Whither Imperium?

The last chapter of Yockey’s book.

Introduction

The last chapter of Yockey’s book Imperium, which has the same title as the book, neatly summarizes his fundamental idea, his main objective – the empire of the West, Imperium.  It is useful to take a careful look at the most relevant excerpts from that chapter to gain a better understanding of Yockey’s pan-European ideal.

First, it is useful to read some of my previous writing about Yockey and his worldview.

Number one.

Number two.

Number three.

Number four.

Reading that material, and understanding the controversies surrounding Yockey’s ideas, it is clear that pro-White activists have had a number of problems with Yockeyism. The issue of biological race is often foremost among these and is a focus of some of the posts linked to above.  My contention has been, and remains, that Yockey’s views on biological race were a response to the sort of divisive and dishonest (and pseudoscientific) Nordicism practiced in his time by the lines of Gunther and Grant and today by the likes of Kemp and Durocher. Yockey lacked the training and empiricist mindset to address Nordicist theory head-on, so he side-stepped the issue by equating biological race differences to what he termed “vertical race theory” to be considered outdated and wrong, in favor of the "new idea" of  "horizontal race.”  Another point of controversy is his objectively wrong opinions and dismissive attitudes toward science; there are also his attitudes toward Eastern Europe (see below), as well as the issue of “Spenglerian pessimism.”  

The major point I make in this essay is that those issues are all peripheral in the sense that they are not the fundamental idea promoted by Yockey, not his fundamental thesis.  Some of those issues are related to his main thesis, no doubt, but they are not fundamental to it. His main idea is not dependent on those other ideas and issues and it is entirely possible for someone to disagree with Yockey on these other, peripheral issues, while still being a “Yockeyite” with respect to his main thesis. It is entirely possible that Yockey would have disagreed with me on this and considered these other issues as being fundamental to his thesis. That does not matter. I make my own arguments here, and it is up to the Yockeyites of today to interpret his work in light of existing fact and logic, and to do what they can to promote the main thrust, the main thesis, of his work.

The main thesis of course is the subject of his last chapter, and the title of that chapter and of the entire book – Imperium.  The main points of the book Imperium were distilled into a more concentrated form in The Proclamation of London. Yockey’s fundamental idea was the Empire of the West, the underlying ideology being pan-Europeanism – a militant pan-Europeanism – that for him was specifically Western European but which we can extend to Eastern Europe as well (see below).

And here is another crucially important point.  Yockey’s pan-European polemic did not really spell out the crudely practical benefits of Imperium.  While it is possible he assumed that the pragmatic benefits would be self-evident, I believe the major reason for this is that Yockey was not concerned with cataloging and weighing costs and benefits on a point-by-point pragmatic basis.  To him, Imperium was the inevitable and desirable evolution of the West, something naturally being self-evident to thoughtful leaders, and was something so inherently good, so necessary, that the cost-benefit accounting was to his mind superfluous.

Now, I do not like talk of “inevitability” with respect to political and social matters.  It is a particularly weak – and (intentionally) self-fulfilling – “argument.” Often, people say something is “inevitable” because they believe that (a) it is something desirable and they want it to happen and so they convince others with talk of its “inevitability” or (b) it is something undesirable, but they can’t or won’t put the effort in to stop it, so they excuse their inaction by talk of “inevitability,” and they want to convince others as well so that their own cowardice and laziness is not so obvious (possibly, they may believe that fighting the “something” will be more trouble than it is worth). 

Regardless of that, Yockey’s attitude holds for his perspective and, inevitability aside, he saw Imperium as a self-evident good and a natural evolution, a move forward, something actualizing in the minds of the new leadership elite of the West.

[Note: For those with a pragmatic bent, I review the practical advantages of Imperium in the footnote below, as well as address some ethnonationalist objections. However, that is not meant as a comprehensive study, since these issues have been addressed here and at EGI Notes previously and will not doubt be so again.  However, for the sake of completeness, they are included.]

Analysis of chapter excerpts

Imperium

Finally the insistence upon nationalism became so great, that some leaders were willing to betray their nations into bondage to extra-Western forces rather than join a united Western organism. 

Certainly.  Today, we can substitute “ethnonationalism” for “nationalism” and the same effect holds.  Who are the “extra-Western forces” we are being betrayed to?  Given that the ethnonationalists are part of an alliance with the HBDers and Nordicists, we can suggest that Jews and East Asians (and perhaps to a lesser extent “high IQ” South Asians) constitute the forces in question.  Indeed, Yockey wrote earlier in Imperium:

Perhaps before it is over, the outer forces will have mobilized the swarming, pullulating masses of China and India against the body of the Western Civilization.

At the time Yockey wrote Imperium, China was viewed by many, including him, as a passive nation, to be manipulated by others. Today, we observe China as a major threat in its own right, an aggressive center of Sinic civilization, opposed to the West

The Synthesis is the period of the Future. It exists everywhere in the minds of the Culture-bearing stratum of the West, and for a while it was actualized, in its first crude, provisional, form during the Second World War. 

This expands upon the point made above.  Yockey’s objective in his polemic is not to justify the Imperium idea with a nitpicking point-by-point enumeration of its benefits.  His objective was to create a stirring text to inspire White Men to achieve the synthesis of trends that Yockey saw as the natural evolution of the High Culture of Europe.  It is true that the pan-European idea had been percolating in the minds of the highest cadre of the West for some time. Napoleon – quoted by Yockey in his book – had some general ideas of European Unity.  Nietzsche preached being “a good European” and against petty nationalism.  During WWII, after Stalingrad at least, the more pan-European faction of the SS came to the forefront, and Mussolini dabbled with pan-Europeanism in the Italian Social Republic (note that those ethnonationalist leaders had to turn to pan-Europeanism after their ethnonationalism utterly failed them).  Then there was Yockey himself, as well as Mosley. Others in more recent times have promoted variants of this, such as Norman Lowell’s Imperium Europa.  Visionaries naturally gravitate to Yockey’s Imperium idea.  Small-minded culture retarders instead defend petty nationalism.

It returns to the Thesis, but retains the creations of the Antithesis, for this great Synthesis is not a mere negative. No European “nation” of the older type can any longer, under this new Idea, be the object of any forcible attempt to change or abolish its local characteristics. 

Once again, Yockey makes clear that the nation state would NOT be subject to any forcible attempt to “change or abolish its local characteristics.” The ethnonationalists may counter that such change may occur non-forcibly as a result of the Imperium itself, but Yockey in his later writings made very clear that the “local characteristics” were to be explicitly preserved.  In The Proclamation of London, Yockey wrote:

Local cultures in Europe may be as diversified as they wish, and they will enjoy a perfect autonomy in the European Imperium, now that the oppression of vertical nationalism is dead

Back to Imperium:

Considered as a spiritual reality, the Synthesis cannot be spread by physical force. 

Cries of “imperialism” and “forced empire” are mendacious. The EU for example was not created by force. Yockey considers his idea to be one that would spread among the European biocultural elite naturally, who would enact it in concert to actualize Imperium. This of course applies to Western Europe; it is true that Yockey, at least in Imperium, discussed military force (below), but that was specifically in the East.

