Culturism

The Avengers: The Christian Culturist Review

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 05 May 2018 21:03:00 +0000

byJohn K. Press, Ph.D. @culturist

The Avengers is so unaware that it is a Christian film, that it takes a swipe at Christianity. And, it's our fault.

Here is the plot of ‘The Avengers: Infinity War.’ A demon is working to get all six infinity stones so that he might have the power to kill half the universe’s population, making resources plentiful instead of scarce. The dramatic tension comes from the stars, “moral compass” and emotional attachments mandating that they will not exchange even one star’s life, in their efforts to stop the demon from killing billions of beings.

Of course, as a Christian, I am upset that the film takes an unnecessary swipe at Christianity. At one point a character says, “What master do I serve?” Then he mockingly answers his own question, “What, am I supposed to say Jesus?” with a giggle. As this didn’t forward the plot in any way I have no idea why it was inserted. But, herein I will argue that the Avengers actually do serve Jesus. And, show what we can do to stop such attacks in the future.

Part of the film’s mocking of Jesus is self-referential. In a world of endless demons, flying beasts, and miracles, perhaps Jesus seems like just one more fictitious creation. But Jesus actually did walk the earth, and his witnesses actually converted a civilization. This makes Jesus different than the Hulk or Thor. So, while I wouldn’t believe in Captain America, there is no doubt - it isn’t even a matter of belief – that Jesus existed. Marvel should know this.

The Avengers' angst over individual souls is essentially Christian. The Avengers’ could have stopped the demon by killing a star at any time. In Buddhism, the soul is deconstructed: there is desire, and sight, and touch, but no coherent ‘me,’ no real soul. Islam is for God, not individuals. Confucianism sees some as less valuable. But, Christianity, sees the soul, the person, their identity and consciousness as one. Saving these very real individual souls is why Jesus died. The sanctity of individual souls in the Avengers is essentially Christian.

Lastly, from a scientific, non-Christian point of view, the demon is right: He actually demonstrates that lower populations lead to a higher standard of living. He could easily be an environmentalist hero. Sacrificing people for material gains is very Marxist. The Avengers being so opposed to mass murder in the name of life shows they value individual humans. Again, they are already soaking in Christian values.

Culturists must remake Christianity’s image, if Jesus is to be taken up as a role model. We must make Jesus so revered and tough, that people are afraid to take gratuitous swipes at him. Christians have made Jesus so wimpy that he doesn’t seem like he’d fit in action films. Here are four ways to make the Avengers proud of their Christian identity.

1) When Charlemagne translated the New Testament for the Vikings, he made Jesus a warrior. We need to take a second look at this translation, the Heliand.[i] 2) Christians need to reclaim connection with the Old Testament, wherein God orders his people to fight wars![ii] 3) The Crusades. 4) And, let's not forget that Revelation shows Jesus as a vengeful killer.

The Marvel characters would follow Jesus as they presented him as the Avenger that he truly was. This would greatly strengthen Western Civilization.

--- ---- ---- ---- ----

Learn more about John K. Press and culturism at www.culturism.us

[i] Murphy, G. Ronald (1992), The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195073754.

[ii] Read about this in Dissident Dispatches, by Andrew Fraser, Arktos Publishing: https://alternativeright.blog/2017/10/01/dissident-dispatches-the-culturist-review/

Culturist Policy Outline

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 20:17:00 +0000

ANTHONY D. SMITH: CULTURIST HERO

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 14:53:00 +0000

Anthony D. Smith (1939-2016) is a culturist hero. Alongside, Samuel P. Huntington (1927 – 2008), Smith inspired me as I wrote ‘Culturism,’ in 2006. Many will recognize Harvard’s Huntington for his having created the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ model. But, though he taught at the London School of Economics, very few know about or appreciate Smith’s ‘ethno-symbolism’ model of nationalism.

Leftist controlled academia sees the nation as an, ‘imagined,’ ‘construct,’ that was invented by the West in the 18^th century and subsequently exported to the rest of the world. This view, (not incidentally), portrays nations, (like masculinity, literature, race – and all else the left discusses), as illegitimate and oppressive.

Smith, by contrast argued that nationalism’s power comes from the myths, memories, traditions and symbols of their ethnic heritages. The characteristics of ethnic communities, by his definition were:

1. An identifying name or emblem.

2. A myth of common ancestry.

3. Shared historical memories and traditions.

4. One or more elements of common culture.

5. A link with an historic territory or ‘homeland.’

6. A measure of solidarity, at least among the elites.

Among symbolic building blocks of nationalism, Smith includes songs, images, literature, art, history, monuments, buildings, tomb styles, myths, belief in a golden age, religion, states, films, the dead, heroes and the virtues they inspire, feeling chosen, language, redemptive hopes, coercion, clothes,  traditions, habits, laws and institutions. [i]

While mainstream historians reasoned, if all this is needed to sustain nationalism, it must be false; Smith reasoned that if all this was needed to sustain nationalism, we had better get to it! He wrote that, as nations were universal, essential and a source of identity, maintaining them gives historians, artists, archeologists, linguists, philosophers and others a culturist mission – reify the nation!

Smith helped invent the distinction between ‘ethnic’ and ‘civic’ nationalism.[ii] Interestingly, he noted that Western European nations developed towards civic nationalism in rebellion against absolute monarchs; Whereas Eastern Europeans veered towards ethnic nationalism to challenge empires. And, whereas he acknowledged that ethnic nationalism could create refugees, he also acknowledged that it was the firmest basis for a nation.

Of potential interest to alt-right readers, Smith considered biological ethnic purity a myth based on his reading of ancient migration, endogamy patterns and cultural openness. He looked at how the British, for example, looked Roman predecessors in the 16^th century, to British, Saxon and Danish ancestors in 1685, and Germanic roots under Burke.[iii] For Smith, ethnicity was the subjective belief that those in the nation were part of a continuous ethnic group. But, DNA based or not, that the French, for example, think of themselves as a people, is the main basis of their ethno-state.

But, Smith's main achievement was to stand up to an entire academic myth! He said, nations are not just 'imagined' products of modern nationalist projects, designed to centralize an economy. No! The French culture pulls on real and long-lasting myths. If modern nation builders said, the French culture is rooted in Confucian belly dancing, it wouldn't have flown. They built on pre-existing, long memories of Charlemagne, Roman, Greek and Christian heritage. The French ethno-state is real and merits veneration.

Smith denounced global culture an oxymoron. And, as a nationalist, he questioned the viability of ‘European culture’ as a basis for solvency. His questions about the DNA and subjective nature of ethnos are still cutting-edge. But, going beyond questions, Smith called for culturism in arts and academia. And, by championing ‘ethno-symbolism’ – in the heart of academia – he led by example. Anthony D. Smith is an inspiring culturist hero.

-->

[i] Smith, Anthony, D., “Nationalism and Modernism,” (London: Routledge, 2003), 138.

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_D._Smith

[iii] Smith, Anthony, D., “Myths and Memories of the Nation,” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 71.

CULTURISM, RACISM, WHITE and CIVIC NATIONALISM

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 14:02:00 +0000

Why did Dr. Press lie about race in the book, 'Culturism'? Because he wished to move straight to discussing culturist policies that can save the West.

So, how does acknowledging race and IQ impact culturist policy?

Watch this video for the answer!

CULTURIST JOHN INTERVIEW

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 16:57:00 +0000

Enjoy this 28 Minute / 20 Question interview. It summarizes culturism succinctly.

David Bowie: The Culturist View

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 07:34:00 +0000

To make a culturist critique is to tie an event or person to larger cultural trends. David Bowie (1947-2016) symbolizes the West’s recent progressive cultural apex. After all, he led the charge into gender bending and then married a black Muslim woman. But, these acts stand in stark contrast to the West’s developing tsunami of masculine cultural protectionism.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) – the first person to be called a ‘culturist’ practicing ‘culturism,’ – asserted that the West cycled from expansionist, flexible, (progressive), ‘Hellenism’ to contracting, law-abiding, tough, ‘Hebraism.’ The Hellenic periods lack discipline, the Hebraic ones lack ‘sweetness and light’. In his time, Arnold saw his England as being too Hebraic and France as too Hellenistic.

We in the Alt-Light / Alt-Right fringe, foresee a coming reckoning that may involve considerable violence. Currently, the West is experiencing a Hellenic peak; soon we will adopt the Hebraic traits of hating foreign cultures, and again accept that successful cultures usually see violence as an honorable duty. Bowie’s death represents the death of the expansionist Hellenic period, and so the dawn of the Hebraic contraction.

Many will say, ‘Good Riddance’ to Bowie and celebrate the death of his spry decadence. And, yet, it behooves us brutal enforcers to remember that for which we fight: Celebrations of individual potential is the Western jewel of great price. Islam remains purely brutal. Asia celebrates conformity to the strictures of the natural order. The West alone celebrates our individual potential, our flexibility of mind and person.

Bowie personified the Western belief in each man having, as he said, the “Potential of a Superman.” Famously, he repeatedly transformed himself. He was a space alien, a rock star, a vaudevillian, a soul singer, and more. He married outside his race and culture. His extreme attack on the limits of identity embodied the Western sense of freedom.

