Racism in Metal: The current state, and its philosophical underpinnings

SO, I decided to just post this article in its entirety on this blog, since it really is a piece of non-fiction, though I can’t say its so creative. But hey, just read it.

Something I’ve been following under the radar for a number of years is the disturbing Hate Rock movement. My interest began years ago when hanging around on random metal channels on IRC. I was disturbed by the degree of baseline homophobia and racism (and anti-semitism), though homophobia is far more widespread and serious in the metal community (due to its masculine posturing).

More troubling, however, is the steady stream of Metal bands (especially Black Metal from Norway et al.) and Hardcore bands dedicated more directly to spreading messages of hate and anti-multiculturalism, even blatant National Socialism. In fact, as officials from the current leading White Supremacist organization have mentioned in interviews, this music is being actively used as a marketing tool to promote hate: hategroups, hatecrimes, and whatever else you get when you combine angst, alienation, and angry music (not so bad), then add in a healthy dose of violence and vitriol (not a good formula).

As is often the case with hatespeach, the first amendment is used by many as a means to shelter racist propaganda. I’m not advocating criminalization, necessarily, but private organizations and groups can decide whether to allow such material. It raises interesting questions, should forums dedicated to sharing music allow racist material to be shared? One particular forum (left unnamed) draws the line between discussion and music (sounds like the National Alliance marketers have found a loophole after all. Suddenly they have access to a huge distribution channel, one that claims to be squarely opposed to such messages.

Racism will not be tolerated by any of members. Racial topics, insults, images, or signs will be removed upon sight and dealt with on a case by case basis. Torrent releases that contain racial over/undertones will be allowed as they are considered musical releases, but replying with any type of racial glorification or anti-racial soapboxing will be cause for editing, warning level increases or even board dismissal. If you don’t like it, don’t download it; and don’t get YOURSELF in trouble for it.

It seems strange to allow racism to hide behind the label of music. If you’re going to allow racism, why not let people talk about it? Or if you can’t talk about, why let people distribute it? Whether it seems like it or not (no active discussion, so “seems” like its not happening), why allow your forum to become a distribution network for racist propaganda? Of course, there are cases where it is less clear, and I’d advocate a restrained approach to any such censorship, but some stuff is just blatantly racist; and it might be a hint if the record label is owned by the White Supremacist National Alliance, and sold from their online store!

Now, a quote from an ADL report on the National Alliance:

Pierce appointed Erich Gliebe, who heads the NA unit in Cleveland, Ohio, to manage and promote Resistance Records. In the Winter 2000 issue of Resistance, Gliebe discussed the effectiveness of white power music in “awakening and mobilizing the White Youth of today into a revolutionary force to destroy the system.”

Pierce has been quick to understand the potential power of new technologies as they emerge and to take aggressive steps to incorporate these technologies into the NA’s propaganda arsenal. In an interview in Barbarian, a [National Socialist Black Metal] zine, Pierce said, “Our goal now is to build ourselves into the most effective educational instrument that we can for reaching and educating and inspiring our people. We want to be able to express our message through every medium which we can use effectively and communicate on a continuing basis with all of our people.”

It was refreshing to hear that VH1 has done a documentary on the subject, below is a quote from the review by Freemuse.org:

Far more dispiriting than the freakish, tattooed skinhead bands blurting white supremacist lyrics is the image of two pristine-looking little blond girls throwing their arms in a Nazi salute and singing, ”Strike force, white survival.” They are all under the influence of so-called hatecore, music that proselytizes an ugly neo-Nazi message in clubs, on CD’s and on the Internet.

The documentary does not overplay how many people follow hate rock. Record sales are in the thousands, not the millions. But the Internet gives such groups an extended reach and generates an outsize sense of power in their audiences. They may be the fringe, but they should not be dismissed.

[From Freemuse: Hate music: Music With a Heart Full of Hatred]

Alright, so we’ve established that racism is a growing presence in music, “even” in the U.S. (which has to deal with multiculturalism whether it wants to or not. Europe has had it pretty easy until recently, and don’t seem to be faring too well with all the ethnic reshuffling (due to basic economics. But I digress)). SO, that’s all well and good, but what about METAL?

A quick perusal of the websites above, show that there are indeed a decent number of racist metal bands; at least racist enough to be supported by the NA. But what does the metal community think?

METAL and Racism

ANUS.com

To begin, I’d like to mention the American Nihilist Underground Society, or ANUS.com, whose extremely well thought-out and well written (though, oddly, ignorant at the same time) treatises on Metal culture and philosophy give a very heady and, to me, scary justification for what basically amounts to… well, racism. As has happened with the mainstreaming of racism in US politics, instead of hating the other, it becomes about “separate, but equal”. Yet even that isn’t enough, the argument still needs to somehow justify why such separatism is necessary?! Then the purism is revealed, and the strange paranoid delusion that “inter-breeding” will create a world full of inferior, cultureless “mud people”.

To make things even more curious, and to take their intellectualizing to yet a higher level, they host the website of a movement called “anti-humanism”, which claims to oppose BOTH fascism and anti-racism. What? Oh, and they hate the UN and “government control organizations like the USA”. *cough* um sound familiar? Can someone say whackjob conspiracy theorists? So much for them maintaining a façade of unbiased intellectualism!
To Here’s the actual language that they use:

Metal has never been about following the herd. From American Indians to ethnic minorities it Japan, it has signalled a pride in self and ancestors and the ancient ways of blood, honor and pride. Furthermore, metal has always been anti-social and against the “we’re doing it in your best interests” people who seek to control your mind, much as these anti-fascists do.
We hold the following truths to be self-evident:
1. No people are created equal, nor is there any basis for linear “equality” between people, experiences, or ideas.
2. Multi-culturalism is unnatural and will destroy our cultures and turn us into generic brown people instead of four races of exciting different shades of color.
3. The metal scene is not open to those who would wield the power of society against the free spirits, and whose fundamental motivation is fear of difference.

It’s obvious that these “multiculturalists” and “anti-fascists” are full of fear and want nothing more than safety in conformity, and in normative ideas like making all people, ideologies, ideas and sensations normal. We suggest something different: that making us all the same will bring about a total tedium and lack of change in our natural world.

Does this make ANY sense? I don’t think a single point follows logically from ANYTHING they claim to believe. I mean come ON! I’m trying to find something here! The world will become boring because we’re letting different races intermingle? Or something? Anyways. (Note: I’m not sure how affiliated this “movement” is with ANUS.com, so I’ll take a look at the actual “Nihilism” side of things next.)

Their musings on Nihilism are quite engaging and interesting, not to mention intelligently written. Though not really related to the current discussion, I’d recommend a read of their Nihilism page for that reason alone. When I first discovered their page, I was happy to find a well-articulated explanation of a philosophy with real intellectual discussion affiliated with Metal (in my quest to “validate” metal. My latest theory is through Buddhism… stay tuned) But then I read on and on, and hit one snag… a snag that is significant and subtle enough to allow an ulterior motive into an otherwise well written piece.

History tells us that human races evolved under different climates and different pressures, and therefore have different abilities.

Ok, stop. What? a.) There is no such thing as race. b.) culture ≠ race. c.) there are no clear delineations between cultures!

We cannot “prove,” objectively, that any one collection of abilities is superior to another. Communities are united by common belief, and some communities will opt for this to be a unification of culture, language and heritage. Some communities will opt to be cosmopolitan, mixed-race communities like New York City. Others will choose to be ethnocentric and to defend their ethnic-cultural heritage as necessary to their future; this preserves their uniqueness, and is the only realistic basis for true diversity. Without this bond, you have Disneyland-style fake communities which give nods to heritage but are basically products of modern time. Let there always be Finns, Zulus, Germans, Basques, Cherokee, Aztec, Norwegian, and even Irish – this is diversity; this is multiculture; this is all of the good things that exposure to different cultures can provide. This is the only mature attitude toward race, instead of trying to produce, as the Bush administration has, one global standard of liberal mixed-ethnic democracy that essentially destroys culture and replaces it with malls and television. The race taboo is propelled by those without a clear cultural heritage who want to revenge themselves upon those who do, much as in high school those with low self-esteem tried to antagonize both nerds and class leaders.

