Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee.
Genesis 12 verse 1
Words, of course, matter. We should be precise and deliberate in our handling of them wherever and whenever it counts, and right now I believe that it counts very much. It is also true that deliberations about language invite nit-picking, obsession and intellectual conceit, diverting us into such endless tracks of pedantry as modern academics glory in. The difference, as in so many things, is only the spirit by which our deliberations are animated; whether they have a real, urgent and worthy aim. So I am not opening up a new event in word-games when I say that we should move on from the word “dissident”. I have already argued at length that “right wing”, “alt-right” and even “traditionalist” are improper labels for this cohort, but this was because those terms comported a philosophical content unsuited to what we are in fact. Dissident is a good and apposite term, but at some point soon its limitations will outweigh its use. Miriam Webster gives the definition thus:
Dissident: disagreeing especially with an established religious or political system, organization, or belief.
This is an accurate circumscription of our thought and concerns at the outset, but many things of youth must be given up in due course. For many of us our journey into the ranks of dissidence began from a revulsion. We realized the corruption, danger, malignancy and wretchedness of this current society’s operations and sought to turn ourselves against it. This is a movement of protest, disgust and opposition, and the movement has happily landed many souls on basically the same page: the dissident sphere. There is nothing wrong with this, and it has been the fruit of much good work, but it is essentially a negative process, defining a motion in negative terms. A dissident reacts against. More particularly, a dissident reacts against a power which is implicitly recognized as proper, or at least recognized as reformable; it expresses a relation of active antagonism to a consensus or authority, but if so then to what end? We naturally cannot endorse and must vociferously decry the course of this society, but dissent is a stance against one with whom you yet want to or may agree; we dissent against our government or our employers or our fathers. Against what is explicitly foreign or enemy to you dissent has little meaning and less usefulness. Do you dissent against the remote corporation you know to be deliberately cheating you? Do you dissent against the man trying to rob you? No; these things you may curse and resist, but then you are no longer dissenting; dissenting presumes some harmony of purpose.
It is more and more widely admitted in dissident thought that there is no real overlap of purpose between ourselves and the powers of our society, be it with the acute power of elite actors or the diffuse power of mass convention. Power is ranged against the good. It is probably ranged intentionally against the good, and insofar as we intentionally adhere to the good (the “right”, or better “upright” or Recta) it is ranged against us. Dissent at least requires that we be able to appeal to a shared superlative standard by which we may critique or defend differing policies, and this we apparently cannot do with any of the functional powers we complain of. This is not to say that there are no good things or good people which remain within this society; of course there are many, but we do not think that they can be preserved under the powers which operate where they are. Those goods which remain to the society, and we ourselves, have our hopes in the greatest possible severance from that society; the fullest possible escape and the fullest possible establishment of a contrary order. Therefore we would benefit by taking up a new term, even if it does not fully or immediately replace the good old “dissident”.
We could be thought of as a tangent splitting out from the prevailing order. We are aligned to a different direction which seems to promise actual “progress” and away from the purposeless spinning of the wheel of contemporary civilization, centered as it is around mostly obscure but obviously unprincipled interests. Imagine it like the heroes of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea being providentially, though not without effort on their part, spun out of the maelstrom.
Now, all sorts of people might be flung out of the baleful centrifuge of contemporary civilization, but the majority do so by accident or impetuously or selfishly; narcotic burn-outs, dreaming hippies, eccentric billionaires, cultists of various hues etc. These are like sand being randomly flung off a spinning plate. God bless them, and may they find some succor wherever they land, but that is not the character of the dissident movement. The dissidents are exiting the arc in a more-or-less cohesive direction, and that direction is not random but a line recognized to have in it truth and power; it is the “right” angle in the problem. We have taken a new line, be it ever so old in actuality, and should be increasingly concerned not with what goes on within the suck of the circle but with what goes on along the tangent, which necessarily diverges ever more from the circle in time.
