Apocalypse Culture in 2020 & Beyond
Apocalypse Culture in 2020 & Beyond
A review of Anita Dalton's TL;DR – The Best of Odd Things Considered
Originally published on Counter-Currents.com in 2018.
TL;DR – The Best of Odd Things Considered
Anita Dalton
Nine-Banded Books
2018
I got “into” (or have an interest in) the white nationalist scene through skinhead music. I was a fan of Skrewdriver, No Remorse, Brutal Attack, Razor’s Edge, Better Dead Than Red, and pretty much everything Micetrap Distribution was selling at the time. I was ironically on the far right because of its shocking and transgressive nature towards society. You gravitate towards things like this as a teenager. Now in my mid-twenties, I forlorn the time when the far-right was a new thing. It felt like a whole new world full of truth, anger, and exciting and appalling art. It was motivated by the energy of “avant-garde hate.”
I also remember watching Dean Irebodd’s 4-hour documentary “One-Third of the Holocaust,” believing it was the greatest work of art I’ve seen as a young 19-year-old teenager.
I feel like a fogy. I’m old.
I’m been noticing that The Daily Stormer is indeed, getting in unstable individuals apart of an entire millennial generation that takes Nazism (or whatever they learned through chan culture) as sincere. Back then, reading about Julius Evola or finding out about homonationalism was cutting-edge (it still is to some degree). As I grow old, I keep forgetting why I still surf daily on Counter-Currents. What am I truly getting out of this? The next James J. O. Meara or Margot Metroland piece?
The first time I ever read about Yukio Mishima was through a Kerry Bolton article on some obscure British Fascist website. Now the article is republished in More Artist of The Right, thanks to Counter-Currents!
I have to thank the far-right because they are willing to discover and “reconstruct” anti-liberal literature that is shunned in our modern society. This also means that publications like Nine-Banded Books will publish old Jonathan Bowden books, Holocaust Denial, and the work of Peter Sotos.
Oh Peter Sotos. Right there associated with Bowden. That was the good old days of “Apocalypse Culture.”
There is no official name for this avant-garde movement of shock artists or ex-punk stars brewing up in the mid-90s. Adam Parfrey tried to manifest the collective with Feral House. He won’t admit he’s in it for the shits and giggles to offend the reader, but he is interested in publishing literature that normies fear to read.
Chip Smith of Nine-Banded Books has done an excellent job deconstructing and finding the real roots of all this anti-liberal and offbeat literature. I admit, Counter-Currents, an openly white nationalist organization would strongly disagree with the likes of Jim Goad and Adam Parfrey’s cynic nature of trash culture and hipster racism. I, however, find this important to study, even from a so-called “alt-right” audience. (Is that term even relevant anymore? I once thought it was a cool term to talk about Evola, Serrano, Goodrich-Clarke, etc).
If you were truly a white nationalist, you would be some clean prude looking to start a family and uphold ethical values. Unfortunately, most white nationalists I have met are drug dealers and sleazy punk rockers (I will leave that story for another time). It’s a missionary’s job to clean the sinners and uplift them for the greater good of white nationalism. So when some foolish alt-righter trolls tell me how I am supposedly “wrong” about 1488ers being “degenerate,” my answer back would be a simple one.
…This is a far-right website feeding you information about the world in your isolated surroundings. As Alex Jones puts it, “There's a war on for your mind!”
The New York Times will even argue that a lie is what moves grow (somewhat true, but out of context).
Jim Goad subscribes to the ideology of being “skeptical about everything.” He had stated many times that he is not on the far-right, but is skeptical about everything, even when an alt-right troll bullies him because of something he disagrees with.
Sargon of Akkad might even call alt-right readers “right-wing SJWS” for getting offended over something like having a black girlfriend.
But if you don’t find something so like that trivial statement offensive, you can handle Nine Banded Books. Testing your fears and creating a new (and correct) liberal understanding about things that your brain forces you to stop at.
Even if that is Ancient Astronaut theory, pedophile fiction, and written accounts by morons… the list goes on.
Anita Dalton’s book is a new manifesto of the literature that was forgotten after the alt-right became an established ideology. I do recall reading some of Dalton’s blog posts about bizarro fiction. She had really good advice when it comes to finding new books. Finding new books for young people is like finding books that are “special.” Look at the entire market for indie music. An odd selection of music also means the profession of an odd selection of books, if that means anything deeper than what is.
