I heard OC Register car critic Susan Carpenter say on KPCC’s First Take this morning: “I’m a Nordic girl.”
Pretty hot!
I wished more people used the term “Nordic” and I wish Nordics rediscovered their sense of peoplehood and destiny, but without the genocide this time round.
From the book: “The Nordic space drags one along into the distance. It wants to be overcome. The overcoming of space means speed, the will for space urges and impels one to…”
From “Racial Soul, Landscape, and World Domination” by Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss:
Anyone who has sailed in the heavy seas around Cape Skagen has experienced how, at that point, two seas rush into each other with a deafening roar, each one having a different color and a different groundswell in terms of rhythm and pace: the gray-green North Sea has long-drawn-out, mile-long, high waves, whereas the bluer Kattegat thunders with waves of a shorter length. Here everything seems to become closer and narrower, everywhere we see the shores or sense their existence, and even beyond the Oresund and the “open” Baltic Sea we never again fully get that feeling of limitless expanse, infinite distance, we never again get that compelling feeling of power which the landscape of the North Sea gives. Nevertheless, the landscape styles of the two seas seem similar to the person who compares them with the landscape of the Mediterranean. Indeed, the Adriatic Sea is, seemingly, somewhat like the Baltic Sea. But anyone who travels southward through the narrow strait between the Albanian mainland and the Greek “Kerkyra” (Corfu) experiences clearly how the sea here differs from the other…. When the northern sea storms and rages with a terrific uproar, with a wind that rushes from one distant point to another, then the sea around Greece moves in moderately high but always even waves — strong but powerfully restrained in the entirety of its motion.
If one knows the northern sea and is familiar with its style, or, even more, if one feels its wave rhythm in his own soul, it would seem to him that the Greek sea was no sea at all and that we must find another word to describe it…. The south, the Mediterranean and its shores invite the beholder to a permanent stay: here everything is nearness, presence. We have grasped the landscape of the north as the land of the North Sea and the landscape of the south as the Mediterranean land; thus we look upon these lands as the shores of the seas which determine their style. The land of the North Sea is characterized by distance and movement; over broad stretches it is integrated into the depths of space….
The will for space awakens in the soul that is born in this landscape and truly lives in it. The Nordic space drags one along into the distance. It wants to be overcome. The overcoming of space means speed, the will for space urges and impels one to race through space. The Nordic landscape cries out to be traversed by rails over which express trains can speed. It is a characteristic of all Nordic vehicles to increase their speed. Ever-increasing velocity is a built-in characteristic of the rails themselves, the rails by which, in the Nordic experience of the world, the whole world is penetrated. Rails that are already in existence and those that must constantly be constructed for ever newer, ever faster vehicles on which men who experience the world Nordically may strive toward ever new goals. The Nordic soul experiences its world as a structure made up of countless thoroughfares — those already at hand and those still to be created — on land, on water, in the air, and in the stratosphere. It races like a fever through all segments of the Nordic community, a fever of speed which, infectiously, reaches out far beyond the world of the north and attacks souls who are not Nordic and for whom, at bottom, such action is contrary to their style and senseless.
In the Nordic landscape everything points to places beyond and tempts the soul, born of it, to cross the borders of this landscape. The Nordic soul has an innate urge to push on into the distance, and this means mostly southward. Anyone who has crossed the southern barrier of the northern geographical area — past the St. Gotthard range, for example — knows what is happening there. The northern region is perhaps enveloped in a thick fog, so that from the train we can see only the trunks of the mountains; then we plunge into the night of the tunnel and, suddenly, a radiantly blue day lights up our darkened eyes. And all the travelers, as with one voice, utter a cry of joy. The light of the south is like a benediction to the Nordic soul, blissful and at the same time fatal, like the light of the candle for the moth. First we feel as if we were wonderfully liberated from the call of distance, the urgent forward movement of the north, for here everything is simply present, magnificently beautiful and consummately finished. But then the eternal nearness of this landscape envelops the soul and stifles it to the point of suffocation. We may not really say that this landscape is “narrow”; it is not exactly without a certain distance from the soul. Such words do not do justice to its character. And in our language we probably cannot find the right word to express its character because all our words are fashioned out of the Nordic way of perceiving our world. We can say only what this landscape, in terms of ours, is not: it is without distance, without a deep movement; it is magnificent surface with nothing behind it — it is devoid of enigma, bereft of mystery. What it is, according to its nature, might perhaps best be expressed by a foreign word — it is imposant.
