More on Dylann Roof and his fellow HWMs

As predicted, the Charleston terrorist is not just some insane psycho. Roof comes from a deep-seated culture of Hateful White Males (HWMs) who have a lot in common with Sunni Islamists in their virulent extremist, black-and-white ideology and forceful rejection of Enlightenment ideals.

– First, we have Roof’s manifesto which, like Eliot Rodgers’ before him, shows the inspiration he got from the online HWM communities. And as predicted, it was a white-supremacist group similar to Stormfront. While anyone of any race or nationality can be racist, sexist or otherwise hate-filled, it is notable that only HWMs and Sunni Islamists have these powerful, interconnected groups and websites nurturing and supporting the violent xenophobia and regressive romanticism of its members.

– Also, it cannot be reiterated enough that behind every actual terrorist, whether HWM like Roof or Islamist like your typical ISIS or Boko Haram terrorist, stands an army of fellow-travellers who egg them on while at the same time “officially” condemning violence. Think of all the UK hate preachers spouting ISIS-like talking points, only stopping just short of condoning actual violence. Similarly, Roof reportedly received encouragement from a leading white nationalist who devotes all his energy to his hate group and pushing all the usual Klan-inspired messages, while at the same time “officially” condemning Roof’s terrorist crimes. People like this are precisely why HWMs and Sunni Islamists are so dangerous — the legions of semi-respectable people standing behind them in their websites and organizations, offering them aid and comfort and even financial backing, all the while “officially” disavowing the violent and utterly predictable end-points of their rhetoric. These people exist to radicalize young, disaffected people into turning to hate and evil for answers.

– Finally, I noted how interconnected the woman-hating world of the PUAs/MRAs is with the black-and-Jew-hating world of the white supremacists. Here is a prime example of what I am talking about, in a comment reprinted approvingly by leading PUA Heartiste (boldings mine):

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We need more than a new political party; we need a new religious awakening to free us from the false doctrine of Enlightenment orthodoxy.

… We need a new concept of kin-based faith that integrates the wisdom of the old worldview into the modern reality. All faith is kin-based (our earliest concepts of divine authority are based on the human family, e.g. father, son and holy spirit), but we’ve veered away from this truth in recent years…

… Last time people tried an alternative the Bolsheviks ended up in power for 70 years, and that was a horror show I’d rather not live through myself, not to mention my kids.

Heartiste sums up the feelings behind this post: “My suggestion for a pro-white majority national ethos banner: Family, Neighborhood, Nation: Renewing Trust.”

If all this sounds familiar, well, it should. This is also known as “the Völkisch state,” or “blood and soil,” the kernel of Nazi racial and “folkish” thinking, as the commenter himself is keenly aware. Hitler’s concept of the “Volk” is hard to translate from Mein Kampf, partly because the literal translation — folk — does not have anywhere close to the same weight or connotations in English that it does in German. But the “Völkisch” ideal essentially harkens back to the tribal- or clan-based, familial system of primitive cultures. And while the commenter does try to put some space between his beliefs and the Nazis, it seems only because the Nazis failed, and not from any moral revulsion.

And his explicit rejection of the Enlightenment is the most important part of his tirade. The Enlightenment was the essential foundation of the modern world and its rejection of tribalism and superstitions. The Enlightenment is why the nations that accept it are so remarkably peaceful overall compared to the norm of warlike humanity’s existence. (There is no complete cure for war, of course, but remember that previously violent and brutal Europe experienced an entire century of peace between Waterloo and 1914, thanks to Enlightenment ideals; that the 1939-1945 war was triggered by a dictator who also explicitly rejected the Enlightenment in favor of “Blood and Soil”; and that the Europe of today is so peaceful that the only intra-European “warfare” comes courtesy of soccer hooligans.)

Also, note that the bloodthirsty Sunni Islamists of ISIS and al Qaeda also believe strongly in a primitive and tribal society not so different than “Blood and Soil.”

So we have evidence of a strong HWM underground counterculture, manifesting in many different endpoints such as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, MRAs, and PUAs. They may call themselves by these different names, but they all share a common origin in terms of their worldviews. They reject the ideals of Enlightenment and modernity, and yearn for a patriarchal, tribal, primitive society, where outsiders are warred against and women are chattel slaves of their fathers or husbands. Like the Sunni Islamists, they have organizations and websites to reinforce each others’ extremism and hate and to recruit angry young white men into the fold. And, the endpoint always involve terrorist murders that the movement’s leaders are quick to “officially” disavow, even as the rank-and-file celebrate.

This is the enemy we face. I do not know why organized hate is so much more a thing with white people than, say Hispanics or Asians, but there it is.