If Alt-Right folks reply that he violated Roman ethics, I would remind them that Nietzsche (1844-1900) gets stereotyped as a Hebraic brute, idolizing “Blonde beasts of pray.” Yet, Nietzsche denigrated unambitious intellects. We need to suspect popular depictions. Bowie was a much more profound artist than the media portrays for the masses.

A review of Bowie’s catalog shows a nearly complete absence of love songs. His music was self-consciously intellectual. ‘The Cygnet Committee,’ echoes Edmund Burke by having God argue against the French Revolution. 'The Supermen' visits the loneliness a Zarathustra character must face. Musically, his absence of references to mundane love in his catalog parallels Nietzsche’s disdain for the merely human.

Bowie’s darkness defied today’s liberal utopia. His “Thin White Duke” character lauding “The European banner,” triumphal crowing about his music as "Genocide” and calling himself the “Fuhrerling” would not pass PC scrutiny today. Even his celebrated Ziggy character was doomed and so spoke to corruptibility, rather than optimism. As Nietzsche should not be blamed for WW I, Bowie’s cannot take the blame for the shallow sexuality promoted in his name.

Though they married in a church, Bowie married a Muslim. He lived in an era of Hellenism, in which such moves seemed safe. Increasingly, such relationships will provoke violence. The same can be said of his youthful gender – bending. But, this was all congruent with his quite serious searching for an individualistic identity. As with Hamlet, confronting our station, and as with Nietzsche, probing our potential, could be said to be the quintessential Western ideals.

We need to reject liberal decadence. Yet, as a culturist strategy, we need to celebrate Western artistry. Yes, the era of contracting Nietzschean brutality, that Arnold’s model predicts, is coming. But, we’ll need inspiration to re-emerge from it. In the darkness, we must not reflexively denounce the uniquely Western bent towards ‘sweetness and light.’ Botticelli, the Church liturgy, and even Bowie’s artistry are examples of culturist potentials for which we must brutally fight.

AN ACADEMIC BOOK RECOMMENDS WAR IN EUROPE!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 13:45:00 +0000

Peter Turchin’s, ‘Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth,’ necessarily implies that the West needs a popular war within or near its borders. He reluctantly confesses, “A reactionary catchphrase of the 1970s used to go, “what this generation needs is a war,” a deplorable sentiment but one that in terms of cultural evolution might sometimes have a germ of cold logic.”^[i]

THE STORY OF MAN AND WAR

Turchin’s main project is to explain the existence of civilisations. To this end, he tells the story of social cooperation’s rise and expansion. Being an evolutionary anthropologist he starts by describing chimpanzees use of violence to maintain their group cohesion and hierarchy.

But, by the Pleistocene era, (2 million – 10,000 BC), evidence indicates that man, (homicide aside), was largely peaceful and egalitarian. Why? Stone weapons! Upstart bullies could be pounded in the head with stones during their sleep. So weapons enforced egalitarian cooperation.

At the end of the Pleistocene era, because the weather became stable, populations boomed. At this point, you get brutal unequal chiefdoms. TAhe standard model says that agriculture created the archaic states. Turchin convincingly argues that this is not true, war did.

For thousands of years, after agriculture became widespread, people continued to do hunting and gathering as well. Those with these blended economies were free and equal. And these folks’ had much better diets than those who only did agriculture. So agriculture does not explain the rise of states.

Using math, history and evolutionary logic, Turchin argues that one group switching to a centralised hierarchical state system could dominate and enslave the others. Once one group had switched, others had to do so or be beaten. So hierarchical cooperation was born and brutally enforced. War made people do agricultural, not vice versa. Societies’ roots are in war.

But, starting about 500 BC, Turchin explains, military horse use decisively tilted the military advantage to whoever could field the largest army. Large armies require big population bases. Hierarchical archaic states' control via violence limited their size and created internal disunity.

Universal monotheistic religions enabled larger societies. Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucian taught rulers to treat their subjects with care. In turn, these religions legitimised supporting the king. But these egalitarian ethics, again, were there to create larger populations in order to win wars.

THE CULTURIST CRITIQUE

Turchin ends his book asking a huge culturist question, “How do we develop the science of cooperation?”^[ii] His answers are all skewed because he ignores cultural diversity.

In arguing that modern ethics all evolved to the same end, (making big populations for war), and so are the same, Turchin undermines Western pride. When nations are proud, (Imperial England), they spread; when ashamed, (the West under multicultural philosophy), they contract and crack.

Yes, Mr. Turchin, war makes societies via cultural innovation. But, that does not mean all cultures are the same.

His failure to note cultural diversity also leads him to assume that military conflict is a thing of the past. War deaths have been declining for five hundred years. So, going forward, he concludes, we’ll only have economic competition. But, as he enthuses, global cooperation only arose in 1945.^[iii] And, really, the 'ultrasociety' still does not exist.

No sane society would bet its life on Islam forever forgoing violence and adopting 'universal' values.

CULTURIST POLICY IMPLICATIONS

In showing how ethics facilitate empire, Turchin tells us that Spain could only keep its Middle Ages multi-ethnic empire together via fervently acknowledging its shared Christian Catholic identity. And, eventually, religious schism undermined the Spanish empire.^[iv] This means multiculturalism destroys societies so the culturist policy of promoting assimilation is safer.

But, ultimately empires collapse because their wars happen on distant front lines. When, in the empire’s capitol city, “ . . . survival is no longer at stake, selfish elites and other special interest groups capture the political agenda. The spirit that ‘we are all in the same boat’ disappears,” and inequality, disunity and social collapse follow.^[v]

In reviewing the scientific literature, Turchin concludes, “The evolution of cooperation is driven by competition between groups.”^[vi] Again, he assumes going forward competition will only be economic. But, if not, the ‘cold logic’ of his formula wherein the absence of war undermines cooperation, means we need war and we need it close to home. And, for the West, there is only one plausible enemy close to home: Islam.

CULTURIST CHOICES

As a culturist, I have long argued that Western governments must: a) Drop their guise of cultural neutrality, acknowledge Western culture and legally protect it; b) Stop Muslim immigration both for safety and to create an enemy; c) Deport any immigrant who advocates Sharia for lying during naturalization; d) Stop Saudi mosque funding on our soil.

I advocate these non-violent culturist policies because violence is unnecessary, would undermine our legal system, cause property damage and possibly end in defeat. But, Turchin’s thesis, war creates states, strongly suggests that we would best reach our culturist goals via violent confrontation with enemies on or near European soil.

^[i] Turchin, Peter, Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth, (Chaplin: Beresta Books, 2016), 42.

^[ii] Ibid. 230.

^[iii] Ibid. 5.

^[iv] Ibid. 203.

^[v] Ibid. 42.

^[vi] Ibid. 93.

-->

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS of PROPAGANDA: THE CULTURIST REVIEW

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 16:26:00 +0000

by Brian Anse Patrick

Arktos Publishing

Reader please know that since this publishing of this article, Dr. Patrick has passed on. This review is printed in honor of his memory.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I love the opening lines of Brian Anse Patrick’s book, The Ten Commandments of Propaganda. Published by Arktos, the book immediately tells the reader they’ve already been propagandized via the author evoking the Biblical Ten Commandments. Effective propaganda, Patrick explains, draws upon collective cultural memory. His book is full of platitudes we really need to hear if we’re to be successful culturists and end multiculturalism.

STRENGTHS OF PATRICK'S BOOK !!

The Ten Commandment’s footnotes give the book an academic feel. But, this short book reads really well. Patrick says he moved academic points to the footnotes in order to make the book more user-friendly. And, his strategy of listing one propaganda commandment per chapter makes it easy to revisit the book, which increases its usability. Speaking of which, let’s move on to . . .

PATRICK’S TOP 5 TIPS FOR CULTURIST PROPAGANDISTS

(1) Know the many routes for propaganda dissemination

Patrick tells us to get our message to journalists, editors, scriptwriters, interest groups, voluntary associations, churches, trade associations, corporations, blogs, news media, publishers, educators, researchers, leadership, mass mobilizations, etc. We need to use all of these folks’ platforms to spread our message.

Too often, myself included, we culturists just hammer away at one media source.

(2) Build your message horizontally

When we think of propaganda, we usually think of the top down dissemination of information. Spreading horizontally means you spread a message between peers, as is done in mass movements and business meetings. The concept of starting a movement is a good one. This requires, Patrick tells us, exploiting wedges in society: rich v. poor; men against women; black against white.

We in the West should foment a widespread disgust with Islam. And, we should get people in the streets.

(3) Simplify your message.

Stunning common sense insights pervade Patrick’s book. The need to simplify your message is important, despite being common sense. People only have mental space for small amounts of info, so we must stick to slogans and images; people remember these better than arguments. But, this cynical tactic rubs us the wrong way. We resist simplifying. That’s why, obvious as it is, Patrick’s telling us to simplify is important.

‘Sloganize Today!”

(4) Moralize

Our leaders must be thought of as ethical, righteous and moral. Simultaneously, we must paint our enemies as depraved, malicious rats. The West is glorious, Islam is evil. If you make this morality the basis for a cause, Patrick tells us, it can then become a source of identity and get people to join our groups.

Rather than focus on specific policies, we need to frame our cause as a righteous crusade against evil.