Not only in the sphere of nations, but in the totality of the life-manifestations of the Western Civilization, the Synthesis penetrates with its new values, its higher imagination, and its new creative powers.

A bit of the “inevitability” here, but this book is a polemic and Yockey is making his point.

…there is inner necessity in the final passing of the Age of nationalism and annihilation-wars. The great Synthesis, Imperium, replaces it. The Synthesis contains within it the older components of Thesis and Antithesis. The primal Gothic instincts of the Western Culture are still present in the Imperium-Idea. It cannot be otherwise. Also present are the various Ideas which these instincts, within the framework of this Culture, shaped for itself, the religions, the nations, the philosophies, languages, arts and sciences. But they are present no longer as contrasts, but as mere differences.

Again, Yockey sees this as a natural evolution. The previous and constituent elements of the synthesis are still present, but are now part of a greater whole.

Gone— forever gone— is any notion that one of these Ideas— national, linguistic, religious, social— has the mission of wiping out another Idea. The adherents of Empire are still distinct from the adherents of Papacy— but this distinction does not rule their minds, for uppermost now is the Idea of Imperium, the return to superpersonal origins, and both of these mighty Ideas have the same spiritual source. The difference between Protestant and Catholic— once excited into a casus belli— has gone the same way. Both continue to exist, but it is inconceivable that this difference could again rend the Western Civilization in twain. There have been also the racial and temperamental differences of Teuton and Latin, of North and South. Once these may have contributed to the furnishing of motives to History— this can they no longer do. Again, both are part of the West, even though different, and the Imperium-Idea monopolizes the motivation of History.

I have analyzed this passage, and those related to it; see here.  We can of course recognize here a strong statement of pan-Europeanism, and thus we can understand why pan-Europeanism is opposed by Nordicists and HBDers, and why Yockey is mostly ignored by such elements in the wider “movement.” Those factions have as an objective dividing Europeans against each other, and for Nordicists particularly, the North/South split is all-important, existential, and so any attempt to bridge, and unite, “the racial and temperamental differences of Teuton and Latin, of North and South” is met with hostile outrage.  Further, there are, remarkably in today’s secular age, still those who make much of the “difference between Protestant and Catholic” and want that to be a casus belli once again.  Yockey does not deny the existence of intra- (Western) European differences; however, through the natural evolution of the West, and the “monopolization if the motivation of History” by the “Imperium-Idea” these differences no longer “furnish motives to History.” Thus, even though different, “both are part of the West” – with “both” generally meaning any set of distinctions (e.g., North vs. South) the dividers of Europe wish to focus on.

The former nations, the religions, the races, the classes— these are now the building-blocks of the great Imperial structure which is founding itself. Local cultural, social, linguistic, differences remain— it is no necessity of the Imperium-Idea that it annihilate its component Ideas, the collective products of a  thousand years of Western history. On the contrary, it affirms them all, in a higher sense it perpetuates them all, but they are in its service, and no longer in the center of History. 

Again and again, Yockey confirms that his Imperium will not eliminate the existence of, and characteristics of, its constituent parts; however, these “component Ideas” will be secondary to the overarching new “center of History” – Imperium.

Nor is the Idea of Imperium to be confused with any stupid rationalistic doctrine or system, any cowardly millennium. It is not a program, it is no set of demands, no scheme for justice, no juristic quibbling with the concept of national sovereignty.

See my points above. Yockey is not justifying the Imperium by a set of carefully argued details about systems, programs, costs, and benefits. His idea is a synthesis not only of all the parts of the West, but also a synthesis of rationality and irrationality, reason and faith, analysis and vision. The Idea is above all, the details of working it out, while important in the pragmatic sense, are secondary and basically inconsequential in the broadest sense.

Just as the Future has had always to fight against the entrenched forces of the Past, so must this powerful, universal Idea. Its first phase is the spiritual conquest of the minds and souls of the Culture-bearing stratum of the West. This is entirely inevitable.

More inevitability.  I disagree with that – look at the enduring power of petty nationalism. But instead of being descriptive, we can be prescriptive – that Yockey writes here is what things should be.

No force within the Civilization can then resist the Cultural Reunion which will unite North and South, Teuton and Latin, Protestant and Catholic, Prussia, England, Spain, Italy and France, in the tasks now waiting.

We’ll see. There are mighty forces in opposition.

Absolute Politics: Authority, Discipline, Faith, Responsibility, Duty, Ethical Socialism, Fertility, Order, State, Hierarchy— the creation of the Empire of the West.

A summary of Yockey’s objective.

The great dream and aim of Leibnitz, the uniting of all the States of Europe, is closer by virtue of Europe’s defeat, for in that defeat, it perceives its unity. The mission of this generation is the most difficult that has ever faced a Western generation. 

And the next generation, and the next - we are still fighting. Note that Leibnitz is considered by Yockey to be yet another Western historical figure who exhibited generalized Yockeyian ideals.

…the men of this generation must fight for the continued existence of the West. Ultimately nothing can defeat them except inner decadence.

And the traitors – including the ethnonationalists – opposed to Yockey’s idea.  In The Proclamation of London, Yockey wrote:

Anyone who seeks to perpetuate petty-statism or old-fashioned nationalism is the inner enemy of Europe. He is playing the game, of the extra-European forces, he is dividing Europe and committing treason.

Treason now has only one meaning to Europe: it means serving any other force than Europe. There is only one treason now, treason to Europe. The nations are dead, for Europe is born.

Imperium: 

The West has something to devote to the contest that neither the Barbarian nor the parasite has: the force of the mightiest superpersonal Destiny that has ever appeared on this earth-ball. This superpersonal Idea has such tremendous force that no number of scaffold-trials or massacres, no heaps of starved or pyramids of skulls, can touch it.

The Idea has force, not the detailed nitpicking arguments about it, and especially not tired, old, reactionary petty-statism.

The soil of Europe, rendered sacred by the streams of blood which have made it spiritually fertile for a millennium, will once again stream with blood until the barbarians and distorters have been driven out and the Western banner waves on its home soil from Gibraltar to North Cape, and from the rocky promontories of Galway to the Urals. 

From Ireland to Russia.  Now, given the attitude toward Eastern Europe and Russia in Imperium, Yockey is talking about conquest.  Thus:

How can the liberated West solve this great task of saving one hundred million Western lives? There is only one solution, and it is the nearest one. The agricultural territory of Russia provides the means of preserving the population of the West, and the necessary base for world-dominion of this Civilization, which alone can save the West from the threat of annihilation by the outer forces. It is thus a military solution— and there is no other. Our commercial-industrial-technical monopoly is gone. Our military technical superiority remains, as does our superior will-power, organization talent, and discipline. The glorious days of 1941 and 1942 show what the West can do against the Barbarian, however superior his numbers. Like Russia, the Western Civilization is situated in the Northeast quadrant. Against the West, therefore, Russia enjoys none of the military advantages it has against America. The common land-frontier enables the West to dispense with a gigantic assemblage of seapower as a prerequisite to the land-fight. The West will be able to deploy all of its forces on to the plains where the battle for the Future of the West will be fought.

