The fortunes of the West have risen and fallen and risen again over time, but our great civilization has persevered through plague, severe drought, foreign invasion, and every other type of disaster for millennia. Our modern great plague is a plague of virulent ideas. We have adopted many morally repugnant and destructive ideas that are eating away at our identity and cultural foundations. Foremost among these is postmodernism, a curse upon civilization, itself. Among other things, postmodernism insists that the interpretation of words is subjective. Taken to its logical extent, this view robs words of all meaning and renders philosophical inquiry moot. Uncoincidentally, university philosophy departments are shuttering across America, and the discipline was pronounced dead by Stephen Hawking, among other notables. In this morose intellectual environment, it is perhaps anachronistic to attempt to build a new system of government, here American nationalism, on a the crumbling foundation of philosophical inquiry.

We should not submit, however, to the postmodern malaise. By its rotten fruit, we rightly judge the tree of postmodernism to be diseased. Rather than compromise with these destructive leftwing ideas, as the right instinctively tends to do, we must rise to the challenge.  The philosophy of nationalism will define societal values and norms on more solid ground than those of the Enlightenment, which withered under the postmodern critique. We will turn to the best minds in Western philosophy to rediscover the spirit that animates us as a people and guides our future. This spirit manifests itself in diverse ways, as seen in the overabundance of Christian denominations, but it is itself a singular entity.

The defense of the spirit of the West is worthy of our greatest efforts because it is inviolable in the end, and it is ours. Others may admire it, and we theirs, but it is precious and sacred only to us. Like the laws of physics, one does not break such immutable laws of nature, one breaks oneself upon them in the transgression. If the West does not wake up to its spiritual nature and its spiritual destiny, it will have no destiny at all. Or rather, our destiny will be one of annihilation. Our adversaries already know this fact, and we also must come to see it if we are to survive. There is no guarantee that we will.

Philosophy has within it the tools to create a comprehensive worldview. Our new nationalist worldview is founded on a theory of being - that is to say, a definition of existence, reality, or that which is (ontology). The nationalist ontology will inform its theory of knowledge (epistemology), which will inform its theories of morality (ethics), and even beauty (aesthetics). With these pillars in place, public policy becomes a relatively simple matter of applied ethics. The moral goodness and political power of this new worldview depend on well-defined first principles. The new nationalist state and society must be built on philosophical rock rather than sand. Many, if not most, people base their ethical commitments not only on moral reasoning but also on religious convictions. Philosophy and religion are not enemies in this regard but allies. Theology has always been deeply philosophical, and the best of philosophy has theological roots. Whether one puts one's faith in God, science, or the flying spaghetti monster, we are all endowed with a mind and a heart, and the nationalist worldview engages both in equal measure.

Despite the vain pretensions of the left, their unbridled doubt of all things normative is not a new idea. The "village atheist" has doubted the existence of deities, the sureness of knowledge, and even the meaning of words since time immemorial. In fact, it was the sophists of ancient Greece whose cynical abuse of language provoked the Socratic dialogues that would initiate the Western fascination with truth as a metaphysical concept. To be fair, there are subjective and objective aspects of truth. The ploy of postmodernism and the far left is to exaggerate the extent of subjectivity and misapply to objective elements. This intellectual chaos resolves itself rather neatly when propositions are properly classified as more or less subjective or objective. Newtonian mechanics, for instance, is purely objective, but that objectivity is less absolute at the subatomic level and at relative velocities approaching light speed. Likewise, matters of taste are considered generally subjective, but quasi-objective patterns reliably emerge in human estimations of comparative quality[1].

The very notion of objectivity is in retreat in the public discourse. The popular use of the term "my truth" betrays an underlying doubt in the consistency of existence. The idea that there could be one set of material truths for one person and an entirely different set for another is absurd, yet that is how subjectivism has manifested itself in the public discourse. I might say, quite correctly, that "my truth" is that cherry pie tastes better than blueberry pie. However, the typical use of "my truth" extends far beyond personal preferences. For instance, I may be accused of stealing a cherry pie and reply that "my truth" is that I did not steal it but reappropriated it from a petite bourgeois system of capitalist oppression. In this case, one person is objectively right and the other is objectively wrong. A small bakery is not an oppressor, and if I took it without paying I did in fact steal it, if these words are to have any meaning at all.

The radical subjectivism of the postmodern left is used routinely to gaslight the public into accepting deceptive narratives. This tendency was on full display during the canonization of the unfortunate criminal and drug addict George Floyd. Deranged leftists built shrines to Floyd and claimed to witness miracles at the site of his passing, as if he were a sinless holy man. The ensuing riots caused billions of dollars in property damage and many violent deaths, yet the media brazenly described the mass chaos as "mostly peaceful protests." The George Floyd moment was more complex, of course, than the theft of a pie, but the left's absurd reaction to it was objectively misaligned with reality. The intentional decoupling of reality from belief undermines the nation's faith in its perception of reality. It is a nihilistic assault on being, itself. Therein lies the insidious true purpose of postmodernism. Objective distinctions become less absolute as the things they describe become more complex, but we must maintain them nonetheless if we are to have a healthy and functional society.

Radical postmodern subjectivism is a powerful tool for those who wish to deceive and control the population on a mass scale. The emerging postmodern anti-culture of the West is built out of atheism, empiricism, scientism, and materialism. The largest and most powerful institutions in society relentlessly promote these ideas because they themselves draw power from the confusion and division that results. To that end, the public is browbeaten by the government, mass media, corporate public relations, academia, and, increasingly, even our religious institutions to accept the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth.

In this radically subjective and deeply divided world, it is little wonder that only 21% of Americans trust government decision-making.[2] A collapse of faith in government is dangerous, and yet it is a predictable outcome of democracy in the postmodern world, which divides Americans into competing interest groups and promotes hyper-individualism. From this point of view, our so-called system of "government" could be described more accurately as a multipolar system of controlled opposition, an identity war of all against all. Postmodern philosophical ideas created this chaos, but they did not defeat objectivity by winning the war of ideas. After all, postmodernism does not believe in objective truth, so by its own twisted logic, it cannot make a proper truth claim in the first place. No, the reason postmodernism is predominant is that a divided population is more easily cowed by the powerful institutions pushing these ideas.

The remedy for a deeply divided America is a united America. For America to unite, new ideas must arise to dethrone the postmodernism. Robust new ideas can come only from a reexamination of first principles. To find their fullest expression of power, America's new first principles must align with the originary spirit that conquered and built this country. Then the lost moral authority of the state can be restored in the rediscovery of our core societal values.

The political left and right are both dissatisfied with the government because almost no one believes that the government reflects their values, or even has any values beyond self-preservation. A new theory of nationalism will draw inspiration from America's authentic founding spirit to discover answers to fundamental questions about the nature of being, knowledge, ethics, and beauty. From these foundations, a new movement can be erected to withstand the great plague of postmodernism and the challenges of the future.

Next: America’s Philosophical Background

[1] Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1974

[2] Pew Research Center, 2022