Perspective

The Alt Right and Secular Humanism

I recently had a discussion with David McAfee, a well-known writer and publisher in the atheist community.  You can read the whole thing, along with his comments, here and here.


McAfee: Are you religious? Do you support the Separation of Church and State?

Spencer: I’m an atheist.

The “separation of church and state” is an utter illusion. The state and religion are deeply connected.

McAfee: So, despite your lack of religion, you do think religion and government should be connected. Is that right? Do you think a secular government would fail?

Spencer: A truly secular government could never exist. Sovereignty is a magical thing. For a political order to function–for it to accomplish its tasks, including war-making–the population must *believe* in it.


Addendum: I was a bit laconic with my comments on the separation of church and state. My point is this: The “separation” is a post-Enlightenment ideal that masks a great deal. The Christianity that defined Europe arose, not so much with the martyrs and Jesus, as with the Roman state. Religion is fundamentally about community, people, and the state, and I can only view with deep skepticism the Protestant ideal that it is about individual choice.


Spencer: The Paris peace conference of 1919 was an example of peaceful ethnic cleansing.

McAfee: Would you support something like that, a peaceful ethnic cleansing like that of Paris 1919, taking place in the United States?

Spencer: I would support peaceful ethnic redistribution. Yes. Encouraging recent immigrants to return to their true homes, etc.

McAfee: I saw a report that said Neo-Nazis are planning an armed march against Jews in your hometown. Do you condone this type of event?

Spencer: The “march” is a troll. I stated publicly, multiple times, that I wanted the whole episode to end. That said, I don’t denounce free expression.

McAfee: I haven’t seen you being violent or planning violence, but I have seen people do harm to you. Are you a pacifist? What do you have to say about this topic?

Spencer: I’m not a true pacifist, in the sense that I do not believe that violence is *never* justified. Obviously, violence as self-defense is in inherently legitimate. But we need to go deeper than that, beyond liberal logic.

McAfee: What do you mean by “go deeper than that”?

Spencer: The state is fundamentally about violence, it’s about who or what can engage in violence legitimately. In the shadow of a sovereign state, we can use liberal logic (e.g., “self-defense is justified,” etc.). But we shouldn’t forget that we have fundamentally given to the state warmaking power.

McAfee: If you could find common ground, would you be willing to work with those who disagree with you on other issues? Would you work with secular activists to combat radical Islam, for instance?

Spencer: Of course, I’d be willing to work with people.

McAfee: Have you ever thought about running for President? Do you see that in your future?

Spencer: I have seriously thought about running for office. To some degree, it would be an “educational campaign” (similar to Ron Paul’s 2008 effort), but I would only do it to win it.  But there are other ways of influencing people than actually running. That said…I think I’d be a hell of a lot better at it that the vast majority of Republicans.

McAfee: Did you coin the term “Alt-right”?

Spencer: Yes, I first started using “Alternative Right” in the summer of 2008. At the time, it was a much broader tent, referring to lots of different versions of the Right that opposed George W. Bush and the “conservative movement.”

McAfee: Is there a difference between the “Alt-Right” and normal everyday Republicans who supported Donald Trump? Do you think people lump you all together?

Spencer: Of course, there is a YUGE difference. The Alt Right is an intellectual vanguard, and quite young. The vast majority of Trump supporters are Americans, mostly older Americans, who are experiencing serious angst regarding their future.

McAfee: Do you think Donald Trump personally sympathizes with your views?

Spencer: An intriguing question. When he first ran, I doubt he had ever heard of me or seriously thought through idea related to the Alt Right. He’s now definitely heard of me and Alt Right ideas.

McAfee: He has definitely heard of the movement. A lot of people think he might personally have similar views, even if he’s not open about them. Do you see anything like that in him?

Spencer: I’m sure it’s a very mixed bag. On one level, he probably thinks, “Why won’t these crazy kids shut up!? They’re making me look bad!” On another level, I imagine he grasps where we are coming from. He might *sympathize*, without really being one of us. Remember the generational aspect of Trump is very important. People of his age are looking back towards an older America. Alt Right people have grown up in postmodern America. We don’t want to “go back.” We want to go forward.

McAfee: Do you see Steve Bannon as a line of influence for your movement within the Trump administration?

Spencer: Bannon is a very similar person to Trump. He might sympathize, but he’s not really one of us.

McAfee: Is there anything else you’d like to add? Anything you think it’s important “the other side” understands?

