The Homo and the Negro

by James J O'Meara

  Sir Hugo: I detest the young of today. They are grubby, undisciplined and ill-mannered. They also make too much noise.

  But there were also hints of a libertarianism that Coward would soon present explicitly:

  Carlotta: To outside observers my way may seem stupid and garish and, later on perhaps, even grotesque. But the opinion of outside observers has never troubled me unduly. I am really only accountable to myself.

  Or simply:

  Sir Hugo: My inner feelings are my own affair.

  But he chose verse, always the home of “his secret heart,” to once and for all address the question of the homosexual and society; or rather, typically, the homosexual and his everyday family.

  While Britain’s Wolfenden Report, a decade before Stonewall, may have brought the issue to society’s attention and thus on Coward’s agenda, for Coward the ’60s promised not the chance to overthrow or otherwise remake society in some utopian formula for absolute “freedom” (the “freedom” of those grubby, undisciplined, ill-mannered, and noisy youths, actors, and critics) but rather a chance for good old English common sense (always to be distinguished from media-programmed proles) to be heard from on such issues as homosexuality.

  In the title piece of Not Yet the Dodo, common sense is expressed by the family maid to her employer, a mother of conventional middle-class morals who has finally realized her son is a theatrical homosexual:

  “If you want my opinion,” she said, “I think

  We’re both of us wasting our breath,

  You can’t judge people by rule of thumb

  And if we sit gabbing till Kingdom Come

  We’ll neither one of us sleep a wink

  And worry ourselves to death.

  People are made the way they’re made

  And it isn’t anybody’s fault.

  Nobody’s tastes can quite agree

  Some like coffee and some like tea

  And Guinness rather than lemonade

  And pepper rather than salt.”

  Here Coward had the opportunity, towards the end of a long, professionally successful but, the Left ideologues would imagine, privately thwarted and persecuted life (nursing perhaps a grudge at the knighthood that would be denied him until the last moment in 1970), to pen an explosion of rage and expose society’s rottenness, like the “kitchen sink” dramatists he had deplored (but, typically, personally befriended) in the ’50s. Instead, Coward delivered a paean to the common sense, live-and-let-live conservatism of his working-class roots.91 As he wrote in his diary at the time: “I have always distrusted too much education and intellectualism. Always dead wrong about things that really matter.”92

  This is one of the passages where Real locates his fundamental conservatism:

  [It] lies, I think, in the manner in which these acts are presented. In every instance, such nonconforming behavior is shown to be individualized; true, it is the individual’s right, but it is also his or her responsibility. In other words, the problem—if there is one—is the individual’s, not society’s. Coward may seem to endorse a “new morality,” but he also implies that personal morality is ultimately just that, personal. . . .

  In summary, therefore, it might be said that Coward’s attitude was one of maximum toleration of independence and non-conformity for the responsible individual. However, on larger societal issues of order, patriotism in times of crisis, tradition, national loyalty, skepticism about man’s perfectibility, and the inherent flaws of human nature, he was consistently conservative. Because of these views and his accompanying total trust in the intelligence of many average men, he qualifies, perhaps as much as any literary figure of our time, for that appellation Russell Kirk so frequently invokes, the Bohemian Tory.

  One might find this redolent of the kind of vulgar libertarianism that is anathema to many conservatives, including Kirk. Rather, I suggest it has its analogues in an almost Nietzschean recognition of different moralities for different people (without his anti-social bias), or rather, for those who can make themselves different people, and thus be worthy of their own morality.

  It may also suggest the Absolute Individual of Baron Evola (and who was more of a “Bohemian Tory” than the Baron, at least in his younger, Dadaist days, or when he toured Soviet Russia in white tie and tails to annoy the commissars?) or the four castes and differentiated ethics of Traditional India (and it is interesting that other than Guénon, the only Traditionalist who actually lived in a traditional society was Alain Daniélou, who roamed pre-war India with his lover in a silver motor home and reports that it was being a European that made him outcaste, and as a result his sexuality was of no interest to anyone).

  The editors of the earlier anthology, The Cream of Noël Coward, were correct to include Not Yet the Dodo as “a fitting capstone” to the book and his life’s work, “because it celebrates the people and the country which Coward knew so well and the values which he always stood for: loyalty, courage, and good manners.”

  Counter-Currents/North American New Right

  December 7 & 8, 2010

  ACCOMMODATE THIS!

  BRUCE JENNER & THE HERMETIC REBIS

  “Never let a good crisis go to waste”

  —Winston S. Churchill (supposedly)

  “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”

  —Rahm Emanuel, 2008

  “Never waste a good crisis . . . Don’t waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security.”

  —Hillary Clinton, 2009

  After my recent discussion of “manspreading,”93 in which I deplored the knee-jerk of the man-o-sphere (“Womens be talkin’ too much!”) and contrasted the true politeness, the noblesse oblige of the Aryan Male, I have been led to some more abstract and more generally applicable reflections.

