Continuing to review James Clark’s review of Stephen Wolfe’s book, “The Case For Nationalism.” Clark now takes up the issue of Ethnicity and King, quoting from Dr. Stephen Wolfe;

 “What role, then, does kin play in Wolfe’s account of ethnicity? He writes that “blood relations refers to natural relations that originate several generations back, often emphasizing ancestry known in story and myth among one’s kin” (138, italics original). Wolfe goes on to affirm that “blood relations matter for your ethnicity,” but at the same time he states that “the ties of blood do not directly establish the boundaries of one’s ethnicity.” The reason blood relations matter to one’s ethnicity is that one’s “ethnic ties of affection” are a direct result of the fact that “one’s kin conducted life with other kin in the same place” (139).

Bret responds,

So, per Wolfe, ethnicity refers to blood relations which emphasizes ancestry and this maters for one’s ethnicity except when it doesn’t, and apparently the ties of blood only indirectly establish the boundaries of one’s ethnicity. Clear as mud. Note also here that “blood relations matter to one’s ethnicity.” This stands in contradiction to earlier comments of Wolfe where Wolfe clearly seeks to make the case that ethnicity should be read phenomenologically and not genetically or patrilineally. Which is it Stephen?

Now, James Clark makes a unwarranted leap writing;

There is an important detail in this statement: one’s kin conducted life with other kin. “Other kin” refers not to a subset of “one’s kin,” but to a second, completely unrelated kin group. In other words, ethnogenesis can be the product of multiple separate kin groups who cultivate shared life and experience together, hence Wolfe’s observation on the power of “intermarriage over time in creating bonds of affection” (139). This is also why Wolfe approvingly cites Johann Herder’s definition of volk (the German word for “people” or “ethnicity”) as a “family writ large”:

Bret responds,

One can dwell in one racially homogenous people and still speak of “other kin.” Clark asserts that “other kin” does not refer to a subset of “one’s kin” and that instead we are talking about a “completely unrelated kin group.” This could be true. It also could be true that “other kin” refers to those distinct ethnic groups belonging to the same race. Take for example the nation of Israel. To the tribe of Gad, the tribe of Dan could well have been “other kin,” and not a completely unrelated kin group. As this may well be true, I obviously disagree with Clark that generally speaking, “ethnogenesis can be the product of multiple separate kin groups who cultivate shared life and experience together.” That view taken to its logical conclusion is the foundation upon which multiculturalism could be built.

 In terms of Wolfe’s “intermarriage over time creating bonds of affection,” we would note that intermarriage here could simply mean intermarriage as between the tribe of Zebulon and the tribe of Judah. If that observation was found to be accurate then Herder’s definition of volk could easily still stand.

James Clark quoting Wolfe;

This is an apt description not because everyone is a cousin by blood but because one’s kin lived here with the extended families of others for generations, leaving behind a trace of themselves and their cooperation and their great works and sacrifices. Blood relations matter for your ethnicity, because your kin have belonged to this people on this land—to this nation in this place—and so they bind you to that people and place, creating a common volksgeist. (139, italics original)

Bret responds,

Here, we once again find Dr. Wolfe trying to take situations that would be exceptions and treat them as if they would be the norm. Extended families that are not blood related may indeed belong to one nation but it will not be so as a norm.  It is possible, for example, for Ndebele people to generationally belong to China and the Han people but clearly that would belong to some kind of exception category and would not exist as a rule. Again, should this principle be given its head the consequence would be multiculturalism or propositional nationhood.

James Clark marches on;

To reiterate, the significance of kin for ethnicity on Wolfe’s account is that one’s ancestral roots tie a person to a given place, not that the person’s kin group is solely definitive of the ethnicity associated with that place. If Wolfe believed that ethnicity is by definition confined to a single kin group, it would make no sense for him to speak of “one’s kin” living with “the extended families of others,” for everyone would be part of one big extended family. Nowhere is Wolfe’s actual approach to ethnicity and kin more clear than when he says the following:

If some set of goods are made possible only in conditions of similarity, then a similar, multi-kin people—i.e., an ethnic group—must be a self-conscious in-group. (145)

Bret responds,

Once Again a multi-kin people (Wolfe’s innovative definition of “ethnic”) can exist just as a few drops of Lemonade in a gallon of Orange Juice can exist with nobody the wiser that the liquid in that gallon is Orange Juice. However, once a few drops become half the gallon then we are no longer talking about Orange Juice but something completely different. Yes, by way of exception, Ndebele in China over time might be able to be considered part of the Han people but if fifty percent of the Han people are replaced by Ndebele then the Nation is no longer Chinese.

