In my last post on the subject of the baleful influence of William Luther Pierce on society, I talked about Timothy McVeigh's gun fetish and introduced the idea that it makes sense to think of white nationalism more as a religious cult than a political movement. With that in mind, I discussed the first of my three streams of racist spirituality: Christian Identity. In this article, I want to talk about the other two: Odinism and Cosmotheism. Pierce is directly involved in the last of these, and indirectly in that he pioneered the use of fantasy novels to spread the message of hate.
Before I start that, however, one thing I want to point out is that there are two streams of Odinism, the white nationalist one, and, the other decidedly non-racist one. So when someone says that they follow the ancient pagan tradition of the North, don't automatically lump them in with the goofs that I'm talking about here.
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The plot of Cradle Song involves various bands of white people trying to survive in a future dystopic California where centralized government has failed because of a combination of liberal idiocy and the perfidious behaviour of non-whites.
The black population has separated itself off into their own geographic community, and the book has nothing much to say about them. The Asian community has gone through some internal power struggles that resulted in a take-over by an organized crime group has created an ethno-state titled "New China". Hispanics have similarly created "Aztlan" which is controlled by a "Generalissimo" who used to be a university professor. There are also pockets where white people still exist, the two major ones being Orange County and Hollywood.
When the plot begins, the people of Orange County have been given an ultimatum from the leaders of New China: they have five days to leave after which they will be invaded and anyone left will be killed. With this in mind, the residents decide their only option is to go to the Hollywood enclave, which is called "White One". The problem is that the only way to get there is through Aztlan. And, as it turns out, the Hispanics kill every white they find trying to travel through their territory.
In fact, the only survivors of this migration are a half-dozen people who get rescued by a plucky band of white nationalist guerrillas led by a charismatic figure with the name Styrbjorn Taggesson. It is through Taggesson and his band that the ideals and practice of Odinism are explained to the reader.
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Before I get into that, I want to take a bit of a digression into literary criticism. The thing to remember about reading a novel like Cradle Song is that the author has used the "worldbuilding" technique to make the ideas he is trying to push more plausible. Racism makes sense in Cradle Song. That's because the Asians, Hispanics, and, Jews are written to conform to the stereotypes that Gunnarsson projects onto them.
Worldbuilding is the creation of an alternative universe with it's own culture, laws,
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This is what makes the novel format so useful as a propaganda system for white supremacy. It means that anyone who reads the book and might have some sympathy for the message it is promoting will only have his or her predisposition intensified. (And, of course, most sensible people will never read the book in the first place.)
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Anyway, it is through Taggesson and his followers that the refugees from Orange County find out about Odinism.
"What's the way he [Taggesson] follows?" Oliver asked in an over-enthused manner.
"It's the approach to life that our pre-Christian ancestors used back in pagan Europe," Saxena replied, noticing the surprise and shock in the faces of Curtis and Finley.
Hear the Cradle Song, O. T. Gunnarson, p-92
Oliver---one of the refugees---comments that he had heard that the ancient Nordic pagans practised human sacrifice. Saxena---one of Taggesson's berserkers---says that to their way of thinking this is an overly-literal misread of a key metaphor of Odinism.
"The prime message of Odin is to become, to progress into greater and greater states of existence through the use of your own will which is focused and under your conscious control. In order to become, to get to a new state of being from where are now, you have to sacrifice. There is no way around it."
"So you kill people and dedicate them to Odin in exchange for him granting you more power and a better life!" Curtis exclaimed as Finley's eyes opened wider an his stare became more pronounced.
"In a manner of speaking, yes we do. The people we kill and sacrifice for more power, knowledge, and better conditions in life are our own, individual selves," Saxena replied as he sat up and readied himself for launching into a detailed explanation. "in order to become you have to leave behind what you are now, at this instant. In other words, you have to die as what you are and then transform into something greater. A man who follows Odin does not just grow in skills and abilities and knowledge in a casual, random manner, he becomes greater and greater by using his will and consciously directing himself into new states of being. In other words, you could say that in a symbolic sense, the average person only dies now and then, and evolves into a greater condition of being but a follower of Odin will-fully kills himself, he sacrifices what he is, to develop and evolve into a condition far greater. He is always pushing forward and trying to become more powerful in any number of ways."
Gunnarsson, pp-92-93
For some people, this is something of a seductive message but it fails in two ways.
First of all, there's that emphasis upon "will". Most spiritual traditions don't talk about someone "willing" to do something, instead they generally talk about submission to some sort of external authority. This can be pretty lame, as when it talks about divine revelation as defined by the ecclesiastic hierarchy. But it can also mean submission to other things, such as "the Christ within" (something like your moral intuition), the Dharma (something like a combination of cultural wisdom and moral intuition), or, even just the discovered laws of science. The point is that none of these are about starting off with a firm belief about how the universe works and forcing yourself to get better at living in tune with that preconceived notion. Instead there is generally some sort of humility about separating out what is true and false, and accepting the former and discarding the latter. There's a name for using your willpower to support your already existing beliefs: motivated reasoning---it's generally considered a bad thing.