(5) Control the flow of information

I particularly liked Patrick’s idea of ‘interior colonization,’ wherein the government uses taxpayer money to propagandize us into giving them more money. He claims the government relies on your only having time to hear one side of the story. And effective propagandists provide their side of the story, when people need it, in a manner they can publicize. That means if we hear a rebuttal, it is on the propagandist’s terms.

Rather than just denounce multiculturalism, we need provide a culturist messages. We should be the aggressors, providing content. Our opponents should be limited to reacting to our assertions when there is time.

WEAKNESSES OF THE BOOK

SCIENTIFIC OMMISSION

Patrick uses very old schools of psychology, (psychoanalysis and behaviorism), to explain limits to the very outdated ‘rational actor’ model. But his commandments still largely refer to verbal strategies. He needs to look at recent, germane scientific literature.

Bio-cultural co-evolution research has shown people are biased to follow those with status and the majority of the crowd around them. Evolutionary psychology explains the connection of status and testosterone. Cultural neuroscience has shown different cultural groups process considerations like empathy in differing ways and levels. Patrick ignores all such modern scientific developments.

Ellen Dissanayake’s neuro-anthropological work argues that mother and infants rhythmic rocking and baby talk is the root of collective rituals. She uses analysis of the hormone oxytocin to show the mechanisms are the same. Such measurable, non-verbal, techniques point to the future of culturist propaganda studies. And, as others, Dissanayake’s work suggests we prioritize collective activity and minimize reasoning in our propaganda efforts.

Unfortunately, in his avoidance of science, Patrick even ignores statistics. As such we have no way of knowing if his propaganda techniques work or just sound good.

THE CULTURIST ANGLE

Ignoring the culturist angle is The Ten Commandments’ greatest failing. The book provides generic propaganda techniques. He gives no hint that the West is in a battle for its life against multiculturalism and Islam.

In a rare show of taking sides, he discusses the American government’s use of propaganda to dominate our citizens (p.26). And, his dissection of propaganda gives us tools by which we can counter our government’s propaganda. But, countering Federal control is the closest Patrick ever comes to a reason for propaganda. The vagueness undermines our sense of war and means the examples don’t address the West’s current challenges.

Instead of science, Patrick uses historical sources. Positively, this allows him to provide many useful anecdotes and examples of propagandists in action. It thus expands our imagination. And, using historical sources leads him to consider identity and ethical perceptions more than modern scientific scholars do. This is great! But, his history would be more useful if he considered the Social Darwinists that preceded his sources – they understood science and the urgency of the struggle for survival.

OVERALL

While biology is ignored and Patrick leaves it to us to apply his ten commandments to today’s situation, I nevertheless highly recommend this book. To save the West, we must deploy informed propaganda. Patrick’s Ten Commandments provides invaluable assistance to culturists by profiling historical culturist propaganda campaigns and the philosophical and practical roadblocks they encountered.

Culturist Art Criticism and the Salvation of the West

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 09:52:00 +0000

Twenty-five years ago Camille Paglia cured me of veganism. Her amazing art history book, ‘Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertitti to Emily Dickinson,’ argued that art criticism needs passion, violence and sex, not PC censorship. In a side note, she said vegetarians are out-of-touch with nature because they work for a clean, sinless world; real nature worshippers feel its cruelty. I love Camille Paglia.

However, this article will harshly criticize Paglia’s newest art survey book, ‘Glittering Images.’ And you may be thinking, “Who cares? I’m into politics, not art.” But, appreciating art is central to Western survival. Multiculturalists tell us that the West has no core traditional culture to protect and promote. Western art refutes that and can serve as a guide to our cultural revitalization. To make this point firmer, the article will contrast Paglia’s work to Kenneth Clark’s marvelous culturist 1969 BBC survey of Western art, ‘Civilisation.’

The very title of Paglia’s ‘Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars,’ gives away its weakness. Starting in Egypt makes her book explicitly globalist. Globalism is the flipside of multiculturalism, it says Western culture is not particular to the West and so not really Western. Globalism undermines our enjoyment of the art. When I see the Sistine Chapel or any other Western masterpiece, I am proud, because my civilization produced it. And, as I am indelibly Western, Western masterpieces inspire me personally. When presented as global, Western art is not mine, it alienates, rather than inspires, me.

Paglia discusses the Acropolis and some Greek pieces. And, she speculates as to what they might have meant to Greek culture. But, we’re not told what they mean to us, collectively, today. Culturist art criticism, to have an impact, must speak to our present cultural crisis. We can see the potential and her failure in her coverage of the icon of Saint John Crysostom. Icons are, she tells us, “sacred images that functioned as protectors of people and cities. In portable wooden form, icons were carried by armies into battles.”[i] We learn that, “The icon endorsees a fanatical devotion to God’s word, a renunciation of pleasure and mortification of the body.”[ii] That we see in John Crysostom’s “intensity of gaze.” Good stuff!

But, Paglia only incidentally mentions that the icon sits in the Haga Sophia – a church that was converted into a mosque when the Muslims sacked Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. From a culturist point of view, the West and Islam are still battling. This means Crysostom’s icon should still fill us with intensity and encourage us to battle for the West. She discusses the suppression of icons by the church, but never mentions that ’The Byzantine encounter with Islam likely played a role” in this.[iii] She provides zero culturist context. Thus the icon is just a relic of a long disappeared ancient world rather than an icon to our epic struggle for survival.

Paglia gives us some great insight into the pieces she has chosen. For example, I love the idea that Titians’ Venus with a mirror “blurs the lines between the erotic and the maternal. Perhaps revealing the deepest truth about heterosexuality.” But, then she doesn’t ask for a culturist interpretation. I mean, if fading beauty is joined to fertility, then perhaps sex is not a toy; perhaps sex is more profound and pathos laden than our salacious, promiscuous advertising culture lets on. Perhaps the West needs to take a more realistic look at life, death and fertility. This would be a moral, culturist reading. But for Paglia, art glitters, but it doesn’t speak to the management of our civilization.

Furthermore, Titian’s painting would mean more if occasionally contrasted with Islam’s ban of art and Asia’s boring, static art. The West is the civilization that moves, creates and ponders tumultuous questions about beauty, maternity and mortality. Asian art barely has people in it. This is a very Western painting. We need to see it’s philosophical query as a part of our glory!

Paglia’s globalism is in stark contrast to the Kenneth Clark’s aforementioned marvelous culturist BBC series, ‘Civilisation.’ His title is culturist. As it is an art history series, his title announces that art and civilization reinforce each other. The title of the first episode, “The Skin of our Teeth,” refers to the West’s precarious survival after the collapse of Rome. Clark explores this theme in order to make us appreciate the West’s existence. Fantastically, in a shining moment of culturist clarity, when discussing the Western invention of perspective, Clark suddenly stops, pauses and asks, “But, has it anything to do with civilization?”[iv] (Ep. 4) This is a question, Paglia should ask of art.

For a supreme treat, take a listen to Clark’s culturist discussion of Michelangelo’s iconic statue, David. He tells us that, David’s defiant face, “involves a contempt for convenience and a sacrifice of all those pleasures that contribute to what we usually call civilized life. It’s the enemy of happiness.” And, he notes that though we may not think of these combative attitudes as civilized, in the end, “civilization depends on man extending his powers of mind and spirit to the utmost.” This, he continues, is what makes David a high point for “ Western man.”[v] By way of contrast, Paglia tells us that Egypt’s stagnation resulted from its ‘harsh desert environment.’[vi] Economic determinism is always behind leftist thought. Ideas being paramount is a culturist conviction. Their vantage point on art entertains, ours builds civilizations.

All surveys of Western art must, at some point, discuss our dropping classical realism in favor of increasingly abstract modern art. In one of his relentless culturist gems, Clark tells us, "All the great civilizations have seen themselves as part of history. Both as heirs and heirs transmitters." (ep. 4) Modernism, with its freeze on the past, rejects Clark’s fundamental insight. This is likely why he only discusses modernism in the last episode of his series, and then only sparingly, despondently, behind the theme of, the ‘triumphant materialism.’ In contrast, Paglia transitions to modernism less than half way through her book. There she writes, the “Salon juries in Paris expected important subjects from painting – ancient myths, Bible stories, glorious episodes of French history in polished neoclassical style.”[vii] Thus, parroting modern art history orthodoxy, she rejects pre-modern art.

But, as orthodox as Paglia is, she is edgy and iconoclastic enough to have reservations about modernism. She admits that, in comparison to what had come before, “Impressionist pictures . . . seemed pointless.” Quite. And, in her trademark quippy tone Paglia tells us that impressionism fits well in ‘hotels, offices, and doctors’ waiting rooms.”[viii] Yes, they fit in offices and hotels as they help convince ill-educated globalists that they belong to no particular civilization, thus easing their conscience as they sell out their civilization’s economic basis. Modern art is needed in doctor’s offices, because in an increasingly diversified West, having overtly Western icons could offend the cultural outsiders in our land.

But, modern art is not only unworthy of the West, it is increasingly anti-Western. We see this in Paglia’s unfortunate inclusion of the horrid, ‘Chillin’ with Liberty.’ This photoshopped complaint features a female black character sitting on top of the Statue of Liberty’s head. In a fit of noxious virtue signaling, Paglia writes the black woman’s “masked face and penetrating eyes suggests she is contemplating and transcending centuries of atrocity and suffering.” She says the black woman, “is welcoming the future, but forgetting nothing.” Forgetting nothing, indeed. Being a culturist art historian, I can say what the Puritans would say; liberty cannot be won by complaining or ‘chillin.’ The inclusion of this piece marks the saddest moment of Paglia’s book.

