The Stark Truth: Interview with Greg Johnson (New Right versus Old Right) – commendable vision of meritocratic society founded on dubious arguments

Robert Stark, “The Stark Truth: Interview with Greg Johnson (New Right versus Old Right)”, (Voice of Reason, 22 June 2012)

Robert Stark’s radio talkshow “The Stark Truth” features regular guests and one of these is Greg Johnson who has written an essay “New Right vs Old Right” and on which this interview is based and which it further extends. Johnson begins by explaining what he understands as constituting the political Right and how it is distinguished from the political Left: the Right is predicated on a recognition that people by their differing talents, temperaments, intelligence and biological endowments are not equal and cannot compete equally as individuals. As Johnson sees it, the fact that biological inequalities exist means that human societies are naturally unequal and hierarchic. Egalitarianism as a political ideal is not only unrealistic but also leads to authoritarian / totalitarian forms of government to enforce strict social, economic and politicial egalitarianism. He goes on to say how the Old Right in North America and Europe failed by concentrating on party politics and adopting an agenda that includes accepting egalitarianism, traditional social hierarchies developed from tradition, custom or inertia and imperialism based on conquest of land and resources as values. Johnson outlines his vision of the New Right in North America which would purge plutocracy and an egalitarianism which would restore Anglo-American people’s pride in their culture and achievements, and restore meritocracy as the guiding force for shaping a new, revitalised society.

Johnson is a strong speaker, very knowledgeable about his sources and influences, and he speaks passionately about his beliefs and the reasons for why he believes what he does. This interview is one of the easier Stark Truth interviews I have been following so far! Even so, logical though Johnson appears, though his vision is commendable, many of his ideas are mirror versions of what many people who consider themselves politically Leftist have been advocating all along and the premises for his ideas aren’t always based on fact. Johnson says that all traditional societies have been unequal and incorporated structures that maintained hierarchy and inequalities, therefore hierarchy and inequality are natural and organic. It does not seem to occur to him that such inequalities and hierarchical structures might have been the result of conquest and people being forced to accept alien culture and values by conquerors who desired their land and resources, and are not evolved developments intrinsic to societies. Are war, conquest and imperialism “natural” to humans and therefore should humans abandon diplomacy?

He also does not consider that at the same time that societies have had hierarchies and inequalities, they have also had strong tendencies towards egalitarianism: the long history of China for example includes peasant rebellions against the ruling class; Muslim caliphates and dynasties in Egypt and Turkey have been challenged by and taken over by slave soldiers; the Roman Catholic Church smashed heretical Christian sects such as the Cathars and Bogomils which practised early forms of democracy in the High Middle Ages. (Admittedly though the winning peasants became new Emperors and founders of new repressive dynasties in China and slave soldiers in Egypt and Turkey simply insinuated themselves as a new ruling class or bureaucratic layer as the underlying political and social structures and the cultural values supporting them remained unchallenged.) Even lords in England sought to curb the power of the monarchy by forcing King John to sign Magna Carta in 1215 and this document became the basis for the development of constitutional law and limited monarchy in that country. In Scandinavia, a peculiar tradition known as the Jantelov has existed since at least the late 19th or early 20th century, in which individualism is subsumed by the community so as to be completely blanked out: individual effort, hard work, success and achievement are derided as absurd and unworthy and adherence to the collective and group identity is all-important. It might be said that hierarchy and inequality in society depend very much on this “egalitarianism” in which individual social layers within a hierarchy police their members’ behaviour and conduct, and drag those thinking of achieving above their station in life back forcefully into the mental as well as physical fold!

Johnson explains how the New Right differs from the Old Right and how it repudiates the values of Fascism and National Socialism. A most significant difference is that in Johnson’s vision the New Right is strictly based on meritocratic values and abhors the idea of elites barring entry of talented outsiders born on the wrong side of the social train-track into their ranks while allowing their own offspring who have the right background but who lack ability to sponge off family and social networks to gain power over lower social layers. On the other hand, Johnson considers that many social, political and economic evils in Western society are the work of the so-called “organised Jewish community”; while it’s true that Israel’s government and its lobbyists in big business and media dominate and corrupt politics in most Western societies, it must be said that the interests of the Israeli government, Zionism and their backers in both Jewish and gentile institutions and networks (and by gentile, I’m also including Muslims) around the world are not the same as those of Jewish people and in fact endanger the survival of Jewish people everywhere and traditional Jewish ideals such as … ahem, freedom and rights for all. Of course it’s also true that Judaism incorporates a  belief in Jewish racial superiority; human institutions are nothing if not contradictory.

In the end, Johnson argues for a world in which multiculturalism is abolished and people should be allowed or encouraged to return to their homelands and practise their own cultures. White pride in white culture is restored by education, cultural activities, media broadcasting and new forms of community structure. Within this new culture, intellectual, cultural, scientific and political diversity can still flourish. Johnson believes Israel should still exist as a homeland for all Jews and a homeland for Palestinians should also exist side by side. The problem here though is war and over-exploitation have made many lands unfit for habitation: large parts of the Middle East are contaminated with DU radiation and populations in parts of the region are too large for the available water supplies. Is it right to expect all Jews and Palestinians in the world to go and live in those areas? Additionally what is to be done with people of mixed ethnic and cultural heritage? Another problem is that even ethnically and religiously homogeneous societies aren’t necessarily stable ones: Somalia is probably the most ethnically homogeneous country in Africa and yet it’s a byword for political instability and backwardness. What Johnson also forgets is that many problems in the world today require the co-operation of several countries; the more diverse they are internally and among themselves, the more likely original and creative solutions will be generated but this could require some commonalities among them that might only be possible if the countries are internally diverse by ethnicity and religion.

Also Johnson should take a closer look at history: he’ll discover that many, even most countries and empires have always been multicultural and multilingual, the Roman empire, the Ottoman empire, various empires in Persia and India through the ages, the Aztec and Inca empires and even empires in China at different times being fine examples of multicultural societies. If history doesn’t support Johnson’s thesis, his whole edifice of meritocracy falls apart.

 

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