RadixJournal - Richard Spencer - Unconscious Cinema - The Secret Service

Sept. 30, 2017 - RadixJournal - Richard Spencer

01:25:03

Unconscious Cinema - The Secret Service

Mark Brahmin and Richard Spencer discuss the films Kingsmen: The Secret Service (2015) and Kingsmen: The Golden Circle (2017). Are they merely spy spoofs with bum jokes or the reactionary, Alt-Right franchise we've been hoping for? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit radixjournal.substack.com/subscribe

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	Unconscious cinema Unconscious cinema Well, Mark, what are we doing talking?
	About Kingsman.
	Isn't this supposed to be a pretentious podcast?
	We're talking about a Lads movie.
	I remember the Lads magazine is from the 90s, like Maxim and all these kinds of things where they would show covers with B-list starlets and soft, pornographic, yet tastefully done.
	Sometimes not so tasteful.
	Photographic shoots.
	I think on one level, at least, the surface level, that is the audience for Kingsman.
	It is most famous for...
	I think the first film, at least, is most famous for leaving everyone either laughing in hilarity or a bit grossed out by a...
	Bum sex joke at the end of the first film.
	But I think on another level, I think this film is...
	And the two films, the whole series and the whole world that they created is extremely triggering to liberals and leftists.
	Even though they're...
	They might...
	A lot of the liberals will probably enjoy it.
	But at the end of the day, the first film offers a vision of a world that is effectively protected by...
	A secret group of all-white English reactionaries who run roughshod across the world, have a license to kill and kill at will.
	Apparently end up getting a lot of girls in the end of it.
	And at the end of the film, basically effectively eliminate the entire global elite class, including the then president of the United States, Barack Obama.
	So, wow, what a movie.
	But anyway, Mark...
	What were your first impressions of it?
	Did you see it in the theater?
	The original Kingsman or the latest one?
	What were your first impressions of the film?
	I think that I shared some of your first impressions, but probably my feeling was, wow, this is a politically incorrect film, but not nearly so politically incorrect as myself.
	True.
	Yeah, I mean, but it did...
	You have to start somewhere, though.
	It's true, it's true.
	And it's kind of a mixed bag.
	In some ways, it's very politically correct, ostensibly, anyways.
	So, my impressions were...
	I found it to be a kind of mildly enjoyable film.
	I wasn't...
	I don't think I'm as much of a fan of the film as you are, but I do recognize that there are valuable elements in the film.
	For which, you know, future alt-right artists, for example, may kind of refine in a sort of alchemy and purify some of those elements.
	No pun intended.
	And so I think that there are some valuable elements to the film.
	And I think that the valuable elements to the film are presenting this kind of elite class of men who project power, who are powerful, who are assertive and active.
	And even if they ultimately are working for kind of egalitarian agenda, which is the case in this film, in both films, they still projected a great kind of imitable image.
	That we should be projecting.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah.
	So that's a very good element to kind of tease out of the film.
	Or it's one of the good elements to tease out of the film.
	But in general, the films are interesting just because they do get at some questions that are very relevant to ourselves.
	Now, the film doesn't necessarily provide...
	Kind of useful or acceptable answers to those questions, but it kind of scratches at some things that are very interesting to us.
	Themes including hierarchy, aristocracy versus meritocracy, aesthetic, appearance, projecting power.
	And the secret society, I think, definitely.
	Sure, the secret society.
	And the necessity of mass genocide on a global scale, of course.
	Oh, wait.
	Did I say that?
	No, just kidding.
	Let me say this, just so no one takes that the wrong way.
	The fact that both of these films, both Kingsman movies, and again, if you haven't seen them and you're listening to this podcast, Why?
	At least go watch the first one.
	I think you might agree you could probably skip the second one.
	Go watch the first one on iTunes or whatever.
	It's an enjoyable romp.
	But yeah, when I say the necessity of genocide on a global scale, what I'm referring to is that these villains offer a kind of flip side.
	The dark side of our current culture.
	And our current culture is out of control population growth, out of control industrialization of the entire planet, out of control consuming in which we imagine that at some point all seven...
	Point whatever billion people will have the same consuming lifestyle as every American or Englishman.
	And that means everyone will have a cell phone and everyone will be buying all sorts of nonsense that they don't need.
	That is going to lead to some kind of cataclysm, that it is impossible.
	So I do think that it gets at a kind of dark conscience of our age.
	And the fact that it's presented through these colorful villains, Samuel L. Jackson's character is totally ridiculous and also both charismatic, but then also very unlikable.
	I don't think anyone shed a tear when he was dispatched with.
	You know, allows us to kind of just think about those dark issues just a little bit without really going there.
	But anyway, let's back up a little bit before we get into that stuff.
	Sure.
	So the opening of The Kingsman is basically these pinstriped, neoconservative maniacs Flying into the Middle East, just shooting at will random Arabs while listening to Dire Straits.
	So it has this almost kind of 80s Thatcher nostalgia or something going on there.
	And that seems to basically set up where the Kingsmen are in the context of the modern age.
	Yeah, I think it's actually a brilliant use of that song, which has one of the best openings of any songs, but then rapidly becomes a very tedious song.
	You know what I mean?
	So it's a perfect place to cut it.
	So it's actually a great, like, open for a film.
	I want my tea.
	But then it grinds down to, like, it just kind of goes downhill from there.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's a very politically...
	Incorrect opening for the film, obviously, because of the issues that we're dealing with in the news and in our lives, in contemporary events with an increase of Muslims in Europe, for example, and sort of the challenges that brings.
	So I think it's kind of a striking...
	It's strikingly politically incorrect, I guess I would say.
	It is politically incorrect.
	Even if they do remind us of neocons, because this film comes after the Bush era and all that kind of stuff.
	So it's hard not to see them as neocon figures.
	But even if they remind us of that, it is still this white Englishman riding high, kicking ass with reckless abandon.
	And that in itself is wildly politically incorrect.
	And the left does hate it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	But it's...
	But, you know, then again, it's, you know, it's a...
	It is very kind of neocon in orientation, I suppose.
	A very culture war-ish.
	I think that that is kind of a theme that's woven into the film in the sense that these kingsmen are, in a sense, crusaders, right?
	Um, and, you know, there's a whole reference to kind of Arthurian mythology that's kind of woven into the film, um, with agents taking on different names of the Knights of the Round Table, for instance.
	Um, so I think that that's an aspect of it.
	So it's quite explicit and sort of, uh, explicit implicit in sort of contrasting, um, uh, the West with Islam, uh, particularly in that first scene.
	Now, it ends up that that's not really a developed theme in either of the two films, but that first scene, though, it obviously contains the theme of culture war, the West versus Islam.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Well, it is interesting when you think about what the Kingsman is, because there's this...
	You know, amusing scene where Eggsy, you know, he's been allowed out of prison and he's taken by Colin Firth down this, you know, elevator that, you know, goes hundreds of feet into the underground and so on.
	And he's explaining Kingsman.
	And he notably says that they were founded in 1848 or 1849 by gentlemen.
	And it's, I don't...
	I think that was a random year.
	It does seem to be some kind of reference to these democratic revolutions that were going on at that point.
	And then, basically, the kingsmen have these trillion-dollar bank accounts because so many of the sons of these noble families died in the Great War.
