Perspective

The Fear of Fear

It sometimes seems as if the worst presidents of the last century had supplied the most memorable quotations. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you” and Roosevelt’s “The only thing to fear is fear itself” have been embedded in the public consciousness far more deeply than any equivalent from the so-called “American right.” No wonder then that similar rhetoric is presently popping up against us at every turn.

How often, in arguments on immigration or racial differences, are we accused of fear of this or that ethnic group? Just the other day, in a debate regarding Muslims in Europe, my interlocutor must have asked me ten times if I was “afraid of Muslims.” We see similar allegations against us pasted everywhere in the journals and newspapers of our beloved mainstream media, or tossed around like baubles by our ever-so-brave television pundits. An internet search of “alt-right fear” or “right-wing fear” is most informative: we of the Right are evidently shameless paragons of “fear-mongering,” the constant prey of a neurotic inner panic. Why, I almost feel sorry for us.

The use of such language presents an interesting tactic. It is employed so often that we must imagine it to be effective. But why?

Let us take the exemplary question, “Are you afraid of Muslims/Blacks/Jews?” In the first place, this rhetoric appeals to our better nature. I am not referring, of course, to any supposedly “altruistic” or “philanthropic” qualities; I mean rather our love of courage. It is generally understood, even in our crippled day, that a man ought to feel no fear, or, if he does, ought to master it by force of will. Yielding to fear is for the cowardly. Thus, when one asks, with a certain implication in one’s voice, “Are you afraid of Muslims/Blacks/Jews?” the natural instinct of good men is to deny the fact outright: Of course we are not afraid of these people! Why, what in the world are we afraid of?

That is honorable, but unsubtle. Fear is inherently equivocal: it sometimes accords with reason, and sometimes not. No one would claim that it is cowardly to hesitate before stepping into the grizzly’s den, or swimming with the sharks. Apprehension at the thought of hurling oneself from the top of a ten storey building is merely the expression of a natural instinct for self-preservation, and anyone who claims that heeding this instinct is simply fainthearted is invited to swallow the next mushroom he stumbles across.

What is ignoble is not fear itself, but our abject and unreasoned submission to fear. But then, it is equally ignoble of us to submit unquestioningly to the “fear of fear” by responding mechanically and defensively to such questions as those above with a blanket negative. In truth, fear is eminently warranted in many of these cases, as the augmenting death- and rape-toll due to Muslim immigration in Europe or the outrageous crime-rates in any majority-Black community you please clearly demonstrate. On a higher level, there is something absolutely righteous in our dread of the day that our Western nations will no longer belong to Western ethnicities, but will be ruled either by the law of Sharia, or by that of the jungle. In truth, it is the part of an upright man to shun whatever debases him or threatens his household. There are fears, too, which are honorable.

Ambulances arrive at the Bataclan attack in 2015. At the very moment of this writing, there has been a van attack in Munster, which bears several hallmarks of Islamic terrorism. Should we not fear the degeneration of our streets into such chaos—a change which we owe to nothing, if not the influence of certain “xenoi,” certain foreigners, amongst us?

This is utterly ignored, of course, by those who latch onto accusations of “fear” or “fear-mongering.” They imply that fear is exclusively a negative force, a corollary or even an expression of blind hatred alone. Yet this is totally inadequate. All fear, in the last analysis, is fear of losing something—be it one’s property, one’s loved ones, one’s mental, emotional, or physical well-being, or one’s very life. Fear is a derivative concept; it presupposes and depends on a prior value; fear is the negative expression of a purely positive force.

What then does the xenophobe fear to lose? But it is obvious: what he fears to lose, what he wishes to preserve, is his culture, his traditions, his heritage, his language, his identity; his fear of other peoples is but the extension of his love of his people and his ways. It is therefore clearly to the merit of a man if he possesses a healthy degree of xenophobia. As with any human quality, this can be exaggerated in one direction or another: and indeed, just as a healthy level of fear here indicates a normal love of one’s society, so the total absence of fear indicates an unusual self-despite or self-hatred.

