Confederalism

Organizing as Effectively as Possible

The following is my own transcription of my speech from last year’s event. The transcription is not literal, like the one provided in the event book. It has been trimmed and edited specifically for reading and clarity. The video is public now on the Scyldings YouTube channel if you would prefer the primary source instead. This article could be treated as a Second Edition.

For brief added context, this idea of confederalism was presented in the middle of a wider Right Wing discussion surrounding coalition building, positive visions (i.e. what specific groups want to accomplish or build), negative visions (i.e. what specific groups want to counter or destroy), and the heterogeneous nature of the Right’s many different factions and personalities. Although the speech was not the most energizing or rousing, I would posit that many of the ideas laid forth are coming to fruition in the Old Glory Club and other similar organizations¹.

Confederalism:

“Thank you all for having me to start the morning, it is a great honor.

I was informed last night as to why that was, specifically it was because they knew I wouldn't be drinking. Hopefully I can bring enough energy in to sober up anyone who is to speak later.

The topic that I have, I actually came up with when I was talking to my friend Panama Hat, whom a lot of you know for his traditionalist musings. He and I were talking about G. K. Chesterton and his different parables, the fence post being the most popular one. For those who don’t know, the story parable can be summarized: if you come across a fence post in the middle of the field, then don't tear it down, because you don't know why it's there.

The Parable Of The Lamppost

Chesterton has another parable about a post, the lamppost parable.

In a town there is an outdated lamppost, and the citizens of the town want to tear it down, each for different reasons. One group wants to get a new, updated, modernized lamppost, so they need to tear down the old one to put the new one in. Another group wants to go back to gas lighting to maintain the history atmosphere and aesthetic of the town. Some groups are thieves and robbers; They want to tear down the lamppost because it shines light and reveals their evil ways to the world. There are also other groups with different purposes, but you get the idea. They may want to build a house in place of the lamppost; others might want to redo the street.

These highly variable groups all conclude that they want to tear down the lamppost. This mob of people then goes to the church, and they ask the priest, 'What should we do?' (this is from Chesterton, so back then, people actually went to their priest to ask for advice). In response, the priest goes on a very long, dry tangent, “Well if light is a good thing by its very nature-” The townspeople don't care. They're in a frenzy. They knock him aside, and they go to tear down the lamppost. After they do, they cannot agree on what is to replace the lamppost, if anything at all. Ultimately, a conclusion cannot be reached.

Like we said earlier, among the townspeople are robbers and marauders who acted in coalition just to perpetrate their evil unhindered. The town has torn down their source of light and could not procure a replacement.

The Implications

Now this has stuck with me quite strongly since I heard it. I was thinking at the time about the divisions on the right and what can be done, because we have a lot of different people here. We have people who right sill claim to be Constitutionalists, some who claim Libertarianism, some who still cling to the old title of “Liberal”, some Reactionaries, and we even have some people who might go a bit spicier than all of those.

That is, we have our own factions, and we, for the most part, all agree that we want to tear down the lamppost, the current regime. We want it gone. What happens afterward is what I have concerned myself with, because we don't really have anything to replace the regime. Most people on the Right claim that there's no unified vision, no unified goal. This is all just a coalition or a fellowship or an alliance of convenience to tear down the current regime.

Recall that the earlier parable was from Chesterton, so the intended meaning was to listen to the voice of tradition, the voice of the church. The priest was going to prevent this great mistake that occurred due to rash action. For our purposes, though, let's just look at the practical effects of the story. The town was divided into various factions. Each faction had one goal, and they accomplished it. They all agreed that the enemy was bad, and they all wanted a better alternative (for themselves). In spite of all of this, the resulting situation was worse than when the story began.

To appropriate the parable, for us, the lamppost is the current regime. I acknowledge, that sounds terrible for me to say. It sounds as if I'm saying that the current regime is good. Of course it is nothing of the sort, but it does provide stability. You can usually predict or at least estimate what it is going to do.

If we are to oppose the regime, then we must be ready to replace it with something else, otherwise we are left with the darkness with the thieves and the robbers.

Potential Alternatives To The Regime

With that being said, if the current regime is replaced, we have a few possibilities for the “replacement”.

