Camus' Son is a real Mothertucker

If you read this blog now and again you know we are interested in political extremism, conspiracy theory, and fascism.  We are not political extremists, conspiracy theorists, or fascists.

  

I can read Mein Kampf and not be a Nazi, and I can read The Communist Manifesto and not be a Marxist.  I can watch Fox News and...well, no.  I can't watch that (not-so-crypto)-fascist gibberish.  Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Tucker Carlson.  A Trinity of SWM outrage.  Fair and balanced commentary in a methane atmosphere.  TV emissions from a herd of swine.  

When Anders Breivik shot 67 and wounded 32 teenagers on Utøya Island after his bomb rocked Oslo, killing 8, I was horrified.  Two more people died during the massacre, attempting to escape.  77 people murdered in the name of the Great Replacement.

But his "manifesto" intrigued me.  His claim to be a Freemason (which he was, and was summarily expelled), his claim to be a member of a neo-Templar network (he wasn't)....all those elements made me curious as to what his influences were. Not from prurient interest, but as an historian, and as a writer with a long-standing interest in the radical right, Freemasonry, the Knights Templar, and the effects of the rabbit-hole of conspiracy theory.

I try to understand these things, not to glorify them, but to decrypt them, to find the dog-whistles, and, hopefully, make them easier to identify.  I don't feel I need an agenda to justify researching and writing about the things I find interesting (and deeply troubling), but it helps to announce that your intentions aren't nefarious.  For those unused to the codes of this milieu, it's easy to overlook the things obvious to those who are not.  When Carlson says "replacement," to most it's just a word.  For some, the works of French writer Renaud Camus come to mind.  

Christchurch, 2019.  51 dead.  El Paso, 2019.  22 dead.  Buffalo, 2022.  10 dead.  All mass shootings whose perpetrators cited the "Great Replacement" as a motive for their terrorism. Unite the Right rally, Charlottesville, 2017, Tiki-Time:  "Jews, will not, replace us!"

I understand why people don't want to spread the writings of white supremacist terrorists.  Breivik's 2083 is a rambling screed of 1000+ pages.  Mostly copy-pasted from online sources.  Gendron's document is much shorter, but is also cobbled together in the same fashion.  Both use the Great Replacement conspiracy theory as a justification for their actions, and their fury lies as much with the left-wingers who "enable" it as the "replacers" themselves.  Breivik, if you recall, murdered leftist white youths, not minorities.  People he called "Cultural Marxists."  Another far-right conspiracy theory. Standard Carlson rhetoric, by the by.

Briefly stated, the Great Replacement theory was first articulated in print by French writer Renaud Camus in books dating back to 2010 and 2011:  L'Abécédaire de l'in-nocence (Abecedarium of no-harm) and Le Grand Remplacement (The Great Replacement).  

Camus wrote that French elites on the left, the Gauche caviar ("Caviar left"), are encouraging immigration and suppressing white birthrates in order to create a base of left-wing voters. These immigrants, he says, are easier to manipulate, and naturally more sympathetic to the left.

The American far right is obsessed with overturning Roe v. Wade for more reasons than a "Christian" belief in the "sanctity of life."

 

Check out this NYT special report.  It identifies 400 occasions on which Carlson cites Great Replacement.

Although Buffalo terrorist Payton Gendron disparages Fox News itself, his "manifesto" makes it clear he was motivated by the Great Replacement theory.  Since Camus' books have never been translated into English, somehow I doubt he got it from the original source.  As he says; he got it online.  I'll go out on a limb and say that Carlson had a great deal to do with getting the idea out there.  He is America's most-watched pundit, after all.  Carlson has mainstreamed far-right conspiracy theory.  Backtrack all you want, Tucker, but there are ten people dead in Buffalo you need to answer for. You cant feign ignorance of a theory you pushed in 400 segments (CNN)

I understand why people don't want to allow Gendron's screed to be made available.  Some people will get a kick out of it, and who wants to feed into perversity and racism?  Some feel it might spread his "ideas."  I would say that this argument is not valid.  Gendron was radicalized online:  these ideas are already out there, in many places, forever.  And what effect would it have compared to the effect Tucker Carlson has, with a regular audience of millions?

No, releasing it wouldn't have many ill effects. I'd say allowing people the opportunity to read and discuss it may in fact bear positive results.  If we hear someone discussing certain themes or using certain expressions, we might be alerted to their meaning among extremists, having been exposed to them by reading Gendron's drivel.  And if it's not too late, you might be able to get through to them somehow.

I've heard this described as a free speech issue, but I'm not sure how the 1st Amendment applies here exactly.  I know a direct and specific call to violence is not protected.  But I don't know if a general or vague appeal is, or not.  I don't know where the legal line is drawn.

A comment on a site I saw a few days ago about a video of someone reading from Gendron's screed being withdrawn from YouTube has (had?) a valid link to the PDF (yeah.docx.PDF), and I acquired a copy.  I haven't read all of it yet.

I will, though, and you can bet it echoes Fox News' fascist pundit Tucker Carlson.  You ever wonder why America is such a steaming mess?  Try starting with this: The country's most widely-watched TV host uses the language and pushes the conspiracy theories of neo-fascists.  Theories which have indisputably motivated terrorists in Oslo, Christchurch, and now Buffalo.

I think this document is important for sociologists, psychologists, law enforcement officers, historians,  journalists, political scientists, etc.  I'm not saying it has any intrinsic value, but when a guy kills ten people due to their race, and has a long list of recent antecedents, we need all the insight we can get into the messed-up minds of the right-wing mass-shooters who are paradoxically both lone wolves and a movement.

Carlson, you're one big mothertucker.  Dangerous, deadly, and crazy like a Fox.