Wherever an Altar is Found...

“Wherever an altar is found, there one finds civilisation.”

Joseph de Maistre, Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, Second Dialogue (1821)

Maistre's infamous quotation echoes through most reactionary Catholic spheres like the voice of God through the clouds. Countless philosophers have recognised the importance of Christian worship, and even those who believed that the downfall of Christianity was necessary or inevitable, such as Nietzsche, expressed concern about the downfall of religion in the West. In declaring that Gott ist tot, Western philosophy came to the realisation that so too was the most powerful expression of will that had driven European civilisation for centuries. It was manifestly obvious that the abandonment of the altar would remove that Divine Spark, which, whether you believed in all orthodox Christian doctrines or not, an appreciation of which drove individuals and communities onto great feats of labour, intellectual development, and greatness. 

Kant's solution was to find an alternative way to justify Christian ethics. Modern deontologists indeed now like to pin the root of morality in a plurality of various abstractions: justice, freedom, duty et cetera, concepts known as much to God as to Man. The rational root of order seemed acceptable, but only until other rationalists, such as Bentham and the utilitarians, began to posit that reason could just as easily be used to defend hedonism. Benthamite utilitarianism involves the throwing out of all methods of ethics besides universal happiness, a problematic term in itself. Nietzsche on the other hand tried to carry forward some of the atheistic principles of philosophers such as Schopenhauer, exhorting his readers to not merely overcome their instincts, but their very humanity. This too is problematic - it would be dangerous to claim that mankind has the ability to play God himself, as has been the warning of the Church for centuries, and indeed, to overcome oneself and become the Superman that Nietzsche envisaged, will either lead to delusions of false grandeur, or as in Nietzsche's own tragic but telling case, complete and utter insanity. There is therefore no perfect solution to the problem of moral order outside of the Church, and so we must turn back to Maistre's little gobbet.

Most ultraconservatives accept that for them, politics is like religion: it is a matter of dogmatics, not a matter of opinion or speculation. Ultimately, history has proven that dogmatics make for far more acceptable and stable grounds for the furtherance of societal order and progress. A degree of freedom, or as the Church has often called it, economy, may be permitted within the grounds of a dogmatic legal code, but total freedom can only lead to destabilisation, as we are seeing in contemporary Europe and North America. As Europeans turned away from the altar, they lost that which bound them together. If you ask a priest of any major liturgical Church why sacraments such as Mass, Confession, Unction et cetera are so important, he will probably say, amongst other things, that "it brings us [the faithful] together, sharing the one thing that we all have in common." When a Catholic goes to receive communion in the Holy Eucharist, he believes that he is receiving the precious body and blood of Jesus Christ. That is a monumental feat of belief, and the Church ensures that all who believe are properly treated, and receive the proper sacraments. It is the sacraments of the Church which, through this binding instrument of superhuman faith in itself, link each member of the faithful to the next. The philosophers described above were trying to rationalise a mystery. The morality of Christianity may indeed be rational when reflected upon, but its universality depends on the mystery of our human need for God, which we see most perfectly when kneeling at the altar. Walk away from the altar as these philosophers did, and the binding is loosed; no wonder then that moral relativism has become so popular in our time - what is left to hold us together in brotherly embrace?

If one looks at many of the Protestant Churches of the contemporary West, we can see that they have abandoned the altar in its truest form. The Anglican Church, for instance, has always tried to please both the Catholic and mainstream Protestant ('High' and 'Low' Church) factions within its midst. Nowhere within an Anglican Eucharist is a metaphysical transformation stated to be taking place, and upon receiving communion, the congregant is greeted with the ambiguous phrase "May the body and blood of Christ bless you, always." Anglicans also practice open communion - one need not even technically be a Christian to receive the sacraments, or at least, no one will ask, and no one will know. Such lapse respect for the mysteries of God has led to the state that Anglicanism is in now, with relatively few congregants, of whom most are Christians for Sunday morning only, and a primate who believes in "a radical new inclusion" following the Church of England Synod's rejection of the definition of marriage.