Later, he changed his opinions somewhat. For example, in The Proclamation of London, Yockey wrote:

…the true American people and the Russian people figure only as expendable material. In these two populations, there are wide and deep strata which inwardly belong to the Western Civilization and who look to the sacred soil of Europe as to their origin, their inspiration and their spiritual home. To these also, this proclamation is addressed.

So, here, even “the true Russian people” contains elements that “inwardly belong to the Western Civilization and who look to the sacred soil of Europe as to their origin, their inspiration and their spiritual home.”

The Sallis Groupuscule, while acknowledging differences between Western and Eastern Europe, supports the integration of the two as equal partners in the Imperium project.

Imperium: 

This is promised, not by human resolves merely, but by a higher Destiny, which cares little whether it is 1950, 2000, or 2050. This Destiny does not tire, nor can it be broken, and its mantle of strength descends upon those in its service.

Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker.

(What does not destroy me makes me stronger.)

The main thrust of Yockey’s objective was the palingenetic vision of a pan-European Imperium of the West, constituting the ultimate evolved form of Europe and its High Culture.  He puts this in the language of inevitability – Yockey sometimes sounds like an Old Testament prophet – but his point is clear.

Notes

It is important to note that Yockey didn’t make any internal distinctions between areas of Western European nations with respect to belonging to the West, an attitude that ran counter to some opposing ideas of his, and our, time. Thus, when referring to Spain he referred to that nation in its entirety, and since he was really talking about Western Europe as a whole, Portugal is included –“Spain” being essentially Yockeyian shorthand for “all of the Iberian peninsula.”

With respect to Italy, Yockey in Imperium refers to the entire nation, with all of its different areas and different peoples; thus:

For example, think of the racial differences between Calabrian and Lombard. What did they matter to the history of Garibaldi’s time?

And:

Between 1900 and 1915 alone, 15,000,000 immigrants came to America from Asia, Africa and Europe. They came mostly from Russia, the Levant, and the Balkan countries. From the Western Civilization came a fair number of Italians, but the rest of the human material was from outside the West.

Yockey, being an educated man of his time, and familiar with the work of Madison Grant and similar authors, was well aware that the “fair number of Italians” who came to America “between 1900 and 1915” were mostly from Southern Italy/Sicily.  All Italians were “from the Western Civilization” (as history attests).

Indeed, it was the pan-Western European approach of Yockey that led him to be critiqued in Instauration by the execrable Humphrey Ireland, the latter obviously obsessed with his bizarre fear of being swarmed by scurrying five foot tall superstitious Sicilian dwarves.

Earlier in Imperium, Yockey wrote:

It is absolutely necessary to the continuance of the subjugation of Europe that the outsiders have large numbers— whole societies, groups, strata, remnants of dead 19th century nations— of domestic European populations available for their purposes. Against a united Europe, they could never have made their way in, and only against a divided Europe can they maintain themselves. Split! divide! distinguish!— this is the technique of conquest. Resurrect old ideas, old slogans, now quite dead, in the battle to turn European against European. But work always with the weak, Culture-less stratum against the strong bearers and appreciators of Culture. These must be “tried” and hanged. 

This availability of the under-strata of the Culture to outside forces is one type, and the most dangerous, of that form of Culture-pathology called Culture-distortion. It is closely related however to another type called Culture-retardation.

Question: Was Yockey “crazy” and “bitter” – or “insane” and “indecent” – when he wrote about the petty nationalists:

These must be “tried” and hanged. 

Regardless, I’m sure he’d be outraged that his work is being peddled by the types of people who he wrote that about.

From The Enemy of Europe:

Europe is equal to its historical task. Against the anti-spiritual, anti-heroic 'ideals' of America-Jewry, Europe pits its metaphysical ideas, its faith in its Destiny, its ethical principles, its heroism. Fearlessly, Europe falls in for battle, knowing it is armed with the mightiest weapon ever forged by History: the superpersonal Destiny of the European organism. Our European Mission is to create the Culture-State-Nation-Imperium of the West, and thereby we shall perform such deeds, accomplish such works, and so transform our world that our distant posterity, when they behold the remains of our buildings and ramparts, will tell their grandchildren that on the soil of Europe once dwelt a tribe of gods.

We can contrast that inspiring vision to the insipid “defense of petty nationalism” and the call for an ethnonationalism” of waring European nations “ethnically cleansing” each other, no doubt to the delight of the outer forces. Ethnonationalism, a backwards remnant from the dead past, has nothing to offer to the European Future.

On Yockey’s ELF Groupuscule:

In 1947, just two years after the fall of Nazi Germany, an American expatriate living in Ireland named Francis Parker Yockey wrote Imperium, a massive tome that advanced a new strategy for post-war European fascism. Yockey insisted that fascists abandon their narrow nationalist viewpoint and, instead, fight for a new European-wide fascist empire, which he dubbed the 'Imperium'. In 1948 Yockey and his closest collaborators left Oswald Mosley's Union Movement and founded the European Liberation Front (ELF), a British-based groupuscule that lasted until 1954. Rejecting the possibility of building a mass fascist movement in post-war Europe, the ELF defined its primary task as ideological: namely, the advancement of the 'Imperium' idea inside the ranks of Europe's 'fascist elite'. The ELF soon ran into stiff opposition from Mosley over Yockey's controversial identification of the United States, and not the Soviet Union, as Europe's 'main enemy'. The ELF also met with fierce resistance from Hitler worshippers inside the British right like Arnold Leese, who rejected the ELF's emphasis on 'culture' over 'race'. Despite the ELF's relatively brief existence as a groupuscule, its introduction of a new kind of 'Eurofascist' thinking has recently led to its rediscovery by contemporary European New Rightists now searching for a new political strategy following both the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the United States as the world's sole 'superpower'.

On the practical matters of Imperium:

Of course, am Imperium has many practical advantages, some of which went into the thinking behind the EU (forgetting for a moment on that project was distorted by globalist, anti-European impulses). We have the economy of scale; we have the pooling of European resources and ingenuity. We have a common foreign policy and defense, putting the Imperium as a major force, a superpower, with the ability to represent the interests of the Western High Culture against all other civilizational blocs in the conflicts of interest that will likely occur. It eliminate the curse of petty nationalism – constant intra-European conflict, including murderous warfare. It allows for the pooled resources to be used for grand projects – space exploration bioengineering, new energy sources, and pan-European cultural artifacts, pushing the limit of science, technics, and culture to heights undreamed of.  An Imperium can provide the seed of a New High Culture that our race needs to survive and prosper.  There are of course many other practical advantages for European power and prosperity that one can think of; however, the point has been made.