Spencer: Trump wants “civic nationalism”; Bannon wants “economic” nationalism.  It’s important to look at the historical trajectory in which these political forces arose. “Civic nationalism” (and “Social Contracts”) came about in a major disruption, when older, organic regimes and social orders were brought into question. Today, the “civic nationalism” of mid-century America no longer works; it no longer works for peoples and races who are dramatically different from one another and don’t agree on much of anything outside of shopping and watching NFL football. This is one reason for the rise of a postmodern, multicultural ideal. It’s a replacement ideology for civic nationalism. Trump might be the last gasp of mid-century Americanism.  He’s trying to paper over a major social disruption with full-throated Americanism. It’s fascinating. And I sympathize with Trumpists, without really being one of them.

Richard Spencer
the authorRichard Spencer
Richard Spencer is American Editor of AltRight.com; he's President of The National Policy Institute and founder of RadixJournal.com.

110 Comments

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  • I think Spencer has gotten on the right track about how the West lost its way as a result of the Enlightenment. We can trace the roots of so-called Cultural Marxism and the social-justice ideology to a handful of men in mid 18th Century France, led my the Baron d’Holbach and Denis Diderot, who went out of their way to create a corrosive culture of critique to destroy their given civilization and replace it with another one based on their idea of “reason.” Refer to (((Jonathan Israel’s))) book on the Radical Enlightenment, if you want to take on that much reading.

  • Atheism is just as much a religious belief as Christianity.

    The purely rational position is agnosticism. I’m not sure why people prefer the religious belief of atheism

    • Atheism has nothing to do with these woo-woo beliefs about race, feminism and broken sexuality any way. A logically parsimonious atheist could accept the tragedy of the human condition straight: Gods don’t exist, and “social progress” can’t happen because man has an enduring nature that doesn’t change mysteriously in The Current Year.

      In other words, feminism didn’t work a thousand years ago; it doesn’t work now; and it won’t work a thousand years hence, unless you invoke some transhumanist fantasy which really changes man’s nature to make feminism practical.

  • Native European Religions need to be the basis for this movement. Nothing else makes sense. How can alt right Christians read from the old testament? How can they follow a religion founded by Jews? I get the cultural Christian thing. I don’t believe in fairy tales, but respect what Christianity has done for our civilization. But, like I said, you can’t have a middle eastern religion represent Europeans.

  • American Christians are the best friend Israel ever had. Now they will make Israel ‘Great Again’ by shifting the embassy to Jerusalem whilst dithering around trying to defeat Mossad funded terrorism. All America’s political woes spring from its effeminate servile religion.

    • Apparently Jews play a role in propagandizing American churches with this “end times” bullshit as well, including the nonsense about the rapture.

      Ironically Christians who believe in the rapture have it sort of right: Christians have started to disappear, just not in the ridiculous way shown in, say, Tim LaHaye’s novels and Jack Chick’s tracts.

      • Naturally, after all the Jews wrote the Old Testament. Yaweh is the god of both religions, one cannot reject Judaism without first rejecting its god. The only problem is that ‘disappearance’ is not hasty enough.

  • This interview wasn’t very interesting. So I guess Spencer identified as an atheist to appeal to the secular community; I suppose that makes more sense that acknowledging that he’s a Zoroastrian Magi.

  • Christianity served its purposes. It kept the Roman Empire together longer than it otherwise would have been. When Rome fell, Christianity inspired and motivated key tribal and national leaders through the example of Rome’s legendary power and the Church’s physical glory. Later, it helped build up the critical trade networks that led to Europe’s rise.

    Unfortunately, Christianity is inherently cucked. Consider a fundamental example: War and killing. Though superb at killing, Christians don’t kill very many when the opponent is fundamentally weak. They take it on the cheek. Observe how the English wouldn’t slaughter Indians when they dropped to their knees and went pacifist (Gandhi understood the influence of Christianity on the English, which is why he instructed it). Look at how the US bent over backwards instituting rules and procedures not to kill Iraqi and Afghani civilians because they think killing them is morally wrong. Though secular, Europeans still hold Christian moral ideals and feel obligated to welcome obvious invaders. This is not just a modern phenomenon. The first Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred, happily spared all the Viking invaders’ lives on condition of conversion to Christianity. The stereotype of Christianity inspiring senseless carnage throughout history is not really true. The Romans after Constantine tried somewhat to martialize the religion but failed. It’s just too cucked.