When we speak of mysteries, we speak of the unrevealed knowledge which only God can reveal to Man, and which Man as-yet has not been able to understand. God has graced us with enough knowledge to offer Him rightful and pleasing worship, offerings in the form of light (such as from candles) and the communion bread and wine placed upon the altar. It is not the place of the Church to pat the heads of sinners and the faithless who feel as though they are not 'included' and welcome them as though their behaviour is openly encouraged - such a path has led the Christian Churches of the world to all kinds of iniquity (a mystery itself, cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:7), and now, this liberal theology is beginning to work its way into the Catholic Church; Vatican II made this very clear when it concluded:

“[Muslims] adore the one God, living and subsisting in himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to humans. They take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even God's inscrutable decrees.” (Source)

In reality, of course, Muslims do no such thing. For one thing, there is very little if any concept in Islam of God embodying the concept of love, forgiveness is by no means a given, and the Muslim deity certainly does not withhold his judgement upon the unfaithful in order to give them time to repent. Free will is by no means a gift from God according to Islam, and whilst the power of God is very real in both Christianity and Islam, Muslim scholars have tended to fall down in favour of eliminating enquiry into the nature of the Divine, unlike Christianity, which has a rich history of natural theology and apologetics. We do not worship the same God, and yet liberal theologians would have us think so, in order to help bring about this strange, homogenous world where everyone worships a bit of everything in some sort of spoilt broth of multicultural spirituality. Ah yes, and there is one other thing - Islam utilises no altars, no liturgy. Its only binding power comes from the potential wrath of the divinity. 

In short, Catholics cannot afford to lose the altar, by which we also mean the liturgical sacraments which make our faith so special, and set it apart from other religious faiths, even other forms of Christianity. By nature of the fact that we guard the altar against the profane and the lies of those who would harm its sanctity, we also guard our civilisation. The altar binds individual brothers into a community, and it is within these firm communities, united by faith and participation in the rites instituted of the Divine, that civilisation can thrive. The problems of modernity seem to arise ultimately from a lack of binding spirit. My neighbour shares nothing with me - he: atheist, those around him: a mix of all things, Christian, Muslim, and what have you.

So for now, there is no central will, no Divine Spark which all in society may share in any longer in our multicultural, secular world. Thus, there is no civilisation there anymore. 

An altar, why, there civilisation—is!

Concerning Identities and Identitarians

"Identity politics" has become such a dirty phrase that it is almost impossible to use it without hearing some righteous neocon vomit an embarrassing apology for equality and 'Western values' - whatever those are of course, it has become so hard to tell in the past fifty to a hundred years over which we appear to have misplaced them. According to mainstream conservatism, identity is not something with which we ought to be concerned. Special treatment of identity-based groups is certainly not something which the average conservative particularly considers expedient. It is precisely because modern 'centre-right' conservatism has abandoned its own identity, however, that it has failed, and morphed into what is now often called 'cuckservatism' in the contemporary ortho/reactosphere.

The contemporary centre-right goes part of the way towards a meaningful critique of the left, but stops jarringly short. Skeptics and classical libs love to bash what they call psuedo- or neo-progressivism, whilst at the same time peddling the idea that it is because we all deserve to be treated equally that the left has it wrong. What they don't seem to realise is that by constructing this argument, they have failed to refute the groundwork upon which leftist identity politics is built - their own beloved doctrine of equality. The right traditionally had its own identity politics, and indeed, some form of identitarianism is natural. We all have an identity, even those who refuse to admit that personal identities are crucial. The author here identifies first as a Catholic, a Traditionalist Catholic at that, and afterwards, a husband, an intellectual by turns and conservative revolutionary. It is because of personal identity that civilisational groups, and the subgroups which are divided into race, nation, culture et cetera, arise fairly organically. It is a natural human instinct to seek identity. When skeptics attack identity therefore, they attack the values of their own civilisation, the very thing they claim to love. What they fail to realise is that the problem with the left is not that they embrace identity politics, but that the identities which they do adopt are fanciful, contrived, empty at heart and generally harmful towards stable society. 