There could be mass death, and thus no comparable replacement. Such an outcome is not good. Innocents should not be murdered. There are still people out there who have done very little wrong and merely live like any other person if placed in their position. They listened to their elites, perhaps tried to have a family, tried to save money and perpetuate civilization, and they may have even accomplished these things. We don't want them befallen to murder. We're supposed to be better than the current regime.

If the regime is replaced, actually replaced, you could end up with something worse. What we have now is not the worst possible. Human nature is constant, and you can always find something worse than what is already here regardless of the subject. The regime that we are under for now is soft power perversion; They have yet to come to our houses with a shotgun and say, “Do these terrible things or else.” They could still try to do so; The option is still on the table.

You could also get something even further to the left, something even weirder and more perverted than we . The people in charge right now are pretty bad. They have no moral standards, always changing their values with the wind. However, there are people whose moral standards are to be libertines. I've talked about that in some of my Zoomer videos. Their “moral values” are just impulse, stimulation, and dopamine. We don't have those people in power yet, but they can get there. It would be far worse.

What To Do

What can we do?

We would win if we were the ones tearing down the lamppost. Historically that's the case with few exceptions. Those exceptions are notable, though, as sometimes a revolutionary group succeeds in destroying the current order only to then lose to a different group. This famously happened in the French Revolution. Originally it was headed by diehard revolutionaries, the Reign of Terror types, who were then subverted by the Napoleonic types. To generalize about other examples, we have seen conservative revolutions fall to internal Leftism.

Franco comes to mind. How did his reign end? Quite famously, he failed to secure his line of succession, and Spain has fallen into a “liberal democracy”. This fate was realized despite having had forty years of tutelage and purges to solidify a thoroughly Right Wing regime.

This is a lesson that we need to learn. We need to make sure that if we do win, and I presume all of us want to win, we need to have something that comes after us. This is vital, and it can't just be put it off because “It's going to cause division on the Right”. We must sort this out, otherwise we’re at risk of being worse than or on par with the current system.

A Note On The Right And Unity

The previous cautionary tales and explanations presume that we on the Right can and will win. To sort out something first, though, what is the Right? This is a question that has been asked since the inception of Right Wing and Left Wing. Once upon a time, someone like Academic Agent would say that the Right is just people who aren't on the Left. Traditionalists go a bit farther and claim that the Right is anyone who clings on to tradition. White Advocates would say it's anyone favorable to Whites. On the other side, a communist may say that the Right is anyone who advocates for free markets. As we all know, there exists many wildly different and concurrent conceptions of the Right.

There is no inherent unity under this banner. There is no universally shared value. How then do we have a big tent, or a fellowship, or a coalition or something along those lines? After all, these people have different principles, different objectives, different enemies even. They all want to go in different directions, but they’re all on the same team supposedly.

Returning To The Question

So what can we do? Well, one solution for disunity is decentralization. All of the Right’s differences can, in fact, be an advantage.

I'm an entrepreneurship student. That's what I've been studying. Some may think that entrepreneurship is coming up with some grand new idea that's going to revolutionize whatever field you're in. That's not always the case. It could just be doing something better than what's already being done. It could be organizing in a better way.

Applying these studies to the Right, an entrepreneurial analysis of what we have been trying to do so far, specifically getting everyone together under the same flag or in the same coalition while pretending that our differences don’t exist, does not work. It will never work.

The strategy doesn’t even really work against one enemy. If we were to try to get the Right together to fight a specific enemy, as we have been, we will see varying degrees of fervor and different objectives among the factions. Some factions will stop sooner and avoid certain aspects of the regime in their opposition. Some factions might go too far for others, either in method or in their targets. This is the natural result of the method of organization. For that reason (and for the myriad of other reasons that you can extrapolate from the line of reasoning), I would say that the coalition or the big tent is not only impossible, but it is not desirable. Big Tens do not utilize our advantages.

The Solution

We have different factions on the Right, some of which aren't even ideological. Some of them are centered around figures and personalities². What we must accomplish is the formalization of our various groups on the Right. Thus far, the Right’s groups have been largely informal³. The reasoning has been “Don't draw lines. That will only create targets.” As a result, though, there are no boundaries. So long as this continues, we are going experience petty disputes and personality contests and schisms.

