Germany — Land of Milk and Honey

What is the effect of immigration of people from collapsed states or states incapable of development? Are they importing that collapse to this society? Are they destroying here the cultural and institutional prerequisites of industrialization which they never had and could not create in their homelands?

The following brilliant and comprehensive article about Modern Multicultural Madness was the last one published before his death by the German scholar Rolf Peter Sieferle. Among other things, it provides a useful synonym for multiculturalism: “multi-tribalism”.

JLH, who translated the piece for Gates of Vienna, includes this introduction:

This article was recommended to me by Egri Nök.

Rolf Peter Sieferle took his own life on September 17, 2016, at age 67.

It is clear from the “in memoriam” comments in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as well as in assorted other articles, that he provoked strong feelings — affection and respect among friends, colleagues and students; bitter criticism from others, especially of his book Finis Germania, published post mortem, which is a miscellany of the thoughts and writings in his remaining manuscripts and journals. He has been characterized as a “right-radical” by many, for the obvious reason that he was a clear-eyed historian who provided a close look at what is happening today.

The last thing published before his death is the long article, Deutschland, Schlaraffenland, translated below. It is long, but worthwhile. With calm, relentless logic, he guides us through the rise of the industrialized, capitalist state and inexorably leads us through the causes and results of its dissolution in terms of universal history. He may be a latter-day Spengler, or a fact-based Nostradamus. Whatever he is, when I read his words, I find myself thinking that the real reason Donald Trump was elected is because many people went to the polls thinking, “Make us trust again!”

The translated article from Jürgen Fritz’s blog [pdf]:

Germany — Land of Milk and Honey

On the path to the multi-tribal society

by Rolf Peter Sieferle

At this point in time, a wave of immigration of unprecedented magnitude is inundating Europe. On the periphery, millions are setting out for the promised land. Europe is surrounded by collapsing states and hopeless areas. The population of Africa, presently circa one billion, is growing annually by 3%, that is, 30 million, of which several million yearly can set out on the way to a better, promised land. Add to this the emigration from the civil war areas of the Near East. Some of the earlier barriers to this migration have disappeared. In Libya alone, a million migrants await a space on a boat which will transport them on the dangerous passage across the Mediterranean Sea.

In this respect, Europe is in an unusual situation, due to its geographical location. Other industrial areas in the world are threatened by immigration, but none as extensively as Europe. Latin America has a population of about 400 million, that is, the number of potential emigrants is approximately the same as that of the resident population of North America (USA and Canada). The ratio in Europe is three times as great (1500 million vs. 500 million). The US border with Mexico is relatively small and can be relatively easily secured, since there is only one country from which immigrants can flow into the USA. It is quite different in Europe. It is realistically impossible to screen off the outer borders. And in the border areas of North Africa and the Near East, there are more and more unpredictable states which cannot be counted on to cooperate.

Other industrial countries such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand are so far from possible origin lands of immigration that the trip by boat people is risky and relatively easy to monitor. It is more problematic in the emerging countries of Southeast Asia (Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, etc.) which are eligible goals for immigrants. Other countries such as China and Russia are difficult to reach and are not (yet) attractive for immigration. That leaves Europe as the place where we can expect the greatest immigration pressure. Europeans must be paralyzed with fear at this development. They are facing a folk migration comparable to the one in late antiquity.

Why do so many people want to immigrate to countries like Germany? The reasons are obvious: here there is prosperity and security, a functioning constitutional state; there are no wars or civil wars, no epidemics; the health system is excellent and free; unemployment is low; the social nets are lush — it is a land of milk and honey, and you would have to be a little dim not to recognize that. The reasons for immigrating, for the wish to immigrate, are easy to understand.

It is somewhat harder to understand why conditions in Germany are so much better than in, for instance, Iraq. That was no always the case. A thousand years ago, it was not clear where living conditions were better, and three thousand years ago, the standard of living, i.e., the civilizational niveau in Europe was without doubt lower than in Mesopotamia. Something has changed drastically here in recent millennia. The question is, what? This question is the same as the one about the reasons for “Europe’s unique path” — that is, why Europe succeeded in breaking out of the model of agrarian civilizations and bringing forth a new kind of economy, state and society, which combines prosperity and security for all. In asking this, we come upon three complexes of factors which have instigated Europe’s advance into the constitutional industrial society (a.k.a. “the modern age”): they are by nature technical-industrial, cultural-intellectual and political-institutional. What element played what role is a very thorny question. Thus far, there is no agreement on what was decisive. But it is certain that a process of positive feedback has built up in Europe in the last 300 years, and the result is the “land of milk and honey” we see before us.

Undisputed though it may be that the development into an industrial society radiated outward from Europe, it is also clear that the imitation of it in other regions has proceeded with greater or lesser success. This was simplest in the neo-European colonies (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) which effortlessly adopted or even took part in shaping the European model. Examples of success may be found in Asia, in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan — presumably also sooner or later in mainland China and India. These countries did not develop their own version of industrialization, but succeeded in a relatively short time in joining the parade.

Other countries were less successful, even though they could observe Europe’s unique progress from closer at hand. This is especially true of Russia, which has tried to keep pace with Europe for 300 years, and yet continually regresses to its old plight. That is also true of the Ottoman Empire, of which only one province was truly successful — Palestine/Israel, and in fact because of the Zionist immigration from Europe. It must be emphasized here that Judaism was not a decisive factor. If someone (for instance, Werner Sombart [1]) should wish to trace industrial capitalism to the Jews, the geographical location of its inception would have to be sought in Galicia,[2] rather than in the north of England, where there were hardly any Jews in the 17th and 18th centuries.