Stable identities are those which the right used to preserve. Religious identity was arguably the most important, and this is why most religious traditionalists put their faith first - without a spiritual path, there is realistically very little willpower beyond one's own egoistic desires to inspire one's actions. If one identifies with the people of their nation, specifically, those with whom one shares blood, homeland, history and ancestors, then we can tap into something which moves beyond ourselves. We find increasingly that the success of past civilisations and individual nations rested upon a kind of transcendental attitude towards teleology. Religion helped with this, but an alliance with tradition itself was seen as essential for the survival of a prosperous and healthy community of co-dwellers. Even the socialists of the 1960s did not usually disagree with this. If you had told a socialist of that era that in 2018 much of Europe would be subject to a multicultural crisis (which of course is a major threat to tradition), they would have called you misguided or even insane. Even after Powell first criticised what he rightly perceived as the pernicious effects of extra-civilisational migration, some of the most prominent figures of the 'moderate right' and left regretted his treatment at the hands of his detractors. One historian of the British Conservative Party writes:

“...years later he was defended, by both Edward Heath and the Labour leader Michael Foot, the former remarking that the “economic burden of immigration [had been] not without prescience”, and the latter calling it "tragic" that Powell had been misunderstood, when he had used the Virgil quote to emphasise his own personal sense of foreboding.”

But such is the way that the dissenter is treated, and today it is even worse than in Powell's. Identifying with tradition, religion and eternal connexion with that divine sense of continuity is no laughing matter. It is easy to hear the croaking chorus of amusement coming from the left when identity is described in such terms, but such laughter comes more likely from jealousy than from genuine scorn. What identity does the left offer? A strange, a priori thesis, a factless set of identities, grounded in nothing but lewd imagination. Do you feel troubled by your genitalia? Well, that's fine, because you can claim to be of the other gender, or indeed, of neither. Allow this poor young child (Deus, miserere illi) to explain the mindset to you at 0:53:

If you were able to watch that without feeling sick in the pit of your stomach, you will have seen that leftist identity is rooted not in the soul, or the eternal, but in the self. "I think that anyone can do what they want in life, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks." Hang morality, hang anyone else but me, for if I am an eight-year-old drag queen, here I stand. It is hardly the noblest of sights, is it? Sadly, in the above video, we think that it is this poor boy's parents who need replacing. 

If it isn't quite this bad, then identity is revolved by the left towards the self in other ways. Modern feminism turns female identity away from traditional feminine values, and characteristic strengths of female virtue, and encourages more quasi-manliness, more delusions of control, and subversion of the organic state of nature. Men are expected to be cowed into accepting this, because male identity might as well be defined as loosely and psychotically as the poor child's identity in the video above. Joseph de Maistre II has met several women who claim to be 'genderfluid', but nevertheless still seek to retain their feminist identity. When challenged over the fact that they no longer identified as women at all, they tended to resort to feigning upset, and abandoned rational debate. The left offers no identity for its acolytes at all, and instead keeps them in a state of overgrown childhood, defined by imagination and fantasy rather than legitimate identity. If such children, metaphorical or literal, grow into the next generation of adults without waking up from this existential nightmare, there will be only a weak and withered skeleton of a civilisation left in the West, having forgotten everything from both its history and character that set it apart from other civilisational traditions.

Attempts have been made in the New Right to revive interest in right-wing identity. The identitarian movements in Europe and America often identify many respectable traits from traditional European stock which every caring European conservationist ought to care about. The problem with identitarianism is that its solutions are often weak. One major concern that many traditionalists have with the high-profile, "capital letter" Alt-Right and its allies/spin-offs in Identitarianism peddled by the likes of Richard Spencer and his disciples is that these movements fail to identify the wider traditions, both spiritual and civilisational, that define our peoples both at home and abroad. If we are to find a solution, it must define its identity in terms far more meaningful than merely political ends.

This is where fears about the Alt-Right often manifest. Spencer may have read Julius Evola, but does he really realise the consequences of subscribing to the spiritual value of civilisational tradition? What happens if civil war was to come tomorrow? What happens if the left wins? Where do we go, where is our home? Some of us can't even turn to God anymore, and that, friends, is the real tragedy of our time. 

