OWS is creating some news and some controlled chaos, and that is probably a good thing.

As a political movement, it is more about crowd psychology than anything else. The OWS folks don’t know what they want, and as a collective they don’t even seem to understand what they are against.

For instance, there are tons of signs and blog posts about “Corporatism.” They don’t even know what it means. Look it up. Corporatism is probably closer to what they want than what they are protesting.

Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common interests.^[1] Corporatism is theoretically based upon the interpretation of a community as anorganic body.^[2][3] The term corporatism is based on the Latin root “corp” meaning “body”.^[3]

In 1881, Pope Leo XIII commissioned theologians and social thinkers to study corporatism and provide a definition for it. In 1884 in Freiburg, the commission declared that corporatism was a “system of social organization that has at its base the grouping of men according to the community of their natural interests and social functions, and as true and proper organs of the state they direct and coordinate labor and capital in matters of common interest.”^[4]

One of the main types of corporatism is economic tripartism involving negotiations between business, labour, and state interest groups to establish economic policy.^[5]

Corporatism is related to the sociological concept of structural functionalism.^[6] Corporate social interaction is common withinkinship groups such as families, clans and ethnicities.^[7] Aside from humans, certain animal species are known to exhibit strong corporate social organization, such as penguins.^[8][9]

Corporatist types of community and social interaction are common to many ideologies, including: absolutism, capitalism,conservatism, fascism, liberalism, progressivism, reactionism, socialism, and syndicalism.^[10]

I recently received a copy of Guillaume Faye’sWhy We Fight : Manifesto of the European Resistance. Faye believes that we have been living for some time under a “pseudo-democratic” form of “soft totalitarianism” and that our economies suffer from the “combined disadvantages of both

capitalism and socialism.” I’m inclined to agree. Some people think we need more capitalism and others think we need more socialism. European socialism has long been the daydream utopia of privileged American progressives who have fond memories of ski vacations and French class trips. But Europeans are protesting, too. More socialism hasn’t worked for them. The libertarian and neo-con American Right wants more capitalism, mostly because it’s American as apple pie and hippies hate it. A “freer” market is guaranteed to result in more outsourced jobs and more selling of American companies to global organizations that are bigger than whatever “fat cats” the naive OWS movement is protesting.

Why We Fight is organized as a dictionary of ideas. I don’t necessarily endorse or agree with all of them, but in flipping through it I found a few terms that I thought were particularly relevant and well-defined. Some highlights below:

From Cosmopolitanism:

The belief that the systematic melange of cultures is preferable to the identity of each culture — the belief that comes from the prejudice that some sort of world civilization is necessary. [..]

Cosmopolitanism is nothing but failed differentialism. Its ideal of mixing cultures for the sake of creating a single world culture is essentially totalitarian. With its simulacrum of heterogeneity, there lurks a will to uniformity.

From Globalisation:

The planetary universalization of exchange, circuits of economic production and finance, along with information; the internationalization of culture.

These phenomena create an environment where globally oriented companies with allegiance to no nation or people can become unstoppable juggernauts, subverting State and popular interests. Start a union and demand better wages. Company X finds or imports people who will work for less.

It’s not about a handful of “Mr. Burns” characters — the 1% is a distraction. The real problem is that legal entities designed only to create profit are doing exactly what they were designed to do, and these supranational entities exist independently of any State that might reign them in. They are post-national Leviathans without sovereigns, mindlessly crawling around the globe and sucking it dry. The Left’s attachment to multicultural cosmopolitanism erodes barriers between nations and frees the beast to move.

From Mercantilism:

The theory according to which the market is the sole basis of order and prosperity.

International mercantilism is the official doctrine of contemporary economic thought — the official doctrine of the corporations, the banks, and the European Commission. The exchanges and profits it generates take precedence over notions of production, full employment, independence or supply. Hence, outsourcing and the abolition of tariff barriers.

Mercantilism is the default religion of the United States, and those on the mainstream right are often its most faithful defenders. The businessman is a saint to America’s Republican talking heads from Glenn Beck to Lars Larson and Rush Limbaugh. If a businessman chooses to hire illegal immigrants because Americans demand higher compensation and a higher quality of life, he may be slapped on the wrist but will rarely be accused of criminal enterprise. Americans are asked to feel sorry for him, and more often than not, they will defend him. Someone who is making money is “succeeding,” no matter what they do or how they do it. People want to be them and be around them. They want to watch television shows about them and know what cars they drive. No one judges them unless they run for public office, when the public hypocritically expects them to be knights in shining armor — knowing full well that no one gets very far in America without cheating or fucking people over or generally acting like an asshole. No, the business man “creates jobs” and “fuels the economy” and “supports all of those do-nothing losers.”

