Yockeyian Genetics

Constructing a more cohesive pan-European genetic identity.  Emphasis added.

We all know Yockey’s somewhat questionable views on the issue of biological race, which I have written about multiple times (one example here).  Instead of focusing on that, here I look at another issue – the possible genetic (biological racial) consequences of a Yockeyian Imperium, a subject that I term “Yockeyian Genetics.”

In some ways, this is related to my essay on the convergence of the Yockeyian and Salterian perspectives, but here I consider it from the more specific perspective of how a Yockeyian Imperium could affect the genetics of the European peoples constituting such a geopolitical entity.

Let us consider this post, which is based on this paper, from which the following is extracted:

Population stratification caused by nonrandom mating between groups of the same species is often due to geographical distances leading to physical separation followed by genetic drift of allele frequencies in each group. In humans, population structures are also often driven by geographical barriers or distances; however, humans might also be structured by abstract factors such as culture, a consequence of their reasoning and self-awareness. Religion in particular, is one of the unusual conceptual factors that can drive human population structures. This study explores the Levant, a region flanked by the Middle East and Europe, where individual and population relationships are still strongly influenced by religion. We show that religious affiliation had a strong impact on the genomes of the Levantines. In particular, conversion of the region's populations to Islam appears to have introduced major rearrangements in populations' relations through admixture with culturally similar but geographically remote populations, leading to genetic similarities between remarkably distant populations like Jordanians, Moroccans, and Yemenis. Conversely, other populations, like Christians and Druze, became genetically isolated in the new cultural environment. We reconstructed the genetic structure of the Levantines and found that a pre-Islamic expansion Levant was more genetically similar to Europeans than to Middle Easterners.

The last part – “a pre-Islamic expansion Levant was more genetically similar to Europeans than to Middle Easterners” – has some relevance with respect to putative “Levantine immigrants and slaves” in Ancient Rome, who may have been much more “genetically similar to Europeans” than are Middle Easterners today. Note also that post-Islamic expansion Muslin influx into Southern Europe may have been mostly Berber types (and that, with a net effect of only a few percentage points of ancestry, at the greatest). But those are details.  

The main point is that cultural similarity can influence genetics to bring culturally similar people to become more genetically similar, and more genetically distant and distinct from culturally alien peoples, even if the cultural aliens are geographically close and not much genetically different to begin with. The same principle can extend to the realm of politics and High Culture-Politics as that of a Yockeyian Imperium. Thus, we can understand how cultural-civilizational-political boundaries can influence genetic boundaries between peoples.

See this, which is based on this.

…during the last 1,000 generations there are more coalescences between Beijing Chinese and Japanese rather than Beijing Chinese and southern Chinese; in more recent times, there are more coalescences between Chinese groups. This makes some sense, if we suppose that -as seems likely- Mongoloids spread north-to-south across China during prehistory; the Japanese are thus linked -in older times- with northern Chinese, both of which are mostly descended from the northern Mongoloids; in more recent times, especially after the emergence of a uniquely Chinese polity and culture, the Chinese tend to marry other Chinese, hence they share more recent common ancestors within the country itself.

The take home point of this:

The same can apply to Europe and any (relatively small) potential kinship overlap that may currently exist between Europeans and non-Europeans.  Once a “Western Imperium” is established, and gene flow from outside is stopped, over time, genetic distance between those groups within the Imperium and those outside will increase.  Thus, even if there is no increase in gene flow within the Imperium, the fact that a genetic division will be established with the “outer groups” will ensure that Europeans will, over time, form an ever more cohesive genetic grouping, more clearly separated from non-Europeans.  Thus, proximate influences ultimate, and genetic boundaries can become increasingly well matched with political-cultural-civilizational boundaries once gene flow between civilizational groups is stopped.  And there is more than enough genetic diversity within each civilizational bloc to satisfy biological requirements in the absence of any inter-continental and inter-civilizational gene flow.

Genetic drift, selection, and other such processes would take place, with the within vs. without distinction further pushing Europeans and non-Europeans farther apart. There would also be, to an extent, increasing cultural distinctiveness to mirror that of the genes/biology. The last part about "biological requirements" refers to an adequate amount of genetic diversity to enhance fitness, avoid inbreeding depression, and to provide the genetic variation to deal with changes in the environment (broadly defined).

So, we see that a political-cultural entity, the Yockeyian Imperium, would affect the genetics of its constituent peoples in such a manner as to support the underlying foundation of the Imperium entity itself, the organic solidarity of the European peoples.

Consider this PCA figure.  By tightly restricting any possible gene flow strictly to the European Imperium, one would expect, over time, the European and non-European areas to be more distinct and segregated than they are presently, with the European PCA likely becoming more concentrated within a space of the two major axes (PC1 and PC2).  Certainly, any tendency of greater intra-European dispersion and European/non-European convergence – the latter of which is no doubt being facilitated by alien immigration into Europe – would be repressed, and the aforementioned opposing trends promoted.  Any possibility that a given European and non-European ethny would be genetically closer than two European ethnies would also be eliminated over time by the processes inherent in restricting gene flow strictly within the European family of nations. Thus any such kinship overlap, if such exist, between, say, Europeans and non-European Caucasians, would be eliminated, as discussed above.

Cypriots are found in between Southern Italians and Near Easterners, thus, between Southern Europeans and non-European Caucasians. If Greek Cypriots are included in the Imperium while Turkish Cypriots are excluded, then the former group will, over time, converge with Southern Europeans in PCA while the latter will drift in the direction of Turks – as a result of restricting any (low level, see below) gene flow to the proper categories.

Now, one could speculate that the EU, and freedom of movement within it, would promote an increasing convergence and concentration of European PCA, but then the introduction of alien elements, not always evenly distributed among EU members) would counter-act that to an extent (e.g., a large number of Turks in Germany would, in the event of admixture, move Germans away from other Europeans infested with alien types other than Turks - with the alien invaders being less interested in moving away from their favorite host nations than are natives willing to move elsewhere).  So, the current EU, which combines both freedom of movement within and porous borders without, is not optimal for the proposed “Yockeyian Genetics.”

