We're supposed to see Richard Spencer as a pariah. If you go to his Twitter, most posts are mobbed by performative hate - because he is a Nazi, and Nazis get punched. Major politicians and media-figures have declared it so. We are left uncertain as to when the open season gets closed. Perhaps when someone finally executes him (it won't be called a murder). Perhaps, like Cromwell, afterward.
So let's look at this Emmanuel Goldstein philosophically. Spencer does have a philosophy. Sometimes he runs a series on that - there, rebutting William Lane Craig. I admit difficulty to make out what Spencerism is. It's still worth our time.
Last February Shane Burley pointed to a larger philosophical milieu. A lot of it is mystical / Romantic woo, Marianne Williamson in whiteface. (Burley could here have added how CounterCurrents promoted Kyle Bristow's - not Barstow's - Solutrean stupidity.) To the extent Spencer promotes "reality" and even cites classical science (although we must get back to this), I don't hold Spencer responsible for these excesses.
One thing Spencerism is not: Conservative. Spencer has observations of their reality: it's blinkered. In particular Spencer mocks the Conservative penchant for bedtime stories
.
More concerning is that Spencer doesn't believe in the sanctity of written contracts. He sneers at such who do: text fetishist
. He doesn't even believe in math(s).
I have no desire to punch Spencer nor to watch him get punched. I'd go further and say there should be written laws against punching him, and that taxpayers should support an armed force to enforce those laws. It's Spencer who seems to disagree.
Laws protecting the likes of Spencer fall under protectives against "cruelty to animals". The man may personally be insane. Don't punch him but, for G-d's sake and for his own, don't let him vote.
BACKDATE 9/20
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