Let’s take a pragmatic look at a claim made by ethnonationalists – that one needn’t worry about individual “sovereign” European nations making alliances with non-White powers since other European nations can form alliances against them and invade the rogue state, overthrow its government, and even “ethnically cleanse” it. Putting aside the repulsive aspects of the ethnonationalist agenda – Europeans waging war and “ethnically cleaning” each other – we can ask whether that’s even practical.  Even if we assume hard-nosed nationalist governments and populations willing to go to such extremes, what about the reality?  For example, the UK and France are nuclear powers (Russia is as well, of course, but let us for the moment consider nations that are [France] or were [UK] in the EU).  We will assume they will continue to be nuclear powers in an ethnonationalist Europe – why should nationalist governments give up such weapons?  Very well. One day Europe wakes up to find the Chinese navy in British ports, a military alliance being created between those nations.  So…what?  Are other European nations going to attempt to invade and “cleanse” the nuclear-armed UK, who now have nuclear-armed China as an ally?  What if France feels threatened and decides to conduct their own military alliance with nuclear-armed India, a rival of China that has a score to settle with the British.  What’s next?  Maybe Germany decides to develop their own nuclear arsenal and allies itself with Russia.  Poland would not doubt be threatened by that.  Maybe the Poles go nuclear too and join up with the Sino-British or Franco-Hindi alliances.  Italy, Spain, et al. would have some decision making to do. Ethnonationalism! With respect to foreign policy and defense, you need an integrated Europe, a Fortress Europa. Letting every nation go their own way, scrambling with alliances and hostility leading to armed conflict, is exactly how the ethnonationalists led us into two world wars and wrecked the White world.  Why should we let them do it again?  We veto your dream, ethnonationalists.

Let us consider Estonia, a small European Baltic nation whose ethnonationalist leaders are popular amongst their ideological comrades in America and elsewhere.  Long a prize fought over between The Germanic and Slavic worlds, Estonia is now an independent, “sovereign” nation.  Did the Estonians break free of Soviet control of their own accord?  With all respect due to the history of Estonian dissidents and resistance, the answer must be no.  Estonian independence was the result of the collapse of the USSR, prompted by the Cold War pressure put upon it and its defective system by the USA and the rest of the “West,” Left to its own devices, Estonia would not be independent.  Indeed, Estonian “independence” and “sovereignty” today is due solely to the protective screen of larger nations. In essence, Estonia is a vassal state of the USA and the EU (and NATO), which provide “protection” from Russia.  I put “protection” in scare quotes because - would the USA go to war with Russia to protect Estonia?  The EU is a different story in one sense, it is supposed to be a “union” and an attack on Estonia is an attack on EU territory. However, the covid-19 crisis has revealed that – contra ethnonationalist hysteria – the EU is not much more of a “Union” than it is in any real sense “European.” Whether Germans or Frenchmen would be willing to fight and die for Estonia is questionable, and perhaps one day Russia may call that bluff? Who knows?  But whatever independence and security Estonia does have today is from its EU membership, as well as of course NATO, but that brings up the same question – will Americans, Germans, and Frenchmen die for Estonia because of NATO if Estonia is considered to be a sovereign independent nation? The ethnonationalists talk about alliances, but what does Estonia have to offer to larger nations as part of an alliance?Estonia’s current population is a little over 1.3 million, approximately half that of Brooklyn, a single borough in the single city of New York.  There are many, many, many individual cities, and even neighborhoods of major cities, around the Earth that have larger populations than the entire nation of Estonia. The only thing of practical use is Estonian territory as a “forward base” against Russia, but then doesn’t that make Estonia in essence a vassal state of whatever larger nation places its military protection over Estonia in exchange for military bases?  It is not clear how Estonia can be a fully sovereign nation from the ethnonationalist perspective and still maintain its viability in world affairs (e.g., I doubt the Chinese are paying attention to the interests of a nation whose population is less than one-thousandth of that of China).

On the other hand, if Estonia is part of an Imperium, and its territory is that of the Imperium, then by definition an attack against that territory is an attack against the entire Imperium itself. By analogy, an attack against, say, Rhode Island, is an attack against the entire USA. Now, as part of the Imperium, Estonia must have local sovereignty (as even Yockey agreed must exist) and all measures to safeguard its ethnic and cultural uniqueness would exist.  Estonia would have representation among the councils of this Imperium as would all other constituents of this confederated “empire.” But as regards is interactions with the Outer World, it is part of the Imperium.  In a sense, the Sallisian Imperium would be both more and less integrated than the EU.  With respect to relations with the Outer World and with respect to responsibilities and obligations of constituent states and peoples to each other – more integrated. With respect to issues of local sovereignty and the maintenance of borders between states, preserving the ethnic and cultural uniqueness of member states – less integrated.  That is part of the “deal” – giving up external sovereignty to ensure local sovereignty and preservation.

Meanwhile, ethnonationalism is a proven failure, not only historically with two world wars and a wrecked White World to its debit, but even today, ethnonationalism brings failure after failure.  Exhibit A is Brexit, where anger at “Polish plumbers” has led to an increase in non-White immigration into Britain and genocidal plans such as this.

In addition, ethnonationalists like to make comments such as “hey, when you can get Czechs and Slovaks to agree to live together in the same nation, get back to me about Imperium” – the implication is how can you get these people to abide being in the same Imperium if they can’t live in the same nation together.  This is a particularly stupid argument, since both Czechia and Slovakia are members of the EU.  They may not want to be stuck together alone in a single nation state (historically, Slovaks resented Czech domination), but they were, and currently are, perfectly willing to both be part of an overarching European super-state, where specific Czech-Slovak conflict is not a significant issue. So, I answer back – if the Czechs and/or Slovaks demand to leave the EU specifically because they cannot abide being in the same union with the other, then get back to me with your silly and illogical ethnonationalist “arguments.”

Nietzsche, Napoleon, and the Overman

A more mature analysis.

Here I discuss a more mature analysis of Napoleon compared to the moronic “movement” drivel described here.

Thus, an analysis of: Nietzsche's Napoleon: The Higher Man as Political Actor, by Paul F. Glenn. In all cases, red font emphasis added:

Abstract

Nietzsche's concept of the higher man is often seen as vague. The article adds concreteness to the concept by studying an example of a higher man, Napoleon. Napoleon embodied power and spiritual health, and was therefore an admirable person.  By looking at Nietzsche's description of Napoleon as an artist, we also gain insight into the higher man as a political actor: he uses the public arena as the medium on which he practices his art. In doing so, he presents himself as a exemplar of humanity, inspiring others to seek their own path to excellence.  By studying this, we gain important insight into Nietzsche's political teaching. But Nietzsche's account of Napoleon is not one-sided: he also describes Napoleon's corruption. The fall of a higher man is both a warning of the dangers of the political realm, and a reminder that sickness and health are closely connected. Even the mightiest individual is fragile.

And now, with the same emphasis added, I’ll comment on some interesting selected excerpts from Glenn’s work.

One of Nietzsche's frequently cited examples of an actually existing higher man was Napoleon Bonaparte. 

That view contrasts to the cartoonish, sweaty fetishist “movement” view of Napoleon.

