The Only Antidote to Racist Violence and Conflict is Individualism

[Some are blaming "politics." Wrote Claire Galofaro for the Associated Press, “Historians and political scientists have been warning that American politics had become a pressure cooker, full of racial tension building once again to the point of a deadly clash, like the one in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday that claimed three lives.”

But the causes are much deeper, rooted in philosophy. In light of the recent racist violence in Charlotesville, Virginia, I thought I'd repost an article I published last November with the title, The ‘Alt-Right’: The New Left’s Chickens Homecoming. The message remains the same.]

Is Donald Trump, wittingly or not, raising the profile and influence of the so-called alt-Right?

In Trump disavows Nazis, saves them a seat at the table, the New Jersey Star-Ledger chastised president-elect Donald Trump for not disavowing the so-called “alt-Right” movement strongly enough. Trump’s selection of Steve Bannon as his chief strategist and senior advisor, the Star-Ledger believes, gives legitimacy to the alt-Right and its racist views.

I only recently heard about the alt-Right. From what I know about it, the alt-Right—which is not really on the Right, properly understood as standing for individualism—is racist, as well as nationalistic and collectivistic.

I don’t yet know much about Bannon, so I can’t comment on his alleged ties to the alt-Right. I can, however, point the reader to an excellent column by PJ Media's Walter Hudson, who wrote,

The problem with Steve Bannon is not his personal views, for which there seems to be little evidence of anything egregious. The problem with Steve Bannon is the role he has played in proliferating the abhorrent views of others. While in charge of Breitbart News, Bannon transformed it into a haven for the alt-right.

Hudson believes that “Trump should go out of his way to condemn the alt-right,” and that “That declaration should be echoed by a repentant Bannon, or Bannon should be fired.”

In any event, the alt-Right seems largely a reaction to the more subtle and more insidious racism of the Left—more insidious because the Left's racism is more highbrow, and being smuggled in under cover of “good intentions.” The Star-Ledger  writes;

Our president-elect seems vague about such approbation, as he is unaware that he has empowered white nationalists, emboldened neo-Nazis, and inspired the KKK to reemerge from beneath its rock: "I want to look into it and find out why," he said.

He can skip the inquiry. It's happening because his incendiary rhetoric still echoes. It's happening because he has conveyed his approval by appointing Steve Bannon as his chief strategist – the same Bannon who calls Breitbart "the platform for the alt-right." It's happening because they have tacit permission to express their retrograde impulses.

The Star-Ledger writes here that “It's happening because they have tacit permission to express their retrograde impulses.” But the fuller unabridged statement in the print edition reads “Its happening because diversity is a dirty word to these ‘patriots,’ and they have tacit permission to express their retrograde impulses.”

The Left’s concept of “diversity” is racial identity politics, not diversity in the only way it matters, in the content of individual character. In other words, race—not ideas, choices, values, moral character, and the like—is the defining characteristic.

When you identify people by race, and then divide people by that standard, what do you expect to happen—especially when you go out of your way to marginalize one of the races, white people? You encourage racism and other forms of group identity politics; e.g., the alt-Right’s white separatism. The alt-Right is the New Left’s chickens coming home to roost, and all decent people suffer for it.

For the rise of the alt-Right, we have the New Left and their “diversity” crusaders to thank. When you “set the table” for racist tribalism, you get racist tribalism. The alt-Right and the New Left are not opposites. They are two sides of the same coin. The New Left divides people by race, based on the postmodernist premise that different races are genetically predisposed to their own unique ideas and perspectives. The alt-Right also divides people by race, based on things such as genetically informed average racial group intelligence, as measured by things like IQ testing. The two are blood brothers: Both are both collectivist and anti-individualist; both are hostile to free markets and capitalism; both in essence reject free will; both are hostile to American culture.

Racism is a specie of collectivism. The Left is fundamentally collectivist, an ideology that, not surprisingly, it also shares with the alt-Right. Collectivism holds the group as the standard of moral value and judgement—and the easiest group to identify the individual with is his racial group or heritage. The only alternative to racism, both Left and alt-Right, is individualism, the antipode of collectivism and the heart and soul of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Individualism is the defining characteristic of American culture—a culture that both the New Left and the alt-Right stand in fundamental opposition to.

Related Reading:

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

Political “Left” and “Right” Properly Defined—Craig Biddle

DelBarton Student’s 'Diversity' Initiative, Though Well-Meaning, is Based on Counter-Productive Premises

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’