    Contrast this with the attitudes in the founding book of Western civilization, The Iliad. There was no mercy in it, and mercy would have been considered inexplicable folly or madness. You either had the ability to win or you didn’t, and you fought if you did, and you were faced with the dilemma of cowardice or virtue if you didn’t. The ancient Greeks would have slaughtered the Indians on their knees. Christianity has had a profound influence on Westerners.

    Christianity has run its course. It is all but gone outside of the US, and US Christianity will be the last to fall, but fall it eventually will. A cohesive philosophy has to replace it.

    • The Iliad was written half a millenia before the filosofers and christianity took a lot of ideas from the filosofers. And in the Iliad itselfe Akilles and the Greeks are not the one dimentional heroes. The killing spree of Akilles and he’s unwillingnes to give mercy was not an ideal even at the time of Homer. But I partly agree that because of Christianity we have a soft spot for victimhood. And it depends on the context if that is a good thing or a liability.

      • Interesting observations, but a) there is no such thing as Homer, b) we don’t have a robust evidentiary record of Greek attitudes about killing and war prior to The Iliad being laid down in writing because Linear B was the previous script, and c) Achilles wasn’t really the hero of The Iliad. The original, and core, of The Iliad was Books II through V. Diomedes was the hero of the core Iliad (and was, incidentally, the world’s first superhero in literature). Diomedes is portrayed as radically militaristic in his views and flatly unmerciful in his actions. The core Iliad got overlaid and interpolated in subsequent centuries because there were a lot of agendas in the ancient world. Propaganda was the name of the game in those days. The Aeneid propagandized heavily (read: to laughably absurd levels!) against Diomedes because he represented Greece and was the Greek ideal. It’s true that we are supposed to disapprove of a lot about Achilles, but his killing of pleaders was not one of those things. The death of pleaders was not disapproved of per se, but was considered tragic when the pleader was basically admirable or virtuous.

        • I think you have a good point about The Vest being limited by its own moral code and the soft spot for weakness. By the time of the philosophers we know they valued the golden rule. But I think Christianity made us vulnerable of “cults of victimhood” and to day it limits our military strategies.

          We can see it in the response to the flood of migrants to Europe. But also the case of Israel is a classic case of inability to deal with a weak opponent.

          What ever your view on Israel and the palestinians is. And even though Israel is not a part of The West, it is a case of the west limiting the strong side from doing what is obviously necessary to win and end the conflict. If that is a good or a bad thing I don’t know, but being merciful and having empathy for the week often have an very positive effect on society.

          But it all depends on the context. I think Machiavelli explains this well. There is “good” ways and bad ways to use brutality. And there is a world of difference between the good morals of an individual and the proper code of conduct for a state. Or if we translate that to modern terms: What we do and feel about each other inside our countries, (Personal moral and domestic politics) should not be the same as our states foreign policy (Or more important the policy concerning countries and groups of people from outside of our own civilisation.) But also Machiavelli warns that it is not good to be hated. So if one can help it it is not in our interest to be hated by the rest of the world. It is an balancing act and it depends.

          William S. Lind has written a lot on 4. Generation War. It will in my mind be the most important new military strategy for The West this century. And it is all about balancing the use of deadly power. Most times it is in our interest to use the gentle light infantry model but in some instances we have to cut the Gordian Knot by using the Hama Model.

  • I find so much of the alt-right conversations masturbatory and as theoretical as old live-in-a-tiny-commune marxism. Most white nationalists remind me of my less aware self, before I actually knew or cared about anyone who wasn’t white. I eventually grew up. My non-white friends have been there for me while many of my white friends search for ways to see themselves as victims…

    • I’m not asking to have faith in any movement but your possibly atypical experience with white or non-white friends however don’t dismiss the work of those moving toward a safer culture for my white children which, this culture is increasingly not.

      The rhetoric does occasionally get a little culty-cringey admittedly.

      • We all have our anecdotes. If I found any of his arguments very convincing, I’d research further, but he just sounds like the grandma who fears all my black friends.

        “…a safer culture for my white children which, this culture is increasingly not.”
        Some data on that? Other than wanting spaces “safe” from salon articles?

        • “Some data on that? Other than wanting spaces “safe” from salon articles?”

          Just look up FBI crime statistics by race you lazy hipster fag.

          • Yeah they’re correlated. So are crime rates and economic status. Black America has always trailed far behind America if you sorted the GDP per capita, we didn’t exactly them freedom and a nice picket fenced-home each.

