VIEW FROM THE RIGHT:  AN APPRECIATION AND A DISSENT

PART ONE: AN APPRECIATION

by Alan

BRIGITTE BARDOT led me to View from the Right.  In or about 2004, I read news reports about how she was being penalized for expressing her views about the disastrous effects of immigration on her country.  I thought it absurd that she should be penalized, and I was curious to learn whether anyone else in America thought the same.  So I looked to the Internet for commentary on that matter.  One link or another led me to View from the Right.  That was how I discovered VFR and Lawrence Auster, so I have Brigitte Bardot to thank.

I was not looking for commentary by “Conservatives” because I knew how inept and spineless they had proven themselves to be in countless confrontations with the “Liberals” they pretend to oppose.

Some years earlier, Mr. Auster had become appalled by what he saw on the streets of New York City and in public places.  I had had the same visceral/esthetic reaction to similar scenes I observed in St. Louis in the same years.  His reaction to the culture-wide collapse of rules and standards nearly paralleled my own.

What I found at VFR—not all at once but over a span of weeks—was exactly the kind of thoughtful commentary and discussion I had hoped to find.  Several times each week I would read VFR.  For me, the important part of VFR was “the politically incorrect Right” part.  I knew I had found a kinsman.

What Lawrence Auster wrote did not so much influence my judgment as prove to me that there was at least one other man in America who thought the way I did.  I discovered that he and I were the same age and had therefore lived through the same events and seen the same cultural trends develop over half a century.  Many of them appalled him.  Many of them appalled me.  Independently, we had formed similar judgments.  Our views did not converge completely.  I had substantive disagreements with some of what he wrote.

But overall, VFR impressed me most favorably.  It was a pleasure to discover an Internet site where someone would write about such things and evaluate them properly in what I thought had become a vast cultural wasteland of mindlessness, dumbed-down standards and moral cowardice.

I enjoyed reading VFR because it was one of apparently few places on the Internet where one could find (a) thoughtful commentary by the host, (b) intelligent discussion with readers, (c) no profanity, and (d) no pictures.  In the early years, VFR was almost all text—exactly what I was looking for:  Ideas and judgments, not pictures (of which I think there are far too many in modern life).

As a voice of dissent in a nation drunk for decades on the poison of Liberalism, Mr. Auster proved he was a courageous thinker and writer.  On the suicidal policies of diversity and multiculturalism; on the suicidal entanglement of Americans in foreign wars; on the poison called feminism and its horrendous effects on American life and culture; on black/white racial differences; on the importance of precision in language; on the shallowness and fraudulence of much “journalism”; on the degradation of professional baseball; on the suicidal foolishness of “open borders” Catholics and Lutherans; and on the restoration of long-abandoned moral, philosophical, and cultural standards – these were some of the matters on which Mr. Auster proved he could see straight and think straight in a culture drenched in sophistry.

In the 1943 motion picture “The Sky’s the Limit”, Fred Astaire’s character says, “Sometimes you have to fight to keep what you’ve got.”  Quite right.  But what men of Mr. Auster’s age and mine were seeing in plain sight was a nation of infantilized, emasculated, feminized men who refused to accept that responsibility and who therefore, by default, were surrendering the heritage, standards, and very identity of Western Civilization.  I remembered days in the 1970s-’80s when some event or trend prompted me to think to myself, “I am living in a kiddie culture.”

I thought “The Breakdown of Western Form”, his essays on modern Americans as a nation of Eloi, and his remarks on the Water Bottle People were some of his best work.  Ditto for his essays on the virtues to be found in many motion pictures from the Golden Age of Hollywood, a point on which he and I were in complete accord.

I thought it entirely proper that Mr. Auster ascribed much credit to Christianity for the establishment and flowering of Western Civilization.  But at the same time, I thought it equally proper for him to say that VFR was not a Christian website.  My guess is that he knew that there are countless traditionalist-and-conservative-minded Americans who are not necessarily religious but who are just as firmly opposed as he was to the degeneracy in modern life and just as firmly in favor of a restoration of long-abandoned moral-philosophical-cultural standards.