Alright, so it devolves into… nonsense. Kind of a shame. Moving on…

The Crowd creates a reality to serve its fears, and by imposing it, crushes realism, because to point out that the emperor wears no clothes is to offend and disturb the crowd. Why might a nihilist insist on accuracy in taboo matters such as eugenics, race and environmental needs to reduce population? — because the Crowd will go to its death before it will ever do such a thing.

So now we’re leaving it up to the “Nihilist” to decide for themselves what is “accurate”, and thus impose that as their “Truth” (though, of course, there is no truth, right? Oh…) From another article on Nihilism that continues on this point:

-Culture and racism: People on TV say that those who oppose the idea behind multiculturalism, are racists and full of hate, even if multiculturalism has created ethnic conflicts, killed a lot of native culture, and continues to systematically discriminate other races. The nihilist explains his view on this: “It seems to me that there indeed are differences between cultures and races, and that these differences make life interesting. But if you force two or more cultures to adhere to the same norms in society, you destroy these differences, which creates a grey mass without identity, other than McDonald’s and corporate jobs. What if each culture and each race had its own space? Then they would be able to develop themselves freely without the intervention of other cultures and people.”

[From Center for Nihilist and Nihilism Studies @ nihil.org]

For the last, and final connection, to finish the line of thought that has only been hinted at throughout… and this really is a pity because lots of the ideas used to supposedly justify these conclusions are pretty neat (italic emphasis from original):

It creeps up on you. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Lacking a goal, and thus a consensus to our society, we elected for pity instead, and yes, we did bring many of the impoverished and women and minorities and criminals to a higher state of living – at the expense of any hope or future we have of our own. Because society decided to average itself, and not reward excellence but reward profit and equality, we have effectively destroyed all that made people unique and worthy of self-esteem. Diversity? Indeed, we now have the same mixed-race population that follows every collapsed empire, from Mexico to Egypt to India to Greece. This society is not just broken, but its core values and assumptions are contrary to any meaningful or natural life. [From Center for Nihilist and Nihilism Studies @ nihil.org]

So the bold line basically speaks for itself. And sure, ANUS.com didn’t write the words explicitly, but I think the connections (and the fact that the “Center for Nihilist and Nihilism Studies seems to be basically one guy, and is linked to from ANUS.com. Oh, and to return the favor, the reference is returned with a quotation on http://www.nihil.org/nihilism/) It’s interesting that a philosophy that claims to believe in nothingness, and pure reality etc… seems to subscribe to a pretty slanted, and scientifically UN-rigorous view of the world. So perhaps the philosophy itself is not at fault, just the individuals who find it a close enough fit to justify their preexisting notions of the “ills of the world” and the causes for those ills (in this case the lazy categorization along cultural and “racial” lines, and somehow associating that with ability, intelligence, and culture… Cultures mix on their own! Wasn’t the Mongolian empire the most powerful empire the world has ever seen, despite Chinggis Khaan’s main achievement was his forceful unification of all Mongolia’s tribes? Thus “elminating” their cultural “specialness” and causing all the Mongols to fall into depressed states of stupor. Poor fellas.)

So enough of this intellectual garbage from a select minority… Though it is important. I mean hey, Hitler got way excited when he read Nietzsche (the Nihilist) but what do Real Metalheads think?

The Metal Community

There are plenty of Metalheads who are not so pleased with these developments, and are making it loud and clear. Leading the charge is Metalheads Against Racism
What is Metalheads Against Racism?

Metalheads Against Racism is a loose association of members of the Heavy Metal scene who are sick of the infiltration of the Metal scene by racists, bigots and nazis. Though rebellious, Heavy Metal has never really been “political” in the narrow sense. But now that our Metal scene is becoming overrun by racists, it has become necessary to make a clear statement against racism. To keep the racist scum out of our scene, and to make it clear to the whole world that Heavy Metal is NOT racist, and we will NOT tolerate racism among us. Metalheads Against Racism offers a way to make this statement. By putting the Metalheads Against Racism banner on your publications, you declare that you support our anti-racist declaration.

So load up on the banners to show your support. Yeah, the banners they have are pretty much all ugly and overstated, so I made my own. I tried to send it to them, but I guess they’re busy? So feel free to use this wherever/republish/etc… just give credit where it’s due:

In closing, a refreshing quote from a letter they received, which could be described, I guess, as anti-hatemail:

hey mike, i stumbled across your site and i must say its good to see something positive like this in the metal scene. For all those morons that say..but metals about hate, and you guys aren’t metal heads, your politically correct wah wah wah, and then list napalm death as a favourite band have got to be fucking kidding right?

Metal is about whatever the fuck you want it to be, it doesn’t have to be “evil” and hateful tripe. If you don’t agree i suggest you go to a Napalm Death gig and confront the band, im sure you will receive an interesting response.

Does Race Matter in Metal? The Fans Speak

There is a series of rants/statements/essays on race and metal at Metal-Rules.com (from July 2001) that are quite remarkable. Not only are they vehemently anti-racist (and I doubt it was censored), but each statement oozes honesty and authenticity. They are lacking the self-conscious Political Correctness one would find in a more “intellectual” discussion, especially in Academia. These are from people whose love for metal runs deep, and who truly believe it to be a force for Good, one that unifies, rather than divides.

The first statement, by Michael De Los Muertos is especially eloquent and direct. It begins by stating flat-out that “Race is absolutely irrelevant to metal. Period.” He then takes on racism head-on, and delivers a damming verdict: “To me racism is a very cut-and-dried issue. It is wrong. Racism is completely unjustifiable in any form, period.” The final step in the rant is the connection between metal, as an institution and a scene, and racism, as a movement and as a philosophy. He describes the two main forms of racism in or near the scene:

Some bands from the Northern European scene, and/or fans of such bands, have forwarded ideas that such bands (particularly black metal bands) somehow support or advance neo-pagan or “Aryan” supremacy, and should be seen as rallying points for people to “take back” white homelands “threatened” by inferior peoples. In North America, racism in metal seems a little less prominent, if one discounts the ugly scene of Nazi hardcore, punk and ambient outfits which aren’t really metal anyway, but it undoubtedly still exists. Thankfully these kinds of ideas tend to occupy a lunatic fringe of the metal scene, as I don’t feel that the majority of metal fans or metal bands embrace, or even tolerate, racist tendencies.

Then, as a final treat, he addresses the basic incompatability between racist ideology and heavy metal philosophy, if one allows for such a generalization to be made:

To the extent a guiding philosophy can be ascribed to metal as a whole – and such a thing can’t be done without making generalizations, to be sure – it would seem that individualism and self-determination are basic ideas to most metalheads. Racism by definition conflicts with these ideas, so I doubt there’s too much chance of the metal scene as a whole becoming predominantly or substantially infected by the poison of racism.

In closing, I leave you with several quotes from the comments posted on the Metal-Rules page:

Keith: Music is universal. It’s emotion, feel, and what’s in your heart…not on your skin.

EvilG: Racism is so silly anyway. We’re all people, we all are pretty much the same… What will racists do when the aliens come to town and they are green, purple, blue…?

Rick: Does Race play a part in metal? Sure it does!! The only race that should listen to metal is the human race.

Waspman: Unless you are a hermit, you’ve probably had many conversations with other metalheads. In my experience metal fans are, by and large, a very open-minded group where racism is generally not tolerated. Every group will have its share of misinformed idiots who like to stir of trouble but I’m proud to know that metalheads are one of the most tolerant groups around. A perfect example of this can be seen right here at our home. Our message board is filled with a variety of cool people while bigots are quickly put in their place.

Nicholas Cervenka (aka Fiddler on the Green): In the end what does it matter. Red or Yellow, black or white, if they like metal, its alright!! 🙂

Further Reading:
Related Posts on A Yuletide Apocalypse:
Metal = Homophobia?
Century Media = The Homophobic Metal Posterchild?
From my Metal Radio Show’s blog : My Metalheads Against Racism banner
Metal-Rules.com, Columns: From Hell’s Heart… July 2001: Does race matter in metal?

Organizations:
American Nihilist Underground Society: ANUS
National Alliance Official Site
National Alliance: A Report by the ADL. Includes documented examples of NA inspired violence as well as a history of Resistance Records.
Against The Wall: A report on the current (declining) state of the National Alliance from the Southern Poverty Law Foundation

49 Replies to “Racism in Metal: The current state, and its philosophical underpinnings”

  1. Interesting that large section of the article is discussing racism, anti-semitism and nazis, but leaves out anti-christianism. I bet that anti-christianism outweighs all the others combined 10 to 1. Why is anti-christianism ignored?