From Tribal Consciousness to Industrial Nation

So we confront the problem that a successful industrialization is based on certain historical, especially cultural and institutional preconditions which are not easy to imitate or create. People like living in the promised land, and are moved to immigrate to industrialized countries, but something is keeping them from establishing this paradise at home. Apparently, immigrating to an already existing utopia is easier. Why? If industrialization and democratization, the creation of a constitutional order and implementation of rational ways of thinking are natural characteristics of “modernization,” then why is it so much more attractive to undergo the rigors of migration, than to transform one’s own native land according this model? The reason, in general, is that the assumptions of modernization theory are false. Ours was a highly improbable process, shaped by many contingencies which had over centuries created ways of thinking and institutions, the results of which are evident today in zones of prosperity and security. This model of success cannot simply be copied. Transferring technology is easy; transferring institutions is difficult; transferring cultural-intellectual paradigms is practically impossible or at least a very lengthy process.

An important, if not the crucial prerequisite of European development was the destruction of tribal structures by the states of the early modern age, and that was an elementary prerequisite of the national state that became the institutional center of 19th century industrialization. The nation-state dissolved the agrarian social duality of local domination and dynastic centrality. Its goal was the creation of a homogeneous unity of the people, area and power of the state, excluding and distinguishing itself from other entities. The primary achievement of the nation-state was the centralization of rule and the concomitant dissolution of intermediary powers such as tribes, clans, extended families, associations and clientele systems of all kinds. The ideal of the nation-state as constitutional state was the immediacy of state to individual (“equal rights for all”) and the state’s monopoly on force with differentiated organs for enforcement (police, military).

This national state combined important structural elements: money, law, language, government, transportation, citizenship (instead of adherence to a community). And thus it became the provider of a complex market/industrial economy, for instance, in the administration of justice (civil trial instead of vendetta).

To achieve this requires a centralized top-to-bottom administration sufficient to meet the demands of bureaucratic rationale (against corruption and patronage). A central element of this was a unified, legal and calculable system of taxation.

Transforming the dynastic state of the agrarian society into the nation-state required the delegitimization of the former and the anticipatory legitimization of the latter. This was done on the basis of the ideology of nationalism, which defined the identifying unit of the state as the “people,” in its dual meaning as both demos and ethnos.[3]. The nation-state was understood as a “people’s state” and this could mean “ethnic state” or “democratic state” or both. The ideology of nationalism insisted upon the uniqueness of the given people. This could be understood in a “horizontal” sense as an element of a human plurality (as with Herder)[4] or in a “vertical” sense of a hierarchy with a ruling elite at the top and a worker class at the base, as in the classical empires.

The basic concept of nationalism is that the world should be ruled by political units, each of which controls ethnically homogeneous areas. This was a normative concept that — at the time of its inception — was only sparsely descriptive. In the 18th century, there were hardly any ethnically homogeneous “nations.” Nonetheless, this concept achieved an astonishing prescriptive power. In the 19th century, the existence of national states was seen as nothing less than natural, so that a poor future was predicted for political entities that could not claim the principle of nationalism. In the context of Europe, this applied particularly to Austria-Hungary, but also to Russia and the Ottoman Empire — all classical “multi-ethnic” empires whose existence until then had not been in question. The ideology of nationalism tended to ascribe quasi-tribal characteristics to the national state. The nationalistically molded nation-state perceived itself as representing a lineage, and demanded a comprehensive loyalty from its members, otherwise found only in tribal societies. Therefore, conflict with other nation-states easily achieved “total,” if not genocidal characteristics. The resultant excesses occurred largely in the first half of the 20th century, but the possibility exists everywhere where nations are being formed. In the second half of that century, the ideology was in bad odor among the elites in advanced countries, who (justifiably) see in it the potential for ethnic cleansing and genocide. There has been an ideological shift from the “ethnic” to the “democratic” accent on “people.”

This ideological shift in emphasis from ethnic state to democracy carries a significant implication of increasingly universal adoption, despite the fact that it is still de facto organized within exclusive, regional, i.e., non-universal national states. At any rate, there are increasingly efforts to establish trans-national, institutional arrangements (such as the EU), whose building blocks are nonetheless still nation-states. So the national state today faces the ideological problem: that its primary legitimization — nationalism — has become obsolete. And its secondary legitimization — “democratic” humanitarian universalism — is not compatible with its exclusive form of organization. From this arise contradictions and paradoxes which can be fought out in the political play for power.

This is particularly obvious in the second institutional manifestation of the industrial society — the welfare state. It is the institutional solution of a problem created by the dissolution of civic communities. In European agrarian societies, the (cooperatively organized) communities had assumed certain duties of public service for their members that could not be managed by the families — especially helping the poor and support in cases of emergency. With industrialization, communal membership became an obstacle to advancement, and therefore obsolete. In the wake of the introduction of free enterprise and freedom of movement, status as a resident took the place of communal citizen, and “citizen of a community” was expanded to “citizen of a country”. Its services (as was also the case with civic communities) were for the benefit only of its own citizens. In this sense, both were exclusive of those outside and inclusive of those inside. Precisely this relation of exclusion and inclusion defines the problematic nature of the national welfare state.