The final piece from Paglia’s book that I will consider is Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. (Though, as she notes, he just called it, ‘My brothel.’) Insightfully, she says it recapitulates art history. The figure on the left represents Egyptian art, then several western works are referenced, finally, on the right, we see a reference to “scarified tribal masks from Africa.”[ix] The West’s history is progressive. We are better than stupid Old World cultures. Connecting us to Egypt severs us from our roots. And, saying our art history culminates in Africa, in any way shape or form, is revolting, multicultural, globalist blasphemy.

Lastly, two points that Paglia does not discuss:

First, we have a history of culturist art criticism to revive. Plato was a culturist art critic. Separating moral art from immoral art corresponded to his main criticism of life. Matthew Arnold, (1822 – 1888), the first person to be called a ‘culturist’ practicing ‘culturism,’ created a great body of work showing how culture could keep the West from anarchy. And, of course, Kenneth Clark was a major culturist art critic. We have a long tradition of culturist art criticism to weave into our narrative.

Secondly, whenever you discuss art with someone, you must bring up the Sistine chapel. It destroys the multicultural myth that we have no core culture. It undermines the narrative wherein Western history consists of nothing but material exploitation and horror. It never fails to inspire. Moreover, comparing modern works to the Chapel is a sure guide to estimating whether a work is a symptom of the West’s decline or rebirth.

[i] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 35.

[ii] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 37.

[iii] Woods, Jr., Thomas, E., How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2005), 116.

[iv] Clark, Kenneth, writer / narrator, Civilisation, Man: The Measure of All Things, Episode 4. BBC, 1969,

[v] Clark, Kenneth, writer / narrator, Civilisation, The Artist as Hero, Episode 5. BBC, 1969,

[vi] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 8.

[vii] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 97.

[viii] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 97.

[ix] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 105.

CULTURIST REPROGRAMMING

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 09:27:00 +0000

This is not just an article. I am asking questions, trying to start discussions, and – grandiosely – launch a policy field. Here is my question: How do we re-program our nation?

Of course, we can use the Left’s technique of taking sound bites out of context, and calling individuals “Hitler.” This works for tarnishing individuals and those associated with them. But, culturists are concerned with defining, guiding and promoting traditional majority culture more broadly. As such, rather than tarnish one man, we culturists must work towards a wider reprogramming of western culture.
I teach in a Christian university in South Korea, yes South! In my university, students are required to go to chapel twice a week. If they don't they cannot get a space in the dormitories and their scholarships are put in jeopardy. In their majors, students perform coordinated Christian dance routines in awesome assemblies. I mention this for entertainment’s sake. But, I also mention it to broaden our imaginations.

Speaking of imagination, the first thing we need to do is realize that rationality is not enough. We know that if you really think Black Lives Matter (BLM), statistically you should confront inner-city black-on-black violence. But, pointing that out has had zero deterrence effect. As with my uni’s dance routines, we must look past rationality.

DARWINIAN CULTURIST PSYCHOLOGY

Herein a Darwinian perspective helps. Fish mark territory with bright colors. Howler monkeys defend territory via howls. Colors and sounds matter. We need to wave flags, have red, white and blue clothes, and use patriotic songs – the national anthem among them – to create loyalty. Anthropologists, ethnologists and sociobiologists of all stripes will tell you ‘us versus them’ is the primal program. Even naming the enemy helps. No them, no us.

Void of ideas, content, and morality, BLM
is all about signalling and spectacle.

Evolutionary psychology tells us that emotion is the Darwinian way of controlling our behaviors. When BLM and today’s anti-Trump demonstrators get away with destruction, it feels good. This is key. Jumping up and down, breaking things without consequences and the thrill of not having police stop you is like winning in a video game. It literally pumps you with adrenaline and makes your posture erect. If violent behavior doesn’t lead to humiliation, it will not stop.

Prisons are ineffective because they do not take cultural psychology into account. People are ‘punished’ and come out proud of the experience. The only real punishment is humiliation. Even killing is culturally relative. Jihadi’s are proud to die. To make prison effective, those whose behavior we are trying to deter must suffer humiliation in their culture’s eyes. Pride, as in rooting for a winning team, is the positive pole of the emotional controls of man. Causing our culture to see communist, BLM, anti-social folks as losers is the negative pole.

In sum, to push this effort we must have emotional goals. Disgust and anger should result when someone defiles our flag. Pride at hearing our anthem is important. Indignant rejection should follow cynicism about our narrative. Laughter must, again, come from mocking our enemy’s ways. Sadness must come from defeat. The reasons for said feelings are significant. As Darwinian culturists we must be specific about the emotional reactions at which we’re aiming.

INSTITUTIONAL CULTURISM

Our story is compelling. The Puritans created a mighty nation with morals. John Smith told the starving pilgrims, “he who does not work does not eat.” The Founding Fathers were both brave and ingenious. We fought a war to stop slavery. We must get a generation to take the prosocial side on such stories. To safeguard this reversal we must have a long march through the institutions. But we need more instantaneous results too.

Many national governments have a ‘Ministry of Culture.’ While now perverted, these could be reclaimed. The US could also have one – a Department of Culture. It would coordinate large and small public celebrations of America. Beyond the events, the Feds doling out grants specifically for patriotic artists, would cultivate patriotism in artists. Publishing conservative art history books would encourage scholarship and embed learned professors for 50 years.

I’m going to go out on a controversial edge here – but we’re brainstorming – and suggest we reconsider reinstituting a form of the loyalty oaths our universities had professors sign upon hiring. Nearly all universities voluntarily receive Federal funds. From a culturist perspective, beyond skills, inculcating culturist patriotism is the big function of schools. Promoting hatred of the West should again become a cause for dismissal in employment contracts.

Again, rather than taking a rationalist approach, these institutional programs will aim at the subconscious mechanisms that motivate humans. People follow rewards such as money. And, they don’t like to tell themselves that they do. So, they reconcile their thoughts with their actions. We must reward patriotism and pro-social behavior and, subtly – allowing for freedom, as is appropriate in the West – punish anti-social attitudes and behavior.

Darwinian psychology says that public avowals that involve physically synched behavior bond people. This gives Islam an advantage. We need to emulate Korea’s school assemblies and rallies. This might seem anti-intellectual to many. You may recoil at the word ‘programming.’ Yes, publicly the term must be dropped. But, as Darwinian culturists we cannot forget that all tribes have initiation rites and religions. We are born designed to absorb cultures. The opposite of programming is not liberation, it is ceding programming to others.

Prosocial control mechanisms put to a bad use.

One more note on institutions, the western Church is currently moribund and leftist. Yet, Christianity is a major pillar of the West’s identity. And, I know we live in a secular age. But, the Church's story glues our history together and glorifies us. Going to church, publicly singing together, and doing rituals creates bonding. This will create bonding with the Western story. It also promotes good values. We need to increase church attendance.

THE MEDIUM, MESSAGE AND MAN

I have not been trying to suggest that words and story content do not matter. Quite the opposite. Teaching matters. Ideas have consequences. But, as scientific culturists, we must understand the goal is an emotional response to ideas, not ideas in the abstract – ideas in men, masses of men, in cultures. To this end, we must be familiar with recent findings in sociobiology and literary Darwinism; we must adopt a Darwinian perspective.

Roles also impact thought. Philip Zimbardo’s famous Stanford University prison studies randomly assigned students to either serve as guards or prisoners. The mock prison experiment had to be called off due to the cruelty of the mock guards and the deteriorating condition of the mock inmates. Interestingly, South Korea uses arrested protesters as crowd control police. You might be wondering what the point of going to churches and rallies and singing the anthem is if we don’t believe. Roles often create loyalty, roles often precede belief.

A final example: You can tell a high status chimp by how much animals look at him. We’re rigged to accept messages from high status folks; cultures thrive by following the winners. But, in our upside down culture, that means youth are biased to take high-status left wing thugs’ and actors’ pronouncements as gospel. Trump and other high status folks, (actors and entertainers), must be at the ceremonies that the Department of culture sponsors. I would recommend that Trump have long discussions with the nation about our winning history. But, we can’t just go rational. As with the importance of status, culturists must consider the totality of man’s mechanism.

Is Trump Alt-RIght or Alt-Light?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:35:00 +0000

Culturism, Science and the Alt-Right

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 17 Sep 2016 04:15:00 +0000

Trump Destroys Feminist Leftists at the Town Hall

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 14:45:00 +0000

The video title says it all, except how he did it! Watch the video and find out!!

Here is my introduction of Culturism to the Alt-Right Crowd

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 04:07:00 +0000

If you want to read comments, click here!

Culturism (cǔl-chər-ǐz-əm) n. 1. The philosophy, art, and science that values, promotes and protects majority cultures. 2. The opposite of multiculturalism.

Culturist (cǔl-chər-ǐst) n. 1. An advocate of culturism. 2. One who engages in the arts or sciences of managing and protecting majority cultures. 3. One who judges cultures. 4. Adj. Of or pertaining to culturism, culturists or culturist policy.