Of Popes and Catholic Churches

The Roman Catholic Church, like all institutions dominated by humans, is not perfect. It nevertheless remains the cradle of European civilisation, the teat from which the nations of Europe were nursed. If you are a Catholic, then you believe that your Church, however flawed at the hands of Men it might have become, was instituted of Christ and entrusted to Peter's safekeeping. For many, this is enough to bind their faith forever, but Catholicism is a complicated creature. Like any corporate entity, made up of so many constituent parts, it is very easy to incorrectly define it in terms of one part of the whole. Such is a common fallacy, when we posit that P = Q when in fact P + R + P1 et al. = Q. Generalisations are inevitable, but it is hard to miss noticing that many on the New Right, Alt-Right and wider reactionary orthosphere are Traditionalist Catholics. It's not an unusual phenomenon, since Catholicism has been embraced by those reacting against the excesses of the left since at least the time of the French Revolution (cf. the historical Joseph de Maistre, or Adam Mueller). The accusation that the European and American New Right is anti-Christian in some way is blatantly untrue [a caveat: the linked video is very poor in many ways, but nonetheless sums up the mainstream conservative perception of the New Right well], although we at Reflections have some interesting ideas about the many neopagans and heathens who flock to white nationalism - a story for another time. For now though, we focus on Catholicism, a defence, and an admonition. 

Standing around shouting Deus vult in the face of leftists doesn't get us very far at all. Terms like that have legitimate uses and legitimate power in the right situations, but before continuing it is important to point out that religion stands separately from, but nevertheless interested in, politics. It is wrong, and in fact quite vacuous to use traditional religion as a cover for controversial viewpoints. Religion can lead to such viewpoints of course, but if you shout Deus vult at the end of every speech, but fail to appreciate Catholicism in anything other than a superficial way, it would probably be better for all involved if you spent some more time with your Confessor, and at the Eucharist. Religion remains a mystery which only the complex discipline theology and a few blessed mystics have come close to understanding. Yet, however much time we may spend reflecting and seeking the knowledge of the Divine, the real problems with Traditionalist Catholicism remain. This brief essay will be dedicated to working through the major problems that Traditionalist Catholics face today, particularly with regard to politics and liberal theology, Papal authority, and the war of attrition against Christ's people. 

Traditionalist Catholicism has great appeal precisely because it is one of the few quasi-successful conservative projects to have survived within a pan-national institution. Vatican II, and the reforms which have kept following in its wake did change the character of the Catholic Church forever, and in many unhelpful and nonsensical ways. It is contentious that claim that the Council's intentions were heretical, but its consequences certainly normalised a number of clearly heretical practices. The Church had always exercised a degree of economy in its teachings in order to allow for awkward or mundane situations which fell outside the black-and-white prescriptions of Canon Law. One only needs to look at the history of medieval convents and monasteries, and the various chapters and brotherhoods that grew up in Europe to see evidence of real Christian tolerance; event Saint Francis was considered by some to be a heretic, but nay, the Church claimed him, because he was clearly a man deeply touched by Divine Compassion. Despite Vatican II, however, many clergy and laymen remain dedicated to traditional doctrine, and many churches still offer a Tridentine Mass at least every so often, whilst some fewer still offer it exclusively, albeit in private and somewhat surreptitious circumstances. So long as there are Catholics, there will remain Traditionalists who will not let the ancient and perfected doctrines and liturgies of our Church fall into the hands of neglect so easily. That at least should give Trad Catholics hope. 

It was the Protestant liberal theology of the late 19th and early 20th century that set the ball rolling with regard to corruption of traditional doctrine, although the capitalisation upon this by the neo-Marxist left in the 20th century accelerated doctrinal decline in most of Europe. If you look at the statistics today, secularisation in Europe has meant that the majority of Roman Catholics are now concentrated in the Southern Hemisphere (God save them!) and the religious gap seems only set to widen. 'Spirituality' is on the increase at the expense of Christianity, so Traditionalist Catholicism seems a natural retreat for those who seek the truth behind European civilisation's past successes. It has many truths to offer, but it is naturally, due to its more mystical theology and stubborn orthodoxy, a counter-cultural religious movement, and successive Catholic administrations have proven that counter-culture is increasingly becoming something which successive Popes would rather condemn and distance themselves from, rather than stand firm maintain the doctrines which the Christ-hating left spits upon. 