	And so it is, like, the kingsmen are created as a reactionary group.
	They are not just right-wing, but they're Ancien regime to a large degree.
	Sure.
	Yeah, I mean, and I don't know if we're jumping ahead of ourselves here, but...
	No, just go.
	Yeah, I mean, ultimately, they represent egalitarianism masquerading as elitism, though.
	So, in other words, their opponents...
	Their adversaries are elitists, and they are ultimately for mankind.
	They're defenders of mankind.
	So, in some ways, yeah, there is a kind of sense of aristocracy, but there's also kind of this kind of disjanic sense of, you know, they're protecting whoever.
	I mean, they're not protecting Anglo-Saxons.
	They're not protecting England.
	They're protecting the world as it is.
	Yeah.
	So there's that aspect.
	And I think that that, to a certain extent, it permeates the whole series, especially with a theme, a kind of related theme of this sort of meritocracy versus hierarchy theme, especially with kind of the cultivation of this, the Chav, Eggsy, right?
	Yeah.
	So it is ultimately, they are ultimately defenders of egalitarianism.
	Yeah, let's lay this out, actually, because this is quite complicated.
	I don't think our listeners quite got this.
	So, yeah, the the the Kingsmen are in their way like the most elitist group, at least ostensibly in terms of the people there.
	You have all of you know, you have all of these white males and male.
	I mean, despite the fact that Arthur was played by Michael Caine, he it does seem to be a who's, you know, has a London, you know, accent.
	I'm sure there's probably a name for it, the particular accent he has.
	But they they do have this, you know, upper crust quality to them.
	They they know how to mix a martini.
	They know how to wear a suit.
	They know where to wear a signet ring, you know, and and so on.
	They they carry umbrellas.
	They you know, they they dress.
	And on the other hand, you have the villain, Richmond Valentine, played by Samuel L. Jackson, as just the expression of the ultimate egalitarian or everyman or something.
	He doesn't understand any of those things because he's a Silicon Valley billionaire.
	And so because he's so wealthy, he knows that you have to spend...
	You know, loads of money on wine and, you know, aged fine whiskeys and all this kind of stuff.
	But in terms of what he actually likes to eat, he just likes a Big Mac.
	You know, I mean, he's just an expression, not even like of a working class, but just this like mass idiot with, you know, elements of black culture thrown in.
	But on the other hand, he is the ultimate elitist.
	He cares about the future of the Earth in a way that the Kingsmen don't.
	The Kingsmen think it's all a bunch of gobbledygook, all the global warming, mumbo-jumbo.
	And at the same time, he is kind of like a terrifying, monstrous elite that is actually going to eliminate the population.
	He basically is Alex Jones' worst nightmare in the sense of some guy who's engaging in some mass eugenic depopulation scheme.
	In a sense, he's something that just doesn't exist.
	Right.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	According to Alex Jones, Bill Gates is actually attempting to depopulate Africa.
	He's just very ineffective.
	Very ineffective, luckily.
	Or maybe all those Africans are listening to Infowars and avoiding the...
	The water or something.
	I never really understood the appeal of that guy.
	Maybe someone could explain it to me at some point.
	I understand the appeal of him.
	He's like...
	From a comedic level, I can.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Indeliberately funny figure, but...
	Perhaps deliberately at this point.
	I think he's kind of doing it with a...
	You know, I think he's doing it with a tongue-in-cheek at this point, actually.
	Yeah, I mean, I guess we're off topic, but I guess he's entertaining in the sense that he just seems like this raving, shouting, like, madman, which is what he is, unless he's kind of doing it tongue-in-cheek.
	I don't think we're off topic at all, because it's fascinating that these people like Alex Jones, like, the way they view the world might be totally nutballs.
	With regard to what's actually happening.
	But it makes good movies.
	And the fact that The fact that Alex Jones, despite himself, despite his criticism of Hollywood or something, is so informed by mass culture is telling.
	Even InfoWars seems to have a Star Wars quality to it.
	I don't know if he still does this.
	I remember...
	Looking at his YouTube videos many years ago, like during the financial collapse in 2008-2009.
	And he was always playing the theme from Starship Troopers.
	This really stirring thing.
	Like, welcome back to Infowars.
	And he'll often use these references.
	If you're listening to this, you are the resistance.
	Which is both like a...
	It's a reference to multiple films.
	Like with Star Wars and the Terminator.
	He has this cartoonish vision of reality, basically.
	And I think that's actually quite telling.
	It says a lot about what he's doing and the fact that his view of the world actually really does make good movies in a way that a libertarians wouldn't.
	But if you actually take Alex Jones seriously, you're like, oh my god, this could be an amazing plot for an outlandish film.
	One of those Bond movies they don't make anymore is Harry Hart laments.
	Yeah.
	No, I mean, I don't disagree.
	I mean, David Icke, for example, seems to have modeled his worldview on Conan the Barbarian.
	Really?
	Or some equivalent.
	Well, no, I mean, I'm sure there are different elements, but yeah, the idea of these lizard men is a theme that's in the Robert E. Howard work.
	Wow.
	Yeah, but he also...
	You know, he took it from sort of these esoteric sources, right?
	He was deriving his work from these esoteric sources.
	So, in any case, yeah, I mean, I think that there is some element of that.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But anyway, so Samuel L. Jackson, Richmond Valentine, is the ultimate elitist.
	He's friends with all these billionaires.
	He wants to basically save the billionaires.
	He's looking for various celebrities and fellow Silicon Valley rich people, etc.
	They're going to all be saved.
	And he utilizes the deep state as well.
	He finds some parliamentarians who ultimately don't care about the country and want to actually do something this time and so on.
	So he is the ultimate elitist, and the kingsmen are, in their way, egalitarians.
	I mean, it's also telling that, you know, these kingsmen, it's like...
	They are an expression of something traditional.
	You think just the name itself.
	They could have named this anything.
	It's interesting that James Bond works for MI6, which is this post-World War II, highly...
	Bureaucratized military intelligence division.
	Whereas the Kingsmen work for something that is inherently archaic.
	They are connected to a king.
	They are his knights, as they say.
	It's almost like they took a lot of the metaphors of James Bond that are just below the surface, but never explicit, and they made them explicit.
	Sure.
	I think that's a good analysis.
	Yeah, but they're not fighting for England, or they're not fighting for a nation.
	I mean, I don't think they really can do that.
	I mean, it would be great to have a Kingsman fight off the refugee crisis or something.
	I think that might be slightly too politically incorrect.
	They always have to fight against someone who's destroying the world, which is the world as it is, which they're always defending.
	And so, at the end of the day, They're defending the world of mass culture baloney and idiocy and white dispossession and so on.
	They're not defending England.
	And they're even defending the world of the vulgarity that Matthew Vaughn indulges in, in a way.
	Because on one level...
	Matthew Vaughn has made this incredibly good-looking film on a sartorial sense.
	The suits that they have are really awesome.
	They actually even have a clothing line based on Kingsman.
	I don't know if you saw this, but if you go to mrporter.com, which is a high-priced men's wear.
	I'll check it out on occasion.
	But yeah, there's a Kingsman line.
	So you can buy some of these suits inspired by the film.
	So it is funny.
	While other films...
	We offer Happy Meals.
