There was once a time when college was considered a relatively upright place where men went to study, gain knowledge, and become disciplined leaders. Evidently, such a time no longer exists.
As a student myself, I often feel intensely disgusted walking around campus. I hear conversations about parties in which drinking has taken place. I see clothes that would have warranted execution 100 years ago. Most of all, I see the carefree attitudes. Nobody seems to have any problem with the way things are. Even within my right-wing peers, who are so excessively preoccupied with matters of race and immigration, there is zero interest in public morality.
After all, what is the problem? Why take everything so seriously? Why should I care so much about how people dress or what they do on Friday nights? To even ask these questions is insulting! And they warrant a serious discussion about the lack of spiritual literacy in modern society. Especially the misguided attempts at being “spiritual” by certain groups of people and the even more misguided attempts at being “moral” by others.
It really isn’t a question anymore that the course of public morality needs to be corrected. And it is even more apparent that the only ones capable of doing so are religious reactionaries. But before one can declare himself a religious reactionary, one must examine and learn from the numerous phenomena causing mass anti-moral behavior in the first place.
The Devil’s Promise On the Right Wing
I have an unapologetic metaphor of sorts that often puts me at odds with my more ethnonationalist or right-of-center peers. Put simply, if the Devil were to rise from Hell and promise them a nation (made to their liking) in which there were no “foreigners” so long as they renounced their faith in God, they would take the deal.
When I introduce this point to my right-wing friends, they often laugh it off and dismiss it as an unrealistic fantasy. However, the contention is more real than they are willing to admit. It has become very common for racial hatred or certain cultural frustrations to overshadow faith in God and morality so intensely that they become secondary, and this is evident in the contemporary right-wing establishment. Even worse, though, is the total shifting of the bounds of conservatism and the erosion of ideological solidity. Take gay marriage, for example, which was rightfully considered immoral and condemned by the right decades ago. Now? There’s an organization called “Gays Against Groomers,” founded by a deviant homosexual woman, and which has somehow received the glamour of being called “far-right.”
You may say, “The left has these problems, too!” But that is a given. The left rarely values religious moralism and is intrinsically committed to relativism. Of course it would make a deal with the Devil. The very concept of “evil” is ever-changing to a leftist, and of course this lack of objectivity will always serve the immediate human desire — that is, animalistic desire.
But the right wing? This is supposed to be the side of objective, absolutist morality. And yet the behavior of rightists is just as ever-changing as the left in the modern day. How many scandals have been uncovered on the right wing in the modern day? I could fill novels with tales of each one, often a sexual scandal. This fact is incredibly concerning. The left wing is designed to reject public morality in favor of a “whatever I want” mentality, and now the right wing is rapidly becoming spiritually depraved and plagued by the same mindset. If the right wing falls as well, what is left?
Lacking Presuppositions
The right-wing hypocrisy we see today is not even the largest shadow looming over those moral crusaders such as ourselves. The massive barrier between our ultimate goal of public morality and actual public opinion is the total lack of presuppositions.
Let’s use the example of “partying,” as it seems most college students have indulged in this. To the average youth, this is simply a social gathering to hang out with friends and meet people. To a religious reactionary, it is an active source of vice and a breeding ground for sinful behavior. Do you see the disconnect here?
The average youth views partying from a perspective lacking concern for religion entirely and often frames desire as the primary goal. They desire social validation and a dopamine boost, so they go to “meet people” and “hang out,” often engaging in any and every behavior necessary to achieve their desire. The religious reactionary is constantly thinking about being holy and pleasing God. Is that simply their desire? No, it is their duty. It is the duty of the religious reactionary to see sin before it arises, and thus avoid participating in any level of vice entirely.
Notice that the sin is avoided entirely by noticing it beforehand. This exists in contrast to the average Christian lifestyle of “Sin first. Repent later.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about this very reliance on God’s grace to constantly bail one out, and, diverging from orthodox theology temporarily, it’s worth questioning if God simply stops doing so at some point. Many modern Christians live as though God is their personal wish-granter and sin-forgiver rather than their commanding officer. It is unconducive to public morality to use the typical Christian perspective of “God’s children” because it leads to this exact cheap grace. Rather, the religious reactionary must view himself as God’s soldier, following His orders and commands to the letter.
If public morality is to be corrected, and it is to be done by the religious reactionary, then he must embody the very presuppositions that allow us to prevent sin entirely. He cannot simply live in accordance with his immediate desires and assume God will rescue him each time he sins. This will make him permissive; it will make him weak, and he will cease to be a religious reactionary.
The Influence of Degenerate Media
We’ve covered the hypocrisy of the contemporary right wing and the lack of presuppositional prescience regarding sin and vice, but we have yet to cover the third major cause of society’s anti-moral standing: Degenerate media.
Often, the greatest deterrent to religious reactionary ideology is this degenerate media that contributes to its demise. The modern man is extremely pacified by the media, and this is especially true in Generation Z (my own). What young man does not consistently consume modern music, such as those pop songs which sing excessively about love? What young man has not consumed the very movies and shows of today as well, such as “anime” and those Hollywood productions which feature one sexual scene after another? The religious reactionary does not find himself pacified by such media because he does not consume it in the first place.
This is often where every reader realizes they would never wish to be a religious reactionary. If one has to relinquish modern comforts, then what incentive could there possibly be for religious reactionaries? My second point about correcting one’s presuppositions applies here again — what incentive could you possibly seek other than the act of devotion itself? If you seek incentives, then your devotion to God and moral rigorism are clearly downstream from your personal desires, and this is the presupposition you must correct. If your entire concept of living is fundamentally misaligned with religious reactionism, then you are running in circles and chasing your own tail. You would neither understand the ideology nor become a part of it, so attempting to do so is futile in and of itself. To the true religious reactionary — that is, one who truly aligns with the ideology — he who neither seeks to relinquish his comforts nor conform to the asceticism commanded by God is no peer or equal, but a spiritually empty unit of economic use; he is simply an unholy object to be ruled by the holy. The Christian desire to evangelize only hinders one’s own spiritual ascent here, and the religious reactionary recognizes that he who objectifies himself cannot be saved by any un-divine force. Simply put, leave the “saving” to God in the afterlife.
It’s noteworthy that the common concept of “love,” especially as it manifests in both Christianity and leftism, is practically opposed to the religious reactionary ideology and lifestyle. Instead of “loving one’s neighbor,” the religious reactionary is devoted to the duty which leads to greater spiritual prosperity for his neighbor. His devotion is not directed at his neighbor, but rather at God. What good may be done for his neighbor can only come out of doing right with God.
Conclusion
Our critiques of the modern college campus are often rejected entirely. After all, who could reject mass fornicating and drinking alcohol? Isn’t such a thing the very definition of young life which all children strive to one day live? Of course it is not. And I can see this only because I can see the fundamentals, the presuppositions, the hypocrisy, and the degeneracy of modern media. This makes me, and all who see the same, religious reactionaries.
My words are not meant to be permissive on other issues, however, and while it is strictly necessary to spiritually cleanse the public, numerous other rectifications must take place to truly order society as God intended.
But for the religious reactionary, the only rectification needed is that of public morality.
