

[Part One is here.]







The most fundamental wisdom of our ancestors is that the God of the Bible (that is, the God who is described in the Bible, not some other god) does exist, and has endowed the world with an order that can be known and in which you can participate. Because God is who He is, the world is not what the contemporary authorities say it is, a place of fundamental indeterminacy where man alone defines reality and therefore can change things whenever he wants. No, there is an order of being that man did not create and that he can know if he pays attention to the world and does not falsely regard himself as the Supreme Being.

In the Bible God tells us, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” [Psalm 14:1, ESV] and “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” [Psalm 111:10, ESV]  Man cannot be wise if he regards himself as the measure of all things. Man discovers truth, but does not create it.

The existence of God does not just mean that each individual needs to be in proper communion with Him through repentance from sin and faith in Christ. Each individual does need to be saved from the wrath of God in this way, but God’s existence has consequences for all reality. And the simplest way to summarize the full significance of acknowledging God’s existence is by the phrase “order of being.”

That is, the things of the world do not exist in an unordered, value-free way. This is the basic thinking of the secular liberalism that is the officially-endorsed way of thought all of Western Civilization. Under this view, reality is and means whatever man says it does, even if he changes his mind and assigns a new meaning that contradicts the previously-held belief.  But since God exists, all of reality has order and value that man does not create, and that he is not free to contradict without dire consequences.

Sex is a good example of this order. At the most basic level, the liberal view that man’s body belongs to him alone and that sexual activity unencumbered by any consequences is one of man’s deepest rights is to be contrasted with the correct view that man belongs to God and is therefore not completely free and that sex is intended to bond man and wife and to propagate the human race.

[Part Three is here.]

56 thoughts on “How to Become an American Traditionalist, Part Two: The Wisdom of the Ages

  1. Pingback: How to Become an American Traditionalist, Part One | The Orthosphere

  2. The dialectic of American history is staunchly against tradition. The only region which has had a substantive traditional social order, the South, has been mocked, disempowered, and cast in the role of villain in the grand narrative of American Progress. To an American, “tradition” is essentially synonymous with oppression, backwardness, and bigotry.

    • Tradition means many things. Among other things, it means being in communion with the true order of being. Despite the loud apparent success of the liberals, tradition live on, under the radar, as it were.

      • And yet you seek to conserve a political, socio-cultural, and economic order as well as the history of the same which keeps tradition in the basement as the scary boogeymen that haunts our nightmares? America today at its highest levels wages scorched earth war on the true order of being.

    • This is why I’ve become a recalcitrant Tory. With perhaps some limited regional exceptions, American custom and tradition as a whole is bound together with British/English custom and tradition. Without that, American traditionalism quickly devolves into essentially a “liberalism or else” sentiment where our own identity is bound together with denigrating the great tradition of European Christendom as a time of darkness and tyranny, cutting us off from the greater tradition of Christendom. American children’s patriotism is directed by their teachers not towards the love and honor they ought to have for their parents and ancestors, but towards a set of liberal ideals. This is the case in other Western countries too, but this is much more clearly a denial of national tradition than it is in the United States due precisely to our liberal foundations.

      • Also, I should note that this is why I think that conservative American traditionalism is closely tied to Baptist theological sentiment, and why other American Protestants are far too influenced by their Baptist friends. Seriously, half of the arguments non-Baptist Evangelicals have is how much they are willing to appease Baptists. Baptist theology is about the only Christian theology that can claim some level of orthodoxy and still be fully in favor of the American experiment.

  3. Pingback: How to Become an American Traditionalist, Part Two: The Wisdom of the Ages | Reaction Times

  4. After reading the previous series, and now these two, I am still waiting for Mr. Roebuck to say what is distinctly American about the traditionalism he is proposing.

    After all, there are good traditions and bad traditions. As the other commenters have said, any tradition that could be called “American” is basically liberalism.

    Any positive Anerican traditionalism we have available is what our fathers brought with them from Europe, which itself has been handed down from the beginning.

    • I don’t need to define a distinctively American traditionalism. The emphasis of this series is on how a person can change from being an ordinary secular liberal, a person who subscribes to mainstream contemporary thinking, into a traditionalist. Traditionalism is knowing and participating in the order of being, by way of membership in one of the existing traditions.

      (True traditions, I should add. There are also popular in America traditions of communism, homosexualism, feminism, liberal Christianity, etc.)

      You and some other commenters have objected that the only distinctively American tradition is liberalism. No, that’s just the most well-known American tradition. Anyone, even an American, can participate in the order of being.


        I don’t think that anyone claimed that Americans couldn’t be Traditionalists. The problem for Americans is that doing such, if they were to be consistent, involves rejecting things that are usually thought of as quintessentially American. Now, obviously many American traditionalists still embrace those things, like the Constitution and the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence. Our only point is that the philosophy of those foundational documents to what we know of today as “America” are fundamentally anti-traditional. Indeed, it might be fundamentally impossible to correct them to put them in line with traditionalism.

      • Alan,

        I noted your comment to me of several days ago in which you identify yourself as the resident Protestant (Reformed) here at Orthosphere; but your reputation precedes you in that you have been on my radar since several years prior to the loss to us of Lawrence Auster, and from the pages of his (thankfully archived) website.

        But you didn’t know that, did you?

        My question for you tonight is if it is your opinion that only our fellow redeemed can know the order of being — in the sense you describe, as being the foundational perspective of the American traditionalism you wish to call us to? Are the secular minded, probably most libertarians, for example, beyond the reach — at least initially — of our expecting them to adopt the traditionalism for which we yearn?

      • Can only our fellow redeemed (Christians) know the order of being? Only a Christian can know it fully (or as fully as it can be known by man), for only through faith in Christ can one accept what Scripture says about the things of God.

        But anyone can begin to know this order, by paying attention to his intuitions. And at this stage I’m not discussing the prognosis for a traditionalist revival in America. This series is just about how individuals can come to know the order of being.

        Also, what matters for a society is less what individuals believe than what beliefs are portrayed as true and good by the leaders of the nation. Few American are fully on board with liberalism, and still fewer have thought it through, but it rules our land, because the elite say so.