	These guys offer $1,500 suits.
	But anyway, it's all quite good-looking stuff.
	He's made this old-style, refined taste, really great suits.
	But at the same time, he indulges in chav culture big time.
	At the end of the film, you walk out of the film and it's like, oh, Eggsy gets to...
	Eggsy gets to bum the princess, which is, again, I'm not saying I don't find that amusing on some level, but it does radically undercut what he was going for.
	Maybe I shouldn't say that.
	Maybe that's exactly what he was going for.
	That's something you wouldn't really see in a Bond film.
	Something that explicitly vulgar and tasteless.
	And he did it again.
	In the second Kingsman, there's this...
	Eggsy has to go finger a girl at some music festival in order to get a...
	Yeah, some kind of nanobot or whatever in this one.
	I mean, it was just...
	The whole thing, it was just so clearly reverse-engineered.
	I mean, they could have tracked that woman in a million different ways, but they just created this so that he could have this insanely vulgar shot where Eggsy's fingering the girl and then the camera literally goes inside her.
	It's absurd, but in some ways, that's ultimately the world that the Kingsmen are defending.
	They are staving off elitist, globalist madmen, but they're not actually making Englishmen better.
	Maybe they're making Eggsy a better person, but they're not making...
	The world a better place.
	They're just continually saving it.
	Yeah, they're conservatives.
	They're neocons.
	They're protecting the status quo.
	There is...
	So, I don't know if it's now appropriate to go...
	Don't ask questions.
	Just go.
	Don't ask questions.
	Yeah, so, I mean, that goes to sort of these, which kind of reoccur in both films, are these kind of fantasies of mass genocide that appear in both films, where in the first instance, you have Samuel Jackson's character.
	Interested in, you know, depopulating the earth and saving what he refers to as the chosen, which, you know, was kind of a pretty politically incorrect sequence in the film.
	Yeah.
	You know, at some point, Samuel Jackson has a speech where he's gathered all, you know, this kind of Americanized elite comprising of celebrities and various others.
	I guess some nobility in there is in there as well, but kind of an elite of people.
	And he's gathered them into this bunker where they will be saved, but the rest of the world will be destroyed.
	And during that speech, he refers to this bunker as kind of a Noah's Ark and refers to the people within the bunker who will be saved as the Chosen.
	Now, it's kind of an edgy moment in cinema.
	Because everyone associates the word, or the phrase, rather, the chosen with the Jews, obviously.
	Sure.
	So, sensibly, a comparison is being made between this group that will be saved, this kind of mass genocide, with the Jews.
	And so, in some kind of vague way, demonizing Jews.
	I mean, I don't think that that...
	It couldn't have gone without notice.
	I would agree with that.
	Sure, yeah.
	Yeah, but I also don't think that...
	I think it was done in such a way that if it was noticed, it likely wasn't commented on, right?
	In other words, in any case, I think it was something that they were able to get away with because they were kind of walking a line because the comparison was sort of vague.
	For one, Samuel Jackson is kind of the leader of the group, right?
	Right.
	Essentially, they're not Jews because he's African-American.
	And essentially, the people in the group are drawn from all different ethnicities.
	I mean, probably mostly white, though.
	It seemed like they were mostly white.
	Yeah.
	So it was theoretically kind of an edgy moment.
	I think that...
	And you and I had this conversation a little bit before.
	I think that one of the kind of things going on here is that the chosen, right?
	So immediately, I think that the audience, probably most of the audience, I don't think many people are ignorant of the phrase, the chosen, as a reference to Jews.
	Most of the audience is led to think, okay, well, these people who are trying to survive, We're evil ones, right?
	Whereas, like, the kind of great herd of humanity, that's me.
	Those are the good guys.
	We're just, like, kind of a big degenerate herd.
	We don't really care what happens.
	We're going to baseball games.
	We've got these, like, degenerate mothers that are, like, you know, trying to knife through walls to kill children or whatever the case may be.
	I mean, that's sort of an oblique reference unless you've seen the film.
	So, there is this kind of...
	It's kind of, you know, you're setting up effectively kind of a false opposition, this kind of, this egalitarian herd versus the elitist, the chosen, whether they're Jews or otherwise, right?
	And this is a phenomenon that happens in Christianity as well, right?
	Because I think it would much, and I think this is actually the way Christianity was designed, it would much be preferred that people hate Jews and view them as a chosen, but don't imitate Jews in believing themselves also.
	is chosen.
	Right.
	Rather than to like Jews and imitate Jews or not like Jews and imitate Jews, right?
	In the sense that you're trying to create a posterity or continuance into the future, right?
	Right.
	Just to reiterate what you were saying.
	Yeah.
	I mean, Christianity's relationship with the Jews is deeply ambivalent, to say the least.
	And it can often flip in different ways.
	So there certainly is Christian anti-Semitism where the Jews are this evil, elite, highly nepotistic, closed off community that killed Jesus and rejected him and so on.
	And then there's the almost flip side of that, which is that the Jews are this wonderful, chosen, people whom we must protect and die for like the Christian Zionism view.
	But at no point do Christians want to be the Jews, which is the ultimate overcoming of them.
	And I don't mean become the Jews literally or, or, or even to, or even in an exactly analogous way in the sense of we're just going to be this big, you know, secret group that, you know, but just to, to be the Jews in the sense that one has a, Strong sense of one's ethnic identity.
	One lives for one's people and one's future, that is one's children, and so on.
	And one is willing to ultimately rule and be an elite.
	It seems like the Christian message is either one of resentment or the flip side of resentment, which is idolatry.
	Sure.
	And, you know, the Christian Zionist.
	The Christian Zionist is just like a flip side of the anti-Semite.
	Yeah, well, I mean, it's sort of a kind of full-spectrum psychological control, because Jews are both the devil and God, right?
	So either way, you're either afraid of them, or you're worshipping them, right?
	Or you're also afraid of them.
	You're afraid of them, that seems to be the point.
	That's true.
	You're cowed by them in either scenario, right?
	Yeah, so that's a function of Christianity.
	Yeah.
	And also a function of multiculturalism in the way that it's developed, right?
	So, yeah.
	There's one self-serving group that's going to kill the rest of humanity.
	We are part of the rest of humanity, and we must stop that group.
	And we need to call upon, you know, ruthless, gentlemanly yet cold-blooded, you know, knights to protect us.
	I guess the question would be, why don't the Kingsmen rule the world?
	Because the Kingsmen, one interesting thing about them is that the relationships between the Kingsmen themselves, there's a sweetness to it all.
	Even though Harry Hart disciplines Eggsy and gets disappointed in him and so on, He has this sweet, paternalistic relationship towards him.
	And he wants Eggsy to do better.
	He wants to give Eggsy second and third chances because he knows that Eggsy has a good heart.
	And so on.
	And you can see that with their relationship with Roxy.
	When they're in this Harry Potter school for spies, no one's going to ultimately die.
	It's all about teaching life lessons.
	Not only will none of the kingsmen actually die because all of the...
	The scenarios they have, like flooding the bedroom with water or dropping them out of a plane without a parachute or whatever.
	All of those are ultimately fake trials.
	No one's going to die.
	You don't even have to truly kill the dog.
	You just have to be willing to do that.
	For the greater good, but you don't ultimately have to.
