Derbyshire and the National Review could have made choices in which both sides were “correct”. Insofar as that’s the case, the attacks on National Review are misplaced. Derbyshire’s arguments could still technically be true if not cumbersome and without context, but he could still have also put National Review in a precarious position that required them to assert themselves in their pursuit of their chosen vision.
Here’s an analogy: a man decides that he wants to devote his time and energy to blogging. He quits his corporate job and takes on a part time job as a waiter (this is only partially autobiographical) so he can better focus his energy on his hobby and his passion. But this strategy doesn’t gel with his girlfriend’s vision of the life she wants to lead. The smaller income means that the couple are forced to forgo vacations, and they eventually move into a smaller apartment in a slummy part of town. The girlfriend dumps the man in short order. Can we say that either one is right or wrong? Both seem correct in their actions; there is nothing immoral, unethical, or incorrect about their choices. They just have different goals. Perhaps the girlfriend sticking with the man she supposedly loves would be the more pure and virtuous act. It is more in tune with the virtue of love – what fosters a loving relationship is the pursuit of truth and the man’s pursuit of truth should in turn make the girlfriend happy. But this is all pie in the sky. Unconditional love does not exist.
Derbyshire understood this when he wrote in 2007 (h/t JG aka Audit Nerd):
If tomorrow I submitted a piece to National Review saying, “Kevin MacDonald is really onto something. He’s doing great work and I think everyone should read him,” the editors would reject the piece, and they would be right to do so. I don’t think I would be canned for submitting such an article, but if it happened, I would not be much surprised.
…
A conservative magazine simply can’t afford to do that. Its hold on the attention of the U.S. public is too precarious. A conservative magazine can’t afford to let a writer say anything nice about MacDonald without putting it under some such title as “The Marx of the Antisemites.”
There isn’t any kind of chicanery or dishonesty there. That’s just how the world is, how America is, under what Bill Buckley calls “the prevailing structure of taboos,” and the prevailing system of status perception, both of individual human beings and of easily anthropomorphizable entities like opinion magazines.
National Review wants to get certain ideas out to the U.S. public—ideas about economics, politics, law, religion, science, history, the arts, and more. To do that, the magazine needs standing in our broad cultural milieu. It needs status. That’s hard at the best of times for a conservative publication. To lose status points—to lose standing—just in order to draw readers’ attention to some rather abstruse socio-historical theories cooked up by a cranky small-college faculty member, would be dumb. Ergo, as I said, NR would reject a piece of the kind you suggested, and they would be correct to do so. I would do so if I were editor of NR.
Ideally, if a firing had to occur, NR editor Rich Lowry would have just said “sorry John, you crossed outside the boundaries of our vision. We can’t have you here anymore.” But breakups never go that way. There are always “break up words” – rhetoric that matches the physical act of severing ties. Crying, outrage, and denunciation to friends is how it goes in a domestic relationship. Creating distance, shunning, and denunciation to other media figures is how it happens with political magazines.
These are always interesting struggles. It’s the narcissism of small differences that Freud wrote about. Two entities on one hemisphere of the political map are jostling with each other over the proper recipe with which we should bake their conservative cake. Principles or politics? Inside the system or from without? Respectable or devil-may-care? Diplomatically or doggedly? There is no singularly correct calculus. The struggle has and always will take place, and these different entities will fight for position within the conservative movement. And none of it will be done in silence.
hmmm.
“A conservative magazine simply can’t afford to do that. Its hold on the attention of the U.S. public is too precarious”
I remember reading that 2007 piece by Derb, and I agree with its thesis very much — which is why I occasionally say that bloggers like you and a couple others I read are well-served by your cautious, balanced writing.
Mind you, I like the brash young Ryu, and Denise speaks well to my id-monster. I’d probably visit hardline WN sites if not for the despairing or obsessive vibe some (not all) tend to give off. And on my own part, I let loose with I’mmoderate
“A conservative magazine simply can’t afford to do that. Its hold on the attention of the U.S. public is too precarious”
I remember reading that 2007 piece by Derb, and I agree with its thesis very much — which is why I occasionally say that bloggers like you and a couple others I read are well-served by your cautious, balanced writing — you are in a position where you don’t want to alienate whites who arevlooking for intellectual leadership, without alienating the red-pill audience by being wobbly on race. It’s a fine line to walk for you.
Mind you, I like the brash young Ryu, and Denise speaks well to my id-monster. I’d probably visit hardline WN sites regularly if not for the despairing or obsessive vibe some (not all) tend to give off. And on my own part, I let loose with immoderate stuff on occasion, lol.