The barb within the questions like “Are you afraid of such and such a group?” is, of course, the hidden accusation that our fear is irrational, that by it we are enslaved to bestial elements of our lower natures. Our opponents like to insinuate that the least sign of “fear of the other” is an utterly irrational paranoia, on par with that of the man who refuses even to step out his door for fear of being struck dead by a bolt of lightning.

Enter here these delectable modern terms ending in –phobia. Xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia. Since the idea of a “phobia” arose originally in psychiatry and psychoanalysis, the fear implied by these –phobia words is by definition irrational. That is the force of them; and it is also the reason that the pejorative use of “xenophilia,” as recommended by Faye, for instance, has struggled to make much headway: it lacks the requisite underpinnings in an utterly artificial intellectual construct (in this case, Freudian psychoanalysis). We would do better to learn from the American soldiers during the Revolutionary War, who, finding themselves mocked by the name of Yankees, adopted the term as their own fond nickname, and thereby neutralized its venom.

Richard Lionheart, xenophobe if ever there was one. Would there were more of them.

Let us rather wear this word with pride, and hold it against our critics that they are not near xenophobic enough, that in their wretched “fear of fear” they abet the travesty of modernity. Next time we are confronted with these ridiculous interrogative accusations, it would be well for us to remind our interrogators of all the Englishmen who out of fear never lifted a finger against the rape of Rotherham and Telford, or the Germans who out of fear refused to acknowledge the Cologne sex attacks or the ethnicity of its perpetrators, or indeed all those across our West today who out of the most wretched fear of offending “political correctness,” but blush and keep mum despite everything they see, everything they know or should know.

In a nobler age, “xenophobia” or “fear of the other” went by a different name: it was called love of one’s own. Then let us all have the courage of our better fears.

John Bruce Leonard
John Bruce Leonard, Editor-in-Chief of Arktos, studied philosophy, letters, and languages in a university curriculum based exclusively on the great books of the Western Tradition. After taking his degree in Liberal Arts he moved permanently to Italy, where he nourishes his ever-living preoccupation with the heritage and the future of Europe.

59 Comments

  • Yes , the ” phobia ” wording is an unnatural device ,conjured up by all psych-something-whatever to make you sound “wrong and irrationally insane” , whenever you are justly discriminating anyone.
    But I actually do admit my homophobia.
    Fags vicinity and presence does terrify the shit out of me.

  • Why not avoid the false dichotomy and declare oneself an ‘islamoskeptic’ — or simply a skeptic? As in, one is waiting for proof that more Islam shall be a boon to Western nations. What is the track record of this religion in Britain (where I live) for example, and why should I be expected uncritically to applaud its continued growth there?

    Unfortunately in the case of sub-saharans and the troubles they invariably bring such a manoeuvre is not presently available unless one is prepared to be labelled an overt racist.

  • President Trump decides not to bomb Syria……..

    Mueller has FBI goons invade his Lawyers Office………

    WOW……..

    I knew it was Bad……..

    Really Bad…….

    But, this???

    America is a Fundamentally Fked up Country……….

    • yup.
      I do believe this being related ,somehow:
      My dad used to say that Hitler greatest weakness and grossest mistake was his kindness and civility toward the Jews.
      As a young kid I used to think that it was just a sarcastic hyperbole from an older man, till I discovered he was perfectly ,literally right,
      There was a time in the USA when the kikes were seen with great suspicion and hostility even by American anglo wasps.
      But their natural tendency to civility and understanding is killing them and destroyng their own country and civilization

  • By the way, when is the brain tumor going to kill warmonger John McCain? That tumor may be the only thing that will save us from war with Russia, which would be nuclear. It’s humanity’s life, or McCain’s life. I guess we can only sit around and hope that the tumor wins.

    John Bolton needs a tumor, too.

    Pray for peace. That’s all we have — prayer.

  • Spot on, I experienced this first hand yesterday as my wife and I along with my brother in law and his wife were at a Kentucky horse track. We were in one of the bar rooms between races and I started casually discussing my “edgy” political beliefs. I was expressing my opinion on the history of the early slave trade (think Jamestown, etc.). Now we were in a room filled to the brim of mostly like minded folks. My wife out of fear couldn’t help but to shush me over and over again. I stuck to my words as a patriarch should and no one was offended, I could tell a few folks wanted to share in my discussion but were “too afraid” to partake.