Now, one can argue that from the strict perspective of so-called Yockeyian genetics, the optimal situation would be an internal European-only panmixia, with complete internal freedom of movement and significant inter-marriage, coupled to a complete lack of movement and admixture with non-Europeans.  While true, that would have the negative effect of erasing established European ethnic identities, and creating a generalized European type, which is not the objective of pan-Europeanism (regardless of what its opponents claim). Thus, the objective of Yockeyian genetics is not the optimal, and most rapid, creation of a generalized pan-European genetic type (with a highly concentrated PCA). Indeed, the type of Imperium I have in mind would have less internal movement than the current EU, in order to safeguard the uniqueness of specific European types. Instead, I propose to completely shut off outside influences, while allowing for, over time, low level intra-European gene flow to result in an increased European/non-European separation, and a degree of concentration of the European PCA, while still preserving the overall PCA (genes correlated with geography) structure and the uniqueness of the European types. A slow and modest “tightening” of the PCA over time with respect to Europeans, coupled to increased distance to non-Europeans is the objective, with the concomitant, desired elimination of any possible European/non-European kinship overlap. Thus, in every case, genetic distances between any chosen European ethnies would always be less than genetic distances between any European and non-European ethnies (in most cases, this is true today, but there may be some breakdown of that between the farthest ends of the genetic spectrum).

Thus, this would NOT be any panmixia, but the normal low level gene flow that has always occurred in history between distinct peoples, but in this case, restricted in the manner described above. Of course, if some European ethny wants to follow its own evolutionary path, and be completely genetically isolated from all other groups, in order to promote divergence, that’s fine; freedom of association would be respected (but the opposite, bringing in racial and cultural aliens from outside the European sphere, would not be tolerated).  But, given the behavior of people within the EU today, I suspect the opposite would be more of an issue – people clamoring for free movement between Imperium nations, a movement that would need to be restricted (to some significant degree) in order to preserve ethnic distinctiveness. These are details that would need to be worked out.

The consequences with respect to Salterian EGI would be supportive of the Imperium idea.  Eliminating potential kinship overlap with groups outside the Imperium, and concentrating (to a natural extent over time, again, not a panmixia that would harm the more local specific EGI of individual ethnies) the European genepool, the EGI cost/benefit ratio would ever increasingly move into the direction of maximizing benefits and minimizing costs of the Imperium idea.  Genetic distance to groups outside the Imperium would increase, making it more and more beneficial to exclude such groups and minimizing costs that would have obtained if kinship overlap across the Imperium boundaries existed.  Genetic distances within the Imperium would in all cases be less than any case of cross-boundary genetic distance, again maximizing benefits and minimizing costs.  Not only would net EGI benefit from the Imperium arrangement (in that any significant EGI costs would be more than compensated by counterbalancing benefits), but by eliminating much of the costs, gross EGI would be maximized as well.  This would particularly be the case if the uniqueness of individual ethnies is maintained, so the best of both worlds occur – individual ethnic group EGI is preserved, while pan-European EGI is maximized as well.

To summarize, in outline form:

• 1. A pan-European state (Imperium) would be set up that would have the effect of an enhancement of net EGI, by advancing the interests of the group of peoples and thus the interest of each constituting group.
• 2. In order to safeguard the uniqueness of the constituent groups, movement and mixture between these groups would be restricted, preventing any panmxia and loss of biological and cultural ethnic distinctiveness. Of course, there would be some (limited) movement and gene flow, consistent with what has occurred throughout European history.
• 3. At the same time, movement and mixture from without the Imperium, from biologically and culturally alien non-European peoples, would be strictly forbidden and absolutely restricted.
• 4. Thus, what would obtain over historical, evolutionary time is a complete absence of gene flow from the outside, coupled with continuous, low level, internal gene flow. Genetic drift, selection, and other such processes would take place, with the within vs. without distinction further pushing Europeans and non-Europeans farther apart.
• 5. These processes would have the effect, over time, of increasing the genetic distance of groups within vs. without the Imperium (European vs. non-European), while genetic distances within the Imperium would be maintained and/or slowly decreased (to an extent) over time.
• 6. Kinship overlap within/without would be eliminated due to these processes (particularly the strict isolation from outside gene flow).  Thus, in every possible case, any European ethnies chosen for comparison would be genetically closer (measured with genetic kinship/gene sharing, Fst, or whatever) than would be any European ethny compared to a non-European one. In PCA, European groups would be more separated from non-Europeans, and the European groups may be expected to slowly concentrate around a narrower core grouping along the major axes of genetic variation – Europeans less spread out among themselves, but more isolated from others.
• 7. These processes would take place naturally over long time frames, with ethnic distinctiveness being maintained, preserving local EGI while enhancing group EGI, leading to not only an increase in net EGI but gross EGI as well, a more optimal profile of genetic interests with costs minimized.

Would this process take centuries and millennia? Yes. An enduring structure is required, with an elite caste whose mission is to monitor and guide the process of directing European genetics. One would expect sampling of genetic metrics over time to evaluate the process, make sure all is going as planned, and to make adjustments as necessary. Some formula needs to be designed to make sure the process is politically and evolutionarily stable over time, that it is not hijacked or discarded, and does not become subject to elite free riding.  Considerations of “freedom” need to be put into context – the ultimate freedom is the freedom to exist and to pursue genetic interests. Further, as an elite project, this would not interfere with the day-to-day life of most people, with the exception of restrictions on movement between nations (and more so, in/out of the Imperium). But how many people actually relocate to other nations?  And if one’s nation is an orderly nationalist state, as would be under this scheme, why would they want to?

Book Review: Beyond Evil and Tyranny

Stolfi book.

I have read Stolfi’s Hitler book (Stolfi, R. H. S. Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny. Prometheus Books), and will briefly review it, although from a different view than a previous analysis.

By the standards of mainstream history, Stolfi’s work would be considered unacceptably and slavishly pro-Hitler (and pro-German and anti-French). By the standards of historical objectivity, Stolfi is actually only mildly pro-Hitler, and I believe his interpretation of Saint Adolf is closer to reality than the Judeophilic screeds of the mainstreamers.

The book has many flaws. The writing style is absolutely terrible, and it is comically repetitious – who edited this? The whole thing cries out to be “blue-penciled;” likely, at least one third of the book (one half?) can be eliminated without subtracting any real content. Stolfi apparently never heard of the jet stream and so labored under the misunderstanding that the climate of Europe is the same as areas of North America of the same geographic latitude. And what to make of the comment that Hitler living in Vienna in the first decade of the 20th century did not have “even a microwave?” Well, true enough, but…here it is 2016 and I don’t have a Jetsons-style flying rocket car. On the other hand, no one else does, so I’m not sure it counts as a hardship.