However, the state of affairs Derb was describing in 2007 does not apply anymore with regards to NRO, and he may have seen it. Moderate, tongue-biting, circumspect articles have not had an effect of slowly moving NRO, and with it the “prevailing structure of taboos” rightward. Instead, the magazine drifted leftward, at which point time comes to jump ship.
(previous comment sent prematurely, if you don’t mind deleting it)
Reminds me of the Aesop fable where a man and his son try to please everyone and end up accidentally killing their donkey.
Lara, that’s exactly it. By not even discussing, analyzing or opening up the dialog, NR did their entire audience a grave disservice.
If Derb is wrong; point it out. This faux outrage about boundaries does nothing to bolster the image of the magazine.
Thwarting history by yelling stop, indeed. Buckley is spinning in his grave.
“A conservative magazine simply can’t afford to do that. Its hold on the attention of the U.S. public is too precarious”
Conservatism is dead in America.
The internet is the only forum where men can speak the truth.
Unconditional love exists but its fucking hard to find. Chambers was right all along. Until men are prepared to throw themselves against the wheel out of love nothing will change.
And this is exactly why “Conservatism” is losing, and will continue to lose, even as it claims to be “winning” by suppressing the likes of Derbyshire, Buchanan, Sobran, and Francis.
Conservatives lack the strength, guts, bloodlust, and killer instinct that make winners.
“Beautiful Losers” and “The Stupid Party”, indeed.
I actually have a bit of history with NR, more than twenty years ago, in New York City. Even then the NR staff came across as a bunch of faux-snobs and social-climbing pantywaists.
I remember, in particular, a young Georgetown grad on the staff, who always wore a fedora and a sneer. Later on I got to know some of the new crew that WFB brought into the fold, including that highly irritating hyper-Catholic Lopez chick.
I should write about this.
Main stream conservative leaders want to win without addressing the race issue.
That’s why they will never win.
Derbyshire’s arguments could still technically be true, but he could still have also put National Review in a precarious position that required them to assert themselves in their pursuit of their chosen vision.
Bullshit. The truth never puts you in a precarious position. The truth is always defensible. National Review is an enemy of truth.
Your analogy is false. Both NR and Derb have (or claim to have) the exact same vision — that they are conservatives committed to the truth. NR has anathemetized Derb, which means one of them is not conservative and not committed to the truth. You already know which one I think it is.
“A conservative magazine simply can’t afford to do that. Its hold on the attention of the U.S. public is too precarious”
The only thing conservatives in America are conserving is a degenerate multi-culture, a bloated and corrupt central government, and a bomb first ask questions later foreign policy. I’d agree that a conservative magazine can’t be expected to rise above this.
Conservatives need to consider the subtle differences between the words “is” and “was”, as in “America IS great / America WAS great.”
And this is exactly why “Conservatism” is losing, and will continue to lose, even as it claims to be “winning” by suppressing the likes of Derbyshire, Buchanan, Sobran, and Francis.
Conservatives lack the strength, guts, bloodlust, and killer instinct that make winners.
“Beautiful Losers” and “The Stupid Party”, indeed.
Exactly right!
I was unhappy with the National Review firing Derbyshire over his Taki Mag piece not because there was anything immoral or breaking of a compact with him, but because it was so gutless and coming from too PC a place.
Now I think in a few of the things he said he went too far. I think counseling his kids not to help individual blacks claiming to be in need of help (being a good Samaritan) was going to far; it should be tied to how obvious it was or wasn’t that the person was actually in need of help. Similarly with the advice to just smile and move on if any black person accosts you in the streets.
I didn’t think his saying avoid areas where you know or have reason to expect that large numbers of blacks especially if they will greatly outnumber whites, will congregate, or if they start to do so, leave.
I think the NRO ought to have the guts to run moderately and politely worded race realist views of such as the Derb and Steve Sailer, as something not outside their pale though the views of the author and not necessarily that of the editorial consensus at the magazine.
That would represent considerable progress rightward in conservatism in America.
Nah, nothing beautiful about those losers. The French soldiers at Dien Bien Phu were beautiful losers. To be a beautiful loser you have to fight your heart out and fall to overwhelming numbers.
America’s conservative establishment is Beta Losers, bootlickers, cowards and sellouts.
doug,
Criminals use needing help with something as a ruse to trap you. Ted Bundy did this.
I think people who are more familiar with black people are better able to identify which ones are dangerous. My brother did this on the subway recently.
Men really shouldn’t be referred to as brave unless they are in some kind of physical danger. The stakes aren’t high enough in anything else.
I think the French get a bad rap. My husband told me French soldiers have historically been tough.