The second issue that pops up is a concrete, specific example of what I am talking about in the previous paragraph. I would suggest that one of the things that Saxena and Taggesson should "sacrifice to Odin" is their racism. Human beings generally progress beyond thinking people with other skin colours are subhuman by making the effort to get to know some of them. When they do, they realize all the races of people are pretty much the same. There are differences of culture, but those are accidents of geography and birth, not genetic make up.
In a novel where worldbuilding has actually created characters who epitomize the racist caricatures that white nationalists talk about, this cognitive dissonance between what people of colour are supposed to be like, and what they really are, never arises. This is the key value of spreading propaganda through novels---which is why Pierce's efforts were so successful that others like Gunnarsson and Covington (the Christian Identity author mentioned in the last post) copied his example and wrote their own white nationalist novels.
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When Taggesson and the refugees from Orange county get to White One, things heat up pretty dramatically. That's because they are soon joined by another organization: the extremely well-trained and disciplined Aryan United Front (AUF). This organization has intelligence that says that White One is soon going to be assaulted and annexed by the Aztlan army, which plans on killing off everyone in it.
The introduction of the AUF is another example of literary worldbuilding in the support of racist propaganda. That's because of a key problem in white nationalism---something that people like Pierce, Covington, and, Gunnarsson agree upon: a great many white supremacists are dumb as fence posts.
While the AUF continued to quietly build its membership and develop its strategy almost totally ignored by the controlled media and government secret police, the Ku Klux Klan, Identity Christian churches, Skin Head cliques, and various other manifestations of white discontent with a multiracial society all containing crack-pots, deviants, unthinking true believers, and run-of-the-mill buffoons, were crushed and destroyed. In the pro-white/pro-Israel and New World Order arena of conflict it was survival of the fittest, and the fittest had definitely turned out to be the AUF.
Gunnarsson, p-120
Gunnarsson doesn't try to explain how the AUF has managed to survive and thrive, he simply says that it did and out-competed all the other groups. (That's the value of worldbuilding.)
Moreover, he says that the AUF had simply given up on trying to convert outsiders to their cause.
While other organizations had been desperately working to convince the White race of its peril and responsibilities, the AUF had taken another path. After serious consideration its leadership concluded that the majority of people which comprised the White race at the time just prior to the real chaos were no better than a herd of cattle or sheep, creatures incapable of real thought and significant action or reaction. The High Command deemed the throngs of bumpkins, yokels, educated idiots, and spineless whiners and flatterers to be unreachable and worthless in any sort of action against the forces of decay in the West. The existing crowd was good for only one thing---breeding material. They could and would produce children and if those children had a safe, clean territory in which to live and grow, as well as a sound education, the West could be saved.
Gunnarsson, p-121
This again raises the question of how a group can grow to any size without doing outreach to the general public or catching the eye of counter-terrorist police agencies. Again---worldbuilding.&&&&
However they came into being---like Taggesson's crew---the AUF are a collection of super-men who together fight like an oiled machine. And when the Odinists meet with the AUF, both groups quickly size each other up, decide that they like what they see, and join forces. Together, they quickly roll-over White One's pathetic defence force. Then they immediately pivot and annihilate Aztlan's army in a heroic battle.
Then it's time to murder off the gays and lesbians, kill the Jewish leaders, and, exile all the mixed-race couples, people with mixed race parentage, and, the remainder of the Jews.
Next on the dance card is indoctrinating the left-over "breeding stock". A mandatory public meeting is held and the "chairman" of the UAF starts letting the people of White One in on what the new bosses believe.
It starts with a little push back by one of those liberal snow flakes---.
"I think anyone can dream up any interpretation about anything! And I just don't believe that the Jewish people have been deliberately working to destroy anything! Hell, I've got plenty of friends that are Jewish and they've never done anything or said anything to put them into your category of 'race destroyers' in my view!" One man had stood up and challenged the chairman on the information and accusations he had just levelled at the Jews and there was a lot of mumbling from others in the huge audience in agreement.
"Sir, I really don't care if you believe or disbelieve what's been presented to you tonight, but I'm going to lay some absolutely rock solid facts out for you and everyone else here because I think that these facts are something that you've all been kept in the dark over ever since you were children," Ivor replied in a forceful tone and the man who had stood up and yelled his question now sat down, then the audience became silent.
Gunnarson, pp-375-376
This token opposition to indoctrination doesn't really hold much water, because the novel has shown how the local Jewish elite had manipulated and controlled the others in White One in order exploit them. When faced with immanent invasion by the Hispanics, this cabal's prepared response was to have been to release a stolen bio-weapon that would have killed every human being on the earth. (This was prevented by a series of happenstances---divine intervention by Odin, perhaps??) Yet another example of the value of worldbuilding with regard to propaganda.
