Against nostalgia as politics

I recently watched Unherd’s entire interview with Renaud Camus (an advocate for remigration and the person known to have coined the term ‘Great replacement’). Because I am critical of the sheer numbers and failed integration processes on our current immigration policies, I thought I would watch the entire interview with a relatively open mind. And so I did. And my conclusion: this branch of RW populism is driven by nostalgia and not politics is any legitimate sense (I would even go so far to say it’s not genuinely driven by racial thinking, but also just by nostalgia, which the left nor aspects of the right won’t like to hear).

Why do I say this? Let’s first get into the contemporary figures of this sort of remigration thinking. Renaud Camus is gay. He used to literally be a gay novelist. According to Wikipedia, he was even disinherited by his parents for his gayness. Leader of the German AFD party (the party also sympathetic to remigration) Alice Weidel, is a lesbian, even married to an Asian lady. It has become a personal enjoyment of mine to inform people of these contradictions, especially leftists, who wish to believe that the leaders of these parties are muscular white men. (this is probably a sexual fantasy of theirs as much as a genuine false assumption — given how much those on the left have developed such a strong tendency to repress what is clearly a strong libidinal attraction to muscular white men; a theory of mine verified constantly by those awful Marvel films ).

Leaving aside the political sexualities of our times, we could go somewhat further in this direction of analysis. Meloni and Le pen (also the closest advocates for remigration in their respective countries) are the daughters of older right wing politicians. Prior to the cultural movements of 1968, a daughter inheriting a political party or project would have been unacceptable. As women, they have inherited as much opportunities and rewards from the post-war period as anyone else; one of those rewards has been the honour of being known as the greatest racists of our time, which used to be a category fulfilled by men. Ultimately, the very idea of gay writers or the daughter of affluent politicians calling for remigration to save the West, is an exclusively post-war phenomena. The entire political landscape, even in its reactionary forms, is a pure product of the 68’ imaginary.

One can say something similar about the Anglosphere, which is often less likely to outright call for remigration, but still embraces zionism, which for all intensive purposes preforms the same function. A rather unthoughtful demand to ‘save the west’. The Anglosphere’s zionism is basically driven by a similar contradiction. Islam stands for a barbaric, unenlightened threat to liberalism. Israel becomes its defenders. Israel of course, is known for being a haven for the gay community. Who would have known the thing that could bring together the far left and far right would end up being a dichotomy of gayness vs barbarism. Save our gayness = save the West. The far left and far right as political and sometimes literal frontiersmen (and women) protecting us against supposed theological barbarity.

In reality, the ancestors of our beloved ‘western civilisation’ might be so horrified by the sort of society that emerged in the 68’ epoch that they’d almost wish for it to all be destroyed. After all, what exactly are we defending here? Gay novels, day time television and pop music? In truth, as I recently pointed out on twitter. There is no acceptable culture for integration of immigrants, nor is there anything worthwhile (in the very immediate sense) to defend.

This isn’t a call for cynicism or nihilism. There is something to defend: a future. But that future is totally blocked by the ideological imaginary of whatever remains of the 68’ imaginary, which is now taking the most surprisingly contradictory forms. Referring back to this interview with Renaud Camus on Unherd, as Freddie Sayers(the host) tried to ask some basic questions concerning the practical implementation of remigration (who would be subject to it, based on what, what makes a person viable to stay? Race, willingness to integrate, how many generations of settled people would be subject to it. What about somebody with a native French father and an African mother ect.?)

At no point did Camus answer any of these questions to the most minimally adequate degree. This tells me that these people are not serious statesmen (agree with them or not). They are nostalgics. They want the world that existed between 68’ and 2010 — perhaps for some justified reasons — but they won’t take their head out of that comfortable nest of nostalgia for long enough to actually create a vision of a future society in which the immigration policies are able to stand up to the most minimal questioning.

There is a similar trend of creating defensive nostalgia against some external intruder that ruined the very narrow civilisational identification of the post-war period. It exemplifies a view of ‘western civilisation’ that in fact simply means, the 68’ imaginary. This is what daughters of affluent right wing politicians and gays (whether that be Douglas Murray, Alice Weidel or Meloni) have in common. Their entire political subjectivity is limited to post 68’. Generally speaking, only straight men identify Western civilisation with something prior to 68’ or 46’: ancient Greece or Rome, middle ages, early modern period, 19th century ect. (remember that meme about how often men think about Rome)