        Therefore the same could be true about a renewed America guided by more traditionalist principles.

  5. I dispensed with the term ‘conservative’ and embraced ‘reactionary’ as a term that describes myself, for it denotes a more radical parting from the modern age. Conservatism seems to merely embody a general wish to stem the tide of liberalism, and more accurately, its modern metastasized form ‘progressivism’.

    A conservative may say that the 40s were a good period in history, whereas the reactionary will say “yes, the 1440s”.

    The real issue when it comes to ‘conserving’ America, is that it is a country with no direct mooring in the Traditional World. As the weak native population and their culture was defeated, America birthed a society that was a product of the Enlightenment. No, not as radical a departure as the French Revolution, but still a total rejection of the Traditional World, which it viewed as tyrannical.

    The problem is that the system they set up, while not tyrannical initially, has lead to a society FAR MORE tyrannical than any monarchy in history. And I see this as simply inevitable, as I believe Ben Franklin did.

    If one is truly an American Traditionalist, he must not hopelessly cling to the ‘Constitution’ or his flag, or ‘democracy’. He must seek a higher existence, he must seek to orient his society ‘UP’ rather than ‘DOWN’. The transcendent order and authority is still there, but it is ignored, it remains beyond the veil. We can catch only glimpses of it.

    He need not be antediluvian in his approach, and thus become Pol Pot-esque in his outlook on the world we live in, but he must reject root and branch all the trappings of modernity.

    Concepts such as ‘diversity’, ‘tolerance’, ‘the centrality of currency’, ‘democracy’, and ‘egalitarianism’.

    He must accept that this world is against him, and it is his duty to resist not only spiritually, but it may also be necessary to politically resist, depending on how our society evolves and whether opportunities present themselves for reactionary politics.

    Remember that even as the Italian esotericist, Julius Evola, was advocating that we ‘ride the tiger’ and internalize our struggle, acolytes of his were violently fighting to destabilize Italy. What makes the reactionary so potent, is that he remains unbound by the niceties of the modern political system. He sees no use for modern elections, unless they serve his ultimate goal in some covert way, and therefore can act outside of them. This, the established modern order fears the most, although it pretends otherwise. It knows that should trouble arise in the world that spins out of its control, it will be more vulnerable now than it ever has been, and one kick to the door may bring the entire rotting edifice crashing to the ground.

    There has been no better time since the ‘Enlightenment’ to be a reactionary. If this be the Kali Yuga, then we are either ones to witness the return of the Living God, or we shall inherit the opportunity to drive a stake through the vampiric ‘spirit of the age’ once and for all, in the name of our Lord.

    • Mark,

      I agree about the term “conservative,” although it can still be useful as indicating the genus, not the species.

      You say that America has no direct mooring in the Traditional World. That’s largely correct formally. The documents (e.g., the Constitution) that formally define the United States do not make any legally-binding reference to God or His church. But informally, some Americans do participate in the order of being through participating in a life-giving traditionalism. It is this nucleus, this core, this remnant that gives hope.

      • True.

        Let us compare the United States with, for example, Western European countries with a much more direct link to the Traditional World.
        You will find far more committed Christians in the United States (even if they follow wayward theologies and authorities), than you will observe in Spain or Britain. This is why the United States’ so-called ‘conservative’ party is far more conservative on many fronts than its European counterparts.

        This does provide some hope, even if it is a shrinking hope as the nation descends further into debauchery and secularism. Still, America remains a great hope for the Traditionalist for a very good reason that is perhaps more obvious, and that is the 2nd Amendment, which is incredibly useful in the event of a societal collapse, turning even fringe groups into potential separatist forces, viable for governance.

        It would be much harder to gain a reactionary footing somewhere like Germany or Sweden, where the modernist forces have disarmed their populations, so even if they lose all legitimacy and governing power, they still retain a massive brute force advantage.

      • I don’t know about that, Mark. There seems to be a right-wing reaction going on in many European countries right now, even if it seems like a bit of a mixed bag. Still, I personally would be much more comfortable voting for the average UKIP candidate than the average GOP candidate, and UKIP has become a major political force in British politics the past couple of years. Nigel Farage was on FNC the other day saying how we needed to return to our Christian roots in the West. On the negative side, they still seem to worship the democracy god.

        It seems to me when a European goes right-wing, they are much more likely to adopt a reactionary stance than an American. An American will probably adopt some kind of pseudo-libertarian-Christian concoction. In this way, even though America has a much larger proportion of its population that are conservatives, I don’t think the right-wing has as much depth as it does in Europe. Now, in an apocalyptic scenario that could all go up in smoke, but I’ll wait to cross that bridge if and when we get there.

  6. Pingback: How to Become an American—or Non-American—Traditionalist, Part Three: Wisdom Through Intuition | The Orthosphere

  7. Your analysis is correct, but of course there are just general differences in issues that are focused upon, crossing the Atlantic. The European right is often fundamentally different in its core nature than the American right, for in many places it contains the vestiges of what came to be considered ‘the right’ in the 1930s (see Golden Dawn). You will notice the European right largely concedes abortion rights for example (with the exception of possible Poland).

    UKIP is a unique example of a ‘New Right’ party, and I would probably categorize it as libertarian in its ideology, rather than strictly traditionalist or reactionary. This is not an alien concept, as you will find there is a very tangible link in the United States between Ron Paul and various Christian Reconstructionists, who simply see the devolution of government authority as the best opportunity for authoritarian Christianity at a local level. I have no doubt within UKIP, there are reactionary cells who are more radical than Farage

    From what I know of UKIP, it is a loose collection of people who agree on only one thing, that the European Union is a tyrannical body of no legitimacy, which is true. But other than that, UKIP have struggled to lay out a coherent and constant manifesto, minus some key libertarian underpinnings such as rolling back smoking bans and the like.
    UKIP’s gains at the expense of the ‘Conservative Party’ are very welcome of course, but I cannot help but get the feeling that its wins are merely other parties’ losses. It is not that the people of Britain are becoming right wing, but rather the other three mainstream parties are so obviously pathetic and detached, the people don’t have much choice. I’m still not entirely sure which is more pathetic, the Republican/Democrat scam in the USA, or the Lib/Lab/Con scam in the UK.

