For this entry I’m reviewing a review of one James Clark’s review of Stephen Wolfe’s book, “The Case For Christian Nationalism.” Clark’s work here is a second bite at the Wolfe apple and is concerned solely with whether or not Wolfe advocates for Kinism. You can find Clark’s review at the link below.
I am reviewing this review because I am convinced that Clark gets Kinism wrong in such a way it can help us to see what is right, proper and Biblical about Kinism.
We first start with a quote from Clark that agrees with what I have said all along about Wolfe and that is the fact that Wolfe is not a kinist, though I am convinced that the man did try to have it both ways in his book. Here is Clark’s quote with which we begin;
“Since it is felt that the topic (Kinism) needs to be addressed, however, I will now make clear that Wolfe’s book does not promote kinism at all. In fact, his account of ethnicity positively excludes kinism.”
If people will remember, I have all along said that as it pertains to both Kinism and Nationalism Wolfe was trying to embrace both without embracing either. Wolfe’s book does not really advocate Nationalism, since the definition of Nationalism requires blood ties. Instead, Wolfe’s book is a Rorschach test on this issue and people see in it what they want to see. This explains why Wolfe has been accused of everything from a Nazi to a Kinist to a civic Nationalist who embraces the notion of propositional nationhood. Wolfe has been accused of all these because he has not been clear. Whether that lack of clarity is purposeful or not will have to be up to each of his readers. I think it is purposeful… but I’m a cynic.
As we continue examining Clark’s review he wanders into some interesting territory with his attempts at defining Kinism. This is the primary reason I wanted to interact with Clark. On this point Clark helps us to see what Kinism is by see what Kinism isn’t and that by noting Clark’s missteps in his definitions.
James Clark offers;
“The first step in understanding how this is so is to define the word “kinism.” Kathryn Joyce, an investigative reporter at Salon, writes that kinism is ‘a movement of anti-immigrant, ‘Southern heritage’ separatists who splintered off from Christian Reconstructionism to advocate that God’s intended order is ‘loving one’s own kind’ by separating people along ‘tribal and ethnic’ lines to live in large, extended-family groups.’”[1]
1.) One does not need to be a Southern heritage separatist in order to be a Kinist. As I have noted repeatedly, I have Kinist friends who are black, brown, yellow, and red. They are not Southerners. Indeed, most non-whites I know are Kinists. It is only white people who knee-jerk blanch at the idea of Kinism.
2.) It is true that we Christian White Kinists are no fans of our current immigration situation but any people group who are being invaded by aliens and strangers, who don’t have their heads up their southern most aperture, would be. Why should Christian White people countenance being replaced?
3.) While Christian Reconstructionism was based on a kind of proto-kinism one does not need to be a Christian Reconstructionist to be a Kinist.
4.) Finally that last bit from Kathryn Joyce and Salon that talks about God’s intended order would be the very definition of both Nationalism and Kinism, , though I would replace the word “tribal” with the word “racial.”
James Clark offers yet another definition of Kinism, this time from the Anti-Defamation league;
A report from the Anti-Defamation League says kinists “assert that whites have a ‘God-given right’ to preserve their own kind and live separately from other races in their own communities. Kinists declare that the social order for man is based on ‘tribal and ethnic’ (by which they mean racial) ties.”[2]
Bret responds,
Ironically enough, coming from the ADL as it does, this one is pretty good. We would expect the ADL to give a really good definition of Kinism given how Kinists their own people are. I mean their people are building walls in Israel to separate the Palestinians from their people.
Again, James Clark offers,
The Southern Poverty Law Center defines kinism as “a new strain of racial separatism that wants America broken up into racial mini-states.”[3]
Bret responds,
1.) Kinism is only new because it is only in the last 40 years wherein Christian Whites find themselves no longer living in a predominantly separatist White nation influenced even yet by Christian categories.
2.) For myself, I would agree that the only sane way out of the current racial and ethnic balkanization in this country is by a breaking up into religio-racial States. I doubt though those states will be very “mini.”
At this point James Clark gives us a couple definitions from actual self-avowed Kinists and being myself a self-avowed Kinist I completely concur with these definitions as follows;
According to a statement written by avowed kinists (quoted in the ADL report), kinism is “the belief that the love of racial or ethnic kin is similar to that of family ties,” and that “God has divided humanity into ‘nations,’ which may be properly translated as races or ethnicities.”[4] Finally, Tribal Theocrat, a kinist website, says one of the tenets of kinism is that “a nation is a large group of people of common patrilineal descent, living in a common geographical location, and having a shared religion, history, language, and civil government (a religio-ethnostate).”[5]
James Clark goes on;
There are two key features of kinism mentioned in these definitions: first, each tribe, people, or nation consists of a single extended-family group. This means that in a kinist society every single member would be related by blood—that is to say, they would be “kin”—to every other member, hence the name “kinist.” Second, each people is composed of a single ethnicity or race, and ethnicity and race are treated as synonymous. Part of the reason Wolfe has been so widely taken for a kinist is that he talks a great deal about the importance of kin in his conception of ethnicity. However, to speak well of “kin” does not make one a kinist, as we shall see shortly. But first, some general remarks on Wolfe’s understanding of ethnicity.
Bret responds,
Here we need to tighten up some of Mr. Clark’s observations.
1.) Mr. Clark is in error in saying that Kinists hold that ethnicity and race are synonyms. Rather Kinists hold that ethnicities are sub-peoples under one umbrella of race. An example of this is Israel who found their nation comprised of one race as constituted by 12 ethnic groups (tribes). This is a significant error as we shall see later.
