My New Alt-Dissident Fantasy Fiction

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5 (conclusion)

I have previously opined that the alt-dissidents ought to establish culture and aesthetics rather than just making formal arguments.
I decided to try to practice what I preach and for the last few weeks I’ve been working on a mini-novella instead of my regular blog posts. I’ve chosen to write in a fantasy setting because I’ve always wanted to, but also because establishing mythological tales is a natural place to start for an emerging culture. And much of modern mythology comes from fantasy, sci-fi, and superhero stories.
Narratives about gods and heroes are popular in every culture because humans seem to universally process the world around them in terms of archetypes. Greek Gods, Norse Gods, and modern superheroes all embody essential principles and the interactions of these characters mirror the relationships between those principles in real life. It is my guess that myth-making is a primal human activity because it can communicate abstractions even to people who are illiterate and/or low IQ on a visceral and intuitive level.

I have often used the concepts of Heaven and Hell on this blog to contrast the established social order with those who thrive outside of it and against it. Now, I have applied this analogy to a narrative.
I didn’t feel this blog was the right medium for longer pieces of fiction. I have always believed in sticking to essays here between 600-1500 words that readers can easily scroll through.
So I approached Kaiter Enless of Logos Club with a query and after reviewing it, he expressed his interest in publishing my story on his site divided into 4-5 parts. Part 1 was just put up today and I will have the rest forthcoming soon.

Special thanks to Garr who personally volunteered his time to edit and critique the story and to Ulric Kerensky who also read through the rough draft and gave me excellent feedback.

On Alt-Sphere Reactions to Charlottesville

I previously wrote about the elements of the alt-sphere and their natural roles.  In the aftermath of Charlottesville the reactions I’ve seen are somewhat unsurprising.  Fish in a coral reef do not understand how they fill a niche in a larger ecosystem.

Most prominently the alt-lite and much of the manosphere went into complete freakout mode as soon as the news emerged.  The airwaves were full of screeching about how “bad optics” and “naivety” have forever tarnished a new conservative civic-nationalist movement.

It made me smile when I found largely supportive reactions on sites like Breitbart and the_donald where lots of red-state normies hang out.  Fox news was blaring on about “white supremacists” but from what I was hearing, the commentariat wasn’t buying it.  The alt-lite was far less supportive than plenty of people who would never associate with alt-anything.

The alt-lite meltdown makes sense when we remember they are the dissident marketing and PR department.  Their mentality is all about building a brand and getting as large an audience as possible.  Their way of thinking is consistent with commercially-oriented American culture so they do not easily understand the mindset or objectives of the other dissidents.

Because alt-lightists have by far the largest mainstream exposure they see themselves as the true alt-movement and any other factions as lesser hangers-on.  The impact of Charlottesville infuriates them because it challenges their notion of being CEOs and shoves the truth in their face that they are in fact the far less glorious marketing department.  In truth, it is the soldier class of the alt-right that have the power of executive action and this is too much for them to bear right now.

The marketers will always be upset when there is a major change.  They like a predictable steady environment to build their followings and sell supplement pills.  Whenever the gravy train hits a bumpy section of track, they will be very unhappy about it.  But there’s nothing they can do either because their role is inherently passive.  The way to deal with the alt-lite is not to get mad or try to disavow them.  Just let them blow off their steam for a few days as they adjust their brands to market changes.

A civic nationalist on twitter with hundreds of thousands of followers might scream about how nazis have killed the movement in all caps but it’s the nature of who they are to walk back their heated statements just hours later as they sense a sea change rolling in.  3 days and 300 tweets later, nobody even remembers their initial rage.  They are best left on their own to do their job.  The alt-right soldiers through their actions have shown they effectively control the terms of engagement for the alt-lite.

The NRx reaction to Charlottesville has been a bit more complex.  I’ve gotten an overall sense of disapproval from them.  I think the class divide is very important here.  The stereotypical neo-reactionary in my mind’s eye is a gen-x computer programmer, IT guy, or engineer with a hint of baldness and 1-2 kids at home.  They are patient and cautious types who are reluctant to take bold risks.  They also have a tendency to look down on and counter-signal anything that seems remotely working class which many of the alt-right soldiers certainly are.  NRxers are typically comfortable financially and socially so they tend not to understand the urgency and anger felt by the other dissidents—or at least they don’t share it on a gut level.

A common NRx criticism I’ve seen of Charlottesville is that it has distracted from Damore’s firing from google over his politically incorrect memo.  They are correct to identify this event as being hugely important.  The first cracks are showing at the top tiers of the upper middle classes.  The NRx critics betray their SWPL affinities when they insist Damore “did it the right way” by being mild-mannered and going through the right channels to get his message out.

Faux-polite office politics only applies to the middle classes and above.  I see the google memo as one prong of a double-sided attack in the last week, one for each half of the social spectrum.  Therefore, I think it is to misunderstand the social situation to insist that Charlottesville and Googlememo compete with each other when they are in fact synergistic forces.