	You get to eat your cake and eat it too.
	And so the question is, if these people are so wonderful, and needless to say, they are better people than Richmond Valentine's Company or the Golden Circle, which is just a bunch of trashy, insane sociopaths.
	Clearly, they are better than them.
	Why don't they rule the world?
	As opposed to...
	You know, constantly, you know, saving the world from one crisis, one madman after another.
	Why don't they rule it?
	And that does get to some kind of, like, ultimate impotence with the kingsmen or the statesmen.
	Or, I mean, to put it another way, why don't they make the world sort of in their image, right?
	Yeah.
	Because I guess, in a sense, they do rule the world.
	In the sense that they protect it and they continue it.
	Right.
	And it's kind of a degenerate form.
	Yeah.
	No, I mean, these are all valid questions.
	Why are they always hiding?
	Because, I mean, this is something that you brought up when we were just chatting about this film before we started recording.
	But, you know, it's like, you know, on one level...
	And this goes for James Bond as well.
	And this gets us some interesting themes.
	I mean, on one level, Bond...
	Or the Kingsmen are totally ostentatious.
	You know, you can't, they're not going to exactly blend in to a crowd when they have these fine tailored suits and are using all these, you know, archaic accoutrement, you know, classic umbrellas and, you know, these designer eyeglasses and all this kind of stuff.
	But on another level, they're hidden.
	I mean, they are spies.
	The joke about James Bond, you have this charismatic...
	They're kind of, you know, somewhat Byronic, but also charismatic figure who everyone knows his name at every hotel across Europe or something, and yet he's a spy.
	It's like, you know, I think George Smiley would be a better spy, obviously, because no one notices him when he enters or leaves a room.
	No one notices.
	Yeah.
	But anyway, they have this, like, they're ostentatious on one level, but on another level, it's all secret.
	Like, what they represent, Can't be brought out into the open.
	No, I mean, what you're touching on is a very important theme.
	And it is kind of the irony of these James Bond films, and this film as well, is that they are ultimately these thonic figures, right?
	And they're not Apollonian in the sense that they're not openly ruling, right?
	In fact, their name Kingsman is a very ironic name.
	Because in some sense, they're not kingsmen, because the king is kind of the ultimate Apollonian figure in the sense that he rules openly.
	He doesn't rule secretly.
	And that's why, you know, that's why in this kind of very difficult period of the Middle Ages, kings were getting killed all the time, right?
	Because they were openly taking power and accepting the responsibility of power.
	Right.
	In a so-called democratic age, the age in which we live now, people don't accept responsibilities.
	Or they don't accept the responsibility for power.
	Right.
	They wield it, but they don't accept the responsibility for power.
	And they avoid, in this way, they avoid the danger of power in a lot of cases.
	But it makes men sort of dishonest.
	Not courageous.
	I mean, I think in some sense it probably, to wield world power in the way that people do wield world power, they should declare themselves kings.
	Say, you know, I'm your ruler.
	They say, I'm the king.
	You know what I mean?
	And in this way, we would have models that we could look to who were courageous people, who could stand behind every kind of decision they make.
	And take responsibility for every decision they make.
	Right.
	You know?
	I mean, it's not...
	Nietzsche says that every...
	And this is true, as much of what he says is true, that every society is an oligarchy.
	And that was no less true when kings were ruling us, right?
	Or ostensibly ruling us.
	Really, what determines the character of a society is the nature of that oligarchy and the character of that oligarchy.
	Yeah.
	But yeah, and I think that that is a very interesting point, and it's a point that also applies to 007, it applies to Kingsman, it also applies to another alt-right favorite, Batman, right?
	Yeah.
	So...
	Who's both Apollonian and phonic.
	I mean, in his Apollonian sense, he's Bruce Wayne, you know, philanthropist, good-looking.
	In some variations, he's good with the ladies and some not.
	But then he's obviously the ultimate phonic character in the sense that he operates as this, like, you know, dark, vampiric, you know, he's almost like a...
	You know, Hades-like figure, you know, operating in the night.
	You can only see his eyes glowing from the corner.
	I mean, he becomes a devil-like figure.
	Sure.
	That's the only way he can operate.
	I mean, the reference to vampires is explicit, obviously.
	Batman.
	Yeah.
	And the setting is gothic.
	It's Gotham, right?
	So he inhabits Gotham as a kind of gargoyle.
	So, yeah, so he actually takes on the ugly appearance of this sort of degenerated setting of Gotham.
	Yeah.
	Rather, and hides this sort of elevated Apollonian appearance in existence that exists kind of in a secret world that he occupies among a kind of a social elite or whatever the case may be.
	Yeah.
	So he ultimately...
	It's not helping.
	I mean, he ultimately is a phonic figure that has carved out a kind of vampiric existence in a decadent setting, right?
	Right.
	So, yeah.
	No, I mean, these are all interesting points.
	What is the deeper, like, mythic background to...
	To this, manners maketh the man.
	It's the Pygmalion myth, basically.
	There's a George Bernard Shaw play called Pygmalion, which is the basis for a very famous musical, My Fair Lady, which is referenced explicitly in Kingsman.
	And it is this notion.
	I mean, it's a notion.
	It's a very cynical notion and a very...
	You could say cynical leftist notion as well, that classes are all bullshit.
	All class really is, is obviously the money, but then just a series of manners that one can put on, like putting on a cloak or take off.
	And that Harry Hart or Professor Higgins can just create an aristocrat.
	You know, out of a plebe just to amuse himself, in Professor Higgins' case, in Harry Hart's case, in order to save the world.
	But that one can kind of create a human being like a statue.
	But I mean, again, that's almost like a greater...
	That's like a more positive quality to it.
	The more negative quality to it is this, you know, again, cynical leftist view of the elite as all a bunch of...
	You know, mannered fops.
	But it's almost like Harry Hart or Kingsman, it wants to take that egalitarian critique and kind of turn it on its head and say, yeah, this is the great thing.
	Like, we can all become.
	But not all.
	I don't know.
	What do you make of this?
	No, I mean, on one level, it's a, you know, a cultural determinist view, right?
	So he can be...
	It's not really about...
	Sartorial determinist.
	Yeah, and it's not a...
	Implicitly, it's not a geneticist view.
	Though he is white.
	I mean, actually, he is white.
	And everyone in Kingsman's white.
	That's true.
	Though the changes in the second film, or at least in the sort of American edition that we'll talk about.
	Yeah.
	But yeah, so I would say, look, I mean, I think it's an important topic to have.
	I mean, they also say at one point in the film, they talk about how the aristocracy declined, and at some point they all got weak chins, is how they put it in the film.
	Yeah.
	Look, I mean, that's all kind of real phenomena, right?
	Yeah.
	So, you know, the Greeks have this wonderful myth about Hercules.
	Now, Hercules, he is a half-mortal, so he's only half-descended.
	I believe Zeus is his father.
	So he's only half-descended from the gods.
	So as a consequence, he lives his life performing these trials, right?
	And at the beginning of his life...
	Hera hopes to kill him.
	Now, ostensibly, this is because she's jealous because Zeus produces offspring, but there might be another kind of level there where you might see it as kind of aristocracy competing with sort of a rising or a nascently rising group that is not necessarily of a founding stock, for example.
	Right.
