Valkyries and Brassy Barmaids

Our culture has always been one that values public discourse and a life lived openly. The typical Ancient Greek city state was studded with theatres, stadia, gymnasia and agoras where men spent their days mixing openly and publicly. The frequent religious festivals and games for both men and women encouraged further communal revelry.

Unsurprisingly this openness extended even to clothing and fashion, which was kept to a practical minimum. How different from the dense cumbersome coverings of the peoples further south and east!

CONTRAST WITH SEMITES

This vivacious conduct is in stark contrast to the closed, isolationist way of life practiced by the patriarchal, nuclear families of the ancient Middle East where strict religious law was paramount and where the dreary succession of domestic hovels was relieved only by cemeteries. Towns in the Holy Land had no stadia, amphitheatres or gymnasia, at least not until they were introduced into Judea by Antiochus Epiphanes and Herod during the eastern expansion of the Roman Empire.

“Wood is used along with this humble material [i.e. mud], but stone very rarely. Perhaps ancient Jewish towns and villages, in the same way, may have had more wood used in their construction than would be possible at present, when building-timber is practically unknown in the country; but neither wood nor mud bricks have elements of permanence. The 'tells,' or mounds, which mark the site of old Jewish communities, have, moreover, precisely the appearance of similar mounds now forming around, or, one might say, beneath, existing mud-brick villages in India and Egypt...The road runs nearly straight north, at the foot of the hills, which are frequently dotted with villages, almost undistinguishable from the soil around, because of the leaden colour of the mud huts.” Cunningham Geikie THE HOLY LAND AND THE BIBLE (1887).

It was this tedious pattern of urban living that was later used as a model for Calvin's Geneva and Cromwell's England.

ROME AND THE NORTH

The notion of shared space was by no means confined to the Greeks. Romans, with their Hellenic heritage and the addition of baths and forums, imposed their version of an open society across the rest of Europe. The northern tribes of Celts and Germans however were familiar with this outdoor lifestyle. They had already developed their own public assemblies (the Thing) and Tacitus describes their main entertainment, “They have only one kind of public show, which is performed without variation at every festive gathering. Naked youths, trained to the sport, dance about among swords and spears levelled at them. Practice begets skill, and skill grace; but they are not professionals and do not receive payment. Their most daring flings have their own reward in the pleasure they give the spectators.”

At Yeavering in Northumberland the Seventh Century royal complex included a grandstand, “enlarged once by the addition of further tiers at the back, which doubled its seating capacity. The nearest comparable structures are the stone theatres of the Roman world and it would seem to represent a small section of such a theatre constructed entirely in wood.” Martin Welch, ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND (English Heritage 1992).

MEAD HALLS

Through the hall then went the Helmings' Lady,
to younger and older everywhere
carried the cup, till come the moment
when the ring-graced queen, the royal-hearted,
to Beowulf bore the beaker of mead.
- Beowulf

Naturally the cooler climate of northern Europe was not so conducive to this open lifestyle as that of the Mediterranean, but our ancestors managed to overcome these limitations with the development of the mead hall. Mead in the early Middle Ages was a very different drink from the innocuous concoction we are familiar with today. It was the “mead of inspiration”, mythologically rescued from the Giants by Odin, and mixed with such hallucinogenics as henbane, cannabis or magic mushrooms.

Mead halls were not just men-only affairs; myths, legends and the historical record testify to the presence of women in the halls. The halls were a single large building, often over 50m long, comprising of just one room, which had been developing in northern Europe since the late neolithic period.

VALKYRIES AND BRASSY BARMAIDS

The custom of having women serving the drinks was set by divine precedent as demonstrated in this description of Valhalla: “The valkyries lead the slain heroes (the Einherjar) to this hall, to Odin, and they serve them with meat from the boar Saehrimnir. Everyone has enough to eat from the boar, which renews itself constantly. The Einherjar drink mead with this meal which flows from the udders of the goat, Heidrun.” Rudolf Simek DICTIONARY OF NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY (1993).