Trad Catholics tend to value some sort of ultramontanism, or Papal authority, even infallibility. All Catholics are obliged to have tremendous respect for their Pope. His Holiness Francis is obviously a sincere man, but the endless pressure which appears to be placed on him by liberal Catholics and shady figures wishing to destroy our Church from within is clearly taking its toll. His recent comment that "it is communists who think like Christians" provoked some laughter in the author. His own ideological priorities in leading the Catholic Church appear to have been already decided for him - but what is to be done by the Trads, who at once respect the Pope, but cannot abide the destruction of our doctrine via liberal-Marxist corruption? 

Some have found a solution by claiming that modern Popes have no authority. Some have appealed to alternative Popes. These options are clearly not viable for the majority, and the legacy of the past fifty or so years is not going to be rolled back any time soon. The present times show us reasons to be sceptical about Papal infallibility. Ultimately the Pope is a man, subject to as much corruption as any human, and whilst he may have been afforded his position through grace, and through love of God, it is just as possible for evil forces to influence the Holy See, as history teaches us, as it is for good. It is not healthy to speculate about the plan of the Divine without firm evidence, but oftentimes, the tests of God prove even too much for the most holy among us. The best option in the first instance is to raise awareness of those forces who influence our Church and its leaders, the metapolitical Marxists, the Soros lobby etc. Their reasons for trying to destroy Christianity have little to do with justice or liberty - if they cared about such things, they would truly believe in God - their path is one of destruction and the end of of virtue, the only medium for the responsible use of power.

Having had many conversations with Catholics of various persuasions over the years, Reflections' author, de Maistre II, has some idea of the internal debates that frequently arise. When same-sex marriage was brought onto the statute books in the United Kingdom a few years ago, conservative Christians voiced objections, of course accompanied by the chorus of homophobe-crying accusators that is to be expected. Many 'liberal' Catholics expressed support for same-sex marriage. This term 'liberal Catholic' is a curious one. For one thing, it doesn't appear to mean anything tangible at all, it is a loose term bandied around which sometimes can refer to mainstream Catholicism, and at other times, to liberal political activism within the Catholic Church. You get some Catholics who say strange things like "I oppose abortion, but wouldn't force anyone to be subjected to my view", which is obviously a grave moral contradiction in itself - if you don't support the right to murder, why would it be right to sit back an allow abortions to take place, even if you considered them morally abominable? Such people wouldn't let other murders go uninvestigated or unpunished after all. It  makes little sense, but this is one expression of liberal Catholicism. Another sort is simply the abandonment of doctrine, the Christians who would rather have Catholics imitate the numerous liberal Protestants who have given up on tradition, who bleat with a syrupy sickliness: "the Church should accept gay marriage; should accept abortion; should accept and love all." Most such people have thought about theology for about five minutes and decided that the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ gives them the right to absolve everyone of every sin, however tragic or destructive. Such views are dangerous, and are not so much liberal Catholic, as un-Catholic. Just look at all the supposed 'good' that comes from accepting these sorts of changes.

Liberalism is leaning on the Church, it has been for some time, and the Church is starting to give way, with only the relatively small number of concerned Trads trying to seal the cracks with concrete defences. Trad Catholics appreciate tradition not because they are grumpy and obstinate, but because it was Trad Catholicism which saw Europe through its golden age. Being a TC does not involve a complete rejection of individual rights or a surrender of all agency to Papal authority. It means tapping into the timeless teachings of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as manifest in Church tradition, Patristic tradition, and ultimately the numerous revelations of God. Attempts to drag Catholicism towards a neo-Marxist agenda is no Catholicism at all. TCs needn't be worried about themselves too much, because they will always have a support network in the form of their sympathisers and Trad brothers. In order to combat the potential destruction of this age-old institution of ours, there needs to be a concentrated force of action centred around changing the attitudes of mainstream Catholicism, and demonstrating to our leaders that a break with tradition means a break with God.