What also to make of this:

Hitler had founded the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP or German Workers’ Party) in 1919, founded the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP or National Socialist German Workers’ Party) in 1920…

No, the party was founded by Anton Drexler. I mean, this basic history here. But, perhaps, errors like this are not surprising in a book that reads like it was written by a barely literate middle-school student.

In addition to the Counter-Currents review linked above, the flavor of Stolfi’s book can be discerned by the following quote from that work:

His relentless consistency in the attack on Marxists and November Criminals is in accord with the unalterable messages of the great Christian messiah or Islamic Prophet. The attribution of evil in Hitler's consistency because of excessive hatred of an enemy must be handled with care also. If Hitler is interpreted as messiah, or at least a man characterized most fundamentally as having the qualities of a messiah, then it was his mission to save the Germans from some enemy— presumably a considerable one. Given the dimensions of the enemy suggested by the size of Germany and its misfortune, it is difficult to imagine Hitler either as messiah or otherwise and not hating the enemy Did Jesus the Christ or Mohammed the Prophet hate Satan or merely disapprove of him? We do not have to answer this question to get further into Hitler, but we do have to point out that Hitler could be considered to be a messianic figure notwithstanding the presence of either hate or outrage in his presentation of the Marxist enemy.

Essentially, Stolfi’s interpretation is Hitler as the German Messiah, promoting a vision of the German Destiny. Something analogous to Der Movement’s breathless Hitler fetish, but nevertheless superior to the banal “Hitler was evil; he picked on the poor, defenseless Jews” tripe spewed forth by so-called “mainstream historians.”

An amusing detail is this about Hitler’s opinion about so-called “modern art” – 

Hitler would note with his characteristic knack for biting sarcasm that rather than a detraction, “it was only an attraction that these works of art were difficult to understand and on that account very costly: no one wished to admit lack of comprehension or insufficient means.”

This is analogous to the “snob effect” I wrote about previously.

And then we have this:

Hitler's words indicate that he was in deadly earnest about immortal cultural achievements as the basis of a people's right to existence.

Well, certainly, culture is the highest proximate interest, but I would take the Salterian view that a “people’s right to existence” is, at least from their perspective, innate and independent on how someone would rank their abilities and achievements (said rankling being the HBD view – although the HBDers are fundamentally dishonest so as to achieve their pro-Jewish and pro-Asian political objectives). If we accept the concept of “universal nationalism” then we should accept the innate right to existence for every ethny (at least in theory – if another ethny is truly threatening your own – an existential crisis of EGI – then your rights, from your subjective standpoint, must be put ahead of theirs).

A point by Stolfi:

He would reiterate that any end for Germany short of the finality of an unassailably defensible state was not worth the effort.

Indeed. Similarly, any end for Whites short of the finality of an unassailably defensive racial position is not worth the effort, which is one reason why stupidities like “citizenism” need to be absolutely eschewed.

Also of interest:

From 1929 onward, Nuremberg became the site of the vast Party Day rallies and could be considered one of the four “Nazi cities.” Various masses of people would assemble as spectators and participants in presentations, demonstrations, speeches, and the like, during both day and night. Hitler intended that the brilliantly staged assemblies would pull Germans together into a sense of belonging to a single body mystically bound by a sense of common destiny.

In relation to those rallies, my essay on “totalitarian democracy” is relevant.

Stolfi’s views on Hitler’s anti-Semitism – at one point Stolfi refers to Hitler as a “thoughtful anti-Semite” - are such that I presume some would accuse Stolfi himself of that “crime:”

We are left to wonder how history's arch enemy of “the Jews” interacted so easily with individual Jews under such circumstances. The conventional wisdom has assigned to Hitler a visceral— deep, organic, emotional— hatred of them. But his interactions with individuals suggests an entirely different kind of anti-Semitism based less on emotion and more on hard, emotionless logic. He would remark in a more general context that he would be known as the hardest man in history, not the most hate-filled.

Thus, Stolfi suggests that Hitler’s “hatred” of the Jews was based on a logical analysis and not “irrational bias.” I agree with Stolfi here and it is remarkable – and to his credit – that he was able to write on this subject so objectively. Did Stolfi ever read MacDonald’s trilogy on the Jews, I wonder? I would not be surprised if he did.

On Operation Barbarossa:

This generalization demands the following reevaluation of Hitler: His decision to advance against Soviet Russia was correct and necessary Hitler could have made Germany impregnable only through seizure of the strategic resources and space of European Russia. His decision was so bold and fraught with consequence for history that it pressed him into the category of world-historical personality. His decision did not doom him to lose, rather it gave him clear and present opportunity to win. Within the ongoing campaign, Army Group Center had the striking power and physical location on August 14 to seize Moscow. There has always been a time and a place in history for everything. The time for Hitler and the Germans to have won World War II was in August, and the place was closely west of the enduring city of the vanished Dukes of Muscovy As concerns Hitler, he made the decision unwittingly to lose the war in surrounding diversions and eccentricities— Halder's aptly described zigzags. As concerns Hitler as world-historical personality, he alone created Barbarossa, and he alone, in the face of resistance and legion objection, destroyed it. His utter loneliness in decision making from Munich 1938 onward, and the world-altering consequences of that loneliness in the inception of Barbarossa, place him in a category distant from the tyrant of the great biographers. Barbarossa had possibilities and consequences so great that it demands a fundamental reevaluation of the course of World War II. The German army attacked Russia to win. The army had the capabilities to win. The army placed itself in geographic position to win. These are historical facts. But the German army failed to win reality of December. Historians have seen World War II as an exercise in early German victories followed by Hitler's alleged mistake of the attack on Soviet Russia and a gradual downhill slide into defeat. No historian has made the interpretive point that Hitler's mistake was not in attacking Russia but in failing to defeat it immediately— in six to ten weeks.

Stolfi thus disagrees with Irving’s interpretation (an oversimplification on my point but nevertheless broadly true) of Hitler a s a great, strategically sound warlord. Stolfi – contra mainstream historians and even Irving – sees Hitler in a sense as following as much a defensive as an offensive war strategy:

…he would cement the interpretation of himself as siege Fuehrer wedded to the proposition that German wars were fought to secure strategic resources.

And we see this:

Hitler's historical stature lies significantly in his putting Germany in position in August to win World War II. Hitler's interpretation as world-historical personality lies in his decision to lose World War II. The decision was single, lonely, and influenced by no other man. The Allies did not win the war; Hitler lost it.