Wherever the human eye wanders — and it cannot really wander much here — it comes smack up against mountains which ring the region, high and beautifully curved, all of them seeming to know and assert how beautiful they are. It is as though they point to themselves with an imposing gesture and demand: “Look at me!” When the land does open into a broader vista, it is only in a prescribed circle — one’s gaze looks downward, then upward, around and along the crests of the mountains, and finally back to its starting point. Nowhere, not even on the sea, can one truly look out into the great beyond. Everything goes back and forth in a circle. Even the clouds seem to follow no path or direction, but stroll, so to speak, in a circle. Here reigns Zeus, the “gatherer of clouds,” not Wodan, the wild hunter who roars with his armies high above — no one knows whence and whither….
The mountains of the south are bare. Above them the glaring sun paints everything with a dazzling color and lights up every crevice. The light forces itself upon, intrudes upon everything, wherever we may look. Several times I caught myself saying: “This shameless sun!” Here there is no darkening mountain forest hiding a fairy tale, no night with flowing fog formations, with “a thousand monsters,” no castle enveloped by a whispering legend. Here everything is clear, there is nothing but utter clarity. The Acropolis towers magnificently over the countryside, a miracle in white on blue. It tells us gripping tales from a time that no longer reaches into the present; it tells us very much, but it does not whisper to us. Even the wind knows of no mystery, it caresses. Even the storm wind still caresses although it tugs at your hair.
We said that the Mediterranean invites one to stay forever. But we must ask further: Whom does it invite? The person who was born in this landscape and who perceives in its style the style of his own soul — namely, the person who has it in himself as his inner landscape. Such a person is able to “tarry” in the authentic sense of the word. When, however, persons whose inner landscape is the north succumb to the enticement of the south and stay there and settle down (as some Nordic tribes did in ancient times), the first generations will live in opposition, albeit unconscious, to the landscape which is alien to their kind. Gradually, then, the style of the souls undergoes a change. They do not change their race, they will not become Mediterranean people — in the strict meaning of the word as used here — but their Nordic style will undergo a transformation which ultimately will make them into a southern variety of Nordic man. In their eyes the southern landscape will not be the same as that seen with the eyes of those who are the children of this landscape. Through their Nordic way of seeing, the landscape will acquire a new, northern type of configuration. The landscape forms the soul, but the soul also forms the landscape. And when both, the Mediterranean man and the Nordic man who has settled in the south, look into the same geographical setting, each sees a different landscape — until, finally, miscegenation tears down the barriers and victory (that is, duration) is on the side of those who come from this soil.
This was the fate of the early Greeks, of the Romans, and of all peoples of Nordic origin who settled in the south….
Among non-Nordics the Nordic man is frequently considered to be cold and without passion. The combination of concepts — “cold and without passion” — completely misunderstands the very roots of the Nordic soul. Indeed it is precisely this feature that is characteristically Nordic: to combine an outer coldness with the deepest passion, or, at least, to be able to effect this combination. All the “coldness” of Nordic man stems from the distance which separates him from his environment and which he cannot violate without violating his style, the law of his breed. To describe the Nordic soul’s mode of experiencing the world is equivalent, first of all, to showing the possibilities of experience arising from this distance. A description of the Nordic soul must begin with its characteristic reaching out within the frame of distance.
