Robert Erwin Howard: Pulpster Extraordinaire

Jonathan Bowden

I’ll be talking about Robert Ervin Howard. A while back, I had a talk about H. P. Lovecraft, Aryan mystic, and he was one of a triumvirate of writers who wrote for a fantasy magazine called Weird Tales, a pulp magazine; they were incredibly cheaply produced magazines in the 1930s, with quite good art, graphic sort of art, printed on cheap bulk newsprint paper which was very acidic and fell apart very quickly. And yet three writers, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Ervin Howard, and Howard Phillips Lovecraft have survived and been inducted into literature. I saw in my local library that Penguin Classics, or Modern Classics, the ones with the grey covers, now include Robert Erwin Howard’s Heroes in the Wind, from Kull to Conan: The Best of Robert E. Howard as a book. Penguin Classics, you see? So it begins as a pulp, and a hundred years later it’s redesignated as literature.

Scott's Last Expedition - Chapter II: In the Pack

Robert Falcon Scott

Sunday, December ll.—The ice grew closer during the night, and at 6 it seemed hopeless to try and get ahead. The pack here is very regular; the floes about 2 1/2 feet thick and very solid. They are pressed closely together, but being irregular in shape, open spaces frequently occur, generally triangular in shape. It might be noted that such ice as this occupies much greater space than it originally did when it formed a complete sheet—hence if the Ross Sea were wholly frozen over in the spring, the total quantity of pack to the north of it when it breaks out must be immense. This ice looks as though it must have come from the Ross Sea, and yet one is puzzled to account for the absence of pressure. We have lain tight in the pack all day; the wind from 6 A.M. strong from W. and N.W., with snow; the wind has eased to-night, and for some hours the glass, which fell rapidly last night, has been stationary. I expect the wind will shift soon; pressure on the pack has eased, but so far it has not opened.

The Intellectual Vacuity of the Old Right

Alain de Benoist
(Translator Roman Bernard)

Note: The following is a selection from Alain de Benoist's responses to an interview on the French Right, which appeared on Éléments #118 (2005). Benoist uses the term 'Right' to refer to all which is right of centre in politics, including the mainstream Right. The 'real Right' refers to what is referred to as the 'Old Right' (Enoch Powell in Britain, Robert Taft in the United States). According to the translator, '[H]is call to go beyond Left and Right is contradicted by the fact that he goes far to the Left in this interview. But I believe this aspect is secondary. This text, thanks to a remarkable psychological analysis of the “right-wing mind,” is first and foremost a way for us to question our own way of thinking, thus making us more “fit and brisk” for the battle of ideas.' A text that may be useful in the context of the present discussion is "Why Conservatives Always Lose", by Alex Kurtagic, recently included in a collection of essays published in German translation with the title Warum Konservative immer verlieren.

Hayek: A Critique

Alain de Benoist
(Translator Anonymous)

Within liberal doctrines, there is no question about the originality of Hayek's approach.[4] Distancing himself from "continental" liberalism (with the exception of that of Tocqueville and Benjamin Constant), Hayek seeks to return to the original Anglo-Scottish individualism and liberalism (Hume, Smith, Mandeville, Ferguson), while restricting notions such as reason, pure equilibrium, natural order and social contract. To do this, he paints a broad picture. Accordingly, throughout history humanity has adopted two socially and morally opposed systems. The first, the "tribal order," reflects "primitive" conditions of life. It denotes a closed system whose members know one another and organize their conduct in terms of concrete objectives determined in a relatively homogeneous manner. In this society of face to face interactions arranged in terms of collective goals, human relations are largely determined by "instinct" and are essentially based on solidarity, reciprocity, and group altruism.

The Specious Origins of Liberalism - Chapter XXV: Indiscipline in Aristocracy

Anthony Ludovici

Of the major crimes committed by the aristocrats against their own Order, I shall now describe the most serious; for, had it not been committed, the previous three already dealt with would never have been heard of. Reviewing the various ruler minorities which, ever since Feudal times, have seconded their monarchs in the government of European nations, it seems hardly credible that, with only one exception (possibly two), none had a sufficiently strong instinct of self-preservation to enforce among their Order such standards of virtue, competence, conscientiousness and even health, as alone could maintain them in authority, and above all demonstrate their indispensability.