    • Your wife should give you a shorter leash and a smaller collar. How dare you not obey her and stfu ?

  • Terrific article in every way. Good advice to embrace the term “xenophobia” and, by transvaluation, make it our own. It actually does mean a virtue and not a vice.

  • In my experience, the question “Are you afraid of Muslims/Blacks/Jews?” is often used in mockery. They are hinting at the fact that, if we Whites think that we’re better that other groups, then we should not fear to compete with them. If we do fear them, then it’s a sign that we know, deep down, that muslims/blacks/jews are actually better than us and that they will defeat us if we enter a fair competition.
    The question is also used because Western societies generally have an individualistic and meritocratic mentality. The fact that we “fear” those people is a sign that we are unable to compete with them and that we want to unfairly exclude better qualified people from the competition. We are accused of acting in a fearful, tribal manner, while we should be acting as confident individuals who are supposed to welcome any challenge. The fact that we’re not welcoming competition is a sign that we’re inherently inferior – this is what they’re actually implying.
    In my opinion, all of these attitudes come from the fact that our modern capitalist, individualist society considers that tribal attitudes are inherently illegitimate when they come from Whites. We are only allowed to act as atomized individuals, not as a group.

  • The more that leftists use the word ‘xenophobia’, like the word ‘racist’, it will lose it’s taboo intention and just be ignored, in favor of the truth.

  • if you are callled a xenophobe or islamophobe by a liberal, simply accuse them back of being a phobophobe (i.e. of having a phobia of being called a -phobe).

    Fight magic words with magic words. Use their own spellwords against them. Logos is of no use against (pseudo)moral arguments.

    • An excellent tactic, I think.

      You are indeed right that logos is of no use against their “arguments”—save, I would add, as others are listening, who might be persuaded by logos.

    • Logos is of no use against (pseudo)moral arguments. Use their own spellwords against them. So few get it.
      In a street debate, the point is not to solve anything but to rather personally dominate. To top their argument by truth or sophistry.
      The point is to make a lefty pay the price every time he messes with a conservative

      When I’m called a racist. I do not defend. I say,”You are the racist. You only say that because I’m white. If they are white I say,” do you know how mentally sick to yourself and tour own race.
      The point is not logical discourse, it is the street slam, the put down.

      When lefties say the white man stole the land. Answer, yeah, and we’re keeping it. What are you going to do about it? The same works for Mexico.

      When they say there is discrimination which is blacks, Mexicans don’t do so well in school. Say'”Asians are smarter than them, maybe they are just dumb”.

      If blacks complain about getting shot or being in jail. Say,” Maybe they should commit less crime.

      The point is never taken their crap laying down. Mock them, make fun of them.

  • John, I don’t think it is fear we feel as much as disgust. When someone asks me what / Why so I fear whoever they put in front of me I tell them I hold them and their civilization in utter disgust for what they have done and continue to do and refer to the items you referenced at the end of your article. But your article is spot on people do not notice or point out these things due to fear.

    • You are absolutely right, James; in a great many cases disgust is by far the more appropriate word to use. Perhaps, disgust for what they have already done; fear for what they might do yet. At any rate the important thing is that we realize with full consciousness that we could not feel so violently negative a response to all of this if we were not actuated by a fundamentally positive vision. The violence of our response needs no other justification.

  • AltRight Europe and America need to Unite Today…….

    President Trump is either a Complete Fraud or is in Way over His Head…….

    Trump declares he’s going to Withdraw from Syria…….

    Somehow, Neocon John Bolton gets brought into the White House……..

    Today, a False Flag Chemical Attack in Syria and Trump declares Assad is Guilty………

    White House planning attacks against Assad Regime…….

    The AltRight should be Completely United in Opposing President Trump and his Administration on this issue…….

    This is a Fundamental Core Issue for the entire AltRight………

    • We need to start opposing him now, and get on record doing so, or we will be dragged down and destroyed with him.

      The Alt-Right has gone off the rails, boarding the Ricky Vaughn train to nowhere, this will discredit nationalism for years to come

      Spencer should know better

      • Good points……

        So, the White House felt massive pressure from their Base…….