    At any rate in this sense, I feel that any party within the political system, in America or Europe, with no glaring exceptions at present, will be trapped in the mist of conservatism at a base level. They will sense their modern world is wrong and that it must be changed, but while blind they will only be able to grope uselessly for solutions. The reactionary not only senses the deep flaw of the modern world, but apprehends the entire picture. Allow me to present two arguments against the Islamic encroachment upon Europe.

    1) We should deport Muslim immigrants because their backward ways are a threat to our democracy, freedoms, and rights. They promote terrorism against the government and our institutions. They oppose equal rights for women, homosexuals, and non-Muslims. Muslims are fundamentally intolerant of the western world and conspire with those outside of our countries against us. Their religion is unreformed.

    2) We should deport Muslim immigrants because they are members of an alien culture that has menaced Europe since the time of Mohammad. Muslims have slaughtered Christian brethren in the Middle East and parts of Africa, and desecrated holy sites. Muslims would, if they had the power, subject Christian men and women to Islamic rule, something fundamentally unnatural and an affront to the Lord. Muslims are heretics, following a false prophet, and denying the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, necessarily imposing exile upon themselves in any notion of a just society. Furthermore, the importing of the current Islamic population was initiated by illegitimate authorities serving modernity rather than Tradition. All of their political actions are by definition, null and void.

    Now, when the second argument begins to be heard, even if muttered, then I shall think we have managed to illuminate those rightists who have not yet embraced reaction. Be not perturbed, for I enthusiastically encourage the infiltration of these ‘New Right’ groups. They will prove to be Reaction’s most fertile recruiting grounds. These men and women already think like us… they just don’t know it yet.

    • I actually frequent UKIP comment boards (and Breitbart London, which is UKIP central) fairly regularly myself. While (1) is most assuredly the predominant view, and I daresay it is a popular opinion held amongst ordinary people, (2) is getting its voice heard more than one might think. As in, I’m not the only one saying it in such settings. The threat of Islamic Terrorism is actually a great wedge. People often start out at (1), but (2) will almost certainly follow if you can embolden a person’s religious faith. A huge problem for the right in general is people lack faith, and the Right, for better or worse, requires a certain level of faith to be embraced. Not necessarily Christian faith, because even secular rightisms are often ultimately about having faith in something (such as the nation for Nationalism).

      • Its there, no doubt. You can see it in a clumsy form whenever a member of UKIP says something ‘outrageous!’ for the BBC to seize upon. There are extreme elements, which is good.

        Obviously Europe has been secularized to a North Korea-esque degree, which has left even those of a traditionalist standpoint, standing away from Christianity. Ander Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who protested Islamization by slaughtering teens at a Labour Party Youth Camp, stated in his manifesto he was ‘culturally Christian’, but felt no real faith.

        This may change. I have some hope of an underground religious revival as a backlash against the weakness of secularism and the boldness of Sunni Islam. The recent French protests against sodomite marriage were notably young in their demographic, and many of these appeared to have found faith where their parents were void of it. Also look at the religious awakening in Russia that is slow but stately. Hungary is primed to see something similar if its prime minister is anything to go by.

        The good thing about Reaction, as I kind of alluded to in the other post here, is that we really don’t need a huge amount of people. We do not need a populist uprising. We only need a relatively large cell of zealots, well placed, and ideally a local population that has been primed for our message. My prediction is that the first Traditional society to be created out of coming darkness will be a city state.

        It is not necessary in the initial period to convert a nation’s population back to the true faith. That will be more ‘fun’ at a later date, after modernity has met its end.

      • I see your points, but I’m not so pessimistic about an utter end of our civilization, though I admit the possibility (even probability) is great. One thing that gives me some hope is those countries that retain their monarchies, most particularly Britain’s, those zealots could have a source of legitimacy from within the power structure in the right situation. Would I bet the farm on some monarch, British or otherwise, rallying the conservatives and reactionaries against liberalism? Probably not. However, it at least allows the possibility for something like that to happen, which in turn allows continuity with our past civilization. Personally, I would kind of like for something of the past to be preserved in that manner. However, if that is not the Divine Plan for man’s future, then I suppose not my will, but His be done.

        One thing I will say to your comment below as well, is that there are linear and circular elements to a reactionary Christian philosophy of history. History is progressing towards the Second Advent, though not necessarily as one glorious progressive march unhindered by defeats, even great setbacks. People often do not learn the right lessons from history, and thus they repeat it, but this is not the same as a cyclical view of history. History is ultimately linear in that it has a beginning and an end, and the things in between are ultimately oriented towards that end.


        Traditionalism and modern sci-tech will make an interesting combination.

      • In response to your comment below:

        You misapprehend me, I do not intend to mean that history in terms of actual TIME is cyclical, but in the sense of the state of man and the interrelation between the visible and invisible worlds, this operates as a cycle, from a high point to a low point and then inevitable back to the high point.
        Of course this has a beginning and an end. One might think of it less as a true circle, and more of a circle with a tangent at its head, man entering on one side and when the time comes, exiting on the other after he has run the cycle.

        I do not mean this to be pessimistic at all! This is incredibly OPTIMISTIC! We desire the end of modernity. Julius Evola advocated in his works on the internal spiritual struggle of the traditionalist, that we ‘ride the tiger’, yet this was only to ensure our survival until eventually this tiger collapses of exhaustion and dies underneath us.
        My outlook is that this is upon us. I say this as I observe globalization on an unprecedented scale, the interconnecting of world economies, the reliance on technology, simmering conflicts, and the general depravity of modern man. It may be 40 years, it may be 100. Either way, the rot is evident. You can almost smell it. We are living the end of the Kali Yuga. This is not the end of civilization, but rather a rebirth in its higher form, the transcendentally connected form. The phoenix’s death is not its end, but rather the transition to a regenerated body.