Instead of screaming at the sky and complaining about “corporatism” — which is what many of them really want — Americans and Europeans alike need to reassess their own values, the values of both the socialist Left and the free-market Right. Across-the-board commitments to Cosmopolitanism, Globalization and Mercantilism make it possible for these hungry, immoral beasts to slither across nations and devour everything worth having, leaving a scum trail of cheap technology to keep us busy and imported goods that keep us all fat and happy.

Why We Fight is available on Amazon and from the publisher at http://www.arktos.com/.

UPDATE

A reader pointed out that Faye’s “mercantilism,” too, is at odds with historical definitions of the word in much the same way that the OWS definition of “corporatism” is at odds with its conventional definition.

I liked Faye’s definition of “mercantilism” as a catch-all for a merchant-class view of the world where making money is ennobled and virtus is dismissed as a joke for low class suckers by a population of people who are delighted to swindle each other. Now I remain in search of a good word that isn’t already taken.

Half-assed commie bandwagon protests are a dime a dozen in this town. You’ll recall that Portland hosted another copycat display of pointless public emoting this summer, and Jesse Jackson has to re-route his tour bus every time a cop shoots some nut job waving a weapon. I found a bunch of hippies camping out, smoking pot and beating on drums to be unremarkable.

But cops in riot gear holding ground? That’s something to see.

I predict that riot gear will be the new fetish fad in the gay community. Look for dudes wearing shields, visors and leather thongs in next year’s gay parade. Remember: I called it. 

I was headed to the gym anyway, so I went downtown to take some photos of the real occupation.  It was muddy. I grabbed a copy of the Willamette Week to clean my lifting shoes.

You have to admit, the strategy was brilliant.

1. Let the protesters rally supporters late at night.
2. Observe as everyone parties and sings Kumbaya.
3. Wait until the crowds disperse.
4. Wait until the wayward drunks looking for trouble go home.
5. Send in fresh troops to kick out campers when they are tired, hungover, and unsupported by massive crowds.
6. Move in the backhoe, tear down the tents and erect fences while tired, dirty people look confused.

 I went down to Occupy SF. Very tame affair. They were discussing the importance of non-sexist language and whether to grow a garden. I feel the foundations of the Empire cracking…

* * *

The problem with the Occupy movement from the get-go has been cognitive dissonance. These are, for the most part, the same liberals who cheered for globalist politicians, open borders, and bigger government. They feed the machine they think they hate by breaking down meaningful identities and social roles and replacing them with thin, post-modern identities that are more easily exploited by global corporate entities. They are reaping what they themselves have sown. Tribalism and sexism are bulwarks against globalist expansion. Multiculturalism and feminism are far more convenient to a supranational system which regards all of us only as consumers and units of labor.

As I walked back to my car, the protesters were trying to rationalize their loss. Some woman was shouting about how they were going to “keep fighting.”

Quintus: People should know when they are conquered.
Maximus: Would you, Quintus? Would I?

It didn’t go down exactly like I thought it would.

Funny uncle Sam’s balls dropped.

But, at the end of this day, Occupy Portland did go out with a whimper.

The Crucible of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

For my thoughts on the issue, see  The Homosexual Question – On Marriage and DADT

MAN vs. “Person“

Some female writer seems to be offended (I’m shocked) by the possibility that masculinity might not be all about women, and has decided that I am unqualified to write about manhood.

While I am not usually one to compare myself to lesbians, if latent and overt lesbians had been considered unqualified to write about the experience of womanhood and the needs of women, feminism probably wouldn’t have happened (or made much progress at all). I have to wonder if anyone would even hire female writers…because in the majority of truly Traditional societies, no one took the opinions of offended women seriously.

