Somnambulism

To be in a trance; sleepwalking

On July 17th, 1907, Georges Sorel wrote in a letter to Daniel Halevy,

Every time I have approached a question, I have found that my enquiries ended by giving rise to new problems, and the farther I pushed my investigations the more disquieting these new problems became. But philosophy is after all perhaps only the recognition of the abysses which lie on each side of the footpath that the vulgar follow with the serenity of somnambulists.¹

I find I can relate to this sentiment to a large extent in that I follow the development of my thinking along paths already carved out by others before me, ‘with the serenity of’ a somnambulist. When I first read that word I had to look it up in the dictionary not knowing what it meant (regardless of my education taught in French!) and I wrote on the margins of the text, ‘in a trance, sleepwalking.’ This feeling of sleepwalking seems to sum up society to what I have experienced so far in my life (or perhaps it says more about myself, regardless I will make an argument for the former). This investigation however, will inevitably lead to new problems and they shall become evermore disquieting.

In 2012 it was said that world was going to end, according to the ancient Mayan calendar. I vaguely remember this phenomenon although I was too young for it to mean much to me at the time. It was only recently that I came upon a line of thinking that interested me, that the world as it had been before 2012 had indeed ended and we had entered upon a new age. This was expressed by Dietrich Ostmann, the guest on episode 909 of The Pete Quinones Show, who posited that the nihilism of the 20th century had reached its logical conclusion in 2012². Since this was its final conclusion, the only way forward was a spiritual revival which we have witnessed since then as there has been a large return to churches (only to find that they have been changed irreversibly in the past 250 years or so). This reminded me of (albeit over a period of months) an exchange of ideas that had occurred between an Iranian and I (Ardashir, if you ever happen to read this, God bless you). In one of our many discussions he had introduced me to a video on YouTube entitled There is no Separation of Church and State (Secularism = Anti-Christian) by Momcilo Nevesky. Ironically, it was another video by Nevesky entitled The Apocalypse of 1999 - RHCP, The Matrix, Fight Club, and Office Space where he hinted that he had the same thought process that had been developing in my mind (subconsciously or not). In the aforementioned video, Nevesky charactises the period from 1914 to 2012 as ‘Grandiosity in the Age of Technics,’ that ‘2012 was the last year of the 20th century,’ and we now live in a post-apocalyptic world³. In another discussion with a man whom we shall refer to as Gerhard (he knows who he is) I did my best to explain my thought process to someone who had been alive for the time from 1989 to 2001, that said approximate decade had been the peak of nihilism in the West. In popular culture especially but also in the literary world, in politics, religion, education, among other areas, there was a sentiment of materialism, of decadence, of the infamous ‘End of History.’ The façade that this was how the world was to be for the rest of time was merely just that, an illusion which was shattered September 11th, 2001. In pop music especially during the 1990s, the lyrics sang of wealth, of drug use, of death and overall materialistic nihilism, this was after all, the rise of gangster rap. One can rail about the influence of certain groups promoting this messaging but the truth is that there was a desire and openness to this on the part of Western society at large. In Gord Downie’s ad libbed lyrics of the live recorded version of The Tragically Hip’s Grace Too, found on the album Live Between Us, released in 1997, Downie sings, ‘I never fought for a thing, I never fought for anything, I was raised on TV, like so many of you I see around me, nothing to live or die for, no religion too,’ and to me this perfectly summarises the experience of the average person who grew up in the time from 1989 to 2001. In a word, the West had become lethargic, sleepwalking through this period with no sense of direction, in a trance that this was the way things would end for History, a trance which we snapped out of on January 1st, 2013, only to wake up post-21st century.

In material given to me in a French university course, the first chapter was dedicated to teaching grammar lessons in expressing the cause and consequences, evading repeating oneself through the use of ‘le’, all through the lens of life in cities. It was in studying this chapter that it became apparent to me what was being taught was outdated. I could not shake the feeling while reading about what cities would resemble in the future that this is not what the average person desires at all. Since 2020, there has been quite an exodus of Whites from major cities to small towns in the countryside, indeed I myself share this sentiment of desiring life outside the cities. I talked to one of my classmates who shared the same opinion, interestingly coming from somebody who had not devoted copious amounts of time to studying our modern predicament. I know we are not the only ones, in person or online, I have seen this expressed again and again. I cannot remember if it was either on his own YouTube channel or his appearance on The Pete Quinones Show that Morgoth of Morgoth’s Review argued that the ‘green’ future being presented to us by our current elites is not only out of touch on their part with what the population at large desire, but is outdated, coming from ideas of a supposed future, stretching back to the 1970s. Even in a university philosophy course, the professor taught us ideas that date back to the same time, if not earlier, forever holding on to Rationalism like a life preserver, lest they wake up to what is happening around them. This repeating of rationalist ideas like a creed only serves to demonstrate to me the senility of our civilisation as whole, seeing as Rationalism means nothing nowadays. Indeed, who pays any attention to what the politicians of our respective countries say when they are talking about issues that we have already recognised as defeats, case in point, immigration. There is no short or medium term answer to immigration for the time being and there is no political will on the part of anybody to do anything about it, much less any other of the multitude of problems. Even if there was a group with the will to attempt to solve any of the given problems, it would be more beneficial to kick down the door so the rotten whole structure collapses. Theodore Kaczynski writes in his work Anti-Tech Revolution, ‘It is to be expected that the existing power-structure will be in disarray, disoriented, and riven by internal conflict,’⁴ and he was exactly correct in this regard, the West is aimless and sleepwalking, conditions are increasingly becoming worse. Yet things can only get worse before there is any potential for change. The true extent of our defeat is known only to a very few and it is these few who, if they exist, will bring about the demise of the existing power-structure. If not, the system will continue its slow decay over generations and we will continue down the path of ‘Second Religiousness’ as coined by Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West.

After reading through all that has been written here, I realise that I am really only repeating what has already been said, granted with my own perspective, for what it is worth. There is more I would like to add and that is none of the groups vying for political power of any kind, or at least setting themselves up as potential alternatives when circumstances get to the point where they can be taken advantage of, know the extent of our defeat, as I was getting at in the last paragraph. This cannot be emphasised enough, much less have any of these groups analysed the situation thoroughly to have an understanding of what potential solutions could be. Be they left, right, communist, national socialist, monarchist, none of them have yet been able to rise above ideology and see the reality clearly. I myself cannot even claim to have achieved this yet, much less know if I ever will. Finally, on my part, and any others reading this, it will take continual study and proper self-education to ever be able to hope to stand on the shoulders of giants.

1. Sorel, Georges. Reflections on Violence, p. 11

2. Quinones, Pete. The Pete Quinones Show, Episode 909: Embracing Faith in Times of Chaos w/ Dietrich Ostmann from the Involution Podcast, 2023-06-15.

3. Nevesky, Momcilo. The Apocalypse of 1999 - RHCP, The Matrix, Fight Club, and Office Space, 2023-03-20.

4. Kaczynski, Theodore. Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How, 2nd ed. p. 157