Neo-liberalism, the corporate-capitalist global state and progressive thought devours unique cultures in a drab conformity that is relentless in its pursuit of a universal solution to mans inherent differences, nevermind the right to pursue those differences. And please, if you don’t believe this is true, just do a little research into the declining numbers of indigenous peoples fighting their last battles to save their living space, language, spiritual beliefs and tribal ways of life against this monolithic threat.

There is simply no such thing as universal human rights, that is pure non-sense, and that stance, be it criticism of China or Islam, tramples on a peoples right to shape and define the pursuit of their own destiny, no matter what we or anyone else thinks of the choices they make to organize and make sense of their lives.

Ok, that was full disclosure Reynardine, sound the alarm bells to all.

Trolls who are dishonest and disengenous frequent all blogs. I have endeavored to be honest, never shy away from disagreement, (but not allow that disagreement to become personal, well most of the time anyway) and spend enough time outlining alternative ideas to leave no doubt as to where I stand.

Most people focus on the effect and ignore the cause or in philosophy, the prime, first premise. So often we shout about the details, and ignore foundational thought as the basis for the particulars we embrace.

I am above all an idealist versus materialist, within Deep Ecology, almost without exception, we all are. Transcendent spiritual values are placed above purely materialist concerns for life, we are opposed to a man-centered view of existence and hold that nature has value in and of itself, not dependent on the value it holds for man’s use.

The only movement that consistently embraces this ecological view of life is the European New Right, as opposed to American conservatives or the authoritarian far right. However, as a traditional, orthodox Christian I reject their neo-paganism.

Democracy and technology are twin gods that have failed to deliver on their promises, despite the best of intentions of the enligtenment philosophers. I am in agreement with the early Greek philosophers on their criticisms of popular democracy and believe like other historical examples, it carries the seeds of its own future collapse.

Ruslan’s and Reynardine’s rejection of the Aral Sea environmental catastrophe mystifies me. It is THE textbook example of what happens when a fragile region is subjected to industrial agriculture, water stress and collapses. The Russian’s began an attempt to restore part of the Aral Sea in 2005 and the project is ongoing. The scientists publish their progress frequently and these can be accessed online (in English) .

My special interest is geo-strategy, the nation-state, and ethnic conflict. I teach basic world and human geography but not at a Tier 1 school. I came to teaching late after a long career in the military. Thus, am no giant in the field of ethnic conflict but stand in the shadow of many great scholars.

Race is just another part of culture, and I reject white nationalism because biology and biology alone does not constitute a civilization. I think the WN’s miss this fact, but the Euro New Right does not. There is no such thing as an individual who exists outside a community or social group. The very idea of liberty and equality (esp as it unfolded during the French Revolution and re-emerged with the evolution of the neo-liberal state) is at its heart counter to how we as humans organize and make sense of our existence. Equality does not exist in nature and it is a profound conclusion to assume that somehow we exist outside of and separate/distinct from our environmental beginning.

So, I am openly opposed to most of progressive thought and the neo-liberal corporate-state. I comment here to keep lines of communication open and exchange ideas.

I think you went a little too far on that one. In spite of his polemics against you, I don’t think he has ever once ‘jumped off the deep (ha! It’s funny because it’s part of your username) end’ into conspiracy-land.

He has called you on what seem to me, as an outside observer, to be perfectly rational points. Yes he has mocked you out of frustration. Yes, he has ridiculed you. But you must admit, you are represent a very obscure area of geographical studies. You cannot be surprised if others view your ideas with mild suspicion.

That being said, I am finding this tête à tête interesting, so please continue. As I wrote before, while I often find myself disagreeing with your viewpoints, they are always enough to give me pause for thought.

I can also be reasonably sure that you’re not Jason Smith. Because your writing style seems to be above that of the average fifth-grader.