	Through these trials, he's finally admitted.
	He's one of the few heroes.
	He might even be the only hero, as far as I know, that's admitted to Olympus.
	And so, while we all believe in the power of heredity, I don't think anyone in the alt-right does not believe in the power of heredity, and the sort of overwhelming power of heredity.
	We also know, we also believe in the power of culture, obviously.
	Otherwise, we wouldn't be offended by the complete garbage culture that we live in today, right?
	Because we know that the culture has a kind of breeding effect on the people that inhabit the society, right?
	So culture in that way does determine, right?
	It determines to some extent or another.
	Actually, to a huge extent, I would say, it determines breeding choices, right?
	Sure.
	So, yeah, I mean, it's a very important, and so the kind of oligarchies, whether they were called monarchies or aristocracies, they, you know, there's never really been anything called a meritocracy.
	I mean, that's never existed.
	There's no such thing as a meritocracy or pure meritocracy, per se.
	In the way that, you know, democracy is not really, it doesn't really describe anything or in any kind of finite way.
	It doesn't really describe it.
	Well, democracy is a very different thing than a meritocracy.
	It is.
	It is.
	But, I mean, you'll often hear Jews, for example, talk about, you know, one of the great things about the decline of the WASP establishment was kind of the rise of this meritocracy.
	Right.
	We know that's absolute horseshit.
	I mean, we don't live in any more of a meritocracy now than we lived in then, right?
	All that has changed is a kind of criteria, especially a kind of outlook, by which people are allowed to kind of rise in this meritocracy.
	Yeah, all that's changed is who and whom.
	Sure.
	But the ethnic nepotism, That existed before, exists now.
	Arguably, it's much stronger now.
	Yeah.
	So the idea of a meritocracy is something that's both, you know, describes something very nebulous, but it's also something that's always existed through all time, you know?
	I mean, people, if you had a kind of, in ancient Europe, you had a ruling sort of Aryan group come in and...
	You know, conquer whatever natives were, or whatever the case may be.
	They would be interested in people that could do things that were valuable to them, right?
	While still retaining a sense of their blood and ancestry and realizing that on some level they were superior to the group that they had conquered, right?
	And so exceptions are always made, right?
	And now the question is, how far do you take that, right?
	And I don't think you have to take it necessarily that far.
	But, I mean, where we take it, the alt-right, is my understanding, is we extend that to all Europeans, right?
	Right.
	So, I mean, I guess that's how that kind of implicit conflict that arises.
	Kingsman, that's how I would characterize it, or that's how I would encourage people to think about it.
	Yeah.
	No, I mean, like I said, I think there are some interesting themes embedded in the film that are worth kind of discussing, that are valuable as discussions on their own.
	The other remark, too, that was kind of in this vein of cultural determinism was there was this Hemingway quote.
	That heart says to Eggsy, and I just looked it up.
	There's nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man.
	True nobility is being superior to your former self.
	It's a great quote.
	Yeah, it's a great quote.
	The first sentence is false, though.
	The second sentence is great, yeah.
	I mean, sure, we should be seeking to improve ourselves and becoming kind of sort of the best form of ourselves that we possibly can be.
	There's nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man, though, is false on its face.
	Nobility is defined by being superior to someone, effectively, right?
	Right.
	So, but, you know, I do think the second part of that quote, though, is valuable.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	We need to be the best form of ourselves that we possibly can be.
	Right.
	Obviously, the first half is utterly stupid and makes no sense.
	But I would say maybe from a certain kind of Nietzschean perspective, we could say that becoming noble is a personal project.
	We have to come in control of ourselves.
	We have to present ourselves as worthy of rule, that this is what it means to become noble.
	Even if we don't achieve ultimate power, this is how we should act and how we should view this project.
	Yes.
	No, and it's especially relevant in decadent times, right?
	Because there is actually no nobility now, right?
	Right.
	So, yes, we have to be noble.
	It's Yaki's culture-bearing stratum.
	Right.
	It's down to us.
	It's, you know, a couple of guys, you and, like, Enoch and whatever.
	We're the culture-bearing stratum, right?
	We're going to rely on Mike Enoch for the future of nobility.
	I wouldn't underestimate it.
	I know.
	I'm just poking fun at him, of course.
	And, well, we all deserve that, Barb.
	Oh, yeah.
	And I think that...
	All this is good.
	It's going to work out, in my opinion.
	We're all sort of just now finding ourselves in the dark, right?
	So, we are the kind that we are is kind of absurd and delusional, as it seems to say.
	We are kind of a nascent aristocracy.
	You know, what we build, what we save, and what we build, and what we form, especially.
	Is going to be the future, because there is no other future.
	You know, the future is being kind of systematically destroyed by everyone else.
	Right?
	Right.
	So, yeah.
	So, in that way, we're kind of the seed.
	And, I mean, to an extent, I mean, there are men among us right now who are kind of these kingsmen in the sense that they might be donating to MPR, they might be...
	You know, in the shadows, assisting in ways that are not Apollonian in the manner that you are.
	I mean, that is kind of your function.
	You're kind of the...
	You are...
	And I don't mean to give you a big head, but you are...
	Or at least the idealized cinema form of Richard Spencer is the Apollonian version of the Kingsman, right?
	You're out there.
	And frankly, more people have to get out there, obviously.
	But the people that are not out there...
	Should be...
	You're the machine gunners, right?
	Now, World War I was a bad scene and was completely dysgenic.
	But if you can imagine Richard running with a fucking bayonet across the field, you're the machine gunner.
	So you gotta start laying down the fire.
	And that means donating money to these worthy causes.
	You know what I mean?
	Whether it's, you know, Enoch or Richard or whoever.
	Yeah, yeah, I agree.
	I agree.
	Oh, well, you know, the other thing I was going to say, too, is this film is about looking good, right?
	Which is a very good, and we've already talked about this a little bit in the idea of the Apollonian.
	It's about looking good.
	And, you know, I'm not one necessarily to talk because my position might be a little different than yours, but...
	You guys need to fucking look good.
	I was telling Richard the other day that, you know, if he had 60 guys in suits like they're wearing in the film, it would be like Cortez against the Aztecs.
	I mean, it's really that simple.
	Because we're in degenerate conditions, which are terrible.
	But that means that everyone is effectively soft as well.
	And that's what people need to start realizing, right?
	That we, you know, if we just become...
	Sort of something closer to what our ancestors were, but kind of refined by all the knowledge that we have now.
	You know, it's going to be a joke.
	It's going to be a joke, in my opinion.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Because there aren't really other powers out there that are kind of worthy of contesting us on a psychological level, right?
	Right.
	Because we're getting at something very deep.
	And we're sort of...
	We're kind of what people want to be, once they start becoming honest with themselves, right?
	So if they start seeing kind of an improved image in the alt-right, you know, when you go to these events to support Richard, I mean, obviously, you know, dress well.
	Don't dress, don't bring your fedoras, don't dress like an idiot, obviously, but, you know, seriously, right?
	I mean, and, you know, and if you need some tips, talk to Richard.
	I mean, honestly.
	But I think that that is part of, and I think also, I don't want to steal your thunder so you can pick up at any point when I start this description there, but it's also a part of making the exterior as noble as the interior, right?
	Yeah, exactly.
	This is a very important point.