Filmer on Democracy

Sir Robert Filmer

Editor's Note: What follows is Chapter II of Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, originally published in 1680 (though written much earlier) and the fullest exposition of his thought. As a political theorist, Sir Robert is now remembered as a defender of the absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings, and mostly through John Locke's refutation in the latters' First Treatise of Government (Locke chose Sir Robert as his strawman), though others Whigs, like Algernon Sidney and James Tyrrell also wrote rebuttals. Sir Robert, had previously written critiques of to Thomas Hobbes, John Milton, Hugo Grotius (all three proto-liberals), and Aristotle. Indeed, it is on this basis that he is still studied today—essentially, as background reading for Locke and as an example, in intellectual history, of one strand of political thought in 17th-century England. We may not necessarily agree with all of Sir Robert's arguments or his conception of monarchy—there were obvious problems with it. Nevertheless, Sir Robert's criticisms of democracy remain interesting and quite relevant in our present age of egalitarian liberalism and mass democracy. The mere fact that he has been pushed to the margins by liberal political philosophy, held only as an outmoded anti-example, should be of interest to us, for it will be from the outer edge of the periphery of liberal thought that will find the means, through careful selection, adaptation, and development, to construct a machine with which to mount a successful challenge.

Scott's Last Expedition

Robert Falcon Scott

The first three weeks of November have gone with such a rush that I have neglected my diary and can only patch it up from memory. The dates seem unimportant, but throughout the period the officers and men of the ship have been unremittingly busy. On arrival the ship was cleared of all the shore party stores, including huts, sledges, &c. Within five days she was in dock. Bowers attacked the ship's stores, surveyed, relisted, and restowed them, saving very much space by unstowing numerous cases and stowing the contents in the lazarette. Meanwhile our good friend Miller attacked the leak and traced it to the stern. We found the false stem split, and in one case a hole bored for a long-stem through-bolt which was much too large for the bolt. Miller made the excellent job in overcoming this difficulty which I expected, and since the ship has been afloat and loaded the leak is found to be enormously reduced. The ship still leaks, but the amount of water entering is little more than one would expect in an old wooden vessel.

The Right to One's Life in East and West

Julius Evola
(Tr. Anonymous; ed. by Greg Johnson)

In these short notes I shall not attempt to deal with the question of the right to life in general, but with the right to one’s own life, which corresponds to the ancient formula of jus vitae necisque; it is the right to accept human existence or to put an end to it voluntarily. I intend to compare certain characteristic points of view which have been formulated in this connection in the East and in the West. However, the problem will not be considered from a social point of view, but rather from an interior spiritual one, whence it appears in the shape of a problem of responsibility only to our own selves. For this reason I shall not deal with theories, such as that of the Japanese known as “harakiri,” or suicide for reason of honor or loyalty, neither with similar doctrines which we find also in the West.

The Specious Origins of Liberalism - Chapter XXIV: Privilege and Public Service

Anthony Ludovici

We now come to the third of the major crimes the Aristocracy have committed against their own Order, by which, in the eyes of the gullible multitude they seemed to justify the claims of Liberalism. It is now a very far cry from the days when a William Fitzosbern (afterwards Earl of Hereford) at his own sole risk and expense undertook the formidable task of equipping and manning several vessels in order to enable his master, William of Normandy, to take possession of England. But at bottom, his was the spirit, the Public Spirit, which animated the nobility in Feudal times and laid the original foundations of what little fast-decaying aristocratic feeling still remains here and there in the nation.

Machiavelli and the Conservative Revolution

Dominique Venner
(Translated by Greg Johnson)

Borne along by the French Spring, the Conservative Revolution is in fashion. One of its most brilliant theorists deserves to be remembered, even if his name has long been maligned. Indeed it is scarcely flattering to be described as “Machiavellesque” if not “Machiavellian.” It can be seen as an aspersion of cynicism and deceit.  And yet what led Niccolò Machiavelli to write the most famous and the most outrageous of his works, The Prince, was love and concern for his fatherland, Italy. It was published in 1513, exactly 500 years ago, just like Albrecht Dürer’s “The Knight, Death, and the Devil.” A fertile time! In the early years of the 16th century, Machiavelli was nevertheless the only one to worry about Italy, the “geographical entity,” as Metternich later said. Then, one cared about Naples, Genoa, Rome . . .