Our discourse has been unprofitable since I lumped you and Ruben among the lunatic fringe that sees a conspiracy under every rock and believes the give and take of American electoral hijinks herald the Fourth Reich.

Sorry man, but the steady thrum of those black helicopters outside your window at night has unhinged your reasoning.

Our community, be it new right or deep ecology, needs to engage other communities, Ruslan is one of this blogs sharpest commentators, with a wealth of ideas and a different perspective that is refreshing. I constantly learn from him, and even if not in agreement, it makes me look at my own ideas from a different angle.

Both the new left and new right have incorporated a concern for the environment into their platforms, and I work with both.

Some Deep Ecologists have also adopted reformulated fascist authoritarian elements but most have not. Most acknowledge the near impossibility of dismantling our capitalist industrial base and advocate instead for the steady state economic model and bio-regionalism. Some anticipate a collapse and crisis that will be replaced by a return to decentralization and a local economy.

There is much internal discussion about these and other issues in the community. Traditionalism is embraced by almost all, and is as you say, a romantic-idealist return to a pre-industrial/pre-enlightenment world view. It profoundly rejects materialism as a satisfactory basis for forming human communities.

We observe that ANY economic model that assumes a materialist basis for human well-being, exponential growth to accomodate increasing human population and a global infrastructure model is inherently unsustainable within a finite resource base.

Hence I accept the New Right’s proposition that both socialist/communist systems and corporate-capitalist models are inherently unsatisfactory and carry the genesis of their own demise and collapse.

Also, I am not a neo-pagan, but traditional Christian.

Please cut and paste any comment I have made that claim darker skin people are the source and cause of all our environmental ills.

I frequently contribute to blogs that focus on the environment, however, without a fundamental change in our worldview, our environmental problems will not be solved. Hence why Deep Ecologists look at the bigger picture of values, human organization, world view and appropriate goals. I am an advocate of bio-regionalism, steady state economy, population reduction world wide and opposed to the neo-liberal state and corporate capitalism, in fact any economic system that assumes infinite growth within a finite resource base.

This is my last attempt to civilize our discourse. Ruslan and I have been engaged in the give and take of ideas without rancor or assumption. I respect him tremendously, agree with some but not all of his ideas and appreciate his intelligence.

If you insist on defining not only your own position but mine, then we very little to talk about that would be meaningful in any way.

As for embracing “traditionalism”, the problem here is that you look at these “traditional” ways of life in a metaphysical, and I would dare to say romantic manner. Many times when people speak of traditions, the practices they speak of are in fact not traditional at all, and in nearly all cases they are ignoring the material conditions which gave rise to those traditions. They see culture and traditions as a product of different people themselves. This goes against basic history. Moreover, there is nothing wrong with enlightenment values such as liberty and equality, the problem, from the point of view of Marx, is that liberal society, an outgrowth of capitalism, failed to deliver its promise of liberty, equality, and brotherhood.

Without asking or caring, you assume a position I don’t take. Deep Ecology is a multi-ethnic movement, in all countries and heavily represented in academia. Some of the more prominent academics are non-white, from India and Africa. Deep Ecology is HIGHLY critical of Western Civilization, with its emphasis on a utilitarian approach to nature, reliance on technology, and destruction of traditional societies.

The New Right in Europe, formulated by GRECE, has been heavily criticized by elements of the far right for its embrace of the third world and traditional societies, including Islam. Where you can find traditional racism in that stance is beyond me, unless you are being deliberately obtuse.

My position is exactly as stated: Deep Ecology, embrace of traditionalism (pre-enlightenment) and a non-Western approach to harmonious man-nature interaction.

Well I would suggest you stop using it because there is a logical disconnect here. Only with the development of large-scale industry did the problem of environmental impact become clear, something which occurred long after the foundation of the USSR. Only a planned economy, as opposed to one based on profit motive(with the property relations that entails), can take into account long term environmental impact. The fact that some existing planned economies(China is not a planned economy) didn’t is irrelevant here.

