IM-1776: The American Nation – Ethnogenesis

We have to play the cards we're dealt

Firstly, I’d like to apologize for my absence. I’ve been working on several projects, including this dialogue for IM-1776, and I had to put my writing here on the backburner for a spell. Nevertheless, I will be publishing Part IV in the Apocalypse Now Series in the next week or so, as well as a piece expanding on the dialogue below.

Thank you for your patience, and I promise to make the wait worth your while.

In other news, IM-1776 just published a dialogue between Martyr Made and me that will be appearing in IM ISSUE °IV: Counterrevolution: The Coming Storms (now available).

In this dialogue, Martyr Made and I discuss immigration, identity, sectionalism, and American ethnogenesis. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, and I think you will too.

Please read and share it, and feel free to drop your comments below. Thank you!

An excerpt:

“If our history, culture, and identity are bound up in regional tensions, and control of Washington is the grand reward for sectional domination, could the answer to so many of our problems lie closer to home? No doubt we have to wield federal power to secure the border and halt mass immigration. But the questions beneath the surface — matters of identity, culture, and even political power — we have yet to embrace this most American aspect of our heritage. This is really what separates us from European nations. All of our political machinery rests upon it, and any cultural power we hope to wield depends on us seizing this ground first. Here, not in Europe or Washington, is where we may find not only answers but solutions, as well.

(…)

I think there is more to us than we realize. We Americans clearly possess a greater confidence and stronger will than our European counterparts. Where does this come from? Returning to Turner, I think it has much to do with our history and relationship to this unique landscape. It may not have been as apparent to previous generations, but today it is more obvious than ever that America is indeed a unique civilization, and if not that, one in embryo.

We can see this in the development of sectionalism throughout American history, first with the establishment of European colonies across a vast territory, including 1,000 miles of coastline and an area of 430,000 square miles (nearly four times that of the British Isles). Unlike other European footholds in the New World at the time, the British colonies in America were not mere outposts but germinal polities. Isolation and need imbued these places with a self-reliance that, in time, would bloom into self-determination. It’s worth mentioning that the American colonies petitioned the mother country for equality before demanding independence, as if they gradually discovered a curious strength all of their own. From there we see the process continue as a series of confrontations and consolidations between regions, sections, and nations. All of this to say, the process you have identified seems to slowly unfold over time independent of Europe, which could not achieve a suitable union or arrangement to prevent its own suicide. At present, I cannot decide whether Western Europe is anything more than a scattering of American outposts; if anything, what strength it has left is furnished from across the Atlantic. And so even with the death of Europe, somehow America lives on.

Unlike Europe, we have this foundation upon which countless arrangements, pacts, and understandings have developed, tying tribes, kin, ethne, and whole nations together within an American ecumene. Opposition parties, beleaguered outsiders, and even the conquered are rarely stamped out; though the path is treacherous, self-determination is always on the table. For all the bellyaching over identity from the Left and Right, this system seems more organic and robust than anything that came before, and I would not be surprised to see it consume the Western hemisphere, if not the world.”

I hope this dialogue sparks some thought, and, again, feel free to share any questions and comments below.

Don’t forget to follow IM-1776 for more great content.

Always,

Lee