I could not share his appreciation for the music of Bob Dylan or his interest in eastern religions.  I thought his defense of the Beatles was less than persuasive.  I thought he was too critical in some of what he wrote about Ayn Rand.  I thought he was not critical enough in some discussions of crime and punishment, and I will cite an example in Part Two of this essay.

Aside from those occasional and inevitable differences of judgment, what I appreciated about VFR was the way Mr. Auster took hold of a question or controversy and his emphasis on the precise, disciplined use of words. Those things inspired my respect, as did his rock-solid understanding of the virtues of Western Civilization, and of why we must not acquiesce to those whose goal is to destroy those virtues and dismantle that civilization.

In the years when Lawrence Auster hosted VFR, it was enormously gratifying to know that I could visit that site and read comments and discussion not filtered through the distorting lenses of liberalism, feminism, and moral relativism.

More often than not, Mr. Auster proved he understood what most “Conservatives” and most “reasonable” people do not understand:  That you must never accept the premises or vocabulary chosen by your enemy or adversary.  If you do, you will forfeit the contest before it begins.   We must determine the premises and vocabulary of debate.  We must never permit our enemies to choose them.  And our determination of those premises and that vocabulary does not involve any “new concepts”, words, or slogans.  It involves a vigorous and unapologetic reaffirmation of long-neglected knowledge and wisdom.

One day years ago I was reading VFR at a library in St. Louis when a man sat down to use an adjacent computer. Evidently he glanced at the screen I was reading at that moment and saw the words “View from the Right”.  “That must be pretty funny, eh?”, he said to me in a mocking, arrogant, self-congratulatory tone, apparently presuming that I shared his worldview.   In response, I said to him:

         “You dolt.  You nincompoop.  You impertinent, Pavlovian puppy. When you see the words “The Right”, all you can do is react in knee-jerk fashion, proving how well-trained you are.  This nation is being destroyed by do-gooders in the name of Liberalism, and you have just proven yourself one of their useful-idiot puppies.” 

Actually I didn’t say that to him.  I didn’t say anything to him.  I ignored him.  His words gave him away.  Years of study, reflection, and experience taught me that any attempt to talk with such people is an exercise in futility.  You cannot reason with such people because they hate reason.

I want to express my gratitude to Laura Wood for seeing to it that View from the Right has remained online.  Mr. Auster was an important voice in the Counter-Revolution, as hers is also.  She has made an invaluable gesture in keeping VFR available for thoughtful people to re-visit, read, re-read, and ponder.

— Comments —

Laura writes:

Thank you for the timely appreciation.

Dean Ericson writes:

Well said, Allen, and timely for this sixth anniversary of his death. Looking forward to Part Two.

The first piece of Larry’s I ever read, following a link somewhere, was his “Search for Moderate Islam”, in 2005. The clarity of his writing was matched by the systematic logic of his mind and the courage to say the truth, even, or especially, if it was unpopular.

I had not given much thought to politics or religion at that time but I became a daily reader of VFR. It was always interesting, often fascinating, and there were great commenters who contributed to spirited dialogs. It is no exaggeration to say that Lawrence Auster cleared away the haphazard rubble of my spiritual and intellectual foundation and replaced it with the solid blocks of Christianity, The European nations, and our Greco-Roman heritage. I have been able to build on that foundation. (If Larry were here I would tell him that, and then, making a face of mock concern, ask him, “Are you sure you’re not a Mason?” Larry had a fine sense of humor.)

Ben writes:

I wanted to add my two cents in sincere appreciation for the work of Lawrence Auster at VFR and to you, personally, for doing so much to keep his work online. I never read VFR or interacted at the site when Mr. Auster was alive. I only discovered him some years after his death, thanks to reading Lydia McGrew’s blog.

Mr. Auster was instrumental in changing my mind on several subjects. His clear, respectful writings and New York Jew-style argumentation helped me to better appreciate clear thinking and debate. I miss his voice on today’s politically incorrect Right.

I have learned through The Thinking Housewife that VDare is planning to release a posthumous work. I look forward to reading it.

Thank you again for your work on my behalf and of all those who read VFR.

Laura writes:

You are very welcome.

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