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Opinions/Editorials Title: What Is Wrong–and Right–With the Alt-Right Prior to Hillary Clinton’s attack on it in her acceptance speech at the Democratic Party Convention last year, few Americans had heard of the alt-right. Hillary’s dramatic disquisition tried to conjure up nightmarish specters of radical anti-Semites, goose-stepping neo-Nazis, Klansmen in white robes, and of course the closet white supremacists at Breitbart.com. While the alt-right has attracted a few disreputable characters, the white nationalism defended by, say, Richard Spencer who coined the term alt-right, strikes me (if I may say so without the roof caving in) as somewhat more modest. As I understand the basic idea, the alt-right takes the view that whites (especially white males — maybe more specifically, straight white Christian males) have been deprived of their identity by the identity politics industry of the Left that emanates from academia and permeates our political moment. The alt-right wants an identity politics for white people (white males, straight white males, etc.). Whites are entitled to their “safe spaces”; they, like black students with their own cultural centers, Harvard graduations, etc., should be able to associate only with other white people if that is their choice. The alt-right opposes multiculturalism is an unworkable recipe for cultural chaos. Contrary to the campus cliché, diversity is not our strength. Look at the conflicts that have erupted on campuses where the church of diversity has established its rituals and erected its altars. Prevailing ideas about open borders, moreover, or economists’ dogma that free migration is “good for the economy,” are open to dispute. Look at the chaos sweeping parts of Europe in the wake of mass migrations of unassimilable migrants from the Middle East and Africa. There is thus more to the alt-right than just its defense of an identity politics for people with white skin. Steve Bannon once self-identified as an economic nationalist, and there is good reason to believe Donald Trump’s original America First proposals derived from this same sentiment. The world is not, and should not be transformed into, a single borderless marketplace woven together with multilateral “free trade” agreements. This notion actually has appeal across the political spectrum. Many who supported Bernie Sanders would agree. On this point, their views were closer to Trump’s and Bannon’s than to those of Clinton (who was “for” the Trans-Pacific Partnership before she was “against” it). What should be clear: the alt-right represents pushback against two tendencies: the increasingly open anti-white tenor of much intellectual conversation, and the globalizing, cosmopolitan forces that have placed much of the white working class at a disadvantage. As for the first, what are we to say when a tenured professor at a major university speaks of wanting “white genocide” for Christmas and then insists he was only being satirical? Be this as it may, according to the view I shall develop, is that what is wrong with the alt-right is that it wants an identity politics for white people (straight white males, perhaps) instead of asking whether identity politics itself is a good idea. Surely its goodness or rightness is not self-evident. Perhaps — gasp! — we shouldn’t have an identity-politics for anyone! On the other hand, what is right with the alt-right is its suggestion, however uncomfortable in our administratively integrated, cosmopolitan, globalized times, that freedom of association is desirable. Might it not be worth asking — dare we ask it and risk being demonized? — if we wouldn’t all be better off with the mere possibility of full freedom of association? Yes: full, unconditional freedom of association means freedom to associate or not associate — for those who want such freedom. This means the freedom of a group of whatever identity to exclude and even to separate if that is their choice — a choice already made, at least in part, by universities who establish black-only facilities and graduation ceremonies. To the Left, this is of course heresy! It’s racist!Xenophobic!White supremacist!To a gulag, you! Leftists, when they deign to be polite, will scold us about how “white men have power” (look how much of Congress is white and male, or how many CEOS are white men). The Left’s conception of racism combines racial animus and superiority with the presumed political-economic and cultural power of the majority group, which explains the otherwise inexplicable belief that blacks cannot be racists even when suggesting that white people be killed. We are not supposed to ask snarky questions about how much “white privilege” has been required for the decline of a significant percentage of the white working class into poverty, substance abuse, and suicide, especially since the 2008 financial crisis. --------- ABOUT THE AUTHOR Steven Yates is a writer with a Ph.D. in philosophy. He is the author of the books Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action (1994), Four Cardinal Errors: Reasons for the Decline of the American Republic (2011), approximately two dozen articles and reviews in academic journals and anthologies, and over a hundred articles of online commentary, especially on NewsWithViews.com. Dr. Yates taught philosophy at several colleges and universities in the Southeast. In 2012 he moved from South Carolina to Santiago, Chile, where he has taught periodically at two universities there, as well as having involved himself in teaching English and operating a small editing business, Final Draft Editing Service. He is married to a Chilean, and at present writes almost full time. He blogs about philosophy and the foibles of academia at Lost Generation Philosopher. Poster Comment: This article is so long that it has chapters. The people here who should read it are those who probably won't. Also, while the page of text is clean, the html is junky, so best to read it there for the links and the over 100 comments. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Anthem (#0)
I don't find much to disagree with here.
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