The Ideology of Failure

by Stephen Pax Leonard

  A society with a tightly shared culture and inviolable principles at its core, where there prevails a clear collective sense of ‘who we are’, and a love for one’s fellow men, will be replaced by a muddled, confused or worse, conflicting imbroglio because a pluralism of diverse values leads to a loss of social solidarity. There might not even be any shared sense of what the nasty prejudice that certain politicians wish to eliminate actually amounts to. A so-called multicultural society — and by that is meant a formerly rather homogeneous society along ethnic grounds that has through a system of open borders allowed millions representing very different cultural and moral values to settle in its land (and not a society that has had historically diverse ethnic groups) — is one that is prone to conflict if the incomers represent a culture or religion which teach a different interpretation of tolerance to that that exists already in the country. With this admittedly rather narrow definition, one has of course Sweden in mind, where tradition as a source of insight is inclined to be denigrated.

  The contemporary cultural grammar does not permit a distinction to be drawn between culture and race. And thus one risks being accused erroneously of preferring a world with one dominant, single race, which is certainly not the case. The deduction is flawed, but convenient, because of the Nazism precedent. And thus, it opens the door to the new cultural grammar lexicon — the universe of -ist suffixing adjectives to be employed at every conceivable occasion.

  Multiculturalism, as it has been practiced, is in essence an anti-European, anti-White ideology with political correctness, the legacy of Blairism, as its doctrine. A doctrine which when combined with the economic management of the EU has left parts of the European continent hamstrung and paralysed in both material and non-material terms. In Sweden, this multiculturalist ideology manifests itself in what one might call the ‘politics of folly’, putting fabricated emotion before reason; folly because it represents the pursuit of policies which are ostensibly against Sweden’s own national interest.

  Multiculturalism might be perceived to be the result of relativism, or racism, post-modernism, multiculturalism and deconstructionism can be seen as the intellectual descendants of relativism; but it goes one stage further than that. Multiculturalism is a politicised form of relativism, since the incoming culture is given preferential treatment, often explicitly so as we saw with hate-speech legislation. In practice, it is thus not about treating cultures equally. Cultures in any case have a determinate content; they represent worldviews and function to exclude other cultures. If one tries to destroy the common culture, one runs the risk of being left with an anarchising society as the foundational matrix of values is washed away. The ‘progressive’ impulse in the Western mode of consciousness threatens the foundations of culture and erodes the basis of belief because it is an agenda based on constant change. In this sense, conservatism is anti-ideological because in contrast to liberalism, it is based on a system of fixed, guiding principles.

  Unlike cultural relativism, multiculturalism excludes the worldview of Western civilisation because it is perceived to be elitist and sexist, as it is thought to be exclusively the product of white heterosexual males — those enemies of anti-individualistic liberal fascism where each person is expected to agree with the judgements of the group. There is no place for the autonomous thinking individual in this rather vulgar, secular worldview. If one has a certain name, speaks with a certain accent, dresses in a certain way, then one will be assigned irrevocably to an out-of-favour group and discriminated against. The individual will be burdened with a politicised collective guilt which is a conduit for the liberal principles of egalitarianism and anti-discrimination, pursued so obsessively and unthinkingly. Europe is paralysed by the memory of Nazism, but no German of my generation or my parents’ generation can possibly internalise this neurotic guilt. A ‘strong’ nation cannot constantly ruminate on old evils.

  Images of multiculturalism are being pressed on the Swede everywhere he goes in an attempt to dictate the impression that this is the norm. Billboards and advertisements for furniture and any number of things for the home are always multi-ethnic, showing typically black men with Swedish girls (interestingly, it is always the Swedish girl with the Muslim or the black man and not vice versa); the interracial relationship is the expected norm, just as Sarkozy insisted. A monochromatic advert might be ‘racist’.