If we draw lines between these groups, then we can know what is acceptable between groups and what is not acceptable. Should two groups even choose to interact. For example, if one group is Constitutionalist in nature and another is Neoreactionary, they will not cooperate well together. They don't agree on much and tend to dispute often. If these groups draw lines between the two and stop trying to mix together or futilely endeavor to cooperate past any feasible extent, then they would be more productive as opposed to the current arrangement.

With decentralization, unnecessary drama will be prevented by voluntarily liming association. This is a principle that extends beyond our current case. For example, whenever “liberal democracies” forcibly integrate populations previously separate populations, violence results.

If we start delineating groups, they're going to be more productive. They're going to be happier with each other and they might even get along. That is, the Right Wing’s groups can be friendly with each other from a distance.

Benefits Of Decentralization

Decentralization also allows us to draw upon the knowledge and abilities of these groups. We no longer have to wait on a Caesar or a Franco to “unite the right” into some effective fighting force. Instead, we can be effective with what we have now.

Each group has specialized knowledge and unique traits. More importantly, they all currently have productive capabilities. Being as we all share the same enemies already, the various Right Wing groups are naturally going to put their productive efforts towards building something different.

I don't need to tell the groups to tear down the regime. They're already working toward it anyways. They have been building different institutions, infrastructure, and homeschooling communities, just to give a few examples. These endeavors were chosen independently without requiring a Caesar or Franco to command it directly. This can be extrapolated to a grander scale if we stop sinking our efforts into a mythical big-tent ideal.

Decentralization And Local Organization

The other upside of Decentralization is adaptive local action. If American groups wanted to organize with groups outside of the U.S., trying to make a big tent is nonsensical. Under a Decentralized method of organization, though, cooperation can exist upon the agreement of either side with no expense to ideals or local action or anything else.

Would these smaller, more local groups be in competition? Are we all just in these disparate groups that are bound to be in conflict with each other? I would say the answer is no, at least not for now. Just because these groups are apart does not mean that there has to be conflict.

So instead of division, you can think of this as a confederal model of organization. In a confederal system, for those unaware, the members have no specific authority above each other and share some sort of common cause.

How To Maintain Decentralization

If we formalize boundaries between the groups, we will need an honor code or rules of engagement. If groups develop honor codes and rules of engagement, the Right will be able to know which individuals are within which groups and subject to specific rules and agreements. This allows groups to purge subversives and other undesirable actors who suck energy out of their group for the sake of drama, which will allow those one the Right to stay friendlier with each other for much longer than happens now. Giant splits and schism will no longer occur every couple of years because things get heated, no one wants to back down, and no one wants to compromise. With rules of engagement, this can all be resolved.

Practically Decentralizing

What do I mean by formalized boundaries and drawing lines? Each group should have explicit requirements set by the group or a leader of the group so that other groups know who to deal with and how when discussing cooperation. Membership requirements and other forms of exclusion of outside persons would be the first step, for example. Explicit details on what the group is would be the second step, as the groups need to define themselves.

Not only that, but these Right Wing groups want to be successful, they will also need to competently write their story. We are radical to the modern world, so we also have a story we need to tell. As it currently stands, our history has been written for us by groups that do not like us. In fact, they hate us. Almost all of our history books and all of the history that we’ve been taught in school is either over-exaggerated or practically fabricated. This leads into something called historical revisionism.

The Necessity Of Revising Historical Narratives

Some of you might know of this practice from what the Left tried to do in the last century. They tried to revise historical narratives to fit it in with their ideals. That is not a bad thing in and of itself. What is bad, is that the revised history according to their false lens. They're trying to pervert things and that's what we're supposed to be fighting. They took over the history departments. They took over the history textbooks and now their revised history a century ago is the accepted history now. They won this fight so far, and that is unacceptable for any group on the Right that cares about winning and continuing to win for longer than just a lifetime.

All of these groups on the Right must do something to rectify the current Leftist revisionism. We need to start telling our own stories, which also means that those of us who have a great story to tell you need to start writing it down somewhere just to preserve it. We won't remember it forever, after all. The stories also need to be passed down. We need to show them to other people so they can build on it. We need to start building our own narratives.

Another Imperative For The Right: The Next Generation

You have an oncoming generation who, if they make it far enough, have had to do endure many unique challenges. They haven't had much support. A lot of their families are completely destroyed. Their school systems are standardless. The church is out of their lives. They have little to nothing. And I could go on for hours listing what has been removed by each prior generation to where the Zoomers are left in their current state.

