Internet Bloodsports: Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents Destroys Multiculturalism, Explains Case for Ethno-Nationalism

by Dissident Millennial

BELOW I HAVE transcribed portions of a recent Matthew Drake podcast featuring a debate between Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents Publishing and an internet personality who calls himself “Valid Thought”. The topic of the debate is whether or not America should be a melting pot of various ethnic, racial, and cultural groups, with “Valid Thought” arguing in the affirmative and Greg Johnson arguing — convincingly and devastatingly, in my opinion — in the negative. Regardless, I believe the back-and-forth between these two men provides a remarkable and fascinating commentary on the most existential question facing the West today: the Race Question.

Transcribed portions of video from about 5:30 to 39:30, edited for clarity.

Valid Thought: [Opening Statement] Well as far as my position I think that .. I think everybody here is going to agree that since 1965 we’ve had real problems with diversity as far as with that, we’ve had far too much of it, and that the current mixture of people is going in the wrong direction…

… But I would also argue that there are benefits to diversity that we have enjoyed and do still enjoy as Americans that we never would’ve created or never did create in the ethnostates that we came from. And so, a lot… and a lot of that diversity is what’s allowed the United States to have a broad global appeal, where you know people watch… Anywhere you go in the world people watch American shows, listen to American music, enjoy American culture all over the world everywhere… Nobody does that for like, Polish folk music — the only people who like that are Poles… make sense? So like, because we were so diverse and brought so many people together we were able to create a global culture, which is what makes us, or much of what makes us, so rich and powerful and influential in the world today… And that’s… that’s my valid thought.

Moderator: Ok, Greg do you wanna… give a first thought, a first statement here?

Greg Johnson: Well I just want to respond to the initial statement. I don’t think that it’s… I’m not particularly proud of the popular culture that America exports to the world. I think it’s mostly trash. I think it’s mostly decadent, and I don’t think that that’s a very good argument for diversity. In fact I think that’s an argument against diversity. I would much rather listen to authentic European folk music than basically the products of the American pop culture industry.

So, I just think that this … this argument, this debate, is off to a very, very dead start. I think it’s sort of stillborn if that’s really the best argument that can be made for multiculturalism.

In my opinion multiculturalism for America is a bad idea, and it’s a bad idea in America for the same reason it’s a bad idea anywhere else in the world. Multiculturalism is a source of conflict. It’s a source of conflict and tension, and no serious political thinker throughout the entire history of the West has ever believed that racial or ethnic diversity within the same political order has been a source of strength; it’s always been regarded as a fault line along which a polity can fracture, and to the extent that any kind of diversity was ever allowed, it was always allowed under the condition that either one group be entirely subordinate to another group, or new groups would be assimilated and lose their distinct identities for diversity to come to an end.

I don’t like the idea of cultural genocide against other groups as a condition for them to be part of our polity, and I don’t like the idea of simply dominating and subordinating other groups as a condition for them being within our political system. And so I think that the most equitable and honorable form of government… does not require either cultural domination or cultural genocide against other groups; instead, what we need to do is we need to have separate societies for racially and ethnically distinct people.

Ethno-nationalism, broadly defined, is simply the idea that the best political order for reducing conflict between groups, which is one of the great causes of sorrow in the world — and also for creating conditions of independent, divergent evolution, cultural evolution — that the best conditions for that are established by separate societies for distinct peoples.

And White Nationalism, as I define it, is simply ethno-nationalism for White people. White Nationalism is not the idea that a generic European Man needs a generic European state, because there is no such thing as a generic White person. All White people have a particular culture, a particular ethnicity, and therefore what White Nationalism means is ethnic self-determination for all White peoples who aspire to basically having control over their own destinies.

And I add that proviso at the end “for those who aspire to autonomy” because some groups don’t. Some groups, for instance, the different ethnic groups in Switzerland, seem to be getting along fine in the Swiss federation — I think largely because they have a great deal of local autonomy. Where you have groups that don’t get along in the same political system, such as the Flemish and the Walloonian people in Belgium, the best solution is probably for them to have separate states. The best solution for the Czech and Slovak incompatibility was basically for them to have separate states and now they get along really quite well.