The best books on Hitler I have read were Irving’s Hitler’s War and Flood’s Hitler: Path to Power. Irving is mildly pro-Hitler (and also sufficiently dismissive of the Italians to meet “movement” tastes), while Flood is mildly anti-Hitler. Flood also concentrates solely on Hitler’s early days, up to his release from prison, while Irving’s work mostly concentrates on the war and the events leading up to it, so the two books are effectively complementary. I have read Fest in the past, and note all the things Stolfi complained about; I likely read Toland as well, but do not remember that one so well. But even Irving makes clear that Hitler did in fact (hence the title of his book) bear much primary responsibility for the war; Stolfi can pontificate all he wants about “the man of German destiny” but there were other options open to Hitler than this war that helped complete the destruction of the White World. Salter’s comments in On Genetic Interests about Hitler’s failed quixotic crusade, and the negative effects it had – including on German EGI – are pertinent here as well. Having said that, and with all my criticisms, Stolfi should be credited for attempting to examine the subject from a more objective standpoint than most mainstream historians; Stolfi’s mild positive approach to Hitler is more reasonable than the negative hysteria observed in mainstream biographies of Saint Adolf.

Behold The Man

An evaluation of an evaluation: Sallis on Young on Nietzsche.

I’d like to comment on aspects of Julian Young’s philosophical biography of Friedrich Nietzsche.  Consistent with “fair use” scholarly criticism, a minuscule fraction of the work will be quoted here and analyzed.  This will not be a traditional book review, in which the entire work is scrutinized and put into the balance – suffice to say I think the book is mostly excellent and is recommended to those interested in such topics.  However, I will note that Young’s liberalism on many topics shines through clearly, which I found extremely distasteful (e.g., Young’s pro-feminism is pitiful and his attempts to legitimize Lou Salome’s sociopathic exploitation of beta orbiters are pathetic), although Young draws the line at attempts to have his “Fritz” portrayed as a closet homosexual.  I won’t get into the Cate plagiarism controversy.  I will say Young is much more honest about Nietzsche than was the Jew Walter Kaufmann (should we be surprised?) – indeed, after reading Young, I realized how badly I had been hoodwinked by Kaufmann’s mendacity (again – I’m shocked, shocked).

Instead, the point here is to focus on specific items of Nietzsche’s philosophy (and Young’s interpretation thereof) and put in into a perspective to those who may share my own sociopolitical inclinations. In the spirit of Nietzsche’s aphorisms, these will be very short analyses of specific snippets of text. Note that in some cases these are excerpts linked together and not direct quotes of intact paragraphs, where one sees sentences linked by “…” one should assume that considerable text has been deleted. These deletions have been carefully done so as to not change the meaning or context of the quoted material.  As always, I strongly urge the reader to obtain the original work and read it in its entirety themselves.  Footnote numbers have also been deleted from the quotes to avoid confusion.

All of the quotes should be ascribed to: Young, Julian (2011-07-27). Friedrich Nietzsche. Cambridge University Press. 

What is wrong with the mythless ‘motleyness’ of modernity?...The first symptom is loss of unity. Since the unity of a community, of a ‘people’, can only exist when individuals are gathered into the ‘maternal womb’ of a unified myth, there is, in modernity, no community, no homeland. Instead, all we have is a ‘wilderness of thought, morals, and action’, a ‘homeless wandering about’…the society driven by the frenzied quest for ‘experiences’, cheap thrills; for sex, drugs, rock and roll and ‘extreme’ sports….Without the (healthy) stress provided by an identity-defining ideal, one can only try to preserve oneself from boredom through the ever-diminishing returns of ever more exotic thrills.

That seems to me to be an accurate  description of, and criticism of, today’s rootless, deracinated, globalist multiculturalism, which replaces the organic solidarity of a folk community with the “cheap thrills” that came to the fore in the 1960s and has become amplified in today’s degeneracy.  By the way, “game” and the pursuit of sexual hedonism is part of this degeneracy, as is Randian “individualism,” “libertarianism” and any other of the “isms” that have come to define 2st century modernity.

In explaining why this is our overriding task, Nietzsche appeals, not, this time, to high-flown metaphysics, but rather to biology…So, concludes Nietzsche, mankind ought to seek out and create the ‘favourable conditions’ under which those great men can come into existence…Nietzsche here is appealing to a version of (social) Darwinism…And what he is appealing to, in particular, is the value of, in Darwinian language, the ‘random mutation’. According to evolution theory, he is observing, a species evolves into a ‘higher’ species when it produces a mutation which is better adapted to the current state of the environment. Because the mutations breed successfully whereas the remainder tend to die out before doing so, gradually the species evolves into a new species better adapted to thriving in the current environment. Because human beings and human societies belong, just like plants and animals, to the realm of biology, Nietzsche concludes, we ought to apply this same principle to society and so do everything possible to promote the appearance of ‘chance existences’, random mutations.

This interpretation by Nietzsche of course veers into the “naturalistic fallacy” but that “error” can be obviated by invoking values. There is nothing inherently wrong with choosing values that support a “social Darwinism” foundation for society. By so doing, Nietzsche also supports, at least indirectly, the viability of group selection (at least that promoted by human choice), and the competition between human cultures that forms the basis of such selection. I (and certain other sociobiological-oriented people( would argue that such has actually occurred in human history and is occurring today.  Also, anyone whose initial understanding of Nietzsche was malformed by exposure to Kaufmann’s Asiatic mendacity will find passages such as this quite refreshing.

On the Darwinian line of argument the great individual is again valuable only as a means, this time a means to the evolution of society as a whole to a ‘higher’ condition….

Once again, this is consistent with group evolution arguments. And, once again, all of Kaufmann’s Levantine flim-flam asserting that Darwinian interpretations of Nietzsche are a totally wrong misinterpretation are shown to be, at best, wrong, and at worst, intentionally mendacious.

Are we all consigned to slavery to create his ‘freedom from the necessity of earning a living’? Should all non-geniuses become coal-miners or sock-darners? Not so. Even ‘second and third rate talents’ can contribute to the task by preparing both ‘within’ and ‘without’ for the appearance of genius. Presumably the idea here is that the higher the general level of culture the more favourable are the conditions for the appearance of genius.

And today’s degenerate culture mitigates against the emergence of genius. Is that part of the plan?

