What Must We Do?

As traditionalist conservatives, we recognize that the cultural and political order is fundamentally corrupt. Therefore we oppose it.

On November 6, many of us had hoped that the election of Romney could slow the rate of destruction, giving a real opposition to liberalism more of a chance to grow and perhaps, given enough time, even halt the decline.

But our hopes were dashed, and the decisiveness of the defeat has caused many of us to see the situation in a new light: It appears that the left rules without any significant opposition, and that no force is capable of preventing liberals from dragging America down to destruction.

This is not to say that conservatives never win political battles. They often do at the local level, and occasionally do at the national level. But overall, conservatism does not currently have the strength to reverse the course of liberalism.

Our fundamental analysis of the situation remains the same but in light of the latest defeat, how should we reorient our thinking? More specifically:

.

1. What should we be trying to do? At The Thinking Housewife, Lawrence Auster writes:

Dissidents seek to change their society. But we cannot change our society. Instead, we must seek to create a new society or at least the seed of a new society (even if, for the foreseeable future, it is only an “ark,” as Malcolm Pollack says) that will be separate from the United States though within its borders. So we are separatists, not dissidents. [Emphasis added.]

Traditionally, conservatism has attempted to block liberal initiatives and to reverse established liberal policies. But as Mr. Auster has articulated, we do not have the ability to reverse liberal policies, and we have only a very limited ability to block its new initiatives. We cannot change society. This inability is not a doctrine that can be proved, but is instead an intuitive insight coming from one who has enough knowledge of the particulars, and enough general wisdom, for his intuition to be correct.

So traditional conservatism, at least at the national level, is effectively dead. It will undoubtedly continue to go through the motions, and occasionally do some good, but it cannot do what is most important: retake America from the left.

And if so, then we must switch goals, from defeating the Left to preserving whatever we can of what is good about America.

.

2. What should be our relationship with America, or should we call it the United States of America?

America is our nation, the land where our fathers died. But America has become the homeland and headquarters of institutionalized liberalism, a liberalism that wickedly defies God and seeks to destroy Christianity, the dignity of white people, and our traditional way of life.  And America aggressively seeks to export liberalism all around the world. What therefore should be our relationship with America?

To be traditionalists rather than revolutionaries, we must aim primarily to preserve something good which we have received from our ancestors. We must primarily be about preserving the best of the America, the best of our people’s ways. We need a way to distinguish between the part of America we are preserving, and the part we are rejecting and need to protect ourselves against.

I don’t think there is a simple answer to this question, but I think the basic answer is to look at American life prior to roughly 1960. The American way of life back then, although it contained the seeds of the destruction that is germinating all around us, was fundamentally solid at the level of everyday operations. The traditional way of marriage was publicly honored, even as subversives were working on destroying it. Sexual sin was publicly opposed and dishonored, even as subversives were working to elevate the status of fornication and perversion. America was seen as a nation of white people, run according to the traditional ways of white people, in which nonwhites were welcome to participate as long as they did not seek to subvert the majority order. And so on. Pre-1960’s America gives us a concrete model to emulate, albeit with some modifications to account for current conditions.

.

In an important discussion at The Thinking Housewife, Laura Wood and her interlocutors have been discussing the question, to express it crudely, of whether “America” is just the people, or also includes the government. To continue to express it crudely, the question is whether we are to seek the preservation of only the people, or also of the state.

Although we can conceptually distinguish between the people and their governing institutions, in practice these cannot fully be separated. The governing institutions express the people’s view of who they are and how life ought to be ordered. And it will not be enough to preserve physically the existence of (mostly) Christian white people who reject the thinking and way of life of liberalism. A nation is more than its people and their immediate way of life. A nation includes the institutions that govern it and give it structure, such as churches, courts, colleges, government, and so on .

And this means that in order to preserve a remnant, we will need a group of interrelated institutions that express in concrete form the understanding we have of the meaning of life and our way of life. We will have to preserve, or perhaps create anew, a set of governing institutions that will embody the authority that every society needs.

These institutions must not be seditious in the ordinary sense of the word, or they will bring down the wrath of the state and be crushed. To be effective, they will have to operate in a way that does not threaten the state.

How exactly can we do this? At this point, nobody knows. But we don’t need to know the particulars in order to know what generally is to be done. We must actively work to preserve our people and our way of life against a liberal juggernaut that cannot currently be defeated, just held at bay.

.

Some concluding points:

.

Liberals currently view America as nothing more than a Forum where individuals and groups “pursue their dreams.” If they mean when they say, then whites, Christians and Traditionalists will have to be allowed to pursue their dreams too.

.

Talk precedes action. Through words, we clarify our understanding of the situation, we raise our spirits by articulating what’s wrong and what we aspire to, and we attract allies and converts. Our words do not change minds by the force of their logic. When it comes to topics as deep as the ones we are concerned with, changing minds by sheer force of logic and reasoning is impossible. Instead, with our words, we place something before the reader. We simply show, and some respond.

.

We must constantly petition God on behalf of our people and our enterprise. Our task is exceedingly difficult; in fact, it is humanly impossible. We must fortify our minds, do what we can, and petition the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Triune God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to make the necessary change happen.