RadixJournal - Richard Spencer - Remembering Johnathan Bowden
Aired: 2018-01-16
Duration: 10:29


=== Jonathan's Last Speech (08:39) ===

[00:00:00]  Hello everyone, this is Richard Spencer, and it's my pleasure to introduce this new limited-run podcast series titled simply Bowden!
[00:00:12]  And this limited series is a re-release of 14 conversations I had with Jonathan Bowden, beginning in late winter 2011.
[00:00:25]  And stretching into the spring of 2012, just before his untimely death in April of that year.
[00:00:35]  These are actually some of the last published speeches or podcast conversations that Jonathan ever produced.
[00:00:47]  My hope in re-releasing these episodes is that...
[00:00:54]  Jonathan can find a new audience.
[00:00:56]  And also that Jonathan's fans and admirers can have an opportunity to rediscover him.
[00:01:05]  And there really is a lot of wonderful material in these 14 conversations.
[00:01:11]  They stretch from Nietzsche to Mitt Romney, as it were.
[00:01:17]  They include discussions of philosophy.
[00:01:20]  Of the essential natures of left and right, of the European New Right, what is it and what is its relevance.
[00:01:29]  And they even go into things like foreign policy, such as the geopolitics and Israel, Iran, and the bomb.
[00:01:38]  My friend and mentor, Louis Andrews, said that we mere mortals give talks.
[00:01:48]  That is...
[00:01:50]  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.
[00:01:57]  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.
[00:02:07]  Jonathan Bowden, on the other hand, gave orations.
[00:02:12]  And it's important that he always spoke extemporaneously, that is, without notes.
[00:02:17]  He would, as it were, just open his mouth and he would allow the spirit to move him.
[00:02:23]  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.
[00:02:42]  All of these metaphors I'm using...
[00:02:46]  Express the fact that a Jonathan Bowden speech wasn't simply about the words.
[00:02:52]  It was about being there in his presence and experiencing him.
[00:02:58]  But it also was about the words.
[00:03:01]  And as these podcasts reveal, not only was Jonathan a brilliant speaker and a brilliant performer, but he was also a very useful speaker.
[00:03:15]  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.
[00:03:31]  At the same time, Jonathan was able to access the profundity of these writers, the things that made their works eternal.
[00:03:43]  There are very few people who can do that and Jonathan was really one of the best.
[00:03:49]  I can't say that I was Jonathan's good friend, although I would call myself one of his friends.
[00:03:58]  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.
[00:04:11]  Because we certainly got along.
[00:04:13]  I first met him in 2009, and it was actually at a private conference.
[00:04:20]  And he was invited and flown over to the United States from England.
[00:04:25]  And when I first saw him, he was a rather quiet man.
[00:04:29]  He seemed reclusive.
[00:04:31]  Although I did notice he was wearing a life rune medallion, which was a sign of things to come.
[00:04:38]  And I didn't know what to think about him when I first met him.
[00:04:41]  And then it was time for his performance that night.
[00:04:46]  He was giving the keynote address.
[00:04:48]  And he walked up to the stage and announced that he would not need a microphone.
[00:04:56]  And he gave a talk that was essentially about everything.
[00:05:03]  It was about the nature of man, the nature of European man in particular.
[00:05:09]  The situation European man finds himself in in the 20th century, but maybe even longer than that.
[00:05:18]  He talked about our fears and our anxieties, but also our great potential.
[00:05:25]  It was a very realistic, maybe even hard-headed talk, but at the same time, it was profoundly inspiring.
[00:05:34]  And I...
[00:05:36]  He was certainly not the only one there that was wrapped up in it all.
[00:05:42]  He spoke probably for an hour, but I don't even know how long he spoke.
[00:05:46]  It almost felt like five minutes or it felt like an eternity.
[00:05:51]  He was able to grab your attention and not let go.
[00:05:57]  He was truly a charismatic personality and was certainly the greatest speaker.
[00:06:03]  That I've ever witnessed.
[00:06:04]  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.
[00:06:16]  As you might also know, Jonathan Bowden suffered in his life.
[00:06:23]  He suffered from illnesses.
[00:06:25]  He suffered from mental illness.
[00:06:27]  And I won't go into the details simply because...
[00:06:30]  I don't know all of the details for certain, and I don't want to misspeak.
[00:06:34]  I do know that he suffered a few breakdowns.
[00:06:41]  Not too long after I saw him speak, or experienced him speak in 2009, he suffered another breakdown.
[00:06:52]  But then he seemed to be on the up-and-up.
[00:06:56]  He actually was going to be a speaker at the American Renaissance Conference in early 2011, although that was cancelled.
[00:07:05]  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.
[00:07:17]  I don't think he was quite ready to make a comeback, as it were.
[00:07:23]  But in lieu of his speaking at the MPI conference in 2011, we decided to do some podcasts.
[00:07:32]  And that is not for him to give a formal speech, but for the two of us to talk about issues.
[00:07:40]  And a lot of podcasts are very temporal, very passing, they're about current events.
[00:07:45]  But we wanted to do a little bit of that, but we decided we also wanted to talk about really big issues.
[00:07:51]  And perhaps produce some recordings that were lasting and that people would want to revisit later on.
[00:07:58]  And that's why we actually did a study on Nietzsche's on the genealogy of morals.
[00:08:03]  We talked about Spengler and the left and Marx and all this kind of stuff.
[00:08:10]  These podcasts became very popular at the website alternativeright.com, which was the predecessor to rateexternal.com.
[00:08:21]  I'm going to send you some payments.

=== Edge of Madness (02:05) ===

[00:08:27]  You're really bringing in a lot of traffic.
[00:08:29]  You're generating a lot of responses and comments.
[00:08:33]  And that was actually in the fairly early spring of 2012.
[00:08:39]  And as April went on, I began calling.
[00:08:44]  Jonathan Bowden.
[00:08:46]  We were going to do a podcast on Ernst Jünger.
[00:08:51]  I was very excited about that.
[00:08:52]  And I began to call him and not get a response.
[00:08:55]  And then I noticed that he never deposited that check that I sent him, and I began to worry.
[00:09:03]  And as it happened, all of our worst fears were actually realized.
[00:09:08]  He succumbed to a heart attack that spring.
[00:09:15]  You could say that Jonathan Bowden always lived on the edge of madness.
[00:09:23]  It was what gave all of his work its power.
[00:09:29]  And that certainly includes his oratory, but it also includes his novels that were, anyway, streams of consciousness, deeply esoteric and complex.
[00:09:44]  They certainly inform his paintings as well.
[00:09:47]  And you just have to look at them to know what I'm talking about.
[00:09:51]  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.
[00:10:06]  But I remain very proud and very grateful that I was able to...
[00:10:12]  Complete these podcasts with Jonathan.
[00:10:14]  He has certainly influenced my thinking, and I know he's influenced the thinking of countless others.
[00:10:21]  So while we weep, Valhalla rejoices.
[00:10:27]  These are for you, Jonathan.