We shall begin with examples from everyday life. When Nordic people enter a train they will with great thoroughness look for the coach that is least occupied, and then, if possible, will sit down in a seat where there are no neighbors. If, however, they get into a confining situation in which they are closely surrounded by fellow passengers, they will not establish any psychological contact with them except for the superficial courtesies — “Do you mind if I open the window?” — which can exhaust a conversation for hours. Perhaps they may even feel a compulsion to strike up a conversation; perhaps they find the person near them very attractive. But between each individual and his neighbor lies an unbridgeable distance and therefore they are not able to find the level of true conversation. Nordic man can overcome almost everything in the world save the distance separating man from man. In general, he is never really able to surmount it: the distance remains to the last, even in the most intimate community.
When a Nordic enters an inn, he looks for the last vacant table. If he cannot find one, it can happen that, despite his hunger, he will leave the inn to look for another, which he hopes will be empty. If he is distinguished, he is sensitive at table: the “good” society of Nordic style has developed special laws of etiquette, a strict set of table manners excluding all “letting oneself go,” thereby protecting each individual from untoward familiarities. A violation of such table discipline has the effect of a violation of the distance — the discipline guarantees distance. The use of the toothpick in company first began in the German south and east, becoming generally more widespread and flourishing in countries where other needs are publicly satisfied, needs which the Nordic satisfies in privacy.
The Nordic endeavors to live alone — alone with his kin group, far away from neighbors. Even when he is at a summer resort, he keeps away from others as much as possible. For a time I lived in an old castle, on what for the time being is Italian territory, which now, like so many others, is operated as a resort hotel. In this old structure the rooms were widely spaced out and there were several small towers in the immediate vicinity. A new section had been added in which the rooms were close together. The towers and the rooms that were spaced out were occupied by
Germans and Americans, the new section by Italians. The Nordic man never feels comfortable in apartment houses where the tenants live piled in layers upon one another and where the most
intimate sounds penetrate everywhere. He is least comfortable in one of those large blocks of flats where sometimes ten people are crowded into one room. Under these circumstances, the
Nordic people are the first to languish, to die, first spiritually and then physically: they succumb because of the loss of physical distance and perish because of the lack of social distance. The Nordic man can no more live without external and internal distance than fish can live without water. Nordic men cannot thrive between the stone walls of long lines of streets which deprive
them of all distance — in other words, in the large city. If they cannot afford to take up residence beyond the city, then they succumb to emotional and psychological atrophy. Perhaps they are
unaware of it, but they are forced to overcome an unconscious opposition; nevertheless, the Nordic soul is slowly stifled. The sins that parents have committed against their own soul-style is
avenged in their children. Nobody who lives contrary to the law of his species goes unpunished.
The style of distance determines that Nordic man cannot live unpunished in regions which are narrow in terms of his law of style. The big city is not the only example of this; there is also the valley in the high mountains, and the sea inlet surrounded by high walls. In the Black Forest, for example, the wide valleys as well as the grassy lands and plateaus were settled by the Alemanni — that is, Germanic peoples — whereas the narrow valleys here and there remained predominantly in the hands of the original Eastern population. The difference between these two
types of people in this area is so strikingly obvious that even as a boy, before I ever knew anything about races, I was sometimes surprised to hear these people, too, speak the Alemannic
dialect. They seemed so strange to me then that I expected to hear them talk an entirely foreign language.
Now it can happen, however, that Nordic people nevertheless live in narrow regions. This habitation has a special meaning. We arc thinking of the inhabitants of the deep-set fjords of the
Norwegian coast. There the mountain wall, on both sides, grows precipitously out of the sea, solidly with no break, so that the sun never penetrates to the narrowest points. Settlements are
spread out few and far between, only in the wholly low-lying areas where the fjord widens or where the mountainside clings to a ridge. The people there feel hemmed in, confined, and yearn
to get to the top of the Fjell and beyond it where there is no limiting barrier. Their sons, to the extent they are still authentic racial types, go to sea or emigrate and, often, even the young girls cannot be held back….