Even NRxers sometimes mock each other over “passivism” the idea that a group can come to power by becoming worthy to rule.  I think it’s a very legitimate concept in the right context.  History is full of revolutions that just made things even worse.  It’s hard to build something worthwhile and easy to complain and wreck things.  The neoreactionaries are on the right track in thinking about how to build a new social order as the present society crumbles.  They have their own important role—there’s no need for them to compete with the front line soldiers.

As for red-pilled progressives, I am not sure if we can continue to call them alt-leftists.  That namespace seems to have been appropriated by President Trump to refer to antifa gangsters.  Whatever we may call alt-leftists, the forces unleashed by Charlottesville and googlememo ensure that more SWPL men will be disillusioned and forced to choose sides as they realize the politically correct society will have no mercy on them no matter how they signal even as they continue to struggle with college debt and see their wages driven down by endless waves of H-1B Indians and Chinese.

The Factions of Alt-Dissidents

There has been a sudden burst of interest in defining the quarrelsome factions of the alt-sphere, often with an emphasis on bashing rivals.
Alf of AlfaNL blog wrote one of the most level-headed pieces yet on the subject. He sticks to analyzing the groups by their size, demographics, and motivations.

I will add my own thoughts after seeing the umpteenth article about how the alt-lite is doomed because they are just selling a brand, how the alt-right is bound to become an irrelevant fringe like White Nationalism 1.0, or how the “passivism” of neo-reactionaries is an excuse to do nothing.  Doom and gloom all the time. 

From my perspective, things have been going great and it has been a delight to watch the alt-sphere begin to mature.  Now it reaches a point of self-awareness where it begins to introspect.   Even the constant squabbling serves a natural function of figuring out each faction’s jurisdiction and specialty.

The alt-lite civic nationalists are often brawling with alt-right groups on social media or even confronting them physically in meatspace.  These guys get a lot of hate from ethnic nationalist alt-rightists, but I don’t see the need.  They inhabit different niches in the dissident ecosystem.

The alt-lite are by far the largest faction since they stick to positions that can be made acceptable for millions of ordinary, disillusioned republican voters.  They are accused of just going along with what’s popular to sell a brand, but over time more will realize, that is precisely their job.  

They are the marketing and advertising department that engages in public outreach.  Because they have the largest audience, they also have the greatest influence when it comes to running psy-ops that disrupt the establishment “narrative” and to sap their morale through relentless agitation.

Their large numbers make it impossible to ban them all from social media and by saturating the filters of censorship, they make it harder to crack down on more extreme factions.  The alt-lite is also a valuable farm system for new recruits.  Of the millions who get drawn in by the advertising campaign, once nudged down that path some percentage decide to keep going of their own accord and become alt-right.  

The alt-right are gradually showing themselves to be the front-line soldiers and true believers who risk physical injury and destruction of their reputations. While the alt-lite’s strength is crowd tactics, the alt-right is forming cohesive units capable of pursuing strategic objectives such as shutting down the antifa dominion of Berkeley.
Their beliefs are still considered too extreme for them to take part in the normal political discourse.  They hungrily wait as the alt-lite helps to gradually ease the Overton window in their direction, each grudging millimeter giving them more space to operate in.

The core alt-rightists rely on many ideological shibboleths to solidify in-group cohesion and loyalty.  Counter-signal them on the Jews, white women, or Vladimir Putin and they are not likely to be patient about it.  It is not their role to be discerning about shades of gray since they are increasingly oriented towards action.  They have no shortage of discussion but within clear boundaries.  Leaders such as Richard Spencer may have intellectual interests and more nuanced views, but he does not have the luxury to focus on this in his daily activism and speeches.

For most citizens, the alt-lite are the extremists and the alt-right are simply “nazis.”  Ask the average person on the street about neo-reactionaries, the dark enlightenment, or even the alt-left and they’ll probably just stare at you wondering what the hell you’re talking about.

There’s the PR reps and the soldiers, but the dissidents also have an R and D department where participants are free to mix and match ideas and see what happens without political constraints.  These outliers are kind of like priests who try to construct an over-arching theology. Working on the level of ideas, they are mostly invisible amidst the turmoil.  They are not trying to move a crowd.  Their mission is to corrode the secular state religion and replace it with their own vision.  Rather than direct the course of schools of fish, they hope to change the water all fish swim in.

These evil acolytes recognize that much of their discussion is theoretical and intangible.  They even point and accuse among themselves that they are debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin with no plan to realize their aims in the real world.

They will come to understand they are pursuing their natural role just fine.  Their discussions are not viable in the popular discourse but their ideas gradually filter through more relatable interpreters until the populace unwittingly embraces concepts that came from black scriptural exegesis.  The end game for the apostate priests is not so much to become emperors as to establish a new academy on the ruins of the Enlightenment.

There are those who despair at the in-fighting of the rebels but I would point out that they begin to know who they are and what they need to do within a larger synergistic organism.  Even mainstream sources have begun to officially distinguish between the alt-lite and alt-right, a sure sign that an organized structure is emerging despite the decentralized nature of 4th generation politics.