Reviewed and Briefly Noted (Issue No. 2)

The publisher wishes to introduce old and new books that would be of interest to the critical thinker: classics that have been forgotten or neglected; new works that have found it difficult to break through into the mainstream; other work which would be useful to those who wish to understand how we have arrived at the status quo and the direction we are moving as a people, culture and civilisation.

The below are only extracted quotes from the reviews in this issue. The full text of the reviews is only available in print and can be obtained via the publisher's online store.

[...] tradition isn’t blind or mindless. Eliot emphasises the importance of intelligence as a justifying framework within which tradition is cultivated. The modern reader would be mistaken to misinterpret this as permission towards ideological thinking: Eliot cautions that the discovery of what is good in life is not an exercise in “political abstraction”; intellectual considerations must place the “particular people in a particular place” at the heart of this organic view, and only thus can the cultural coherence and stability of that people be effectively maintained. Particularity and particularism are therefore essential to Eliot’s organically conceived tradition, while he also cautions against faddish innovation as a driving motivator behind reform. [...] Eliot’s worldview is set against the industrialist and individualistic forces that rose to define modernity throughout the New World (a forerunner trend to today’s technocratic and atomising tendencies that strain to envelop the globe). He therefore saw the process through which culture is fostered and maintained to be far easier in a territory occupied by a homogenous populace still intimately tied to its soil, as well as psychologically connected to its history. Stating that the “long struggle of adaptation between man and his environment” has cultivated the best qualities in a civilised community, he understands that the interrelationship between the natural environment and Man has moulded the latter’s character, thus forming a cultural particularity that is deeper than any self-identity based on the principles of subscription or abstract ‘values’. [...] Eliot’s work illustrates that there is far greater communicative and persuasive power in the world of literature and literary criticism, than in exegeses of political theories, with their manifestos and technical policy platforms. His work also shows that a thesis that rejects the cult of rationality can be more reasonable, and certainly more prescient, than the blueprints of ‘progressive’ innovators with their self-justifying and experimental attitude to social policy. He places the immaterial at the centre of dialogue about the common good. [...]

[...] What Tanizaki describes in this small yet very elegant tome is that this persistence of traditional aestheticism in a modern world has its roots in the collective spirit of a particular people. Aesthetics are therefore a reflection of that spirit in the form of cultural expression. To put is another way, the cultural development of a people will be profoundly impacted by the technological innovation of (or interference with) their aesthetics – especially if modernisation is essentially Westernisation – because the application of technology has cultural consequences. [...] Tanizaki’s point is still relevant today: technology influences cultural evolution. In cases where the technology is the brainchild of a foreign people with foreign cultural values, it can lead to important aspects of cultural expression of the people to which the technology is exported to fade from memory. [...] By today’s standards, Tanizaki’s thesis is radically traditionalist in its outlook on what it means to be Japanese in cultural terms. It can also challenge modern stereotypes about the country and its people. What strikes the reader is that stereotypes them-selves can have a dual quality, where opposites are seen as equally descriptive of the character or nature of a people. The Japanese are often described as a ‘traditional’ culture, while also bringing forth some of the greatest pioneers of advances in technology. [...]

[...] Much of Kerouac’s work has been associated with cultural, if not political, radicalism. Its legacy has informed the worldview of the counter-culture, infusing it with a romance and poesy that animates the more ‘bohemian’ elements of the progressive so-called ‘literary set’. But does this stereotype do the writer’s legacy justice? The essayist makes a brief but convincing argument that it does not. Not only can the themes in Kerouac’s various novels resonate with a more reactionary cultural disposition, but the signs and symbols that colour them strike at the heart of a reader who understands the painful drive towards salvation in a world that is, necessarily, a Fallen one. It is an open question whether Kerouac’s work is nihilistic, but to suggest that it glorifies a morally degenerate society betrays a simplistic and shallow reading of the author. This short work makes this argument in the context of a Spenglarian cyclical and deeply pessimistic view of civilisation. [...] This essay makes clear that the reader cannot do justice to Kerouac’s legacy by focusing analysis on what the writer was merely opposed to; rather, it is what Kerouac was for which defines the content of his work. [...] The essay is written within a Spenglarian analytical framework, with its tragic view of life and cyclical understanding of history. It concludes by describing Kerouac as more accurately a “precursor” to the contemporary Dissident Right than any ageing left-wing counterculture with its “new age pseudo-spirituality”. [...]