        Trump met with the Joint Chiefs and his Advisors……

        Trump then called Netanyahu and told him to go bomb Syria with their F-35’s that we gave them for free with US Tax Dollars……

        Israel bombs Syria…….

        US denies involvement……..

        Israel is not the True Friend of America or Europe……..

        We need to Break Free of this Cancerous Relationship……….

  • I’m going to have Sex with your Wife…..

    What are you Afraid of?

    I’m going to borrow the PIN to your Bank Account…..

    What are you Afraid of?

    Stop being so Scared……..

    Tomorrow, I’m going to take your Car for a Long Road Trip……..

    Stop being so Possessive and learn to Share with Others……..

    What is Wrong with You??

    • Only an insecure beta male would be possessive and afraid to the point of not letting his wife be a strong independent and empowered free woman who can fuck who ever she wants. #Fact
      Believe me white boy I’m saying this to save your relationship. *Rubs hands furiously after applying lotion*

      • My girlfriend is a hooker and she does whatever she wants. I don´t try to control her and I don´t pimp her. She keeps all her money to her, what is good. I believe women earning and managing their own money. I am very feminist.
        Well, it is true every time I want to sleep with her I have to pay (she charges me “friend tariff”, anyway) but at least, it is a limited money and sex is guaranteed, not like most of my married friends living in sexless conservatives marriages (married by the Church) while wifey shagging around thanks to Tinder and they spend a lot of money in maintaing her, the house, the car, the kids, and living in fear of divorce and losing everything.
        According to my friends I am a loser.

    • I agree with you to a good degree, Not Telling. And I certainly did not mean to recommend fear as “the relevant emotion for the Alt-Right.” I meant only to indicate a few of the ways our opponents seek to manipulate the discourse, and us.

      As for contempt and disgust—I would argue about them precisely what I argue about fear above. They are apparently negative emotions which indicate, however, a prior and hidden positive emotion. One feels no contempt if one has no equivalent feeling for the noble; one is not disgusted save as one knows what is wholesome and healthy. But then it is those positive things which truly activate us, and toward which we should truly be turning our attention. It is they which are the truly relevant emotions for the Alt-Right.

  • Alt Right must make a case that US is ruled by Jewish globalist imperialist power.

    Just like Gandhi used Civil Disobedience against the Brits, the Alt Right must lead a Racial Disobedience against Jewish power.

    British were helpless in India without Indian cooperation. Unless Indians masses were willing to follow orders and do the bidding of the imperialists, the British power amounted to nothing because Brits were just a tiny segment of the overall population. If a master has a 1000 slaves and if the the slaves refuse to work for him, his master-status has been rendered hollow.

    Same in the US. While it’s true that Jews are immensely rich and well-connected, they are only 2% of the population. Without the obeisance and support of the white gentile majority, Jewish power is lost.

    Alt Right must spread the idea that it’s a moral duty for whites, left and right, to say NO to Jewish supremacist power. There must be Racial or Civil Disobedience against the Jews because Jewish power is behind financial-economic exploitation, Wars for Israel, the crazy New Cold War, the spread of Vice industries like gambling, drugs, sex industry, cultural filth, decadence and degeneracy, etc.
    To serve the Jews means to further more wars and perversion.

    And this notion of Disobedience is as American as apple pie. Thoreau expounded it.

    Germans during WWII followed orders and brought ruin upon Europe. They should have said NO to mad dog Hitler.

    Today, Jews are Judeo-Nazis. They are in racial supremacist mode and intoxicated with dream of hegemony over the whole world.
    ‘Nazi’ in the generic sense means ‘anyone or any group that acts LIKE Nazis’. And Jews are most Nazi-like in the current world (dis)order. And they must not be appeased. Not any more.

    • The Trump Administration is becoming a Joke…….

      Yesterday, they blocked a UN Investigation into Israeli War Crimes against Palestinians…..

      Today, they are Warmongering against Syria’s Assad over a False Flag Chemical Attack……

      This is not what I Voted for……..

  • Phobia is a clinical term. It doesn’t just mean natural or rational fear.

