Richard Spencer: cracked china
To give him credit, Richard Spencer was and possibly still is the central figure of the so-called "Dissident Right." Before him there really was no dissident right, just a lot of weirdos with incoherent takes (actually, not so different from today). However, "BS" (Before Spencer) the DR wasn't even a "thing."
Using his particular skill set, and with the help of quite a few other people, Spencer got the whole DR thing going in 2010, with the foundation of Alternativeright.com, and then shortly afterwards the Vanguard podcast. (What was a "written word" movement, quickly became a "live spoken word" movement, losing about 20-30 IQ points in the process.)
But what exactly was Spencer's skill set? This is open to debate, but I would say it included a relatively high intelligence, mixed with with giant nuggets of intense stupidity; a certain amount of flair for the dramatic; and a generally likeable persona, including the ability to talk in an entertaining and often funny way (although often people were laughing at him instead of with him). But, more importantly, it included a charismatic persona and faux intellectualism that could effectively trigger liberals and leftists by being in many ways similar to them and getting under their skin. This also made the "Spencer project" appealing to vital outside actors.
Many of these personal attributes of Spencer, I came to realise, were related to his sub-masculine tendencies, which are no secret to anyone familiar with the DR. After all, a charismatic personality with a sub-masculine nature is hardly a rarity in the dissident right. In fact, it's almost mandatory. Many such cases, as they say...
Typical highly charismatic and witty Diss-Righter
As for his intellectualism, Spencer, while able to engage with relatively complex philosophical and political ideas, has had surprisingly little to offer himself. His intellectual schtick, such as it is, has been characterised by several incoherent and contradictory phases of thought, built around essentially stupid, marginalising, and unworkable ideas.
Initially, he was an anti-Neocon Conservative (which is fine); then just somebody who "kinda sorta" hated America, including its Republicans and Conservatives, from a more right-wing position (also not too bad); and then he became someone who flirted with Duginism and Naziism (disavow), talking about a totally absurd White ethno-empire (batshit crazy)! This latter paradigm was a witty rather than profound amalgam of Fascism and Star Trek Progressivism, presumably calculated to trigger Leftists and create a certain amount of online heat rather than light. In other words, pure troll fodder.
This reminds us that Spencer's trajectory, and maybe even his personal relations, were the playthings of players in a larger game, with early appearances on Kremlin psy-op and polarisation channel Russia Today.
Many of these personal attributes of Spencer, I came to realise, were related to his sub-masculine tendencies, which are no secret to anyone familiar with the DR. After all, a charismatic personality with a sub-masculine nature is hardly a rarity in the dissident right. In fact, it's almost mandatory. Many such cases, as they say...
Typical highly charismatic and witty Diss-Righter
As for his intellectualism, Spencer, while able to engage with relatively complex philosophical and political ideas, has had surprisingly little to offer himself. His intellectual schtick, such as it is, has been characterised by several incoherent and contradictory phases of thought, built around essentially stupid, marginalising, and unworkable ideas.
Initially, he was an anti-Neocon Conservative (which is fine); then just somebody who "kinda sorta" hated America, including its Republicans and Conservatives, from a more right-wing position (also not too bad); and then he became someone who flirted with Duginism and Naziism (disavow), talking about a totally absurd White ethno-empire (batshit crazy)! This latter paradigm was a witty rather than profound amalgam of Fascism and Star Trek Progressivism, presumably calculated to trigger Leftists and create a certain amount of online heat rather than light. In other words, pure troll fodder.
This reminds us that Spencer's trajectory, and maybe even his personal relations, were the playthings of players in a larger game, with early appearances on Kremlin psy-op and polarisation channel Russia Today.
Spencer's "Nazification phase" was also tied up with various bad actors with known links to the Kremlin (Anglin, TRS, TWP, etc), while genuine Nazis, like Greg Johnson, always took issue with him.
The impression given here is that Spencer was played like a violin to stage stupid stunts like the "Heil Trump" NPI Conference in 2016 and the "Unite the Right" Nazi fest at Charlottesville in 2017, where Spencer's then "Kremlin controller" Daniel Friberg was in attendance.
It seems that in the months and years following Charlottesville, Spencer was "turned" from being a useful idiot for the Kremlin to being a "domestic asset." His 180-degree turn to respecting liberals, supporting Joe Biden, and suddenly losing interest in ethnonationalism is well known, and is, as usual, yet more proof of his total ideological incoherence.
While Spencer continues to provide odd and often interesting insights into the political scene, there will always be doubts about whether he even believes these takes himself, or will do so next week. Mentally he is the equivalent of cracked china, essentially worthless while still able to display attractive patterns and colours.
The impression given here is that Spencer was played like a violin to stage stupid stunts like the "Heil Trump" NPI Conference in 2016 and the "Unite the Right" Nazi fest at Charlottesville in 2017, where Spencer's then "Kremlin controller" Daniel Friberg was in attendance.
It seems that in the months and years following Charlottesville, Spencer was "turned" from being a useful idiot for the Kremlin to being a "domestic asset." His 180-degree turn to respecting liberals, supporting Joe Biden, and suddenly losing interest in ethnonationalism is well known, and is, as usual, yet more proof of his total ideological incoherence.
While Spencer continues to provide odd and often interesting insights into the political scene, there will always be doubts about whether he even believes these takes himself, or will do so next week. Mentally he is the equivalent of cracked china, essentially worthless while still able to display attractive patterns and colours.
His latest "intellectual" phase is something called "Apollonianism," which is as trite and absurdly recherché as it sounds.
A generous interpretation is that this is some kind of Post-Nietzschean project, designed to sneer at the philo-semitism encoded in American culture by rustic Protestantism. But it seems that in this latest iteration of ideas, Spencer is merely the sidekick and acolyte of his associate Mark Brahmin.
Read other entries like this in Who's Who in the Dissident Right, an ever-expanding biographical guide to the colourful characters of the Deep Right.
A generous interpretation is that this is some kind of Post-Nietzschean project, designed to sneer at the philo-semitism encoded in American culture by rustic Protestantism. But it seems that in this latest iteration of ideas, Spencer is merely the sidekick and acolyte of his associate Mark Brahmin.
Read other entries like this in Who's Who in the Dissident Right, an ever-expanding biographical guide to the colourful characters of the Deep Right.
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Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia).
Yeah, I was watching Tim Pool's Culture War show, and lo and behold, it's Richard Spencer, and he was debating another guy who I'd never heard of. And that guy is more your straight forward, by the numbers paleocon, and every time Spencer went into a philosophical tirade, that guy would be like, dude, can you cut the bullshit? You sound retarded. It's worth checking out. Pool even has some surprisingly astute takes.
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