Historiography of the Right

Julius Evola
(Translated by Colgero Salvo)

In developing some considerations on the European meaning that can be attributed to Donoso Cortés, the Spanish thinker and an interesting type of the political man, who developed his activity in the period of the first European revolutionary and socialist movements, a noted German historian, Carl Schmitt, pointed out that while the Left has systematically elaborated and perfected their historiography as the general background for their destructive action, nothing similar happened in the opposed camp of the Right. There the whole is reduced to some sporadic example in no comparable way, through consistency, radicalism, and breadth of horizons, to that which Marxism and the Left possessed for some time.

Jonathan Bowden's Last Interview

Jonathan Bowden

Welcome to Counter Currents Radio. I’m your host Greg Johnson. With us today is Jonathan Bowden. First of all, I need to ask you is it “Boden” or Bowden? JB: Depends where you are in England basically, if you are in the North of England you say “Boden,” but if you are from the South of England, and I’m from the South of England, you say Bowden. GJ: Bowden, all right Jonathan Bowden. I know Jonathan Bowden as a writer, as a painter, as an orator, but I don’t know much about his past, and so the first thing I’d like to do is find out where you’re from, what kind of educational background you have, what kind of family you have, and so forth.

The Third Political Theory

Michael O'Meara

The “Third Political Theory” (3PT) is what Alexander Dugin, in The Fourth Political Theory (2012), calls Fascism and National Socialism.[1] According to Dugin, National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy were not just militarily, but ideologically defeated in the Second European Civil War (1939–45)— victims of “‘homicide’, or perhaps ‘suicide’.” Thereafter, these two national anti-liberal ideologies allegedly “overcome by history” ceased to address the great challenges facing European man. Then, with Communism’s fall in 1989/91, the second major anti-liberal “theory” opposing the Judeo-financial forces of Anglo-American liberalism collapsed. Today’s anti-liberal struggle, Dugin concludes, requires an ideology that has not “been destroyed and disappeared off the face of the earth.”

Criminaloids

Cesare Lombroso
(Summarised by Gina Lombroso Ferrero)

We have seen how, owing to disease, alcoholism and epilepsy, physically and psychically degenerate individuals make their appearance in a community of normal persons. But a large proportion of the crimes committed cannot be attributed to lunatics, epileptics, or the morally insane, nor do all criminals show that aggregate of atavistic and morbid characters, — the cruelty and bestial insensibility of the savage, the impulsiveness of the epileptic, the licentiousness, delusions, and impetuosity of the madman, — which we find united in the bom criminal. According to statistics obtained by my father, the share contributed to the sum total of criminality by this latter type is only 33%, which appears to be a magic figure for the criminal, since it corresponds to the percentage of the histological anomaly discovered by Roncoroni and to that of all important anomalies, including those of the field of vision. But besides this percentage of born criminals, doomed even before birth to a career of crime, whom all educational efforts fail to redeem and who therefore should be segregated at once . . .

The Specious Origins of Liberalism - Chapter XXIII: The Profanation of Private Property

Anthony Ludovici

Aristocracy's failure to demonstrate that Private Property has a Sanctity justifying its existence as an institution, but one which can only too easily be desecrated, is abundantly illustrated in the history of Europe; and apart from preaching the duty of Charity, the Church did little to mend matters. Thus, Freedom, in the sense of licence, emancipation from onerous obligations and the right to unlimited leisure, became the principal if not the only Property distinctions that separated the élite from the common people. And, at the dawn of the nineteenth century, if one were looking for any gross breaches of self-discipline, decency and good order, one necessarily looked upwards and not downwards in the social hierarchy.

Francis Parker Yockey's Imperium

Kerry Bolton

This is not so much a review of Imperium, a book that is likely to be familiar to most readers here, as it is an assessment of this new edition by Alex Kurtagić. I feel that whatever edition(s) of Imperium one might have, every aficionado of Yockey will want, indeed must have, this edition. Kurtagić brings traditional craftsmanship to his publishing projects. A feature is the use of his own cover-art. In 2012 Kurtagić published a hardback edition of Yockey’s Proclamation of London, with a significant introduction by Dr. Michael O’Meara. This 70 page synopsis of Yockey’s Imperium is likewise a must-have, with a gold-embossed, navy blue cover, and an imaginative dust-jacket incorporating a multiplicity of symbols.

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg: Leni Riefenstahl's Heir?