On the mortal plane of Midgard, women were expected not just to serve the drinks, but also to join in the celebrations. “The earl [Arnvid] gave them a hearty welcome when they arrived and showed them into a hall where there was ale ready on the table. They were served with drink and sat there till evening. Before the tables were cleared, the earl said that seating arrangements must be decided by lot, and that each of the men should have a woman as drinking partner, as long as there were enough women. After that, the rest of the men were to drink on their own.” EGIL'S SAGA

The powerful and enduring archetype of the female hostess is reflected in the more mundane “ale-wives” who managed London taverns from the Thirteenth Century onward. Flick on any English TV soap opera today, and they still maintain their pride of place behind the bar of the Queen Vic and Rover's Return, though sadly without their gleaming armour.

Involution, Evolution, Consciousness and Western Destiny

While eastern Aryan religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Sufism to some extent have followed a path of spiritual evolution through detachment, the European Aryan worldview is more a process of involution. Whereas Indians etc. have chosen to ignore the material world and taken this rejection to the extreme of describing the outside world as “Maya” - illusion - we have (from the Ancient Greeks onwards) forced our consciousness into previously inanimate objects.

We have “involved” ourselves in matter. Of course the route we have chosen is extremely hazardous, with the danger that we become trapped in materialism without appreciating higher values, but the benefits are enormous. I wonder if because of our nature western civilization was pre-destined to undergo this “fall” into matter, a process which accelerated after the scientific and industrial revolutions in Europe (i.e. what Julius Evola calls modernism).

If so, then for me the only meaningful course is to continue with our involution into matter until we have “broken through”, perhaps by Faster-Than-Light travel or some other technological means, to another “spiritual” realm. We already know from quantum mechanics that solid matter is far less solid than previously suspected; I think this could have been our civilization's initial step upward from the Nineteenth Century nadir of perception of a purely mechanical, dead universe.

Complexity

The Eastern path of spiritual evolution may be premature, at least for us Europeans. Eastern and Western philosophy concur that once an entity reaches a sufficient level of complexity it can experience human-like consciousness. Instead of reflecting on what already is, we in the west have projected this complexity into nature and experimentation, thereby creating an unprecedented control over matter. Yet we welcome more challenges. Our scientific and technological impulse toward creativity shows no sign of abating.

For us, materialism is not the evolutionary “dead end” as it is so often described in esoteric writing; instead it is our road to becoming something more than human.

Homo Economicus

“The nearest buildings were almost two miles away, and formed a low belt completely surrounding the Park. Beyond them, rank after rank in ascending height, were the towers and terraces that made up the main bulk of the city. They stretched for mile upon mile, slowly climbing up the sky, becoming ever more complex and monumentally impressive. Diaspar had been planned as an entity; it was a single mighty machine. Yet though its outward appearance was almost overwhelming in its complexity, it merely hinted at the hidden marvels of technology without which all these great buildings would be lifeless sepulchres.” - THE CITY AND THE STARS. Arthur C. Clarke (1956)

Wealth has concentrated in the hands of the very few, but I reckon that Marx's explanation is only a part of the story, and I don't believe in the inevitability of class war; there are other forces at work in addition:

Wealth trajectory westward

“Brooks Adams also noted that centralized capital (the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few inter-related families) seems to have been moving steadily West throughout recorded history. The first major accumulations are to be found in Sumer; the center of money-power then shifted to Egypt, to Greece, to the Italian peninsula, to various parts of Germany, and then to London. At the time Brooks Adams was writing (c.1900) he saw the balance teetering between London and New York, and he predicted that the decline of the English Empire would shift the balance to New York within the first half of the 20th Century. Brooks Adams had no theory as to why this Westward movement of wealth had been going on for 6000 years. He merely observed the pattern.
“The shift is still continuing, in the opinion of many. For instance, Carl Oglesby in The Cowboy vs. Yankee War, sees American politics since 1950 dominated by a struggle between 'old Yankee wealth' (the New York-Boston axis, which replaced London after 1900) and 'new cowboy wealth' (Texas-California oil-and-aerospace billionaires).” - PROMETHEUS RISING. Robert Anton Wilson (1983).

Since the 80s, Wilson and others have argued that the concentration of wealth has continued it's westward journey, crossing the Pacific to Japan and China but at the same time apparently vanishing into cyberspace.

Corporatism and Distributism

Both these theories emerged in the late Nineteenth Century as the Catholic Church's response to socialism, and I agree that both are superior (fairer and more efficient) than liberal capitalism.

Corporatism can vary from the very mild, e.g. Britain's Labour government in the late 1970s, to the idealistic full-blooded variety espoused by Alexander Raven Thomson.