  2. Metalheads Against Racism isn’t actually an effective site to combat online racism. First, if the guy who runs the site knows what attracts people to Anus.com and other racist websites, then he’ll know what’s wrong with his site. Plus I’m turned off by Metalheads Against Racism’s commie-liberal slant. If people wish to truly fight bigotry and online slander, then metal’s message of egoism and individualism should take the forefront in their message boards, not this rehashed Marxist nonesense.

  3. Perpetuum Mobile: I appreciate your raising this important issue. I think one reason anti-christianity hasn’t garnered much attention (at least from me) is that is isn’t really in the same league as the other *isms, since it is animosity directed against the dominant group, rather than the opposite. All of these forms of prejudice have a complicated definition (sociologically) that take into account more than simply “judging” someone based on a certain factor. Using racism as an example (from the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, emphasis added):

    Racism is an ideology that gives expression to myths about other racial and ethnic groups, that devalues and renders inferior those groups, that reflects and is perpetuated by deeply rooted historical, social, cultural and power inequalities in society.

    Does this help clarify things? I’m not advocating hatred, or animosity towards any group, but I believe the effects of these power dynamics are often (erroneously) ignored.

    Oliver: Could you clarify what you mean by “commie-liberal slant”? That term is thrown around a lot, but is usually just a gloss for poorly articulated reactionism… And I think the whole opposing-racism-in-metal thing is not so much to change the racists, but rather to make it clear that the vast majority of the metal community doesn’t support or endorse this behavior, and despite the music’s individualism, it is NOT inherently racist or even hateful.

  4. I happen to be one of those kids that listen to Hardcore, Metal music, and alot of different types of music. Music is music, and it doesnt matter what race you are, you can listen to whatever pleases you! Just because you listen to Hardcore Music doesnt mean that your full of hate. I am the Happiest, positive person i know, and i happen to make others positive as well. Those people dont judge me by my music, they judge me on the type of person i am. So i say, Black, White,Yellow, Purple, Polka dots listen to what you want to and dont let others tell you otherwise. :]

  5. I think its an interesting subject youre on to.
    I believe individualism to be different from racism, because racism collectively condamn people just because of their heritage. And the statements from ANUS.com – well, thats something I often recognize with White Supremacist groups, that often pick their words carefully, so it might seem more profit, but in the end of the day you(or at least I) just see it as another form of racism. And culture, in my opinion should have nothing to do with the colour of ones skin. Thats for me, very separate. Culture is more about what youre born into.

    Ive noticed some people bringing forth the anti – christian phenomenon, and I want people to actually think about that religions like christianity has had pretty much blood on its hands troughout history and it still has different places in the world. That might be the reason why people oppose it. I think both politics and religion as well as culture has been responsible for supressing other individuals. But referring to those of you that defend this(as I see it) manipulating ideology of fascism, I think you are just about as bad as what the christianity has represented. Not to mention the fact that the jews where percecuted by christians for centuries.

  6. I didn’t see anything remotely incoherent or confusing about anything said by ANUS.com. They may be pretty weird or angry but what they say makes sense. They want seperate cultures and races. So? If indeed it is racism why are we fixated on it anyway? These are the same bands that worship Satan and talk about disembowelding fetuses and sleeping with dead bodies, but we’re offended by racism? For example:

    “Oooh, I’m going to start a death metal band about raping dead children but we won’t be racist because racism is bad and mean.”

    This is the type of air-head liberal mentality found in the metal community today. They want to be rebellious but in a ‘safe’ way by embracing PC nonsense. Metal is about provoking and transcending modernity and if it offends someone since when was the metal community supposed to care?

  7. You misinterpret ANUS because of your own political bias.

    We are nihilists, which means we see reality literally, without a moral filter. Science and history are our guides.

    Pay attention to this:

    http://www.goodrumj.com/RFaqHTML.html

    There is a biological component to race, as is obvious since grouped traits always have a genetic component.

    It is worthwhile to preserve the individual traits of every population, whether Aztec or German.

    However, we stand against bigotry in all forms. Bigotry in our view is assigning superior/inferior designations to different races; our point is that honest racial separation leads to preservation of culture, which is our only resistance to corporate existence.

    We do not own or operate the anti-humanism web site.

  8. Yuletide: The “size” of a group does not justify hating it. (Is it ok to hate the Chinese – they have the largest population of all nations?).
    Also, note how “Mari” supports my comment. She can only “see” blood on the Christians hand, and Christians persecuting Jews. Well now, just pickup any newspaper, you can read about plenty of blood on Jewish hands.

    Ed response: As I said in my above comments, I do not justify hatred towards any group, regardless of size. I was merely pointing out the difference between racism and anti-christianism

  9. Err.. the fact that those anus.com guys go through so much trouble to try to dissect the world as something resembling a ‘truth’ to them is funny.

    Passing themselves off as nihilists, too…lol.

    A “real” nihilist might argue points on a superficial level, out of an individual preference for things, but to try to make an entire fricken self-important website out of it? Like some “Fiat Lux,” huh? LoL.

    There’s some great comedy in realizing that people take themselves way too seriously in a world without any objective meaning, and frankly, these anus.com people do exactly that.

  10. To Meow Mix:

    There’s a difference between disemboweling fetuses, etc., and racism.

    The former is understood by everybody to be fantasy, an excursion into gross-out imagery. It’s not like any society in history has had a problem with rampant dead-child-raping.

    Not so with racism, obviously. Although there are different types. Some metal bands and especially punk bands have used swastikas and the like mostly in the same way as death metal bands use gore: for shock value.

    But sites like ANUS, and some of the bands they seem to like, have a different agenda: they’re quite serious about their racial ideas, and as such they need to be addressed seriously, at least to the extent that they are influential.

    As for rebelliousness: I don’t see the shock/gore death metal stuff as particularly rebellious at all, except perhaps against censorship. But it’s not like they’re invisioning a society of baby-raping for all.

    As for the racists, they’re rebellious alright, but not all rebelliousness is created equal. As ANUS’s own philosophy suggests, it’s pointless to be rebellious for the sake of rebelliousness; you should try to “get it right” (from one of their articles).

    And racist ideology doesn’t get it right.

    If you find that PC, then so be it, but if your only goal is to rebel against PC-ness, then neither I nor the ANUS people have much respect for you; one of the few, I should emphasize, things we have in common.

    Ed. note: I agree completely. Well said.

  11. To Vijay:

    The OP already dealt with your idea that you are “against bigotry”; you endorse the “separate but equal” idea, and hence are subject to all the criticisms that apply to that movement.

    What is “honest racial separation”? As opposed to dishonest?

    Yes, there is a genetic component to race, but all that means is that there is a genetic component to the superficial features that you associate with race, basically, skin color and hair curliness.

    There are all sorts of other features which cross-cut race distinctions, such as earwax type.

    It is “worthwhile” to preserve the individual traits? Who says? How so? Who are you to say what is worthwhile, especially given, ya know, your claim that you are a nihilist?

    And finally, you say that science and history are your guides; why, then, do you refuse to study or report either accurately?

  12. [i]Author: Yuletide, 4/6/2010 Comment:
    “The difference is that people MEAN IT when they sing about racism. And it incites people to perpetuate systems of prejudice and inequality that are just starting to fade from our institutional memory (as a society). Satan worshippers aren’t really a threat to anyone, and most (decent) bands don’t take it seriously anyways. As for raping dead children, that’s all just for shock value. Like a horror movie. Not intended to be taken seriously.