	And, you know, there are lots of...
	Modern stereotypes or myths that we have that actually are quite destructive.
	One of them is of the dumb blonde.
	I think that's a very interesting one.
	And another one is of the nerd.
	And that basically, the only type of person who is admirably intelligent is socially awkward and almost extreme in his knowledge and skills.
	It's not the Renaissance man that is...
	And I don't mean that in the sense of, oh, he's a dilettante, he's mediocre at everything.
	No, I mean in the sense of someone who really can do it all.
	That's not our ideal in terms of intelligence.
	Our ideal intelligence is the nerd, the Einstein, the Urkel, and so on.
	It's the person with this bloated abilities in one area and totally...
	You know, atrapied abilities in every other one.
	And that is the vision.
	I think it probably, there probably actually is even a Jewish history to this vision of intelligence, of the expert or the scientist, as adhering to a certain kind of, you know, Jewish nebbish quality, as opposed to the...
	You know, more aristocrat, you know, aristocratic Apollonian qualities of Europeans.
	But yeah, it's like we assume this dichotomy between intelligence and appearance.
	And that probably gets back to that dichotomy between, you know, which is, again, it's a very Christian myth of like, oh, they're ugly on the outside, but what a good soul this person has.
	No.
	I mean, the way we should view things is that people should be beautiful on the inside and the outside.
	I mean, there should be a continuity and direct equation between one's outer appearance and one's inner character.
	And the Kingsmen, for all their faults, and for all the movie's faults, and for all the movie's vulgar moments, it does actually present that.
	I mean, the Kingsmen aren't duplicitous dissemblers, you know, in their top hats and pinstripes.
	I mean, they are ultimately noble-souled people.
	And we definitely should try to create that, you know, equation again.
	Yeah.
	No, I mean, I agree 100% with what you're saying.
	It's the Apollonian versus these more specialized types, effectively.
	And what has happened in our culture is that It's become riven from fashion.
	All these things.
	And these have had a devastating effect on us, right?
	We need to become more of these sort of polymathic types, these well-rounded...
	I mean, even the expression all-American.
	All-American used to mean a guy who was both good at sports and a guy who was a good student.
	Intelligent, athletic.
	Good looking.
	We want all these attributes.
	These actually are requisite attributes for survival.
	This is our type, right?
	So this is the type that we have to kind of redesign in a way, right?
	And so that's part of our project.
	And the other thing I was going to say, just to put it in kind of a less heady, shorter term way.
	There's a kind of wonderful metaphor that emerges in the film where they refer to the suit that the guy's wearing as a suit of armor, right?
	And so the Kingsmen, each of the Kingsmen receives a suit, right?
	And there's a metaphor that the Kingsmen became tailors.
	They went into the clothing business.
	And they give all their knights, as they call them, or their agents, they give them these suits.
	And the metaphor they use in the film is each suit is a suit of armor, right?
	Now, that's entirely the case, right?
	So, and that's how, just in a kind of utilitarian, if you want to think about it in an entirely utilitarian manner, because I'm sure, look, there are plenty of guys out there who are, you know, intelligent guys that are in the alt-right, who are just like, you know what, it seems a little elitist, whatever, I just want to...
	Do whatever the fuck, you know, whatever.
	Yeah.
	You guys need to get your shit together is what I'm saying.
	The suit of armor, no, no, seriously, the suit of armor is a perfect metaphor, right?
	Right.
	So, if you look good, people don't fucking give a shit.
	I mean, the fact is, our ideas are irrelevant to most people.
	They're relevant to us.
	We're kind of the brain, as it were, of the movement.
	So, the brain is going to value ideas, right?
	But the rest of the body doesn't value ideas.
	It values commands.
	And the way that the commands are sent are by images, right?
	Right.
	So we need to send that image to the rest of the body.
	The rest of the body is going to get the fuck up.
	That's how you do it.
	You know what I mean?
	So it's not all about image, obviously.
	We need the ideas.
	We have the ideas.
	Now we have to start transmitting the ideas in the form of images, right?
	And one of those images...
	If you're an activist, it's looking good, right?
	Now, if that means, you know...
	And, you know, you guys are walking down an aesthetic, which is great.
	But at some point, that aesthetic needs to be suits, in my opinion.
	You just need to have suits, right?
	It needs to be at least 50 core guys with suits.
	And then people will be like, what the fuck?
	These guys are so badass.
	Honestly, you know?
	Because who else is going to do that out there?
	No one is going to do that.
	In fact, explicitly, the whole egalitarian anti-white thing is against that aesthetic and that look.
	Yeah.
	So they actually won't even have an answer for it.
	I mean, they couldn't get 10 guys.
	I mean, they could probably get some of the neocon guys.
	Yeah, to their credit, in a way.
	I think it's also extremely telling about Silicon Valley.
	What is the uniform for Silicon Valley?
	Mark Zuckerberg, it's literally flip-flops, jeans, and a t-shirt.
	And even the Apple executives who dress up, they don't wear much more beyond a sports shirt.
	That's about as dressy as they present themselves, you know, when they're presenting an image of themselves to the world.
	And sometimes they'll dress up like they look like they're working out or something.
	You know, it's like some kind of synthetic, you know, like workout.
	Clothing or something.
	It's never...
	They never want to present themselves as an elite.
	I mean, I guess we're returning to that dichotomy where it's like the contemporary global elite wants to present itself as either invisible or as effectively democratic or even prole.
	Yeah.
	And there's a need for ultimately an elite.
	I mean, maybe we'll have to act like this.
	I mean, there is a phonic element to what we're doing where we need to present ourselves.
	We need to hide our power levels, so to speak.
	We need to present ourselves as toothless.
	But then, you know, at the end of the day, there needs to be an elite that presents itself as an elite.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	And I think that the advantage of that, at least on the street level, Right.
	Which is where we have greater access.
	It'll create a profound contrast between you and your adversaries.
	Right.
	You're wearing suits.
	These guys are dressed like ninjas or whatever the fuck they're doing.
	You know what I mean?
	And the aesthetic difference between the two, I mean, you'll immediately win the support of the public.
	Yeah.
	It'll be like, yeah, those guys are good-looking guys.
	They're dressed well.
	That's all I need to know.
	That's all they need to know.
	That's all they've ever needed to know.
	I hate to break it to you.
	You know what I mean?
	All these ideas that you love, I mean, the great ideas to share with one another and to cultivate and develop.
	But when the rubber hits the road, you know, I mean, in fact, the only place where they're sort of maintaining...
	The suits and stuff is in the news media, right?
	The news media is dying.
	The political class is dying, too.
	Because the people that don't think they're full of shit at this point are all boomers, right?
	Yeah.
	So both the political class and the mainstream media are dying.
	Those guys are wearing suits.
	I think you need to grab those suits at some point.
	It's my feeling.
	But not to countersignal your point, that I think that we need to be moving on all platforms and in all shapes and forms, right?
	So if someone has developed a different aesthetic or is looking for another approach, it's fine by me.
	I'm just saying that there also needs to be people who are gathering.
	And in defense of Mike Enoch.
	Whom I poked fun at earlier.
	Maybe there needs to be a little bit of both going on.
	Maybe we have to reach people where they are a little bit, in the sense of being more relaxed and down-to-earth.