And so I think that the tendency in politics today is really a conflict between globalizing institutions and ideologies and ethnic nationalism, and I stand for ethnic nationalism, for secessionism, against every form of imperialism and every form of cultural genocide or cultural assimilation.

And the United States was initially founded and conceived as a White nation. There were non-Whites on our soil, Blacks and American Indians at first, later Chinese, but they were never considered part of the American polity. They were not considered people who could be citizens of the American polity until after the Civil War, until after the 14th Amendment in 1868 when native born Blacks and also American Indians who didn’t reside on reservations could become citizens of the United States.

So this country went for a very long time with an explicitly racial definition of citizenship, and right up until 1965 we had immigration and naturalization laws in place designed to maintain a White super-majority based on the ethnic percentages of the 1890 census. That is within the lifetime of many people alive today, many people who are listening to this discussion. And we’ve been robbed of a birthright of a normatively White America, and I say normatively White as opposed to say, just homogeneously White because obviously there have been non-Whites on our soil ever since the beginning, but the country was conceived of as a culturally, normatively European society — and we tried to maintain a European supermajority — and that was really considered part of the birthright bequeathed to all Americans by the Founders.

And we have been robbed of that birthright, and as I conceive White Nationalism in America today, it is an attempt to recover that birthright and to create an America that is ethnically and normatively and, ultimately demographically, entirely White. And the way that that can happen is by repatriating non-White immigrant groups — I would say all post-1965 immigration — to be reversed over time, and hithe-ing (?) off certain territories for other groups that exist here. So, for instance, returning to the reservation system for American Indians, giving them maximal autonomy, creating maybe a Black state called Wakanda somewhere on this continent, things like that. That’s how I envision White Nationalism coming to completion in the United States.

I don’t think we are… we were ever meant to be a multicultural, multiracial society. I think that race and ethnic differences have always been a source of conflict and weakness in America. We dealt with the ethnic differences between White groups by forced assimilation, by cultural genocide if you will, and we cannot though assimilate non-Whites; they are unassimilable without basically destroying our genetic distinctness as a race, and we cannot… that, that’s too high a price to pay. So that’s my basic, simple case for why I don’t believe in a multicultural America: It was never meant to be a multicultural, multiracial society, and multicultural and multiracial societies don’t work very well…

And there’s one other factor that should be thrown in here, and that is that in today’s multicultural, multiracial orders, Whites basically are on the road to extinction. We are penalized for any form of White identity or White pride except for taking responsibility for the failures of other groups, right? We can… We can be White for the purposes of blame but never for the purposes of pride, and our birthrates are lower than non-White groups coming in. We are basically playing a game that is stacked against us — systematically stacked against us — so every time we have an interaction with a non-White group they get to play the race card, they get to appeal to ethnic pride, they get to use ethnic nepotism, and we don’t.

And we might have most of the chips at the beginning of that game — and we certainly did — but if we play by those rules and continue to play by those rules we will have nothing left… We are being demographically displaced — we are being outbred — in our own homeland, and if these trends are not interrupted, basically there’s nothing to prevent Whites ceasing to exist as a distinct race, and I think that that would be a terrible tragedy. I want our kind to continue on into the future. That is a simple, natural, normal animal instinct — to want your kind to perpetuate itself, and that’s really what the Constitution was envisioned as… creating a just, lit-free (?), liberal sort of society in which the posterity of the Founders would perpetuate itself. And the posterity of the Founders would also include people who they thought were worthy of joining the polity… And in 1790 they described those people as free White people of good character.

Moderator — [to Valid Thought]: Is it your position that… somehow White people specifically would benefit from multiculturalism?

Valid Thought: It’s my position that we have benefited from multiculturalism… and I’ll explain that a little bit, right? And it’s really clear to see just in our general society to me… in that, for example… and I would say not just White people, I would say that all people have benefited from multiculturalism, the experiment that is the United States.

So an example that I use is… basketball, right? Initially… the American Indians — or whatever you wanna call ’em, natives, whatever — they had a game that was similar to basketball. White people came over, saw that game, changed that game a little bit, turned it into a professional sport. Then Black people came into the sport and turned it into a much more athletic event and changed the game altogether, right? And now, because it’s… because of all those ethnicities putting their little point in there or whatever — their pitching in to the sport — now basketball’s a global game that’s played in hundreds of countries around the world, blah blah blah.