        I’m not very optimistic about any rallying around current monarchies, at least in Europe. (I’ll say at this point it is a great shame the monarchies of Eastern Europe were murdered during the war and post-war period as I have a feeling they would not have been so desecrated).
        The monarchies remaining are:

        The Netherlands
        The United Kingdom
        The Vatican City

        I just have to dismiss the monarchies of the first six, as they have become total joke pieces, the king of Denmark dressing up as a panda in a restaurant recently. They have no status even in their own countries.
        Spain and the UK are borderline, while they still command respect, they are totally committed to their own irrelevance. They don’t wish to rule. Of course, there is the chance some son in the future finds he has a taste for real power, but this seems unlikely. Putting faith in the British royal family to restore monarchical order just seems a little too much like trusting the Church of England to restore the ecclesiastic order. These institutions are thoroughly modernist and liberal.

        Liechtenstein is the only real exception I can see (excluding the unique example of the Vatican). The king there recently expanded his powers. Good news.

        Another very interesting country to watch through all this will be Hungary. Prime Minister Viktor Orban recently moved into a palace, and has worked to roll back liberalism in his country. I suspect he has designs on turning himself into a de facto monarch. His rhetoric can only be described as reactionary. Could just be power hungry, but there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that.

      • I’m not convinced that the British and Spanish monarchies are really that committed to their own irrelevance. At least in Britain, the Queen has acted behind closed doors in manners that affect legislation, most particularly assaults on the doctrine of the Church of England. From what I’ve read, she takes her oath to defend the doctrine of the “Protestant, Reformed religion as established by law” seriously. There have been leaks of her influence on legislation that have offended the Guardian, which can only be a good thing.

        The problem for those folks is, possibly, that they have no room to maneuver. I do not put my faith in them so much as see them as possible beneficial actors when there is some kind of reactionary rising. I could see a situation where the liberal establishment miscalculates, and there are enough committed outspoken and youthful opponents that can be called upon in a time of need if a monarch so desired. In any case, we know Scripture says “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”

        As for the Church of England, as an Anglican, I also hope that will eventually sort itself out as well.

  8. @ Mark Citadel

    Even reactionaryism for me seems to be suspect. Conservatism (in the U.S. meaning the neo-conservativism or hucksters like Dinesh D’Souza and Glenn Beck) is suspect for obvious reasons; what is there to conserve? But reactionaryism has some issues as well. The main one being that we can not turn back the clock. What we need is something along the lines of the German Revolutionary Right or the Conservative Revolutionary movement of Edgar Julius Jung, Carl Schmidt(before he joined the National Socialist movement) and Oswald Spengler. We won’t preserve the current order, we can’t bring back the old order, but we can impose a New Order. We need a National Rebirth.

    Traditionalists, Reactionaries and Paleoconservatives are not the only politically marginalized groups; there are the Radical Ecologists (Greens) and the Socialists (Reds). We have more in common that you would think and I personally think it would be easier to recruit them than to recruit from the neo-conservative base of Americanist Evangelicals.

    I think I might be of the Left-wing of the Hard Right because I believe that we would be better received by the working class than by the bourgeoisie:

    The middle classes who vote Republican and wave the Neo-con banner are in actuality no different from the middle classes who vote Democrat and wave the flag of left-liberalism: they are both conformist, decadent, complacent and unmindful. They will accept any order that is placed upon them but with few exceptions, they will not strive for a new one.

    The first thing would be to perform subversion in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Really, I don’t think there could be more of a winning platform than one that is beyond the Center Right socially and culturally and one that is beyond the Center Left economically. That is populism from both ends.

    • The reactionary rejects this linear view of history. It is not a case of turning back the clock necessarily, but rather approaching the same desired time again, in the cycle. During the Kali Yuga (this stage), man is at his most materialistic and disconnected from the spiritual world. He believes himself rich even when he is truly impoverished. This state is masked by technology. Approaching the Traditional World again as the ages turn is merely a case of reconnecting the visible world with the transcendent, and once again ordering society upward, all things placed correctly in the hierarchy.

      The ‘reds’, are largely a subdivision of the Democrat Party at this point. Barack Obama was after all, educated by a notable Communist subversive. The same is true for the greens, whose worship of the earth is not only a form of idolatry but also seems to harbor many people who can only be described as ‘genocidal scientists’.

      I cannot see commonality with these groups. They are profoundly modern in their outlook, and where they disagree with modernity, it is because they wish for progress to happen faster. The only possible use I can see for them is that much like Islamic terrorists, they may aid in destabilizing the liberal political order in the form of violence. Chaos is good for us while we remain the ‘out’ group, no matter who causes it.

      My point is not that the average Republican Party voter is a reactionary waiting to happen, but some who operate on the fringe may be vulnerable to the message of reaction.
      The best target for recruitment is someone who has been invested in the democratic process, and become disillusioned because his desires are not met. His party loses, and even when it doesn’t, it sells out its principles. It is of course an added bonus that these people still recognize the transcendent to a large degree (something rare among ‘reds’ and ‘greens’, who see the world as purely material). Protestantism in all forms may be a heresy of faith, but it is still faith, and can still be used as a way into the mind. It is at least somewhat assured that you will not be immediately dismissed as a ‘racist’ or a ‘theocrat’. Conservatives are more likely to listen for a prolonged period than a progressive, who is essentially hardwired to be triggered by buzzwords which shut down all incoming messages.

      Working class vs. Bourgeoisie? Marxist categories. I have no use for them because in terms of an agenda of renewal, neither the rich nor the poor matter under those labels. The rich are self-absorbed and only concerned with their own wealth and the ability to create more. The poor meanwhile will ally themselves to anyone who promises to raid the riches of the upper class and enrich them for little in return.
      Neither the rich nor the poor as amorphous groups are useful. Members of both groups have the potential to be radicalized, and if they can be, then their means are only incidental. The problem with making such an ideology as ours appealing to the poor is that it fails to offer a modern poor man anything substantial. He will not have directly more, materially, as a result of our system, in fact he is likely to have less if he is reliant on the modern state, as many poor are.

      The angry poor are a useful political tool to stir up and cause havoc, but bringing them into the ideological core because they are on the losing end of society is ill-advised. I see reactionary revolution as having much more in common with Pinochet’s coup in Chile than Lenin’s seizure of Russia. At the time it occurs, it will be a localized event in which the ruling elites are eliminated and replaced, and military power is consolidated. After that, the de-modernization process will begin. Modernity will already be dead, the Kali Yuga long over, we will be scrubbing its last traces from the world.