Re: Anthony Ludovici:
Ludovici adopted a nom de guerre, Cobbett, to examine the Jewish question more fully in The Jews, and the Jews in England (London, 1938). (He told his friend, William Gayley Simpson, that using his own name for this book would ruin his career as a writer.) Typically, he began with race, demonstrating that the Jewish type is mostly an amalgam of Armenoid with Oriental and Mediterranean contributions, the whole having been standardized over millennia to create an “irreducible kernel” of Jewishness. Jews are therefore alien to European races and especially Nordics. Tracing their character traits back to nomadic Bedouins who became city-dwellers, traders and middlemen supreme, Ludovici believed circumstances compelled Jews to evolve genetic biases toward courage and endurance, ruthlessness, sharp brains and psychological flair, chameleonic adaptability, exhibitionism, a fondness for easy money and individualism in property, an intolerance of being ruled, a cosmopolitan outlook, and a racial patriotism superseding national boundaries. Programmed with this mindset, Jews are “indifferent spectators” to the fate of their Gentile hosts, whom they strive to undermine:
“Their influence . . . tends to impoverish and weaken all local tradition, national character and national identity, when these happen to be at all resistant to alien invasion. And since these factors are integrating forces, it follows that extreme Jewish liberalism atomizes a population, turns each man into an isolated individual, and ultimately culminates in a state bordering on anarchy in which, at the turn of an eyebrow, anarchy becomes a fact.”
Kevin MacDonald writes:
The psychological traits attributed to Nordics are principled moral behavior and idealism, high intellect, inventiveness, and, in the words of Gustav Friedrich Klemm, a proclivity to “constant progress” and science:
Members of that race most often strive for the unknown, for the sake of a pure idea, driven by the thirst of knowledge, and not self-seeking interest.
My view is that there is a strong empirical basis for this suite of traits, and that ultimately these traits, particularly moral idealism and science, are the psychological manifestation of individualism as a response to selection pressures in the far north. As Avdeyev notes:
…the home of the Nordic race may be located in the zone of a cool and moist climate, abundant with clouds of fog, in which water vapor is retained in the air [absorbing ultra-violet rays]. In this climate there should be strong and frequent fluctuations of temperature.
I first became aware of the idea that natural selection in the north was responsible for the unique traits of Europeans by reading Fritz Lenz, whose work is reviewed in Raciology. Lenz, like several modern theorists (e.g., Richard Lynn and J. Philippe Rushton), gives major weight to the selective pressures of the Ice Age on northern peoples. He proposed that the intellectual abilities of these peoples are due to a great need to master the natural environment, resulting in selection for traits related to mechanical ability, structural design, and inventiveness in problem solving (what psychologists term “performance IQ”). He argued that Jewish intelligence, in contrast, was the result of intensive social living (what psychologists term “verbal IQ”).
There is in fact good evidence that in general intelligence is linked to mastering the natural environment (see here), and this is particularly the case among Northern peoples.
Lenz argued that over the course of their recent evolution, Europeans were less subjected to between-group natural selection than Jews and other Middle Eastern populations. Because of the harsh environment of the Ice Age, the Nordic peoples evolved in small groups and have a tendency toward social isolation rather than cohesive groups. This perspective does not imply that Northern Europeans lack collectivist mechanisms for group competition, but only that these mechanisms are relatively less elaborated and/or require a higher level of group conflict to trigger their expression.
Under ecologically adverse circumstances like the Ice Ages, adaptations are directed more at coping with the adverse physical environment than at competing with other groups. In such an environment, there would be less pressure for selection for extended kinship networks and highly collectivist groups. Ethnocentrism would be of no importance at all in combating the physical environment.
Europeans are therefore less ethnocentric than other groups—which makes them susceptible to being subverted by groups with a strong sense of in-group solidarity. Individualist cultures show relatively little emotional attachment to in-groups. Personal goals are paramount, and socialization emphasizes the importance of self-reliance, independence, individual responsibility, and “finding yourself.”