  A recent Volvo car advert features mainly ethnic minorities in what might be called a quintessential Swedish landscape. It is a conspicuous attempt to change the way we think, a clear attempt to superimpose a multicultural trope on what for centuries has been a rather monocultural human landscape. This kind of racial profiling in favour of ethnic minorities is to be found right across Western Europe, in every magazine, on every billboard. There is a fear of presenting anything as monoracial, as this will fall foul of the diversity prerogative. Compliance with the regime is not only essential, it is monitored. UKIP was accused of being ‘racist’ by a BBC journalist for not including more photographs of ethnic minorities in their election campaign literature. That does not constitute racism. This kind of smearing left-wing bigotry that UKIP and other anti-immigration parties faced should be silenced in the same way that the Left has silenced any dissenting voices. As with the Swedish media, the BBC is always investigating some case or other on the grounds of alleged racism. The concept of ‘diversity’ as applied is arguably racist because it means in practice ‘anti-white’. If a place is considered ‘diverse’, it means simply there are very few white people around. ‘Multiculturalism’ and ‘diversity’ can be understood as code words for suppression and discrimination against white people.

  These are concepts that are only found in countries which are majority white (Western Europe, US, Canada, Australia etc.), so it is not surprising that some colourful political commentators label this as ‘white genocide’. It is the ultimate paradox: it is self-imposed auto-ethnic repudiation or self-hating neurosis by white people, and one is not permitted to speak out against it. One wonders whether this has ever happened before, and so overtly. On the 23rd of November 2015, Green Party MP Stefanie von Berg spoke in the Bundestag of how it would be a good thing when ethnic Germans are a minority in their own cities.120 In Frankfurt, they already are. She spoke with joy about the superkulturelle Gesellschaft (‘the superdiverse society’). Here we have an elected parliamentarian calling for the marginalisation of her own people. This is a perverse attempt at being anti-ethnocentric in the name of a culturally nihilistic political correctness.

  Such a total commitment to the diversity ideology, the plurality ontology that West Germans felt they should accept in order to come to terms with their fascist past is surely indicative of Gehlen’s (1969) ‘hypermorality’. By destroying the past, they think they can control the future. It is the ‘end process of rationalisation’ (Bell, 1976: 4). It is a means of coming to terms with a psychological trauma which cannot in any way afflict this young generation of Green multiculturalists. At least, not directly. Indirectly, they are perhaps wreaking revenge on their grandparents’ generation, but that is an extremely twisted thought process. One might ask why one would create a system of potential chaos which you and your children have to live in just to vent some vicarious, misplaced anger. This does not seem to be a very likely explanation. If the sense of post-war guilt was so tangible, then why wait sixty years to do anything about it? Surely, there is a better explanation than simply Vergangenheitsbewältigung (‘coming to terms with the past’)?

  But hypermorality does appear to account partially for what is happening. If one looks at who votes for the Green Party in Germany, and its equivalent in Sweden, it is people living in the wealthiest parts of Hamburg and Stockholm. In Sweden, they get the trendy, hipster Södermalm vote. In Hamburg where the Green Party scored 11 per cent in the 2011 State Election, it seems it is more the old money set. The most ‘privileged’ social group comprising the largest percentage of ethnic Swedes and Germans seem to vote for
the party that is most committed to undermining precisely this group. One might call it hypermorality, a heightened modern consciousness vis-à-vis liberal guilt or just cultural and epistemological nihilism. Understanding this nihilistic impulse is of course problematic in times of extreme modernity, but it is perhaps in part ‘a result of socialisation to a culturally specific language code that not only makes critical discourse possible but also provides the ideological justification, that is notions about progress, moral integrity etc.’ (Bowers, 1985: 469). The language of ‘progress’ has created a new conceptual orthodoxy, and because it is ‘new’, it must be modernising, and thus good. Our social intelligence is reluctant to question this teleological view of society because to do so might make us romantic reactionaries qua ‘unprogressive’ members of the community. The only criterion for ‘progress’ seems to be ‘progress’ itself: social tradition is a mere constraint on a more rationally ordered future. But it is the experiential ground that has reality — the entangled comings and goings of everyday life, be it in the mega-city or the four-road Lapland village — not intangible exhortations.