      As to your last point, subverting the political parties of the United States is a largely fruitless endeavor. Many have already stated before me, reactionary change and the end of modernity will not be the result of a ballot. It will not be voted on by an unsuspecting or incited public. Some have a habit of imagining this almost Hitlerian ideal where reactionary politics gain enough traction to take the government by democracy only to then end democracy.
      It will not happen. We are not going to take over the parties.
      Now, that is not to say that on a small scale, the parties serve no purpose. For instance, at the level of local politics, after some orientation, getting reactionaries covertly onto committees and such would be hugely useful to us.
      BUT this is not because we want to be voted in and enact reactionary policies on the present population. We simply wish to be well placed for when the time comes at which we take full authority by force. Having people in law enforcement, judicial bodies, government, and the like, is incredibly useful. If that has to be done within the two party game, play it by all means.

      And don’t mistake this as pie-in-the-sky, eye-roll worthy ranting from some survivalist nutjob in camo gear holding an AR-15, ready to “take on the gubmint!” This transcends such childish hooliganism. Our aim is not to prepare for when the government “goes too far”, it is to prepare for when the government ceases to function. In such an environment, well-positioned zealots with modest aspirations can achieve the unthinkable. On a minimalist level, focused perhaps on just one city or region, we sow the seed of a new Holy Age under God. As this interconnected, globalized world descends into darkness and chaos, this beacon of order and grace will like a new spirit animate the corpse left in modernity’s wake. It will be unstoppable.

      All comes full circle. The Traditional World is not merely the past… it is the future.

      • @Mark Citadel
        ”Chaos is good for us while we remain the ‘out’ group, no matter who causes it.”

        Civilization needs a certain degree of chaos in order to keep it on its toes and adaptive. Since it is a living organism its anti-fragile it needs needs a constant adequate level of exposure of chaos to thrive and be able survive further chaos.

        If there is too much order Civilization will decline due to its inability to survive any chaos coming its way. A muscle for example is anti-fragile it gains from chaos in the form of resistance leading to stronger growth. However if unused(absence of chaos) it will atrophy.

        Anyway here is a video on unfragility by Nassim Taleb:

      • Don’t get me wrong, I do not have a linear view of history: my reference to a national rebirth is a call to bring in a new Golden Age. To start a new cycle.

        As for the bourgeoisie usage, non-Marxists have used that term as well. Including the writer who I linked to in that last post.

        The capitalist plutocrats are responsible for promoting much of what we are against. In that regard we have some common ground with the Reds and the Greens. Maybe the using democracy to destroy democracy won’t be the answer but simply talking ideas won’t bring about practical political change.

        The American working class is being destroyed from both ends by both illegal immigration and outsourcing. Using Revolutionary rhetoric to destroy the current regime and then replacing that regime with a Reactionary one based in Disraeli’s One Nation Conservatism, Corporatism, and Distributism is a possible solution but my ears are open for any other ones.


        Alright but let’s be honest here and recognize that this would be the mostly likely scenario if the current order did collapse. Most “conservatives” in this country if they are even capable of building something meaningful would attempt some absurd scheme of getting back to the “pure” meaning of the founding liberals. They would fight people like you, and your hypothetical Pinchocet.


        That’s not my sense at all. The libertarian element that dominates American conservatism, would absolutely condemn you as a theocrat and indeed fight you if necessary. Witness Republican/evangelical darling Ted Cruz who condemned a gathering of authentic* Christians for not being pro-Israel enough. Witness the comments of the mostly conservative evangelicals who said as much in conservative website comboxes. They would rather take the side of a decadent anti-Christian welfare-state(irony of ironies) over the ancient Churches in the region. You mention that Protestantism may be a heresy, but there is at least enough common ground for future action. I agree with this to the extent you are talking about “paleo-Protestants” (High-Church Lutherans Anglicans ect), but you have to understand that modern evangelicalism has about as much connection with authentic Christianity as Mormonism does. Both of these modern religions are the themselves the product of a liberal order so it makes no sense to “ally” with them it you want to seriously confront modernity.

        On the the other hand, Svar is right that Marxism has much more to offer traditionalism. Consider that some of the most poignant traditionalists in recent decades have come out of the Marxist milieu, figures like Alasdair MacIntyre and Christopher Lasch. Consider the journal Telos which went from printing New-Left commentary based on the Frankfurt School to now publishing books on Carl Schmitt, Ernst Junger and Alain de Benoist. I’ve personally known some Marxist bloggers who admit that the radical right (in the European sense) offers a more radical critique of society than contemporary mainstream Marxism.


        I wasn’t aware that Cruz was asking them to make that choice. Nor am I aware that Israel is persecuting the church while her Moslem enemies are not.

      • Ita Scripta Est

        I take your point that Evangelicism is a far far cry from traditional Christianity, but I was only vaguely referring to the divide that exists between those who value the transcendent and those who don’t. If that door is still open, one might squeeze through it.

        Yes, Marxists have come to the reactionary side, but it must be stated emphatically we cannot desire a ‘secular’ reaction. Unfortunately, Marxism does often bring atheistic baggage with it. A Traditional World is completely opposed to atheism. In fact, for this reason we must reject other high reactionary thinkers within the sphere, who still cling to this godless vestige of modernity. My point was directed more to the average Democrat Party voter and his European equivalent (these are not Marxists typically). They are entirely brainwashed to have not only a short attention span, but also tend to despise pretty much ANYTHING traditional. Things like ‘patriarchy’ and the return of women to their correct role are total anathema to such people, and may even result in the British style UAF thuggery.

        The point on Israel is well taken, but I just see this as a quirk of American policy going back several decades on the Republican and (until recently) the Democrat side. I don’t propose to ‘ally’ ourselves with the ‘religious right’ or more accurately the ‘evangelical right’ in America. I do think however that it is possible to recruit from this sector because right wing voters are becoming very disillusioned with the political system in which they lose and lose and lose and lose. Their private militancy is also a potent vein to be tapped if they can be converted.