Now, whether we call “this thing of ours” the Tangent or any proper name is incidental, but that we take on a concept to figure that image, of casting out cleanly and independently, is what matters. We must engrave in our minds the moral distinctions that reality is ahead of us in proving out, between our heritage and hopes, and the course of society at large. This does not mean retreating to a forest hermitage. A man might retreat to a forest hermitage without clearly understanding what drove him away or attracts him thence. Rather, we must first recognize the signal difference in character between what is of us and what is not, and embody that difference so far as we are able. To some degree this requires an effort of simplification; for society, as we have said, is not totally malign or bereft of value in men and means. Nor is it comprehensively and uniformly dominated by the “spiritual wickedness in high places” which we so clearly observe. Society is a thing with strange geography, tangled networks and blurred edges, but I argue that the practical moral mind sees a thing that can nonetheless be circumscribed as properly belonging to a whole. Society, in all its variety, and maybe only recently, has passed a threshold sufficient to qualify it as simply bad; bad for us, bad to us and bad in our chosen terms. Such a resolution does not serve as a magic word, however. We are not thereby granted any practical independence, qualified as “good” in comparison, or awarded our cabin in the woods. Yet is it not vanity; it is a reshaping and rebalancing of perspective which arms our rationale, and cuts a few Gordian knots.
I do not say the last as though I have offered a very original idea. This is already the tendency; the tangent is already established as a concept and is being wrought in practice by some of the best. The Old Glory Club, David Green’s “basket weaving”, Bennett’s “Exit” and The Woodlander Initiative are all fine examples of this impulse with greater or lesser theoretical emphasis on this idea. Already we have a great many talking of the need to form a “parallel” society, and these express basically the same sentiment. I only think that we should think less in terms of parallels and more in terms of divergence; the tangent flying out as though from the gravity of a dying star. Little of what we are making can find proper parallels in the precincts we are departing from, only parodies, husks and optical illusions. The tangent we are pursuing does not now represent a nation, a culture or even a homogeneous movement, but it might evolve into any of these things if it can be dressed with sufficient form and invigorated with sufficient energy to survive the dark unknown beyond the circle’s suck.
What then can we do to solidify this tendency, this trajectory?
I have read that on some remote coasts which lack aggregate materials a kind of concrete paneling is made thus; the builders make a frame of steel rod or wire, electrify the frame with a constant charge and then drop it into the sea on a gantry. Left for days or weeks, the mineral mass which the builders cannot buy accretes to the frame from the waters of the sea, and they raise up a heavy, solid panel.
In like manner must we design to build the body of the tangent. One cannot just produce a culture or a people by artifice. It’s substantive character, its myriad practical methods and its beautifications must accrete slowly and naturally in the course of its life. Yet whatever might someday be requires a minimal form to adhere about; a form of steel. Fortunately the majority of our framework selects itself, being the steely matters of necessity which already define our direction; the things which wisdom teaches us are crucial and which we find to be lacking in the circle we are leaving; strength moral and physical, fidelity, honesty, order, self-reliance, aspiration, heritage and sacrifice. These things, however, must be the bases of any healthful society, and are insufficiently well knit to constitute a framework standing as upright abstractions. We must bind them with methods, rituals and patterns if the frame is to persist into the substance of maturity and distinction. We cannot help but be somewhat arbitrary in this endeavor, but the direction of our tangent provides at least a tone to test what properly harmonizes with our higher necessities, and I would suggest that what we choose to bind ourselves with should generally be demonstrative of difference and eccentricity to the old cycle. So I have talked about cultivating a new mode of dress befitting our tangent, somewhat based on cant but nonetheless embodying the practical and moral requirements we observe. What of weightier ties? Could we institute that those on the tangent shall have the rule that no man should make money from money, meaning that we should not be employed in usury or speculative finance, or even hold stocks and shares? Could we insist that every man should be a useful student of some practical art of tools, be it leatherwork, masonry or electronics? These would be strong markers and binders, and to my mind would promise well for what the frame might one day support, but small connecting fibers can also play a strong part; which games do we play, which foods do we favor and what innocuous habits do we cultivate? This thing has occurred to me: the modern gymnasium has become a kind of shrine for many on the dissident right, correctly seeking the restitution of men’s physical power and comeliness. The motive is good, but I am not so sure about the method; not that I am disputing anything in the science of strength training and body building, but I wonder if the scene and tools are very agreeable. Perhaps this is a fancy, but I picture a physical culture of great parsimony and independence, where men disdain specialized machines and air-conditioned halls in favor of simple, minimal means which require almost no expense or travel but oblige all trainers to exert more creativity in their routines. There would probably be some loss in ultimate training efficiency or absolute statistics, but who knows what genius of physiculture might develop under such constraints, and we would have severed another tie to the world of commerce, regulation and mechanical dependency.