The same can be said about jazz, where Blacks didn’t have access to European instruments and they got them and created a new art form which is jazz… Out of that gets rock n’ roll — you don’t get rock n’ roll without jazz, you don’t get pop music without rock n’ roll, etc., etc. You see what I’m saying?

It all tumbles from one thing to the next. So, George Washington Carver comes up with peanut butter, and then peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches become an integral part of the suburban White experience, right? So things just build off each other.

And I would say that a lot of the conflicts we face with diversity are also the reason that we’ve created so many innovations. So, for example — and this is gonna be a bad example, right? — but I don’t think that our police, our policing systems and strategies would be as advanced as they are if we didn’t have high crime communities… So if you didn’t have Black communities, you wouldn’t have cops that are as well trained and as proficient as they are, right?

So because you have certain challenges you’re able to then overcome them with new inventions, new discoveries, that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise, and I think that’s evident in that places like Poland and Chechnya and Russia… you know, wherever — all these European countries that have forever been ethnostates until the past 20, 25 years — they didn’t do anything to the extent that what… of what the United States has done. So that’s, that’s what I would say to that.

And if you say that the culture is terrible in the United States, United States culture is terrible… Okay there are aspects of our culture that are bad, there are aspects of our culture that I think are harmful, blah blah blah blah blah… But… other people think that those aspects are great, so… I, I… you know… different strokes for different folks. Some people think that, you know, drawing art is dumb, some people think photography’s dumb… Some people think that, you know, classical music is dumb… And other people think that, you know, rap is the highest art form there is. So, you know, there’s… there’s differences of opinion, but all of these things have come out of and have been born of the uniquely American experience — where they weren’t created anywhere else.

You know, I didn’t see the Dutch inventing a lot of, you know, a lot of this stuff that has come up in the United States — So the unique challenges that we face, in part because of our diversity, have made it such that we’ve had additional obstacles to overcome… which means we’re able to create more… both artistically and technologically.

Greg Johnson: [reply to Valid Thought]: Well I don’t dispute that we have better prisons and better policing because we have to incarcerate these large numbers of restless, crime-prone Brown people… I don’t really consider that to be a benefit to civilization, to be honest.

Valid Thought: I would also argue that the only reason you’re able to have a conservative movement is because you have such a broad range of people. So in places in Europe that are more ethnostate-type places, you have a lot more socialism because you have people who have all relatively similar IQ, right? So the guy who’s making 100 million dollars a year has a 120 IQ and the guy who’s cleaning his toilet has a 108, right? Whereas in this country you have a much greater disparity so you’re able to have a much more diverse economy with less resentment — the resentment in the polls at least as far as, you know, we don’t live in a socialist society. A lot of the reason we have a lot of the conservative and libertarian ideals is specifically because a lot of White people don’t want to pay the benefits for Black people. But if those Black people weren’t there a lot of those White people would vote for more benefits for themselves, as is shown in Europe and Russia and everywhere else that’s been an ethnostate forever.

Greg Johnson: Well I don’t have any problem with… homogenous White societies with large welfare states.

Valid Thought: Oh I do.

Greg Johnson So I don’t think that that is…

Valid Thought: I do.

Greg Johnson: …a really important consideration.

Valid Thought: How is that not an important consideration? … Wait, wait, so you’re okay with socialism as long as it’s White socialism?

Greg Johnson: Yeah, definitely, socialism for White people is fine.

Valid Thought: Wow, wow, that’s a terrible idea.

Greg Johnson: Now… now somebody needs to write a book about Black invention myths and the title should be Not Even Peanut Butter because not even peanut butter was invented by a Black man.

Valid Thought: [Laughing] I mean it’s ground up peanut butter, who cares, right?

Greg Johnson: Yeah, well, but… They honestly care if it’s trotted out all the time as a Black…

Valid Thought: I just… I used it as a springboard, you know I’m saying they build on each other.

Greg Johnson: Well let me just back up and say that the advantages you’re citing of multiculturalism are actually not advantages to living in a multicultural society, or a multiracial society. What they are is… it’s a list of advantages that accrue to living in a multicultural, multiracial planet rather than a multicultural, multiracial society.