  For some of the deluded social progressives, nihilism where a Dostoyevskian figure makes destruction the only creative art is preferable to racism. Indeed, for the ideologised hypermoralists, there appears to be no bigger evil than racism. Islam scholar Lamya Kaddor said on German television that ‘being German no longer means having blonde hair and blue eyes, but being a Muslim migrant and wearing a hijab’. The audience responded with a big applause.121 It was as if the people in the audience were just totally ideologised in the way that starving North Koreans applaud missile launches.

  VIII. Don’t Just Point the Finger at Russia

  I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key.

  — Winston Churchill

  The Soviet era, rusty trolley-buses claw at the bloated cables suspended above the boulevards: an electric, rasping hum. The sky is dove-grey, full of snow perhaps. I walk for hours down streets that creep into obscurity. Laden-down babushkas with silk scarves tied firmly under chin inch in their senectitude up the snowy, tree-lined pathway to the huddle of expecting golden cupolas. A gaunt, urban landscape on a bleak afternoon. Bulbous onion-domes top the Corinthian columns and Baroque stucco architraves light up the drowsy city towards the end of daylight. Inside, it is dark, but gilt-edged. Puffs of incensed air linger reverently amongst the faded murals whose shades merge in a sfumato. Even if I am not Orthodox, these Russian Orthodox churches and cathedrals are the most holy, sacred places I know. There is a reverence to be found here which I have never witnessed in the West. Unlike the vulgar mega-churches, Russian Orthodox churches respect solitude. They appeal to the inner-self, the private inner sanctuary of peace, and the nature of that appeal seems rather Russian to me. I find them magical, and am constantly drawn back to them. Vespers at such a place could surely convert any sceptical soul. The appeal is not a religious one per se; it is the metaphysical sensitivity, the mystery and irreducibility of the human spirit that these churches inhere.

  Enigmatic, multi-genuflecting ladies with the look of salvation in their faces and cowled in head-scarves, light candles and form orderly queues to kiss ancient icons that portray a multitude of saints. They move like chess pieces between relics lit by lamps and candles, kissing the glass and then quickly rubbing away the mark. I am drawn into the blessed silence of the icon. The gaze of memory looks down upon me. Kissing and communicating with multiple images of Christ permits an intimate immediacy with the Saviour not readily obtainable in non-Orthodox worship. Their azure-coloured eyes never meet mine. I feel invisible amongst the funereal expressions. Soft, fervent whispers echo around the vaulted, frescoed naves. Russian, a language of soft sibilants and palatal fricatives, is made for whispering and chanting homophonic Slavonic chants. I stand, letting myself float in the harmonic consonance of the language. I want the sounds to be impressed on my brain.

  Vigil lamps hang from brass chains. Mystical and heavenly, the First Antiphon is chanted from somewhere high above me in a cappella harmony; fragments of a mystical vision, a bridge to the beyond. The purity of the human voice, the most perfect instrument of praise, with no musical accompaniment to trivialise things. No guitars or gospel here; just continuity, authenticity and tradition. Unmodernised, its appeal is as transcendental as the faith it is show-casing. Rooted in past traditions and with the immediate symbolism of the relics, it transcends time and the world. Immutable and indifferent to temporal necessities. The Liturgy remains virtually unchanged, still enshrouded in the mystery of the Church Slavonic language whose zigzagging sentences and repetitive poetics are just beyond the reach of the standing Congregation. From the beginning, Russians had always heard the Gospel preached in the vernacular.

  Surely weary, they have been standing for over an hour now. I stand with the upright poise of the spiritual man, lost in borrowed thoughts, indulged in the inner lyrical grace of the words being issued forth. Bearded men in heavy cassocks emerge from hidden doorways behind the gilded iconostasis, swinging chinking censers. Then they disappear dragging their shadows behind them, only to reappear moments later from another concealed door, grasping a heavy, ancient tome with marbled fore-edges. The booming basso profondo of the priest’s voice resonates from the ambon, saturating the church with an oppressive spirit. Shoulder-to-shoulder in the packed nave. A silent, congested train of people in the narthex. It is New Year’s Day, and the day is beginning to bloom.