  Now, the whole point of politeness is to spare the feelings of the other person. I recall, for example, hearing this tale many years ago:

  According to the account, Queen Victoria was once at a diplomatic reception in London. The guest of honor was an African chieftain. All went well during the meal until, at the end, finger bowls were served. The guest of honor had never seen a British finger bowl, and no one had thought to brief him beforehand about its purpose.94 So he took the bowl in his two hands, lifted it to his mouth, and drank its contents down!

  For an instant there was breathless silence among the British privilege guests, and then they began to whisper to one another. All that stopped; however, when Queen Victoria silently took her finger bowl in her two hands, lifted it, and drank its contents! A moment later, 500 surprised British ladies and gentlemen simultaneously drank the contents of their own finger bowls.

  It was the queen’s uncommon courtesy that guarded her guest from certain embarrassment. This is a very rare but very effective human trait which only true leaders can demonstrate!95

  Although entitled “A True Story,” this appears to be an urban myth; the role of the African chieftain has also been taken by South African Paul Kruger on his first visit to England in 1877, while more recently Nelson Mandela has been inserted, with Victoria, of course, updated to Elizabeth.96 All of which only underscores its archetypal wisdom: this is how people with class act.97

  Now, when it comes to those who do not seem to immediately or obviously fit into our social norms,98 what has traditionally been expected in polite societies—as supposed to the stereotypical “You ain’t from around here, ain’t yah, boy?” situations99—is some level of, ah, “accommodation.” The word is still used in such contexts—“special accommodations” for religious holidays, etc.—but it’s become something of an anachronism, if not a sick joke.

  As it said on a poster popular in the ’60s,

  I do my thing and you do your thing.

  I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,

  And you are not in this world to live up to mine.

  You are
you, and I am I,

  and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.

  If not, it can’t be helped.100

  Supposedly, this is the “Gestalt Prayer” authored by that fat, hairy, disgusting slob Fritz Perls, no doubt composed while—and useful for—seducing naïve shiksas in his hot tub. But the joke on the poster was the picture, and attribution, to Adolf Hitler.

  This was more appropriate than the poster designers could know. For you see, the goal is no longer, and hasn’t been for quite a while, to simply accommodate the Other—to not insist the Jew sing along with your Christmas carols—but rather to re-cut society’s cloth to fit the Other’s shape—only government approved nondenominational holiday jingles allowed.

  As Greg Johnson has observed, when told that “Merry Christmas” is “insulting” to Jews,

  I thought to myself, “I would not be offended if a Jew wished me a Happy Hanukkah. That would be small-minded. So why should a Jew be offended if I wished him a Merry Christmas? What makes Jews different? Why do people cater to such small-mindedness?” . . . I also thought to myself, “Wouldn’t a pluralistic, liberal attitude imply many different holiday greetings, rather than one bland, characterless, homogeneous one?”101

  Indeed, it would. The demand that all denominationally distinct greetings be banned, and replaced with a single, state-approved one, is exactly the sort of thing you’d associate with . . . Adolf Hitler.102

  Not for the first time do we find the Jew, in power, acting rather like the mythical Hollywood Nazi. Projection, much?

  Again, it’s not deemed sufficient to allow women to marry each other in peace, and go to hell in their own way;103 no, the only “fair” thing is to force Christians to perform the ceremonies and even bake them cakes against their will.

  And of course, these examples can be multiplied; I’m sure every reader has his own list of outrages. The general point here is, in case after case, we have situations that could be handled, one would think sufficiently, by simple, local, personal accommodation, where instead, the demand is made to entirely restructure the whole of society, for the benefit of the aggrieved party.

  What’s interesting in all these cases is that the proposed remedy goes far beyond anything that might simply address the supposed problem.

  We have completely reversed the wisdom of the old Hindu tale, of the king who wanted to slaughter tens of thousands of cows, to produce enough leather to cover the roads, until a sage suggested that he just give his subjects shoes.

  One can’t help but think, will such a disproportion between the goal and the means, that the goal is really only an excuse. Thus, “never let a good crisis go to waste.”

  Jack Donovan once did a few quick calculations about those directly affected by “gay marriage” and concluded that “all of this is about what might be good for 400,000 people out of 300 million.”104 And yet this has been the #1 issue of the entire decade. Why?

  How did the simple idea of freeing homosexuals from archaic restrictions and allowing them to fully participate in society again become the demand for the redefinition of marriage, unlimited adoption, and free sexual reassignment surgery? I defy anyone to find, in public or private documents, a single closeted homosexual demanding any of that before, say, 1990; and yet these are presented as “our basic rights.”

  How did the simple, eminently Western idea of hey, let’s not burn Moslems at the stake but let them go about their business in peace, become “Let’s ban all mention of pigs or alcohol lest we offend them”?105

  When, one wonders, will “Go ahead, let them buy and sell their kosher foods among themselves” become “All supermarkets and restaurants—and homes?—must be kosher-approved lest we offend one of God’s Lambs”?