    Now the RAHOWA stuff on the other hand; that is intended to begin (or continue what the artists perceive as preexisting since the time of mixing) a Racial Holy War. Combine that with tea party libertarianism and right-wing extremism/alienation, and crazy shit starts to happen. REAL shit.” End of Comment[/i]

    Reply:
    This is a horrible comment. Maybe that is why this comment disappeared from this page. Your prejudiced true self is showing.
    How do you know if the singer really mean it while singing about racism? How do you know that the other singers do not really mean raping children? Satan worshippers aren’t a threat? How do you know if they are not planning to poison the non-believers? You just make your own assumptions based on your own picking and choosing just like the racists. You are not different from them, you just use different justifications to express your prejudice. Even worse, you are using racism as a cover. It is amazing how many people are using the title “fight against racism” to promote their own agenda.
    Racial Holy War – is it racial or religious – cannot be both, as race and religion is too intermixed. Or did you mean White Christian? Why do you “combine” Racial Holy War with Right Wing Libertarianism? Do you want to cover everyone you dislike under one label?
    And what seems to be your problem with libertarians? Are you prejudiced against them too?
    The two countries with the most freedom to the people (USA ans Switzerland) were
    established by your “crazy shit” “tea party libertarians”. If you live in any of these countries, leave! There are still places like Cuba or Angola for you.
    Maybe you do not mean to be prejudiced, but this is how you come across.
    You seem to dislike Right Wing Libertarianism. So you are the opposite, a Left Wing Totalitarian. Well, they used to be called National Socialist at one time. A food for thought.
    (Do not take any part of this comment as a support for current US politics.)

  13. Perpetuum: Are you serious? Come on, think a minute. How do we know that death metal bands aren’t serious about raping children?

    Read the lyrics of death metal bands, then read the propoganda of sites like ANUS or the rantings of Varg Vikernes and the lyrics of Nokturnal Mortum or Absurd, and tell me which one takes itself seriously.

    Or find me an interview where a death metal artist actually says “the problem with America today is that there’s not enough baby-raping”.

    Just don’t play total idiot.

  14. The problem here is that you divide the world into binary: racist or anti-racism.

    There’s shades of grey. People who are nationalists, for example, are not racist — but they do believe that the best organization of a society is by culture, values and heritage.

    One racial group, one nation.

    The left’s insistence on seeing this racist/not-racist dichotomy has caused more racial resentment than anything else. Racial groups separated do not scorn each other; thrown together, they compete and hate each other. That’s why 200 years of American racial politics has not changed the essentials of the situation.

    The future of humanity is in ethnonationalism, and that’s why black metal spotted it while the white liberal establishment is still stuck in the 1960s. With a strong organic underpinning like culture and its genetic encoding in ethnicity, we can have societies that do not depend on all-powerful governments and economics to lead. Instead we have shared values in detail, and no substantial inequality of ability.

    There are definitely people I do categorize as “racist,” and I shy away from them because I think it’s a mental dysfunction. Racism to me means wanting another race in a lower place so you can use them as cheap labor, or abuse them. That’s broken logic, but it’s on par with the notion that we can have a diverse society and still have direction.

    If you want globalism and the New World Order, keep insisting that some humans are “non-racist” and everyone else is “racist.” You’ll quickly give government the mandate it needs for moral rule, and destroy culture so that there’s nothing for us but television, materialism and The Nanny State.

  15. Vijay:

    You are talking past me and anyone else you are responding to, and presumably will continue to, since everything you’ve said here is the same stuff you have on your website, with nothing new to suggest that you’ve even read the other posts on this board.

    But I’ll take a stab at responding to you anyway.

    First, I hope the irony is not lost of you of the idea that black metal is a champion of racial separation, when it owes its very existence (like all other forms of metal) to the mixing of different cultures that occurred in the United States and Britain.

    As for your accusation of other people imposing false dilemmas: I freely admit that there are many different positions to take, and that a racial separatist is not necessarily a racial supremacist.

    But two points are worth mentioning here. First, when people at least in the US say “racist” they are usually lumping both of the above into that. Historically, perhaps you’re right that “racist” more properly means “racial supremacist”, but you’ll just have to get your mind around the reality that it has a different meaning for many people, just as you want to have your own definition of terms like “misanthrope” and, of course, “nihilist”, that have diverged from the standard definitions.

    Second, a racial separatist is still in a local sense a racial supremacist, and hence a “racist” in any sense, because he or she believes that a particular race is superior for a particular area, or for a particular culture.

    For example, you have expressed clearly the opinion that white people (and more specifically what you call “Indo-European” people, even though such a thing has not existed for 5000 years) are the only ones who belong in Europe and the US, and only they are appropriate to what you call Western Culture.

    Well, it may come as a surprise to you, but that alone is enough to raise the “racist” flag, since there are millions of people of different types of descent than that who consider themselves every bit as much of a member of “Western Culture” as a white/European/Gentile person, and to belong just as rightfully in the aforementioned lands. And this opinion is shared by most of the white people themselves.

    You assert the opposite, and you assert that such a position leads to a cultureless mass, but have given no evidence to that effect.

  16. Dave:

    “Second, a racial separatist is still in a local sense a racial supremacist, and hence a ‘racist’ in any sense, because he or she believes that a particular race is superior for a particular area, or for a particular culture.”

    So is it racism to demand that mixed-race people be considered the superior race worldwide?

    I don’t think I’m talking past anyone. I’m calling you out on a false dichotomy, which is bad logic and makes for bad policy.

    The point is: one can oppose diversity, not be a racist, and be right, and even you must admit that’s a possibility.

  17. Vijay wrote:

    “So is it racism to demand that mixed-race people be considered the superior race worldwide?”

    Yes, it would indeed be. However, I don’t see anyone here saying that.

    “I don’t think I’m talking past anyone. I’m calling you out on a false dichotomy, which is bad logic and makes for bad policy.”

    You’re talking past people because you’er not responding to any of their arguments, and you’re focusing on that one thing that I’ve already showed is a minor part of the issue at best.

    “The point is: one can oppose diversity, not be a racist,”

    Not really. Because such opposition gets you into the “racial separatism” that I described earlier. Separate is not equal.

    “and be right, and even you must admit that’s a possibility.”

    It’s a possibility a priori. That is, if you don’t know any of the facts, you might rationally think so. Once you know what you’re talking about, however, you know that it’s not.

  18. Author: Dave Comment:

    Perpetuum: Are you serious? Come on, think a minute. How do we know that death metal bands aren’t serious about raping children?

    Read the lyrics of death metal bands, then read the propoganda of sites like
    ANUS or the rantings of Varg Vikernes and the lyrics of Nokturnal Mortum or Absurd, and tell me which one takes itself seriously.

    Or find me an interview where a death metal artist actually says “the problem with America today is that there’s not enough baby-raping”.

    Just don’t play total idiot.

    Dave:
    Are you replying to my comment? It does not appear so. Your comments are incoherent, I do not see your point – if any.
    My point was that you cannot tell if a singer is serious about raping, racism, drugs, killing etc or not, until he goes out and does it. Singing about anything is perfectly legal, at least in the USA. If a singer thinks that a rapist or racist image help him earn more $, it is his “artistic” choice. You cannot prove that he or his listeners are racists, rapists or not. If you decide to judge them anyway, you are just as prejudiced as any racist, except your judgment is based on musical taste instead of skin color.
    Your politically correct criticism and racist-calling is simply an attempted censorship of a music or people you dislike.
    When I listen to a cd, I listen to the music, I do not care about the mostly stupid lyrics. I seriously doubt that you can understand death/black metal lyrics anyway. You go out of your way to find lyrics or statements you can criticize.
    Btw which one of the seven metal bands named Absurd are you referring to?
    Why don’t you go listen & criticize rap lyrics, they are much more disturbing than metal lyrics. But watch out, maybe you will be qualified to be a racist by the PC crowd for doing so.
    As for your unjustified name calling, you were just expressing your IQ level ___ !?

  19. Perpetuum:

    My point was that you cannot tell if a singer is serious about raping, racism, drugs, killing etc or not, until he goes out and does it.

    Dave:

    And that point is incorrect.

    Perpetuum:

    If you decide to judge them anyway, you are just as prejudiced as any racist, except your judgment is based on musical taste instead of skin color.

    Dave:

    Actually, the judgment is based on the person’s political beliefs, which last I check is a legitimate way to judge someone.

    Perpetuum:

    Your politically correct criticism and racist-calling is simply an attempted censorship of a music or people you dislike.

    Dave:

    Attempted censorship? Really? When did I attempt to censor anyone?

    Perpetuum:

    Btw which one of the seven metal bands named Absurd are you referring to?

    Dave:

    If you don’t know the answer to this, then you are obviously unfamiliar with racist metal in the first place, and hence are not really qualified to join this conversation.