…since a large gap between rich and poor causes envy and social unrest, the concentration of enormous wealth in private hands will be avoided. Businesses, in particular banks, that generate such wealth will be state-owned. This passage makes two things clear: that, at least in Wanderer, Nietzsche's ‘anti-socialism’ is in fact anti-communism, and that the social-democratic ideal of partial nationalisation of the means of production and exchange is something he actually endorsed.
 

That sounds a lot like national socialism and/or fascist corporatism to me. Why not call it as it is?

But everyone can, in a way that fits their expertise and station in life, contribute to the well-being of the community as a whole and in that way secure self-respect and their own kind of feeling of power: their own happiness, in other words.

Thus, to the “individualist” Nietzsche, self-expression and authenticity can be achieved by working to contribute to “the well-being of the community.” 

The positivist worldview offered a theory of the world of incredible power and efficiency in comparison with that which had preceded it. And that, surely, one can imagine Nietzsche saying, is some kind of evidence of truth. Creatures, that is to say, who are radically mistaken about the nature of the world tend to die out before reproducing. Conversely, those whose power over their environment enables them to survive and thrive are probably close to the truth… Nietzsche can never be certain that his metaphysics of will to power is true. What, then, is its intended epistemological status?...The best theory is that which ‘works’, which, in other words, gives us power over ourselves and our environment. Nietzsche's claim for the will to power – his, as he sees it, corrected and completed version of Darwinian science – is that it comprehends reality in a way that is more comprehensive and powerful than any rival theory. He would, I think, also add, as I suggested in discussing Dawn, that the fact that a theory ‘works’ well is evidence – less than completely conclusive evidence, to be sure, but still evidence – that it is true.

This is an important point. While Nietzsche denies that scientists can ever know the way reality really is, because reality is filtered through their human perceptions, nevertheless, for practical purposes, those closer to the truth will be vindicated through their ability to exert power over the environment and to survive. Hence, the power of science, and why science, properly applied, is different from metaphysics, from religion. If an asteroid or comet was hurtling toward the Earth, with the potential to wipe out all human life, religious faith and “praying to Jaysus” is not going to help. Science can detect the threat, and science has the potential to avert the threat. If two peoples are in a war to the death, and People A use thermonuclear weapons, ICBMs, nerve gas, mustard gas, and weaponized anthrax, and People B use "the power of prayer,” hopefully all sane people can predict total victory for People A.  Whether People A perceive “reality as it truly is” doesn’t matter, since they perceive it close enough to true reality to be useful for their ultimate interests.

It is, in other words, the ‘survival of the fittest’ in a competitive and, at least potentially, hostile environment. Nietzsche applies this theory to human society, which makes him a ‘social Darwinist’: he regards human societies as organisms subject to the same laws as organisms in general…a ‘universally binding…faith’ sometimes also ‘morality’ or ‘custom’. It is such a faith that constitutes the community as a community, orders the relations between individuals in such a way as to enable the social organism to function as an efficient survival machine.

Nietzsche: social Darwinism and group selection. Kaufmann: a despicable liar (or, simply, a Jew).

Without the social glue of a communal faith a society loses its capacity for collective action and becomes ripe for destruction, either through internal disintegration or through colonization by a more successful society. The principal means by which the community – or ‘herd’ – preserves conformity to communal faith consist in more or less crude forms of social ostracism. What makes this effective is the individual's basic need for community. ‘Even the strongest person…fears a cold look or a sneer on the face of those among whom he has been brought up. What is he really afraid of? Growing solitary’. Nietzsche calls this ‘the herd instinct’ in the individual. The ‘herd instinct’ has thus two aspects. On the part of the community it is the instinct to exert pressure on the individual to conform. And on the latter's part it is the instinct to give in to that pressure.

Thus, Nietzsche recognizes societal policing of free-riding, which critics of EGI seemingly are unable to understand (or, more accurately: they pretend to not understand).

In a Darwinian world the law is: mutate or die. The agents of such mutation are the non-‘herd’ types, those who resist the pressure to conform to current norms, free themselves from the chains of current morality: the ‘free spirits’. ‘The celebrated European capacity for constant transformation’ depends on such ‘malcontents’. China, on the other hand, Nietzsche claims, is a country in which large-scale discontent became extinct centuries ago, and with it the capacity for change. (Hence, presumably, its history of colonisation and exploitation by European powers, and later Japan.)
 

This is interesting in a couple of ways. First, we can consider that today, the dissident Right are the non-herd free spirits, who bring the new dawn, as opposed to the politically correct globalist herd animals. Second, note the anti-HBD assessment of China as a conformist, herd-like non-creative entity – an accurate description, since today’s “rise of China” is merely a default condition of them filling the niche space left by a dying, degenerate, multicultural “West.”

Thus, whereas the factory owner is mostly seen by his workers as nothing but ‘a cunning bloodsucking dog of a man’, the military leader is often treated with respect. The crucial point is that the leader should have some kind of nobility, should appear to be of a ‘higher race’ than the led. ‘The masses are basically prepared to submit to any kind of slavery provided that the superiors constantly legitimize themselves as higher, as born to command, through refined demeanour’.

Here we see another “fail” for the “movement’s” (affirmative action) “leadership.”  Nobility?  Higher race?  Laughable!

With the abruptness of a deranged, born-again Christian (as well, perhaps, as the relief of speaking after ten years of silence), Zarathustra spews out the sum of his decade of wisdom-gathering. Man, he shouts, is a ‘rope stretched between beast and superman’. The superman is the ‘meaning of the earth’. Beloved are those who take the dangerous path of dedicating themselves to making the world a ‘house for the superman’. Man needs an ‘ideal’. But since the supernatural is a delusion, we must reject all other-worldly ideals. Our ‘greatest hour’ is when we see that we fall as far short of the superman as the ape does of us.

The real meaning of the Earth: human over-coming, not worshiping a dead Jew on a stick.

This, then, is why the motleyness of European modernity threatens its ‘death’: lacking a shared ‘game plan’, it lacks the capacity for effective collective action, in particular, for action directed at its own preservation and expansion.

The diagnosis of multiculturalism and the cult of diversity killing the West.

Nietzsche takes it as self-evident that the death of European humanity would be a bad thing. Those with a more jaundiced, more guilty, view of the European tradition might think otherwise.

That’s great.  Is the latter idea Young’s view?  Why must it be mentioned?  Why must it be accepted as a viable alternative?  If the word “European” was replaced by “Jewish” or “African” would Young dare cite those who “might think otherwise?”  That I very much highly doubt.

