With all the talk of the alt-right lately, people have attempted to figure out if there is an alt-left.

I do believe there is one.

But before we can talk about the alt-left, we should at least attempt to define the alt-right.

Much of the commentary about the alt-right seems to me like the proverbial blind men grasping different parts of an elephant and not understanding the nature of the animal they are attempting to describe. They merely define a laundry list of features (e.g. antisemitism, Neo-Nazism, nativism, Islamophobia, antifeminism, homophobia) without attempting to define the core belief system that holds it all together.

In my opinion, the core principle that defines the alt-right is Social Darwinism. This ideology ties together several other often-noted features of the alt-right: racism, white supremacy, misogyny, extreme market libertarianism, disdain for democracy, authoritarianism, reactionary politics, and technophilia. From their Social Darwinist belief system flow all the other seemingly unrelated features.

At least that’s my take on what I’ve been able to gather from reading their writings and opinions where I’ve had the misfortune to encounter them.

There is, it should be noted, a strain of the alt-right that differs from this; one that is influenced by Catholic theology and is suspicious of the market and its morals. This is, however, a less important and influential strain.

From what I can tell, much of the alt-right are die-hard hereditarians. They are utterly obsessed with ideas of race and IQ. In their belief, IQ determines everything from individual success, to the success of entire nations. Wikipedia defines hereditarianism this way:

Hereditarianism is the doctrine or school of thought that heredity plays a significant role in determining human nature and character traits, such as intelligence and personality. Hereditarians believe in the power of genetics to explain human character traits and solve human social and political problems. Hereditarians adopt the view that an understanding of human evolution can extend the understanding of human nature. They have avowedly rejected the standard social science model in favor of applying the scientific method to human social structure. Pastore has claimed that hereditarians were more likely to be conservative, that they view social and economic inequality as a natural result of variation in talent and character. Consequentially, they explain class and race differences as the result of partly genetic group differences…The Pioneer Fund, established in 1937 to support academic research into the problem of heredity and eugenics and the problems of human race betterment, is now a leading source of funding for scientists wishing to investigate hereditarian hypotheses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereditarianism

The alt-right believes that races are real; that is, they believe in race essentialism. Furthermore, they believe that there is a clear hierarchy of races, with greater and lesser races, that is superior and inferior ones. Furthermore, they believe that culture is derived from genes.

One of their “sacred texts” is A Troublesome Inheritance by Nicholas Wade, which asserts that race is a real, measurable phenomenon in the human species. While Wade himself condemns racism and the idea that certain races are superior to others, the alt-right itself embraces that idea with gusto. They believe that Europe and the West got to the top (whatever that means) by having superior IQ’s, and that other races have inferior intelligence. They love to trade charts which supposedly correlate GDP and average I.Q., as if the West’s control of institutions and the legacy of colonialism somehow don’t matter. Or, alternatively, they assert that the expansion of the West merely proves the superiority of Europeans, and why they are the fittest to rule.

This ties together their white supremacism and their fear of immigration. Since they believe that culture is derived from genes, they believe that Muslim and African immigration will destroy Western culture by eroding its gene pool. There are all sort of “facts” asserting the inferiority of, for example, Muslim immigrants heading to Europe. One of the more bizarre theories that is circulating now claims that Muslims are all inbred since they all marry their cousins!

Their view of human history is derived from something called the Human Biodiversity Movement, which asserts that culture is shaped primarily, if not exclusively, by Darwinian forces acting on the gene pool. For example, one popular assertion is that the banning of cousin marriage by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages forced Europeans to deal with strangers more often. This caused the West to from institutions which allowed people to deal effectively with strangers, and hence to capitalism! In other words, capitalism, too derives from genes (about which, more below).

They believe, then, that Westerners are not just a different culture, but are genetically distinct from other populations. To that end, they are opposed to “diversity” and “multiculturalism.” They believe that Western culture is clearly superior, that its superiority is what caused it to dominate the world, and that this superiority derived from the genes swashing around in the Western European population, honed by thousands of years of Darwinian evolution. The stagnation of the Muslim world (once by far the most advanced civilization on the planet) in their view was caused by inferior genes, and that these genes are now flowing into the West thanks to the craven political class.

In America, this belief system usually manifests around the alleged inferiority of African-American I.Q’s. To this end, another “sacred text” of the movement is Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve. In other words, African-Americans are poor because they are stupid, European Americans are rich because they are smart. Full stop. Any attempts to explain this result not using genetics is “feel good liberalism” and, to use their favorite epithet, “Cultural Marxism.” African-Americans are depicted in much of the alt-right as little more that apes. Such people like to call themselves “race realists” (as opposed to “racists”) and claim that the only thing to do with inferior Africans is to exterminate them. To this end, some of the more extreme factions of the alt-right have no qualms with advocating a “final solution” type scenario for those people and races they feel are “inferior” (as determined by them, of course).