Each of these groups, for the sake of their long-term viability, needs to offer something to the next generation, and each group has the potential to do so. The Christians on the Right, for example, have a very good message to share about a better world coming. That's an example of what you must offer the next generation. It's a form of hope. It's an ideal, it's something to work for. It provides some sort of foundation.

What The Groups Must Provide

It is vital that these groups on the Right start building their own infrastructure. They need to start finding ways to educate people into your group. They need to start to finding ways to support each other.

Something that used to exist before the welfare state in this country was poverty insurance. Regular people would pay into a pool, and if one of them fell below a certain net-worth or got laid off or incurred some expense, then they would draw from the pool. This could only exist in a very tight-knit community. This poverty insurance prevented destitution and guaranteed that families could keep their house and farm and whatever else in the face of trouble. Poverty insurance could be resurrected by communities on the Right. It would at least be a means to defend ourselves against our ruling elites who seek our destruction.

We need to start looking back to see what our forebearers did in similarly hostile conditions and start emulating them. Poverty insurance came about naturally and it will probably do the same here. We’ve already witnessed scores of people getting fired for overtly political reasons. Sometimes, the public takes to crowdsourcing their recovery. Sympathetic companies offer jobs. The groups on the Right need to start doing the same in a more organized and higher quality manner, but first, we need cohesion that can only be nurtured by delineating our own groups.

What About Purity Spirals?

There is a question left in all of this, and its something that's plagues the right already. Wouldn’t these groups just start purity spiraling? We've seen purity spirals already despite being informal. Everyone claims as soon as they get kicked out of an informal group that the group is purity spiraling⁴, and this results in the group being defamed all across the Right.

To address the topic of purity spirals, I would like to focus on two groups in history:

The first would be the Puritans in America. The strange borders between states in the Northeast exist because they were once tiny colonies that were established because another older colony “purity spiraled”. They would kick people out of their communities into the wilderness if they illegally blasphemed (as determined by the colony), and this spurred further colonization of the interior by families of the same heritage. They disagreed on what blasphemy, a major charge, technically was, but for the majority of American history, those English-descended families owned New England. If they had in their development insisted on a large coalition or a big tend, the frontier would not have been tamed so quickly and thoroughly. This was ultimately a benefit from their perspective and from the Right’s current perspective.

The other historical example would be the Left of the last century. When we say “the Left”, it's not some unified group. Quite famously, there existed a Stalin-and-Trotsky paradigm, where both sides wanted the other dead. Beyond the extremities, we see the Social Democrats, the New Liberals, the Greens, and countless others. They all hate each other, believe it or not. It may not seem like that to us because “the Left” triumphed in the last century. They purity spiraled like none other, and also managed to win in the process. They were not so fragile. For example, some Trotskyites managed to escape the Soviet Union and ended up in the New World. They recruited people for their cause and ended up building infrastructure. They also educated whomever they could into their narratives and ideology, and with that they took over the universities. Now, you can see the state of the west today.

The Stalinists back in the Soviet Union had their own “purity spirals” in the form of purges, solidifying the Bolshevik’s grip over the country. In China, the Maoists also split. Their “purity spiraling” led to them taking over more parts of China and ended up strengthening them.

Looking Forward

So to the accusation that the right might start purity spiraling if groups begin to formalize, this is not necessarily a bad thing in the longer term. By the same token, we cannot be too afraid to maintain standards right now. We are in our current position because standards were slackened.

Now, we will hopefully see these different groups on the Right formalizing and actually building their own things instead of sinking energy into some big tent or fruitlessly waiting for some grand leader to direct them.

Overall, I would say decentralization, confederalism specifically, is the path of success for the Right.

1. Note: this is not to say that the ideas laid forth in this speech are official positions of the Old Glory Club or that the Old Glory Club was founded on this speech.

2. Just to note, this is where a majority of the Right’s drama comes from

3. In fairness, this arrangement is supported by good arguments, especially at the time that these arguments were written

4. It should be noted, the accusation of “purity spiraling” is much more dangerous in informal groups because there is nothing to compare actions to. There is no stated beliefs or leadership or past examples or codes of conduct to compare expulsions and other decisions to.