The welfare state — after nationalism’s loss of plausibility — faces the problem that it is only viable as a nation-state; that the inclusivity of its public services is based in fact on a form of exclusivity. However, the official ideology supporting the welfare state’s redistribution of wealth (out of motives of “equality” and “justice”) applies universally. If the welfare state bases its programs of “social justice” on universal humanitarianism (“human rights”), then the area of the implementation of these justice-serving programs can clearly not be confined to the nation-state. As a universalist ideology, universal redistributive socialism should be oriented toward the world state and/or world society. Since these “entities” do not actually exist, it must incorporate elements of globalization into the present nation-state/welfare state, and open the welfare system to, for instance, immigrants. The ultimate effect, of course, would be the destruction of the welfare state, but not of its universalization.

The welfare state — confronting globalization, with its comprehensive mobilization of production factors and information streams — finds itself on the defensive. This problem is now enormously exacerbated by mass immigration, so the question is whether the welfare state still has any chance of survival. Expanding the welfare state while opening the borders to immigration certainly cannot be sustained. It would be like turning up the heat and simultaneously opening the windows. One reaction to this might be to see the welfare state as a residual form of the nation-state and take mass immigration as an occasion to deconstruct it. That would be a logical “liberal” solution: complete factorial mobility also implies complete (personal) freedom of movement. This, of course, is only possible if the state pulls back into its legal core and abandons social interventions (as for instance in 19th century USA, during the mass immigration from Europe). This, at any rate, would not be in the interests of the lower classes in welfare states, who would wage a “populist” resistance against such a development.

The question arises: What is the effect of immigration of people from collapsed states or states incapable of development? Are they importing that collapse to this society? Are they destroying here the cultural and institutional prerequisites of industrialization which they never had and could not create in their homelands?

There is no easy answer. The question of the historical rise of the industrial society is not the same as the question of the conditions under which an existing industrial society can continue to exist. For example, even if the Protestant ethic of Calvinism, as Max Weber suspected, had played an important role in the genesis of capitalism, it is beyond doubt that capitalism can continue to exist without this ethic. It may be that the genesis of “the land of milk and honey” (in the sense of the destruction of the agrarian society model) was based on premises which are no longer necessary to its continued existence. It may be that the modern paradise is resilient, and that is what those who speak of “colorful diversity” are betting on.

The immigration to Germany is welcomed on purely economic grounds, because it promises an enlargement of the work force that is endangered by demographic developments. This is the abbreviated version of a common economic argument, in which only capital resources and the workforce play a part. More recent institutional economy, moreover, also considers “social” and “cultural” capital, i.e., immaterial factors which contribute to prosperity. This requires willingness to cooperate and associate as well as mindsets and attitudes that result in cooperation and trust. This cultural capital depends upon tradition and the clarity of adherence to a group.

In the packet of cultural capital that is characteristic of a functioning, democratic, enlightened and economically successful society, belong, among others, the following elements: constitutional law, fair play, individual rights, restriction of state force, conjunction of individualism and the common good, freedom of expression (including religious freedom), a work ethic, orientation toward progress, expansion of trust, respect for education. This combination is the cultural secret of success for advanced countries.

The Threat to Cultural Capital

An important, if not the decisive element of cultural capitalism, is trust. As empirical comparisons of various countries show, there is a close correlation between the amount of trust and economic efficiency. The level of trust is the measure of both civilizational level and performance capacity. In the year 2000, to the question of whether most people can be trusted, 67% of Danes and 66% of Swedes answered “yes” but only 3% of Brazilians. Willingness to cooperate and trust ease social intercourse and, in an economic context, lower the costs of transactions, which bolsters the readiness to collaborate.

Cultural capital may be passed on through tradition. A culture is never homogeneous, and this is especially true for the complex societies of the nation-state era. Not all those who belong to a “people” share all cultural characteristics. On the other hand, it is always possible to assimilate foreigners to a certain extent, i.e., equip them with the cultural capital of their new society — also known as “integration.” There are, to be sure, limits of comprehensiveness and speed. The greater the number of immigrants and the faster they immigrate, the less the chance of assimilation. There is the danger that the “multicultural society” that results from immigration will destroy cultural capital, transforming ethnically and culturally homogeneous industrial countries into multi-tribal societies. It is then very likely that important institutional and intellectual-cultural prerequisites for a functioning industrial structure will be destroyed. The basic model of trust will disappear, which can drive the costs of economic transactions to enormous heights. In place of the constitutional state with its monopoly on force, the law of vendetta may reappear.

When conflicts arise, attempts are made first to resolve them within the pertinent tribal structure, through their own mediators, but also perhaps with the help of enforcement-capable allies. Once this process is underway (and the beginnings of it can be observed in numerous European cities) it can gain strength with ease and develop its own dynamic. Then (along old or new borderlines) more and more tribal groups may form, with their own tax system (protection payments) and their own decision apparatus. These groups will then come into competition with the traditional constitutional state and its policing forces. Ultimately nothing will remain of this “state’ except as one tribe among other tribes. For those citizens who belong to no particular tribe, and had relied upon the constitutional state, this will be fatal.

If such a movement should be set in motion, we would be witnessing an industrial society in the evolutionary process of destroying itself. Historically, the successful complex “industrialization and modernity” was created by a particular constellation of cultural elements. This complex, however, has developed normative characteristics of humanitarian universalism, which render it unable to regulate or prevent the immigration of members of alien cultures. Such a society — no longer able to distinguish itself from the forces disintegrating it — is living morally beyond its means. It is not sustainable. Through relativization, it is destroying its cultural identity — the prerequisite of its capacity. And so it puts an end to itself.