To avoid black dysfunction, always avoid any event that is free, located on public transportation or where authorities allow loitering. (i.e. shopping malls, screen on the green at an urban park, or a hot day at the lakefront beach in Chicago)
Down here in Atlanta they’re not building the standard type of enclosed indoor malls anymore, since they inevitably go downhill when the large crowds of “urban” teens start standing around and causing trouble while posturing (but not actually patronizing any of the businesses).
Lower Manhattan is actually a whole lot safer than Downtown Atlanta, in my experience. That’s because NYPD tends to deter loitering and has the city’s backing for its “stop and frisk” policy for those who are out of place.
OneSTDV has a post up today on this very topic which I much more agree with.
http://onestdv.blogspot.com/2012/04/defending-john-derbyshires-talk-chris.html
Derb still has family pictures up on his website. I don’t think anything would happen to him, but I do have to give him credit. He doesn’t scare easily.
Manhattan south of 96th street feels and is pretty safe these days and for the last couple of decades.
NR rejection of something everyone knows to be true is proof we have a 1 party system with 2 faces.
Also not a bad piece on the Derb kerfuffle: http://www.udolpho.com/weblog/?id=01344&title=A-note-to-readers-of-National-Review
The problem with the analogy is that the breakup wasn’t an amicable split of two people with different goals in life. The proper analogy is that the girlfriend breaks up with the blogging waiter boyfriend and tells everyone she can get to listen to her that he’s done this horrible thing that no person actually in love would ever do, and that you are awful for breaking he heart.
The reality is that WFB and NR are a lot like the girlfriend though, in that they are claiming they are acting out of ‘love’ or in this case ideals, philosophy, et cetera where the truth of the matter is holding conservative stances on anything except bombing the enemies of Israel and low taxes for the rich crimps their lifestyle too much to possibly support. They aren’t willing to make any material sacrifices to their lifestyle by making a principled stand.
Dumping the Derb while claiming it is due to the lack of popularity of his views while in reality it is due to the lack of popularity of his views among a certain class of people that invite the editors of NR to cocktail parties is an unprincipled exception. No one holds the mild-golddigger in too low regard, but she’s certainly not the kind of person you’d want in a foxhole. We understand her motivations, and can even commiserate to some degree, but she’s certainly not going to seen as this righteous pillar for abandoning her relationships and commitments to pursue greater creature comforts for herself. NR is the girlfriend that cheats on all of her boyfriends and then blames it on them for not doing enough to make her happy, and expects lots of sympathy from those around her for the ordeal.
It’s also worth pointing out that as far as ‘conservative vision’ goes, NR has never had a problem taking any extremely unpopular stand against movement conservatism, as characters like Rich Lowry that set the tone of the magazine are Open-Borders, multiculturalist apartchicks, which is an extremely unpopular position to take. Certainly much less unpopular than “The Talk”. Likewise with NR stumping for Bush, the Iraq War, et cetera when that wasn’t even a majority viewpoint among die-hard Republicans much less non-affiliated conservatives, moderates, and fence-sitters. NR has never been strongly opposed to taking incredibly distasteful positions such as endorsing bombing Mecca as a collective retaliation for 9/11 (written by Lowry himself).
NR takes stands based on the ‘conservatism’ of people like Michael Bloomberg. The magazine certainly has the room to push rightward, but it doesn’t. It’s not that it has failed, but that it is deliberately drifting leftward as the exact same kinds of people and I’m sure in many circumstances the exact same people that determine the content and tone of CNN, MSNBC, et al also do so for NR.
Chuck, just make the transition over to bartender. You’ll make the same amount of money (or more) and women will just fawn over you even when you don’t try…
WRT the _content_ of Derbyshire’s talk to children: effective parenting.
#1-6: we had one explicit talk to prompt our kids to anticipate Black criminality at ages 5-8ish. Later they attended an academic program housed in the most racially diverse schools on the planet on the unemployed side of the city. No regrets, but interesting that they knew the IWSBs best and I heard, “but, Mom, they’re not dumb” several times.
#(10h). a male teen thuggish-looking Black approached our slow moving car with the look of urgent distress. I motioned my son to drive on; I plan to revisit that episode with my son and feel it was a wise choice. In a case of a evident highway wreckage, I would stop to offer assistance.
#13-15. I strongly disagree with Derbyshire. Befriending the IWSB to “gain an amulet” and to display racial propriety is cowardly and manipulative. I would never teach that.
Pretty much summing it up is the statement above: “America’s conservative establishment is Beta Losers, bootlickers, cowards and sellouts.”