[...] The pervasiveness of the internet as the primary medium of cultural transmission has actually led to a cultural stasis, ushering in an era of numerous social pathologies that are still being diagnosed by the social sciences, throwing the present order’s underlying political assumptions into question. Two responses are identified by the author to this trend: the “nostalgic sufferer” and the “digital utopian”. [...] The author claims that if nostalgia is a dominant aesthetic, this is itself amplified through the system, but what he identifies as the problem is not simply a matter of taste or fashion, but the political (ideological) consequence of the ideas that are promulgated in this aesthetic context. [...] Tanner’s strongly ideological app-roach, however, causes his argument to frequently deteriorate into the non sequitur. [...] he is pathologising nostalgia itself for clear political purposes. The claim that it is dangerous (unless it is used to revive the radical tradition, which Tanner complains is often ignored in pop cultural retrospectivity) is a rhetorical device to handicap critiques of progressivism that could be formulated outside the progressivist frame. [...] In this sense, the author displays the mental isolation typical of the far-left activist who cannot conceive how and why certain democratic outcomes eventuate if they do not accord with his own preconceived notions of progress or popular will. [...] Much of the book’s commentary appears to be a lament over socio-political ‘reaction’ to the loss of traditional community caused by the disruptive nature of technology. While the online medium may facilitate and enhance contemporary nostalgia, it is not its primary cause. Instead, it is a technological symptom of the ideology of progress itself, yet this this does not appear to incline the author to reappraise his commitment to leftist politics or the age of technocracy the cult of progress has ushered in. [...] Tanner’s book addresses a host of social problems worthy of further debate, however much of its content is more valuable as a subject of comparative analysis itself. The impact of online, virtual techno-logy on mental and emotional health as well as its role in the deformation of culture is a subject for universal concern. While readers who locate themselves on the political right will find much to disagree with in this volume, many of the issues identified by Tanner would be relevant to their own objections to the state of contemporary society and the role played by technology in interpersonal relations. [...]

[...] The authors then go on to provide a thorough overview of the key sociological concepts underlying the study of ethnicity and racism, which will provide a degree of intellectual rigour for the interested knowledge-seeker that cannot be found elsewhere. The meat of the book is the excellent typology of the various forms of Anglo-phobia, including that Anglos “detract from but never enhance diversity”, “are responsible for any and all negative actions of members of their race throughout history” and “must not be allowed a homeland in which they may remain a majority”. This list, even in summary form, will prove revelatory for many Australians. The very enunciation of these categories immediately shows the double standards at play in the administration of multiculturalism in Australia. What follows in detailing these categories is a concise and convincing refutation of the rationale for the Anglophobic governing structure that has been erected over the past 70 years. [...]

This document was made public by way of a United States court order pursuant to a freedom of information application. It considers the question whether the concepts of officially endorsed Han Chinese ‘supremacy’ is a strategic boon or obstacle to the People’s Republic of China in its foreign and domestic policy initiatives. It also reflects on how this can be met by Western political elites in the field of international diplomacy. The authors contrast the Chinese attitudes to race and ethnicity to Western liberal ideas concerning national identity, citizenship and the effect these have on Western social cohesion. This is then analysed with a view to locating points of vulnerability that can or have been exploited by CCP initiatives. [...] While they may view their diaspora as historically vilified on racial grounds, they show no compunctions in placing racial stereotypes at the heart of geostrategic worldview. This exercise of power in the field of narrative formation can be witnessed in the Chinese appeal to “racial solidarity” with the Third World, which is directed against a West implicitly defined as ‘White’. This strong “in-group” focus on a dominant Han Chinese identity has no analogous comparison in the West. Chinese national policy is couched in patriotic and nationalistic appeals. Despite the official state ideology of Maoist communism, ethno-nationalist sentiment is also cultivated as a vent for public frustrations about social, economic and other political controversies. [...] The question naturally arises: why is it that such policy material is kept away from public debate? Many of the statements contained in the report are brutally frank and therefore would find a difficult hearing among academic circles. It is imperative that this topic be ventilated honestly, and in greater depth.