This field is wide open, and deserves considerable thought, but here are some simple suggestions that stand in my mind as inarguable and utile:
We should diligently refrain from all lewd and crude language, this being a mark of considered and elevated thought. Sane exceptions would be euphonically desirable terms describing things crude by nature, used to describe those things or as an intentional comparison; crap, piss etc; basically shakespearian expletives in their right place.
We should all own and study the use of one ballistic and one wielded weapon, chosen according to the lawful and circumstantial restraints of their place.
We should refrain so far as possible from wearing synthetic materials, sane exceptions being shoe soles and insignificant features of trim and hardware (plastic buttons, etc).
We should refrain from wearing any brand, insignia or wording on our clothing or obvious possessions.
We should refrain so far as possible from eating any factory produced food, meaning foods of varied ingredients made into a meal or foodstuff by industrial production. Where means and options are limited, we should at least get food of the greatest simplicity possible; buying a salami and bread rather than a store sandwich.
We should all know by heart and be able to recite Kipling’s “If”. This is a good poem, if not perhaps timeless and great, but the benefit comes mostly from the shared familiarity. It should only be the beginning for a shared canon of songs and poems which we should expect our people to know, but is a good beginning being simple to learn and salutary to know.
Some small ideas, some significant ideas, but all simple ideas which would quickly help to set the tone and direction.
More ambitious and fundamental work is already being done across the dissident sphere and I applaud it all. The means by which we will exchange ideas and trade labor, the methods by which we might yet establish functional, material self-reliance, the conscious intolerances which will build our moral law; these are thick rods in the framework of our construction, and must eventually bear more weight that arbitrary significations and points of finesse. But these heftier poles we are lifting are yet difficult to effectively erect in the cramped vicinity of the circle’s suck. Large practical measures incompatible with this society are resisted with great energy, and because of their scale are easier to identify and undermine at this stage. By no means should we then abandon the efforts, but in the meanwhile less us bind and buttress them with the interweaving of patterns that will give them cohesion and stability in their infancy, and will prefigure the features of the society we hope to engender in the fullness of time; the separate, tangential society.
This brings me to my final point here; how a Tangentist perspective can facilitate the growth of this movement in the midst of its oppressors. Every effort which militates for order, decency, dignity of heredity and traditional liberty is quickly, vociferously and often ridiculously attacked, and attacked with the considerable means still clutched in the orbit of the modern maelstrom. It will not freely allow us to depart, and it will try its damnedest everywhere to prevent us building a vessel capable of proper departure; this much is clear. Yet much may be done; natural justice and the inevitable vagaries and convolutions in the enforcement of political power will always allow gaps enough for profitable action; we must only clarify our aims and pick our battles. In fact I think we must give up most of our battles as dissidents. Except where some matter of policy immediately threatens you and can feasibly be turned temporarily by your efforts, perhaps in some matter of very local governance, we should abandon dissent against the system. The system is not deaf to dissent; it has a very sharp ear for dissent, but it is playing a different song in a different tune, and is resolute in bringing it to its conclusion. We should focus on building and amending what rightfully or practically remains to us; we should render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, even if that ceaser is Tiberius.
We can hate it as much as we like, but the empire (or Cathedral or “globohomo”) does have a right of conquest over most of society and its functions, even if its conquest was by subterfuge. In fact, one might argue that the “powers that be” have a valid right over much of what surrounds us by invention or development; the phone in your pocket and the currency in your bank are as much the product of the cynical management of the money power as the individual genius of their originators. Though they be not worthy of this ownership, they have the ownership, and can justly claim title to these systems. The education system may have been corrupted and weaponized by our powers and principalities, but we cannot deny that it was also brought to stature under basically the same powers and principalities. Perhaps its current derangement was its goal all along, or perhaps it is just more opportune to the policies of this decade, but the system is theirs; not education per se, but practically all of the buildings, materials and systems of Education in any official guise. These things follow the scheme of Caesar, and will not be ameliorated by our dissent; so too the democratic process, industry, transportation, law et al. These are all in the old orbit, and apparently being dragged to ruin and chewed up in the maleficent center, like sacrifices to the sarlac. We concern ourselves with what is free to ourselves, available for the purpose of our tangent, picking up whatever of value we may predicate for ourselves, but necessarily traveling light.
