Richard introduces this curated series featuring Jonathan Bowden (1962-2012) and pays homage to his life. 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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| Hello everyone, this is Richard Spencer, and it's my pleasure to introduce this new limited-run podcast series titled simply Bowden! | |
| And this limited series is a re-release of 14 conversations I had with Jonathan Bowden, beginning in late winter 2011. | |
| And stretching into the spring of 2012, just before his untimely death in April of that year. | |
| These are actually some of the last published speeches or podcast conversations that Jonathan ever produced. | |
| My hope in re-releasing these episodes is that... | |
| Jonathan can find a new audience. | |
| And also that Jonathan's fans and admirers can have an opportunity to rediscover him. | |
| And there really is a lot of wonderful material in these 14 conversations. | |
| They stretch from Nietzsche to Mitt Romney, as it were. | |
| They include discussions of philosophy. | |
| Of the essential natures of left and right, of the European New Right, what is it and what is its relevance. | |
| And they even go into things like foreign policy, such as the geopolitics and Israel, Iran, and the bomb. | |
| My friend and mentor, Louis Andrews, said that we mere mortals give talks. | |
| That is... | |
| When we're invited to a conference, we'll go up to the podium and string some words together and hope it all makes sense. | |
| Some of the best of us can give a speech, that is to speak definitively on a subject, and do it with a little banache. | |
| Jonathan Bowden, on the other hand, gave orations. | |
| And it's important that he always spoke extemporaneously, that is, without notes. | |
| He would, as it were, just open his mouth and he would allow the spirit to move him. | |
| And anyone who witnessed one of these performances will tell you that Jonathan was, when he was on stage, possessed by a demon, or he was able to channel a life force, or he was a force of nature. | |
| All of these metaphors I'm using... | |
| Express the fact that a Jonathan Bowden speech wasn't simply about the words. | |
| It was about being there in his presence and experiencing him. | |
| But it also was about the words. | |
| And as these podcasts reveal, not only was Jonathan a brilliant speaker and a brilliant performer, but he was also a very useful speaker. | |
| As a way to belittle him, he was able to boil down to an essence, very difficult thinkers such as Spengler or Evola, and make them immediately understandable to nationalist and activist. | |
| At the same time, Jonathan was able to access the profundity of these writers, the things that made their works eternal. | |
| There are very few people who can do that and Jonathan was really one of the best. | |
| I can't say that I was Jonathan's good friend, although I would call myself one of his friends. | |
| I knew him rather fleetingly and when I learned of his death, I deeply regretted that I didn't strike up a deeper friendship with him. | |
| Because we certainly got along. | |
| I first met him in 2009, and it was actually at a private conference. | |
| And he was invited and flown over to the United States from England. | |
| And when I first saw him, he was a rather quiet man. | |
| He seemed reclusive. | |
| Although I did notice he was wearing a life rune medallion, which was a sign of things to come. | |
| And I didn't know what to think about him when I first met him. | |
| And then it was time for his performance that night. | |
| He was giving the keynote address. | |
| And he walked up to the stage and announced that he would not need a microphone. | |
| And he gave a talk that was essentially about everything. | |
| It was about the nature of man, the nature of European man in particular. | |
| The situation European man finds himself in in the 20th century, but maybe even longer than that. | |
| He talked about our fears and our anxieties, but also our great potential. | |
| It was a very realistic, maybe even hard-headed talk, but at the same time, it was profoundly inspiring. | |
| And I... | |
| He was certainly not the only one there that was wrapped up in it all. | |
| He spoke probably for an hour, but I don't even know how long he spoke. | |
| It almost felt like five minutes or it felt like an eternity. | |
| He was able to grab your attention and not let go. | |
| He was truly a charismatic personality and was certainly the greatest speaker. | |
| That I've ever witnessed. | |
| And I certainly have witnessed other people who might have his charisma, but I don't think anyone can combine his charisma with his philosophical depth. | |
| As you might also know, Jonathan Bowden suffered in his life. | |
| He suffered from illnesses. | |
| He suffered from mental illness. | |
| And I won't go into the details simply because... | |
| I don't know all of the details for certain, and I don't want to misspeak. | |
| I do know that he suffered a few breakdowns. | |
| Not too long after I saw him speak, or experienced him speak in 2009, he suffered another breakdown. | |
| But then he seemed to be on the up-and-up. | |
| He actually was going to be a speaker at the American Renaissance Conference in early 2011, although that was cancelled. | |
| And he actually was going to be a speaker at the first MPI National Conference, which I hosted, in 2011 in Washington, D.C. But he actually cancelled that himself. | |
| I don't think he was quite ready to make a comeback, as it were. | |
| But in lieu of his speaking at the MPI conference in 2011, we decided to do some podcasts. | |
| And that is not for him to give a formal speech, but for the two of us to talk about issues. | |
| And a lot of podcasts are very temporal, very passing, they're about current events. | |
| But we wanted to do a little bit of that, but we decided we also wanted to talk about really big issues. | |
| And perhaps produce some recordings that were lasting and that people would want to revisit later on. | |
| And that's why we actually did a study on Nietzsche's on the genealogy of morals. | |
| We talked about Spengler and the left and Marx and all this kind of stuff. | |
| These podcasts became very popular at the website alternativeright.com, which was the predecessor to rateexternal.com. | |
| I'm going to send you some payments. | |
| You're really bringing in a lot of traffic. | |
| You're generating a lot of responses and comments. | |
| And that was actually in the fairly early spring of 2012. | |
| And as April went on, I began calling. | |
| Jonathan Bowden. | |
| We were going to do a podcast on Ernst Jünger. | |
| I was very excited about that. | |
| And I began to call him and not get a response. | |
| And then I noticed that he never deposited that check that I sent him, and I began to worry. | |
| And as it happened, all of our worst fears were actually realized. | |
| He succumbed to a heart attack that spring. | |
| You could say that Jonathan Bowden always lived on the edge of madness. | |
| It was what gave all of his work its power. | |
| And that certainly includes his oratory, but it also includes his novels that were, anyway, streams of consciousness, deeply esoteric and complex. | |
| They certainly inform his paintings as well. | |
| And you just have to look at them to know what I'm talking about. | |
| And so I think being on the edge of madness gave Jonathan Bowden so much of his power, and it might have also destined that his life would be too short. | |
| But I remain very proud and very grateful that I was able to... | |
| Complete these podcasts with Jonathan. | |
| He has certainly influenced my thinking, and I know he's influenced the thinking of countless others. | |
| So while we weep, Valhalla rejoices. | |
| These are for you, Jonathan. |