It may be a long shot, but such a move is the only future for the Church as it stands. Perhaps we need a figure such as the Young Pope (which, by the way, despite initial fears, proved to be a welcome artistic break from the received view of Trad Catholics, and presented a conservative Pope for once in a vaguely sympathetic and human way). Or, perhaps we need to take Catholicism elsewhere. Only time will tell - for now, we must guard our hearts, and remember to never give up in the pursuit of truth, spiritual and temporal.

Keep an eye on that smile - who knows who pulls the strings for it.

Concerning Fashwave

Some will be aware of the art of the contemporary far-right which has grown up out of a reaction against the aesthetic culture of our times. The so-called 'fashwave' movement or 'art right', features those images which are often found on YouTube thumbnails of alt-right vloggers, usually consisting of a combination of traditional images, either Greco-Roman or neoclassical sculpture, combined with surrealist vaporwave landscapes and cityscapes, wistfully presenting a kind of postmodern dream of a futuristic golden age with its roots firmly in ordered tradition. Some of these works have appeal, and some are blatant attempts to provoke reaction from the left, and indeed, react is exactly what the left has done. Red Ice TV undertook a good review of the phenomenon and the reactions to it themselves, but wanting to offer a slightly nuanced perspective, Reflections could not afford to overlook this new wave of 'youth art'.

Something ought to be made clear. Fashwave artists are not going to be the next da Vincis, but that is not their intention. When modern youth is fed such an endless diet of emptiness and pseudo-expression every single day through the medium of popular culture and modernist, 'conceptual art', it has been about time for a proper response by those who are disgusted by it, not least those at the forefront of this mass aesthetic re-education. In order to properly understand where fashwave has come from and what it seeks to achieve, it is only right to first consider what art itself is, whether it has a purpose beyond individualistic expression, and perhaps most importantly, whether or not fashwave itself could be classed as art.

Art is a form of self-expression. This is true, because if we look at artists throughout history, from the earliest cave paintings even to the present vacuous knick-knacks of modern art, there is some form of self-expression involved. But self-expression is not something which is solely limited to 'I, myself'; self-expression moves beyond the personal desires of the individual. For a wonderful defence of the true meaning of art, see the work of the philosopher Roger Scruton, who defines art in terms of that long-forgotten term, 'beauty'. Beauty itself is a complex word, and looking at the work of, say Francis Bacon demonstrates that respectable art does not always conform to conventional beauty; Bacon's beauty is not, for instance, on the same level of beauty as Botticelli's Birth of Venus. So what then is it which makes Bacon's Study after Velasquez beautiful when compared with Lawrence Weiner's Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole? Or Tracey Emin's My Bed?

Looking at Bacon's work speaks to us without words. We see a Pope, a figure of authority and holiness, as if chained to his seat, bound by the straight lines which vertically strike through the canvas, like bars of a cage. The face is one of torment, obscured by the bars, contorted into an expression of immense pain and suffering. Looking at Bacon's Study exhorts us almost to reach out and set free this poor soul from its torment. We are reminded, amongst the regal-coloured garments of purple, that even those in the highest of authority are humans, still subject to the same indecision, pain and troubles of life that all the rest of us face. There is something beautiful about it, however terrifying the image, to look into the eyes of the screaming Pope and contemplate what it tells us about ourselves. Through creating the art, Bacon has expressed himself by showing us that he considers the suffering of the human race to be important, but he has gone beyond himself, tapping into raw emotion which all of us can feel, and dragging such an important figure down to the level that all of us at some point in our lives will reach.

Consider now Weiner's offering. All we are faced with is a wall, upon which is printed a statement. We are neither disgusted nor awed by it, and merely read what it says. It is not even a thoughtful statement, and it encourages in the reader no discussion. There is no argument to Weiner's work, there are just words put together. Weiner and his supportive critics would no doubt argue that this is precisely the point - "to challenge what we consider to be an argument", or some such vacuous abstraction. Such sophisms are merely covers to the fact that creating them work took no skill, no self-expression beyond the artist's plucking of words out of his mind. Emin's My Bed is no better. We are presented with a mundane article, strewn with used condoms and dirty clothes. The bed itself tells us nothing other than that Emin has herself slept in it, that she is obviously an unkempt individual, and seems to allow for the collection of filth in her own home. She herself admitted that it is only art "because I say that it is." Here embodied is that individualistic and utilitarian fallacy which has corrupted the art world. Connecting with higher existence, with universal emotion, with humanity, has been thrown out of the window. There is no sense of the divine or the timeless or even reality. There is only me, myself and I; my pleasures, my life, my personal neuroses, and everyone else can go to Hell if they don't like it. It is the art of the selfish, the art of the self-rejecting, uncaring and narcissistic human.