    It means irrational, extreme, panicked fear of something harmless.

    So, fear of a tiger in a jungle is not a phobia. It is legitimate fear because a tiger can tear you to shreds.

    But fear of a tiny white mouse is a phobia. Some people are phobic of spiders or harmless snakes(without venom).

    So, when a person is called a Xenophobe, it doesn’t mean he has legit fears. It means he is clinically messed up in the head. It means his fear is unwarranted.

    To my knowledge, Alt Right doesn’t fear foreigners or other cultures. Many Alt Rightists are curious about other peoples and cultures. And they don’t mind some minorities.

    What they fear and resent is mass invasion. What goes by the term ‘immigration’ is mass invasion and colonization of white nations by non-whites.
    And so many whites welcome this or are afraid to say NO because Jews colonized their minds with PC and ‘white guilt’. They’ve been made to be ethnophobic and Europhobic. They feel that their whiteness has been stained by ‘guilt’.

    Another problem is xenopathia and xenomania. It’s good to be curious about other peoples and cultures. But xenomaniacs are obsessed with fixating on the Other as colorful and more exciting. So, we are told it’s worth losing UK and Sweden because… more restaurants! It is a form of xenopathology or xenopathy.

    • Phobia /is/ a clinical term—that is precisely the sleight of hand here. In point of fact, xenophobia is not a recognized medical problem. This word is the transposition of a medical term, phobia—which, in my mind, is already somewhat suspicious in and of itself, originally stemming as it does from Freudian psychiatry—onto the political plane. Its widespread and unchallenged use leads one to believe that there really exists a medical condition whose technical name is xenophobia, just as there exists, say, arachnophobia or agoraphobia. And it therefore seems possible that a group of men suffering from this medical condition to varying degrees—say, the Alt-Right?!?—might arise.

      I say that we must cut this kind of hidden logic already at the root: let us cease to shy away from this word, as though it really meant anything at all.

      Now, I agree with everything you have said: indeed, in several places you make precisely the same points I did in this article. The main question here, underpinning our discussion, is what to do about the war of words which is being brought against us. I have suggested one tactic; I might be wrong. I do believe that it is not enough to simply deny that these words apply to us, because by doing so we tacitly reify its utterly preposterous content. If you have another idea of how to approach this problem, it would benefit us all to hear it.

  • Why do Jews fear white national liberation?

    Why do mass invaders fear their own nations and peoples? They must fear their own kind because they run from their own nations and seek refuge in white nations. Why are they white-preferist? Why do they want to flee from their own kind and start a new life in nations created by whites?

    Why do blacks fear separating from whites and having their own nations? Because they will make a mess of things. Without handouts from whites, blacks are lost.

    Why do Jews fear the end of White Submissivism? Because without white subservience to Jewish supremacism, Jewish power is lost.

    Why do white Progs fear their own people and culture? Why do they fear the desire to preserve their own identity, culture, and history? Why are they so ALLERGIC to everything that makes them what they are?

    Why are so many people so afraid of the term ‘racism’ when it’s so obvious that races exist and racial differences are real?

    Why do Progs fear Free Speech? Why must they shut down the voices of White National Liberation? Because Jews hate those who who speak truth to Jewish power. And white cucks fear being outed as craven cowards who suck Jewish coc*.

    Why do Jews fear BDS? They fear Palestinian wish for national emancipation from Zionist tyranny.

  • We feel no xenophobia, which means EXTREME IRRATIONAL fear of foreigners.

    We have no ill will toward foreigners. We don’t want Mass Invasion and Replacism by foreigners.

    What really ails the West is Ethnophobia. Whites have been made to hate their own identity and ethnicity and history.

    • Xenophobia has been /made to mean/ the extreme irrational fear of foreigners. The word is an invention of recent times; its widespread use is even more recent. It comes out of a certain milieu, and has a certain tendency. Words like this (and we all know a great many of them: racism, discrimination, sexist, etc., etc.) are weapons. And I can assure you that not one of them was coined by a nationalist.