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So what are these "rock solid facts" that the UAF has built it's worldview around? Here are two:
"This brings us to point number eight which is that evolutionary units, or races if you like that term, developed distinct societies and cultures. Societies are nothing more than breeding communities and, unless they possess enmity which is prejudice and aggressiveness toward non-related outsiders, and protect their offspring, the society, the breeding community, dies. Societies are not around to cater to the whims of degenerates or coddle disruptive criminal elements or provide sustenance for those competing races--they are for the safety and welfare of the children of the race that founds them.
Alright, now here's number nine, the evolutionary process causes enmity which is ferocity, competitiveness, deceit, anger and hate, to exist as a deep-felt compulsion in races toward foreign elements because such feelings keep gene pools apart as well as pure and distinct, and this enables them to proceed with their unique destinies. But the evolutionary process also causes something else in races and that is amity. Amity is friendliness, goodwill, self-sacrifice, love, and cooperation. And these feelings exist between members of a race to insure that like breeds with like and that expansion, which insures a race's survival, takes place.
Gunnarson, pp-379-380
Why does he hate other races? According to Chairman Ivor, it's simply an instinct that Darwinian evolution has built right into us. So the AUF believes that racism is a basic instinct in the human being. The Odinists believe much the same thing, but they have a more poetic way of describing it. As Styrbjorn Taggesson explains it, at birth every child is visited by one of the Norse Gods: Odin, Thor, Freyr, etc. They recite a poem (ie: the "Cradle Song" from the book's title) over the child that sets out their destiny from birth to death. The child hears it, but then forgets. Either way, people are just racist---whether it's because of what's in our DNA or it's because a god whispered it in your ear when you were a baby. We support racism because---well, because people are racist and that is that!
The thing about this explanation is that it's plausibility depends on the willingness of the reader to accept that they are inherently racist. It's a perfect prescription for accentuating a preconceived notion plus an excuse for refusing to look deeply into their beliefs to see if they should be changed. Again, it's a brilliant piece of propaganda aimed a recruiting anyone who is already prejudiced. But if you aren't predisposed to be a racist---it's not much of an argument at all. (Surprise! Surprise! Racism doesn't make any sense!)
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This brings me back to William Luther Pierce. He specifically created his own type of racist spirituality, and it's very much like the beliefs of the AUF. The name says it all---"cosmotheism" means "universe/god". The idea is whatever the laws of the universe---such as Darwinian evolution---gives us, is God's will.
Pierce was a great orator, and the clip I've posted above is just a sample of his rhetoric supported by first-rate production values. His ideas aren't useful and/or true---but I suspect they would be tremendously attractive to a naive man like Timothy McVeigh. Think about that when you watch this small segment from a much longer, three part series.
I'm willing to entertain the notion that there is something of an instinct towards tribalism in the human race. But I would posit that this is more than over-balanced by humanity's tremendous plasticity when it comes to culture. If children are predestined for anything at all, it is to learn. That's how they are able to pick up languages pretty much by osmosis. And they learn much, much, more than just that. If they are taught to be racists, then they will probably have a bit of that in them later on in life. But if the opposite is true, then racism will die out. And, I would argue the obvious decline of racism by age cohort is pretty much irrefutable evidence of this fact. Young people today are much, much less racist than their parents, grandparents, and, great grandparents.
The best visual indicator of this decline that I could find is this graph from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the U. of Chicago. I found it cited in an article titled The Social Construction of Racism in the United States. As you can see, it shows a marked decline in the racist views of Americans about probably one of America's traditionally most volatile issues: "race mixing".
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I'm not going to go into too much detail about why I think it's important to understand white nationalists, even though their numbers are probably in decline. That's for the next article in this series.
But I would point out that there are some significant groups that seem to be singing from the songbooks I've mentioned above. One of the more visible anti-immigrant groups that has arisen in Canada over the last decade is the Soldiers of Odin. The group first arose in Finland but has spread across the world.
Part of the "brand" of the group seems to be to portray themselves not as being white nationalists, but rather a "community support group" that is concerned about "illegal immigration". In Canada, it has developed some visibility through street patrols, food drives, and, needle clean-ups where IV drug users hang out. It seems to me that this is an attempt to build a disciplined organization "under the radar". This sounds somewhat like how Gunnarsson describes both the AUF and Odinism in Cradle Song.
Another example of Odinism is the Wotansvolk ("people of Odin" in German) movement that was started in 1995 and seems to have been successfully spread within US prisons through White Aryan gangs and has now moved into the outside world. (Islamist terrorists also recruit within prisons.) One of it's appeal seems to have been being associated with the "The Order", a right-wing group of terrorists who seem to have been inspired by The Turner Diaries. (Among other things, the people controlling Turner's racist revolution are a secret society called "The Order".)
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