“No greater mistake can be made than to regard the Corporate State as a mere mechanism of administration.
“On the contrary, it is the organic form through which the nation can find expression. Fascism is no material creed like Communism, which sets up, as its only purpose, the material benefit of the masses. Fascism is essentially idealistic, and refuses any such limitation. Fascism recognises the nation as an organism with a purpose, a life and means of action transcending those of the individuals of which it is composed.
“...it is only through co-operation with others in the organic purpose of the State that the individual can attain his highest potentiality. There is no need for any conflict between the individual and the State as neither can exist without the other. An individual exiled from the civilised communion must inevitably relapse into savagery: a State deprived of loyal co-operation with its citizens must inevitably collapse into barbarism.” - THE COMING CORPORATE STATE. Alexander Raven Thomson (1936)

Raven Thomson is describing a State with a Will. I believe that Will must be directed toward the conquest of space. All other considerations are secondary.

Automation

Growing up as a small boy in the Sixties, I vividly remember the excitement of the space race. I also remember the promise of greater automation, which would free our people from a life of drudgery and instead allow us to pursue our dreams. Like many other ideas from that scintillating decade the vision faded. It's true that less people now are involved in manufacturing – actually producing things – and the greater part of the workforce are employed in “services”, overwhelmingly financial services. We have swapped the workbench for the hot desk and office cubicle.

To my mind this is not an improvement, and I wondered who was to blame. I came to the conclusion that capitalism is essentially a control mechanism of the crudest kind; it pits each of us against all others (“the war of all against all”) in an apparent battle for survival that guarantees the preservation of an unchanging parasitical elite.

I am not an economist, which I reckon is a positive advantage because I don't accept the rules (e.g. supply and demand) upon which modern economics is based. Human behaviour is in the final analysis beyond reason and trying to make a science out of it is futile.

Also, the New Right encompasses a wide variety of economic models, from Norman Lowell's Might is Right Social Darwinism to Troy Southgate's devolved National Anarchism, so my views are not representative although they are close to Mosley's BUF policies in the 1930s. The reason why the New Right is able to hold such contradictory economic policies is because ideologically economics occupies a rather lowly rung. In Georges Dumezil's tri-partite theory of Aryan civilization, economics is “third function” (almost a natural process); whereas real politics is confined to first and second functions only.

My own economic ideas are driven by three major concerns: the necessity to maintain a technological civilization and expand into space, environmental pollution, and the general welfare of all our people in order that they can contribute fully to the Imperium. In all this it differs drastically with Marxism.

In regard to pollution/ climate change etc. I believe the best solution is along the lines of Paolo Soleri's Arcologies, where our industrial/ technological activity is effectively sealed off from the rest of the planet. These Arcologies would be very high density and imply the possibility of communal living; barracks, canteens – a bit like WW2 underground military bases – but not so gloomy. We would make huge economies of scale, and at the same time cut transport costs to virtually nil. For the few that want to try communal, organic communities, there's the land around the Arcologies to use, otherwise it will be allowed to revert to wilderness. All food for the Arcology would be produced in factories in the Arcology, and as a technological civilization (in contrast to that envisaged by Blood & Soil/ back-to-the-land enthusiasts) we would be able to defend ourselves against invasion.

It's bonkers to assume that all this can come about through the free market, let alone space exploration which has always demanded massive state funding, so I concluded that a self-sufficient planned economy is best. This command economy would have to embrace to whole of Europe, Russia and Siberia (at least) above all for racial/cultural reasons, but also because it is of sufficient extent, and with sufficient resources, to guarantee autarky.

“Men had built cities before, but never a city such as this. Some had lasted for centuries, some for millennia, before Time had swept away even their names. Diaspar alone had challenged Eternity, defending itself and all it sheltered against the slow attrition of the ages, the ravages of decay, and the corruption of rust.”

London in the Snow

Global Warming: The Armageddon Option II

Confirmation that the scientific speculation in the essay below is sound:
www.sciencenews.org

SUDDEN CHILL
Even a limited nuclear exchange could trigger a climate catastrophe

"In the 1980s, scientists estimated that a war in which each superpower used half its nuclear arsenal would have destroyed the upper atmosphere's ozone layer and, by filling the skies with dust and smoke, decreased temperatures at ground level in some regions as much as 40°C for up to a decade. Scientists and antinuclear advocates dubbed this chilling result nuclear winter."