          • Economic status is correlated with race because IQ is correlated with race. American Asians have high economic status because they have high average IQs. Likewise, Blacks have low average economic status because they have low average IQs. That’s why in Africa today, black areas that were not colonized by Whites are filled with mudhuts, cannibalism, genocide, and sucking cow’s assholes.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tRzM2tZFng

          • You’re getting the correlation backwards. I recommend Why Nations Fail. It’s a little surface level but does a great job of presenting the interplay of institutions and economics in an area’s prosperity. The West just hit on better institutions around the time of enlightenment, then again during the industrial revolution. Then they jumped ahead and often set other institutions back.
            Nothing inherently smart about being white; do you know any black people well? I mean, have you ever been the only white guy at an event? It was very formative for my views to talk to kind, open minded, intelligent black people but I know not everyone goes into those situations.

          • I’m pretty much the easiest person you’ll talk to with an opposing view. If that’s all you’ve got, anyone you try to convince in the future will just assume your philosophy is substanceless.

          • You believe environment creates IQ, when the fact is, IQ creates environment.

            The West just hit on better institutions around the time of enlightenment, then again during the industrial revolution. Then they jumped ahead and often set other cultures’ institutions back. Nothing inherently smart about being white;

            So you believe the enlightenment and industrial revolution just happened, and Whites just so happen to be in Europe and America at the time of this magical happening, which had nothing to do with the intelligence of all the White people creating the steam engines, power plants, automobiles, etc…

            That is a really fucked up, ass-backwards thinking process.

            So if Aborigines were in Europe and America, they would have stumbled upon the industrial revolution then.. because after all, the industrial revolution had nothing to do with the intelligence of White people, so any people could have done it, because it was just one of those mysterious cosmic accidents… nice theories dude. You belong in a mental institution.

          • It’s more complicated. England (after events like the Glorious Revolution which established a Parliament) had a governing system that allowed competition and innovation. That’s why the industrial revolution was fostered there. Compare that to the serf system of Russia at the time, where instead of incentivizing innovation, the tzar actually prevented the building of railroads because they might allow a middle class to erode his power.

            So it’s false to look at the rise of industry as a European event: plenty of Europe was left out. Also, if race has to do with intelligence, why would Russia be poor when England was growing rich?

            Many cultures you’re pointing to started off with a central ruler who opposed institutions that might erode his power (via innovation) and many of them were colonized by Western powers who actively set such backwards institutions up (check out the East India Company)

          • Everything I’ve referenced in the last post is from Daron Acemoglu. He’s in the top 20 most-cited economists. Totally unrelated to whatever “cranium study” your post digs up

      • That’s what the internet is for isn’t it?

        But no, I’m actually just reading points of view and utilizing the comments section to give my own reactions.

  • ” Would you work with secular activists to combat radical Islam, for instance?” I wish Spencer would place radical Islam where it should be, a jewish psyop against christians. I can’t see where letting Jewish definitions of reality stand is a win for us

  • I was actually hoping this article would be more about the place of religion or irreligion in the alt-right, rather than a generic interview about the alt-right with two questions about religion

  • Secular Humanists are, generally speaking, smart White People. Of course we should be joining in common cause where possible. We’re going to draw a lot more of them to our side than they are going to draw our people to their side.

        • “Smart people can be deluded.”

          You’re correct. — I was being cheeky.

          In fact, the case has been made that higher intelligence makes you more susceptible to long-term brainwashing.

          It takes a high IQ, and a longer time-horizon, to rationalize away things that are happening right in front of your eyes based on previous, esoteric abstractions designed to blunt your natural reactions and emotions.

          An unintelligent person can be tricked and lied to. But he snaps out of it as soon as he sees something that plainly contradicts his previous indoctrination.

          An unintelligent person has to be lied to, constantly, in order to keep him fooled.

          But an intelligent person has the ability to lie to themselves, with no additional, external input.

          A high-IQ person has the ability rationalize away something as obvious as inherent, Black violence, even as he’s being robbed and beaten by a pack of Blacks.

  • “he probably thinks, Why won’t these crazy kids shut up!? They’re making me look bad!”. Trump had to have laughed at the Trump Pepe’s, who didn’t? his boys had fun with them.

  • The Romans were fucking horrid. When the Spartacus revolt started up much of the organizational struggle Spartacus faced was getting the Gauls, Germans and Greek gladiators to march together. The German slaves refused to March with Spartacus (either from a racial superiority complex or direction of home and the Romans rapidly massacred these Bruders) these were not Slave revolts imho, much more about national reassertions against a Slave state. It retarded Europe for a millennia.