It follows then, in their view, that society is, and has always been, a pure meritocracy determined by IQ. That is, the social structure and institutions don’t matter. The cream rise to the top, the scum sink to the bottom, and it’s all based on the packet of genes inherited from mom & dad, no matter what social system happens to be operating. And white males, having the best combination of high-IQ’s and aggressiveness, are the “natural” leaders of such a society. All the “politically correct” denigration of white males in favor of “diversity” and “feminism” is causing society to fall apart, they believe.

So this ties together racism, white supremacy, male chauvinism, Islamophobia, and a hatred of diversity, multiculturalism, and immigration. Misogyny also springs from this same root, but is a bit harder to describe.

In the alt-right, women are depicted as mere “breeding machines” blindly following the dictates of their reproductive instincts above all else. This is tragic, because women’s “natural” instincts will cause the to mate with less intelligent “cavemen” type-men, especially dark-skinned men from regions of the world where women are still treated as chattel. Women are naturally attracted to these “aggressive” males and repulsed by men of their own race because they have been “pussified” by generations of feminism. This will lead to the gradual elimination of the superior genes that made Western civilization–and laissez-faire capitalism–possible, and cause us to fall back into the Malthusian trap, preventing us from reaching the “next stage” of human evolution (more about that below).

As the alt-right tells it, women will happily join the harems of aggressive dark-skinned foreigners, shunning the intellectually superior, high-IQ men of the West that they ideally should be mating with, and it’s all thanks to feminism and the loss of control over the political and economic institutions of society by white males (they don’t like Angela Merkel and REALLY hate Hillary Clinton).

Furthermore, women are promoting immigration because they inherently want to mate with these aggressive, dark-skinned males. That means, of course, that these men are depicted as both genetically superior AND inferior at the same time.

Womens’ natural reproductive instincts will lead to the downfall of society, the Alt-Right argues, because the superior genes that built the West will no longer be passed along if women’s natural urges are not channeled and controlled by society. Financial independence for women is a grave threat, because women are no longer dependent on high-IQ male “providers,” and inferior genes will begin displacing the superior ones that have brought us to this “high point” of human civilization. This video pretty much explains this philosophy: Why Women DESTROY NATIONS (caps in original)

Might Makes Right and Libertarian Capitalism

So how does libertarian capitalism fit into all this?

Another “sacred text” in addition to those mentioned above is “A Farewell to Alms” by economist Gregory Clark.

Clark asserted that it wasn’t institutions, or social structures, or historical contingencies, or geography, or even the harvesting of half a billion years of stored sunlight in the form of fossil fuels, that caused the Industrial Revolution. Rather, what really caused it was the fact that the rich had more surviving offspring than the poor. He bases this on an analysis of wills from a couple of centuries in medieval England. According to Clark, the Industrial Revolution is all down to genetics.

This rest on a few assumptions 1.) The rich have “superior capitalist genes” that they pass along to their offspring. Clark hypothesized these as intelligence, literacy, a willingness to cooperate with strangers, a tolerance for hard work and long hours, and, most especially, time-preference for delayed rewards (creating a propensity to save instead of spend surpluses). And, 2.) That this was unique to medieval England. He argues that in other cultures, the elites were not merchants, and thus were more focused on martial superiority and did not possess the superior “bourgeois genes” that the English merchants did. Or, the rich did not have as much of a reproductive advantage, and the hapless poor were able to pass along their inferior genes, keeping other societies mired in the Malthusian trap. Only England, with its dead peasants and “downward mobility” of the rich was able to escape.

In short, the Industrial Revolution was caused by the ants out-breeding the grasshoppers.

Now, despite this thesis being rejected by almost all economists, geneticists, historians and anthropologists, the alt-right has embraced it with gusto. It follows, then, that Western capitalism is a “superior” system that relies upon the “inferior” poor dying off as fast as possible.

The best way to ensure this result is laissez-faire (leave alone) capitalism! Only the anarchic market devoid of any rules allows the naturally strong (i.e. the genetically superior) to climb to the top. This is where their love of Ayn Rand and her writings comes into play. Like Rand, they believe that it is the “natural order” for the strong and talented to dominate the weak and feckless (and they invariably depict themselves as the strong and talented, and their opponents as less capable and intelligent). And only capitalism–with as few restrictions on the behavior of the elites–is an effective Darwinian mechanism. Of course, the naturally strong and talented people at the top of society tend to be disproportionately white males.