They didn’t bounce Derb out of “principle”as indicated here but to protect their luncheon privileges, their party invitations in the beltway and environs, and “their phony baloney jobs.” That’s the nature of those folks at NR who are now made squalid by this move.
“Yet polite white society, typified by the sanctimonious and dishonest cowards at the National Review, can’t stand to hear such “filth.” The staff members, along with the rest of the liberal Internet, that have condemned Derbyshire play dumb, as if none of them know what an urban “bad” neighborhood actually refers to, i.e. one populated by mostly black people.”
http://onestdv.blogspot.com/2012/04/defending-john-derbyshires-talk-chris.html
doug111,
Manhattan south of 96th street feels and is pretty safe these days and for the last couple of decades.
I like a 6-block buffer, so I would say that 90th is the upper limit of where non-black people should go.
Also, the subway is ‘the great mingler’, and I don’t like it. White collar professionals still have to be on the subway with prole blacks from well above 96th street.
I think the NRO ought to have the guts to run moderately and politely worded race realist views
Not just that, but the same Rich Lowry just recently went on an anti-male tirade that men didn’t ‘man up’ and let women go first in the Contra Concordia incident. His mangina cred is pretty extensive.
Actually there is something like a six block buffer above 96th street. Well it’s more mixed there, or was. Haven’t been above 96th in years.
Derb’s rant was more than a little weird. As an Englishman, he doesn’t have much experience living with blacks. I spent a few years of my childhood in a community that was 50/50 white/black. Even recently, I was living and working on the Near West Side of Chicago, which is about 50% black and 25% white. Notta big deal. People who don’t have a lot of contact with blacks are usually the ones who romanticize or demonize them. Derb’s idea about getting a black best friend for appearances or something was really strange — it is the city dude, everyone is anonymous, no one cares.
If Derb went to a blues festival here in the Chicago area, the crowd usually is about 70-95% black. There will be some white people, but nowhere close to a majority. It is stupid to say that one will be in grave danger of being victimized in some way by attending the event. On the other hand, if one is walking alone in the evening in a rough neighborhood and sees a few gangbangers hanging out on a corner for no reason, better to walk on the other side of the street. I’ve had friends and coworkers get robbed, but never myself. Street smarts, yo.
Lifelong suburbanites and rural people don’t get any of this. The white suburbanite, from the view of their all-white neighborhood, publicly professes the specialness of each and every individual black, as if it were somehow immoral or taboo to keep an eye out for people who are up to trouble. On the other hand, low-income whites are at risk of having their own neighborhoods flooded by minorities and all the problems that come with them, and make the same kind of over-generalization, but in the opposite direction. Derb’s faux pas is talking like a Stormfronter, when he’s really just a white suburbanite, without the learned Murican hypocrisy.
jhbowden,
I’m a white suburbanite and you have no fucking clue what you are talking about.
“Derb’s idea about getting a black best friend for appearances or something was really strange — it is the city dude, everyone is anonymous, no one cares.”
Derbyshire did not say get a black friend for appearances. He doesn’t seem like the type to care about that. He said have a black friend who can defend you against charges of racism. George Zimmerman has a black friend going around doing that, and it may save his life.
jhbowden–
He was born and educated in England but has lived in America for about 30 years after about five years living in China, where he met his wife.
I agree that the parts of his post that talked about when to avoid black stangers was maladroit and too categorical sounding; he should have given examples when it’s probaby ok. That was particularly the case with black individual strangers in public places but also when there is a majority of black in attendance. Yeah in the case of a blues venue it’s gonna very likely be ok; those are gonna be more upscale or at least mid scale blacks mostly and the place will have bouncers and can get sued.
When you are talking to kids you have to keep it simple.
If Derb went to a blues festival here in the Chicago area, the crowd usually is about 70-95% black.
There’s selection at work here.
Blues festivals are going to draw a majority of older blacks. You’re not going to see a huge amount of under 25 males. Plus, add in the fact that you have to actually PAY to get into the festival and that should price out the majority of the most feckless and shiftless young blacks.
Derb was more talking about stuff like going to the beach, or to a carnival, circus, etc. – stuff that could be patronized by a more general black audience.
I don’t see where Derb said you would be in grave danger at an event with majority blacks. I think he was merely saying that it can be dangerous, and if you don’t have to go, then don’t. Places where large numbers of young black males congregate are usually dangerous. My parents, brother and his girlfriend were recently on subway train in Manhattan, and a group of young black males slashed the face of another black male.
