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aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

From the fine publication, The American Conservative [theamericanconservative.com] (Some may think the title is redundant)

About a year ago, I wrote here about a message I had received from a reader of this blog, a Christian high school senior who was deeply concerned about the appeal of the alt-right among his male classmates. I had several exchanges with the kid, who speculated that the alt-right appealed to the young men — all of whom are white, conservative, and Evangelical — because it’s daring, and because the spirituality of megachurch Evangelicalism (in the kid’s view) is insipid. There was nothing much to inspire or to hold them. The alt-right fake “gospel” offered them an easy explanation of why they felt alienated and powerless, provided them with an enemy, and stoked their rage.

So that's why good conservative white boys go all alt-right! It's a Clockwork Orange type of thing.

All that came to mind with Matthew Rose’s must-read First Things essay on why Christians should take the alt-right seriously. [firstthings.com] Whatever your theological or political orientation, you need to read this essay. People who write the alt-right off as nothing but a bunch of losers and haters are making a big mistake, as Rose shows. It is anti-Christian, and it has strong arguments to make — not “strong” in the sense of “persuasive” (Rose is very much against the alt-right), but not arguments that can be easily dismissed with cries of “bigotbigotbigot!”

OK, the author is just mostly reiterating what Rose said, and massively quoting him as well. But he does have some interesting thoughts himself.

Rose is getting at something crucial here: that there is enough truth mixed into the alt-right philosophy to prevent it from being easily dismissed — something we ignore at our peril. I read some Julius Evola once — he’s one of the thinkers Rose covers — to see why his name keeps popping up. I found it entrancing, on a certain level. There were deep insights in his book, but he is also batshit crazy. (I felt the same way reading the Islamist theorist Sayyid Qutb.) If you don’t grapple with the deeply insightful part, you cannot understand why people who ought to know better accept the batshit crazy part.

Makes sense, seems reasonable. Maybe giving a bit too much credit to the alleged "truth" in the alt-right. But then it all goes off the rails in the final paragraph.

You too, conventional liberals: your own acceptance and promotion of illiberal, racialist ideology under the guise of “social justice” is calling up these demons on the Right. The best way you can fight the alt-right is to fight the SJWs, whose militancy, and whose effective militancy, can only make the alt-right stronger.

Damn you! You SJWs! The alt-right is all your fault. Well, this is the American Conservative, after all. What did I think was going to happen?

Original Submission