In introducing the philosophy of ‘culturism’ to the Alt-Right community, I need to make a confession: the section on race, in the first chapter of the book, ‘Culturism: A Word, A Value, Our Future,’ is disingenuous. I knew it was at the time. In the introduction, I briefly argue that race is not a biological category. In denouncing the book, ‘The Bell-Curve,’ I wrote, “there is no reliable evidence that there are any mental differences between groups of humans.” I was trying to distance ‘culturism’ from ‘racism’ as much as possible, (fearing that any association with racism could blunt the spread of the memes ‘culturist’ and ‘culturism’).

In fairness to myself, I gave the savvy reader two clues that I was being disingenuous. One is that my very dismissal of ‘The Bell-Curve” meant that I had read, “The Bell-Curve.” Anyone familiar with this book knows there are mounds of reliable evidence showing different mental differences between races. Moreover, I purposely backed up the statement saying there is no reliable evidence with an insubstantial footnote. While the cited authors (Boyd and Richerson) are giants in their field, the actual reference is to a throw away line. At the time I thought, discerning readers would pick up on such clues.

But, more importantly, I still stand by my larger point: whereas racism gives you no useful policies, culturism provides a multitude of practical policies. As I wrote in the book’s introduction, people cannot change their race. And, if you think my nation, the United States of America, is going to become white again, you’re dreaming. That can only happen through the horror of a race war. It’s a bad idea. On the other hand, culturism gives you ample workable policies, such as stopping Muslim immigration and promoting a positive view of American history inside and outside of schools. We can identify and protect our culture.

One further salvo from the book’s introduction on this front: a problem with racism (as well as nativism) is that can easily lead to the simplistic fallacy: black is bad, white is good. First of all, white culture is in big trouble (check our divorce rate). White race pride demands no refinement. In this vein, white racial pride actually retards needed cultural self-scrutiny. Secondly, the racist point of view ignores the fact that there are many great non-white American patriots and western citizens. Any movement that fails to acknowledge them can only lead to a partial reclamation of America.

While I invite you to peruse the many policy implications of culturism available at www.culturism.us and in the final chapter of the book, herein, I will highlight just a few policy categories and concepts:

First, we must spread the words ‘culturist’ and ‘culturism.’ Culturism is easily understood as the opposite of multiculturalism: it values unity not diversity. And culturists believe in culturism and judge cultures. Due to its simplicity, use by a single media figure, could spread these memes and undermine PC clamps on Western political discourse. Rhetorically, saying, “I’m not racist,” and groveling is not a winning strategy. Saying, “No, I am culturist. I believe in culturism, not multiculturalism. Isn’t cultural diversity real? Can we talk about cultural diversity?” allows us to go on the offensive. We need to be able to honestly discuss both the West having a culture and the negative aspects of cultures and cultural diversity; As a rhetorical strategy, being a ‘culturist’ for ‘culturism’ can help.

In countering multiculturalism, culturism implicitly acknowledges that the Western nations have traditional majority cultures. Germany has a culture. England has a culture. And, yes, the United States has a culture. Moreover, the wider west shares a culture. We are not Asia. We are not Islamic. Our culture, as the seminal culturist Matthew Arnold phrased it, has its roots in Athens and Jerusalem. This does not mean that there can be no Hindu temples in the West. But, our school curriculum, holidays and laws should acknowledge and promote our traditional majority cultures. Plato is a Western hero; Vishnu is not. In this manner, culturism also rebukes globalism.

In this vein, culturism recommends an ‘America First’ style foreign policy. The idea that we can turn Iraq, Afghanistan and other Islamic nations into progressive, freedom-loving, rights-based democracies comes from total ignorance of cultural diversity. With its ‘Clash of Civilizations’ model, culturism denounces the concept of ‘human rights.’ If the West falls, neither China nor the Middle East will promote the concept. Human rights are, in fact, western rights. So, to protect ‘human rights,’ we need to start labeling them properly as ‘Western rights,’ and protect the West. Thus saving ‘human rights’ means rejecting ‘humanitarian’ asylum laws. We’re not the world. Our laws and funds should help us, not prop up our enemies’ regimes.

Thus culturism suggests we focus our energies domestically. And, domestically, culturism differs from libertarian individualism. Western culture needs to get out of the gutter. Culturists can argue this point based on biohistory and r/K theory, but common sense also bolsters the directive: stoned children from single-mother families do not often have the job skills that first – world economies require. And, yes, stripping down the welfare state will help enormously in this regard. But, in other realms laws can help bolster morality. For example, zoning strip clubs out of city centers and censoring lewdness on public airwaves conveys morality. Keeping drugs illegal does the same. Our welfare laws are disastrous because they ignore morals. Our government policies should not be either culturally or morally neutral.

This gets us back to the first point in this section: using the words ‘culturism’ and ‘culturist’ can help clean up and direct our culture. For example, we must say ‘culturist profiling, not ‘racial profiling.’ Far from arbitrary racism, statistics back up the need for culturist profiling of Muslims in airport security screening. Using the term ‘culturist profiling’ clarifies the cultural rationality. ‘Culturist profiling’ also explains blacks in jail as it acknowledges black cultural dysfunction. Rather than fuel Black Lives Matter resentment, culturist profiling can lead black communities to self-scrutiny. In general, culturists judge cultures based on Western values. This reflexive cultural scrutiny, asking ‘What would Jesus, George Washington or Winston Churchill do?”, can help guide western culture. As this applies to all of us, it is culturist, not racist.

Finally, as it is a primary concern of the Alt-Right generally, I wish to discuss the Islamic threat to the West. There is a range of culturists: ‘Absolute Culturists,’ believe we need to repatriate all Muslims now. ‘Pragmatic Culturists,’ only want to deport those affiliated with radical mosques. Both sides wish to halt all Islamic immigration immediately. Both sides, recognize the necessity of culturist school curricula that says, ‘the West is the best and Islam is retarded.’ Both wish to prosecute Sharia courts. Similar culturist policy debates and agreements are had concerning the Latino threat to the United States. While not lock step on all methods, saving the West from Islam is a main priority of all culturists.

While reasonable culturists will disagree about specific policies aimed at saving the West, none advocates the insane racist policy of removing all non-white people from the West. Any such attempt, would not work in the United States. And, so we come full circle to my opening paragraph. We culturists can acknowledge race as a potential cause of national division. We can note races’ propensities. But, the solutions to our ailments do not lie there. Multiculturalists and globalists deny that the West has a core culture. We must not only acknowledge and celebrate our Western culture, but use it as a basis to protect and judge our specific nations and cultures. We must have culturist immigration laws that question compatibility with western values. Herein lays a path to safeguarding and guiding our (like it or not) multi-racial nations.

Using culturist rhetoric, (rather than just sadly denying we’re racist), can once again make it safe for the West to have the rational discussions about culture that it so desperately needs. Take action! Spread the words ‘culturist’ and ‘culturism’ today! It costs us nothing. And, the words could quickly go viral and, thereby, aid us in saving the West.

Culturism and Modernism: An academic odyssey

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 14:27:00 +0000

Let’s take a journey together, towards my explosion, shall we? I recently spoke at the annual English Language Literature Association of Korea (ELLAK) conference in Busan, Korea. On my panel, a young Chinese woman explained a book under the title ‘race, modernism, and modernity.’ The book’s 1930s protagonist, she told us, was racist because she believed that London was more modern than her Caribbean Island home. The young Chinese woman argued that book’s presumption that London was modern and that the Caribbean was not justified imperialism.

Not wanting to embarrass her in front of the thirty or so audience members, after our talk, I asked her, “Don’t you believe in progress?” If she said ‘No’ I would ask her if our replacing fire with light bulbs or if the West’s doubling our life span was a good thing. To my surprise, she said she believed in progress. She confessed that she was actually very right-wing! “But, your speech said the Caribbean was just as modern as London! Do you admit that it isn’t just racism, the West is more advanced?” “Yeah,” she blushed, “I’ve been struggling with that.”

This was the most hopeful confession I heard all day. Because almost every other panel I went to focused on the West being racist. “Why don’t black people write and Korean’s enjoy Science Fiction?” the keynote speaker, Shelley Streeby (UCSD), asked. Because Sci-Fi is written from the perspective male western racists conquering other planets and seeing their inhabitants as aliens. “I’m sorry,” I muttered to myself, barely able to keep from screaming in the back of the room, “I don’t know much about Sci-Fi, but the Matrix was about fighting the imperial powers and so was Star Wars. Star Trek’s main directive was to not interfere with other civilizations.”

I am in exile in Korea. Conservatives do not get hired in western academia. In my last Korean conference, I spoke for culturism and against multiculturalism. I was allowed to speak. In this conference I claimed that we need to use literary Darwinism to argue for conservative policies, just like Matthew Arnold did. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkP_0ZP0wXI) In Korea, dissent is allowed. But, still, the conferences featured many visiting American Marxists. And, having been so brow beaten in American academia, I reflexively bite my tongue as they spewed their Marxist bile. At the last session of the three-day conference, I finally exploded.