As he noted in Ecce Homo, "I never attack persons; I merely avail myself of the person as a strong magnifying  glass that allows one to make visible a general but creeping and  elusive calamity." 

The same applies to Ted Sallis. I  do not critique “movement” personages out of personal animus, but because such individuals represent certain “movement” principles and dogmas I wish to examine and deconstruct, and so each of these people represent “a strong magnifying  glass that allows one to make visible a general but creeping and  elusive calamity."

Just as his critiques of individuals point toward larger issues, so his praise also indicates a general point. Napoleon embodies many of the qualities Nietzsche admired, but more important he was a political leader in an egalitarian era dominated by a populist ethos.

Napoleon therefore exemplifies how greatness is possible in a time of spiritual weakness and widespread cultural decay. 

Yes, but that required Napoleon to work within that egalitarian milieu, leading to actions and policies that make racialists look askance, as well as led to his own downfall (both literally and from the Nietzschean perspective).  More on that below.

By studying Nietzsche’s description of Bonaparte, we can learn something about the higher man as a political actor.

This is of great interest to us, actors in the political sphere – politics broadly defined (e.g., Yockey – “politics is activity in relation to power”).  Far Right activism is a form of politics.  How is the Nietzschean conception of “the higher man” compatible (or not) with the Far Right political perspective?  With our goals and aspirations?

But though he admired Napoleon, he did not do so for typical reasons. In his descriptions of the French emperor, Nietzsche never mentions Bonaparte's great victories at Austerlitz and Jena. Nor does he care about the glorification of France-in his later works, Nietzsche repeatedly denounced all forms of nationalism.

Author’s Footnote: As will be discussed later, Nietzsche regarded Napoleon's nationalism as a sign of weakness and decay.

This puts into question what Nietzsche’s views on racial nationalism would be. True enough, Nietzsche’s hostility toward the nationalism of his day was more regarding the sort of jingoistic petty nationalism so loved by today’s ethnonationalists.  Would Nietzsche – the “good European” – view pan-European racial nationalism therefore as a positive antidote to Greg Johnson’s embrace of petty nationalism?

Instead, Nietzsche characterizes Napoleon as a higher man for who he was, not what he did. The extraordinary character of the man, and not his accomplishments, marks him as elevated.  Napoleon was a being of great power and thus stands as a symbol of what the highest exemplars of humanity can become. For this reason, Nietzsche includes him in a list of "the more profound and comprehensive men of this century” (BGE, 256) and frequently praises him.

This is an important point, and one Glenn comes back to at various points in his essay. To Nietzsche, greatness is measured by what a man (and only men, not women – Glenn makes clear that Nietzsche, viewing women as inferior, does not believe them capable of true greatness) is, not the specifics of what he does.  Now, of course, that is not to say that the great man’s actions are irrelevant; after all, they are the signs by which one can recognize a man of being worthy of being examined for signs of greatness. If Napoleon had merely been a “great soul” living on Corsica as some local bigwig, Nietzsche would never had heard of him, nor would be interested in him if he had.  If Goethe – another Nietzsche hero and great man – had merely been a schoolteacher somewhere, how would the “great soul” have been manifested?  Of course, if Napoleon had been merely a local Corsican “big shot” and Goethe merely a schoolteacher, then neither would have been a “great soul” to begin with, as their inner greatness would not have been satisfied with those stations in life. So, accomplishments help mark greatness, but they are, to Nietzsche, merely means to an end – the manner in which the great man exercises his will to power – than ends to themselves.  Napoleon could have just as easily been an anti-French Austro-Hungarian or German from the Nietzschean perspective. It is not the specifics of the accomplishments, it is not “what he did.” This of course presents problems for us here who have definitive goals, and wish great men to step forward and prioritize the race rather than themselves. From the Nietzschean perspective, that’s degenerate.  

The core of Nietzsche's scathing attack on modernity is its weakness. Modernity represents the triumph of values like equality, humanism, peace, and the freedom of the will, which are slavish values: their origin lies in weakness not strength. The French Revolution and the subsequent spread of democratic values in its wake represent a new high point for the hegemony of slave values.  Nearly everyone now accepts these values as truth.

Everyone who is part of the System’s “hive mind.”

In the midst of the spread of such values, however, atavistic individuals have appeared, harkening back to an aristocratic past.

Traditionalism!  Evola-ites start sweating and foaming at the mouth.

The core of the soul is its constituent complex of drives and affects. In a strong individual, these drives are formidable-they are not easily sated or resisted, but fervently push the individual toward their objects. At times the drives are so strong that they push the person toward self-destruction: often, our drives seek a goal which will destroy us (Z, "On Self-Overcoming").  Nietzsche therefore argues that self-preservation represents a degeneration of the instincts (BGE, 13). 

That last part puts into question what Nietzsche’s views on racial preservationism would have been.  A strictly literal reading of his views would mean that racial preservationism – self-preservation on a racial level – “represents a degeneration of the instincts” and that a Faustian overcoming of race is compatible with higher drives. I do not say I agree with this, as I view EGI as fundamental, and EGI depends upon racial (and ethnic) preservation.  But as the “movement” values Nietzsche, it needs to be honest about his views and how those views relate to “movement” objectives.  One could argue that a Yockeyian “horizontal race” view is more consistent with Nietzsche’s ideas than a “vertical” “zoological race” concept.  Again, I do not say I personally agree with that viewpoint.

Unlike many of the militant romantics whom he inspired, Bonaparte had no use for glory and accolades because he scorned those who bestowed such honors. And Bonaparte felt no need to obey the moral dictates of those he saw as inferior. For example, when Napoleon was con­fronted  by his wife with charges of infidelity, Nietzsche claims that  he responded "I have  the right  to answer  all accusations against  me with  an eternal  'That's  me.' I am apart from all the world and accept conditions from nobody. I demand subjection even to my fancies, and people should find it quite natural when I yield to this or that distraction" (GS, 23).

Napoleon the champion of the manosphere?  Dark Triad traits?

Author’s Footnote: This account of what makes for great character fits with several other of Nietzsche's writings. For example, in On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, he describes creativity of the Greeks in similar language:  "The Greeks gradually learned to organize the chaos” (UM, II. 10). And in  Beyond  Good and Evil section 200 he notes that the warring drives that result from ethnic mixing can be mastered by noble ones (such as Alcibiades and Caesar).

So, a prominent Periclean-Age Greek (actually a nephew of Pericles himself) and a prominent Patrician Roman from the Republic were considered “ethnically mixed” by Nietzsche:

The man from an age of dissolution, which mixes the races all together, such a man has an inheritance of a multiple ancestry in his body, that is, conflicting and frequently not merely conflicting drives and standards of value which war among themselves and rarely give each other rest - such a man of late culture and disturbed lights will typically be a weaker man. His most basic demand is that the war which constitutes him should finally end. Happiness seems to him, in accordance with a calming medicine and way of thinking (for example, Epicurean or Christian), principally as the happiness of resting, of having no interruptions, of surfeit, of the final unity, as the "Sabbath of Sabbaths," to use the words of the saintly rhetorician Augustine, who was himself such a man. But if the opposition and war in such a nature work like one more charm or thrill in life - and bring along, in addition to this nature's powerful and irreconcilable drives, also the real mastery and refinement in waging war with itself, and thus transmit and cultivate self-ruling and outwitting of the self, then arise those delightfully amazing and unimaginable people, those enigmatic men predestined for victory and temptation, whose most beautiful expressions are Alcibiades and Caesar (- in their company I'd like to place the first European, according to my taste, the Hohenstaufer Frederick II), and, among artists, perhaps Leonardo da Vinci.8 They appear precisely in the same ages when that weaker type, with its demands for quiet, steps into the foreground: both types belong with one another and arise from the same causes.