This is the reason they despise the existence of the state and intervention in the “free” market–it allows the weak and feckless to survive at the expense of the strong and capable. Social safety nets, which keep the poor alive, are bad, because they allow the genetically inferior to survive and breed. They are particularly contemptuous of notions of “fairness.” Things which help traditionally disadvantaged members of society–things like quotas and welfare–are undesirable because people on the bottom are there for a very good reason–that’s where they naturally deserve to be!

They embrace an absolute “Might Makes Right” ethos. Any attempts at justice, fairness or solidarity are doomed to fail, they argue, because society is a constant, unremitting struggle of all against all, and always has been. Furthermore, they believe that this is a profoundly good thing! Not only is it a good thing, but we should strive to create as much of a “winner take all” society as we possibly can, because only such a society will Darwinian evolution be driven to the fullest extent. They believe that human nature is fundamentally competitive and acquisitive. Thus, they take capitalism as “natural” and anything else as “unnatural” and therefore “social engineering.”

Thus, the “free” market is not the best means to ensure prosperity for all, as the original market liberals claimed. Rather, suffering and death must be built into the system because only that allows it to act as an appropriate Darwinian winnowing mechanism permitting the “survival of the fittest.” And who are the “fittest?” Those who rise to the top and make the most money are the “fittest” in this system. And these are, inevitably, those with the highest IQ’s thanks to genetics (tying together economics and hereditarianism).

Thus, they tend to oppose anything that might theoretically make society less brutal and competitive. In their view, it must be capitalism red in tooth and claw or nothing! They tend to virulently oppose “redistribution” and applaud extreme inequality as the “natural” reward for the superior rich. Redistribution is “unfair” in their view, and self-defeating, because it takes from the people who produce the most value and gives it to the useless eaters.

This ties into their dislike of the liberal state, which is based on the principle that “all men are created equal” and gives each man a vote (unlike past systems where only property owners mattered). They believe this allows the mob of “weaklings” to dominate the natural leaders of society, retarding progress. They are fond of citing something called the Tytler calumny, which asserts that democracy is doomed to fail thanks to the hordes of feckless poors:

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”

Peter Thiel famously echoed this sentiment when he warned that democracy and capitalism were incompatible because democracy allowed the majority to place checks on the the behavior of the rich and the chaos of the anarchic market. In his view, it was democracy that had to go, and the alt-right wholeheartedly agrees. Many of these beliefs are prevalent among the oligarchs of Silicon Valley (because autism tends to depress empathy).

Directional View of History

Finally, the alt-right believes that not only is society a fundamentally Darwinian “survival of the fittest”, but that evolution is teleological–that is, it is purpose driven and has a logical end goal.

Now, every serious scientific student of evolution knows this to be the most common and pervasive misunderstanding of evolution that there is. Evolution is only concerned with survival in a specific context at a specific point in time. It has no end goal other than that.

The alt-right, however, will have none of it! Their view is that human societies are like stages in a computer game, and the goal is to continually progress to the “next level.” The end goal of this Darwinian evolution is to push human civilization to the “next stage”–from the caves to the stars! To this end, they embrace artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, cyborgs, cloning, nootropics, “better living through chemistry,” and the lot of it. Society is destined to move faster and faster, and anyone who can’t keep up needs to be left behind. Anything that slows or retards this progression to the next level–such as allowing inferior people to breed–must be stopped or curtailed. Along with the notion of “Might makes right;” in their ethics, the ends justify the means.

The “end goal” is variously defined as artificial intelligence, machines displacing human life, or humans becoming some sort of immortal transdimensional space-faring cyborgs. Many believe the so-called “Singularity” is the end goal for evolution. Anyone not directly contributing to this end goal (like neckbeard computer programmers or sociopathic Wall Street financiers) needs to die off as quickly as possible–for the good of the species, of course.

This ties together the last remaining strands of the alt-right–their love of Ayn Rand, laissez-faire libertarian capitalism, Silicon Valley and futurology. Thus, I think we’ve described the elephant rather than the leg, trunk, tail. etc.

The alt-right shares with its more mainstream cousins the “bootstrapping” “make your own luck” just-world belief systems, to wit:

Americans are more inclined to believe that people make their own luck than people in countries with more developed welfare states. According to a Pew global attitudes survey, 31% of Germans think that success is determined by forces within their control, whereas 57% of Americans say the same. It follows from this that those who do not have insurance could get it if they only worked a bit harder.