The reason why the European New Right is so sketchy about alternatives is because when you strip away all the philosophical or environmentalist rhetoric, it comes down to plain nationalism or xenophobia. Believe me, I’ve had private discussions with members of this movement.

I bring up the Aral Sea disaster because we use it as a textbook example of central planning and its environmental consequences, there are numerous others, within socialist/communist models (China, Soviet Union) and capitalism.

My point is that neither system has proven itself capable of regulating human behavior in such a way as to insure sustainablity.

Philosophy, and a true indepth look at alternatives to our curent political/economic model will have to be at another time.

You were quite correct in that many in the European New Right are a little sketchy about alternatives, mostly because they focus on opposition to the system versus providing a viable alternative.

Socialism and Communism are not at all utopian if we are speaking of Marxist socialism. The idea that the Aral Sea disaster can be attributed to Marxist theory is ridiculous, and in any case that theory had been long abandoned by the USSR at the time. Whatever mistakes the Communists made during this time, it is clear that only a true socialist system, where production is not governed according to the profit motive, can be used to preserve the environment.

And I still don’t see how nationalism and the idealism which goes along with it is necessary for such environmentalism.

The question comes down to Being and Beginning/Origin. We can choose three models: 1. Existence sprang from Non-Existence 2. The Universe is Eternal, has always existed and from Time plus Chance we have evolved into Being and Awareness. The physical world we live in is a “closed”, completely self-contained. 3. The Universe came into existence through the Will/Action of a Being outside of time/space, and that the physical world we inhabit is not a “closed” system but can be acted upon from an outside Intelligence/Being.

A strict, pure materialist is forced to choose option 1 or 2. A person who believes in a transcendant spiritual plane believes option 3 is the origin model.

Capitalism had its theoretical origin not in Utopian thinking but practical application, private property rights plus the profit motive overseen by a government that protected and encouraged both was seen as the model which most effectively distributed goods and services throughtout society.

Socialism/communism I would argue is largely Utopian, and a critical response to the evolution of capitalism and its inherent inequity.

The evolution of the nation-state from feudalism has had its positive and negative influences. Deep Ecologists advocate a modification of the nation-state to regions not united based on politics and economics alone but one that includes the biosphere. The concept was articulated in the early 70′s by leading Deep Ecologists and called bio-regionalism. The argument being that most problems are local and best solved by the population that has the most to gain or lose by unwise use. I became a firm advocate of it after seeing the effects of decisions made by far away entities (corporations and governments) that dramatically affected the lives of the people who live there and depend on the local environment for their livelihood and quality of life.

The Aral Sea disaster is a textbook example of how the Soviet Union mismanaged a precious resource to the great harm of the local inhabitants and the bio-region.

Capitalists fare no better, with corporate exploitation of resources for profit destroying local communities. The profit motive devoid of spiritual content/meaning/values effectively exploits primary resources but has no interest in the future or quality of life. People are just another resource to use, no different in form or function than a tree to cut down or resource to extract, process and sell.

Note that during all this time of introducing CO2 into the atmosphere, the only nexus he has ever stated with ecology is that furriners are bad for it, especially the dark ones.

And again, how does nationalism compliment environmentalism?

I am overwhelmingly pleased with the conversation here. I can sincerely say that many of Ruslan’s points are valid and some I disagree with, nonetheless, it is a substantive conversation based upon real ideas, which in my opinion is a far cry from much that is presented on SPLC as well as the comments (mine included) that are pure gossip and childish attacks. Anyway, Thank You.

My point was that it is an ideology and linked with politics.

Most of our disagreement hinges on our respective world view. Both sides of this debate, individual versus collective, local versus transnational, spiritual versus materialistic, etc. struggle endlessly to find common ground and synthesis, when in fact they represent thesis and anti-thesis, thus no common dialectic synthesis is possible.