  The great lure of the Russian Orthodox Church is its continuity, its steadfastness. Religion aside, it has a philosophical magnetism. The evangelical, happy-clappy churches which Russia is rightly trying to render illegal seem pathetic in comparison with their teary sermons and people waving in the air as if they were attending a rock concert. These churches do not belong perhaps in Russia. They may have mass appeal, but some might say they make a mockery of religion. A service at the Russian Orthodox Church is timeless, sacred and authentic. It is sincere, deep and as the superlative of church services conveys a much more meaningful, transcendental Mitsein.

  The Orthodox Church appears to have remained somehow immune to liberalist thinking. It has preserved its sanctity by never bowing to the demands of that fatuous evangelism which is creeping into churches right across Western Europe, and indeed much of the world, turning Church services into some kind of self-parody, a sort of pathetic, childish skit with guitars, mindless emotionalism and grizzling adults. It is not exactly vox populi, but if religion is more private, it is more likely to achieve a sacred appeal through detachment, not via giant screens and bad acting. These evangelical services replete with their emotional paroxysms make religious practice look like some kind of desperate self-help group. And if the contrast to these churches is the explanation for the reversal of what looked like the Russian Orthodox Church’s impish fate some years ago, then Russia seems more appealing than ever before. It is comforting to know that spiritual solemnity can still have an appeal somewhere in the world. In this vein, a Russian Orthodox thinker might offer, ‘Why the constant need to engage with the contemporary world and its modernist, universal liberalist discourse?’

  Amidst all the trash and self-imposed cultural decay in the West, Russia represents class, constancy and cultural preservation. Unlike the West, Russia has not joined in the race to the bottom in terms of standards and decency. The icon of femininity, a Russian woman would not dream of covering herself in tattoos and dressing like a failed gangster with baggy jeans hanging beneath her derrière. Russia understands old-fashioned values, the importance of preserving its own culture, but also the threat of radical Islam. In terms of conceptual orthodoxies, Russia is the inverse of the West in all these respects, and for this reason is chided for being a thorn in the liberalist hegemonic side.

  Despite living in an age of Islamist terrorism, in the Putin era Russia has been consistently demonised by the West, with all
the Western criticism bearing down on its leader. It is difficult to find any alternative view in the West. Russian officials, including Putin, have said repeatedly that the migration crisis is the result of the US-European destruction of Iraq, Libya and attempts to topple Assad in Syria. That is undeniably the case. A consequentialist could only take a dim view of any US-led invasion in the Middle East or North Africa. What is more, cables published by Wikileaks show that the US planned on destabilising Syria as early as 2006.122 Every time this Western alliance seeks regime change in an Arab country, it ends in disaster (one would say ‘unprecedented disaster’, but sadly there are now a whole list of precedents).

  An alternative view, such as Putin’s take on the Middle East, might be somehow politically incorrect, and an affront to liberal groupthink because of the conservatism which Putinism is perceived to characterise. Scholars such as Clowes (2011) love to describe Putin’s Eurasian Economic Union as ‘fascist’ and ‘imperialist’, but have no problem with the expansionist European Union which left behind any notion of economic union years ago. Putin’s Russia is determined to maintain her sovereignty and identity in the face of globalisation, and for that she should be applauded. Not everybody wants to live in a world of globalised clones who live in ‘identity-free’ areas without borders where there is no alternative to homogenised chains that sell the same junk food and where everybody is tuned into the same trashy TV that could barely entertain a half-intelligent ten year old. Russia has its faults, most certainly, but Putin wants a Russia based first and foremost on tradition, a traditional morality and Christianity, whereas the globalists seek the truth of a nihilistic creed. An identity is formed from roots and connections, not from consumer goods, but the globalists seem to wish to do away with identity.