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21718885-one-way-seeing-fight-over-health-care-clash-between-two-different-wagners

NeoLiberal ideology has an axiom that “jobs are created by those who have money.” On the face of it, this seems obvious: nobody without the ability to pay you has ever given you a job, I’d bet. The corollary of this is “the more money that rich people have, the more jobs there will be”. So, under Neoliberal ideology, you funnel money to the rich and corporations and they create jobs. Doesn’t actually work, mind you, but that’s what the ideology says. The ideology also says “money is earned by people because they fill the needs indicated by the market, which represent what people and society want.” Which means “if you have a lot of money, you deserve to have it because you got it filling other people’s needs”. It also then follows that people with a lot of money are the sort of people who are good at providing what other people want, so therefore they should have more money so they can provide even more. Poor people, by this ideology, do not deserve to have much money, because if they were doing something that other people wanted a lot of they’d have a lot of money. Etc, etc…

http://www.ianwelsh.net/ideology-precedes-policy-which-determines-outcomes/

These beliefs drive their approach to political decision-making: cut regulations, cut safety nets, deregulate, put as few restrictions on the ability of the rich to accumulate wealth and do as they like as much as possible (i.e. low taxes and no workplace regulations), oppose redistribution, encourage technological innovation with no restrictions, etc. Since the world is a just world based on genetic superiority, institutions don’t matter much anyway. So long as the Market is designed according to a Darwinian “survival of the fittest,” type scenario then “progress” is assured.

New Wine in Old Bottles

Now, none of this is really new. It’s essentially a repackaged version of the same old Social Darwinism that was prevalent at the end of the nineteenth century. This time, their supporters claim to have “science” on their side, but, then again, so did the Social Darwinists back then. I doubt it’s a coincidence that the popularity of this philosophy tends to be directly correlated with the level of social inequality present.

For example, see this article:

[Herbert] Spencer adapted Charles Darwin’s notion of natural selection and applied the theory to human society in a philosophy that became known as “Social Darwinism.” It was Spencer who coined the term “survival of the fittest,” using it to apply to the fate of rich and poor in a laissez faire capitalist society. Spencer argued that there was nothing unnatural — and therefore wrong — with competing and then rising to the top in a cut- throat capitalist world. “Spencer told [Andrew Carnegie] that it was a scientific fact that somebody like him should be getting to the top,” says historian Owen Dudley Edwards. “That there was nothing unnatural about it, wrong about it, evil about it.” Not only was competition in harmony with nature, Spencer believed, but it was also in the interest of the general welfare and progress of society. Many successful capitalists of the late 19th century embraced Spencer’s philosophy. These captains of industry used his words as justification to oppose social reform and government intervention. As Spencer said, these would interfere with the natural — and beneficial — law of survival.

“The concentration of capital is a necessity for meeting the demands of our day, and as such should not be looked at askance, but be encouraged,” Carnegie wrote, paraphrasing Spencer. “There is nothing detrimental to human society in it, but much that is, or is bound soon to become, beneficial.”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/peopleevents/pande03.html

Furthermore, the notion of superior Western Europeans and inferior darker-skinned peoples is essentially unchanged from the philosophy of the Third Reich–the only thing changed is who is superior and who is inferior and why. Many of the more toxic beliefs that followed from the Third Reich belief system also find their expression in the modern alt-right as well: the notion of a lost golden age, an obsession with decline and fall, a disdain for intellectualism and “degenerate” modernist culture, a low tolerance for ambiguity, the embrace of a “strong” leader and authoritarianism in general, a scapegoating of out-groups (Muslims, immigrants, blacks, homosexuals), and so forth.

And while there is some scientific validity to the study of how cultures affect genetic expression, the alt-right has the tendency to cherry-pick the studies which confirm their pre-existing biases and ignore those that do not. They also ignore science when it tells them what they don’t want to hear–such as the idea stated above that evolution has no purpose or end goal.

The alt-right also takes these ideas and engages in the most wild and fantastic speculation in order to make their racist ideas sound like”scientific” facts. The way they tell it, genes explain EVERYTHING, from the tendency to haggle among Middle-Easterners, to the collectivism of “Orientals,” to the promiscuity of African-American women, to the “laziness” or southern Europeans, to the tendency of Jews to become lawyers (from the Rabbinic tradition of course), to the high math scores of the Chinese (due to the old Imperial examination system). Many of these so-called “explanations” are nothing more than ridiculous speculation, but are treated as gospel truth on the alt-right.

The alt-right is pouring wine into new bottles, but it’s the same old wine!

It’s an astonishingly sociopathic and nihilistic view. Yet it seems to have acquired a certain cachet among a species of online intellectual who claims that only he or she (yes, sometimes she) is a “realist” and that anyone who disagrees with any subset of these ideas is a wishful-thinking touchy-feely “nonrealist” who refuses to face the ugly truth of human nature, or a “cultural Marxist.”