I sometimes like to think of myself as the opposite of a lesbian feminist separatist. I’m not a separatist (the majority of my friends are straight men and I hold up the Traditional family as the ideal and oppose same-sex marriage for that reason), and I’m anti-feminist (I support Traditional sex roles for males and females). I’m also not trying to “recruit” straight men or guide them away from women, as the lady blogger seems to imply. Quite the opposite.

It is kind of funny, though that “Kidist Paulos Asrat” is taking sides with the publisher of White News Now.com. Strange times make strange bedfellows, I guess…

Because I actually do have a penis and have to function in heterosexual male social groups, I feel comfortable in saying I know more about manhood than she does. So maybe she should stop writing about manhood.

What is Whining?

The charge of “whining” comes up a lot, not so much with my writing specifically as when any man, especially a white man, writes about any injustices or skewed perceptions of men or manhood. So I figured I’d give that subject a treatment over at The Spearhead.

Alphas, Male Hierarchy and The Form

Men push down and look up.

A man establishes his own position by applying pressure on the men around him. The men who succumb to that pressure fall beneath him. They may resent him or covet his status, but in some way they are always looking up to him. Those men, in turn, apply pressure on the men around and ultimately beneath them. It is not a linear order, but a pyramid of dominance. In relative proportion to the size of the group, multiple men can claim comparable levels of dominance. Their highest task is to compete with each other, but they also have to apply a certain amount of downward pressure to stay where they are.

Read more at The Spearhead…

Plato (428 – 348 BC)

Prompted by Harvey C. Mansfield’s Manliness, which I am carefully re-reading, I started working my way through Plato’s Republic today. Mansfield introduced me to the concept of thumos, spelled thymos in Allan Bloom’s notes for The Republic.

θυμός

When Plato (as Socrates) introduces the concept in Book II, he compares a noble dog with a noble young man in defining the necessary qualities of a good warrior or “auxiliary”–the class from which his “guardians”  should ideally chosen from. This characteristic of thymos or “spiritedness” is closely related to the dog fighting term “gameness” explored in Sam Sheridan’s A Fighter’s Heart which I recently reviewed for The Spearhead.

Both can be reduced down to “a fighting spirit;” both can mean something a bit more specific. Both are central to any discussion of paleomasculinity otherwise known as manliness.

Here’s the relevant passage.

From Plato’s Republic, Book II

Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and watching?

What do you mean?
I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake the enemy when they see him; and strong too if, when they have caught him, they have to fight with him.

All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them.
Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well?

Certainly.
And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other animal? Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable?

I have.
Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian.

True.
And also of the mental ones; his soul is to be full of spirit?
Yes.
But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and with everybody else?

A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied.
Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them.

True, he said.
What is to be done then? I said; how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other?

True.
He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities; and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible; and hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible.

I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied.
Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded. My friend, I said, no wonder that we are in a perplexity; for we have lost sight of the image which we had before us.

What do you mean? he said.
I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite qualities.

And where do you find them?
Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them; our friend the dog is a very good one: you know that well-bred dogs are perfectly gentle to their familiars and acquaintances, and the reverse to strangers.

Yes, I know.
Then there is nothing impossible or out of the order of nature in our finding a guardian who has a similar combination of qualities?

Certainly not.
Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the spirited nature, need to have the qualities of a philosopher?

I do not apprehend your meaning.
The trait of which I am speaking, I replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in the animal.

What trait?
Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an acquaintance, he welcomes him, although the one has never done him any harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike you as curious?

The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognise the truth of your remark.

And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming; –your dog is a true philosopher.

Why?
Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance?

Most assuredly.
And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy?

They are the same, he replied.
And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover of wisdom and knowledge?

That we may safely affirm.
Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness and strength?

Undoubtedly.

People often want to debate that strength and fighting spirit are low qualities and that real men concentrate on cultivating the higher virtues. I have often argued and continue to assert that without some conceptual root in strength, which in my definition would include thumos as the “will to exert strength,” any discussion of higher virtues becomes non-gendered. It is no longer a discussion of manliness or masculinity, but of virtuous or non-virtuous qualities that can be discussed independently of men.

Physical strength is masculinity’s defining metaphor, because it is rooted in the most obvious biological differences between males and females. The idea that being manly=being strong is neither a modern aberration or something social conditioning can brush away. It is rooted in physical reality.

A Review of Sam Sheridan's "A Fighter's Heart" at The Spearhead

Gameness – On Sam Sheridan’s “A Fighter’s Heart.”

