Kevin D. Williamson is a magnet for controversy. His articles provoke paroxysms of outrage, both from the ‘left’ and the ‘right’, whether it’s about ‘”towns deserving to die‘ or Trump supporters being ‘lazy and selfish‘. Yet there is a method to his madness (there is a skill to pissing off everyone who reads your columns regardless of their politics, yet still retaining an air of respectability). Like a car accident, you can’t help but to take a glance. But as much as we may dislike him, he is of the ‘right’. And he epitomizes elitism and anti-democracy more so than perhaps anyone on the right, in contrast to the ‘feel-good, inclusive socialism’ of say Richard Spencer, who is like a ‘white version’ of Obama.
Kevin Williamson is the most ‘based’, ‘hardcore’ person ever because his ideas are just so ‘extreme’, to the point of provoking outage and anger–just from his ideas alone. ‘Extreme’, not in the sense of being offensive for the sake of being offensive, but rather by invoking a certain type of elitism that makes the blood boil in ways that pejorative language cannot [2]. But that could be because there are grains of truth to his ideas, as rage-inducing as they may be. Individuals and towns, regardless of race, need to take personal responsibility and be held accountable. Trump cannot wave a wand and create good-paying jobs for whites [1]. Kevin’s medicine is hard to swallow, but perhaps is the correct one in many cases.
Personal responsibly is hard, which explains the appeal of populism. It’s much easier to attribute individual failing to big, collective factors such as systemic racism, government, society, etc. than factors intrinsic to the individual such as work ethic and IQ. The appeal of nationalism and populism is that it’s a way of transferring this ‘burden’ from the individual to society/collective. Identity endows people with intrinsic value for merely existing and being part of a ‘collective’, whereas individualism means intrinsic, individual value is a function of quantifiable individual merit. [3]
Jordan Peterson mentions how liberals tend to rank very high in terms of the personality trait compassion. If compassion is a defining characteristic of liberalism, then that would imply Kevin Williamson is possibly the most conservative person alive. The dispassionate interpretation of humans as resource and utility maximizers, although dystopian, is likely the most correct one. Homo economicus is incomplete, but it’s more complete than competing theories. Liberalism seeks to bury or re-write the past; conservatism seeks to restore it. Kevin, in the dispassionate sense, shuns emotive activism, even if it’s from his own ‘tribe’. But in the NRx sense, seeks restoration instead of revolution, criticizing both far-left and far-right activists. To be clear, however, he is not a reactionary, and howlers such as American Revolution: A People without a King is evidence enough, yet he is refreshingly anti-liberal and absolutist in his approach, even if it’s in the wrong direction.
Kevin knows about HBD, and his articles hint at subtle HBD themes. He knows that governments, bureaucracies, and democracies create waste and elevate the inept and ill-informed. Like Ben Shapiro (ick), he is correct about SJWs, BLM, antifa, and the rest of the low-information, herd-like left. Yet like Ben Shapiro, because he’s anti-Trump and opposes identity politics, the far-right hates him despite otherwise agreeing with him on 90% of stuff.
[1] These ‘symbolic gestures’ get a lot of media attention but don’t move the needle much. For example, Trump’s ‘Carrier deal’ after he won, which got a ton of media coverage, but there has been no follow-up since. As it turns out, as many predicted, the deal was a dud.
[2] For example, the statements ‘Jews are evil ‘ or ‘blacks are violent’ are offensive to many, but not within any framework of respectably, due to ‘shock value’. However, advocating policy such as a ‘high IQ basic income’ (a basic income restricted to only high-IQ people) may also be equally offensive due to being so elitist, yet it’s within the window of respectability. A challenge is to find the most ‘offensive’ idea conceivable that is still respectable. Another example: people who cannot afford healthcare should be allowed to die.
[3] A purely atomistic society, however, cannot work either. Something must be done about the 10-15% who have IQs below 80 and are unemployable, which traditionally is the role of welfare and charity. Nationalists are correct about immigration and how certain immigrants may be a net-negative on the economy in terms of entitlement spending, even if such consumer spending is good for the stock market. Low-IQ immigration adds to the national debt in terms of entitlement spending, but also boosts stock prices due to consumer spending. Consumer companies such has Facebook, Target, Walmart, Mc Donald’s, Disney, etc. reap the top-line growth from the added population, but the national debt rises too. But because the US govt. can borrow at next to nothing, all of this spending is effectively free.