What does this have to do with fashwave? Modern art has no merit, and much fashwave art is simply a reworking or hashed edit of older, classical art with some kind of retro-futurist filter. Perhaps that is what lies in the mindset of the art rightists. Perhaps, being children of the modern age, they yearn for what is past. Some, such as those at Red Ice, have attempted to justify some of the stranger pieces featuring images of Hitler and Swastikas against post-industrial backgrounds by saying that they were merely made "to piss off the left." This is not necessarily convincing. There are obviously going to be genuine neo-Nazis in amongst these artists, just as there are obviously going to be those who merely adopt the fashwave label to legitimately troll the left. Either way, the telos of their art is the same: to bring tradition back to the forefront of the artistic mind. Fashwave art is not in itself very impressive, it is culturally important, however, because it is a child of a time when art did have meaning.

Greco-Roman art, and its child, neoclassicism, valued the human form. Perfection, beauty, strength and achievement - values not just for the individual to aspire to, but for all. In that sense these things which supposed 'fascists' value is in fact the truest form of art: self-expression and a communal human connexion. It was a way of showing humans that, as creations of God, they too could achieve the highest of things if they could overcome or at least suppress their fallen nature. At the very least, it is no worse than the modern art which leftists croon over. Fashwave may not be especially original, but at least it is ramming the true purpose of old art into the face of those who have destroyed that same purpose.

Amen!

Finding Our Feet in a Groundless Age

Our present age is constantly asking questions, and the present establishment has found itself without the tools to provide answers. When such answers are attempted, they amount to nothing but half-formed abstractions and shallow doctrines, rooted supposedly in reason and liberty but which in reality find a home in the passing pleasures and fancies of an intellectual fantasy. Perhaps you have no coherent identity? Perhaps you had one and lost it? It's alright, because the present age can offer you a new one for free, by allowing yourself to be defined by your job, your sexuality, your physical appearance, or just about anything which surrounds your own personal needs and neglects viewing the wider context of a civilisation. When the loosely-tied mask of your new persona inevitably slips off, you can quite easily find another one, and the solutions to the problems of life suddenly appear all the more easy to fulfil: simply repeat the process of wearing your free, culturally contrived mask until it falls off, before finding another, until eventually your short flash-in-the-pan of eternity which we call human existence disappears down the drainpipe of history. 

Most people will continue to seek new masks, because the mask-sellers are everywhere to be found, and looking beyond the market square of Western life is a dangerous pursuit; there are no merchants to be found there, only the dogged and the persistent who have the confidence to seek their own path and fend for themselves. It is not safe out there. However, those beyond the market stall can see what those wearing the masks cannot: obscured by the limited vision afforded by their personae, the majority cannot see that their entire world, the market square of modernity, is resting on increasingly shaky ground. Beneath their feet lies a pane of glass which is beginning to weaken and crack with every passing moment that it bears the weight of this crisis of individualism. It would not be such a bad thing if there was solid ground beneath the glass - but there is not. Those of us who stand outside, where the ground is rough but firmer, point and shout, trying to warn the grand masquerade of their impending doom, for there is little else but oblivion beyond the glass. They laugh, and invite us to wear a mask as well, oblivious of the danger. The glass is sure to shatter soon, and when it does there is little hope for those who still rely upon it for support. We live in a groundless age where the majority of individuals know not that it is by sheer luck that they are still floating. 