However, at the very least, you and I can avoid the easy trap of stereotyping our opponents and peel back the layers of our arguments to reach the foundational values/ideas that separate us.

Within Deep Ecology we have broad agreement on what needs to be done, but fervently debate the particulars. Most New Right proponents are genuine environmentalists, reject a purely utilitarian vision of nature, and believe the natural world and its well being and health to be central to human well being and health.

Space does not allow a full discussion of steady state economics, but please refer to the website for a brief overview. A reading/resource list is provided if deeper understanding is desired.

Fundamentally, both systems see man in a purely economic or materialistic sense, with humans being interchangeable with each other as long as productive work is accomplished in the most profitable fashion for whomever is in charge. The very term “Human Resources” used in so many corporations spells this out pretty clearly. Aesthetic, historic, evolutionary and spiritual aspects of humans aren’t considered by either system except insofar as they affect production and the maintenance of control by an elite.
All economic systems, no matter whence derived or their ultimate motivation, are run by humans; and will tend to take on the character of the humans running them.

Deep Ecology rejects a purely materialistic motive for life, and insists on a wholistic approach to the man-nature existence/meaning question. In this paradigm, man the individual, his wants or desires, are subordinated to the community and its well being, that community being indivisible from the health of the natural enviroment within which it exists.

I don’t know were you got the idea that I think politics and economics are not linked, since no Marxist would dare make that claim. I also don’t see why care for the environment would be served by nationalism. Nationalism inherently leads to war, and war is extremely bad for the environment.

Moreover, your claim that both mainstream right and left support neo-liberalism is simply false. There are plenty of people, both conservative and liberal, who support Keynesian economics. Austrian schoolers like Ron Paul can’t be compared to neo-liberals since neo-liberals tend to contradict their dogma when it comes to things like protectionism and subsidies. And the idea that only the European New Right are coming up with solutions(which nobody is listening to) is simply false- have you heard of these “Communist” parties which exist all throughout Europe?

As for this “Steady State Economy”, you’re going to have to explain that in detail, something which most New Rightists I’ve talked to refuse to explain. In fact I have met New Rightists who were fans of Austrian schooler Murray Rothbard, which would make them extremely opposed to any state intervention in the economy. Not to mention it doesn’t help when every “nation” is claiming the right of self-determination no matter how tiny.

The New Rightists can dress their fascism up in all the pseudointellectual garments as they wish, but in the end they still just hate immigrants and want to sound revolutionary and “left-wing” by piggy-backing on to environmentalism. This can be traced back to the work of Povl Riis-Knudsen of Denmark. Threatened with revolution in the interwar period, some governments resorted to fascists to secure their power. Since the war, the nature of imperialism has changed, to the point where traditional fascists simply aren’t of use to the elite. Now they exist without patrons, and thus form the “Third Positionists” or “New Right.”

I will respectfully disagree that economics doesn’t fall under ideology. Politics (how shall we then live) as well as economics (how shall we then eat) are explicitly interwoven. Add in culture (ethnicity, language, heritage, spirituality and soil) and you have the three basic pillars upon which man organizes and makes sense of his existence.

The European New Right is an altogether different animal than what passes for American conservatism. In America, both conservatives and liberals by and large support the neo-liberal corporate-capitalist welfare state, its continued growth and evolution into the managerial state. The issues that divide them are largely trivial and unimportant in the larger picture, LGBT rights, gay marraige, prayer in public schools, etc. These issues are literally dwarfed by the more serious issues (which are not dealt with DESPITE the evidence of their impending seriousness and impact, the continued degradation of the biosphere, the looming energy crisis and the next financial meltdown, the debt bubble.

While the conservatives and liberals in America heartily debate the gender of angels, the largest migration of human beings from the south to the north, not seen on this scale since the end of the Roman Imperium continues unabated (with unknown consequences), peak oil looms, another acre of farmland falls to development per human added to earth’s exploding population, and the dominant theme among our new social justice shallow environmentalists is that we can’t talk about population control because it infringes on women’s fertility rights.