    Perpetuum:

    As for your unjustified name calling

    Dave:

    What name-calling?

    Perpetuum:

    you were just expressing your IQ level ___ !?

    Dave:

    So let me get this straight: You can’t tell whether death metal bands are serious about baby-raping or not, but I’m the one with the low IQ?

  20. Dave, your reply is a bit disingenuous.

    First, claiming that I’m talking past by people by not addressing every comment here is completely dishonest. I never claimed that was my objective, nor does it make sense; I highlighted the points of interest to me and am not obligated to respond to all objections raised by others.

    Second, you have two options here. Either you allow ethnic groups to separate and have their own corner of the world, or your force everyone worldwide to admit everyone else and thus make a mixed-race the de facto superior race.

    Separate is not equal, but nothing is equal and trying to force it to be so reeks of the kind of controlling neurosis that has brought us into so many pointless wars. But, it’s interesting to note that the governments of the US, UK and most of Europe agree with you and not me.

  21. Vijay, your points led me to your website which is extremely interesting. However, you say:

    “With a strong organic underpinning like culture and its genetic encoding in ethnicity, we can have societies that do not depend on all-powerful governments and economics to lead.”

    Your argument, which I must admit has been largely passed over, is that the more a nation’s political cultures become hetergeneous, (1) the more EXTERNAL control is required to keep society from breaking apart from the inside, and (2), the less direction society has above and beyond buying and selling things?

    (what, can i ask, have ‘traditional’ cultures pursued in the past if not the good old dollar? hasn’t money ruled since the beginning?)

    Assuming that traditional cultures had values other than economics (or at least wealth), the fact that government coordination, centralisation, elimination of local autonomy and also the hegemony of economics all seem to have increased in the modern period as society has become multiculural on a mass scale seems to lend your view much credibility. However this is only correlational.

    Your argument seems to me to assume the following premise:

    • that the most significant social differences between people originate in their ethnicity.

    What about the very large potential gulfs between people of the same ethnicity??

  22. “What about the very large potential gulfs between people of the same ethnicity??”

    For example, in Australia we cannot come to an agreement on environmental issues….but i believe this has more to do with differences between capitalists and ordinary civilians than ethnic differences!

    Was life in ‘traditional’ socieites really so organic and unified?

  23. Vijay:

    First, you’re not obligated to do anything in particular here, but what you do, I’m gonna call like I see. And picking one minor detail to respond to and then going into a tangent of regurgitated points from your website, yeah, that’s the definition of talking past people.

    Second, now who’s giving a false dilemma? You’ve done it twice in the same sentence! We don’t have to either “allow ethnic groups to separate” or “force everyone worldwide to admit everyone”, nor would the latter entail that a mixed-race was the superior race.

    I have no idea where you get either idea from, so it’s hard to respond, but a couple points are relevant. First of all, you are strangely vague about who is doing the “forcing” vs. “allowing” in question. Is it a government? Or an individual household?

    Relatedly, it’s kindof interesting where you use the words “force” vs. “allow”, since your proposal of “allowing ethnic groups to separate” would require a great deal of forcing, far more than the alternative system actually.

    Next, you have a very strange idea of what constitutes an “ethnic group” and how they work. For one thing, there is no exact formula for what constitutes an ethnic group. There are ethnicities and subethnicities, as you seem to understand in other writings. There are Germanic peoples, and within that, there are Swedes vs. English people vs. Germans, and within the latter, there are Bavarians and Swabians and Saxons. How are you going to decide at which unit the separation should take place?

    In addition, ethnic groups are constantly changing, some disappearing, some assimilating into other groups, some splitting. For example, there was no French ethnicity 2000 years ago. What we now call “French” is a composite of Gaulish, Frankish, and Roman ethnicities. Conversely, Afrikaners and Dutch people descend from what was once one and the same ethnic group. Will you keep changing the rules for keeping people out of certain areas as ethnic groups change?

    As for your third paragraph, resisting racial separation does not constitute “forcing” anyone to do anything, certainly not trying to force things to be equal. On the contrary, it involves resisting force, the force to keep certain people out of certain areas.

    The fundamental error you make is that you seem to think that the ethnic group is the unit of choice, that an ethic group can “decide” things, that it can have desires and interests.

    It can’t.

    The individual is the unit of choice. An individual makes decisions, an individual has desires and goals; a group does not, except as a composite of what its constituent individuals want.

    Therefore trying to give “rights” to ethnic group, and letting an ethnic group “decide” things, restricts the freedom of individuals.

    As much as you continue to speak against it, individualism is the natural way to construe any sort of morality or politics, because the individual is the unit of choice.

  24. Peter:

    I realize your posts are addressed to Vijay, but I’d like to add onto some of your questions.

    I have been confused for some time about what the ANUS site means by “direction” of a society. As far as I can tell, the only purposes that any societies, whether homogenous or heterogenous in ethnicity, have ever pursued en masse are survival, power/expansion, wealth, and protection for their constituents, in varying degrees of course.

    The ANUS people seem to value art as a measure of the success of a society, but art is by and large the work of individuals, not of whole societies. Artists are of course influenced by their culture and tradition, but I see no evidence that great art has ever been the result of a homogenous society working as a whole toward a common goal, as ANUS would suggest, but rather it is often the work of one or a small group of individuals going partly against the grain.

  25. This is funny, Vijay shouldn’t be in this kind of places discussing with such idealize humans (close mind, linear logic( forgetting about details) ) or people or whatever you want to call yourselves.

    But I’ll let you shit on me.

    Death Metal might not be racist, but it will always be listened by a high amount of white skin people, which allows them to re-group and so let the “black/Color” people out… Or give them the common sense of no tasting or listening to that music.

    But I’ll be very honest with you, Metal comes from Rock and if you get deep into rock, you’ll end up in blues… Which means, our masters and the ones that bring the electric guitar to you guys… (Yes the one that you use to play “death metal” based on 4 power chords and basic scales for solos), are “black people”, still want to be racist?, ok, because blues also expresses depression or bad moments (rage) trough conscious states, you can compare it to death metal talking about corpses, death, blood, rape, war, whatever, still in that state of rage or in the need of expressing your shit, you’ll never reach a deep soul sound… like blues, and gentlemen… is from black people mostly, even if you are a music genius, you’ll still let the death metal be what it is, because is just another kind of music, but seriously… it attract little kids (so you might be good with raping)

    Thats it, I respect your taste, but I don’t have to accept it, even worse, why attacking the nihilist site?, because I understand nihilism as a method not a philosophy, so please stop with your linear logic when releasing music and so art, expand yourselves and create music for your own pleasure, why caring about racism? do you have ears?

  26. Dave, thanks for your reply. However I want to quote from your post to Vijay because I’m not entirely sure about your argument either.

    “As much as you continue to speak against it, individualism is the natural way to construe any sort of morality or politics, because the individual is the unit of choice.”

    How, pray tell, is the individual the unit of choice in the modern mass industrial ‘democratic’ state? That might be the rhetoric, but when you have government that is in some sense dictated by what a mass of 20, 60, or 300 MILLION people (with increasingly different values, re Vijay’s point, which I think is right in a sense) decide, how does the individual have any choice?

    Moreover, when politics and ‘what is right’ is up to ‘individuals’ and not tradition, you simply get waves of power hungry people manipulating the masses to do this and that, engage in this and that whim, buy this or that good, etc.

    The media is supposed to be the vehicle and pinnacle of democratic (individual) ‘freedom’ in western states. However it has turned into a huge mechanical beast which filters out most rational, human, discussion in favour of the tools of mass psychology.

    The individual, in any admirable sense of the word, is nothing. Individuals can rise up the channels in our industrial states, but only by loosing most of their individuality to the memes that are guiding things. I think Vijay’s point is this:

    Considering that individualism is not a viable reality (We’re primarily social animals, as aristotle noted), do we want traditional culture guiding things, or the industrial system (the marriage of economic interests and bureaucratic interests)?

  27. Peter, thanks for your comments.

    What I meant about individualism being natural was on a much more basic level.

    The individual makes decisions about how to act, what to do, where to go, etc., and that concept is fairly simple and tractable.

    The idea that a whole society can “decide” things, or move in a “direction”, is much more complicated, and in any case derivative of a composite of what many individuals are deciding and doing.

    That goes for any society, whether traditional or industrial, democratic or fascist.