  There is an agenda, but it might not be as simple as you imagine. Oh, if only it were . . .

  Here’s the Vigilant Citizen, Internet scourge of the Illuminati, reflecting on the newest outrage, the Jenner Kerfluffle.106 He starts with the Aryan live and let live:

  Before I go further (and because some people like to put words in my mouth), I need to emphasize that I do not think that all transgenders are “evil” nor that they are part of a sinister Agenda. If one feels more comfortable and happier living as the opposite sex, well that’s their business and not mine. As a staunch proponent of true freedom, I will never judge a person who took a personal decision to live a better life.

  But, as he goes on:

  Bruce Jenner’s sex change, however, was everything but personal. It was an orchestrated media event, blown-up to proportions so large that it has been turned into a grand ritual, a staged ceremony meant to push an agenda.

  And what might that be? The Citizen is quick to take us away from the lower depths of the media—the videodrome—and rises to the heights of metaphysics:

  In occult secret societies, the highest stage of illumination is achieved through the internalization of duality and the equilibrium between opposing forces—good and evil, active and passive, male and female. This concept is symbolically represented by the horned, hermaphrodite god Baphomet. It is also represented in alchemical symbolism such as the Alchemical Androgyne:

  “The . . . hermaphroditic figure [symbolizes] the accomplishment of the magnum opus. The active and passive principles of Nature were often depicted by male and female figures, and when these two principles, were harmoniously conjoined in any one nature or body it was customary to symbolize this state of perfect equilibrium by the composite figure above shown.” (quoting Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages).

  As “Cologero” elucidates at the Traditionalist site Gornahoor:

  The fall of the True Man from the Primordial State is the result of a decentering, a change in consciousness to exteriority from interiority. Now the Primordial State is the Androgyne of the Alchemists, that is, the perfect balance of the male and female principles. From the center, he is the unmoved mover, and his actions are wei wu wei, or non-acting activity.

  We, of course, have frequently made use of the Traditional doctrines of the True Man, the unmoved but all moving Chakravartin, the Tree at the Center the Garden. But what possible use are these doctrines to the man in the street? The answer is, none, or rather, only the negative effect of turbulence and confusion—the result of throwing pearls before swine, as the New Testament warns; as Cologero says:

  We see that the shift from the ordinary state to the Primordial State represents, spiritually, a transition from a passive, yin, or feminine state of existence to a more active, yang, or masculine state. This is the opposite of the “macho” man, obsessed with frenetic activity for its own sake and focused solely on material life. Yet, when esoteric teachings enter into the popular domain, they are completely misunderstood by those at the hylic and psychic level. When such types hear of the Androgyne, they can only envision a feminization of man, that is, a[n] exterior type of man taking on more effeminate characteristics. Thus the epicene man of today, common in the West, regards himself ipso facto as an advanced spiritual being. Unfortunately, this occludes the true spiritual nature of man and discourages many more masculine men from developing themselves in that direction.107

  And that is the use these doctrines have for the media-powered elite: to sow confusion among the masses, while also vulgarizing and debasing spiritual symbols.

  On the latter point, we can see the effect on the lumpenright and the man-o-sphere—the negro brute will continue to be their only safe ideal. They will be completely dumbfounded and given to clueless mockery as Evola himself extolls the Androgyne (in The Hermetic Tradition108), where the goal is not to emasculate the male, still less to create some crude physical amalgam of the sexes (another example of materialistic science aping metaphysical principles) but for the male to submit to the female and then, and in order to, overcome the female and reaffirm the male in turn at a higher level: the so-called “alchemical resurrection” or “philosophical incest.”109

  In another place—the essay “S
erpentine Wisdom” (i.e., Taoism)—after describing the Man of Tao who “‘acts without acting” as Cologero says, Evola already dismisses these current year Men of Game with some preemptive mockery of his own:

  How disheartening to those who uphold the myth of manhood based on muscles and metallic strength: this [the Androgyne] alone is the TRUE man, the ABSOLUTE man. He absorbs within himself the ambiguous virtue of the female . . .’ The Way that is the Way is not the ordinary way’ indeed . . .110

  But all this is not a proper activity for the masses; as Evola says when discussing Nietzsche in the first part of Ride the Tiger,111 one must be worthy of such freedom, else one destroys oneself in futility, as the masses do with their endless pursuit of pleasures and distractions. Nor is it even the media-elite’s intention that the masses should try to become free individuals; far from it.112

  As the Citizen says:

  Of course, the concepts above are meant to be interpreted in an esoteric and spiritual context where the human soul transcends its physical shell. However, today’s elite is bent on twisting and corrupting occult concepts, using its inherent powers for sinister purposes. Therefore the concept of equilibrium has turned into a[n] unhealthy obsession on transgendered media pawns. . . .113