Valid Thought: [Interjection, inaudible]…

Greg Johnson: Let me explain this to you. For instance, you might say that rock n’ roll and jazz were products of American multiculturalism. However, I know people who live in Norway and Sweden who enjoy rock n’ roll and jazz and…

Valid Thought: They didn’t invent it.

Greg Johnson: … they are not enjoying them because they have a large population of Blacks.

Valid Thought: They didn’t come up with it. Why do you think?…

Greg Johnson: … But the point is… the point is you can enjoy the products of other cultures without having to live with those people.

Valid Thought: But… why do we…?

Greg Johnson: We can enjoy… Let’s just say that you like rap music. And I’m not gonna pass any judgments on this.

Valid Thought: Sure. I’m not a fan, but okay. But yeah, let’s… sure.

Greg Johnson: Do we… Do you need to live in the same society?

Valid Thought: No of course not.

Greg Johnson: … or even the same neighborhood?

Valid Thought: No.

Greg Johnson: … of the people who produced that?

Valid Thought: Of course not. Of course not.

Greg Johnson: Okay, great. So barriers, boundaries between where people live and the kinds of things that they enjoy are not [incompatible]… It’s not incompatible to have barriers between yourself and other peoples and still enjoy the products of those other…

Valid Thought: But you’re pretending that these things just, just exist in a static environment. These things were created because of the mixture of peoples. It’s not as if jazz existed and then it’s like “oh we found it”. It’s like no, they were exposed to European things and they were in a French Quarter so they had blah blah blah blah.

Greg Johnson: Right.

Valid Thought: … and over time they developed jazz.

Greg Johnson: Let’s just put that in brackets for a second because A) I do not think that because some people like rock n’ roll or jazz, which is an indulgence — you know, it’s a pleasurable thing — that that’s…

Valid Thought: It’s a major cultural touchstone, isn’t it?

Greg Johnson: Yeah… Yeah sure, okay, it’s a major cultural touchstone. I… I’m going to write a whole revisionist history of rock and jazz some day because I’m very, very tired of the Afro-American centered narrative for creating rock n’ roll and jazz. I think a lot of it’s false, but, just set that aside. Let’s pretend that it’s real. Is that a… Is that a legitimate price, is that such a huge boost to civilization that we should have the situation where large amounts of crime are committed by Blacks in America?

Valid Thought: Um…

Greg Johnson: Because most Blacks in America aren’t Duke Ellington, right? Does… Does the fact that Duke Ellington lived mean that x number of White people a year must die, or x number of White women every year must be raped because Blacks get a free pass to be on our soil in America? I don’t think that’s a very valid argument — Thomas Sowell lives so…

Valid Thought: I’m not… I’m not arguing that, you know, in order to have rock n’ roll we should permit rape. That’s a… that’s just an obfuscation of what I’m saying. What I’m trying to say is that the difficulties that arise also present opportunities that we have oftentimes, sometimes, been able to seize upon and create greater things out of.

Greg Johnson: The rape crisis in South Africa has created a crisis…

Valid Thought: [humorously] See, there are rape whistles being sold in South Africa!

Greg Johnson: [sarcastically] Yeah, I can see. It’s wonderful. It’s progress in civilization.

Valid Thought: Somebody’s making money.

Greg Johnson: Yeah, yeah exactly. It’s like breaking a window to stimulate the economy. I’m sorry but that not… that’s not a valid consideration…

[inaudible back and forth]

Valid Thought: You can make the same argument about every group though.

Moderator: Valid Thought, you’re interrupting a lot. Just let him finish.

Greg Johnson: Yeah I mean the fact that we live in a society where private security companies and pawn brokers are doing great business does not mean that we’re living in a just and orderly and desirable society, so… I just don’t… I just don’t think that cleaning up the problems created by non-Whites in America and having to overcome those obstacles is a good argument for having those people around. I would much rather we [not] have large areas of our economy that are basically dedicated to cleaning up the problems created by diversity and multiculturalism and immigration. I would much rather that money go to opera houses, better education, the space program, and things that really do add value to human life. I would much rather have more art museums and fewer Black shanty towns and ghettos, and fewer prisons filled with Black people, for instance. I think that would be a better way of spending all that, all those resources. But I, I don’t…

To be continued…

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