We live in this strange time when the centre and the left constantly warn us that ruthless fascists (usually led by gays or women) are manipulating us into doing anything necessary in order to save the most liberal epoch in human history. There is some marginal truth to this, however. RW populists are increasingly asking us to thoughtlessly undermine the legal and moral power of citizenship in order to make sure gay novels stack the shelves of local book stores and loud, drunken, scantly dressed women can saunter around high streets on weekends. I don’t have some great dislike for a few gay novels and drunken women, but nor would I lift a finger to ‘defend’ it in some great eschatological battle for ‘western civilisation’. In truth these gay writers and affluent daughters are simply marginal, even boring, possibly even decadent, minor characterises of an exhausted, depressive and sometimes senile Western civilisation. At no point is some core spirit or way or life, or political structure that truly defines western civilisation even acknowledged; likely because these populists have as little knowledge of their own civilisation as fresh off the boat immigrants do. Again — do not misunderstand me. I am not a post-modernist. I don’t think ‘there is no essential core or essence to a civilisation’. I simply think that anyone trying to find that within the narrow window of the 68’ imaginary, is an idiot.

These contradictions are not so mysterious to everyone. The French writer Olivier Roy has pointed out many of these contradictions already. RW populists are an expression of post-war liberal culture and society. It’s only catholic and orthodox Christians that are truly representative of anything outside of that imaginary(in whatever limited way they attempt that). In fact, Olivier sort of points to a tension between these two groups. Coming from the hyper secular France, he notices how anti-Islamic calls for more secularisation (banning of religious iconography and dress in public ect.) always ends up eventually being turned on Christians. In fact, he indicates that Christians would want to learn a bit more respect for the presence of Islam in the West because they are ultimately in the same boat when it comes to trying to avoid drowning in the sea of secular society—not to mention drowning in the mundanity of ‘cultural identity’ which is reduced to what clothes you wear or food you eat.; what could be called ‘tourist friendly culture’.

Although, as I have lived in London for a number of years, I should point out that the English liberal mentality isn’t much better. The reduction of faith to a matter of personal preference — as an expression of individual human rights — also tends to de-substantialise the collective nature of religion. Yes you are allowed to wear a head scarf to work if you are a Muslim in London. But any discussion of the first principles of faith or God are totally unacceptable. These radical concerns at the heart of faith, are framed as imposing your view onto others (breaking the liberal moral code); of asserting a dogma over the impartial rational mind of the glorified liberal subject.

We saw this most obvious when recently an English Catholic woman was brought to court over the crime of silently praying outside an abortion clinic. The level of privatisation (not imposing beliefs onto others) is a liberal moral code that is stretched so far that it can be wielded to totally shut down any display of faith whatsoever, this time even the silent prayer of one’s mind. The truth is that after years of high levels of Islam in Europe and the suspicion of the not-yet-enlightened-secular person that suspicion towards Islam has conjured up, has made it a lot less offensive to act in an authoritarian way towards religious practice. In the past, a woman praying outside an abortion clinic would be seen as harmless and totally inappropriate to shut down. But the suspicion towards religion as some great threat to ‘western civilisation’ that has built up over the past few decades, now means that many western people are more likely to assume the Catholic lady praying in her head is ‘imposing’ herself on others, rather than the state imposing itself on the right to express one’s religious beliefs.

This is why this obsession with female circumcision suddenly emerged within the media about ten years ago. The nostalgic-state must constantly propose examples of religiosity as something violent and horrific in order to explain away why the post-war secular society is in such a state of collapse.

The truth to this collapse is much more complex than immigration (notwithstanding I do agree the immigration policies as they stand are morally and practically irresponsible and destructive). An epoch of neo-liberalism that was built on the assumption that ‘there is no society’ — which means there is no culture — can hardly get mad when new arrivals fail to integrate into something the society had already claimed doesn’t exist. This contradiction is exploding in the face of us Westerners, and it is making it very difficult to really do anything about the immigration policies, given the corner we have already backed ourselves into.

The irony — again pointed out by Olivier Roy — is that the religiosity of the third world is going to inevitably change the character of the West with all its recent arrivals from the third world. One can complain this is a bad thing. Yet, religiosity is something that is at the heart of creating a culture and society. In this sense, the immigrants themselves (or at least those less subject to the conditioning of individualism and secularism) are in abetter position to create a new culture (we could even say a new post-68’ imaginary) than the locals, who seem to think culture and civilisation is synonymous with gay bars and cuisine .

The obvious problem with Islam is that it could never be an acceptable universal for Europe. It would have to be either Christian or a new rejuvenated form of secularism. Understandably, the idea the Islam might try fill this role, is a catastrophe wating to happen. But that still doens’t justify anti-Islamic sentiments, because the void must be filled.

This is the problem with nostalgics. They are willing to turn authoritarian in order to avoid the task of actually creating a new vision and new culture that could act a suitable point of integration (and stick to immigration policies that are conducive to it). This seems far beyond the capacity of these nostalgics for many reasons. Yet, they wish to posture themselves as defenders of a great culture that has already been emptied, much like the North Korean police protect supermarkets filled with empty shelves.