Any normie reading the back of the book will come across “serial killer memoirs, outsider manifestos, and conspiracy theories.” Books about “losers” (unpopular culture) are hard to come by since everyone hates the loser and people want to be the “winners” (established institutions, NPR) all the time.
I could rant about the hypocrisy of the book industry and its culture, but Chip Smith’s introduction lays it out clearly.
“If VIP Book Salon still seems like a harmless safe space, I am compelled to remind you that shit runs downhill. I don’t know when you’re reading these words, but I am writing them as the year 2018 peeks from the womb. It’s a very strange cultural movement. As the chattering classes ratiocinate over the moral vicissitudes of punching “Nazies,” few seem to notice an ominous sea change in the spirit of public discourse. I am referring to nothing less than the “normalization” (to use a ruined word) of censorship.” (Smith xv)
Yes, we are all bonded together by our true hatred for normies (contradicting some who love them). I hate the normal person with a passion. It is the normie that oppresses me and makes my life harder as an individual. It’s also the reason why people join the far left because they want the culture to shift in favor of more decadence and nihilism. The mainstream establishment wants Ta-Nehisi Coates spoon-fed to your soccer mom so she can learn about anti-whiteness. But ironically, it would be a little insensitive for that same soccer mom to discover Andre Dworkin and learn about her virtual hatred for men. (The hypocrisy runs deep with normies).
Book culture is about the possessions of strange books and reciting niche intellectualism with other biblio-aficionados. A long time ago, a PhD in literature would do this. Today, the professional academic recites postmodern garbage against his will. But the story remains the same. The young kid grows up in a library full of books, and now has a blog about erotic and/or horror fiction. Normies could care less about the blogger’s deep interest in Edward Lee and Cameron Pierce. This intellect is only for a chosen few who struggle and suffer (and have quite a passion) to engage in literature that opens their world. TL;DR has many footnotes and book suggestions. Be careful, if you have a disposal income, chances are you will blow out your money in favor of possessing these rare books (and maybe read only a few lines, like what most people do).
All this talk about hipster fiction reminds me of a scene from that lost pre-Portlandia Adult Swim show Mission Hill. The episode where Kevin goes looking for the mysterious queer film, “The Man From Pluto.” And they just happen to walk into the “Weirdo Beardo video” store.1 Goth, edgy hipster types talking about “real art,” about fringe stuff nobody cares about, but is passionate about.
This is the same vibe I got from this book. A big inventory/checklist of books you need to survive in an urban elf environment.
Dalton writes in her introduction,
“For a long time, I could not find a niche, a place where I could coherently share my obsessive love of books based on my own very subjective tastes and opinions. But in the Internet Age when you find it difficult to find your place, you simply build one of your own. You create a digital stomping ground where kindred spirits can find you and perhaps even find value in your work.” (Dalton xxii)
The age of the internet is allowing us to create random discord servers, from the NazBol Gang to Asian-Aryanism, everything makes sense when people build their realities.
This is what white nationalists have to keep in mind. You are only one step away from becoming an isolated nutcase, a voice no one gives a shit about in the middle of Kansas. Your life depends on this virtual reality. We are living in a time of meta-political warfare where any idea is fought over. I used to be an avid reader of Encyclopedia Dramatic because I was discovering crazy people over the internet. I only wanted more of that.
Are there any good right-wing books in TL;DR? Nope. Not really. You will not find anything remotely white nationalist in there The point is you should discover more “odd” books while understanding that white nationalist was once (and still is) revered as a fringe movement. If you have to courage to read Counter-Currents, then you should have even greater motivation to discover the rest of this weird world and the way it ticks.
What makes me upset is when some Daily Stormer I meet irl is some mentally unstable idiot bent on actually gassing every Jew he knows. That is what makes people leave the far-right (and observe it from an ironic angle).
Trust me, you will come across that “weirdo beardo” who is selling “Green Nazies In Space!” right next to Erich Von Daniken. …Stuart Sudekum doing tarot, anyone? And Jerome Przybylski talking about esoteric Hitlerism??
Be a little open about your fellow nationalists. You are not the only radical.
-pe
3-6-2018
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