Article about them bad white rayciss:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/08/mississippi-sends-its-first-hate-criminal-to-prison.html
Lara–
Read charitably towards him and being familiar with a lot of his web essays before, there was nothing very wrong with what he said. I did think the avoiding black individual stangers in public not so secure places was particularly unnuanced though.
However read uncaritably towards him (without e.g. thinking about what he really had in mind), or with an eye to how NR’s liberal critics ready to pounce on the NR if they didn’t fire Derb, there were obviously things he said in ways prone to be attacked, as I’ve given examples above.
whatever you think about derb’s piece on black people, at the very least he didn’t advocate expelling blacks from their homes and country. that’s exactly what he advocated for palestinians in this piece:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226650/why-dont-i-care-about-palestinians/john-derbyshire
he wasn’t fired from nro for that, because that’s a relatively “respectable” position on the mainstream right.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226650/why-dont-i-care-about-palestinians/john-derbyshire
“he wasn’t fired from nro for that, because that’s a relatively “respectable” position on the mainstream right.”
LOL. That’s a “respectable” opinion with a certain group of disporportionately influential (neo) conservatives.
doug,
I agree with your criticism of the article. I just objected to jhbowden’s smug tone towards people who are not currently living in a big city. For some reason, sometimes people who live in the city think they are cooler than everyone else.
Doug,
You live in Manhattan, right?
I’ve never read Derbie. Early on, Rush Limbaugh had some appeal. Like most conservatives, he was very good at tap dancing around the real issues and using jazzy code-words.
I always liked George Lincoln Rockwell or William Pierce. It’s hard to admire weakness and most conservatives are weak. They do not seem to know how to attack properly WHen they try it, it’s half hearted and has a plea in it. All they can do is defend an ideal which doesn’t exist any longer.
There is nothing “conservative” about white racial consciousness. It is the most radical, extreme idea in the world today. They depend on the consent of the enemy to win, which is why they continue to lose. If they would only concern themselves with victory above appearances, logic and respect.
I just objected to jhbowden’s smug tone towards people who are not currently living in a big city.
Suburbia is located halfway between the seventh and eighth circles of Hell, down the stairs across from the imp restrooms. If Ryu ever succeeds with his Whitetopia and turns everyone into Ned Flanders, I promise to send a cyborg back in time through a time machine to murder his mother, which will prevent such an unhappy state of affairs from ever occuring.
“he wasn’t fired from nro for that, because that’s a relatively “respectable” position on the mainstream right.”
LOL. That’s a “respectable” opinion with a certain group of disporportionately influential (neo) conservatives.
Derbyshire figured out very quickly that conservative journalists can’t disrespect that group.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/article/2003/mar/10/00025/
One evening early on in my career as an opinion journalist in the USA, I found myself in a roomful of mainstream conservative types standing around in groups and gossiping. Because I was new to the scene, many of the names they were tossing about were unknown to me, so I could not take much part in the conversation. Then I caught one name that I recognized. I had just recently read and admired a piece published in Chronicles under that name. I gathered from the conversation that the owner of the name had once been a regular contributor to much more widely read conservative publications, the kind that have salaried congressional correspondents and full-service LexisNexis accounts, but that he was welcome at those august portals no longer. In all innocence, I asked why this was so. “Oh,” explained one of my companions, “he got the Jew thing.” The others in our group all nodded their understanding. Apparently no further explanation was required. The Jew thing. It was said in the kind of tone you might use of an automobile with a cracked engine block, or a house with subsiding foundations. Nothing to be done with him, poor fellow. No use to anybody now. Got the Jew thing. They shoot horses, don’t they?
Plainly, getting the Jew thing was a sort of occupational hazard of conservative journalism in the United States, an exceptionally lethal one, which the career-wise writer should strive to avoid. I resolved that I would do my best, so far as personal integrity allowed, not to get the Jew thing. I had better make it clear to the reader that at the time of writing, I have not yet got the Jew thing—that I am in fact a philoSemite and a well-wisher of Israel, for reasons I have explained in various places, none of them difficult for the nimble web surfer to find.
I see doug1 is still Lara’s bottom bitch, and PA still sucks Chuck’s dick. lol. lmfao.
@jhbowden
dude, when grown folks are conversing it’s best you butt out son. go work on your faux-hawk or something.
I don’t believe that is really Obsidian. If it is, my guess he has done a stint in prison, and really discovered his black roots. He might even have converted to Islam.
“When you are talking to kids you have to keep it simple.”
Exactly, if you allow for an exception, they will automatically assume a current situation is that exception.
Better safe than sorry.
Camlost04/09/2012 at 2:14 pm
Sooner or later the prisons will be full of hate criminals, and prisons will become unsafe for black people.