	You know, Mike's uniform, like when we've done public appearances, Mike's uniform is, you know, like jeans and an Eddie Bauer vest and a sports shirt or something.
	No, he looks good.
	I think he wears a jacket.
	I think he wears a jacket, right?
	He has worn a jacket as well, yeah.
	And then my aesthetic is the suit.
	And not a boring black suit like you see in Washington, all these boxy black suits like you see all these doofuses wearing.
	But one that has color and character to it.
	Yeah, I'm describing this as a development, right?
	So, and I agree with you 100%.
	I mean, what Mike is doing over TRS is really amazing in a lot of ways.
	But he, you know, so the way I think about it is kind of moving from the Dionysian to the Apollonian.
	Yeah.
	And that's what Nietzsche describes.
	He describes how the Apollonian always rises from the Dionysian, and vice versa, of course.
	Yeah.
	So he's sort of, in some sense, he's in this Dionysian realm in the sense that he's making these vulgar jokes, right?
	Keck is like a totem of Dionysus, effectively.
	Yeah, definitely.
	He's a chaos god.
	He's clearly a Dionysian figure, yeah.
	And that's good.
	That's how people, you do, you have to go where people are, right?
	You have to talk to them where they are.
	You don't want to seem like a stuffed shirt.
	You want to seem like the guy...
	You know, you cultivate the kind of bar room or locker room camaraderie.
	But I see that as stage one, right?
	I see that as stage one.
	And then you realize we have fucking work to do, right?
	To do work, you put on a suit and you go to the job.
	That's what people used to do, right?
	And everyone, everyone's ancestor, right?
	In the 1920s, you look at photos, everyone's wearing a suit, right?
	So I think at some point, it has to go in that direction.
	Right now, we're in this kind of, you know, I think the Dionysian is great for kind of the recruitment phase of this.
	But we're also in the process of cultivating men in the way that, you know, Hart is cultivating Eggsy in these films, right?
	Right.
	So we're seeing if some of these shafts work out, right?
	Yes.
	They'll be sounding out the shafts with a tuning fork to see if they can make some noise.
	Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
	Let me do this, just to bring this to a head.
	Oh, did you want it?
	Oh.
	Go ahead.
	Did you want to talk at all about the second film where we see kind of these contrasting types of the American type and the English type?
	Yeah, we can do that.
	All right.
	Go on that.
	All right.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, so in the film, or in the second film at least, there emerges two characters, or actually two branches.
	Of a super organization of which Kingsman is one.
	I think Kingsman is the founding element of the super organization.
	And the other arm of the super organization is called the Statesmen, and they're based in America.
	And all the men in that section are kind of these sort of mythic American stereotypes of these kind of macho, rural American types.
	And they're contrasted with these aristocratic English types, or relatively aristocratic, I should say, English types.
	And so the film plays a lot on kind of the contrast between these two types.
	And my remarks to Richard earlier when we were discussing the film is that, I mean, both types have their strengths.
	Sure.
	The American type is a kind of robust masculine type, and I think that that's valuable.
	The English type is a less robust...
	Ostensibly less masculine type, but is more a refined and mannered type.
	And I don't think, again, I don't think these things are mutually exclusive, right?
	So I think that, in other words, we could be reaching toward a kind of developing of a kind of ideal Apollonian type among these sort of now kind of fragmentary and disparate European types, including the American European.
	That's sort of the direction our conversation went before.
	But, yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting contrast it's made.
	I think, you know, obviously it's a caricature.
	And the present-day American, a lot of his masculinity is a kind of pseudo-masculinity.
	A lot of it is kind of squandered on watching sports like a disgusting asshole.
	And a lot of it is squandered on, you know, I think that one of, I mean, to a certain extent, because I did listen to your conversation.
	Your last conversation when you were talking about sports, I am a proponent of sports in kind of the, you know, the Grecian, Roman, Greco sense of that, where we are engaged in physical sports.
	And I mean, I think skiing is a fine sport.
	But I think that all the sports that were practiced by our ancestors are also fine sports, including some of the sports that will end up giving people You know, concussions and head damage.
	Like, I don't...
	For me...
	That's a feature, not a bug.
	Yes.
	Like, I don't...
	I'm less concerned...
	Like, I think that we'll always have kind of these risk-taking male types who want to be involved in sports where they're willing to kind of put everything on the line, or like the mixed martial arts.
	I mean, we could say it's an entirely inhumane thing, but I think it does...
	It does sort of...
	I think it continues this kind of flame of masculinity in our race, like these sports, like, you know?
	Yeah, so this was my feeling towards Kingsman as a Bond fan, you could say.
	Someone who's...
	I really like Fleming's novels.
	I like most of the films.
	Bond is something that I've been, in a way, obsessed with for my life.
	I mean, I got into it when I was like, I don't know, like 10 or 12 or something like that.
	Richard, we know.
	We know.
	We know.
	I don't need to go into it.
	So, this film is remarkable in the sense that it's not just both.
	It's many things.
	It is a...
	Pastiche of the Bond films.
	It is, in a way, a critique of them as well.
	A critique of them on multiple levels.
	I mean, any time you do satire, it's inherently a critique, even if it's just simply to point out the ridiculousness of the whole Bond world, and that's ripe for criticism, obviously.
	But it was also a critique, you know, at another level in the sense that you could tell that Matthew Vaughn wants different Bond films.
	You know, there's a moment where...
	There's a moment where Harry Hart is speaking with Richmond Valentine and they talk about their favorite, you know, Bond films.
	You know, did you watch any of those old spy movies?
	You know, in his Cernovich-like accent.
	And...
	And Harry Hart says, oh, I loved the old ones, where they had these outlandish plots and colorful villains, these megalomaniacs trying to take over the world, and so on.
	And clearly, Matthew Vaughn is criticizing the Daniel Craig era of the Bond movies.
	And what he's basically saying is that everything has become personal.
	Daniel Craig's Bond has taken, you know, the brooding, angry aspect of the actual James Bond character, which is definitely there, and kind of turned it to 11 and dispensed with the more flamboyant or, you know, witty aspects of it that were turned up to 11 in the Mooray era, the Roger Mooray era.
	And so what he's basically saying is these movies aren't fun anymore and there's nothing, the big things aren't at stake anymore.
	And so, you know, it's all about these personal vendettas now.
	So, you know, Bond...
	Anyway, nothing's really at stake.
	And so what Matthew Vaughn did is that he recreated Moonraker.
	And he's kind of...
	He recreated Moonraker in two films, basically.
	And that is this end times, you know, extreme megalomaniac.
	In the case of Moonraker, the film...
	Which is based on a book.
	The book, the person is an actual neo-Nazi who's desiring to send rockets on London and get revenge.
	In the film, they take that core concept and they dilate it to the point that he's literally in a space satellite and he's a kind of Nazi, not...
	Literally, but metaphorically in the sense that he wants to depopulate the entire Earth while maintaining the ecological balance of plants and animals and recreate a super race.
	It's actually a multiracial super race, so there would be the Japanese and Africans and so on, but it's very clear.
	Thank God.
	Yeah.
	But it's very clear that, you know, whites will rule and they will look up to the heavens and know that there is order in the universe once again.
	I mean, it's these bold pronouncements.
	And Roger Moore, of course, thwarts this, you know, once again.