Master morality was, then, self-focused. Slave morality, by contrast, was other-focused. It was based on hatred and fear of the slaves’ oppressors. So it was that the hate-filled word ‘evil’ replaced ‘bad’, the expression, merely, of contempt. In the ethical ‘revolt’ of the slaves the good–evil dichotomy came to replace the good–bad dichotomy of the masters. The hard qualities of the masters were given new names – ‘self-confidence’ becomes ‘arrogance’, ‘resoluteness’ becomes ‘ruthlessness’, and so on…The second disastrous consequence of the triumph of Christianity is that it ‘keeps the type “man” on a low…level’… It does this in two ways: by preserving life's ‘failures’ and by disabling its potential ‘successes’. It preserves failures on account of the supposed virtue of compassion. Compassion means that a Christianized culture preserves ‘too much of what should have perished’ Though there is no reason to think of the extermination camps, here, there is no getting away from the harshness of this view. What Nietzsche is talking about, I believe, is the eugenics – ‘breeding.’…Christian morality disables life's potential successes because it ‘throw[s] suspicion on delight in beauty, skew[s] everything self-glorifying, manly, conquering, autocratic, every instinct that belongs to the highest and best-formed type of “human”, twist[ing] them into uncertainty, crisis of conscience, self-destruction at the limit’.

Thus, we see a summary of a principled critique of Christianity – one that should be kept in mind as popes, priests, and other Christian religious figures speak out in favor of immigration, refuges, minority rights, and speak out against racialism, nationalism, and eugenics. Christianity: a creed for losers, for weaklings, for slaves.

…‘socialism’ (a term covering both social democracy and communism), and finally, and particularly vociferously, feminism. All these movements are applications of the doctrine of ‘equal rights’, which makes them ‘heirs’ to Christianity's doctrine of the equality of all souls before God.

Yes, indeed, all the leftist “isms” are derived from Christianity. Crush the infamy!

If Nietzsche treats ‘lower’ types as mere means, if he treats them as things rather than people, then he really is an immoral (and ontologically blind) thinker.

Once again, Young interjects his opinions as facts.

‘If we win’, he writes, ‘we have overcome the absurd boundaries between race, nation, and classes (Stände): there exists from now on only order of rank (Rang) between human beings.' The difference between rank and class is the difference between ability and birth. What Nietzsche seeks, as we shall see in detail in discussing The Antichrist, is a hierarchy not of blood but of natural ability and aptitude.

Obviously, we must vehemently disagree with Nietzsche here. While blood alone is not all, it is the prerequisite. The hierarchy must be confined to one people. Within that people, we have rank and hierarchy; outside the people, there should be nothing but enemies.  After all, didn’t Nietzsche also state elsewhere the importance of the organic solidarity of a culture?  How can that solidarity be maintained with elites consisting of alien peoples?  Consistent with this, Young reminds us:

As we have seen, in order to survive in a competitive, Darwinian environment, a community must have a morality which provides the ‘hardness, uniformity and simplicity’ of, as I put it, a shared ‘game plan.'.

A “shared game plan” requires shared blood, whether Nietzsche (and Young) want to admit it or not.

‘Woman as such’, the ‘eternal feminine’, lacks the capacity for ‘manly’ pursuits. Women have no concern for truth – their great talent is in the (slavish) practice of lying. They have no capacity for ‘enlightenment’ (rational objectivity) and so should be silent on religion and politics – and on the question of ‘woman as such’. Women do not even know how to cook, though they have been at it for millenni…Is this just a mass of prejudices – or, at best, ‘period errors’ – or is there a serious point mixed in with this, as it now seems, unintentionally comic rave?

Once again, Young interjects his liberal, feminist sensibilities here, smugly assuming we all consider Nietzsche’s reasonable views on the female to be “comic.”  No, Young, the idea of gender equality is what is indeed comic.

For ultimate value attaches not to the ‘tree of knowledge’ but rather to ‘the tree of life’.

If true, that is an endorsement of ultimate interests, of EGI, of Salterism. If promoting the interests of life is important, and if life is about genetic continuity (It is, insofar as we can tell), then ultimate value holds there. Would Young accept that argument?  I doubt it. Should he accept it?  Should you accept it?  Yes, most definitely.  After all, what use knowledge if not to promote the interests of life?  Then we see the next step – whose life?  Step by step we come to the racial nationalist EGI agenda.

The West is, then, in a parlous condition. In its ‘motley’ state it lacks the ‘hardness, uniformity and simplicity of form’ of a shared, as I called it, ‘game plan’ possession of which is necessary to survive and thrive in a competitive world. But the situation is not hopeless. For one thing, for all the difficulties it creates, the collapse of Christianity, since it made our culture sick, is fundamentally a cause for celebration. For another, we possess a secret ‘faith’, a vision of what should and must redeem us from the present and the past.

For the West to survive, the rotting corpse of Christianity must be swept away, and we must make way for the Overman High Culture.

…he will not support any anti-Semitic undertaking, he does not trust her any more, he hopes all the anti-Semites will leave Germany and join them, and he hopes that the Jews come to power in Europe.

This view of Nietzsche was unfortunate but nevertheless we must be honest: he was not a budding anti-Semitic Nutzi. Quite the opposite.  But that was the Nietzsche of the 1880s, a time of European world dominance. Would the Nietzsche of the 2010s be a radical racial nationalist national socialist?  Quite possibly.

What does ‘questioning’ the will to truth, turning it into an issue, mean for Nietzsche? It means elevating life, healthy life, into a higher value than truth. If self-deception, illusion, is what best promotes your psychic health that is what you should go for.

Ultimate interests over all?

However:

At the end of the story, therefore, the unconditional will to truth becomes the criterion of psychic health.

Salterians would argue that ultimate interests and EGI have the added advantage of being true (to the extent that we humans can perceive truth).

What the passage does, it seems to me, is to endorse modernity's unlimited will to power over both nature and human nature. It is one of those things which used to be considered ‘bad’ – ‘playing God’ – but is really good. And here, it seems, Nietzsche offers us a new ‘one goal’ to override all other goals, an ultimate goal to replace the ‘one goal’ of Christianity: making ourselves masters of the universe. A glance into the notebooks of the period makes this clear. So we read, for example, that ‘what is necessary’ in place of the old morality is a ‘reversal of values’ which will produce ‘a morality that has the intention of breeding a ruling caste – the future masters of the earth’. In The Gay Science Napoleon is admired for wanting to make Europe ‘mistress of the earth’, an admiration which incorporates the desire for the domination of the globe by European culture that goes back to Human, All-Too-Human.
 