European societies are obsessed with the elemental idea of egalitarianism. This ideological model produces the utopia of total material equality, which, to a certain extent, is the natural point of attraction in human existence. Inequities, on the other hand, are “unnatural,” so they are regarded as mere “social constructs” and therefore to be reconstructed at once. This is true for all categories, ergo for gender, race, intelligence, social position, etc. From this perspective of a universalist-egalitarian program, any actual inequity is insufferable. Confronting suffering, poverty, suppression, misery and failed hopes activates a reflexive need to help, of which the simplest (and both ethically and sentimentally most satisfactory) is: “refugees welcome,” that is, acceptance of all comers into Europe, with access to the entire package of the welfare state. Surprisingly, this reflex is not confined to those humanitarian extremists who feel that familiar heart palpitation for the welfare of humanity. It permeates large portions of the society in prosperous zones — the further away the memory of their own hardship, the more intense is the feeling. It is astonishing to observe what eager helpfulness is offered the immigrants at the local level, and how strongly the acceptance reflex is, not just in the media but also in political circles.

Administrators and pragmatic politicians, who actually supply the help, have a problem, as some of the population perceives in mass immigration the danger of an undermining of the familiar social and political order. These people are attacked in the media and tarred with the radical opposite of egalitarianism — “racism” — whose connotation since the Nazi era is extremely negative. It is also inappropriate, since the differences discussed here are ethnic-cultural and not racial. Many contemporary citizens just prefer to keep their mouths shut and hope that the bitter cup does not come their way.

Is it really possible for a society to destroy itself by such processes of ideological confusion? I think so. Cultures and ideologies are powerful forces. People blow themselves up for Allah. Why shouldn’t they destroy a social order which they neither like nor understand? The welfare state is seen by most people as natural, just like the constitutional state. They will only begin to understand that neither of them is this, but rest upon very fragile bases, when they have disappeared, that is, when the multi-tribal structure has displaced them. Perhaps the demise of Europe is a lesson for other industrialized civilizations (like China) and perhaps the last “Europeans” will seek refuge abroad.

Finally, let us examine this process from the clear perspective of universal history. More than 60,000 years ago human beings left Africa and spread over the entire earth. This was a process of diffusion, during which many separate peoples with their own cultures were formed, and to an extent had no contact with one another over long periods of time. This trend reversed abut 5,000 years ago, with the beginning of the agrarian civilizations, which created empires and drove long-distance trade. This was drastically accelerated 500 years ago by European seafarers, and for about 200 years now all of humanity has more or less been in contact. The process of globalization — underway for a few decades — has enormously expanded the mobility of information, goods and also people, and today we may contemplate a future in which the abstraction “humanity” has taken on tangible form.

This process of universalization and globalization is probably unavoidable, and the “peoples” who have shaped recent decades are now being consumed by it. We must be clear about the fact that this will be accompanied by countless painful frictions. Many present-day Germans would like to disappear as a people, be dissolved in Europe or humanity at large. Other peoples will vigorously resist such a prospect. It will not be harmonious. Individual cultures will attempt to use this opportunity to impose their traditional model universally, whether by force, or Western “human rights” or Islamic jihad, or whatever else. The immigration crisis we now face is just a premonitory sign of comprehensive convulsions which will swallow up everything we now take for granted.

Notes:

1.   Werner Sombart, sociologist and economist (1863-1941) in his book, Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben, propounded a racist interpretation of Jews as peripatetic, money-centered, instigating forces in the rise of capitalism.
2.   Area in eastern Europe, once part of Poland.
3.   From the Greek, meaning respectively “the common people” and “multitude” or “nation.”
4.   Johann Gottfried Herder, inspirer of the young Goethe, proponent of Germans speaking German (as opposed to French). Key figure in the German Enlightenment, Storm and Stress, and Classicism.
 

34 thoughts on “Germany — Land of Milk and Honey

  1. She is wolf in sheep’s clothing, her power over people the gullible masses is that face she has, a caring face, which is completely hiding the evil that lurks behind that face! She’s been chosen because she can deceive the people with that phony false sympathetic, I care about you…. Look!

    The complete opposite of reality, this woman would do well in Hollywood, I bet shes even been to acting school.

    What a scam this woman is, she’s worse than Adolf Hitler, this wicked woman from Rugen, Stralsund will be responsible for the destruction of the whole of Europe, in few more years shell be dead of old age, […] just who […] is this evil satanic self righteous piece of garbage, this woman has no right to decide to destroy our countrys and cultures.

    I pray to wake up soon […]
    Come on, German men, make history, and take back your country from these stasi gangsters who are stealing your country, and are replacing you with arabs and muslims who will rape and butcher your families.

    Its time now for the “real German men” to take direct action against the above names especially.

    Bring it on germany!!

    Note: edited for violation of rules re commenting. -admin

  2. The late Mr Sieferle is an admirably methodical German. The honesty of his exposition – which is really remarkably succinct in view of the complexity of the processes he deals with – enables us to calmly take stock of the existential predicament in which we find ourselves, especially we in Europe. There is no ideological clap-trap to distort our view of the crucial facts.

    But despite this lucid objectivity, the political aspect of the facts being observed compels what is, to an extent, the observance of the socialist narrative of redistributive justice/economics.