	It's probably what everyone wants, though.
	Yeah, I know.
	Well, that's part of it.
	You have to secretly sympathize with the villain for it to work.
	You have to love the villain.
	The movie is only as good as the villain.
	And when the villain is just some kind of weirdo out for revenge, it really does lose a lot.
	So anyway, he's critiquing the Bond franchise.
	I think he's showing a way forward.
	I don't know what Bond is going to do now because it's been...
	The films that are more fun and outlandish and wacky, even, like Kingsman, are having more cultural impact than at least the last Bond film, Spectre, which was a bit of a dud.
	I mean, not a terrible film, but it got away from the Bond elements.
	It actually got away from it pretty seriously, even to the point where Bond isn't willing to kill Blofeld at the end, which is totally out of character.
	And the fact that Blofeld didn't escape his downfall in a Batho sub or something like that.
	But anyway...
	Yeah.
	So that's what this is about.
	But it also gets at those...
	Again, it gets at something true, which is...
	And this goes back to what I was talking about at the beginning of the podcast, which is that Bond is at his best.
	These Bond movies are at their best when they show us something that scares us about the real world.
	And they let us indulge in a kind of way out of that.
	And so, as I was saying in the beginning, Look, I don't...
	Obviously, I don't...
	I would never agree to Richmond Valentine's plan.
	And I...
	That is totally horrifying.
	Just imagine walking out of your cave after...
	He created genocide on a global scale.
	There are just 7 billion rotting bodies lying around.
	What he's trying to attempt is so grotesque.
	It's just unimaginable.
	But at the same time, I do recognize that what he's getting at is correct.
	We cannot engage in endless population growth of...
	Individuals as consumers who are all going to be grasping after this American lifestyle, or even this European lifestyle, even worse, of guaranteed security and pensions.
	We can't do that going forward.
	Richmond Valentine is obviously utterly grotesque, but he seems to be getting at something.
	You know, he's the kind of flip side of all this.
	I think there is even a kind of puritanical flip side to the drug use element in the second Kingsman, where all the druggies are going to get their comeuppance.
	But anyway, that is the ultimate Bond villain, is when he kind of gets at the heart of a deep problem with the modern world.
	And then offers this radical alternative to it.
	Whether it's living in the sea, like Stromberg and Spy Who Love Me, or massive depopulation, or something.
	Those are the most intriguing villains when you have a certain sympathy with them.
	Yeah, I mean, I think that both films contain this sort of idea of a eugenic cleansing, or ostensibly eugenic cleansing of the planet.
	In the first Kingsman film, this is explicitly the goal of the Samuel Jackson character.
	Of course, the elite that he hopes to retain is kind of, you know, they're not Olympian gods.
	It is some sort of degenerate, like, celebrity class.
	Yeah.
	You know, rich and—I mean, they might be wealthy, you know, probably a lot of Jews in there, but it's just sort of this degenerate white, you know, oligarchy, effectively, with some non-whites thrown in, it seems like.
	Right.
	So what's retained is not necessarily eugenic, but what's eliminated is in a lot of cases ostensibly eugenic.
	And then the other film is more explicitly, contains this more explicitly eugenic theme where all the drug users die.
	because the drugs have been poisoned effectively.
	And then the president sort of passively allows it to happen rather than, and he becomes a sort of sub-villain because he's willing to allow it to happen.
	Whereas the person who's doing it is actually hoping that the president will call her bluff, right?
	She'll make a lot of money and become famous.
	She doesn't want to lose all her customers.
	But in a way, the president becomes the ultimate villain because he's pursuing the dastardly plan.
	Most dastardly, yeah.
	My remark would be, I actually don't think any sort of kind of eugenic...
	I mean, for the human race to go in a kind of eugenic direction...
	Would not occur through kind of violent means.
	I mean, the only way that it would occur is actually through kind of a gradual consensus, relatively gradual consensus building, and then people just deciding at some point that they want to go in this direction, right?
	In other words, I mean, we saw a very kind of, you know, arguably kind of deformed version of that in Germany with Hitler, right?
	Now, Hitler...
	Had a lot of flaws in his regime, had a lot of flaws, but he was, ultimately, it does seem that he probably would have looked for a peaceful solution.
	A peaceful solution would have meant a kind of eugenic revival in Europe, effectively, right?
	We don't even have to look at Hitler.
	I mean, exactly what you were talking about in terms of a consensus building leading to...
	Policy and so on.
	That's what we saw in the United States.
	Yeah, that was occurring in the 1920s.
	In the 1920s, we were reaching a consensus.
	What disrupted that consensus was a big clusterfuck of a war, effectively.
	Where eugenics could be sort of kind of irrationally demonized as a cause of the war.
	And it wasn't the cause of the war.
	I mean, the eugenicists were all...
	Against war for the obvious reasons.
	War is dysgenic.
	Especially in, you know, with the advent of firearms, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, it was especially dysgenic during World War I when all the nobles and elites died in World War I. I mean, the thing was a fiasco.
	That was the end of the aristocracies in Europe.
	Yeah.
	So...
	You know, eugenics is not pro-war.
	And that's kind of a...
	And I guess in the film, none of these...
	I mean, with the exception of Samuel Jackson's plan, I guess that would be a violent sort of culling of the herd, as it were.
	But that actually doesn't describe the way that eugenics would occur if it were to occur.
	Though, on the other hand, it ostensibly might describe eugenics if coming from a thonic source, right?
	Hmm.
	Where one people are pursuing eugenics and then creating kind of dysgenic connections, dysgenic conditions for everyone else.
	I'm not naming names, but you know what I'm saying?
	So that, no, but that has more war potential than the former scenario.
	Sure.
	Right?
	Because in that, when people are pursuing eugenics in a phonic manner, where it's their group pursuing it.
	But they're dissuading the rest of the population.
	Then they're incentivized to say, hey, we got to kill off all these fucking people.
	They're going to get on to us and want to do it themselves or whatever.
	You know what I mean?
	So that creates a more violent situation.
	Our idea of eugenics is peaceful.
	You know, Apollo is a god of peace.
	Right.
	You know, but he's also a destroyer.
	You fuck with him.
	You know, all these things are things worth considering.
	We are obviously anti-war.
	And we're anti-violence.
	Everyone knows this.
	We're anti-violence.
	These movies, these Kingsman films, despite themselves, they still do...
	Offer a vision of the changing of the world.
	I mean, they are kind of alt-right movies in their way.
	And I obviously don't think they're perfect films or that they encapsulate our ideology.
	But again, if you...
	If you go beyond that false dichotomy of, you know, we need to save the masses from this evil chosen people and so on, and you just look at what really attracts young men to see these films.
	It's not just about maintaining the social order as it is.
	It is about becoming part of something that must be secret because it's so reactionary and so radical and so aristocratic and so beautiful.
	Becoming a spy basically means becoming part of the elite.
	And the second film is much more paused.
	You have almost a George W. Bush character as the villain, and there's a half-mulatto woman who joins the Statesman.
	All that kind of stuff is pretty paused.
	But even that first film, and I still don't understand how this got by the censors, but it does offer this vision of a changing of the guard, basically.
	The global elite, the people who have led to the world as it is, all get their heads blown off.
	I mean, it was, which is interesting, getting one's heads blown off.

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