        Now, with regard to your view on post-collapse society…

        “Most “conservatives” in this country if they are even capable of building something meaningful”

        Stop right there… They won’t be. Conservatives in this situation will be only slightly less helpless than progressives (who I can see going totally feral in large metropolitan areas). They will look out for themselves, be well armed, be prepared to provide for their families, but that will be pretty much it. They’re not going to come together to rebirth the America of 1940 (I don’t think any of them honestly want a return to 1776).

        Now, might they fight us if they are in significant number? Yes, perhaps. However it is also perhaps likely that they won’t. They may give up in despair their dreams for classical liberalism, and see our social policy as too good to pass up. I’m sure there are many who wish to take revenge on those who have rubbed modernity into the faces of everyone. You need only browse right wing conservative forums to find a genuine desire to see college professors, pervert activists, and anti-white race pimps be subjected to vigilante justice.
        While chaos takes root all around, we will provide security for those willing to anoint themselves in the oil of Tradition. This will attract people from all previous ideological camps, and obviously those that come early will reap the benefit of doing so. We have no formal aristocracy. One will need to be created.

        I say this all as somebody who went from an apolitical atheist, to a conservative atheist, to a conservative Christian, to now a reactionary Christian. I really do think faith is the greatest vehicle for political disillusionment. I mean, how long can a Bible-believing Christian tolerate this modern society and its depravity before he snaps?

      • “…but you have to understand that modern evangelicalism has about as much connection with authentic Christianity as Mormonism does.”

        I simply cannot let this absurd comment fly. It is both ignorant and offensive. Evangelicalism is Trinitarian, with maybe some borderline fringe groups who might call themselves Evangelicals excepting. Mormonism isn’t. That alone is enough to show the ordinary Evangelical has infinitely more in common with “authentic Christianity” than the Mormon. So you saw some megachurch pentecostal nutcase. Where did you get the idea that represents ordinary Evangelicals? As someone who has become a more traditional Anglican after being raised as a generic Evangelical, I can agree that modern Evangelicalism has too many issues, but that does not mean that the ordinary Evangelical is not an authentic Christian. Misguided theology and, amongst older crowds, too much loyalty to the GOP (the younger crowd has too little, as in too many become apolitical or, worse yet, progressive)? Perhaps so. But when you actually explain the real issues to them in an intelligent and diplomatic manner, they are more likely to get the point than any other religious group I’ve encountered.

      • You said


        I took that to mean that the conservative evangelicals you cited support Israel against the ancient churches in the Middle East.

        To back up this claim, you quoted Cruz as saying:


        That was political theater, and who knows exactly what he means by “not stand with.” But we have to look at the reality behind the rhetoric. It’s one thing for an Arab Christian to dislike Israel based on ethnic solidarity. That’s his right. But it’s quite another thing for someone to conclude that the Moslem nations of the Middle East are somehow friendlier toward Christianity than Israel is, or that Israel is more of a persecutor of the church than the Islamic nations are. They aren’t, and she isn’t. That was my main point.

      • To back up this claim, you quoted Cruz as saying:

        Not just Cruz, but the commentary on many conservative websites indicated that American evangelicals did not see the Middle East Christians as authentic.


        I disagree. Israel has and continues to persecute Christians. Some* Islamic nations, like the legitimate government of Syria actively protect and support their Christians.


        But that’s roughly analogous to saying that some WWII-era Germans protected some Jews. Overall, Islam is violently anti-Christian. Especially these days.

        As for Israel persecuting Christians, it’s not like Moslems persecuting Christians. Not at all.

        Yes, Israel is an obnoxious Western secular liberal state. Just like (official) America. But that doesn’t make the House of Islam better. Or friendlier. In Israel versus Islam, I side with Israel. Even if they are a bunch of leftist.

        Now, I wouldn’t go waving my views in the face of a group of anti-Israel Arab Christians. Or even a group who, while not exactly opposing Israel, just find her repulsive. Not unless I had no choice. But it’s still the truth.

      • @ Ita

        I knew Cruz was too good to be true. I am never surprised by these things.

        I would rather stand with the Middle Eastern Christians than with American Evangelicals. I would rather stand with other non-Western Christians like the Serbs and the Russians than with American Evangelicals. I am also starting to realize that there is no real difference politically and intellectually between American Catholics and American Evangelicals.


        In my experience, actually being an Evangelical, very, very few people would say things like this. There’s a group of loud, politically active Evangelicals who are religiously devoted to Israel (literally). This faction is known for its high levels of activism, not because it actually represents the thoughts and feelings of ordinary Evangelicals. You can actually open up dialogue concerning Israel when you mention that the Israeli government is oppressive towards Christians.

      • @ Alan Roebuck

        It should be pointed out, often alliances by Arab authorities (secular or otherwise) is of a purely incidental and quid pro quo nature. Bashar Al Assad and his elite class are a 14% minority in Syria (probably even less now). Christians of various stripes make up another sizable minroity of about 10%. If all the Sunnis wish to execute him and no doubt slaughter his Alawite brethren, it makes sense for him to shore up support within the Christian community. (not hard, as they are being persecuted horifically by both Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State, plus the fact that Syrian Christians have typically occupied the upper echelons of society, the better paid jobs, etc. and have therefore had a healthy relationship with the elite class)

        I have no doubt there is some genuine (perhaps ethnic) brotherhood between Muslims and Christians in the Middle East, in select cases, but you are right that the norm is abject subjugation or a wish to eradicate.

        Israel is obviously very complicated, and is a rapidly changing entity due to its demographic shifts. As a liberal state, it faces perhaps the most rapid deterioration of liberal ideology out of any Western-style country entirely due to demographics. The Ultra-Orthodox Jews there have a birth rate that is growing their population hand over fist while secular Israelis are slowly slipping into that grand Western Modernist tradition of killing the child in the womb or using brith control to prevent fertilization.