    In no society, democratic or autocratic, can every individual direct the whole society however he or she wants, as you point out. But the individual can still control his or her own actions. And the latter is true, again, no matter what society the individual finds himself or herself in, although the consequences of actions will be different depending on the society and its associated rules and law enforcement.

    As for your fourth paragraph, there are multiple issues here.

    First of all, I never said that “what is right” was “up to individuals”. I said instead that theories of morality should be based on the concept of the individual as the unit of choice. Very different. The point is that morality should be organized around protecting the rights of the individual, as opposed to Vijay’s idea that we should protect the rights of the ethnic group.

    Second, do you not get “waves of power hungry people maniuplating the masses” in a traditional system of morality too? I would say you definitely do.

    As for the media, I think it’s always been recognized as an imperfect beast, since it has to be funded somehow, and whether it’s the government or private companies funding it, you’re going to get some conflict of interest. We just hope that by ensuring that the press is free, the balance of multiple media outlets will ensure that the truth is represented somehow. But of course it is of necessity an imperfect system. But it’s not like it would be better in a fascist world, most likely much worse.

    Onto the next paragraph: the individual is nothing? I have a hard time imagining what you mean by this. How is the individual nothing? Hardly; the individual has literally an infinite number of options open to him or her. Of course, his or his actions are constrained by circumstance, but that really doesn’t downplay the importance of the individual in any and every society. And as for “losing their individuality”, there are some institutions that promote conformity, and there are benefits and downfalls to this, but those are by and large details to be worked out, not criticisms of individualism in general.

    Last paragraph: yes, we are social animals, but that does not in any way mean that “individualism is not a viable reality”. The individualsim is still the fundamental unit of thought and decision, in that individuals make descisions, perform actions, form thoughts, et cetera. The social structure emerges, yes, but only as a conglomerate of the inputs of many individuals. This is the case in every species, social or not.

    As for what we want guiding things, I’d say it’s not as simple a question as traditional vs. industrial. For one thing, there are many different traditions, and each has had different attributes at different time periods, some good, some bad. The English culture at some point (around the 700s AD) included slavery and brutal corporal punishment, but later included the foundations for constitutional protection of rights. We should incorporate some aspects of that and not others.

    The same goes for the “industrial system”, if by that you also include those aspects of what we have now that reject tradition in favor of protecting individual rights. Such a system does protect economic interest, which by the way benefit everyone, not just a few, but it also protects much more basic rights.

  28. Comment to Dave about his arguments with Vijay:
    Funny, you brought a knife to a gunfight, Vijay’s arguments are supported with more logic.

    <

    p>
    Author: Dave
    Comment:</p?

    Perpetuum: My point was that you cannot tell if a singer is serious about raping, racism, drugs, killing etc or not, until he goes out and does it.

    Dave: And that point is incorrect.

    Why? Can you see into the future? Are you a mindreader? Or just prejudiced.

    Perpetuum: If you decide to judge them anyway, you are just as prejudiced as any racist, except your judgment is based on musical taste instead of skin color.

    Dave: Actually, the judgment is based on the person's political beliefs, which last I check is a legitimate way to judge someone.

    Judging someone by his political views is just as justified as judging someone by his
    musical, sexual or racial views or references.

    Perpetuum: Your politically correct criticism and racist-calling is simply an attempted censorship of a music or people you dislike.

    Dave: Attempted censorship? Really? When did I attempt to censor anyone?

    With your statements here. What else are you trying to accomplish if not censorship?

    Perpetuum: Btw which one of the seven metal bands named Absurd are you referring to?

    Dave: If you don't know the answer to this, then you are obviously unfamiliar with racist metal in the first place, and hence are not really qualified to join this conversation.

    Haha, you did not know about the "other" six, did you? Otherwise you would have specified the country of origin of the "offender" to protect the 6 "innocent" ones. Anyway, how do you expect me to know which one should be hated if I do not read lyrics?

    Perpetuum: As for your unjustified name calling

    Dave: What name-calling?

    "Just don’t play total idiot." – Posted by you on 05 May 2010 at 12:55 pm
    I rest my case.

  29. Rubén Nörjhz: “But I’ll be very honest with you, Metal comes from Rock and if you get deep into rock, you’ll end up in blues… Which means, our masters and the ones that bring the electric guitar to you guys… (Yes the one that you use to play “death metal” based on 4 power chords and basic scales for solos), are “black people”, still want to be racist?, ok, because blues also expresses depression or bad moments (rage) trough conscious states, you can compare it to death metal talking about corpses, death, blood, rape, war, whatever, still in that state of rage or in the need of expressing your shit, you’ll never reach a deep soul sound… like blues, and gentlemen… is from black
    people mostly, even if you are a music genius, you’ll still let the death metal be what it is, because is just another kind of music, but seriously… it attract little kids (so you might be good with raping)”

    So we got the true racist here, spreading lies to promote his race. Here is a little history lesson:
    The electric guitar was invented in 1925 by John Dopyera, a Czech immigrant in the USA, for a Texan origin Californian guitar player, George Beauchamp. They partnered and formed the guitar company “National Guitars”. Few years later Beauchap split and teamed up with another European immigrant, Adolph Rickenbacker and Paul Barth, developed the first commercially produced electric guitars named the A-25 Frying Pan in 1932. None of these were black people.
    Black peoples’ influence on world music is less than 100 years old and early black musicians appear to prefer vocals and drums over other instrumental playing.
    Metal and rock typically overwhelmed with instrumental playing, has its origins in country, folk, blues, classical & medieval music. Country and blues is really from folk music, which is a Millennium or two old and the style of folk music which did the influencing was mostly from Europe and somewhat from Asia. Medieval and Classical are also over a half-Millennium old and they are the origin of most instrumental plays.
    I believe that this “rock/metal origin from black people” idea was invented by some politically correct misguided people in the media due to some slavery originated guilt or whatever other agenda.

    When it comes to raping, killing, racism, etc, Death Metal is a midget compared to Rap

    Rubén’s other paragraphs 1, 2, 3 and 5 makes generally no sense, even more incoherent than the “Dave” postings.

    Heavy metal was invented by (1st recorded by) Iron Butterfly (1967), Steppenwolf (1967), and in the purest
    form by Black Sabbath in 1968. Not black people.
    These are some different metal music samples, I emplore you to find black origins in them:

  30. Dave,

    “The social structure emerges, yes, but only as a conglomerate of the inputs of many individuals. This is the case in every species, social or not.”

    I think we have conflicting opinions about the dynamics that exist between individuals and the society. I believe this conflict (captured i think in above quote) captures the difference in our thinking, and i point it out to help illustrate what i’ve been banging on about in previous comments as i think i’ve been alluding to something important.

    I do not take individuals to be autonomous ‘blank slate’ agents, where the flow of influence in society is one directional, beginning with individuals and ending in society as simply the conjunction of individual preferences.

    Industrial society atomises culture (removes traditional culture), frames things as up to the so called ‘sovereign individual’, and then lets marketing and group/individual psychology play havoc.

    This reflects one of the key errors in the basic premises of economics as a social philosophy. ‘Demand’ is not an expression of the will of free agents. It is highly malleable.

    Argument: Individualism doesn’t really exist. If we pretend it does, and leave things up to ‘individuals’, we open society up to the dangers of never ending demagoguery across all aspects of social life. I think we can see this developing in the west. Increasingly we have a vicious, calculating upper class manipulating a bovine-like population. You don’t get this nations like, say Tibet.

    I’m not saying traiditional culture is perfect or that individualism hasn’t benefitted people in any way shape of form. But we should question the reality of the ‘individualism’. In true enlightenment tradition we should be self-conscious and critical of where atomostic individualism is leading us. I hope you are at least critical.

  31. Peter,

    Once again, I think I am talking at a much more basic level than you. I don’t even think we do have as conflicting opinions as you think we do.

    I never meant to imply that the flow of influence was unidirectional, or in general that individuals weren’t influenced by outside factors. Indeed humans are influenced a great deal by many other things, including other individuals, and also “society”, which itself is composed, of course, of the actions of many other individuals.

    This is quite different from the position of a person like Vijay, who seems to think of a society as an organic being in its own right, capable of its own actions, its own desires, and at times it seems like he thinks that it can even feel pain and have “rights”.