That sounds a lot like Sallis’ Overman High Culture and Yockey’s Western Imperium to me. Of course, the despicable Young has to throw cold water over all of it:

Perhaps the best that can be said for him is that if he were alive now he would certainly classify the unlimited will to power as one of those things that used to be considered ‘good’ but is now ‘bad’.
 

Here, Young predictably gets it backwards by imposing his own liberal morality on Nietzsche.  I say the opposite: if alive today, Nietzsche would be disgusted at the weakness and worthlessness of European Man, he would be shocked that Europeans are letting themselves be colonized and dispossessed by inferior cultures, he would redouble his emphasis on ‘will to power,” but now give it more of an explicitly racial-cultural “blood and soil” basis.

Re:Twilight of the Idols:

What Is the Nature of Reality? The fourth of the work's eleven parts, which runs to half a page, is titled ‘How the True World Became a Fable’. There are six stages. First the ‘true’ (the term is of course ironic), supernatural world of ‘being’, the opposite of this natural world of pain and ‘becoming’, was immediately accessible to the sage's – Plato's – mental gaze. Then it became something to one had to wait for; Christianity postponed the true world, transmuted it into the future home of the virtuous. With Kant it receded further, since it could no longer be known to exist. Yet as a consoling hope and as something we had to believe in for morality to make sense, it lingered on in a twilight state. But then came the ‘cockcrow of positivism’, the thought that something unknown could hardly be consoling. ‘Gray morning’, Nietzsche's stage direction, as it were, reads at this point, ‘first yawn of reason, cockcrow of positivism’. This lead to the coup de grâce. Positivism, when it finally arrives, abolishes the true world (denies it, one might say, ‘rights of citizenship in science’). Nietzsche applauds from the sidelines: ‘Bright day; breakfast; return of good sense; Plato blushes in shame; pandemonium of all free spirits’. And now the conclusion arises that since there is no ‘true’ world, it makes no sense to call ‘this’ one a merely ‘apparent’ world. There is only one world and ‘this’ is it. As Ecce Homo puts the conclusion: the ‘true world’ is a ‘made up world’, so that what used to be called ‘the world of appearances’ is, in truth, ‘reality’.

An excellent summary of the nature of reality. 

And Nietzsche's idea, here, looks to be something like what we would now call genetic determination: the idea that an individual ‘is’ the sum of the genes inherited from both parents, which they have inherited from their parents, and so on. Notice that this idea explains Nietzsche's continued belief in the importance of eugenics.

But Nietzsche by no means rejects the notion of freedom as such. ‘My idea of freedom’, he writes, is that it is a matter of ‘being responsible for oneself’, maintaining one's ‘distance’, ‘becoming indifferent to hardship’, ‘being prepared to sacrifice people to your cause, yourself included’. To be free means that ‘the instincts which take pleasure in war and victory have gained control over the other instincts’, the instinct to ‘happiness’, for instance, happiness, at least, as conceived by ‘grocers, Christians, cows, females, Englishmen, and other democrats’. Freedom is not a birthright. Rather one ‘becomes free’ by being a ‘warrior’ on the internal battlefield of the soul. The degree of freedom one possesses is measured by the degree of ‘resistance one has overcome, the amount of effort it costs to stay on top.'

Indeed, as I have often said: superiority is not anyone’s birthright; it needs to be earned. Likewise, freedom. Thus, this view differs from mainstream “movement” “thought” in which all positive human traits are embodied by certain ethnies – Bill Clinton and Angela Merkel as superhuman demigods.  Such a laughable image is directly derived from “movement” values.

As I emphasised earlier, a great deal of Nietzsche's philosophy has been a preparation for this validation of Dionysian feeling, for validation of the idea that one's ‘true’ life is universal, that individual life is ‘untrue’: the persistent theme of the individual as the summation of the causal history of the universe to date, the individual as nothing substantial but rather a temporary conglomeration of forces that will soon reconfigure itself, a momentary ‘wave in the necessary wave-play of becoming’.
 

But is this universalism the same as that preached by the Left?  It cannot be so:

One values one's enemies, Nietzsche continues, because one only discovers one's identity when faced with opposition. This is as true of individuals as of political parties.

Having enemies is a bit inconsistent with the sort of universalism promoted by the Left.  If opposition is so important to Identity, then Nietzsche’s universalism is not that of globalist multiculturalism, but instead more akin to William Pierce’s cosmotheism.

So what, then, does Nietzsche have to say about such ‘healthy monsters’? Do they not represent a counter-example to his claim that no healthy person knowingly does evil, that a well-formed person, a ‘happy’ one, never knowingly performs harmful actions? I think not. For Borgia, Napoleon, the Vikings, though healthy and happy, are not, in Nietzsche's sense, ‘well-formed’.

That is an effective answer to retarded Christian criticism that Nietzsche would support serial killers, that Ted Bundy was a Nietzschean superman. What should one do with such stupidity?

It is no mere coincidence that, with the arrival of German power, German spirit, German culture, has disappeared. For, as we know, there is an ‘either–or’ choice to be made. If – either as an individual or a nation – one expends all one's energy on ‘economics, world commerce…power, and power politics’, one will have none left for culture.

This seems to be a Spenglerian argument and one that I do not necessarily agree with.

Notice the rationale, here, for authoritarian conservatism – as his reviewers thought, a kind of ‘Junker philosophy,' for all Nietzsche's loathing of Bismarck. Without it, the capacity for resolute collective action disappears, so that the community degenerates and eventually disappears.

Hello, multiculturalism!

Whatever morality the new society possesses, it will have differential rights and duties for different kinds of people. Though hierarchical, it will be the opposite of homogeneous.

This puts the mature Nietzsche firmly on the political Right.  Although the part on "the opposite of homogeneous" shouldn't imply racial diversity.

Looked at psychologically the Jews are the people with the toughest life force; when transplanted into impossible conditions they took sides with all the instincts of décadence…out of the most profoundly shrewd sense of self-preservation – not because they were dominated by these instincts, but because they sensed that these instincts had a power that could be used to prevail against ‘the world’.
 

Interesting how the anti-anti-Semite Nietzsche, through his pursuit of (subjective?) truth, found his way to the same criticisms of Jews thoughtful and honest people make today.