 Reflections on the Revolution in Europe is dedicated to exploring the reasons why this situation has come about. As any astute reader will realise from the title, it is primarily focussed upon the European situation, but its content applies no less to the European diaspora present in the Americas. The present age is sick, and Reflections is a fairly newly trained doctor attempting to administer to it. It is hard to say at this point whether the patient is beyond cure, and our purpose is merely to alleviate its suffering, or whether there is a chance of recovery. Either way, many of the predictions of those who witnessed the results of similar degeneration in the past are coming to fruit. Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West represents a particularly poignant description of the sort of times that our generation is headed towards. With the help of Spengler and those of his mindset from both the distant past and the present, perhaps the sharp-witted doctor may be able to do some good, even if it is fleeting. 

Our remedy is complex and founded in philosophies which the world has forgot. One may describe the aesthetic of this record to be revolutionary conservative, since no conservative worth his salt in the present age could say that he was satisfied with modernity. If revolution, be it violent or maliciously silent, is the tool of the liberal and the socialist in overturning the order they despise, then the conservative must be unafraid to join them in bringing about his political and social ends. We are Catholic, and anti-Vatican II traditionalist and orthoprax Catholics at that. We have no time for the liberal conciliation of recent Popes, and despise all attempts to dilute or remove the mystical, ancient and powerful teachings of the Church upon which much of Western civilisation has been structured for the past thousand years. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all was the loss of the Eastern Orthodox - a realistic end to the schism now may do more good than ever before, but more on that some other time. We are conservative and revolutionary because we are Catholic, because we believe in authority and community as the only safe method for the furtherance of individual and national rights. 

Our ontology is a combination of Kierkegaardian existentialism and the wistfulness of German idealism. Virtue is the only moral end in itself, and without good virtues no society can flourish. In an age where virtue becomes a vice, there can be no improvement, and all Whiggish notions of modernity being some kind of spearhead of the ever-marching human thirst for improvement are clearly only suited to the ideologies of those who refuse to accept the reality of a fallen moral order. 

Our writing style is a combination of all of those figures who became dissatisfied with the Zeitgeist of their times. However many times the majority laughed at them, we may at least take heart at the fact that many of them were honoured after their death. Maistre, Burke, Carlyle, all railed against the dangers of the age, only to be re-discovered by the curious on account of their insight. For such reasons we have no time for modern history. History itself is like a river, forever ebbing and flowing on a changing course as one great lump of human embankment is washed away to allow the waters a new path. History may well speak to us, but it takes a discerning ear to hear the true facts rather than those which are churned out to the masses for the sake of crafting a cultural narrative. It is through such narratives that the entire belief system which maintains confidence in the cracked glass is nourished. 

Economically you will find anti-neoliberalism here, or at least those sceptical of modern capitalism. A corporatist system of state capitalism and intersectional hierarchies is preferred, which shall eventually be discussed in detail. If you are a white nationalist/alt-right type, you will find here a reluctant listener. Many facts are on your side, but any form of nationalism is something to be approached with caution. Political ends, which ultimately is all with which a nationalist is concerned, are of no interest to those with a universal view towards the mercy of Christ. It is true that it is preferable to preserve the civilisational groups which God has doubtless created, but approaches to rectifying many of the modern problems with immigration and cultural displacement must be concerned with a civilisational narrative, not strange and unwarranted prejudices against various groups by nature of their birth. 

We may be those who swear upon the throne and altar, but we know also that what we do is only guided by the Almighty. If He did not wish us to take this path, we never would have. Surrendering our knowledge to His grace and the powers of reason which He has bestowed upon us, we ask: may he smile upon us in all our endeavours, and save the world from its destructive fallacies. If you, reader, wish to join us in this great exposition upon the problems of modernity, then you are welcome. If you come seeking wisdom, a word of caution - true wisdom only comes from above. All we can offer you at best is a kind of quasi-prophecy, at worst, the jarring trumpet-blasts of alarum which so many before us have blown. Perhaps, with our help, you will find your feet and walk out of the square onto the solid ground, or if you are already there, perhaps reading this will allow you to steady yourself. So long as someone, somewhere finds benefit from what is written here, it will have succeeded in its first and only purpose. In the words of Evola, to ride the tiger until such time as the danger has passed, may well be the best option.