Note also Frederick II and - perhaps - Leonardo da Vinci to go along with Alcibiades and Caesar. Now, Nietzsche of course is not a population geneticist nor an anthropologist (nor is Kemp or any other “movement activist” for that matter), and his opinions on this matter are just that – opinions. Nevertheless, it is interesting to observe how the "movement's" favorite philosopher stakes out a position so different from official “movement” dogma.

The outward manifestation of a great soul is a vibrant and charismatic personality, something both Goethe and Napoleon clearly possessed…

Apparently then, Sallis (and Nietzsche himself) would not be defined as a “great soul.”  Actually no one in the “movement” would be. In fact, what prominent person today would be?  By Nietzschean standards, we live in the age of the Last Man.

Napoleon and Goethe were able to overcome the mediocrity and pettiness of the eighteenth century because of their magnificent souls. Both resisted the narrow-minded bigotry of nationalism and instead aspired to create a pan-European culture and political arena (WP, 104). 

Pan-European…not ethnonationalist.

Like Nietzsche they rejected petty national boundaries…

Rejecting Greg Johnson and the other ethnonationalists.

…and sought to be good Europeans.  

Indeed.

Both rejected the egalitarianism prevalent at the time and sought to invoke the pathos of distance characteristic of the noble soul. 

Glenn contradicts this, regarding Napoleon, in this same essay – implying that Napoleon had to compromise with the egalitarian and populist zeitgeist of his time.

And both were firmly grounded in reality, overcoming the flight into imagination of romanticism.  The strength of soul of the two men ranks them among the highest of the modern era and marked them as radiant exemplars of humanity.

While the “movement” may agree about Goethe, it certainly would not agree about Napoleon, which we have seen.

Napoleon as Artist

We have seen that Nietzsche held Napoleon in high repute, but we have not yet discovered how Nietzsche’s account of Napoleon can help us understand the relationship between the higher individual and the political actor. I think an answer to this question can be offered by examining a somewhat curious component of Nietzsche’s descriptions of Bonaparte: his characterization of Napoleon as an artist in a number of passages. 

Politics, then, is not a lesser pursuit than art.  It is another possible realm of creativity.

Indeed. And it is politics, broadly defined, that talented pro-White activists need to focus their activity on, as their art.

Napoleon is as much an artist-and thus as highly valorized as sculptors, musicians, painters, and writers…Napoleon is not an artist who also happens to be a leader; his art is his political action…

A second key point about Nietzsche's aesthetics is that artistic creation is connected to power. 

Remember Yockey’s definition of politics – activity in relation to power.

Art as a representation of the artist's soul explains the third key point of Nietzsche's aesthetics: art serves as an incentive to life. When viewing art (or reading literature or philosophy), we are tempted to strive for our own creation and greatness by the brilliant image of the artwork. But what draws us upward is not simply the painting itself-it is the image of the artist lurking within the painting. 

This view suggests that the art is a portal to look into the artist’s soul, and it is that we are ultimately reacting to.

Art serves as a stimulus to life-both for the artist himself and for the spectator-because it lures us upward to higher pursuits. 

Inspiration by art.  But since High Politics can be art, we should be inspired by that as well. But in which direction? Do we listen to Nietzsche and accept that the objective of the political activity is secondary to the greatness of the man?

Napoleon  was (at least initially) a monological  artist-he engaged  in politics  for his own  purposes, not  to promote  the agenda of any group  or the glory of the French nation…This  fits  with Nietzsche's repeated statements that  one  misunderstands the  great  person if one judges him from the viewpoint of public utility: the monological artist does not care about the audience, and thus does not work for the general welfare.

This is THE crucial point of this essay.  Nietzsche viewed the accomplishments of great men as a means to an end – a way for them to exercise their will to power and to display their greatness, to manifest and actualize their great soul in the realm of achievement, in the case of Napoleon, political achievement.  A great man may have done X and not Y, but to Nietzsche, he could have equally done Y and not X – if that had been sufficient to demonstrate his superiority as a "higher man."

But we of the Far Right value specific goals most of all. Racial preservationists struggle for the survival of the White race (or in some cases, like the Nordicists and/or ethnonationalists and/or ethnic fetishists, some fraction of it). Salterians stress the EGI component of racial preservationism. Phenotypists care about preserving certain racial phenotypes.  Yockeyians want to build the Imperium, the Empire of the West.  HBDers – their leaders at least – want to enslave Whites to Jews and Asians.  Silk Road White nationalism is all about black-booted Chinese girls with guns ruling the West, with omega White males getting some sort of masochistic sexual thrill from it.  There are various ethnic, racial, religious, social, and political permutations of the Far Right, some compatible with each other, some incompatible.  But these are specific goals, specific objectives. Those dedicated to these goals – who would be considered “degenerate” by Nietzsche – would be less admiring of the greatness of a man who cared nothing for these objectives, and would oppose a great man who leveraged opposition to these goals to manifest his greatness.

It should be noted at this point that Glenn suggests that Nietzsche realized that Napoleon was working within the zeitgeist of his time, that being an egalitarian and populist one. Thus, the aspects of Napoleon’s ethnoracial policies that the “movement” objects to were not the result of Napoleon’s innate racial liberalism and aracial universalism (projecting modern “high trust northern hunter gatherer” pathologies on past historical figures), but more of a cynical ploy to leverage the French Revolutions memetic legacy to further Napoleon’s personal ambitions.

The “movement” pontificates:

But, as a French biographer of Napoleon and spokesman for the contemporary Establishment observes, “Bonaparte had no [racial] prejudices; Egyptians, Sudanese, Jews from Alexandria were all integrated into the Imperial Guard.”

Several points here.  First, if, as Glenn suggests, Napoleon was a reflection of his time, and his will to power had to be exercised through the egalitarian zeitgeist of his time – Napoleon coming through the chaos of the French Revolution – then this may be the source of his supposed racial universalism. Second, let’s consider “movement” hypocrisy here. A comment from a biographer, the presence of some non-Europeans in the Imperial Guard (as well as the emancipation of the Jews) is enough to damn Napoleon.  On the other hand, let’s consider how the “movement” considers the pro-Black leftist Hubert Humphrey, who pushed policies that resulted in unbelievable hardship and suffering for White Americans:

Hubert H. Humphrey is exactly the sort of person we need on our side. Humphrey was a liberal idealist, of course, but he wasn’t a philosopher, he was a doer.