        Right now, something like 1/3 of Israeli schoolchildren are Ultra-Orthodox Jews, quite a way from some 200 members at Israel’s founding. The Ultra-Orthodox believe in segregation of women and men, particularly in religious events, obsess over Scripture, and support classical OT doctrine involving the stoning of adulterers and such. Rushdoony I’m sure would approve of where Israel is heading.
        Another interesting component is there is a strong anti-Zionist element within the Ultra-Orthodox as well so who knows what is going to happe in 2050, when the Ultra-Orthodox will be roughly half the population of Jews in Israel.

        Tel Aviv is really the nexus of debauchery in Israel. Someone once remarked to me with regard to what was going on there as well as the Ultra-Orthodox population growth,

        “Israel might be the first country to legalize same-sex marriage, and then a couple of decades later, be stoning homosexuals to death.”

        Christians of course suffer some persecution in Israel (as all minorities do in any country), but it typically is not of the decapitation variety. Things like fights over Holy Sites, employment, and other areas of concern. When it comes to the persecution and annihilation of Christians in the Middle East, I feel comfortable saying I prioritize the ancient communities of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, over the Christians of Israel, who are still growing their community at a slow rate, where in other places it is shrinking.

      • Yes, this quote is very pertinent. It is not about re-establishing old forms (although in the abstract this is not necessarily anathema), but about embracing the cross-cultural principles that underlie the World of Tradition, the most important of which is the orientation of society upwards toward the transcendent rather than what we see today, a society oriented downwards at the behest of ‘the people’ or more commonly in our age ‘the lowest common denominator’ (think interest groups).

        I do think we have past this point of the Western elites becoming too comfortable with order. A lot of the conflicts since the end of WWII have not really been nail-biters. They always had a large semblance of control at the higher level, whoever was winning or losing. This is especially true for the Europeans (just look at the state of their military forces). The degradation in this period of calm is evident. And it is not even so much about our elites.
        Look at the average American or Brit or Italian.Finn McCool was lamenting the mindlessness of students in the third part of this series, and this same thing isendemic, hastened by technology as well as the collapse of parenting, all across the West and somewhat beyond.

        The elites are sharper as always, and will in the end likely have to fall prey to our hand rather than happy coincidences, but of more importance are the citizenry, the average man and woman (particularly those who are young now). I suspect they will be wholly unequipped to repel the advance of our agenda both intellectually and materially, when all is said and done. Modernity has reduced them to sacks of potatoes.

    • What I would say, Svar, is that the solution is neither democratic nor academic. It will, when push comes to shove, be violent and quick.

      The capitalist plutocrats have aided in the west’s destruction in no smaller way than the Marxists aided the east’s destruction during the Soviet era. Both Communism and Capitalism are rejected by the reactionary for they both assume something the reactionary cannot accept, that capital and resource are the center of society, all other concerns revolving around them. The Traditional World had a multitude of concerns beyond mere currency.

      I cannot see our views gaining enough mainstream acceptance (or really any) while the modern period is still in effect, even if it is in decline. The reactionary ideal is noxious to the modern man and perhaps more-so to the modern woman. We will bring ‘the people’ around to our way of thinking, but I foresee this taking place AFTER the seizure of power rather than as a vehicle for that seizure.

      Put into very basic form, I’d say it would follow this general arc

      1) Collapse of global financial markets bring an end to various public institutions. Social cohesion breaks down, ethnic and geographical fragmentation and balkanization begin to take effect.

      2) Reactionary insurgents liquidate elite controllers, and take operational control of remaining institutions.

      3) Through force and proposition, a taken region is inducted into the reactionary ideal, its people are either designated citizens or exiles. Elements that we cannot convert are exiled. At this stage, the surrounding nation is expected to be in anarchy or at least pre-anarchy, so these exiles will be left ‘to the wild’ as it were.

      This is an over-simplification, but it would appear the most plausible outline at this stage for a plan, far preferable to trying to either fomenting some kind of populist revolution, philosophizing the world to death from armchairs, or engaging in party politics.

      Of course, we must aim to recruit as many as possible! There is great strength in numbers, and not only from the purely militant perspective, but also with a view to infiltration and strategic placement. I just don’t think we should aim to ‘reach out to the masses’. Fundamentally, the masses are just very unlikely to overthrow their current modern rulers in favor of a Traditional Order. Even if their patience wears thin with the plutocratic establishment, they are far more likely to become the pawns of secular socialist political powers, or in some cases national socialist alternatives (see Golden Dawn in Greece). I have no doubt we haven’t seen the last of such movements.

      We will be a little more cunning. The elite are weak, but it is still difficult to outfox them long term.

      • Mark Citadel, we are very small in number, this is not Europe. Like Ita said, the evangelicals are set in their ways and are less able to be reached than the Reds and the Greens. I have talked to a several people about these ideas and I’ve generally found that Evangelicals are far more virulently anti-reactionary than non-believers. It is far more difficult to get a Baptist out of his Republican intellectual ghetto than it is to get an Old Leftist (not the same thing as the Marcusian New Leftists) to our side.

        Taking everything into consideration, I think the best hope for us will not come from America or Europe but from Russia. Aleksander Dugin and his Fourth Political Theory actually has a large influence on the current Putin regime and at this point, there is no way America can not fail due to the increasing stupidity and decadence of the populace and its so-called “elite”. If a Revolution Against Revolution can not be imposed from within America, it is possible for it to be imposed from outside of America.

        Ita Script Est, there is something about Alain de Benoist…. His views are too strange and all over the place. That being said I think the Archaeofuturism of Gulliaume Faye seems to have much promise, it seems to be an extension of the German Conservative Revolution.


        I’m a young man in college. Where do you think I should recruit? I have been putting out “feelers” (test ideas to see how they would react before I introduce the more extreme ideas) with some of my friends but I come up with nothing. As for infiltration…. there are people like Thomas F. Bertonneau and Paul Gottfriend(as well as several other traditionalist types) who work in academia but for some reason they don’t seem to be making the same inroads the Frankfurt School did. At this point, time is not on our side; we need an upheaval. Even the military seems to be on the side of our enemies.

        Maybe the answer is merely sowing the seeds of chaos and destruction. You obviously know about the role of Kalki in the Kali Yuga. We can not stop or reverse the decline… but we can hasten it. Think about the role of Ras Al Ghul and Bane in the Nolan Batman series. Maybe we simply just need to bring the Modern World to her knees; redeeming her is not possible.