    My point in my response to Vijay was simply that this latter position is incorrect. Any and every single theory of culture, of society, of psychology and anthropology, as well as every theory of government and of control, has to take the individual into account as the building block of society. If you don’t do that, or if you ascribe desires or rights to “society” or “culture” as a whole, then you’re living in a fantasy world and have no actual theory.

    As this is quite a separate point from your criticisms of industrialism as opposed to traditional culture, I will address the latter in a separate post.

  32. Peter:

    “Industrial society atomises culture (removes traditional culture)”

    I don’t see it. First, I don’t see how those two are the same thing, and second, I don’t see anywhere where industrial society has removed traditional culture.

    There are of course revolutions, a very few of which have deliberately sought to get rid of the past, such as the Chinese Cultural Revolution. But that is the exception rather than the rule; there is nothing inherent to industrialism that seeks to remove traditional culture for the sake of removing it.

    Industrialism does represent a change in culture, but that is nothing special to industrialism. Cultures change all the time, they’re in a constant flux, and the fact that industrialism represents one such change is no special cause for alarm.

    And indeed, every industrial society (including China, despite the efforts of the revolutionaries) preserves many aspects of its traditional culture going back as far back as one can remember. Not all of them, of course, but no culture does that, industrial or not.

    “This reflects one of the key errors in the basic premises of economics as a social philosophy. ‘Demand’ is not an expression of the will of free agents. It is highly malleable.”

    Well, first of all, I don’t think any one advances economics as a social philosophy in the first place. Economics is part of the system in which humans relate to each other, but no one proposes that it’s the whole thing. And as for demand, again, I don’t see anyone saying it’s not malleable. That doesn’t mean it’s not the product of free will, at least to the extent that free will exists in the first place, the latter a big philosophical can of worms that does not, I think, matter for current purposes. The point is that demand, at least as I understand it (I am not an expert in economic theory) represents what people want; the reason they want it is irrelevant, just that they want it.

    “Argument: Individualism doesn’t really exist. “

    Well, now you’ve lost me. In what sense does it not exist? In the sense that there are no individuals? Surely not. In the sense that individuals don’t have thoughts, feelings, desires, and decisions? Again, the answer is quite obviously no. I don’t mean to apply a straw man to your argument, but you’ll have to be clearer in what you mean by “individualism” if you think it actually doesn’t exist.

    “If we pretend it does, and leave things up to ‘individuals’, we open society up to the dangers of never ending demagoguery across all aspects of social life. I think we can see this developing in the west. Increasingly we have a vicious, calculating upper class manipulating a bovine-like population.”

    Ok, now you’ve said a mouthful. Again, you’ll have to be clearer about what you mean by “individualism”, since I have no idea how from it, you get to “leaving things up to individuals”. When I say “individualism”, I mean that we see the individual as the unit of choice, the unit of desire, and the unit of interest. It does not have any of the implications you seem to ascribe to it.

    So I have no idea how it would lead automatically to the things you see it leading to. And as for Tibet being better, you’ll have to elaborate. In what way is Tibet not individualist, and in what way does it not have the problems that we have?

    “I’m not saying traiditional culture is perfect or that individualism hasn’t benefitted people in any way shape of form.”

    Again, traditional culture can mean many things. You have to be more specific.

  33. Peter:

    Another thing I should clarify is this:

    Individualism can mean a few things. At a very basic level, it means that the individual is the unit of analysis of society. This is completely uncontroversial. Every psychologist studies the individual’s behavior and thoughts.

    Even the sociologist and anthropologist gathers their information in part from individuals, their behavior, and their thoughts.

    At a slightly less basic level, I believe that the individual is the unit of interest. That means that any theory of morality, or of politics, should address the interests, the desires, the actions, and the rights of individuals.

    This is quite different from Vijay, whose professed philosophy is that the individual has no importance whatsoever. For him, it seems, only the society as a whole matters. He views individuals within a society as like cells within a body; if a few or even thousands die, it doesn’t matter.

    Now, in theory, either view would be a possible starting point. But Vijay’s justification for his position makes no sense, as a careful reading of his site makes clear.

    My idea, I think, makes at least more sense.

  34. I just came across an interesting quote from the ANUS website:

    “In philosophical terms, traditionalism is a form of cosmic idealism, which means that it is a belief system where design-change in the external world (winning a battle, creating an idea, composing a symphony) is more important than personal comfort or survival; cosmic idealism is a dramatic contrast to Judaic moralism, as found in Christianity and liberalism, in which personal comfort and survival are more important than anything else”

    It’s interesting because it’s so clear (unlike most of the stuff that they write) and yet so bizarre, especially given even their own “nihilist” premises.

    Creating a symphony is more important than survival? Why? A symphony doesn’t seem to be much good if there’s no one around to here it.

    And since when is winning a battle an end in itself. Ever battle in history has been a means to an end, and that end is more often than not exactly a struggle for survival of one side, albeit sometimes the threat to that survival is perceived misguidedly.

    I’m not saying that the exact converse of the statement is true, that “personal comfort and survival” are the only goals. But symphonies and the like are certainly means to an end, namely enjoyment, or enlightenment, of the individuals that listen to them.

    Symphonies are not an end in themselves; if they were, then you’d have to say that if the entire human species fell off the face of the earth, the existence of a symphony (in recording, in musical notation) would still have some value.

    But it seems to me that even within the “nihilist” logic of the ANUS site, that is not so.

  35. “Argument: Individualism doesn’t really exist. “

    “Well, now you’ve lost me. In what sense does it not exist? In the sense that there are no individuals? Surely not. In the sense that individuals don’t have thoughts, feelings, desires, and decisions?”

    Not in the sense that there are no individual human beings. And not in these sense that these animals don’t have desires etc. In the sense of where these desires come from! In the sense that “…one of the key errors in the basic premises of economics as a social philosophy. ‘Demand’ is not an expression of the will of free agents. It is highly malleable.”

    You cannot seperate the Individual from the society. ‘Individualism’, in the sense of the idea that the individual is the essential or ‘casual’ factor in society (as opposed to social currents, memes), to me is scientifically incorrect (from the perspective of evolutionary anthropology or cognitive psychology). When we believe that we are giving primacy to individuals over society, i.e., with notions like “…demand, at least as I understand it (I am not an expert in economic theory) represents what people want; the reason they want it is irrelevant, just that they want it”, we are really giving it to society again (in a different, perhaps more risky way). However this goes under the radar because we think we are giving to individuals. Individuals are herd animals. Natural selection has favoured social human beings. It has also favoured some sense of rational thought, but this is (sometimes unfortunately) competes with social instincts and losses all too often.

    This (IMO) philosophical misrepresentation of human beings is, i think, increasingly leading to society where a calculating upperclass manipulate the demand of culture-less mass of human beings with great scientific, psychological precision.

    Its simplistic and very general, but it should get my point across (finally).

  36. Peter:

    Once again, I’m not sure how much we disagree, exactly. But I hope you at least see how Vijay’s entire premise is incorrect.

    As for this:

    “‘Individualism’, in the sense of the idea that the individual is the essential or ‘casual’ factor in society (as opposed to social currents, memes), to me is scientifically incorrect (from the perspective of evolutionary anthropology or cognitive psychology). “

    First of all, be careful in your wording. First of all, science is not subjective, therefore your use of the phrase “to me” is suspect. Either it’s scientifically correct or not.

    And as such, It doesn’t look to me like you have any actual sources that say that the sciences you site, anthropology and psychology, have produced results that agree with your conclusion.

    What is pretty clear to me is that the individual effects society and vice versa. But the individual is still the basic building block of society, and not the other way around, which you still apparently disagree with. But you say that “social currents, memes” affect society more than individuals; where do you think social currents and memes come from if not from individuals?

    “This (IMO) philosophical misrepresentation of human beings is, i think, increasingly leading to society where a calculating upperclass manipulate the demand of culture-less mass of human beings with great scientific, psychological precision.”

    First, “culture-less”? Such a thing doesn’t exist. Every society of human beings has a culture.

    Second, you keep complaining about this “calculating upperclass”; for one thing it is a separate issue from individualism per se. You haven’t shown that such a thing has anything to do with individualism or would disappear if we had a more “traditional” culture.