At least the Euro New Right is talking alternatives to our current structures that embrace both values of the past and providing a radical, revolutionary solution to how we should live in the future.

The popular economic model is the Steady State Economy by the way, supported by both the New Right and many Deep Ecologists. Pan Nationalism, the right of any people anywhere to self-determination unopposed or interfered with by the neo-liberal managerial state and its insatiable desire to incorporate them into its globalist material model.

Finally, the societal model they imagine is not one that is reductionist but instead wholistic, placing not the individual as supreme but the culture and its well being as supreme, and the individual as subordinate to that well being.

They are interested because it is something novel. Many are disaffected with mainstream conservatism because the mainstream doesn’t seem to preach to them. The problem is, however, that most of these groups will rush to conservatives at times like these when a Democrat is in the White House and the conservatives start talking radical. When Republicans get in office, conservatives tend to tone down the radical rhetoric which leaves some of these groups out in the cold. In any case, none of this makes the European New Right’s ideology correct. It’s childish romanticism plus scapegoating.

More importantly, the New Right’s claim to opposing capitalism is weak at best. When asked about their opposition to capitalism, the best most of these “Third Positionists” can manage is “Communism and capitalism are two sides of the same coin!” This doesn’t cut it. Some try to take this further, stating that both are “materialist” ideologies or something along those lines, not taking into account non-material, spiritual things. First, this is akin to attacking them because neither deals with the affairs of unicorns or elves.

Second, capitalism is not an ideology, it’s a mode of production. Property relations and means of production don’t have anything to do with spiritual issues. You can live in a capitalist society and do pretty much whatever you want. Communism is technically not an ideology but a mode of production as well, though one can call it an ideology if used to refer to Marxism. Of course most Marxists wouldn’t use the term “ideology” so readily to describe Marxist theory. In any case, so-called Third Positionists and New Rightists have, as far as I have seen, failed to articulate what sort of mode of production they would support beyond “what is good for the race and environment.”

@Shultz

” In addition, I believe Warren Buffet, Jamie Dimon, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, David Geffen, Jeff Imelt, Lloyd Blankenfeim, George Soros, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk,……. just to name a few are ardent supporters of capitalism as well as egalitarian and progressive causes”

There are plenty of people who support egalitarian and progressive causes and DON’T support capitalism. What is your point here? The same people might argue as to whether these people actually support real progressive causes, or causes which are merely said to be progressive. Furthermore, there have often been capitalists which supported progressive causes simply because they were seen as a viable alternative to revolution, expropriation, and execution. If you read the work of Soros, it is clear that he fears that out of control neo-liberalism will lead to a backlash against what he calls the “open society”, better known by the technical term “bullshit.”

You are also correct in stating there is no ethnically distinct white American culture. This was brought home to me in a very real way after living in Europe, reconnecting with family roots there and seeing and feeling first hand the strong ethnic cultural ties Europeans have with one another.

However, how do you explain the growing interest in the European New Right among disaffected American conservatives, radical environmentalists and former progressive drop outs?

We do understand that capitalism and the progressive ideology (which includes mainstream conservatives/rightists) which tacitly support the rise and dominance of capitalism. If I recall, the OWS crowd had a moment of silence during their hypocrisy rally to honor Steve Jobs when he died. In addition, I believe Warren Buffet, Jamie Dimon, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, David Geffen, Jeff Imelt, Lloyd Blankenfeim, George Soros, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk,……. just to name a few are ardent supporters of capitalism as well as egalitarian and progressive causes

The two competing systems of economic organization, capitalism and communism, while structurally different, have the same ultimate end in mind, the utilitarian exploitation of nature to support material well being, usually along an exponential assumed growth curve.

The neo-liberal model is literally a death sentence for unique indigenous cultures around the world.