    This globalist embrace, whose ultimate source is, of course, basic human kindness and charity, has issued in a process that has become less charitable and more doctrinaire and dictatorial. That is to say, previous dispensations are summarily written off as regressive, and indeed wrong. Such political righteousness blithely condemns the previous order – for instance, the nation-state – to death. This is not the sensible hedging of bets that the instinctive, organic gradualism of ordinary human nature would normally produce, owing to its natural suspicion of, and reluctance to change.

    The Industrial Revolution was the most successful of the revolutionary upheavals which have formed our modern world – but, like all revolutions, its tempting possibilities for those who understand and command the huge forces of change involved inflict huge suffering upon those whose inertia of either fear or love, or both fear and love, of what is either to come, or what must be given up and lost, prevents them from willingly going along with the pace of events. Change is uncomfortable and disturbing.
    However, the hard necessity of change, out of which alone can improvement be achieved, surely need not be pushed forward in the ruthless and starkly anti-humanist manner of the Revolutionary system-builders of old? Must our revolutions – as the Globalist one that is upon us – invariably be violently checked by the removal of a class of coldly idealist intellectual ‘Jacobins,’ a process of liquidation of those prone to extremism and radical excess no less violent and disturbing than what is to be removed?

    Perhaps the quintessentially luckier British experience – relative to continental experience – in terms of technological and social progress, which is to say the ‘English Revolution’ and the Industrial Revolution, is exemplary here? A peaceful Restoration and reconciliation and the institution of Constitutional Monarchy following the murder of a King, a bloody Civil War and a radically Revolutionary interregnum; and the later explosively unregulated spread of heavy industry that was tamed in a flurry of Blue Books, giving force in Law to humane principles that outlawed the disregard of human needs: These unique historical developments used to be universally admired as the ultimate traits of civilised government. Now European models of prescriptive and dictatorial system-building are again in the ascendant – and are predictably provoking much disaffection and social tension.

    The fundamental cause of ‘Brexit’ is the eruption of the irrepressible instinct of the British people for the ‘fair play,’ which their insular – yet still exemplary! – historical experience has led them (on the whole) to expect. This is quintessentially a ‘nationalist’ trait. It seems perverse to sweepingly dismiss the historical and abiding merits of nation states while harping upon their evils. This arbitrary generalisation means, in the modern context, the tarring of what has been, overall, the positive experience and achievement of a country such as Britain with the same brush as that which – frankly – so darkens the still historically recent German experience.

    More even than an enforced and economically illiterate redistribution of wealth, this modern trait of the globalist revolution entails an equal redistribution of nothing less than moral guilt amongst all states and all peoples. This moral relativism is fundamentally Marxist, and dishonestly supplants the evolving application of Christian-Humanist morality with an inflexibly doctrinaire ideological prescription that has failed in its application – and failed at great human cost – everywhere and at all times.

    This essential pride in the achievement of an identifiable people – a ‘tribe’ whether of ethnic or democratic solidarity, or both – is not to be lightly dismissed: Historical constructs are not so much rubbish to be cleared away, but are the very foundations and indeed contributory building-blocks of even larger monuments of human progress. The current bureaucratic model for progress seems to reflect more the satire of Douglas Adams’ ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,’ in which soulless alien beings dictate the demolition of the entire planet Earth to make way for their Intergalactic Superhighway!

    The at first sight strange and unexpected solidarity of atheistic socialism and fanatical Islam has its explanation in the identity of the ruthless obsession of each system with its own absolute and indisputable Authority. Hitler intuited the same identity with Islam of his own socialist perversion of nationalism. The intolerance of such systems for dialogue or compromise is again driving Europe into the dangerous tensions which previously issued in the wars which the Left claims that globalisation and the merging of the nation-state into a supra-national authoritative entity has rendered impossible. Lenin and Stalin made the same mistake. So did Napoleon. Progress should not be a frog-march or goose-step or any sort of ‘march to the scaffold’! Talk of a ‘European Army’ should serve as a warning for the mad idealists of Brussels to stop forcing their pace of integration with ever-less regard for member-nations.

    Notwithstanding his many virtues as explicator of our current crisis, Sieferle’s deterministic view of history is all-too-Germanic, all-too-continental: He simply surrenders without any arguement to the radical Left/Liberal doctrinal version of globalism. In Britain we always see – pace the ideologically-self-blinded Left – the need for a pragmatic accommodation with realities. So do others in Europe, such as the Visegrad group of nations. A model of such sensible and therefore productive co-operation between states, as opposed to the present thoroughly counter-productive non-negotiable diktats, is emerging organically – PRECISELY BECAUSE OF A JUSTIFIED PRIDE OF NATION THAT HAS ALWAYS HISTORICALLY RESISTED ANY FORM OF ABSOLUTISM, whether dictatorships of the Right or the Left, or of religious fundamentalism.

    Germans, however, seem liable to extremes: Either it must be ‘Deutschland uber alles!’ or it is the nihilistic reductionism of over-thinking that they feel obliged to demonstrate, with conclusive finality, with their suicide. Arrogance even in defeat.

    I live in Britain, where I was born and bred: Britain’s ethos, still surviving (but just, owing once again to continental threats), enables me to look positively upon the challenges facing us, since all problems have their eventual practical resolution if faced honestly. I do not wish to be trapped by the outmoded revolutionary and abstract thinking of European system-builders, which is again constraining the natural creativity and goodwill of ordinary peoples!