The first hundred pages of Sam Sheridan’s A Fighter’s Heart made me want to pack it in and take up needlepoint. After graduating from high school, Sheridan joined the Merchant Marines, went to Harvard to study art, sailed around the world as a crew member on a yacht, studied Muay Thai in Thailand, won a fight in Thailand, got his EMT certification, fought fires in Washington and Arizona, worked in Antarctica, studied MMA with Pat Miletich and received a good clobbering in an amateur MMA match. In short, he’s done everything awesome.

Continue reading at The Spearhead

Rough Rider (1922) by Phimister Proctor

Recently, I went on a walk around Portland with Mr. Blake, and we visited the bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt in the park blocks across from the Portland Art Museum. This inscription below the statue reads…

“He was found faithful over a few things and he was made ruler over many. He cut his own trail clean and straight and millions followed him toward the light. He was frail; he made himself a tower of strength. He was timid; he made himself a lion of courage. He was a dreamer; he became one of the great doers of all time. Men put their trust in him; Women found a champion in him; Kings stood in awe of him, but children made him their playmate. He broke a nation’s slumber with his cry, and it rose up. He touched the eyes of blind men with a flame and gave them vision. Souls became swords through him; swords became servants of God. He was loyal to his country and he exacted loyalty; he loved many lands, but he loved his own land best. He was terrible in battle, but tender to the weak; joyous and tireless, being free from self-pity; clean with a cleanness that cleansed the air like a gale. His courtesy knew no health, no class; his friendship, no creed or color or race. His courage stood every onslaught of savage beast and ruthless man, of loneliness, of victory, of defeat. His mind was eager, his heart was true, his body and spirit, defiant of obstacles, ready to meet what might come. He fought injustice and tyranny; bore sorrow gallantly; loved all nature, bleak places, and hardy companions, hazardous adventure and the zest of battle. Wherever he went he carried his own pack; and in the uttermost parts of the earth he kept his conscience for his guide.”

“Dedication,” A Biographical Sketch of Theodore Roosevelt

Hermann Hagedorn, 1919

So powerful, so evocative of everything a truly great man should embody. I’m sure Roosevelt had faults and did things I wouldn’t agree with, but those words capture what I mean when I write about the need for powerful masculine heroes who exude strength and inspire men. Our modern world, in its haste to do away with traditional gender roles, never bothered to think about replacing an idealism this potent and beautiful with anything even remotely comparable. Mishima might say that we replaced poetry with bureaucracy.

Cutesy Shopping Mall Art – Roy Lichtenstein "Brushstrokes, 1996"

Mr. Blake and I agree that old Teddy is clearly sneering at the cutesy art across the way.

This piece of shit is an eyesore. It belongs in a shopping mall food court. A old guy passed us on the street while I was taking the picture, and he said something about it looking like bacon. Technicolor bacon. This is a really expensive doodle by a famous artist who phoned it in. Its presence insults the architecture around it, like someone fed a kid a Pop Tart and let him loose in a museum with finger paints.

]]> http://www.jack-donovan.com/axis/2009/10/wherever-he-went-he-carried-his-own-pack/feed/ 2 http://www.jack-donovan.com/axis/2009/10/a-mans-chief-quality-is-fortitude/ http://www.jack-donovan.com/axis/2009/10/a-mans-chief-quality-is-fortitude/#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:00:09 +0000 Jack Donovan http://www.jack-donovan.com/axis/?p=85

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Appelata est enim a viro virtus: viri autem propria maxime est fortitudo.

“The term virtue is from the word that signifies man; a man’s chief quality is fortitude”

Cicero, “Tuscul.”, I, xi, 18.

Very bushido.

h/t ex cathedra

Conan reads the classics

My new piece, “Writing About Men is Important” is up at The Spearhead today.

“Real men don’t read books about masculinity or sit around talking about manhood.”

I’ve heard it more than a few times. Masculinity is associated with action, so men who simply write about men’s issues are sometimes taunted with accusations of defective masculinity. This also plays into the big, dumb, silent thug stereotype that is half-consciously accepted by men, though it only advances the cause of women. My joke that even Conan studied the classics only draws blank stares.

But, by Crom, the truth is that men have been talking about what it means to be a man since the beginning of recorded history. Continue reading at The Spearhead…