Jonathan Bowden

This 14th talk of mine is about a filmmaker called Hans-Jürgen Syberberg who’s not a household name, it has to be said, even within contemporary Germany. But if there was a title for this talk behind me, as there sometimes is at our meetings, the title would have been “Hans-Jürgen Syberberg: Leni Riefenstahl’s Heir?” Because there is a degree to which in these talks I always try to find figures occasionally who are contemporaneous, who are alive and amongst us now, who are in this most difficult of eras, this most liberal, most democratic, most egalitarian of eras, the eras that are in every sense post-modern and after the crash, perceived in every possible way, of 1945 and thereafter.

How are Revolutions Born?

Dominique Venner
(Translated by Greg Johnson)

The birth of revolutions is a fascinating, quite relevant, and little-known topic. It was studied by the sociologist Jules Monnerot (1908–1995) after the French events of May 1968 in his book Sociologie de la Révolution [Sociology of Revolution] (Paris: Fayard, 1969). A valuable work for which the author has forged a series of concepts applicable to all situations. As a sociological study and not one in the history of ideas, Monnerot uses one term, “revolution”—without, of course, ignoring all that separates and opposes the various revolutions of the 20th century:  Bolshevism, Italian Fascism, German National Socialism, the French revolutions of 1944 or 1968. Indeed, he applies the same sociological analysis to these mass phenomena while making a clear distinction between conservative revolutions and deconstructive revolutions.

William Shakespeare

Jonathan Bowden

Editor's Note: The following is an audio recording of a presentation about William Shakespeare by Jonathan Bowden. It is not a speech delivered in front of an audience, but rather an extemporaneous lecture given in front of an audio recorder. In style and production it is similar to another one he did about British sculpture. Bowden knew Shakespeare well, and was fond of quoting sections of the bard's plays in conversation.

The Specious Origins of Liberalism - Chapter XXII: Primogeniture and Selection in Matrimony

Anthony Ludovici

Other influences apart, the matrimonial policies of our aristocracy alone would have sufficed to undermine the nation's faith in their ability to govern. However rare the occurrence may have been we know that for centuries, especially in France and England, the nobility of Europe produced personalities who, had they maintained their family qualities, might have bred a race of rulers capable of kindling an unquenchable faith in the reality, advantage and indispensability of a class of thoroughbreds in the scat of government. For, as J. B. Rice has truly observed, "an aristocracy of blood is eternally right, because it is natural." (Social Hygiene, p. 328). But from the earliest times, alas!, owing to the absence of any controlling body within their Order, they not only violated every precept of sound rulership, but also every measure which might have ensured a continuance of ability, dignity and even ordinary health in their family lines.

Lovecraft's Politics

Kerry Bolton

To many of his admirers, the scariest things H. P. Lovecraft wrote were not about Cthulhu, they were about politics. But, as I hope to show, the politics of this master of looming, irrational, metaphysical horror are solidly grounded in reality and reason. Lovecraft, like many of the literati who turned to Left- or Right-wing politics early in the 20th century, was concerned with the impact of capitalism and technology on society and culture. The economic reductionism of capitalism was simply mirrored by Marxism, both of them emanations of the same modern materialist Zeitgeist. Beginning in the late 19th century, a pervasive discontent with materialism led to a search for an alternative form of society, including alternative foundations for socialism, which occupied Europe’s leading socialist minds like Georges Sorel. What emerged early in the 20th Century was variously called “neosocialism” and “planism,” the most prominent exponents of which were Marcel Deat in France and Henri De Man in Belgium. Neosocialism, in turn, influenced the rise of fascism.[1]

The Insane Criminal - Part 2: Special Forms of Criminal Insanity

Cesare Lombroso
(Summarised by Gina Lombroso Ferrero)

In addition to these casual forms of lunacy, in which the individual is led to commit crime by a momentary alteration of his moral nature, we find other forms which might be called specific, because the criminal act forms the culminating point of the malady. The sufferers from these forms are less easily distinguished from ordinary criminals and normal persons than are the lunatics of whom we have just spoken. These mental diseases, which should be studied separately, are alcoholism, hysteria, and epilepsy. It is well known that temporary drunkenness may transform an honest, peacable individual into a rowdy, a murderer, or a thief. Gall narrates the case of a certain Petri, who manifested homicidal tendencies . . .

Jonathan Bowden: Man or Beast?

Alex Kurtagic