      • The modern world cannot be redeemed. This is obvious.

        With regard to the reds and greens, they may simply be responding to authoritarianism (which they have a desire for as their agendas are typically losers with the public at large, at least in the USA), but I must stress unless one becomes a believer, he remains a hindrance to Reaction, and will only be inclined to achieve something akin to fascism or Stalinism (both modern ideologies).

        Reaction is wholly rooted in the transcendent, the will of the Living God, His Law, and the image we were made in that makes hierarchy and ritual worship of the spiritual world our natural state. To believe in a life beyond this, to believe in the forces beyond yourself, is the essence of the World of Tradition. This is precisely why fields such as theurgy and thaumaturgy were so vital to the ancients, just as great in importance as astronomy and other scientific pursuits which survive today in their modern incarnations. Benoist, and various philosophers like him are interesting to study, but be warned, their rejection of Christ in favor of the pagan influence is not a rabbit hole you want to go down. I think even Evola, who had pagan leanings himself, gestured to the fact that these traditions were largely unsatisfactory remnants of an earlier period long-since passed from human memory.

        To give you an idea of what I envision, I would direct you to the study of the ‘Legion of the Archangel Michael’, a short-lived Romanian reactionary movement of the 1930s that Evola saw great potential in (notably absent in the Italian Fascists and the German SS). The Horia Sima period, and the brief time in power are not so important, but the preceding organization under Corneliu Codreanu is a very interesting model. While they had some aesthetic similarities to the fascist movements of the time, they were differentiated by their innate spiritualism and commitment to radical Orthodox Christianity. This is roughly what I might seek to emulate.

        Be VERY careful putting ‘feelers’ out. Not only can this inspire suspicion and hostility, but it also is typically not a method for recruitment. I think the online world represents a better opportunity that carries less risk. One can find people expressing a reactionary position on one subject, and engage them with logic in order to bring them fully through the veil (see Reaction’s interactions with the ‘Manosphere’). I was brought into Reaction through this online discussion taking place across the right wing netscape.

        As a non-attendant Orthodox Christian myself, I do have some romanticism for this notion of the Russian ‘solution’, though I do think Dugin’s influence on Putin is somewhat overinflated, and I don’t agree with some of his core ideas. Undoubtedly however, Russia is a reactionary ‘hot spot’, and I can imagine a future reactionary confab being hosted there.

        Bringing more chaos to the world, of course without violating our moral principles, is something I had suggested in passing on another discussion forum, but it was not received well. I think many reactionaries don’t see value in it, as we don’t want things happening too quickly. Like you say, we are small in number (though growing at a healthy rate). If things collapsed tomorrow, we would not be ready.

      • One of my main problems with Benoist would be his paganism. I am fine with non-Christians that are either secular like Oswald Spengler or Orthodox Jewish like Paul Gottfried but neo-pagans seem odd to me for the reasons stated by Evola.

        I don’t know much about the Legion of St. Michael the Archangel but my personal inspirations are Salazar’s Portugal, Franco’s Spain, the Greek Junta and the German Revolutionary Right movement.

        The current system is obviously unsustainable but it seems that it can go on for sometime unless we hasten its demise. I honestly do not think that we have any support from any major institution in the country not even the military or police forces.

    • nathanjevans – I would not even discount Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses from potential recruitment. If somebody accepts the transcendent, he can see the flaws in Modernity. Theological correctness can be worked out once the person is a reactionary. Getting them to that place first is key, because there really is no going back once there. Once you see, you cannot descend into blindness again.

      What is more important perhaps, is those who are ‘socially conservative’ in their religious/moral opinions, for THESE are the people who will be increasingly marginalized and persecuted in our society. Just look at how Christians have been made second class citizens in the face of the Sodomite movement.

      He who is lashed the hardest has a sympathetic ear for the traveler that tells him the whip hand is illegitimate.

      • I agree to some extent. My point in that regard was that Evangelicals are very susceptible to the reactionary message, perhaps even the most susceptible of any religious group. As you point out, the increasing marginalization of even moderate social conservative views, which Evangelicals are still relatively united on (despite the increasing leftism of Evangelical youth), is a great wedge for recruiting them into Reaction. From there, adopting more traditional views of Christianity is almost inevitable. For certain, this is how I went from being an ordinary libertarian-leaning Evangelical conservative to flaming reactionary.

      • nathanjevans – I think you and I share some commonality. It was the radical social changes I observed in the West that turned me to Reaction, especially as they contradicted with greater and greater hubris, the will of God.

        One can only watch so many videos of FEMEN activists, baby-killers, and sodomites, abusing priests in various countries with vile threats, sacrilegious messages, physical assault, and in one case hurling human feces.
        There comes a time when you see this and you make a choice between justice that seems obvious, and the logical out-workings of classical liberalism. Justice is a FAR greater ideal, and so I needed an ideology that would promote a justice system in which such detritus would face the deserved punishment for their crimes. This was my proverbial ‘toe in the water’ of the Reactionary lake… falling in face first was inevitable after that, since one thing logically follows another. I’m not an elder or even well-versed on the subject yet, but I learn more as I go and refine my own views.

      • If somebody accepts the transcendent, he can see the flaws in Modernity.

        This seems too reductionist to form the basis of any kind of common action.

      • It is not intended to form the basis of common action per se, but is a general rule that those who observe the higher world, the superior world beyond the senses, will see error in any society that is oriented away from such a force.

        What will actually determine a person’s reactionary potential is how radical this critique is, and what solution is presented to address the problem. Belief in the transcendent is the wide entryway to the reactionary mindset. That’s not to say ascending the staircase inside is easy or easily accessible to all. There, we get into a more intricate set of variables.

  9. Pingback: How to Become an American Traditionalist, Part Four: Revelation and Repentance | The Orthosphere

  10. Pingback: How to Become an American Traditionalist, Part Five: Knowing About God | The Orthosphere

  11. Pingback: How to Become an American Traditionalist, Part Six: Other Authorities | The Orthosphere



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