Hellenikon

Herodotus’s definition of ‘Nation’ applied to the American People.

America is a nation.

This statement invites controversy and heavy dispute, even amongst what is colloquially known as the “Dissident Right.” Some of this is justified, as in recent years those representing themselves as American Nationalists have posited all manner of disgusting and stupid things, and besides, there are plenty for whom America is not a homeland.

I confess to being initially loath to offer a definition, since it is a fact that even an attempt will draw fault lines in the Dissident Right, and it is not my intention to alienate unnecessarily. Coalitions to destroy are far easier to maintain than coalitions to build, but I believe that some defense of a true American ethnos must be offered in spite of this. Simply being anti-ZOG may be successful in the end, but it would not substantially alter the sickness ailing our people. Nature abhors a vacuum, and North America will be ruled by a unitary state. The only question is what that will look like.

The great writer Herodotus, well over 2,000 years ago, recounted how the Spartans and Athenians had resolved to define who they were and what they were fighting for on the eve of the second Persian invasion in 480 BC. They settled on 3 main points of Hellenikon (“Greekness”):

• A. having the same blood and language

• B. acknowledging the same temples and religion

• C. observing the same customs

It is well that Herodotus leads with this, because without these components, nations have an incredibly difficult time remaining united. We may here distinguish between a country, an empire, and a nation.

Blood is paramount. From the earliest days this was understood, dating back to Herodotus himself putting it as the very first qualification of a nation. Without blood, all pretentions to nationalism are either synthetic or wholly fictitious. Tacitus, Livy, and many other ancients knew this implicitly, requiring no spelling out. Similarly, the Kings of Old Europe were not known as the Kings of Germany or of Saxony or of England, but as the Kings of the Germans, of the Saxons, or of the English. Holy Scripture makes explicit over and over the reality of national distinctions, setting them forth in the myth of Babel, where God Himself separates men to destroy an imperial project that seeks to challenge Him. Scripture’s word for nation is ethnos, from which we get our word ethnicity, totally precluding any sort of “America is merely an ideal” rhetoric. And the folk religion of the Indo-Europeans, the cult of ancestor worship, further reinforces this. Blood is paramount.

And for us in the American context, a nationalism of blood is part and parcel of the very fabric of our nation. Writing in the 17th century long before the Declaration of Independence, Jonathan Mitchell, a New England Puritan, would famously say, “Family [and by extension common ancestry] is the root from whence church and commonwealth spring.” J.C. Ryle, an Anglican Bishop, would echo this some centuries later, concurring, “Community of blood is a most powerful tie.”

Alexander Hamilton, whose memory our enemies have recently sought to enlist in their attempt to tear America limb from limb and feast on her corpse, would write in the 1780s:

The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education, and family.

John Jay concurred, writing even more forcefully:

With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people; a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs.

Language, too, is indispensable. Even in our current state of national and cultural anarchy, and under what amounts to total occupational government, a clear 70% of Americans believe that speaking English is very important to being truly American. Jay and Hamilton’s quotes of course echo this, and at no time in our nation’s history has there been any doubt that Americans spoke English, simple as that. There is almost a certain danger of underestimating how important this is, because of the total dominance of the English language until quite recently. The German historian Jürgen Osterhammel, in his study of the origins of ideas and inventions, further stated that “language remains decisive as a demarcation criterion of nationality attribution.” Rudyard Kipling, in his seminal poem “The Stranger,” echoes the sentiment that we, the true sons of America, experience often:

The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk—
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.

The men of my own stock
They may do ill or well,
But they tell the lies I am wonted to,
They are used to the lies I tell.
And we do not need interpreters
When we go to buy and sell.

…

These twin wellsprings, blood and language, are absolutely crucial, and we Heritage Americans of the pioneer stock have them in spades. Blood and Language, perhaps more than any other factors, come to define a people, and it is obvious the effects they have had on the North American continent, and on the United States.

Now this next one is trickier. One hundred years ago America was 90% Protestant, which is not perfectly united by any stretch of the imagination religiously, but now it’s significantly more fractious. Obviously new arrivals don’t count in this equation (or any other, as far as this ethnos is considered), but we are still left with a White population that is 29% Evangelical Protestant, 19% Mainline Protestant, 19% Roman Catholic, and 24% Agnostic/Atheist/Unaffiliated.

These all represent factions, to say nothing of the many factions contained in each one. The churches are in no position to shepherd our nation at present, and despite our need to maintain a sort of “unity from the trenches,” we should not rely on any institutional church for help. They are deeply compromised, and they make an enormous amount of money helping replace Americans with foreigners. Yet there is a mere Christianity that can be fostered between them, so long as it is built on a charity towards each other and a deference towards the historic Protestant majority of America.

Customs make up what we would render Culture, or how you live your life, day in and day out. Many aspects of American Culture have died out, as we move from place to place, as family is further separated, but many have endured. Thanksgiving is like this for my family, as we have gathered to give thanks and feast for being given this land, our faith, and each other, for as long as I can remember. I am sure that you can recall like customs your family celebrates, or celebrated. Despite many customs passing out of use, new ones can be made, and some that have faded can be revived or at least memorialized. This is perhaps the most easily remedied of our problems, as in the words of Nick Mason of Myth of the 20th Century:

I believe that from good blood it [a nation] can always be reborn again. There’s always a possible future as long as the blood is maintained.

Surveying the situation from Herodotus’s definition shows that ethnogenesis is already complete. An American ethnos, born of Teutonic blood and the fires of the frontier, has coagulated. Let no one tell you that America is not a nation. You are hers, and she is yours to defend.