Why not the same attitude toward Napoleon?  Well, consider Humphrey’s ancestry:

His father’s family were of New England Puritan stock. His grandmother, Addie Regester Humphrey, taught at a Quaker school, and Humphrey’s mother, Christine Sannes, was from Norway. Humphrey was baptized into his mother’s Lutheran church, but he worshiped later in life as both a Methodist and a Congregationalist. Humphrey was thus genetically a mix of Minnesota’s native Nordic groups…

And, well, Napoleon was different. A Corsican of Tuscan ancestry, puny Napoleon cannot aspire to the racial grandeur of Hubert Humphrey, eh?  Ultimately, that’s the reason – the real reason - why Napoleon’s Imperial Guard composition puts him beyond the pale for the “movement,” while Humphrey’s promotion of racial destruction in America leads to:

Hubert H. Humphrey is exactly the sort of person we need on our side.

Ironically, just like Nietzsche, who admired Napoleon, the anti-Napoleon “movement” judges Napoleon Bonaparte vs. Hubert Humphrey solely based on who they were (in this case, ethnically), not what they did.  And if the riposte to my accusation of hypocrisy is that the Napoleon and Humphrey essays were written by two different people on two different forums, my response is that they are ideologically similar; indeed, it is highly doubtful that each would find fault in the work of the other. They are both part of a highly integrated “movement” dogma, so it is perfectly reasonable to suggest, to quote Jack Vance, “It is all one.”

As speaking of hypocrisy, if Napoleon was so bad for having some non-Europeans in his Imperial Guard, what about the Holy Nazis having non-European military units, including in the Waffen SS?

Also – if Napoleon had achieved all of his objectives in Europe, I find it highly unlikely he would have used his position to invite the Third World to invade the continent.  No, it was the German Merkel who did that. If Napoleon had conquered Great Britain, he would not have flooded the island with Negroes and South Asians; the British people did that to themselves.  The French navy was not transporting Afro-Asiatics into Europe – leave that to modern day Germans and Norwegians.  Where is Andrew Hamilton critiquing all of that?

If Napoleon had escaped to America, the man who tried to reconquer Haiti would not have championed Negro emancipation – the New England abolitionists did that. Napoleon would not have fomented slave rebellions, as John Brown did.

Hypocritical much?

It is for this reason that Nietzsche writes in places that rule by the higher individuals can be extremely dangerous to the general populace. 

If the “movement” considers Hitler to be such a “higher individual” then we can observe the greet damage done by him to the German people and to Europeans in general. I doubt though that Nietzsche would have considered Hitler a great man given Nietzsche’s opinions on nationalism and degeneration, being a Good European, and putting specific goals – always primary for Hitler – secondary to exerting one’s will to power.  I suspect he would have had a higher opinion of Mussolini, but even Il Duce far behind Napoleon.  This is not to endorse Nietzsche’s views, as I have stated.

Napoleon is a great figure because of the power and vitality of his soul, not because of anything he accomplished.

Again, this is the key point of departure between Nietzsche and those who place utility of action as the highest priority.

Consider the next author’s footnote.

Author’s Footnote: This is not to say that outcomes are simply unimportant: after all, it would be impossible to know the greatness of a person without any artifacts. But Nietzsche is clear that outcomes are secondary, mere symptoms of who the person is…

The key is this – IF we assume Nietzsche is correct, can we get great men (if we can find any) to accept our goals as the vehicle through which to express their greatness?  Even if the goals are secondary to them – if not to us – can we associate greatness and pro-White accomplishment so to create a “win-win” situation for both the great man and his people? Conversely, can we create an environment that dissuades great men from acting contrary to the interests of their people?  After all, in the current zeitgeist, a great man unconcerned with the direction of the actual outcome of his activity may be tempted to act within the constraints of that zeitgeist, as Napoleon did in his time. That would be devastating to us. Consider how dire the situation is when we have spiritual pygmies, gross defects, as adversaries, and then imagine what would occur if a Napoleon-like figure took up the cause of the System’s anti-Whiteness.

This means that Napoleon did not act simply to bring about a particular objective. While an aesthetic view of politics like this does not rule out efforts to promote specific goals, such goals are ultimately of secondary importance. Nietzschean politics is expressivist, not outcome-oriented…The value of political action, just as with art, is rooted in the act itself, not any consequences that stem from it. Napoleon sought to use the public arena as a testing ground for himself, as the medium through which to express and challenge his vitality. He did not enter politics in order to promote a specific agenda.

Yes, I believe we get the constantly repeated point by now.  The question is whether we accept it and then, if we do, how can we get great men to act in our behalf. Whether or not we define greatness in the same manner as Nietzsche is a matter of choice, but there seems to be some truth in that great men are motivated at least in part by personal will to power disassociated from specific objectives.  I’m not sure that Nietzsche is correct in the totality and universality of that. Is it possible to have a great man that puts the goal at least equal to that of himself? I think yes, but regardless, we must have great men who – authentically or not – promote our views as the vehicle of manifestation, the actualization, of their greatness.

This argument suggests that Nietzsche offers a political teaching decidedly different from the Western tradition of political philosophy. Since Plato, political philosophy has sought to use the public realm for instrumental reasons.  While thinkers  may have disagreed  over what ends should  be sought-from  Plato's promotion  of virtue  to Machiavelli's  insistence on stability and endurance-all  thinkers accepted the  instrumental  view. Nietzsche’s philosophy suggests a very different understanding of politics. Political action is valuable for the deed itself, not for any consequences that flow from it. The higher individual, Nietzsche argues, should not make the decision to enter the public realm based on what can be achieved, but on whether the action itself can serve one's soul.

We can argue otherwise – but can we tie “serving one’s soul” to the action of promoting the race?  This all seems to be a uniquely White problem.  The leaders of other races always make serving their own people the primary focus of their action.  Is it that there have never been any truly great non-White men?  Regardless, one is hard-pressed to think of non-Whites (great by Nietzsche’s standards or other standards) that rose to prominence through race treason.

Viewing Napoleon in this manner seems to raise a problem. If Napoleon acted only to further his own goals and did not seek to promote the good of humankind, then why does Nietzsche attribute such tremendous influence to him? 

Napoleon did not much care for promoting greatness in others.  

How can one who consciously serves only his own soul promote greatness in others?

This does not mean that Napoleon could not promote great­ness in others, but it would have to be achieved by indirect means. By embodying the values of a nobler time, Napoleon left an indelible impression of what humanity can become at its peak. 

So, he was an inspiration for greatness.

It is here that we see Nietzsche's loftiest tribute to Napoleon-the emperor appears as something of a miracle, a man comparable to the greatest men of ancient times amidst the disease of modernity. Nietzsche goes so far as to suggest that Napoleon's appearance may lead to the self-overcoming of decadence in Europe…

Quite the different view from that of the “movement.”

If the crisis of the West stems from the nihilism resulting from the false metaphysics of Christian values, then Napoleon was an earth-shaking figure: he offered a way out of our illness, a way of overcoming Christianity. This suggests that  the  higher  man  can  achieve eminence  in the political realm as well as other spheres…Political action is a legitimate  realm for the efforts of the higher  man.