The real Jesus was no metaphysician, had no supernatural beliefs whatsoever. For him, ‘the kingdom of heaven’ is a ‘state of the heart’. It lies neither ‘above the earth’ nor ‘after death’ but is achieved here and now in the practice of universal love. Jesus taught by parable and by example. His death was not an expiation of human sins but rather the ultimate demonstration of his doctrine of nonresistance. He was, in short, a kind of Buddhist, Buddhism being also a non-metaphysical life-practice engendered by hypersensitivity to pain. Jesus represented a ‘Buddhistic peace movement.' This true, original Christianity represents a ‘life that is still possible today, for certain people it is even a necessity’. Possible and in the 1960s, surely, actual.
 

The deepest essence of Christianity: a 1960s-style, hippie-like renunciation of force, of will, of power – the sissification of humanity.  Guess which race has swallowed that poison?

Young summarizes Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity as outlined in The Antichrist; there is no need to rehash all of that once again.  However, this is interesting:

Sixth, modern Christian theologians lie through their teeth. They know ‘there is no “God” anymore’, that the ‘God-hypothesis’ is incompatible with all the other furniture of the modern, educated mind. Everyone knows that there is no ‘last judgment’, no ‘sin’, and no ‘redeemer’, yet everything goes on as before. It is notable that the ‘Law against Christianity’ that concludes The Antichrist reserves the harshest punishments for liberal Christians, on the grounds that ‘the criminality of being Christian increases with one's proximity to science’.

I believe that the higher one goes up any religious hierarchy (at least in the West), the less degree of true belief in the metaphysics there is.  Thus, the pious Christian washerwoman truly believes Jesus was the Son of God, believes it all in every last detail, while the Popes and Bishops and Cardinals know better – it is all a “happy fiction” to impose Christian morality on the masses.

‘The Antichrist’ delivers his judgment that Christianity is the worst disaster ever to have befallen the human race. In promulgating his concluding ‘Laws against Christianity’ he condemns it to having all its priests either expelled or imprisoned, along with all preachers of chastity. All its churches are to be razed to the ground with farms for poisonous snakes erected on their sites (‘holocaust’ memorials, as it were).
 

Excellent, excellent: exactly what we need.  Root out the Christian disaster, destroy it, and salt the earth under it so the poisonous brew of self-destruction can never rise again.

…the superman ‘is a superman specifically when compared to the good ’ – he stands ‘super’, above, their morality. Nietzsche adds, recalling the Genealogy's point that most free spirits will be ‘martyred’ by the forces of social conservatism, that ‘the good and just would call [Zarathustra's]…superman a devil.’

The racial nationalist as a “White devil evil supremacist” – would Young agree with that?  Young of course is very choosy as to which of Nietzsche’s pronouncements in his (insane) last letters were sane or not; thus:

Entirely sane, too, is the idea that war can only finally be overcome through the abolition of national and dynastic egoisms, an abolition that requires European unification and, in the end, world government. These ideas, Nietzsche's cosmopolitanism and his understanding that only the abandonment of armed nationalism can produce genuine peace, are paragons of sanity…

Young agrees with those sentiments, so they are – of course! – “paragons of sanity.”  Is this fellow Young really a serious academic?

…it follows that morals are just, as it were, an instruction manual for the ‘preservation and growth’ of either of an individual or a community.
 

Salterian morals as the basis for the (re)growth of the European community.

In a nutshell, the lesson Jünger took from Nietzsche was: If you cannot mould the world to fit your morality you must mould your morality to fit the world.

The Left tries to alter reality to conform to ideology; the Right tries to conform ideology to conform to reality.  Of course, Young waves away The Will to Power as just a misuse of Nietzsche’s notes by his sister.  Maybe it was, but there nonetheless are underlying themes there consistent with his overall mature philosophy – which Young actually is later forced to admit.  Nietzsche was not a Nazi, but a very embryonic form of Nazi?  Perhaps. Certainly a Nietzsche around today, observing the nightmarish hell of multiculturalism, would likely have shifted much farther to the right. Of course, liberals would have asserted that the world wars and the “holocaust” would have shifted “Fritz” to the left, but why discuss the past rather than today’s present? 

In Young’s favor, he does critique Nietzsche favoring a “will to power” over a “will to life,” and he also critiques Nietzsche’s later misunderstanding of Darwinism (Yockey made similar mistakes):

Darwin's theory is not a theory of cultural evolution, and in any case he claims not that species become more ‘perfect’ but only that they become more adaptive.

Another example of Young the political/social activist being unable to separate his leftist morality from an academic work is the following:

Nietzsche's heart, then, is in the right place. Violence, brutality, and barbarism ought to be expelled from human life.

Question for Young: is the ongoing biological and cultural genocide and destruction of Europeans a manifestation of “violence, brutality, and barbarism?”  If you say no, what justification can you have?

And here is an amusing aside:

Almost from the beginning, the Försters’ Paraguayan venture found itself in deep trouble. Based on Aryan ideology rather than skill and planning, it soon found itself short of water and, with no roads or railways, unable to transport the timber that was to have been its economic foundation to any market.
 

Der Movement in a nutshell!  Affirmative action in action!

And here we see Young the plagiarist further discredit himself as a serious academic:

(In the 1930s she welcomed many of the Nazi bigwigs, including Hitler himself, to the house (see Plate 32) – their stench somehow remains to this day. There is no trace of Nietzsche.)

Can such things be possible?  Is this what Western “scholarship” has fallen to?  And then:

Though Nietzsche's philosophy was likely produced by a manic-depressive (as, probably, were the works of Plato, Newton, Mozart, Hölderlin, Coleridge, Schumann, Byron, Van Gogh, Geog Cantor, Winston Churchill, Silvia Plath, John Lennon, Leonard Cohen and many other great human beings), there is nothing ‘pathological’ about it – apart from the views on women.

Note the last phrase.  Young, you are absolutely despicable. Have you no shame?  I guess Cate would say: no.

Young's interpretation that Nietzsche's mental breakdown was completely psychological is not the last word on the subject.  It may be true - however, Young is very selective of the physiological mechanisms he refutes - essentially restricting it to syphilis and a brain tumor. Looking at the biomedical literature, one can see alternative neurological diagnoses.  We cannot know which is "true" (Nietzsche I suspect would approve), but, nevertheless, one should show a bit of reserve instead of making dogmatic statements on the matter.