Now of course Caesar is always overstepping the bounds of even his de facto ownership, and in these things we are obliged to obscure ourselves, disobey or fight. Over the freedom of our belief, the sanctity of our body, the innocence and belonging of the minds of our children and much else the empire is stretching its claims, but these more fundamental things are difficult to police for any time even if the resources and capability of the empire were at its halcyon, which is clearly not the case. Many things more which properly belong to the domains of our private sovereignty, and which can be turned to the purpose of forming our Tangent, are protected to some degree not by the will of the gods but by the simple limitations of men. We can see this by the fact that more and more control is being wrought through soft, diffuse and uncoerced means, such as algorithmic tampering and media messaging, which though powerful and effective over a wide, passive populace are weak fetters to the strong minded, which we must strive to be. I am not naive, or even optimistic exactly; there are many hard and practically intractable evil impositions exercised over us which put us in painful individual situations, and this situation is likely to grow worse with time. I am saying that we have now, and are likely to always have according to my belief, enough left to us on which to found our salvation, or at least keep the true fire burning until salvation may be truly launched.
I began the essay with Jehovah’s injunction to Abraham to leave his fathers land, as an analogy for the tangential path before us. Unfortunately we do not have a new place to divert into; not yet at least. There is no accessible country or wilderness we can go to en mass beyond the reach of this circle. Rather we could compare our situation to the first Christians in the Roman empire, though as an analogy and not a model for action. We must likewise define ourselves and concentrate ourselves as a living, actual tangent out from the doings of the Empire even whilst inhabiting its grim, decaying architecture. There must be such distinction and power in our practice that we not only make clear our alienation from the hegemony of the circle but foreshadow the growth of a new and self-contained order, whilst mostly evading the ireful depredations of Caesar’s authority. To qualify the tone building here; I am not suggesting meek stoicism in the face of degenerate tyranny, or “pie in the sky when you die” hopes for a coming dissident ethnogenesis. I am only arguing that the great weight of our efforts should be building in our new direction, giving ourselves health, solidity, form and moral animation as a tangent out from the maelstrom, and treating the whirls of the maelstrom which we cannot yet avoid, and maybe will not be free of for a hundred years, with nimbleness and cunning; as a thing which may be outmaneuvered and outsmarted and endured, but will not be overcome or diverted.
In this year 2024 collapse is on the lips of all interested observers it seems. I will not step into the trap of speculation; it doesn’t seem a spurious forecast, but nor do I think we should be hanging many plans on that eventuality. For my part, I do not think that any kind of coup or reversal wrought by outright violence (against the powers that matter anyway) is either plausible or likely to lead in the direction we have determined as righ(teous); I don’t say this in pacifism or pessimism, that is simply my honest read. I will only say that my instinct tells that the society which the dissident sphere is dreaming of will one way or another be a survival; a survival through the death rattle of the maelstrom, however long it be, surviving to escape its ruin toward the true north we have long been craning our necks to see. Moreover it will be a survival from, not a survival of what is left behind. We can build a good boat from the timber which yet freely swirls about us and the employment of our urgent ingenuity, but it must be a boat to depart the whirlpool, not to foolishly try to bung it up. Again, this escape may happen as we are standing in place, without us moving a mile physically; therefore we must be ready for action and hardy of outlook, prepared to preserve by grim means our chosen way, but this does not mean mounting a fighting force to slash at the tides. We are the Tangent; we must preserve ourselves here as we push out on the right course, but our true battles and hopes lie off in the distance.
So let us recover our efforts from swimming against the spin of the iniquitous circle we now inhabit and rededicate them to shaping and aiming the shaft which shoots out from its revolutions. Let us not obsess too much over the obvious horror of what lies at our back, even if we cannot ignore its hiss and roar, but join the elements of our ideals into the substantive body of a fine, light arrow and hold it firm in its angle, riding like a compass needle above the chaos of the waters in its primordial orientation. I have faith enough to believe that it will emerge on that course, and so energy enough to devote to its crafting even if, like Noah’s ark, it seems the rankest folly of either optimism or pessimism. Out!
Or is it more like this:
? There’s a grouping which is principled, cohesive and distinctive. Also, good at escaping the sarlac pit by all accounts. I was hesitant to include this one, but I think that The Mandalorian is just barely iconic enough to share in the afterglow of the last potent myth of the West, vapid pleasure though it may be.