Lessons in Community Organising for Identitarians

Despite the resurgence of identity-based politics lately e.g. Trump, Brexit, and Len Pen, nonetheless there are serious concerns about the long-term viability of this movement. Trump is falling short of his promises, Brexit has stalled, Le Pen missed out, and the Alt-Right movement drove itself into a ditch in Charlottesville.

All of which begs the question: is this a viable long-term movement, or a balloon about to fizz out across the room. The answer lies in two quotes:

1. YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW

Trump, Farage and Le Pen all have two things in common:

A - They are largely self-made, spontaneous leaders. Obviously they are influenced by their parents, but otherwise they are self-made.

B - Their support base is largely reactive in nature. Brexit and Le Pen were largely reactions to the Merkel-inspired invasion of refugees into Europe, and the increase in terrorism across Europe. And while Trump's support was based on a wider range of anti-globalist issues, that too is somewhat reactive.

And the problem with the identitarian movement generally is:

C - The relationships between supporters tend to be superficial and ephemeral i.e. we come together around campaigns, or the news/outrage of the day, and we communicate mostly via social media. But those connections largely rescind the rest of the time, and we're left on our own.

2. POLITICS IS DOWNSTREAM OF CULTURE

But in order to create a viable long-term movement, we need to move beyond spontaneous reactions, and into the proactive realm. And we need to move beyond ephemeral relationships and into a deeper relationship dynamic i.e. a supportive community that embodies our ideas, and inspires us to action, and keeps us on track, and has its own momentum, resources, spirit and wisdom to guide us.

A sustainable movement requires a group with a sound mind, body and spirit, in order to have any chance of surviving in a tough world. And the enormity of that challenge necessitates a deeper relationship dynamic. Ad hoc connections just don't create the type of dynamic required to build a thriving group, the connections are too weak.

So, how do we build such a group that is proactive and produces its own leaders? And has a deep relationship dynamic that creates momentum? That is the million dollar question, and that is the next phase of rebuilding the identity-based movement. Successful groups have certain qualities and we need to discover what they are.

Below, is a taste of what community organising looks like. These videos are mostly on the liberal side of politics, and some of them borrow from religion, but nonetheless there are lessons to be learned here for all identitarians.

Due to health problems, I can't do this topic justice. This will just be a glimpse, a taste of a much bigger topic. Others will have to take the ball and run with it, if our movement is to have any future. It's a much bigger topic, and smarter people than me will need to get involved.

But this is the direction we need to head in. In order to be creating leaders, and taking charge of our own destiny, we need mature communities.

Note that I don't see small isolated communities as the ultimate goal, but rather, as communities being the vehicle to create a much bigger network of co-ordinated groups. As small groups, we are still impotent. Only when co-ordinated into a large group do we become effective in politics, and effective if some sort of collapse happens. From little things, big things grow.

On the Group Fitness website, I outlined a structure to bind together the various subgroups of white/Western world with a unifying meta narrative. But we also need to build specific groups, and that is question here i.e. what are the qualities of successful groups and how do we organise them at the community level?

This is the next phase of the identity-based movement. Either we make this transition to community organising, or we die out like the dodo bird.










Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind:

We are Homo duplex; we are 90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee. Successful religions work on both levels of our nature to suppress selfishness, or at least to channel it in ways that often pay dividends for the group...

Religions are moral exoskeletons. If you live in a religious community, you are enmeshed in a set of norms, relationships, and institutions that ... influence your behaviour. But if you are an atheist living in a looser community with a less binding moral matrix, you might have to rely somewhat more on an internal moral compass... That might sound appealing to rationalists, but it is also a recipe for anomie--Durkheim's word for what happens to a society that no longer has a shared moral order. (It means, literally, "normlessness"). We evolved to live, trade, and trust within shared moral matrices. When societies lose their grip on individuals, allowing all to do as they please, the result is often a decrease in happiness and an increase in suicide...

Societies that forgo the exoskeleton of religion should reflect carefully on what will happen to them over several generations. We don’t really know, because the first atheistic societies have only emerged in Europe in the last decades. They are the least efficient societies ever known at turning resources (of which they have a lot) into offspring (of which they have few)...

Let us embrace a realistic picture of human nature, then maximize the benefits of our hivishness while minimizing its negative externalities.

That's just a start. It's a much bigger topic than I can cover.

Note that I'm not advocating for either atheism or religion. The identitarian movement contains both subgroups, who will create their own distinct communities, and we need to get along and learn from each other.

File under: rules for "radicals".