    What a disgusting basis for a political system it is, for Europe to so distrust its peoples that it must restrict what it sees as their dangerous democratic impulses! Peoples must be enslaved by a remote authority lest their freedom leads to war! This atheistic cynicism is enshrined in a system of law that sees every one as guilty until proven innocent! This is the unloving home of Kafka’s K. This is the birthplace of Marx and of Hitler, for both of whom every country has had its sympathisers – and yet every country has also had its decent patriots in brave and determined opposition to such dictatorship. And it was the solidarity of these decent people in independent countries who resisted and overcame the evil-minded overlords, and restored the Peace of Europe!

    Things grown uncontrollably big are no more than a cancer – certainly not a healthful human organism. ‘Big’ without roots in ‘little’ is morbidity, disease, and death.

    My own national roots are most certainly sounder than the roots of the Kafkaesque Europe we see today. I will most certainly not be tearing myself from the land I am part of in the delusion that I can prosper without them! Let stealthily genocidal déraciné globalists and the choking mass of parasitic invaders take heed! People so adrift in the world lack any moral compass. Even basic geography requires the localisation and the differentiation of humankind!

    The gradual osmosis, through protective boundaries, of those human commonalities of mutual benefit everywhere, will not prove invasive: The invasive threat of the exploitatively parasitic and ruthlessly colonialist must be resisted for societies to remain healthy.

    We must build resistance to revolutionary change. What better defence is there than the healthy body-politic of an established and mature nation-state? We allow the abolition of this priceless heritage only at the extreme peril of our existence. Sieferle admits this, yet intellectually colludes in seeing the destruction of this heritage as inevitable. This is strictly logical, but unwisely derelict of any moral sense, that would say, ‘HALT! ENOUGH! PROCEED NO FURTHER ON THIS PATH OF FATALISTIC NIHILISM.’

    To put it briefly, the stabilising influence of the mature nation-state is no obstacle to change, but actually the guarantor of positive change, in which all can – and should – share. Change without stability is nothing but affairs running out of control. A conservative (small ‘c’) outlook is patient sanity that rescues and protects us from impatient fanaticism and ruthlessness.

    • dear Ph. Davies,
      your remarks are lucid and exhaustive.But ” The Deutschland über alles” Hymn was not meant as arrogant in the time when it was written, because at that time Germany was split in hundreds of territories and the poet wanted a modern( sic) national state based on the model of France ,Great Britain and th USA . Insofar, to quote the first verse of the anthem in this context is unhistorical.You are not the only one who does.

  3. What it comes down to is that Germany is being governed by idiots who are acting in accord with their stupid ideals.

    Such as, “Oh, there’s only one race, the human race”; so all are welcome and there’s no valid reason to secure Europe’s borders against these non-White invaders.

    Or, “we all all the same under the skin”, so it doesn’t matter if these people don’t look the same as us; so these non-European interlopers can interbreed freely with us.

    This is the mentality that is destroying Europe.

    Believing a false history renders a society psychotic(detached from reality) and this insane welcoming of non-German immigrants is a product of this national psychosis that Germany is suffering from.

  4. Once you get past the concept that the nation-state is passé and intrinsically evil–and that a diversity IN and AS nation-states is perfectly acceptable–this argument self-destructs.
    Nationalism per se is NOT necessarily a bad thing.
    Diversity per se is NOT necessarily a GOOD thing; in fact it is evil…….

    ……….take it from there.

    • The Soviet Union was the first modern “multicultural” state. It had over a dozen significant minorities, all of whom had ethnic “rights” and “autonomous” status. Obviously the speechmarks underscore the fact that whatever the multiethnic windowdressing, Moscow and the CP called the shots. The fact remains, though, that the USSR pioneered the institutional, diversity-respecting “multicultural” state in Europe, and arguably worldwide.

      And yet—here is the point—it was almost as barbaric and tyrannical as Nazi Germany, and left almost as many corpses in its wake.

      Do not allow the left to get away with lie that all the bad stuff came from “nationalism.” Historical experience shows that when a powerful state goes berserk, it has little to do with the homogeneity of its people. What it comes down to is the ideological fanaticism of its government.

  5. I am sorry to see that Herr Sieferle took his own life, doing himself the work for those who would see Germans dead. This is not the way to go, sorry. If all his wisdom did not help him see that… what is that wisdom worth?

  6. With all due respect to the author the key to what made the West the West can be found in the simple (yet hard to achieve) condition in which “A man’s word is his bond.” In other words he is self-governing and has internalized dealing honestly with his fellows. When this internalization of DECENCY is prevalent, is the norm, you have a HIGH TRUST society and there are no limits to what can be achieved.

    And no one, not the deepest of deep thinkers knows how we got there. So let’s throw it away because it’s FUN to burn down the house.

    • Actually, the theory is that it’s the Catholic church’s fault. The Catholic church forbade consanguinity, so, marrying your cousins.

      If a family will always marry within itself, this will make for a large family with little outside contact, and the only one you can trust are other family members.

      If you can’t marry your cousins, then by default your family-web has to widen, which means that you do not have the high trust within the extended family. But to get anything done at all, you will have to trust someone, somehow. So, a society will develop codes of conduct that will be of advantage to all (being a good Christian), and a high trust society develops.

      Compare Europe’s consanguinity rates with that of the middle East, and note how European states with high Muslim populations have higher consanguinity rates. Steve Sailer published a map about that the other day.

    • “My word is my bond”: that was the motto of the London Stock Exchange in the days when those guys walked around with notebooks and at the end of trading asked how much they owed each other.