2.) When considering the relation of races to ethnicities it is helpful to keep the Christian doctrine of “the One and the Many” before us. In the relation of race to ethnicities we have “the One and the Many,” — unity in diversity.
Clark next examines Wolfe’s account of ethnicity;
“Wolfe defines “ethnicity” phenomenologically as “familiarity with others based in common language, manners, customs, stories, taboos, rituals, calendars, social expectations, duties, loves, and religion.” In other words, what makes a people-group a people-group is that they “have the same world—sharing the same or very similar topography of experience—which makes possible the full range of human cooperation, activities, and achievements, and a collective sense of homeland” (136). The centrality of “shared experience” in Wolfe’s conception of ethnicity can be seen when he talks about how one can discern one’s own ethnicity:
Bret responds,
Clark, I believe properly interprets Wolfe here.
1.) The problem here is that the whole idea of phenomenology contains the idea of philosophical nominalism, and nominalism and phenomenology alike presupposes that there is nothing (like race) that is independent of human consciousness whereby analysis can be done. So, obviously, if Wolfe is operating phenomenologically then bad conclusions can only follow bad methodologies.
2.)I will say this though… If Wolfe’s phenomenological template for ethnicity were to be followed, the result would be nations that were 90% Kin as among the people living in his ideal geographic Christian nation. Because of that Wolfe might be said to be a crypto-Kinist.
James Clark next gives us this quoting from Dr. Stephen Wolfe;
“Reflecting on familiarity and foreignness helps us to see our true ethnicity and who belongs to it. Think of the people with whom you feel at ease conducting your daily life; with whom you share similar expectations of conduct, aesthetic judgments (viz., beauty, taste, decorum), and recreational activities; whom you can effectively rebuke or offer sufficient justification for your actions to; and with whom you can join in a common life that achieves the highest ends of man. Think of those people. With such people, you can cooperate in things above mere material exchange and consumption and common defense—above a mere alliance of households or individuals. There is mutual trust, not based in some procedural, social contract, but in a shared sense of we, centered around particularities that elevate the people. (136‒37, italics original)
Bret responds,
Again, in the community that Wolfe imagines, given this description, is a community that is going to be comprised overwhelmingly, though perhaps not completely, of people whom will be sharing a common genetic and patrilineal inheritance. Hence, Wolfe’s crypto-Kinism.
James Clark then analyzes Wolfe’s statement;
Conspicuously absent from this passage is any mention whatsoever of physical features as being indicative of one’s people-group. This is all the more striking when compared to the statements of an actual self-identified kinist, who says the belief that “the basis for camaraderie and nationhood is…not physical” is a marker of “disagreement with Kinism.”[6] Wolfe’s lack of concern for physical characteristics is also apparent when he comments on the things that make us realize the importance of ethnic familiarity:
Bret responds,
It is true that Wolfe (unfortunately) does not include a shared patrilineal descent in his definition of Christian Nationalism and it is true that explicit Kinism faults Wolfe for that, but do keep in mind that given Wolfe’s phenomenological definition of ethnicity the end result of Wolfe’s “Christian Nationalism” would be a nation comprised primarily of White Christians. Do keep in mind that it is largely minorities, animated by Critical Race Theories who are seeking to overturn the very social-order categories of the kind of nation that Christian White people would inhabit. Minorities, generally speaking, are not interested in a Christian nation and so Wolfe’s definitions for ethnicity leaves him largely in the same place as epistemologically self-conscious Kinists.
James Clark next quotes once again from Wolfe;
Language barriers, spatial disorientation, and confusions over laws, manners, and how to complete basic activities reveal to us the importance of familiarity for life and that each of us belongs to a bounded “we,” a people, who do things differently. Reflecting on this should demonstrate that everyone has a people, an ethnicity. Everyone has “ethnic” distinctives. (138, italics original)
Bret responds,
Note here how Wolfe puts the word “ethnic,” in scare quotes above. This is important because it clues us in that Wolfe is not using the word “ethnic” in its usual sense. Wolfe is redefining the word away from a normative understanding that includes blood relation.
We should note here that Kinists understand that in the “we” of a people there might be, by way of exception, those from non blood-related relations who are part of the “We, precisely because they are living in a way that is not consistent with the majority of their own blood “We.”
An example of this kind of thing is found in the film, “The Missing,” where Tommy Lee Jones plays a White farmer who takes his family to live out on the New Mexico frontier only to abandon his white wife and children in order to bond with the Apache Indians. Clearly, the Jones character could be said to be culturally Apache but by blood he remains racially white. Interesting enough in this film, Jones’ blood finally outs and though culturally Indian he ends up returning and dying in order to protect his blood child and grandchildren from rogue Apache Indians.
James Clark continues citing Wolfe;
Given my friendships and associations with people of different ancestry, I can say that being “white” is unnecessary both to recognize themselves in what I describe and to cooperate with someone like me in a common national project. This is not a “white nationalist” argument, for in my view the designation “white,” as it is used today, hinders and distracts people from recognizing and acting for their people-groups, many of which (to be sure) are majority “white” but are so not on the basis of a modern racialist principle. (119n3)
Bret responds;
Wolfe says this is “not a white nationalist project” but in the end given the miniscule numbers of what are now called “adjacent-whites” compared to the total number of whites that share his redefined “ethnicity” the end product might as well be a “white nationalist project.” Wolfe sees that there are exceptions out there — he sees that there are non-white people who share his culture (as well as white people who do not) and he wants to take those honored exceptions and deny the reality of race and ethnicity as necessarily normative to have stable homogenous cultures.
Indeed, oddly enough, given Critical Race Theories if white is to be defined ideologically and not racially then clearly Wolfe is championing a “white nationalist project.”
End Part I