James Clark writes,

“Based on the definition of kinism established above, the idea of “multi-kin kinism” is self-contradictory. A kinist society would be composed of one extended family. Therefore, a “multi-kin people,” i.e., a people composed of more than one kin group, cannot be kinist in nature. To drive the point home, “One loves a particular people in a particular place, because his family did so too, and through his connection with his family and their activity with others, he has a home-land and a people” (162‒63, italics original). For actual kinists it would be nonsensical to talk of one’s “family and their activity with others” because in a kinist society there would be no “others”—everyone would be part of the same family. This can be seen in self-identifed kinist Davis Carlton’s assertion that “nations are defined and rooted in common heredity” and “common ancestry, language, culture, religion, and social customs.”^[7] Contrast this affirmation of common heredity and common ancestry as foundational to nationhood with Wolfe’s express insistence that an ethnicity or nation is not a “family writ large” in the literal sense that “everyone is a cousin by blood,” and the gap between Wolfe and kinism should be apparent. In light of all this, it is unsurprising that actual kinists have expressed disappointment with Wolfe’s book. For example, Jan Adriaan Schlebusch declared on Twitter that Wolfe is not one of them, a fact adverted to by Alastair Roberts in a tweet that, as of this writing, is still publicly available.”

Bret responds,

We have already dealt with this misnomer by Clark above. See the comments about “The One and the Many,” as well as the illustration of Israel with twelve tribes. Clark (and Wolfe?) are just in error here when they suggest there could be no “other” in a Kinist nation. As a Kinist I would have no problem whatsoever with talking about my “family and their activity with others,” just as Southerners during the War of Northern Aggression had no problem of fighting with their “other” white Cajun countrymen hailing from Louisiana and New Orleans.

Secondly, we would note that while it may be the case that Wolfe is not Kinist (which I’ve been saying for forever) it is certainly the case that, in CRT language, Wolfe is Kinist-adjacent — what I have earlier phrased as “crypto-Kinist.” Pragmatically speaking, Wolfe’s views, worked out over time would yield 90% plus of that for which the Kinists argue.

James Clark moves to his conclusion:

Since the text of Wolfe’s book expressly rules out kinism, the only other basis for attributing kinist views to Wolfe is to maintain that he is lying when he articulates his account of ethnicity and kin, or to argue that he has friends who have espoused kinism, which suggests that he shares those views as well.

Bret responds,

I don’t think Wolfe is lying. I do believe that Wolfe is trying to slice matters so thin that it is easy for people to accuse him of being Kinist. I don’t fault people for thinking Wolfe is a Kinist. I mean, it is hard to discern us Kinists from our Kinist-adjacent brethren.

James Clark writes,

In conclusion, the rationale for attributing kinist views to Wolfe springs either from people who have not read his book closely (or at all) and seen that it excludes kinism by its own logic, or from speculations about private thoughts and intentions that can never be verified or falsified. In virtue of these speculations’ unfalsifiable nature, some people will never cease to entertain and promote them, but I hope others will be interested to learn that Wolfe’s own book is completely at odds with the kinism he allegedly harbors.

Bret responds,

“Completely at odds” is a magnificent overstatement on the part of Clark. I would prefer to say at odds in measurable and not unimportant ways. In point of fact, I find Wolfe so confused on this point I’m not sure he understands why people are accusing him of everything from being a member of the Klan to plotting to abandon his Kin. The reason that people are all over the map is because Wolfe is sending mixed messages on the subject of Kinism. He is like the girl at the prom who can’t decide whether she wants her date to “come hither,” or “just leave me alone.”

If you just keep in mind that a good deal is resolved by understanding that Wolfe is adjacent-Kinist, you will have a good handle on this matter.

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.

Kinism and Wolfe’s Case for Christian Nationalism

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;

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;

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,

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;

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