      Decency, honesty, trust: these are CRUCIAL for a properly functioning society.

      • Decency, honesty, trust: these are CRUCIAL for a properly functioning society.

        Please pardon me for asking … “and your point is?”

        As in, cultures that revered (or, at least, respected) the “handshake deal”, frequently went on to create an environment of trust, obligation, and honor in all business dealings.

        Strange as it might seem, please read, “Behind the Arches“. This (corporate approved) account of McDonald’s will amaze even the most cynical reader.

        As an example, during the earliest days of McDonald’s, Ray Kroc went to (IIRC) Lily Paper (i.e., Dixie) products and asked for a massive credit line that included napkins, soda & milkshake cups, waxed paper wrappers for burgers, coffee cups, straws, and every last other disposable paper product that an up-and-coming fast food chain might need.

        Lily agreed and, by the time of Kroc’s demise, every one of that company’s board of directors was a multimillionaire. According to legend, the Lily contract had to be forcibly yanked out of Kroc’s cold dead hands.

        Compare this to how Kroc approached Kraft Foods for a processed cheese single that had a “darker orange appearance” (that more closely resembled genuine Cheddar cheese) only to have that corporation laugh him (and his newfound company) out of the room.

        You had best bet that Kraft had to come crawling back on their hands and knees before Kroc ever even gave a moment’s thought to giving them an account.

        That the days of these “handshake deals” are long gone in American business represents a departure from accepted practices that tells a woeful tale of declining American Capitalism.

  7. It is not exactly globalism and multiculturism when one hundred percent of people are streaming toward the fruits of western civilization. Even the most doctrinaire Muslim wants a nice car and a good restaurant and good place to live and would rather not have a ruler telling him what to do all the time. Ditto the most banal progressive or socialist or Hindu.

    Thus we truly have a large attractor pulling all peoples toward it–western milk and honey–some are close and some are far away from this goal.

    Therefore, if wanting western fruit is racist, we are all racists now.

    • It’s like saying, hey, all those people over there on the hill have nice houses, let’s all barge in a loot and burn! Then nobody will have any nice houses, the trust society will be dead, and the warlords will take over.

      Racism? Nonsense. Borders make good sense.

      When Germany began to policy of granting dual citizenship to Turks instead of offering them work and benefits and then insisting they go back after certain years, that’s when the fateful move was made. Imagine what Turkey would be like today if all those gastartbeiters went home with their skills and pensions and knowledge of the German political system, carrying to Turkey not only money but cultural and social capital… yeah. We’d have a different world today.

      Then apply it to Tunisia and Morocco and Algiers…. and so on. Our world is run by clueless, amoral idiots. Maybe the whole voting system is a mistake after all, it seems to push up the scum, 80% of the time.

  8. “He says, “immigration from Africa to Europe is not easy to monitor.”
    Well, he’s wrong.
    Europe and Africa have been in the same geographical position for Milennia, but there’s not been the flooding of migrants, as now.
    The problem is that Europe has WILLFULLY, made it easy.
    Allowing this HORROR by opening its gates to be WIDE open.
    Uncontrolled, unregulated.

  9. Cannot say I agree in entirety with the author’s excellent essay. One thing Europeans have in abundance is originality of thought and excellent ability to problem solve and adapt. There is also intelligence. These cannot be exported or “learned”. The Chinese and Japanese learn a lot by rote but are not as creative as the Europeans. Call me “Waycist” if you like but years of studying cultures and thought across the globe led to me to my conclusions.

    Importing billions of people to take advantage of our success will simply kill the goose that laid the original creative series of eggs that led to our civilsational superiority. And we are superior. For those “offended” by my statement- be my guest. I have cancer and only the fact of where I live has saved my life or prolonged it due to technology.

    My case rests.

    • Asian – not that silly ‘asian’ designation in the UK, but real Chinese and Japanese – statistically have higher IQs than those of Caucasians. And God’s little joke: Ashkenazi Jews score highest of all.

      But statistics isn’t reality; it’s merely an indicator. Just because Asian cultures tend to be cohesive/conformist doesn’t mean they aren’t more intelligent…on average. They’re smart enough to copy the inventions of the more individually creative West (and Israel). Doesn’t matter who invented it if all get to use it. My favorite examples are: (1)the way they figured out that Bach tapped into Maths smarts so the piano and other string instruments and western notation flooded the schools; (2) the paradox of Christianity is that it’s both individual and conformist. China utilizes both with their state-controlled Christian church.

      Unfortunately, the elites are corrupt and there is, as yet, no true rule of Law. If they discover that, it’s all over.

      • Regardless of IQ— creativity needs freedom of expression. Historically that was not the case in Chinese and Japanese societies. Perhaps GLT is referring to superior accomplishments etc. rather than value as a human being.

        • That creativity you mention is a double-edged sword if it’s not accompanied by any sense of discernment or history. Surely the excrement which academe calls “art” would be a clue that “creativity” without Reason is not worth much. The pendulum on freedom, spontaneity, creativity and do-your-own-thing hyper-individualism has swung so far to the left that it is bashing brains as it moves.

  10. The whole argument falls flat due to the nature of Globalists and “Globalism”. It is planned destruction by pretty evil or very naive “progressives” to destroy European civilisation. They admit it themselves. Their weapon of mass genocide is mass migration. There is nothing “abstract” or “natural” about it but a vindictive nasty white hating “elite”- not a very bright or clever one either but rather a grossly incompetent and murderous one. The whole affair is a criminal act and to pass it off as some kind “natural order” or “event” as the old migrations were in ancient times is a total distortion of the reality of the criminality and greatest conspiracy in history. Arrogance and hubris on the part of the traitor classes and an inappropriate comparison with Rome- a society morally and culturally far more sensible in matters of statecraft than our own criminal “leaders” is not a good parallel at all.