In a large crowded hall, Curtis Marez (UCSD) spoke of ‘Agribusiness and Farm Workers Futurisms.’ He argued that ‘White male heteronormative patriarchy’ was kept in place by agribusinesses fantasies of replacing Mexicans with robots. A handrail rope around a robot at a1950s agricultural conference showed Whites’ desire to control Mexican sexuality. A film from the same 1950s conference depicted white males as scientists and Mexicans as mere implementers. Racist! This, Marez said, with no sense of irony, even thought Mexicans had been ‘early adapters’ of video cameras in an attempt to ‘return the gaze.’

In the same closing panel Miseong Woo (Yonsei University) wondered about what a new big futuristic building in Seoul, Korea (the Dongdaemun Design Plaza) said about Korea’s please in modernity. She noted that it replaced a historic Korean baseball stadium. And, that it featured western fashion shows and Andy Warhol exhibits. She used this to wonder about Korea’s capitulation to the dominant Western vision of modernism. Though subtle, she still portrayed the West as the oppressor, via standards of modernity, progress and development.

I could no longer bite my lip. When they called for question my hand went up first. Seeing my jut up, the moderator called on me. “I am a culturist and so opposed to multiculturalism in that I take culture seriously. This whole conference has been premised on the idea that if the West is ahead, it is due to our racism and oppression. But, perhaps the film shows more white male scientists because our Protestant culture’s love of education has led to more inventions!” Then in a statement that brought audible gasps, I challenged the panelists, “Can you name one thing that a Mexican has invented?” There was a gasp and a silence.

Seizing the void I continued my exasperated rant, “As to modernism. It isn’t western any more! You started your speech saying this was the decade of migration. It is the decade of migration to the West! Korea has only three percent foreigners and half of them are of Korean descent. Modernity belongs to culturist countries that keep their culture in tact and united. The Western cities, like LA and New York are museums of demise. And why? Because they are third world. You should take pride in your modern buildings.”

“Is there a question?” a butch-dyke ‘woman’ on the panel, who had spoken on Karaoke being a place of queer resistance to patriarchy, butted in to stop me. And, she was right. I was spewing frustration from days of biting my tongue. “Well,” I scrambled, “could you comment on the possibility that the West was modern because its culture made it an inventor, not racism or oppression?” I asked with a veneer of being collected.

“Well,” she said, “First of all, I have no idea what your talking about, LA is building a new building (I didn’t catch the building’s name) that is costing millions of dollars. It is very modern. And, migration is everywhere. Pilipino are going all over Asia. So, you’re just wrong. And, it’s like you’re trying to rewrite history into some sort of Reagan-esque vision.” And then, completely unable to believe that anyone would say this, she gave me the ultimate sneer putdown. “It’s like your trying to say that we should be proud of America or something, that America is good.”

“Yes! Yes! Yes! That is exactly it!” I said with wild jabbing gestures. At that the moderator stopped the horror, “We have no more time for questions. Let’s thank the panelists.” At the end, I tried to approach and speak with the panelists, but they refused to acknowledge my greetings! And, I skipped the conference banquet as I sadly concluded that I had now also ruined my reputation in Korea and would be barred from speaking to this literature conference again. Better to slink away and be anonymous.

And, now for my take home lessons about modernity:

Yes. The Sci-Fi looking modernist buildings the panelist discussed, pretend to be from outer space and look like they don’t come from any particular culture. But, Sci-Fi buildings are not global. As my co-presenter would only secretly admit, the Caribbean does not have their own modernism and neither does Africa. They only have dreams of developing. Mexican modernism is an oxymoron. Poor countries are poor. Now here is the real shocker: modernism is no longer western, it is Asian.

Professor Woo was wrong. I don’t care if LA is building a new building – it likely has a grand total of 10 sky scrapers and most of those are old. Busan, the Korean city where the conference was held, has dozens of amazing skyscrapers. And don’t even get me started on New York. It houses the most famous modernist building ever: Le Corbusier’s United Nation’s headquarters in New York City. And, I note this because it is when the US became the UN it lost the first world character. But New York is largely just a museum of just such old modernist buildings.

Woo’s was partially wrong. The modernist building was Korean. Having a futuristic first-world economy depends on an educated population. Asia has a long history of revering education and remembers it. The US had the Protestant work ethic: the Puritans created Harvard 16 years after arriving on American shores. But, having forgotten our cultural roots, we have fallen into multiculturalism, hedonism and relativism and so can no longer sustain modernist pretentions. Korea is now modern in a way that the US is not. It should take pride in its many amazing modern buildings.

Multiculturalism has caused our decline by undermining striving for progress. It teaches us that all cultures are already equal. It denies our Protestant cultural history - the roots of our greatness. Worse yet - as this conference and my fight epitomized – multiculturalism says we should feel guilty for having taken pride in our culture. As culture means nothing to western academics, they say our modernism only reflected western racism and imperialism. And, this guilt, I would hazard, feeds the nihilistic hedonism in our culture.

For us to be modern again, the West must once again become culturist! It must acknowledge its traditional majority culture rooted in Protestantism and the Enlightenment. Both parts gave us respect for education and a sense of having a calling concerning the future and the individual. We must remember why we were called ‘the New World.’ We must reclaim the noble experiment that asks if individual men can rationally guide their individual and collective lives towards a brighter future. Pride and a basis for being moral will follow.

OK. Before ending my rant on modernism, I want to point out what isn’t modern: academics repeating 1960s clichés about western dominance and racism. Memo to Asia: please note how old western cities look; to stay modern, Asian conferences must not invite these sad western Marxist 1960s relics. Be Asian, be culturist, be futurist, be modern, mock the West’s Marxist ‘academics.’ If you continue to invite and revere them, their PC, cultural marxists BS will cause you to go into exile and at that time, there may be no other modern nation into which to flee.

And so this academic journey to Asia comes to an end. But, if you ever wish to see modernism, come to Seoul; go to Shanghai. Along with ruminating about what could have been in the West, it will give you some optimism about mankind’s continuing journey towards the future.

This article was also published at the New English Review

Be Culturist! Judge Cultures! Islam is Retarded!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 14:23:00 +0000

Islam is retarded! Retard means, ‘to slow down the development or progress of (something); to hinder advance or accomplishment.’[i] It also indicates subnormal mental abilities. Islam is retarded in several ways. It seeks to bring us back to the 7^th century. In the 21^st century, if that isn’t retarded, I don’t know what is.

We need to be able to say such things – to judge cultures! It is not racist; it is culturist. I don’t oppose mosques in the West because dark skinned people meet there. I oppose mosques because they are temples to retardation! What self-respecting progressive nation would encourage building temples to retardation?

Multiculturalism promotes retardation by asserting that old world cultures such as African tribes and Hinduism are equal to western culture. Voodoo dolls and the caste system? No thanks. The same goes for Black ghetto culture. It’s retarded. I am western. I am into the first world. I am a progressive, I believe in the future. I am not a multiculturalist. I am a culturist. I judge cultures.

Christianity is not retarded. Protestantism’s emphasis individual conscience paved the way for scientific inquiry. A glance at history shows that the West’s combination of Jerusalem and Athens created modernity. Social studies conclusively link Protestant culture and good government.[ii] Churches support the culture that made democracy and science possible. Churches are temples to man’s individual and collective improvement.

As one cannot separate culture and biology, I will go one step further in establishing that Islam is retarded. Both Athens and Jerusalem emphasize conscious frontal lobe activity; It is because our frontal lobes are so big that we have human abilities. Islam’s ritual and appeal to anger trigger activity in the cerebellum and amygdala (centers of movement and fear). As such, Islam seeks to focus on parts of the brain we share with reptiles. That is beyond mongoloid Down Syndrome retarded!

On the theme of biology, having pride increases serotonin levels and posture. [iii] Western culturism - by taking pride in our futurist western culture and denigrating backwards cultures - physically increases western fitness. Multiculturalism and Islam work to lower our standing; to make us equal to and lower than other cultures. We will never progress as long as we think we’re equal to or below retarded cultures. When we stand tall we give a sense of direction to ourselves and to the world.

So spread these culturist thoughts: I judge cultures. The West is the best. Our culture increases life spans. Our culture invented the internet and water heaters. Islam has invented nothing of any use. Islamic culture is not equal to ours. Stoning women is retarded. Islam is retarded!

[i] Merriam – Webster dictionary, retard, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retard

[ii] Putnam, Robert, D., “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century; The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture;” Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 30, Issue 2, pages 137–174, June 2007.

[iii] David M. Buss, “Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of Mind,” (Boston: Pearson Education Inc., 2012) p. 387.

SAYING 'CULTURIST' SAVES LIVES AND CAN HELP SAVE THE WEST!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 12:26:00 +0000

The San Bernardino jihadi’s neighbors were very suspicious of them. The Muslims received an unusual number of packages and worked late into the night. But, their neighbors did not report their suspicions, because people might accuse them of being ‘racist’ or of ‘racial profiling.’[i]

The Left uses the label ‘racist’ to terrorize people into silence. This works because they conflate race and culture. These fascist multiculturalists tell you to ‘celebrate cultural diversity.’ But, as soon as you mention that cultural diversity includes any negative traits, they call you ‘racist.’