    Second, you’re descending a bit into conspiracy theory territory. Yes, people try to manipulate others into buying their products and voting for their candidates, etc., but the idea that they’ve figured out how to control the rest of us with “great scientific, psychological precision” is wishful thinking–for them! No one has figured out even how to predict the demands of the consumers, let alone control them. If they could, the economy wouldn’t go up and down all the time.

    And also, it’s not a fixed “us vs. them” thing. We are all part of both classes, really. We are all both buyers, sellers, and manufacturers, or at least a lot of us are.

  37. “When we believe that we are giving primacy to individuals over society, i.e., with notions like “…demand, at least as I understand it (I am not an expert in economic theory) represents what people want; the reason they want it is irrelevant, just that they want it”, we are really giving it to society again (in a different, perhaps more risky way).”

    How so? You’ll have to explain this one more.

  38. Metal Music+Racism:

    RACISM is a ideology based/concer of ancient politics, and mithology.

    Greeks: the concept of “areté” and “Xenophobia”…(they belive in racial distinctions among conquerros and slaves ( Aqueos, dorians, etc…)

    Gods, Gothorum (baltogermanic tribes): Blut Adel (blood heritage). The racial distinction between the Jarls or kings (blond or dred hair) and the people with dark hair (slaves).

    Indoiranian: Manu laws Code-the arya Varna (varna means caste or race in sanskrit).

    white supremacist, racism and Racialism is not the same.Fascism, NSADP (National Socialism) is not the same ! KKK and North America racism is another history.

    Metal music talks about mithologies :
    80s bands (trash, speed, heavy) talk a lot about satan and satanism. Satanic mithology spread the worship of Satan ( Samahel – Old testament-Hebrew), the dark lord and evil one,etc (dualistic post Mazdeism dualities and neo-monotheism). Now we have a lot of metal bands with other mithologies: Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, etc…(Indo european Paganism).

    If some bands talk abut rape womens, sacrife childrens, orgies, drugs or any (as satanic 80s bands did) and NON-MORALIST stuff…is acceptable.
    if they said: Hail Satan !, is just fine for headbangers….
    but, if a metal band say “Hail Hitler” …now, dotards start the discusion if metal followers can tolerate racism.
    Metal is about Mithologies(and whatever u want to say), if some guys belive in that ..i dont give a fuck!!!…if they sing about Satan, Odhin or III Reich ..so great…WTF….if u dont like, don´t listen that “kind of metal”.but don`t tell us which band is “true metal”…fuck off u moralist people.

    By the way: “cotation”

    Ok, stop. What? a.) There is no such thing as race. b.) culture ≠ race. c.) there are no clear delineations between cultures!

    who ever wrote that..is just a “doxomimetics” (the copy of accepted/comon sense – opinion)
    Race exist for the Antropologist and Etnologist, Archeologist, fisiologist, academics,etc.

    Race and culture: Whats the line between both concepts?
    well, when u study old indoeuropean grammar, u know the most of the kalkolitcs and iron age tribes mixed the concept of “culture” and “Race”. The concept of culture came from the greek (Athenas) word: PAIDEIA and means : “to teach how to be a perfect man or citizen” , and the early paidea (Werner Jaeger theory) made a selection between the Race/blood heritage- of the invaders and conquerred tribes. The invaders were ( Baltics, anatholian migration theories )- Ionians (Ancient Greek Ἰωνία or Ἰωνίη), Dorians, Aqueans (minos-Cretences)..etc …

    In old times the conquerrors saids: we are the master race! , we are power and we are “good”. To be white and blond is to be a member of the aristocracy -the gods caste-. If u think im talkin shit, read the first chapter of Federich Nitzsche “geneology of the moral” or some academic works of filology.

    now, modern Democracy says: “its a crime to belive in race or racial diferences”-…well, thats a political stufff….
    someday they will say to belive in any god or Santa klaus is a crime too , i don`t care. If some headbangers or skinhead hypocefalics jerks, belive in white racial supremacy, is the same to belive in satan or Christ or w/e (methapisics), at least if we stand infront of a moral/ethic argument.

    If u belive race or cultural diferences dosen´t exist ..well, it depends what kind of academic sources do u read or do u prefer.

    Im gonna keep lisening Manowar, Burzum, storm, Nokturnal Mortum, Arkona,etc. I don´t care if they were nazis or they are still talking about myths as “Racism”. U waste ur time triying to tell waht can we hear or not. “Racism” and “paganism” is the new extreme metal satanism, and there will be alwways extrem metal fans.

    sorry about my bad english grammar, english is not my native language.

    Oscar

  39. Well said Oscar!! You knocked them out. Case closed! ——- [The song] “Today is a Good Day to Die – is dedicated for all the motherfuckin’ losers in the world who have tried to put us and our fans down. We only wish to live long enough to Piss on the grave of our enemies.” Quote by Manowar

  40. Damn fine article! It always breaks my heart when I find out a band I like is racist.

    I like black metal and pagan/folk metal, and it takes a lot of effort to actually sort through bands (especially when there is a language barrier) to find the non racist ones.

    Keep up the good work, fight racism and homophobia in metal. \m/

  41. In my opinion, anti-Christianism is rightfully left out because being a Christian is a choice, being a member of one “race” or another is not. When one makes the choice to identify with a group which is known to be a target for discrimination, one also accepts that the discriminatory attitudes aimed at the group will be extended to themselves. The Bible itself is filled with examples of Christians being persecuted and just generally treated poorly. It’s not like the Christians aren’t aware of what they’re getting themselves into when they accept the Lord’s offer. Action and consequence, plain and simple. One chooses his or her religion, not his or her skin colour.

  42. @Scarlett

    Following that logic antisemitism should be left out also because Judaism is a religion too, not a race.

    The only reason homophobia and racism is fought today is because it is popular, ei. fighting for gay-rights is great for PR and the best way to ruin someone’s career is to spread rumors about them being anti-semitic/racist etc.

    Personally I believe in freedom of expression, that counts music too. If you don’t like their message or if the message in the music is ok but privately they are racist and you cannot get over it- just don’t support them.

    I’m not racist btw.

  43. “Following that logic antisemitism should be left out also because Judaism is a religion too, not a race.”

    It’s also an ethnic group, in a complicated way, and it’s the ethnic aspects that the Nazis and neo-Nazis target.

    “The only reason homophobia and racism is fought today is because it is popular, “

    Reverse Yogi Berra logic. It had to get popular in the first place for some reason or other.

    “If you don’t like their message or if the message in the music is ok but privately they are racist and you cannot get over it- just don’t support them.”

    Don’t worry, we won’t. And part of that is spreading the word about those views.

  44. This is very interesting to me. I recently found ANUS and started reading their articles, as I consider myself a moral Nihilist. I started at the oldest article and read about 3 before the racial topics started to pop up. I got that tingly feeling at the back of my skull, read on a bit more and did a google search, found this article.

    These cats aren’t Nihilists, as has been pointed out. I also have to wonder at the staggeringly stupid notion that their website is somehow going to be a vehicle for the kinds of changes they want to make. I mean really…get a clue, Vijay. They talk about reality this, and free thinker that, but in the end they are just another group that believes (for whatever foolish reason) that they can solve the world’s problems, and that those problems have something to do with mixed races.

    I hate to break it to old Vijay, but you come across as very…juvenile in your ravings. One article on your site, the one that convinced me that you guys are totally full of crap, actually went into how several different religions were “created by the Jews” to “control the Gentiles”. Vijay can claim to not be a racist all he wants, but I’ve read thinly veiled White Supremacist rhetoric before, and that seems to be what ANUS is all about.

    To say nothing of the notion which seems to pervade ANUS, that somehow the “Nihilists” will inherit the earth. To a real Nihilist your goals and opinions are very, very funny. Also, Nietzsche wasn’t a Nihilist, and the Ubermensch was a transcendent figure who went BEYOND Nihilism. One could even say that Nihilism is antithetical to Nietzsche’s concept of the Ubermensch.

    To anyone else in this thread who may happen to be interested, I do apologize for intruding and resorting to ad hominem for the not-so-closeted racists, but when what they are saying is that base and ignorant I do not feel the need to treat them in a civil manner. I might be a Nihilist, but that doesn’t mean that I do not find some things repugnant.

    Finally, this was a very interesting article and I thank the writer for the time they spent researching and producing it.

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