      Now, the success of this lexical warfare is everywhere evident around us. We cannot simply ignore the words that our opponents use; to give them the benefit of these words’ meaning, which are largely fictitious, is already to yield them ground. You, for instance, are already tacitly acknowledging that “extreme irrational fear of foreigners” is a more or less common phenomenon; else it should not be necessary for entire political movements to disavow it. But how many people do you know have an “extreme irrational fear” of foreigners? I for one cannot name a single human being like that.

      By disavowing this term, you are suggesting that there is the danger the Alt-Right becomes a movement of rabid anti-foreigners who despise all human groups but their own. I deny that such a danger is at all a danger. It is a fabrication, used to slander us. I refuse to yield to the slander.

  • You can also just ask if they fear the Alt Right. And if they don’t fear it, then allow discourse.

  • A response I always give to this question is that I am not “afraid” of (insert minority) but that I “don’t like them”. It’s not fear at all, I say, it’s just that I don’t like ugly, low-IQ, thuggish, brown-skinned people. This is the dilemma that the main character in the alt-right novel, “Hold Back This Day” had to face, but in a much grimmer way: https://tinyurl.com/ycwdg37k

  • After further reflection, it occurred to me that anti-Whites have a variation on this argument that they use against women in particular.

    When women object to mass immigration on the grounds that the competition is not good for our children, especially our sons, a common retort is that we must lack confidence in them if we feel the need to protect them from “desperate” refugees who just “want a better life for their families.”

    A mom is accused of underestimating or belittling her children if she puts their wellbeing first, and we fall for it all too often. This is where we must suspend our Will to Truth and, despite Socrates, find a way to hold two beliefs at once that are at least inconsonant if not contradictory.

    (1) Being second to none, our children can overcome any challenge.

    (2) Mass immigration is a serious threat to our children’s prospects for a bright future.

    The philosophical answer to this problem is found in game theory. Groups who fail to protect their children will lose everything, over time, to collectivist groups who seek every advantage for their own. We are frozen out of the media precisely to prevent us from explaining this to naturally fair-minded and naive White people.

  • Hey everybody! After about a year of posting MP3 links in the comment sections, I finally ‘bit the bullet’ and spent some time creating a very basic webpage to host them from. When you have a moment, check it out! Everything is exactly the same (no need to change what works, right!?), and I’ll be adding new MP3’s twice per week (the next two uploads will be Richard’s speeches at Auburn and Texas A&M). Thanks,
    ———————–
    http://rsaudioarchive.simplesite.com
    ———————–

  • One of my favorite quotes – and I quote that I think is very relevant here – is, “The true soldier fights not because he hates (or maybe in the case of this excellent article fears) what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

  • There was that line from the movie, The Fly: “Be afraid, be very afraid.”

    Roosevelt was quite apprehensive about Huey Long.

  • If a snake enters your children’s room , Do you kill it ? Of course you do !
    B-but we don’t know if it was friendly or not !
    Who cares ? Its a snake in my children’s room !
    KILL IT WITH FIRE !

    That’s a better defense for xenophobia, Tell Spency to send me my Shekels on PayPal.

      • Oy vey ((( Soros ))) we both know who the real snakes are… They would do anything for a Shekel !
        Your turn will soon arrive Shlomo…

        • ((They)) are not a big problem in Europe. Islam is. ((They)) contributed to European culture quite much. Some of ((them)) such Soros are a big problem. That is true.
          Normal Jews are totally absolutely committed to European culture. Many of them are Le Pen fans.
          Islam is OK in islamic countries. Not in Europe.
          Israel has the right to exist and to shot invaders. I support Trump 100% in that point.

          • Both groups are (largely) Semites; Semites are enemies of (not contributors to, on net) White Civilization.

          • *shoot.

            Carl Jung is one of the main sources of the AltRight. No Carl Jung without Sigmund Freud.
            I believe that everyday Jews in Europe are not a threat.
            In any case, I am speaking from a country the Jews call Sepharad, where -one upon a time- there was millions of Jews and almost none since the end of the XV Century due to the “Expulsión”.
            Since there are no Jews here, no anti semitism neither.

          • Sorry amigo, but if you think that Spain is not under kikes influence and heavy political pressure ..I have a bridge to sell you, as Americans say.

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