The term ‘culturist’ exposes their nasty tactics. The overt reference to ‘culture’ in the word ‘culturist’ makes it clear that we are not discussing race. Since, ‘multiculturalist’ and their ‘cultural diversity’ slogan acknowledge culture, they cannot refuse to discuss it. We must force them to stay on the topic of cultural diversity, and its reality, by using the term ‘culturist.’

Remember the slogan, ‘If cultural diversity is real, being culturist makes sense.’

As a culturist, I believe that there is a silent majority who are sick of being told all discussions of culture are racist. They are sick of being told that criticizing ‘thug life’ is racist. They are tired of being told that all differences in economic and educational achievement are evidence of the West’s racism, rather than evidence of cultural diversity’s impact. Cultural diversity greatly impacts our world. And, people want to discuss it.

Memes go viral; Terms spread quickly. If one politician or popular pundit used the term ‘culturist’ it could become a common word. As such it could free westerners to discuss cultural diversity without being called ‘racist.’ Then, rather than begging minority groups to believe we’re not racist, we could attack: “I am discussing culture! Cultural diversity real isn’t it? So, can I discuss it?” Denying Islam’s violent misogynist homophobia will be harder when the multicultural left admit cultural diversity is real and can no longer just call us ‘racist.’

Now, I can hear defeatists saying, this won’t stop the Left. But, using the term ‘culturist’ costs us absolutely nothing. And, it could greatly help us challenge the multicultural establishment and their use of the term ‘racist’ to intimidate critics. And, as the West is criminalizing criticism of Islam, this is a front line issue.[ii] Trump’s rise shows that there is a silent majority that wishes to speak. We must defend them against the charges of ‘racism.’ We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Please use the word ‘culturist’ today.

Spread the word ‘culturist’ as if our lives are on the line! Indeed they are. If the San Bernadino jihadi’s neighbors had alerted authorities, lives might have been saved. If we spread the term ‘culturist profiling’ more lives will be saved. But, our civilization is also on the line.

Culturism also challenges multiculturalism by asserting that the West has a traditional majority culture to protect. In light of politicians’ promoting mass Islamic immigration, being able say we have a culture and it is at odds with Islamic culture is more important than ever. To survive, we must embrace culturism; we must tell multiculturalists that acknowledging cultural diversity is not racist; we must be culturist.

[i] De Graff, Mia and Farberov, Snejana, “Neighbors of husband and wife San Bernardino shooters 'noticed them acting suspiciously but did NOT report them for fear of racial profiling,” Mail Online, December 3rd, 2015,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3344736/Neighbors-Saudi-husband-wife-San-Bernardino-shooters-noticed-acting-suspiciously-did-NOT-report-fear-racial-profiling.html

[ii] “AG Loretta Lynch under fire for vow to prosecute anti-Islamic speech,” Examiner.com, December 5th, 2015,

http://www.examiner.com/article/ag-loretta-lynch-under-fire-for-vow-to-prosecute-anti-islamic-speech

Culturists! Here’s How We Fight the ‘Diversity is Strength’ Slogan!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 02:09:00 +0000

“Diversity is our strength” is an Orwellian slogan. Just one week after the recent Paris terror attacks, Obama declared, “We can all do our part by upholding the values of tolerance and diversity and equality that help keep America strong.”[i] This slogan is frequently used to argue for accepting refugees. There are several ways in which culturists can counter this dangerous assertion.

One way to respond to the diversity slogan is sheer outrage! Are the victims of the Paris attack stronger because of diversity?! Do you really think Paris is stronger because of diversity!? Terror attacks and the subsequent subway / infrastructure lockdowns make the complete idiocy of the idea that diversity brings strength. And this justifies our screaming, “By saying diversity is our strength, you’re spitting in the face of terror’s victims!!”

Screaming! Why? Because the shock of being yelled at will create a Pavlovian effect. If leftists know it might evoke an adrenaline-backed rebuke, they’ll hesitate. And we need to do this as it is disgusting to say ‘diversity is our strength’ right after a terrorist attack. And, while they might go all ‘Boy George’ on you and start to cry, such disgusting remarks merit yelling.

And, we must yell because saying, “Diversity is our strength,” fundamentally undermines the West. Unlike multiculturalists, culturists say we have a traditional majority culture and a right to protect and promote it. The ‘diversity’ slogan says Muslims are just as western as Christians. It says Arabic speaking Syrians are western too. Our demographics, history and history of culturist immigration policy counter this multicultural lie.[ii] This slogan endangers us by justifying opening our borders to everyone, including our historic enemies.

We can calmly refute the diversity lie by attacking logically. “Diversity in what measure? Is diversity in educational achievement good? Are we stronger if some people are literate and some are illiterate? Is diversity in levels of violence good? Do you want some girls to get pregnant as teens and others not? Wouldn’t be better off if we were united against crime and terror? What measures do you want us to be diverse in?”

While multiculturalists may see these as facetious questions, they are not. Multiculturalists think diversity only impacts happy things like food, fashion, and festivals. But Black culture celebrates thug-life. Mexicans do not mind teen pregnancy or dropping out of school as much as other groups. Islam supports violence aimed at imposing theocracy. With statistics and examples, because we assert cultural diversity is real, culturist can always win arguments concerning diversity and strength.

We can also ask, “Why don’t other nations think diversity is strength?” China is stronger because it is united; China fears division. Saudi Arabia doesn’t let Christians become citizens, because it prizes unity. Are these nations stupid? Might it not be true that unity is our strength? Why is the US called the ‘United States of America,’ and not the ‘Diverse States of America’? And, why, multiculturalists, do you only condemn the Western culturists as racist and not those in China or Saudi Arabia? If it is alright for them to be culturist, why not us?”

Culturists need to start directly confronting this perverse slogan. Why? Diversity kills! It leads to civil unrest and decline. This undermines rights. In fact, unity is our strength. Assimilation and national pride lead to unity. Defining ourselves as antagonistic to Islamic values unifies us. We need to stand for something or we’ll fall for anything. Diversity brings terrorism and fragmentation. Celebrating it is dangerous. Please attack all globalist / multiculturalists who solemnly repeat ‘diversity is our strength.’

[i] Press Conference by President Obama, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nov 22nd,

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/22/remarks-president-obama-press-conference

[ii] Press, John, Our U. S. Culturist Immigration History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2r01jwoSrs

Islam is the Enemy! Not ISIS, not Al-Qaeda

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 00:22:00 +0000

Islam is behind the Paris bombings, the Mali hostage situation, 7/7 in London, and all the other more than 20,000 terrorist attacks since 9/11. Media must stop saying “ISIS has claimed responsibility,” “The Taliban did it,” or “We’re looking for the ringleader.” When they ask such questions, they back up the multicultural idea that the religion is okay, it’s only a few bad apples that are giving Islam a bad name. To win this battle, we must identify the enemy properly. It is Islam!

“But, Culturist John,” you might ask, “You’re not saying all Muslims are terrorists, are you?” “No. But, I am a culturist, I believe cultural diversity is real. And, Muhammed was a warrior. He fought in over 20 battles, established a theocracy and beheaded dissenters. If you follow Muhammed, you’re glorifying an expansionist theocratic killer. You’re part of a religion dedicated to violently taking over the world.”

Multiculturalists deny that Islam is behind all these attacks. Ironically, multiculturalists tell you that all religions are the same. They say, “Islam is a religion of peace. We’re only hunting a few groups: ISIS, the Taliban, Al-Quaeda, Lone Wolves. Then all will be peaceful again.” BS. If you follow Muhammed, you glorify a theocratic warrior killer! As a culturist I am dedicated to convincing the multicultural West that cultural diversity is real. Islam as a whole is behind all of these attacks.

Then the Left claims, “Muslim’s attack because of what the West did in Iraq. It’s because of Israel.” This also pushes the idea that deep down, Islam only wants peace. So I answer, “Did Mali participate in the Iraq war? Why are Muslims attacking in Thailand? How about India? Why are Muslims attacking Muslims? Why did Islam take Spain in 711? Was that because of Iraq? Israel?” I’ll answer my own rhetorical questions: Islam’s attacks are not a response to a specific policy. Starting with Muhammed in 622 A.D., Islam has always sought to impose global theocracy via violence.

“But not all Muslims are terrorists,” they cry. Culturists reply, “Many ‘Christians’ never go to church, (which doesn’t take much commitment). And, not all Muslims are brave enough to go on suicide missions. But to support Jesus is to support a pacifist, who valued individuals. To support Muhammed is to support a killer dedicated to theocracy. All mosques promote the values of this expansionist theocratic warrior. They are guilty! Individual Muslims may not be violent. But, Islam is!”

As a culturist, my focus is cultural diversity being real. Islam is a violent theocratic religion bent on world domination. And, to highlight cultural differences, we culturists must denounce the media when they ask, “Who was the ringleader?” or “Was ISIS responsible?” or they say, “We are searching for the suspect in Belgium.” We culturists must shout, “The problem is not Al-Quaeda in Mali or ‘the suspect’ or ‘ISIS’; the problem is Islam!”

US Culturist Immigration History Video

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 06:12:00 +0000

Please learn about the history of our culturist immigration policy. It helps when Obama tells us 'Who we are."

My Uncle's Death in the Umpqua Community College Shooting

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 08:06:00 +0000

My uncle, Lawrence Levine, was the professor who was killed in the Umpqua Community College shooting. His death hurt my family and me immensely. Resulting questions, relevant to political activists, continue to haunt me.