  • Secular humanists purport to abhor dogma, yet they are some of the most dogmatically liberal people you will ever meet.

    • Christianity is a cult of pacifist self-destruction, and that core is not going anywhere anytime soon

      The crusaders that destroyed Constantinople are not the example you wanna follow

      • Being an atheist is just as illogical as being a full christian fundamentalist. There is just no way to prove or unprove. You’re going to tell me in all the dimensions and in all the universe its absolutely impossible to have a “God” like being? Its statistically unlikely. The Catholic Church advocates just war theory. Saint Augustine is a good reference for that.

          • The rigid belief system was built by people throughout history. Look religion is a spectacular system of control. Christianity did a great job of uniting all of Europe on more than one occasion. I’m suggesting you use it to push your agenda rather than alienating yourself from the same people who would be willing to push against these liberal assholes.

          • It did a great job of killing the Roman empire and empowering Islam. Where do you think communism comes from. Aethesitic Jews who preach the same shit

        • Haha. God is probably a Boltzman Brain somewhere in the multiverse. But probably also evaporates only seconds after forming and says: “Oh no! Not again!” ;-p

      • “Christianity is a cult of pacifist self-destruction”

        Of the 109 expulsions of the Jews, 107 of those expulsions were from White, Christian Nations.

        Only after chipping away at Christianity in the 20th Century did the Jews manage to get a foothold in our White Nations.

        The primary goal of the Jews, for 2000 years, has been to destroy Christianity because it has served as a bulwark against the Jewish attacks and subversion of White Nations.

        Don’t pretend to be Red-Pilled if you don’t yet understand this.

        The “New Atheist” movement was begun by, and is pushed by, Jews.

        And you’re helping them.

        Good goy.

        • My opinion is that Christ was a literary construct designed by Greek tragedy writers intended to troll Jews.

          Have a read quickly through Matthew he strikes a similar profile to Oedipus, Heracles Prometheus and he’s mostly joking at the expense of the Heebs.

          • “My opinion is that Christ was a literary construct designed by Greek tragedy writers”

            Your opinion has no bearing on actual history.

            Both Christian, and non-Christian, historians agree that Jesus Christ existed,

            Even the anti-Christ Jews, who would love to make people believe that Jesus never existed, gave up on that line of attack, many decades ago.

            The historical, archaeological, and documentary evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ is just too overwhelming for anyone claiming that Jesus was a “literary construct” to be taken seriously.

          • I didn’t claim he didn’t exist. Just that the text creates a character that is profoundly Anti-Jew.

          • I didn’t say he did not exist. The point I’m making isn’t mutually exclusive, he’s a very antisemitic character.

          • Actually by Josephus, under the auspices of Emperor Titus Flavius, to pacify the Jews. Josephus was a turncoat. See ‘Caesar’s Messiah.”

        • go back to Rome, Rome fell because of Jewish Christianity. That said, Catholic paganism was a problem for Jews in the end so they invented Protestantism. That then enabled the Jewish revolutions

          • haha, he wrote a book about them after he was bought and used by them. The pope he was protesting against was a medici, a likely secret Jew or at minimum acting like one. As with most things, the Protestant Reformation was an orchestrated event. Jews , through the Loyola Jesuits formed the counter reformation to fight the secret Jew protestant preachers and their duped audience. 1/3 Germans were killed. The English revolution used the psychology of the Protestant Reformation to behead it’s king. The English Revolution was the mother of all the others. Is Luthors last name “Idiot?”
            One thing many of you goy need to learn is care more about determining what side a person is own. Obviously, you infiltrate the enemy by winning them over and you win them over with approved secret knowledge of the enemy disseminated. This is not a threat since everyone is divided and information shared with one group is distrusted by another group. I believe they call that “compartmentalization of dissent and rest assured none of the revelations get out to the sleeping. It’s how they control the resistance, by ruling it protocols 12-11 through 13

  • Is this a movement or a personality cult? Is this a website about white identity politics or about RBS? This is in danger of becoming a Thernovich-style vanity project. Navel gazing about not believing in God is not nearly as important as getting more blacks and mestizos to get vasectomies and abortions.

    • RBS fan club? Mags, buttons, masks, fitness program, let’s get a list going. Give him a few months, he’ll reinvent himself.

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