“Legitimate realm” – but according to Nietzsche it doesn’t matter precisely what politics are practiced as long as the “higher man” exercises his will to power and accomplishes things to promote his own self-worth. Of course, one can argue that Nietzsche was somewhat hypocritical – assuming if he considered himself as being a higher type (Ecce Homo, assuming sanity on the part of the author, which is questionable , suggests that he did so) – since he promoted certain memes as being “good” and others “bad.”  But that aside, let’s continue with this analysis.

There are two key passages in which Nietzsche discusses Napoleon’s demise. The first is at the end of Will to Power, note 1026. He writes that Bonaparte "was corrupted by the means he had to employ and lost noblesse of character." 

‘Had to employ” – suggesting that Napoleon promoted certain ideas because of the era in which he lived, the egalitarian ethos of the France of his time. What was Saint Adolf’s excuse for his South Asian SS unit?

 It seems clear that the means of which  Nietzsche  speaks  are  the  methods and  practices  of democracy…It seems  likely  that Napoleon  was corrupted by democracy.

That is reasonable.

He succumbed to his own myth, coming to believe that he was the great servant of the French nation… Nietzsche makes this point in the other relevant passage. In Beyond Good and Evil, section 256, he remarks that great men of his time succumbed to nationalism in moments of weakness: "only in their foregrounds or in weaker hours, say in old age, did they belong to the 'fatherlandish'-they were merely taking a rest from themselves when they became 'patriots."' Napoleon fell prey to the ideal of service to the nation-a form of nationalism, and connected to populism-when he declined…To paraphrase Urnberto Eco, the habit of pretending to believe evolved into the habit of believing.

So, Nietzsche argues (according to Glenn) that a great man who becomes a “true believer” has become degenerate and will fail - decline is linked to placing a specific goal (e.g., serving a people in a nationalistic “fatherlandish” manner) as the priority, rather than serving self.

What does this say about using great men to serve our goals?  If they become true believers, then they decline and become failed degenerates – and in their failure take us and our goals down with them. If they remain self-centered, using our goals cynically to achieve their own personal objectives, at best they may “use us up” in their rise, ruining what we hope to achieve; at worst, they may betray us and our beliefs when doing so serves their purposes. We are left then with either rejecting Nietzsche’s formulation of greatness and instead accepting the great men can at least hold true belief as equal to their own self- aggrandizement, or we have to view great men as potential enemies of our racial objectives. I would promote the former idea, that greatness and true belief are not incompatible.

What does Napoleon’s ultimate failure tell us about Nietzsche’s view of the higher man? It offers a warning and a reminder. First, it is a strong warning of the dangers of the political realm. While it is true that the higher man can use politics just as an artist uses paint and canvas, there are dangers inherent to the political realm which can undermine the actor’s nobility of soul… 

This assumes that Nietzsche’s ideal of greatness is correct, and that the hurly-burly of political activity will “taint” the “noble soul” of the great man. If one take a utilitarian view, and if achieving a specific goal defines greatness, then doing what is necessary to achieve those goals will not necessarily undermine the “noble soul.”

Second, Nietzsche's account  of Napoleon  offers a sharp  re­minder  of the interconnectedness of illness and  health  in even the highest  people…The bad conscience, for example,  opened an entirely  new  arena  for creation-the  soul. Those who were strong were able to turn their disease into a new enticement to life, a new realm to be conquered. But the illness is always there; it cannot be excised completely. There­fore, there is a fine line between greatness and failure. The bad conscience makes all higher men fragile. Dissolution should be expected…Napoleon's failure is a reminder that greatness is an exceedingly fragile thing.  Even in the highest of people, decadence is just a short step away.

The same also applies to other great man other than Napoleon.

Unlike the otherworldly meaning and value provided by Christianity and similar moral codes, the greatness of people like Napoleon is immanent and not subject to the self-destructive flaws of Christian morality. Human greatness offers a way out of what Nietzsche refers to as "whole millennia of labyrinth”…

The Overman High Culture.

The failure of the higher man is thus tragic because it deprives us of something magnificent, but it is also almost expected.

If it is “almost expected” then can it be something that can be planned for?  Can the waxing and waning of great men be leveraged to assist in achieving the objectives of all of we “degenerates” who focus on specific goals?

Although he is frightening and brings suffering in his wake, the higher man also brings with him the loftiest hopes of humanity. Napoleon wreaked havoc but also opened new possibilities, demonstrating a way out of the traps of Christianity.

I approve of the anti-Christian message here.  Note – “loftiest hopes of humanity” – quite a different view of Napoleon than that of the “movement.”

Three main take-away points.

First, there is a conflict between the Nietzschean expressionist view of greatness in the “higher man’ and the utilitarian view. The former sees the accomplishments as merely means to an end, the manifestation and actualization of the greatness, the reflection of the noble soul; the latter sees the accomplishments as the end themselves - the precise accomplishment of specific goals, and the effects that has, is what defines greatness. The former puts the man himself as the priority, what he is; the latter puts the man’s deeds as the priority, what he does.  Reality is no doubt a complex mix of both.

Second, if great men are still possible, great men of our race, we need to get at least some of them to pursue pro-White objectives, regardless of where reality lies on the expressivist-utilitarian spectrum.  However, keep in mind that the further reality lies in the direction of expressionism of greatness, the more difficult it will be it effectively utilize great men to achieve specific goals that benefit the race as opposed to benefitting the man at the expense of the race.

Third, we have seen, once again, the outrageous hypocrisy of the “movement.”  If Napoleon had some Egyptians in is Imperial Guard, we are supposed to recoil in horror, while South Asians in Hitler’s Waffen SS is “move on, move on, there’s nothing to see here.” If Napoleon had some vague racial universalist views – or pretended to have them – to fit in with the zeitgeist of his society, then he was a “chaotic destroyer.”  On the other hand, the racial universalism of Hubert Humphrey, which had real-life negative consequences for White America, means that he was an “idealist” and we need more men like him.

Shorn of its Nordicism and ethnic fetishism, the “movement" would not exist.  There is nothing else to it.

Sallis Footnote:

The author, in his footnotes, outlines how Walter Kaufmann, with mendacity, “whitewashed” Nietzsche’s ideas in order to make Nietzsche and his philosophy “safe” for the masses (after WII and the association of Nietzsche with Nazism and German nationalist militarism).

Read this about Kaufmann:

Kaufmann was raised a Lutheran. At age 11, finding that he believed neither in the Trinity nor in the divinity of Jesus, he converted to Judaism. Kaufmann subsequently discovered that his grandparents were all Jewish.

Who says genetics do not control behavior?  If we can believe that Kaufmann originally did not know he was ethnically Jewish, it is fascinating that he “converted” to Judaism and then subsequently found out he was genetically Jewish. Obviously he found Judaism more congenial than Christianity, although he later seems to have disavowed all organized religion – but not his Jewish ethnicity.