    Compare it to the parable of the Good Samaritan. Help the victim yes but don’t mug him.

  11. Sieferle’s posthumously published essay “Finis Germania” (sic) has been #1 on the Amazon.de bestseller list for about one week; currently it is at #16. How it got there demonstrates the arrogance/stupidity of leftist journalists; if you can read German you might want to read

    https://jungefreiheit.de/debatte/kommentar/2017/ein-sieg-der-dummen-linken/
    by Karlheinz Weißmann

    and

    https://sezession.de/57295/der-skandal-sieferle—die-wichtigsten-faq
    by Götz Kubitschek, the publisher of the essay.

    You will find links on extensive discussions on Sieferle and his work querying Google “sieferle sezession”.

    BTW: Amazon.de itself does not sell books from Kubitschek’s publishing house Antaios; they have been asked to stop this by Antifa or such.

  12. When earlier man wished to get warm they started with a small fire and tended it until it became hot enough to burn even the wettest wood.
    What these progressives are doing today is adding damp wood to the fire while it’s still small.

    Something which the article doesn’t mention but which is hugely important is that when our civilisation essentially ruled the world, Europeans made up a quarter of the world’s population. Despite the so called Baby boom following WWII, European/Western population growth saw a major decline globally to the 15% or so of today.
    As the origins for socialism, communism, large scale welfare all originated at this time, they’re all ultimately based on the concept of a massive European population with its underlying Christian morality.
    They’re still operating on the idea that we’re some great monolithic block that needs to help our less fortunate neighbours, that we can act as a perpetual big brother all the while ignoring that our neighbours have become strong while we have become weak.

    Such as the ludicrous example of the UK about to give India, a global industrial and technical hub with a population several times larger, £250 million in aid within the next couple of years. Enough to provide a major boost to India’s space programme. Meanwhile ex-soldiers roam British streets homeless, elderly pensioners are kicked out of their council housing they’ve lived in for decades to make way for foreign families with lots of children.

    The fire is being snuffed out.

    • You mention India as the recipient of aid from the UK, and only last night watching TV here in Canada we were shown Indian kids with leprosy–a truly nasty affliction, and were exhorted to give, to help them.

      Yet, there are plenty of needy here in Canada, and India is not only in the space race, but has many billionaires whose largesse could fix their leprosy problem with amounts they would probably describe as tipping money.

      We are NOT our brother’s keeper, and for far too long we have made the third world perpetual welfare recipients. The country of Haiti and almost the entire continent of Africa are perfect examples of this.

  13. I must admit to experiencing a frisson of karmic wonderment at the spectacle of Deutschland being invaded by the Jews’ mortal enemies – at the behest of their new Feuhrer – a woman whose spiritual ugliness can only be matched by the Austrian fella with the funny moustache, no less!

    What’s that old blues song? Gonna reap just what you sow, that old saying is true …

  14. It seems to me from reading both the articles and the comments on the article that the more global integration is foisted upon the populace the more tribal the populace becomes. All globalism offers is a worldwide panagea in which no one truly knows anyone else apart from the digital data they present. Humans wish for something more than this two-dimensional existence and therefore seek out their own kind, race, religion, social status etc. to fellowship with. Instead of a homogeneous grouping we are left with globules that will not mix just as oil and water do not mix. Thus, we have become a world of tribal groupings that is even harder to control than the masses were when Christianity was employed as the corporate sponsored state religion, prior to the Jesus movement.
    The only response the Elite can muster now is the same course of action that was taken by Stalin and Mao who slaughtered millions in the efforts to cow the governed populace into submission. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and oh yes Ho Chi Minh, took pages out of the Qur’an’s playbook in the slaughter of all those who would not agree with them or swear fealty to their new order. Therefore the only means of achieving the desired worldwide integration is to break down the tribal globules into tiny bits that can be blended together. BTW, even the Muslims do not agree amongst themselves and kill each other when they are not slaughtering the kefir and haram who inhabit the world, so look for a world religion to cudgel everyone into submission and those who don’t or won’t will be paying the ultimate price for their liberty.

  15. ” ours was a highly improbable process”

    Yes, indeed, despite some claims, there was nothing inevitable about industrialization or democratization. The process of industrialization started in NW Europe in one particular island, and nowhere else.

    A very interesting and insightful essay. It’s about time the facts were presented and the multi-culti fog dispersed.

      • Actually it’s “Rule Britannia!” It’s an imperative.

        Learn about the Industrial Revolution or perhaps read Sieferle’s essay and you will (possibly) understand my comments.

  16. ever wonder just how much hatred and contempt angela merkel has for the Germany people?

  17. Thank you for the lucid layout of a very complicated cultural machine. You can get lost in the mechanics of theory and forget what we are fighting.

    We are fighting the Quran. It is a guidebook for PLUNDER.

    When you join the Islamic Ummah, the worst of human nature is socially justified.
    The quran is the most deceptive book I’ve ever read. You cannot go 3 pages in any direction without being threatened, coerced, cursed, or killed.

    Europe is setting itself up for slaughter.

    • They are indeed! Sleepwalking to disaster!
      Wonder what they’re ‘on?’

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