Normally, I am very politically active here and elsewhere promoting culturism. But, this tragedy hit me so hard that I could not watch the news: seeing the killer’s face threw me into a despair-filled rage. I still have trouble watching the news.

Herein, lays a question for us activists: At what level are we appropriate to the political issues we cover? When I write about the Islamification of the West, I treat it as a theoretical issue. To the women raped in Sweden, this is inappropriately sedate. And, if I boldly announce that we should sink refugees’ ships, this is also too casual.

How do I find the appropriate level of emotional sensitivity in my writing and policies? This emotional question still makes it hard for me to blithely peruse political sites.

President Obama visited our grieving families. Knowing me, my family begged me to be polite. And, I thought this would be hard as I detest Obama’s multicultural - globalist policies as much as anyone. But, he was personable, comparing his daughters to my nieces, and telling us that Michelle and the American people send their sympathies and care – no politics were mentioned.

This nice gesture humanized Obama for me. Now I find it hard to conjure as much vitriol for him as I previously did. And, I say this knowing he is giving Iran nukes, caused continuing death in Libya, and demolished our borders: all things I hate.

Is there ever a moment wherein tragedy – as in 9/11 – makes us all just Americans, or westerners or – dare I, as a culturist, say it – humans? When, as with grieving families, should we adopt this frame? And, when should we just be adversaries?

My uncle Larry loved the river and, as a youth, moved to Oregon to escape civilization’s noise. His home overlooked the Umpqua river, wherein, via fishing, he became one with nature. This is not hyperbole. His writings express just this transcendence. And, on his rare visits to LA, he longed to return to nature. But, civilization chased my uncle to the banks of the river; he did not escape.

Was my uncle’s retreat from civilization spiritual or illusory? How much of our lives should be spent in political trenches and how much outside? Where is the balance? If retreating to nature is an escape from politics, might not politics also become an escape from life on its own terms?

Lastly, the existential questions: Why try? As I worked my way through my uncle’s many unpublished manuscripts, I found myself repeating, ‘Words cannot save you. We will all die. Why continue writing?’ These questions still haunt me. Perhaps the answer lays in the answers to my earlier questions. For now, just writing again is healing.

RIP Uncle Larry.

Why My New Version of ‘Imagine’ Must Crush Lennon’s

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 06:07:00 +0000

I recently recorded a ‘right-wing’ culturist version of JohnLennon’s leftist-anthem, ‘Imagine.” In fact, I have long had a physical revulsion to the destructive platitudes in Lennon’s song. But, with communists and Muslims attacking, the song is now more dangerous than ever. My mock version may prove to be the antidote to his cultural virus. But, if that doesn’t work, we may need to decapitate every zombie who is spreading Lennon’s version. If we don’t dismantle Lennon’s hymn, it could destroy the West.

Lennon’s anthem asks Western people to imagine there’s ‘no religion’ and ‘no countries:’ A borderless heaven. When we’re being inundated and attacked by Islam at every turn; pretending Islam will just disappear when we all ‘imagine’ it, is suicidal. Rather than imagine there is no religion, we must be aware that one religion, Islam, is coming for your throat! Lennon admits he’s a dreamer. We need to wake up and stop sleep-walking towards the cliff that Lennon’s stupefying incantation is sending us towards.

Even the way the hippy prophet uses the word ‘religion’ is dangerous. Not all ‘religions’ are the same. He thinks imagining no Christianity is good. Christianity is the best religion ever. It teaches the value of the individual, it is the basis of western civilization. Lennon’s religion-equating, ‘brotherhood of man,’ formula is at the root of the multicultural blindness that justifies our letting ‘refugees’ into our nations. Imagine Christianity as the official religion of the West. Why? Christianity is kind. Cultural diversity is real. Evil Exists. It is called Islam.

Imagine no possessions? When Lennon goes into this communist reverie I want to vomit. When I lived in New York, I used to sarcastically imagine all the people living in his exclusive, guarded building, ‘the Dakota.’ When Lennon uses ‘greed’ to explain hunger and inequality, he insinuates that the blame for poor nations’ maladies comes from nations who have possessions - the West. This means we must let in ‘economic refugees’ because our ‘greed’ caused their poverty. Bullocks. Our western cultures produce. Theirs sucks. Cultural diversity is real. Their poverty is their fault. We owe them nothing.

So, imagine a world wherein everyone sings my culturist version of Imagine. It would make the West strong and ready to defend itself. But, if people persist in spreading Lennon’s commu-tard dream about a borderless, heavenly, homogenous nether-world where Islam leaves us alone and people from backwards cultures get “their fair share” of our civilization, we need to see them for what they are: stupefied, destructive, somnambulist, unthinking, virus-spreading zombies weakening our defenses. Aim for their heads!

My 'Imagine' is the Antidote to Lennon's Horrible Anthem

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 14:39:00 +0000

Why I Hate Hippies!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 01:14:00 +0000

I hate hippies. I would like to see their hair set on fire; give them forehead tattoos reading “die hippie die”; and chain them to basement radiators - making them live on dog food and electric shocks. And, its not just cause I grew up punk rock. It’s cause their stupidity is threatening my life.

Hippies never understood that evil exists. They think everyone will be united by ‘peace and love, Baby.’ This is especially moronic as the hippies – the 1960s generation – were the children of the men who fought Hitler. Yeah! Peace and love from the gas chambers.

My favorite punk rock article-cum-book is “The Clash of Civilizations” by Samuel P. Huntington. Written in 1992, it denied the vision that peace and love would rule the planet after the USSR fell. It said the Cold War question “Which side are you on?” would be replaced by “Who are you?”

With a grade school insight, Huntington noted that, “Conflict along the fault line between Western and Islamic civilizations has been going on for 1,300 years.” ‘Conflict’ would be a great punk band name. He predicted that, now that the West was receding, this long-standing conflict would heat up again.

As Europe gets invaded by its traditional Muslim enemies, via “refugees,” the damned hippies keep telling us, “No, man, its okay to bring them in. And, we’ll all just get along and our love chakras will harmonize, cause we’re in the Age of Aquarius. You know, at heart, everyone just wants to be loved.”

This retarded kumbaya idea is the basic hippie logic behind multiculturalism. But as a culturist, I know cultural diversity is real. ISIS is real. Evil exists. So I say “BS!” to puke-inducing hippie platitudes.

Everyone does not just want to be loved. Some want to kill you. Some want to tie you to a radiator in a basement and dismantle you bit by bit. Well, of course (disclaimer) I don’t condone violence. But, I’d sooner have a hippie feel pain and humiliation, than have him invite his ISIS love pals into my nation and get killed myself.

Full Metal Jacket: The Culturist Implications

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 01:16:00 +0000

Here is my problem: I am promoting a culturist version of Darwinian literary studies and very few political activists see an urgent and vital connection between Darwinian literary studies and their patriotic cause. Fortunately, Stanley Kubrick’s powerful Vietnam War film, Full Metal Jacket, makes the connection clear.

Kubrick’s film follows the career of one recruit ‘Joker’ (Matthew Bodine) go from boot camp to the war, wherein he works as a reporter / propagandist for the military newspaper. In this position, Joker sardonically parodies the war. But, after the Tet offensive, the propaganda chief panics that newsman Walter Cronkite will go say the war is unwinnable. At this point, the chief stops humoring Joker and sends him into combat.

We all know how disagreement over the Vietnam War’s meaning tore up the United States. But, we must also come to see the importance of narrative in current politics. Black Lives Matter, foreign aid, and the resettling of refugees into the West are justified by a narrative that paints the West as having sins for which to atone. These would all come to a halt if the publicly largely believed the West were a unique cultural gem that needed protection.

Famously, Full Metal Jacket portrays raw indoctrination in boot camp. The opening shot shows the recruits getting their heads shaved: their old self is to die, so that they might be reborn. The drill instructor then proceeds to call them ‘gay,’ ‘ladies,’ and ‘fat bodies,’ while mercilessly running them through drills and routines. This continues until the recruit called ‘fat body’ kills the drill instructor and himself.

The brutality of the suicide / killing scene makes us recoil at the indoctrination and, by implication, military culture. But, Full Metal Jacket is just a story. The narrative argues for implementing a sensitive / coed military culture. The same narrative currently dominates our schools: We cannot call our students ‘fat bodies.’ But, rather than just blindly absorb the film’s narrative about the horrors of military culture, we must question it.

Perhaps, gender-segregated schools with public displays of patriotism, corporal punishment and name-calling would make the West stronger. If the Black Lives Matter kids had such schooling, they might be disciplined pro-West contributors to society who would never dream of shooting police.

But, my point is not that one form of indoctrination or a particular view of the Vietnam War is appropriate. My point is that narrative has a profound outcome on the policies we have and even the policies of which we can conceive.

Evolution has geared people to make sense of the world via stories. Literary studies too often fails to comment on the implied morals and values of stories; it fails to recognize that our high school literature books and the assumptions of the arts have a huge political impact.

Culturist literary critics know that, if we are to save the West, we must – as Full Metal Jacket displays – utilize our Darwinian need for public narrative. Furthermore, we must be wary of stories that limit the mechanisms we will consider using to inculcate our glorious western narrative.